The cannabis/IQ research shows why it should be legalised and regulated

There are reports today of the results of a long term study conducted in New Zealand which show a link between heavy use of cannabis before the age of 18 and a concomitant reduction in IQ levels.

This is indeed worrying and it is a good thing that such a study has been conducted.

I have not seen much political reaction to this yet but I am willing to bet a sizable amount of money that the bulk of it from the mainstream parties will be in the vein of "This is why cannabis needs to be kept illegal" and that this somehow "proves" that the current laws in this area are correct.

That is the wrong conclusion to draw from this research.

A problem has been identified. That young people who use a certain drug heavily before the age of 18 are at risk of damaging their brain. It would appear that once past that age that risk is much less severe, if there at all (the main problem seems to be with the developing brain). So what we should be trying to achieve if anything is a reduction in the number of young people taking the drug. The current legal regime does not do this. It is very easy in pretty much any area of the country to obtain cannabis, for people of any age including teenagers. Those who supply it are not interested in checking the age of the person consuming it.

If we follow the evidence here, there is little reason to stop adults from taking cannabis but a big incentive to try and stop children. So if cannabis was legalised, regulated and sold in a way similar to alcohol (with tough penalties for supplying to minors) with a simultaneous widespread public education campaign showing why it is dangerous for children to take it surely this would be more effective than our current system? It would make it harder for children to obtain the drug and for once, the public education from the government would actually be based on evidence. Over time this would improve the credibility of these laws rather than the blanket "All drugs are equally bad, Mkaaay" message at the moment which most people and especially children simply do not believe.

For those who disagree with me on this, please just consider these points:

1. The current laws have very little deterrent effect on young people taking cannabis.
2. How can it possibly help somebody who may have done something that will have damaged their brain and lowered their IQ to give them a criminal record? Surely all that will do is blight their life chances even further?

We need to be much smarter in our approach to this problem. Sadly though I fully expect this more nuanced approach to be ignored in favour of more of the same. In fact I fear an even stronger "crackdown" from this in a misguided attempt to try and discourage children from taking cannabis.

Why should I listen to Katie Ghose?

I've never met Katie Ghose. I'm sure she's a very nice person. But why am I still receiving e-mails from her under the auspices of the Electoral Reform Society as if last year's Yes2AV campaign never happened, and wasn't a disaster?

I've kept quiet(ish) about this since last May apart from a brief rant shortly afterwards and I guess I have been hoping that even if there was not going to be a public accounting for what the campaign did wrong, at least behind the scenes there might have been some? But it's been 15 months now and Ms Ghose who was the head of the "Yes" campaign is still in place as head of the ERS.

I don't know a great deal about the internal machinations of that organisation and the associated groups that formed the "Yes" camp but they managed to turn a lead in the public polls for "Yes" in the months running up to the plebiscite into a humiliating 32% to 68% drubbing. Why is nobody being held accountable for this?

Yes, I know the "No" campaign was sneaky and evile and all the rest of it but there was lots "Yes" did wrong. LOTS. And if the person who was appointed head of the campaign is simply allowed to carry on as if nothing happened in her position as head of the main organisation campaigning for electoral reform in this country then it speaks volumes about the cliquey nature of the cohort of people in charge. In fact it is starting to make me wonder how rigorous the process of deciding who was best to head up the "Yes" campaign was in the first place. It is starting to smell quite a bit of Buggin's Turn.

I'm not saying everyone associated with the leadership of "Yes" should be summarily dismissed. But please, can we have some sort of accountability for what went wrong? At the very least an acknowledgement and an apology to all of those like me who beavered away at street and grassroots level trying to persuade others to vote Yes. We were badly let down.

Otherwise I will find it very hard to take any campaigning material I receive from this organisation in the future.

The problem Ms Harman is that your government did not listen

Harriet Harman has been filling column inches recently with a mea culpa regarding the 2005 Gambling Act, claiming that Labour made a mistake introducing this bill and that they should reverse the measures that have led to a growth in problem gambling, particularly in poorer areas.

Good for her! She's decided that something her government did was wrong and that action is needed to address the problems caused.

She says:

If we had known then what we know now, we wouldn't have allowed this, because it's not just ruining the high street, it's ruining people's lives.

I got the most heartrending letters and emails and calls that I've ever had in 30 years of being an MP, just saying 'Please do something about this. It's ruined my life, it's ruined my family, it's really dangerous and the problem is it's getting worse and that's why we need the law to be changed so that something can be done about it'.

This made me pause though as my political memory banks started whirring into action. I remember the political arguments about this bill at the time and I was sure that plenty of politicians did flag up the potential problems with the bill at the time of the debates before it became an act.

Sure enough a quick trawl of Hansard around February 2005 when it was being debated has turned up some interesting interventions in the Lords. For example Lord Roberts of Llandudno said:

It is clear that gambling does harm. Even the Minister himself, in his evidence to the Joint Committee, admitted that the increased gambling which would follow from the Bill could lead to more problems and more problem gamblers. The amount of gambling is related, of course, to the number of people who suffer in that way. If gambling was not harmful at all, there would be no need for any regulation. The fact that there is regulation means that there is knowledge that gambling is harmful.

...

The Joint Parliamentary Committee stated:

"Almost all the evidence we have received points to the fact that this legislation would increase the number of people in the United Kingdom with a gambling problem".

...

Moving from the high-level casinos to the more humble slot machines, the director of the Rhode Island gambling treatment programme, Mr Bob Breen, said only last week that slot players are more likely to become addicted—and faster. They say, for instance, "It's only a nickel. How much can I blow?". He said that within a year they have lost their investments, they have lost their retirement, they are getting divorced and they are stealing from their employer.

The extended opportunities of the Gambling Bill could have a totally detrimental effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. When the Bill states that it will safeguard children from excessive gambling, how are we to safeguard the children of the families of gamblers? They will suffer deprivation, and all because of the Bill.

In other words exactly the sort of problems that Ms Harman is now saying "we wouldn't have done this if we had known" were predicted by many different people with evidence from other countries to back them up. There is another similar intervention within the same debate from Lord Phillips of Sudbury here too amongst many others.

So perhaps as well as campaigning for gambling law to be changed, Ms Harman should also campaign for something else that is sorely needed in our country. For governments to actually listen to their opponents during debate, reflect upon the evidence and agree much more often to pilot schemes to test their ideas.

I would take her much more seriously on this if I had any sense that genuine lessons about how poor Labour in government were at legislating based on actual evidence were really being learned as a result.

Why are Labour opposing what they did in office?

I know politics tends to be played in a certain way and that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are there to oppose. It's there in the title.

But it is remarkable just how many times Labour in opposition are now against almost exactly what they did when they themselves were in office. In some cases not just against them, but viscerally against them suggesting all manner of nefarious motives on the part of the EVIL CONDEMS for even considering them.

There's a good example today. It has been reported that the government is encouraging the NHS to use its expertise globally in order to make a profit from international markets for re-investment domestically. Sounds perfectly sensible to me to explore such opportunities, especially with a brand that is as strong globally as our National Health Service is.

Labour however have wasted no time at all in attacking the plans. Which is very odd because only 2 years ago, Andy Burnham, the then Labour Health Secretary was all in favour of pretty much exactly the same idea:

“A key part of responding to the economic challenge that the NHS faces will be realising the full potential of innovation, not only making effective use of our knowledge and skills at home, but also making money abroad that can be reinvested back into the NHS."

