My iBooks hell!

I got my shiny new iPad a few weeks ago and one of the applications on it that I thought I would try and use properly in the next few weeks is iBooks. It allows you to purchase copies of books that you can then read in a fairly stylish interface in either portrait or landscape mode. It certainly seemed like something that could be very useful when I go away on holiday. After all I will be taking the iPad anyway so if I could take my holiday reading away with me in digital form then it would take up no space.

I was disappointed however to discover that the book I really wanted to read on holiday this year was not available at all on iBooks. It is "Prelude to Power" by Alastair Campbell.

Another one I wanted to take away with me was "The End of the Party" by Andrew Rawnsley. I noted that I could purchase it from Amazon.co.uk for £12.50. I then looked on iBooks and discovered that I could get a digital copy for the grand total of £15.99! That's right, a digital copy with virtually non-existent physical production, shipping and distribution costs is £3.49 more expensive than a physical copy. You know, that I can then pass onto a friend when I have finished with if I wish unlike with a digital copy. Oh and that won't become useless in a few years time when the standards all change (again). Bizarre. In the end I just bought a hardback copy from Amazon, being unable to justify paying substantially more for a digital copy.

I was even more surprised to discover something else this week. I was in Tesco and noticed a new paperback from Stephen King called "Under the Dome" on special offer. I have not read any Stephen King books for years however the premise sounded quite interesting and I thought for a change I might get a copy to take away with me. I stopped short of buying it though as I felt sure that such a hugely popular author with a book that is already out in paperback would have a copy on iBooks. Not so. When I checked it is not on there. I also checked the publication date - November 2009, so that is 8 months they have had to get it on the portal.

I expect there are licensing problems with authors and publishing companies. That may well be why two of the three books I wanted are not available on iBooks. It may be that this is not Apple's fault at all and that they would really like to have them available but are being thwarted.

I also do not know the rationale behind pricing a digital copy of a book even higher than the price you pay for a paper-based copy but perhaps there is a good explanation for that too (although I very much doubt it).

But irrespective of all of this the net result is that of the three books I thought I might get for my iPad for holiday reading the total number I actually got is zero.

Something tells me that the end of paper based books is a very long way away.

Ed Balls' trap for Andrew Rawnsley

Ed Balls said something that I thought was worth highlighting when he was on Andrew Marr's show this morning. He was discussing the bullying allegations against Brown and as part of his attempt to discredit Andrew Rawnsley (the author of the book containing the revelations) he pointed out that for two weeks running now, Rawnsley has published pieces defending his work. According to Balls, that is evidence that his book is full of holes.

It is indeed true that Rawnsley has published two op-ed pieces on consecutive weeks in The Observer that have sought to defend his work and reputation. the first one, last week was pre-emptive and the second one was responding to some of the criticisms this week.

But hang on minute. His pre-emptive piece was in order to try and neutralise some of the attacks that he knew would be coming his way from the formidable Labour spin machine (as indeed proved the case during the week) and the second piece was again responding to the smears from the same machine.

What was Rawnsley to do instead? Leave the field entirely open to Labour allowing them to besmirch and smear him and his reputation as much as they liked? He had every right to defend himself and his work. The fact that Balls is trying to use this as a way to smear him further is just silly.

It is an example though of the sort of Catch-22 traps that New Labour are very adept at laying. Just because they sound superficially reasonable though does not mean that they are.

It is time spin like this was fully exposed for the hollow nonsense it really is.

#Bullygate - "Someone on your side did it too" is no defence

I have been following the consequences of the publication of the extracts from Andrew Rawnsley's new book in the Observer yesterday about Brown's temper and alleged bullying of his staff over the last couple of days.