The Labour attack is based around this being the "wrong time" for such a change and that the "priority" should be sorting out the "mess" in the NHS. But If Burnham 2 years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis thought then was the right time for this and that it could form a "key part" of the NHS's economic challenge then I cannot for the life of me work out why now is the wrong time. Surely Labour think the NHS has got worse in the last 2 years so anything that can bring more money in for reinvestment (as they clearly thought this would when in office) should be a good thing?

This apparent contradiction has been reported widely today and I have seen a few Labour activists make an attempt to defend the new position usually along the lines of the "approach" that the current government is taking being wrong.

Frankly this is a load of rubbish. It is becoming ever more clear that Labour are going to oppose anything and everything that they think they can get political capital out of regardless of how hypocritical they are being. The theory seems to be that if they shout loudly enough against all these policies, the fact they used to be for them will be forgotten. They should be held to account for this, otherwise how are we going to know what we'll get if they end up back in government again?


Andy Burnham being interviewed about this subject today:

Why talk of a political "Olympic Bounce" is facile

"Labour lead narrows as Tories enjoy Olympics bounce"

"Boris uses Olympic bounce to taunt government"

Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce.

Talking about whether or not a politician or a party has had one as a result of the Olympics is the epitome of silly season nonsense.

Firstly, any "bounce" is bound to be transitory. I'd be amazed if any blips in the polls were sustained beyond the next few weeks. And the next general election isn't until 2015. Even the Corby by-election and the PCC elections are not for another 3 months by which time any poltical Olympic feel-good factor will have petered well out.

More importantly, staging the Olympics was a massive effort from hundreds of thousands of people across all walks of life, politicians, engineers, architects, security services, entertainment, sports people and of course the tens of thousands of volunteers who did such a wonderful job stewarding the event. The idea that all of this effort can be distilled down into a political advantage for Boris or Dave is utterly risible. In terms of high profile politicians I would suggest Tony Blair (whose eleventh hour intensive lobbying of the IOC in July 2005 is likely to be the thing that tipped the balance in my view), Tessa Jowell, Seb Coe and even Gordon Brown (who as a powerful Chancellor enabled it to happen) should be in line before Cameron anyway. And as for Boris, Ken Livingstone should get at least as much credit for similar reasons to Blair; his motives were around regeneration but his commitment to this was admirable. Most of those politicians you will note are Labour, not Conservative.

All in all, the fact that the narrative is now shifting to whether the PM and the Mayor can get political brownie points from any of this shows how shallow our discourse has become.

The Olympics was a fantastic spectacle and a great example of what this country is and can do. Any kudos should be for the UK as a whole, not any one individual.

The Lib Dems are a very odd sort of "Power-hungry"

I keep seeing the phrase "power-hungry" used in conjunction with the Lib Dems. Admittedly it is often amongst the frothing anti-coalition comments on a "Comment is Free" or "New Statesman" article but there is a perception that is gaining momentum that the Lib Dems have done and pretty much will do anything to get and retain power.

The thing is, that doesn't really make any sense, at least from a Westminster perspective.

Let's imagine that you are a fresh-faced Nick Clegg embarking on your political career in the mid-Nineties. You are working for the European Commission in various jobs and are then given a position as a policy adviser and speech writer for the Conservative appointed Trade Commissioner Leon Brittan. Now at this point your star is definitely on the rise and the possibility of winning a seat in the European Parliament is on the horizon given your experience and background. So, if you are truly power-hungry and wish to be a member of the Commons in a few years time and eventually in government do you:

a) Use your contacts through Mr Brittan to get yourself selected as a Tory candidate?
b) Plough your own furrow and try to get selected for a party that has never held power in Westminster in your entire lifetime?

Surely, someone who was obsessed with getting and retaining executive power would have done a)? But we know that Nick Clegg did b). What on Earth was he thinking, running for a party that since the end of WWII had had at most a few dozen MPs? Under the First Past the Post system that party was unlikely to be in a position to form a government in the following 20 or so years.

Or what if you were Vince Cable who actually did used to be a member of the Labour Party but defected to the SDP in 1982 and then stuck with that party as it became subsumed into the Liberal Democrats even when its poll ratings were in a statistical tie with zero, and his former party ended up in government for 13 years from 1997. Surely an unprincipled, power-hungry politician would have found an excuse to defect back to them? I'm sure a nice juicy cabinet position could have been found for him.

The same applies to Chris Huhne, Ed Davey, David Laws and countless other Lib Dem MPs and ministers. They all could have chosen a much easier path to power than joining the third party and then waiting for the electoral dice to fall the way of a coalition (which judging by historical standards is a very rare occurrence indeed). Instead they all stuck with the Lib Dems through thick and thin, opposition, ridicule and taunts of being irrelevant.

There must be another explanation then? Maybe, just maybe these politicians believed enough in the cause of their party to want to stick with it and even if only in opposition try to affect the national debate using the small platform it afforded? And then maybe, just maybe when the opportunity to be part of a government came along those same politicians weighed up the situation and decided in the national interest that it was best to form a stable coalition with the largest party in parliament largely for the sake of economic stability*?

Whether you believe that or not though, the idea that the Lib Dems are completely unprincipled and power addicted does not stand up to even cursory scrutiny. If the MPs that make up the party really were like that, they would never have been in the party in the first place.



*We will never know the counterfactual of what would have happened if they had declined but I bet it would not have been pretty - the markets would likely have punished our country for having delivered a hung parliament that then could not form a majority government programme.


This post was first published on Dale & Co.

Will the public ever accept coalitions?

Over the last couple of years I have had a few comments from my non-political friends (yes I have some!) along the lines of the Lib Dems cannot be trusted. When people who are usually not really that into politics say things like that it makes my ears prick up because it demonstrates that something about the subject has "cut through". Unfortunately in this case it is something pretty negative about the party of which I am a member.

It should probably not be surprising that that message has resounded in this way, after all much of the media and the entirety of the Labour Party (and mischievous elements of the Tory Party) have been saying as much ever since the Lib Dems entered government. And of course there is a kernel of truth in it. The party said one thing before the general election and then in a number of key areas did something different after the election.

But the third party was never going to be able to do anything except that if they were to go into government. They were never going to get a majority and therefore they were always going to have to compromise in all sorts of areas.

That the Lib Dems have "broken their promises" and "Clegg cannot be trusted" has become as much of the background mood music of the body politic of this country as "Blair lied about Iraq" or "Thatcher did not care much about society" were during their respective eras. As much as I might want to bang on on here about how the party had to compromise, I might as well be micturating into a tornado.

But this fact really does raise a much wider issue. Will the public ever accept coalitions? Because it is far from clear that what they are annoyed about is that Clegg et al made "the wrong compromises". It actually seems like the fact that any compromises were made at all is what has damaged the party (and that would likely have been true no matter what the compromises and who the political partner was). This would apply to any parties forming a coalition in the future.

Perhaps we have just had single party government in this country for so long that, despite the talk before the election about the public wanting politicians to "get along" the truth is that they are so used to one entire programme being enacted that when the electoral arithmetic requires parties to work together the damage caused, especially to the junior partner is just simply too great.

I wish I was wrong about this but I fear I am right. Maybe the last two years shows that the UK is simply not interested in parties compromising? And if the polls are correct we might well end up with at least another decade of single party government again after 2015.

I suspect the electorate might prefer to be back on the surer ground such a government would afford.

Here's a crazy idea: Maybe we should let the electorate decide who become PCCs

There has been a lot of noise in the last few days about how terrible it is that Bob Ashford has been barred from standing as a Labour candidate to become a Police and Crime Commissioner in Avon and Somerset due to a crime he was convicted of when he was 13 years old 46 years ago. This is because of a rule that was included in the bill that created the positions whereby a candidate cannot stand if they have ever been convicted of an offence that could have resulted in them being sent to prison (even if they weren't). There are also others who have stood down as a result of this rule include the decorated Falklands war hero Simon Weston due to an offence he was convicted for when he was also a child.

As Mark Pack has pointed out, this is not an "unintended consequence" of the legislation but very much intended as the parliamentary record shows. This very point (candidates being barred due to offences committed when they were children) was specifically debated and there appeared to be broad parliamentary consensus that this was "the right thing to do".

As an aside, I find it intensely depressing that such illiberal laws can be passed through our parliament without any real understanding of how ridiculous the consequences of said laws will actually be in practice from those who are supposed to be legislative experts. I really hope this episode will give the unthinking authoritarians (in all parties) pause for thought the next time they are debating legislation.

Mark Ferguson has done a sterling job on LabourList in recent days highlighting the absurdity of this rule and calling for an urgent change. The Home Office has already indicated that nothing can be done until after the first set of elections in November.

On that LabourList posting linked to above there is an interesting debate in the comments. Some commenters agree the rule is wrong but there are others who point out that it is going to be difficult to define precisely where the bar should be. They suggest that ruling on what would be an acceptable and unacceptable criminal conviction will be tricky. They are essentially saying that there will always be edge cases that seem to fall on the wrong side (either way) wherever the line is drawn.

I agree it would be tricky. But here is a radical idea. The entire point of having these Police and Crime Commissioners was in order to allow voters to choose them. So why not allow the electorate to decide? If they consider a youthful misdemeanor by Mr Ashford should prevent him from becoming a PCC then they won't vote for him. You can certainly bet your bottom dollar that if Mr Ashford's opponents think it will count against him the details of it will be plastered all over leaflets. The same would apply for any of the other candidates who have withdrawn (or may do so in the future).

Perhaps instead though what we will find is that people who have had dealings with the law from the other side as youngsters but have learned their lesson and gone on to be highly productive and trustworthy members of society might just have something very useful to contribute to the role.

Stranger things have happened.

How the Lib Dem response to the doctrine of "Collective Responsibility" is screwing us

Compare and contrast:

“Of course, there is no reliance on our support for a Coalition Agreement commitment for progress on unrelated or other significant parallel constitutional formations. I have said that. There is no link; of course, there is no link.”

...and:

"Lords reform and boundaries are two, separate parliamentary bills but they are both part of a package of overall political reform. Delivering one but not the other would create an imbalance – not just in the Coalition Agreement, but also in our political system.
Lords reform leads to a smaller, more legitimate House of Lords. Boundary changes lead to a smaller House of Commons, by cutting the number of MPs. If you cut the number of MPs without enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Lords all you have done is weaken parliament as a whole, strengthen the executive and its overmighty government that wins."

Both of these statements were made by Nick Clegg in the last few months. The first one was at a Select Committee hearing in April where he also specifically said the words "There is no formal link" between Lords reform and the boundary changes.

I highlight this, not to embarrass the leader of my party (there will be plenty of others in Labour and the Conservatives queueing up to do that) but to highlight how our approach to collective responsibility within the government is now screwing us over.

i have been arguing for a long time that in public our ministers should have been making it clear that there are things we are doing that we would not do were we governing alone. I think the electorate are mature enough to accept this. But instead our approach seems to be to essentially "own" the entire government programme and to argue in favour of every element of it. This then leads to a situation with for example the boundary changes where Clegg can be painted as "having been for it, before he was against it" which is very damaging in politics.

If the approach had been to consistently explain that we were supporting the boundary changes as part of an overall package of constitutional change and all of it needed to go through (which is a perfectly reasonable position) it wouldn't seem like we were going back on anything now.

To be fair to Clegg there are examples including in the evidence to that committee where he did try to make this link but there are too many other examples where he has said things like "There is no link". The position has been too muddled.

This is not the only area where this has happened. For example Clegg has been quoted in the past as saying that Andrew Lansley is the "right man for the job" of Health Secretary. That's strange because before the election surely he though Norman Lamb was the right man, otherwise why was he Lib Dem spokesperson for health? I wonder why he felt the need to say this? He could have worded it along the lines of Lansley getting on with the job he was appointed by the PM to do or similar without endorsing him above all other possible ministers.

In the inevitable post-mortems that will come whenever this coalition finally ends I hope that our approach to collective responsibility comes under a sharp spotlight and we learn some important lessons. We are a separate party with a distinct identity. We need to find a way to make this clear, even when we are sharing power with another party.

What if a Lib Dem minister votes for the boundary changes?

An interesting hypothetical question thrown up as a consequence of a piece from Isabel Hardman on the Spectator blog which mentions a "senior Lib Dem MP" who is quoted as saying that the Lib Dems should support the boundary changes.

Now I don't know for sure if this MP is in the government and it is not clear that even if they are they will not fall into line with their party but what if they decided to vote against the Lib Dem party line on this? Would they technically be in breach of anything? With the vast majority of government ministers (Conservatives) likely voting for the changes, wouldn't they just be another minister voting with most of their colleagues?

As we're in unchartered territory I'm not sure what the answer would be.

Other than Nick Clegg would doubtless be very pissed off!

Does the Lords reform debacle make a coupon election more likely?

My first thought was "highly unlikely" but the more I am mulling it over the more I am wondering if the inevitable dynamics that will result from the latest coalition debacle could move things in that direction.

The first thing to note is that without the boundary changes Labour are now overwhelmingly favourite to win the next election outright, probably with a big majority. I know 3 years is a long time in politics but the idea that the Conservatives (and Lib Dems) are going to recover in a major way from their current lows with the economy in such a mess and austerity on the menu for several more years to come is somewhat fanciful.

The second point is that if Labour win in a big way in 2015 then the other two major parties can likely kiss goodbye to any chance of office for another political generation. We saw after 1997 how much the large majority cushioned Labour against future election losses. It could be 2030 before the Blues or Yellows are seriously contending for power again.

But of course it's a massive leap to go from that fairly sober reflection of reality to implementing a deal whereby the Conservatives and Lib Dems allow the coalition partner a free run at certain seats. It's all going to boil down to the following issues:

1) How much do Cameron and Clegg want to retain power? If they are serious about keeping their hands on the reins after 2015 they are going to have to very seriously think outside the box.
2) Even if they wanted to, how well could they control their respective parties in the country to adhere to any deal? There is significant and growing animosity amongst the grassroots of the coalition partners and the idea that PPCs in potentially winnable seats may have to stand aside "for the greater good" is likely to be very hard to swallow.
3) How would such a deal be treated by the electorate? I can certainly imagine Labour making all sorts of hay with the idea that the coalition was trying to stitch up the election.
4) What would the long term calculations be? For the Tories there may be less downside. They would get the chance to retain power rather than face a potential decade or more in the wilderness. But history suggests that for the Lib Dems were they to go along with a plan like this they could be subsumed by the larger political partner. And even before that it could easily cause a split with "Independent Liberal Democrats" leaving the party to fight on their own terms.

On balance I still think this probably won't happen but you never know. I've observed throughout my politically aware life that politicians will do almost anything to hold onto power. John Major clung on until the bitter end in 1997 and even announced a 6 week proroguement of parliament in order to just eke out another couple of weeks. Gordon Brown endured indignity after indignity to stay in a job that it would seem he didn't even really enjoy and even tried himself to form a coalition with a party whom he despised (and whose name he consistently got wrong!).