The first thing that struck me was just how determined lots of Labour tweeters and bloggers were to instantly try and dismiss the claims. They immediately came up with the #RawnsleyRot hashtag on Twitter and tried to smear Rawnsley himself. The various defences attempted that I have seen are that there is no evidence for his claims (Rawnsley insists that his sources are 24 carat and has been researching this book for three years), Rawnsley has form for having made mistakes in the past (I am sure we could do that with all journalists) and what has been revealed is not actually bullying but Gordon angry with himself (I am not sure the secretary who was allegedly pulled out of her chair would see it like that if that is true).

The worst defence I have seen though which I have seen repeated numerous times is that Andy Coulson (Cameron's spin doctor) is a proven bully and therefore no Tories are allowed to comment about the allegations against Brown or the "people in glass houses defence". I was one of those to suggest at the time that Coulson's behaviour was totally wrong and that Cameron should get rid of him but the reasoning here is pretty weak stuff. It is reminiscent of the sort of thing you see Brown do sometimes with Cameron across the dispatch box when Cameron has asked a question and Brown responds "I'll take no lessons from the man who was an advisor when interest rates were 15%" or some other such false point. Just because Andy Coulson is a bully does not make the allegations against Brown any better. It also does not invalidate questions from Tories just because someone in their party has also bullied in the past.

I expect that some people in the Lib Dems have been involved in bullying in the past too. Does that mean I am barred from discussing this issue too?

For what it is worth, I think that Rawnsley's allegations must be very soundly sourced otherwise I do not think the Observer would have dared publish them. Indeed as far as I am aware there have been no moves by Brown or his lawyers to launch a libel action against the paper which surely, if any of these stories were fabricated he would have done straight away? I also think Rawnsley was right to publish them.

We have a right to know how our Prime Minister who is seeking another 5 year mandate operates. Just because other people in other parties may have also been guilty of bad behaviour does not mean we should all shut up about this.

Mandelson "took his medicine like a man" from Brown?

Discussions about Gordon Brown and his alleged temper have been reverberating around the political sphere in the last day or so triggered by extracts from Andrew Rawnsley's latest book being published in the Observer today.

Lord Mandelson was on the Andrew Marr show earlier today doing his bit and batting for his boss. He did his best to try and belittle the revelations and was spinning that it is good to have a passionate and driven person in No 10.

But then Marr asked him specifically if he had ever been hit by Brown. I was expecting a straightforward denial but instead he refused to deny it, said something about it being no secret that they have had their moments and that he (Mandelson) "took his medicine like a man". Is this an admission that Brown did indeed hit Mandelson at some point? If not then why did Mandelson, who always thinks very carefully about how he parses his statements not just say so?

It seems an odd way to try and dampen down the story to me.

Why we should not be afraid of a hung parliament

With the latest Ipsos MORI poll for The Observer showing a reduced Conservative lead to only 6% (Con 37%, Labour 31%, LD 17%) talk of a potential hung parliament has reared its head again.

Indeed if these figures are put into the UK Polling Report swing calculator then we get the following:


So, the Conservatives would be only 2 seats ahead of Labour as the largest party but 38 seats short of an overall majority.

Before I continue I will just caveat that this is the narrowest lead for the Tories for almost a year and it could turn out to be a blip or an outlier. It is possible that Labour got a fillip from its recent by-election victory and that the polling numbers will return to within the range of the more typical recent trend in the next week or two (i.e. over a 10% gap).

However, for the purposes of the rest of this blogpost I want to discuss the practicalities of a hung parliament and what that might mean for the Lib Dems, seeing as various other bloggers, pundits and commentators are speculating on this today following this poll.

I have seen comment along the lines of "Lib Dems have most to fear from a hung parliament". Indeed Andrew Rawnsley writing in the Observer today on this subject says:

The prospect induces a jostle of emotions: a rare sensation of hope for Labour people, a creeping dread within Tories and a combination of both thrill and terror among Lib Dems.