I do not underestimate the allure of power. Especially for those who already have their hands on the tiller.

Now perhaps the Tories will consult their members before writing their manifestos

One aspect of today's final confirmation that Lords reform is being dropped for this parliament that has not generated much comment is that just such a policy was part of the Conservative manifesto in 2010.

Given this, it is surely quite strange that nearly 100 of the party's MPs were willing to vote against it? It seems clear also that if things had progressed further, more Tories would have lined up against the measure. And when you include ministers who were likely supporting the measures under sufferance it wouldn't at all surprise me if less than half of the Parliamentary Conservative Party in the Commons actually supported this bill.

How has this come about? Surely a manifesto should reflect the view of the members of the party it purports to represent?

In the case of the Conservatives though they have always been a fairly top-down party. The manifesto was written by senior people within the shadow cabinet and their advisers and then essentially presented as a fait accompli. If their MPs and PPCs didn't like parts of it, essentially it is tough luck. They could of course have refused to stand as a Conservative candidate if they felt strongly enough but given the FPTP system that is never very likely to happen as an "Independent Conservative" candidate would just split the vote and probably let one of their opponents in. Far better from the perspective of an aspiring Tory parliamentarian to stand anyway but then oppose once in the Commons from a position of representing the "real Tory" view within the country. The problem is it leaves everyone else wondering where on earth we stand with respect to future manifesto commitments.

I hope that this episode makes the Conservative leadership think again about how their policy-making is formulated. It's all very well being clever-clever, trying to "triangulate" and appear to be "progressive". But if your MPs are not willing to vote for the measures then it just becomes an exercise in obfuscation and ultimately futility. Far better for everyone all round, including the voters to ensure that any future manifesto contains measures that are likely to achieve support within the body of MPs from their party that form the voting bloc within parliament?

Then we will all know what we are likely to be getting, rather than commitments that are then viscerally opposed by the very people who stood for election on the platform formed by them.

The Lib Dems may need to leave the government to stop the boundary changes

Now it is clear that Cameron is not going to be able to get enough of his backbenchers to support Lords reform there is lots of talk about how the quid pro quo for this will be the Lib Dems blocking the boundary changes. There is also talk about how the precise wording of the coalition agreement does not commit the Lib Dems to vote for the changes.

Even though it is dressed up in the language of principle, the argument essentially goes "You didn't deliver the change we wanted so we won't deliver the change you want.".

In some ways this is fair enough. The manner in which some Conservative MPs have parsed the coalition agreement to find a Clintonesque way of wriggling out of the spirit of the commitment to Lords reform has been low politicking at its worst. As a supporter of Lords reform (albeit one who could see a good argument for voluntarily delaying change ourselves) I would find some satisfaction in seeing the boundary changes voted down.

There is a problem with this idea though. Cameron really did try to get Lords reform through. He imposed a 3 line whip on his party to vote for the bill and the timetable. It failed because too many of his non-payroll MPs were prepared to vote against it (which is why the timetable motion was withdrawn as it was clear the government would lose).

If Clegg was to impose a 3 line whip on the vote for the boundary changes then straight away the Lib Dem payroll vote of 22 would have to support the changes (or resign from the government). I also suspect a number of backbench Lib Dems would either abstain or vote with the government. Some would doubtless rebel but it would not be enough to stop the changes*.

So the only way the Lib Dems could be sure of defeating the boundary changes would be to actually ensure all of their MPs voted against them. And I cannot see a realistic way that this could happen without triggering a chain of events that would lead to the end of the coalition.

It comes down to a matter of mathematics. The Conservative backbenchers can block legislation even if the government votes for it. The Lib Dems cannot do this. They don't have enough MPs.

I know that Cameron is determined to get this change through. Clegg cannot block it without making his entire party vote against it. We will soon reach the first (and probably last) impasse of the coalition sooner than most people thought.


*I am aware that a number of backbench Conservative MPs also do not want these changes to go through. It is possible for a scenario to play out where Clegg whips the Lib Dem payroll vote to vote for the changes but with a nod and a wink licenses his backbenchers to vote against leaving only a few Tory rebels required to torpedo the changes. The big problem with this though is not just that it would be blatantly obvious what had happened (which it would) but that I suspect Cameron has already war gamed this scenario. Now that the Lords reforms are dead, he has a big patronage carrot to offer any wavering MPs from his side. For this reason, I would suggest such a gambit on Clegg's part would fail. And I think he knows it.

David Cameron is now weaker than John Major

I'm not even talking about the fact that he has not been able to persuade his backbenchers to support a key plank of the coalition agreement, although that is pretty weak.

I'm referring to how he has steadfastly refused to move George Osborne from the Treasury brief. It has demonstrated just how hidebound his political room for manoeuvre has become.

I understand those who say Osborne is one of Cameron's oldest political friends. But Blair was old friends with Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett and he did what was necessary to remove them from their cabinet posts when the time came. And even John Major had the guts to remove Norman Lamont as Chancellor when it became clear he was a political liability in that role.

Most observers agree that Osborne has performed poorly as Chancellor. His budget earlier this year was a political disaster. Worse, Cameron knew it would be (specifically regarding the reduction of the 50p rate - he didn't want to do it) but gave Osborne enough rope to hang himself with. Now that he has done so, instead of letting him swing he has cut the rope and is giving him his undeserved political support.

Even worse still, other Prime Ministers just over 2 years into a parliament would likely have at least one more chance to remove an errant minister as reshuffles can be fairly frequent when one party is in power. But the nature of the current coalition makes it pretty unlikely there will be any more reshuffles before 2015. So this is the one chance that Cameron has to put someone politically and economically competent into No 11 (e.g. Philip Hammond) and he has flunked it.

Prime Ministers need to have a shaft of steel running through them. No matter who were close allies on the way up, a politician that wishes to retain power needs to be unsentimental about friendship. That he feels unable to do anything about Osborne demonstrates how weak he has now become.

When even John Major was able to do things you cannot it is surely time to think long and hard about your long term political strategy?

Lib Dems should park Lords reform. For now.

I am an enthusiastic supporter of electoral and constitutional reform in this country. I have been arguing for years that the First Past the Post system for the Commons is hopelessly out of date and unfair and that there is no place in our constitution for an unelected second chamber. I was delighted when the coalition agreement included action on the latter and heartened by Nick Clegg's various comments in the early days of this government that made it clear he was throwing his full weight as Deputy PM behind it.

But that was then. Now we are in a pretty parlous position regarding potential reform. The massive rebellion by Tory MPs a couple of weeks ago aided by Labour on the timetable has led to a great deal of uncertainty about whether anything like the currently proposed reforms will be able to get through parliament.

Putting aside the arguments for and against (they can be found across the internet not least in numerous posts and comments on this site) I think it is starting to look unlikely that we will be able to get the reforms we want through during our time in government. Unlike some I have seen sneering that it's Clegg's fault for coming up with "bad proposals", I don't think that is true at all. Every compromise that the Lib Dems made (keeping the Bishops, keeping 20% unelected, making the terms 15 years, not allowing re-election) were done to address specific concerns from one side or another. That those compromises are now being used to claim the bill is a "dog's breakfast" is simply a function of how difficult it is to change the status quo when there is such a diversity of views on what should be kept and reformed.

There are noises off that indicate a set of watered down proposals might, just might get the nod from *some* of the Conservative rebels. Perhaps, if we're lucky we might, just might get a small sliver of elected peers alongside a load of appointees from mass membership organisations. Forgive me if I don't climb up onto my roof to sing hallelujah at this prospect.

I think we are at the point where we should park this bill. I say this in the light of the shocking GDP figures for Q2. -0.7% shows we are definitively back in recession and this is now the worst economic situation since before the Second World War. In that context, a prolonged parliamentary battle to try and salvage some vestige of Lords reform would risk looking like political folly and would really not be worth the fight anyway.

We need to focus very strongly on the economy and growth. Our ministers need to fight internally within the government and externally where possible to ensure that at the very least Plan A becomes Plan A+ if not a politically covert Plan B. I'm not suggesting that we should trade Lords reform off in exchange for this, indeed I am sure that would never fly. But we need to make our priorities crystal clear under the current economic circumstances.

I usually despise the phrase "now is not the right time". For opponents of reform it is never the right time. However I am afraid I have come to the conclusion that right now, for probably the only time in my political memory that argument is correct.

For fellow Lib Dems looking for a legacy of our time in government, if we can spend the last 30 or so months helping to ensure growth returns that will surely reflect very well on us.

As for Lords reform, it will probably have to wait for a future coalition agreement. And next time we need to make sure it is worded very clearly to leave future partners no wriggle room.

At all.


This post was first published on Lib Dem Voice.

Oliver Seamus Eric Thompson

Our beautiful baby boy passed away yesterday morning.

Sleep well Ollypops.

You're my baby forever.

All my love.

Daddy.
xxx

I have reservations about this bill but we need Lords reform

There is a tendency in politics that once your side has come forth with its proposals, bill or other form of announcement, for activists and certainly parliamentarians to row in behind them. There is also a less edifying tendency to then try and shoot down any opposition to them rather than actually listen to and engage with opponents.

As such, I find myself in a slight quandary as regards the Lords reform bill that is making its way through parliament at the moment.

We desperately need democratic reform of the Lords. For over 100 years parties of all hues have promised it will happen but almost always when it has come to the crunch, vested interests have closed ranks and prevented it. The only exception to this was the abolition of the hereditary peers by Labour which was an improvement but was supposed to be the first stage of a process that then petered out.

It is always easier to argue for the status quo than it is to argue for change. The existing system is there by default. If we are going to go to the trouble of changing it we have to convince a lot of people, all of whom will have different ideas about what a second chamber should be.

So I'll come right out and say it. I do not personally think the Lords bill as it is currently constituted is the best way we could reform the second chamber. I have two issues. Firstly, I think the idea of 15 year terms with members unable to run more than once will reduce democratic accountability. It is the fact that MPs (mostly) know they will be back before the electorate in at most a few years time that keeps them responsive to their views. This will undoubtedly be weaker under the proposed system than it is for the Commons. Secondly I think we should not have dropped our plans to use STV as the system in England, Scotland and Wales.

But I also understand that if my concerns were addressed it would throw up other issues that may weaken the case for reform or otherwise render it more politically difficult to pass. For example if instead of 15 year terms they were 5 year terms then complaints about making it a rival to the Commons would intensify. And if we used STV then there would be a risk that it could shine a very unflattering light on First Past the Post (which although I think would be a good thing, many others would not). Also, with the size of constituencies for the reformed chamber being so large STV could be unworkable. But if we reduced the size too much to make it more workable lots of MPs would get very nervous about more elected representatives with only slightly diluted legitimacy on their patch. Etc. etc. etc.


This is what would happen with any proposed change. That is why we have never had substantial reform in over a century. And why despite these reservations I still very strongly feel that this bill needs to pass. Pretty much any move to a wholly or largely elected second chamber is worthwhile in my view precisely because if we don't bite the bullet now we'll still be arguing about it in 20 years time.

I appreciate that some in my party may not appreciate my candour on this, especially if it comes to a referendum and opponents will happily use arguments I have set out here against change. But I have to call it as I see it. I am uncomfortable with some of the changes here but you can't always get what you want in life.

In the end, we should not make the best the enemy of the "much better than what we currently have".

Tory MP admits Lords commitment was a fudge

I was listening to the podcast of last week's Radio 4's Week in Westminster the other day and I was somewhat taken aback by the candour of Conservative backbencher Andrew Turner when he was questioned by Fraser Nelson about Lords reform:

Fraser Nelson: Andrew, as far as you're concerned the House of Lords thing was intended as a fudge. To bring forward proposals and then to drop them. So it was intended as a fig leaf to the Lib Dems but not to do any more and that is as far as your understanding what David Cameron intended all along?
Andrew Turner: I'm sure it isn't what David Cameron intended but I would certainly read it that way and I can understand why many others can read it that way.

This is pretty shameless stuff. He is saying that he and a substantial proportion of his colleagues viewed their manifesto commitment on Lords reform as a sop to Lib Dems in case of a hung parliment but that they never actually intended to do anything about it. What is the point of manifestos if they are simply going to be used as a political tool like this?*


It was also very telling that at the start of the interview, Turner also said that he didn't consider himself and his colleagues who are planning to vote against the reform bill rebels. When pressed on this in the end he did concede the point but he clearly thinks that he is representing the "true view" of the Tories on this.


I have to ask, if Andrew Turner feels so strongly about this, why did he stand as a Conservative candidate at the last election at all? There was nothing stopping him joining another party or even standing as an independent "Tories for unelected privilege" candidate.




*I am well aware that there will be some thinking it's a bit rich for me to be talking about sticking to manifesto commitments when the Lib Dems have gone back on a number of theirs but they had to compromise to form a coalition. Lords reform was in both manifestos. No compromise on this was needed!

Can MPs really be trusted on Lords reform?

Imagine that you work for a medium sized organisation. Imagine that you like your job, it gives you status and respect and that there was a real battle for you to get the position in the first place. Also, every few years there is a big reorganisation and you have to reapply for your role.

Now imagine that there is another sister organisation just over the road from your one. The pay isn't as good but it provides similar status and respect within society. And even better you don't actually need to apply for a job or go through a grueling selection process to get in there. Once you leave employment with your current organisation there is a roughly 50/50 chance that your boss will simply give you a job for life in the sister organisation.

Now, finally imagine that you and all your colleagues are given the chance to change the way the sister organisation works. Instead of having an evens chance of being given a sinecure in that place, you can instead vote for the selection process to be thrown open to everyone and for it to be as grueling to get in there are it was to get into your current organisation.

That is pretty much exactly the dilemma faced by most MPs as they consider the Lords reform bill which is being published this week. There are noises off from Labour and Tory MPs that they are going to give this bill a rough ride. Indeed it is not at all clear that a Commons majority can be mustered to pass it despite a commitment for reform being present in all three of the main parties manifestos.

I'm sure that there are some MPs who have genuine concerns about the proposed reforms and really do fear the loss of a scrutinising chamber with expertise. I'm also sure that some of the arguments used against reform such as risk of constitutional deadlock are well meant. But the problem is you cannot separate these out from the massive conflict of interest faced by a huge swathe of MPs. If they vote for the bill they are kissing goodbye to a cushy semi-retirement.

For those of us observing politics there is a useful precedent here. MPs used to be in charge of deciding their own expenses regime. They came up with all sorts of arguments as to why this should be the case (primacy of parliament etc.) and many of them fought tooth and nail to prevent publication of the details for years. They wanted to remain in charge of one of the main conditions of their employment.

Of course when The Telegraph finally published the details of the expenses it precipitated the biggest political scandal in decades. It wasn't just a few MPs, but hundreds of them who had abused the privileges of their office at the expense of the tax payer. It became abundantly clear that MPs could not be trusted to decide their own expenses regime. It is now administered by an external body.