Later in the same article he says:

For the Liberal Democrats, a hung parliament is usually seen as a dream scenario which would elevate Nick Clegg from also-ran to kingmaker with the power to choose the government with a twitch of his thumb. It would not work out like that. A hung parliament could as easily be a total nightmare for the Lib Dems. Imagine that the Conservatives have the most seats. Even if the Tories were interested in a coalition with the Lib Dems, the Conservatives are implacably opposed to electoral reform, the sine qua non if Mr Clegg were to try to sell a Lib-Con pact to his party. It is most likely that David Cameron would form a minority government, produce a Queen's Speech and a first budget, probably one full of cuts suggested by Vince Cable, and then dare the Lib Dems to defy the will of the electorate and look "irresponsible" by voting it down. This approach to governing without a majority has worked well for Alex Salmond's SNP government in Edinburgh. Cameron would likely try to copy Harold Wilson. He governed for a short period after 1964, when Labour got a very small majority, and after February 1974, when Labour did not have a majority at all, and then went for a second election to seek a stronger position.

I'm afraid I don't buy this "nightmare scenario" for the Lib Dems. A hung parliament is the sort of scenario that the Lib Dems been waiting for for years. It would finally give us a chance to wield some real power and exert our influence on policy and politics in a way that had been denied to us previously.

Let's have a quick rattle through the scenarios and see how they could all result in a "win" for us. I am going to assume for the purposes of this that the votes and seats are as outlined above.

1) In this scenario the combination of the Lib Dems with either of the two main parties would produce a workable majority. This would be the point of maximum leverage as we could negotiate with both Labour and the Conservatives. For me and I suspect many of my party colleagues the sticking point would be a commitment to a referendum on electoral reform. Labour may go for this, (although I am sure Brown would have to go as Rawnsley suggests elsewhere in his article as a pre-condition) although I accept that propping up a Labour administration would be very fraught. However if this was the price of getting the holy grail of a referendum on electoral reform then it may be that my party considered it worthwhile.

2) Another option is to go with trying to forge a coalition with the Conservatives. It may be very difficult to get them to accept the price of a referendum on electoral reform as part of the deal given their implacable opposition to this. However it is not impossible. The referendum could be proposed with the agreement that the different parties could campaign for or against it. Just declaring a referendum need not imply that they wish for the change to be implemented. It would simply be giving the people the option and allowing the debate to take place. Even this might be too much for the Conservatives of course but it is at least an option that could be explored.

3) If neither of the above scenarios come to pass then the other option is for the largest party (in this case the Conservatives) to form a minority government. In this situation they would require the support of at least another 38 MPs each time they wanted to pass a bill so the Lib Dems would be well placed to provide this voting block and would likely have their views taken into account as part of the legislative drafting process. The idea that Cameron could try to corner the Lib Dems as Rawnsley suggests above I do not think is likely to work. It would be perfectly reasonable for us to support the things we agree with and oppose those we do not. If that meant voting down a Queen's Speech (if we were forced into that position) then so be it.

I think scenario 3 is most likely and I do just want to finally explore a potential unintended consequence of it that I have not seen discussed anywhere else.

If Cameron was to form a minority government and then have to use all his political and diplomatic skills to try and govern like this by convincing enough non-Conservative MPs each time he wanted to pass a piece of legislation then he could find he begins to undermine his own case against electoral reform. One of the major arguments against a proportional system is that "First Past the Post" produces "strong government", i.e. big majorities which seem to be seen by default as a good thing. However in this situation, not only will FPTP have thrown up a hung parliament (proving that even FPTP does not always prevent this as its proponents often imply) but its primary cheerleaders, the Conservatives will find themselves having to disprove their own case in order to be a successful government. If they are successful in doing this then one of their key planks against a more proportional system is kicked out from under them, by themselves.

Any of thse scenarios would also of course give the Lib Dems the chance to show what we are capable of when we are in a position to wield some real power and influence on the executive either from inside or outside the government. It would be up to us to seize this opportunity and prove to the electorate that we can do a good job in this position and hence that it is worth voting for us. That is an opportunity to relish, not be afraid of.

I think we can derive significant "wins" from any of the situations described. All it would take is the will to do so.