But in the end, MPs are only human. A sort of group think appears to have emerged whereby they collectively thought what they were doing was acceptable. Yes, we expect MPs to be held to a higher standard but I would however suggest that any group of people left in charge of their own conditions like this will consciously or subconsciously gravitate towards a solution that suits them.

We are in the same sort of situation again with Lords reform. I am far from convinced that we can trust MPs to come to an impartial decision about something that so directly affects the future political careers of so many of their number. Whatever arguments they use, there will always be the suspicion that self interest lies at the heart of their opposition whether that is conscious or otherwise.

There is no easy answer to this. The Commons is supreme and ultimately if MPs will not allow the reform it will not go ahead.

But they should tread very carefully. They have already seen the political explosion that can result when blatant self-interest against the public good takes hold within their institution.

If I was an MP I would want to avoid any risk of appearing to put my own personal desires above what we would expect from a fully functioning and accountable democracy.


An edited version of this post was first published on Liberal Conspiracy.

I blame David Davis

On the 12th June 2008, the Conservative opposition front bench spokesperson on Home Affairs did something very unexpected. He resigned his seat as an MP.

The reason he gave for this was to spark a national debate on the issue of civil liberties which is an issue close to his heart. He fought the ensuing by-election on this issue and won with 72% of the vote (albeit on a 34% turnout).

But the net result of this somewhat inexplicable action is that from the day he resigned to this David Davis has been a backbench MP. He would have been a shoo-in for Home Secretary in 2010 had he simply remained in post.

His decision to give up that front bench position is thrown into sharp relief by recent events. The Home Secretary Theresa May has released a draft bill which seeks to allow the authorities powers to intercept pretty much any and all communications between citizens of this country. It is more authoritarian than anything Labour dared propose I'm this area and would be a fundamental change in the relationship between the people of this country and the government. It is exactly the sort of thing that Davis was hoping would not happen when during the 2009 Convention on Modern Liberty he implored his party to "keep my promises".

It is thanks to Nick Clegg's diligent actions behind the scenes that this bill is only in draft form and hence can be debated and modified. I know that the parliamentary Lib Dems led by the impeccably civil liberty credentialed Julian Huppert will fight tooth and nail to ensure this bill is consistent with the party's principles.

But it will be a difficult battle. The starting proposition is a terribly illiberal piece of work and May has already set the terms of the debate with talk of how we need this bill to deal with terrorists and paedophiles and how we have nothing to fear if we have nothing to hide. Exactly the sort of thing we used to hear from Labour authoritarians.

Imagine how much easier this battle would have been if the Conservative Home Secretary had been someone whose political identity was very strongly linked with liberty. In fact I'd go further than that and suggest the draft bill would never even have been published. I suspect Davis would have strangled it at birth or his civil servants would never have even tried to suggest it in the first place.

The fact he is not in that position is entirely his own fault. He voluntarily gave up his chance at being the minister who decides these things to instead be one of the muted voices on the sidelines.

That quixotic decision just over 4 years ago has led to the situation we now find ourselves in. At the time I could not fathom what Davis thought he was going to achieve and the intervening period has if anything made it even less explicable.

And the strangest thing of all is that I'm far from sure David Davis himself truly understands what he was trying to achieve.




This post was first published on Dale & Co.

My name is Dave and I am a pressaholic

Something fascinating has happened in the last year or so. Many senior politicians have effectively been coming clean and admitting an addiction. They have been confessing that they have been addicted to a rather dysfunctional relationship with the media, the press in particular.

That's good. The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting you have one. It is a necessary precondition to recovery from an addiction. But it is not sufficient.

What needs to come next is a full and frank admission of what exactly was wrong with these relationships. Indeed if we imagine these politicians as equivalent to alcoholics, we know from the 12 step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous that one of the most important steps involves admitting the exact nature of the wrongs committed. I'm not really seeing that anywhere here.

Sure, we get a lot of earnest language about politicians having got "too close" to the press and vows to not let it happen again. But so what? I don't really care if they got a bit "too close". It doesn't matter if Cameron had 1000 "country suppers" with Rebekah Brooks. Unless of course that closeness led to some sort of undue influence. But all the politicians who have been asked about this have flat out denied that they have allowed this sort of influence to take place.

Something does not add up here. It's like someone turning up for counselling and saying she wants to stop drinking but then denying there have been any negative consequences from her behaviour relating to this. In which case why does she want to stop?

In order for it to be credible that these politicians are truly on the road to their recovery from the scourge of their addiction we really need more specifics. But of course the problem is that if for example Cameron was to come out and say that his Ofcom policy changed in 2009 in order to fit in with what James Murdoch wanted or if politicians from all parties admitted that their approach to drugs policy is to accord with the agenda of tabloid editors they would terminate their political careers.

Perhaps in private they will be able to properly admit in detail to how deeply in thrall they were to their rapacious Fleet Street creditors.

But unless they confide in us, their electors then they shouldn't be surprised if we behave like a suspicious spouse who's heard it all before and doesn't really believe they have learned much if anything.

Peter Hitchens learnt something from his days as a Trot

In recent years I have noticed that Peter Hitchens, the right-wing columnist who is steadfastly against any relaxation of the drug laws has come up with an eye-catching formulation regarding this policy area.

He claims that there is no "War on Drugs". His argument is that liberal society is turning a blind eye to drug use and the police and authorities talk a good game but essentially pedal softly. His further argument is that until we crack down "properly" on everything to do with drugs then the problems will continue.

It's a neat way of trying to justify why the current policy has failed. It's not because as people like me would have you believe, prohibition of drugs causes many of the problems but because we haven't had enough prohibition. Or at least we've had the wrong sort of prohibition. Do you see? Those of us who are campaigning for an end to our nonsensical drug laws have got it totally arse about face.

Of course I disagree with Hitchens on this. Tell the thousands of people every year who are locked up for minor drugs offences and/or have their lives ruined with a criminal record that there is no War on Drugs.

But the more I have heard Hitchens pedal this line, the more it has reminded me of something from my youth.

In the 1980s as I was coming of age politically, as the USSR was clearly in decline and other countries where Communism had been experimented with such as Cuba showed how such states always seem to degenerate into some sort of Totalitarian dystopia a curious thing happened. Proponents of Communism argued that "True Communism" had never really been tried. Despite the evidence staring them in the face that their One True Way simply did not work they raged against the dying of the light essentially saying that the problem was we hadn't had enough Communism.

It is no surprise to me that Peter Hitchens was a Trotskyist in his youth. And even though he has repudiated much of what he learnt during that phase of his life he has certainly kept some of their rhetorical tricks in his arsenal. He should not get a free pass on this.

There is another interesting parallel here. Those who so passionately argued that we needed more or proper Communism were blind to the fact that the actual outcome of their ideology was what had happened in real countries time and again in the real world. They weren't anomalies, they were the evidence of what happens when you try to follow that route.

Exactly the same applies with the War on Drugs. Country after country after country has tried prohibiting many, many substances. The end result has been an explosion in drug use and violence from criminal gangs across the world in the last 40 years. These are not side effects from the "wrong sort of War on Drugs". They are the end result of the current policy.

Exactly like the solution to the problems with Communism was not more Communism, so the problems with the current drug laws cannot be more of the same, even in a more hard line form. That would simply exacerbate the problem.

What we actually need is Glasnost and Peristroika in our drugs policy where we are honest about what has failed and are open to what we need to do to improve them.

Why is leaving things alone never an option?

Michael Gove has been sticking his oar in in recent days. He's decided that he wants children to start learning foreign languages from the age of 7. Also he's announced that he wants 5 year olds to recite poetry to each other in class.

I'm not going to dwell on the merits or demerits of these specific proposals. Except to say that if there was strong evidence that these things would increase the wellbeing of British children I suspect it would have been done a long time ago.

What I'm more interested in today is what this says about how governments approach governing.

Gove is an intelligent man. I know this because he used to sit on the Newsnight Review sofa regularly and intellectually spar with the likes of Germaine Greer and Paul Morley. And also I sometimes didn't know what he was on about. OK, maybe that just makes him more intelligent than me. We'll draw a veil over that.

But what makes him think that he knows best about how to micromanage the national curriculum for everyone in the country? The answer is quite simple. He is a politician.

Politicians have to do something. Anything. It's how they get elected. It's no good them standing for election and saying "Vote for me and I'll leave things pretty much as they are.". They'd be vilified by their opponents and would be a laughing stock. Politicians get elected by promising to change things.

But the consequence of this is that things keep getting changed all the time whether that's a good thing or not. Labour embarked on goodness knows how many sets of reforms of the NHS. I think it was at least 3 in 13 years. Now the coalition is at it all over again. Schools have had lots of fiddling in recent years too. Curriculum changes, Key Stages tweaked and meddled with, targets, league tables, new powers, powers taken away, Academies, Free Schools, tighter Ofsted regime, slackening of Ofsted regime etc. etc. etc. And that's just two departments in the last few years. The same pattern is repeated all over government.

Here's a thought. What if we just left things largely alone for a bit? Maybe if we allowed things to settle down, for doctors, nurses, teachers, managers etc. all to get used to the latest way of doing things for say 5 (or shock horror 10) years perhaps we might find performance improving. You know, because so much time and money wouldn't need to be spent reorganising everything every 3 years.

Of course this is fantasy land. But it is worth pondering why we demand politicians always have to campaign on a platform of major change. Because until we allow them to be more reasonable and sometimes say things like "In this area we're doing OK and we propose no major change" without shooting them down in flames we will keep getting these huge shake ups right across all departments.

But if we did this then Gove would have to go back to debating the work of Gilbert and George with Greer and Kirsty Wark.

That's a price I'd be willing to pay.....


This post was first published on Dale & Co.

Cameron cannot get away with this political sleight of hand on Hunt

Why is Jeremy Hunt not being investigated for breaching the ministerial code?

Let's just take a few steps back here and look at the chronology of events.

Firstly a mass of communications between Hunt's SpAd (Adam Smith) and News International were released into the public domain. From this it was abundantly clear that Smith had overstepped the mark in communicating privileged information to a commercial party with interests in the decision that his boss was going to have to make in a quasi-judicial role. Despite his initial protestations, Hunt eventually sacked Smith acknowledging that he had gone too far although denying any wrongdoing himself.

Then there were calls for Hunt to be sacked. Many, many people pointed out that the ministerial code makes a minister ultimately responsible for everything that their SpAds say and do. But Cameron declined even to refer Hunt to the ministerial code adviser for investigation claiming that Hunt should have his chance in from of the currently running Leveson inquiry.

Now, several weeks on, that has happened today. Hunt had his chance and despite it being a pretty ropey performance (where for example he seems to be admitting he didn't really understand what quasi-judicial actually meant until very recently) the PM clearly thinks he has done enough to hold onto his job as he has stated again that Hunt will not be referred for a ministerial inquiry.

The justification for this looking at the commentary in the media seems to be that there was no further "smoking gun" in the evidence today.

Let's just imagine that Leveson had not been running. When the Smith e-mails had broken, Smith would have been sacked but the political pressure would immediately have moved onto Hunt. With there being no way to dissipate this pressure Cameron would have had to refer him for a ministerial code inquiry I am certain of it. Instead he was able to deflect calls for that by effectively saying "Let him have his say at an inquiry that is already set up". Then the fact that it has taken several weeks, the media have had plenty of other things politically to get their teeth into (budget cock-ups, Euro crisis etc.) the pressure seeped away. Now that Hunt has "had his chance" the PM clearly thinks that he can get away with effectively saying "nothing new to see here, let's move on".

This is classic political sleight of hand. We already have the smoking gun. His special adviser was leaking privileged information to a potential bidder in a process worth billions of pounds. The ministerial code is clear about who has ultimate responsibility for SpAds.

Cameron should not be able to get away with using the time delay and Leveson as a smoke-screen to try and obfuscate the key issue here.


Leveson is a sideshow with respect to Hunt. He should be referred for a ministerial inquiry and given what we already know, I struggle to see how the ruling can be anything other than his position is untenable.

So Cameron talks to Blair. I should bloody well hope so!

The "news" has been reported today that David Cameron has talked to Tony Blair on the phone about affairs of state and running the country on 8 occasions since becoming Prime Minister.

Why this is considered worth publishing in a newspaper is beyond me. There are very few people who understand what it is like to be PM. Cameron should consult widely and the expertise and experience of the longest ever serving Labour Prime Minister who only stood down 5 years ago is very valuable to the current holder of the office.

Running the country is not a game. It's deadly serious and the more advice Cameron can solicit from those who appreciate what it is like to be in his position and having to take those decisions, the better as far as I am concerned no matter which party they are in.

Frankly I would say the bigger story here is that he has only spoken to him on average once every three months.

I would have expected it to be more often than that!

What does this picture tell us about how modern politics works?

1992 and all that

This picture was taken on 16th September 1992. That is the day that subsequently became known as "Black Wednesday" when sterling came crashing out the Exchange Rate Mechanism. It features then Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont explaining to the massed ranks of the media what had just happened regarding sterling.

But the reason why this picture has become more historic in recent years is because of who is lurking in the background. It is a fresh faced, 25 year old David Cameron (the one who looks a bit like he doesn't know where to put himself).

He was a special adviser to Lamont at that time which is why he is hovering there like a ghost at the feast.

Ever since Cameron's rise to prominence as Tory leader in 2005 I have found this picture quite fascinating for what it tells us about how modern politics works. As it has turned out, on the worst day of his career, Lamont happened to be standing next to the man who would end up being the very next Conservative Prime Minister after John Major. And yet at that point, that man was not even a Member of Parliament. In fact he wouldn't become one for nearly another nine years.

Of course some of that coincidence is down to the fact that the Tories were out of power after 1997 for a long time. If they'd got back in in say 2002 it would have been a different story. But if we think about the odds against the very next Conservative PM happening to be with the Chancellor on the darkest economic day for at least a generation (at that point) we start to see how strange that is if our politics is properly meritocratic.

If we start with an assumption that it is let's just look how unlikely what that picture tells us actually is. At any one time, there are around 40 million people in this country who are eligible to become Prime Minister. Let's say (being generous) that half of them have a conservative leaning and hence might at least agree with the party politically. If we had known on that day that the next Tory PM would be elected in 18 years time it could pretty much have been any of those people (or their demographic equivalents 18 years hence).

But it wasn't any of them. It was the man standing next to the Chancellor.

Our politics isn't very meritocratic. A fair few MPs get their seats because of who they know. Cameron followed a familiar path which was PPE at Oxbridge (or other high calibre university), special adviser, short period in private industry followed by selection for a safe seat for the 2001 election. From there he impressed his parliamentary colleagues (of course he knew the ropes well given his history) and by 2005 was Leader of the Opposition.

It is a well trodden route and once you understand how the political parties groom these bright young things and smooth the way for them into parliament and up the greasy pole, far from being surprising that Cameron ended up leader and PM it starts to look almost inevitable that him or one of his kind was quite likely to make it there. It is no coincidence that George Osborne also took a similar route to the top.

But the Tories have always been like this haven't they? Words in ears about "good chaps"? Funny handshakes etc.? We'd expect better from Labour wouldn't we?

1997 and all that

Uh oh....

This isn't just any "Council Tax Freeze". This is a Bracknell Forest "Council Tax Freeze"...

I don't often write about local issues on this blog but this one has really pissed me off.

Our local council (Bracknell Forest) has just started charging £30 per year for collecting garden waste. They introduced a garden waste collection scheme back in 2006 where the options were to purchase a sturdy paper bag for 50p a pop each time or spend £30 on a plastic bin which we were promised would be a one-off payment entitling us to have our garden waste collected every fortnight.

It turns out that these promises were worthless. According to the council's leaflet on this garden waste collection is "discretionary" and they don't have to provide the service, hence the charge. That seems very strange to me. Before the recycling scheme started, everything just went in the same bin. Now garden waste that must surely be produced by a large proportion of local residents is deemed not worthy of collection without an extra charge?

But what really gets my goat about this stealth tax increase is how it has been slipped under the radar whilst our local MP, Dr Phillip Lee writes in our local paper about how proud he is of the "fact" that his council has been able to "freeze" council tax this year.

It makes me wonder what other services we all thought we paid for are going to turn out to be  discretionary in future.

"Come on Mark" I hear you argue vituperatively. "Not everyone has a garden. It's only right that you pay your fair whack!".

And that is where this extra charge for us on our estate is adding insult to injury. Because we live on a new estate that was built in 2004 we have to pay an annual "estate management charge" to a private company which pays for things like upkeep of the grass in the communal areas and a play area. Those charges are around £300 per year. But for people who happen to live in older houses/estates in our constituency there is no such charge; those things are paid for out of the council tax. That I contribute to. It's a scam as far as I am concerned that new estates when they are built now often have these covenants put into the contract between the builders and the council to limit what the council has to pay for. But of course we get no discount on our council tax for this. So frankly that argument cuts very little ice with me.

Of course I totally understand that times are tough and councils need to save money, I don't have a particular problem with that in principle. I do however have a problem with our council introducing stealth charges on the quiet whilst loudly shouting about how they have "frozen" our council tax bills.

No they haven't. They've just increased it by around 2%.

Cameron and Fruit Ninja-gate

I think this story about how David Cameron has been spending "crazy" amounts of time on his iPad playing "Fruit Ninja" is wrong on two levels.

Firstly I simply don't believe that he spends very much of his time playing games (and what is the definition of "crazy" in this context?). No modern Prime Minister ever really has that much spare time.

But secondly and much more importantly, even if it was true, so bloody what? It is continually lamented that our politicians do not act like normal people. What could be more normal than a middle aged man getting a little bit too into a piece of new technology? I've done it, and if you asked you'd probably find millions of people in this country had got more diverted than they probably should have done by something like this.

This week a "story" was also reported that Cameron had gone out for a meal with his wife. And ate CAKE! You might be wondering why this is even newsworthy (it isn't) but it was juxtaposed with comments from William Hague about people having to rein in their spending. Even people economising will often find a bit of money to go out for a one-off celebration of something. Again, the PM is being castigated for something that normal people do all the time.

It makes me wonder what those who deem these pieces worthy of reporting on actually expect from a political leader. Because if they want an utter obsessive who spends every waking second on politics getting very little sleep and finding pretty much no time for anything else I believe the member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath is available for a comeback.

No, I thought not, so lay off Cameron for doing the normal stuff. There's plenty of other things he can be legitimately criticised for. This nonsense is a tabloidesque distraction from properly holding him to account.

The day I was sort of Nick Robinson for a few minutes

One of the highlights of blogging for me has been the opportunity to appear on the radio. It's not something I've really covered on here much. Most other bloggers seem to take it in their stride and most "normal" (i.e. non-political) people I know are a bit nonplussed as to what it's all about.

But I have really enjoyed the times that I have been asked to go onto various radio stations and debate politics. Sometimes it has been over the phone but often it has been in the studio which has been a particularly fascinating aspect of it for me. I have always been very interested in broadcasting and although I never pursued it academically or career-wise (I always assumed it would be too difficult to break into and I'd be far better off following a safer bet - in my case software development) to have been able to see behind the scenes and be involved in radio shows has been a real privilege. It still happens a little bit nowadays. Only last week I was on with Jacqui Smith on LBC discussing the local election results (down the line). It's more infrequent nowadays though. Partly because I get less offers and partly because I am less able to get to studios these days and have to turn more offers down.

Through this process I have met and debated with some of the most interesting people involved in politics and political commentary including James Forsyth, Mehdi Hasan, Shane Greer (many, many times!), Lance Price, Iain Dale, Tim Montgomerie, Steve Webb, Olly Grender, Alex Hilton, Harry Cole and Kate Hoey (who is one of the nicest people I have ever met in politics) amongst dozens of others.

Some of the highlights for me of this rather unexpected facet of my political commentator life have been:

• The chance to meet and (slightly) get to know Ken Livingstone. He used to present a show on LBC (sometimes with David Mellor) and I was invited on several times around the time of the 2010 General Election. I got the feeling that both Ken and David quite liked me - indeed David even said as much on air, the old flatterer! Ken Livingstone is a political hero of some in my family who are of a bit more of a socialist bent than me. I told him so after the first time I was on (thinking it might be my last) and he had a big grin on his face. My scariest moment on air with Ken was when I was doing a paper review with him and we were talking about sects. He mentioned how the Scientologists once tried to recruit him and he referred to them as a "cult". I said "They don't like to be called a cult Ken" and for the rest of the show I was paranoid that I had tripped over my words and "done a Naughtie"! I think it was OK though...
• Being part of 5 Live's coverage following the final leader's debate during the 2010 election. Tony Livesey was the presenter and I was on the panel with Iain Dale and Will Straw. That was tremendous fun, especially the part where we were asked to answer questions as if we were our respective leaders. I mimicked one of the things Clegg had done during the debate (making out I couldn't see the questioner) which got a big laugh from the assembled audience. I also saw the way Will was able to handle a very hostile question with charm and skill which certainly made me think he will be an MP some day and could well go far.
• Being asked a few months ago to go into BBC TV Centre and be on about 15 different BBC local radio stations over the course of two hours discussing the "Cameron veto" and the Lib Dem response to it. It was fascinating being a part of how so many different local breakfast shows were being made. Some were pre-recorded but many of them were live. They all had the same introductory script for the piece but it was also interesting to see which ones stuck to it, which ones paraphrased and which ones just leapt straight in. It showed me there are all sorts of different ways to cover the same story and certainly kept me on my toes. I pretty much used all the notes I had prepared for that day.

But perhaps my most surreal moment occurred the day after the 2010 General Election. I had been up all night in the National Liberal Club with Mark Valladares and our then party president Ros Scott (which in itself was a turn up for the books) watching the results roll in. I had had no sleep and had been on 5 Live from College Green in the morning. Then at 1:00pm I went over to Bush House (a remarkable building by the way) to be on the BBC World Service Newshour programme. I turned up and was on at first with Mehdi talking to Claire Balderson about the results and what we thought might happen next. Half way through the hour Mehdi had to go and his seat was taken by John Kampfner. Then just as we restarted the debate we suddenly got interrupted by a statement from No 10 Downing Street. Gordon Brown came out and announced to the assembled media that he would also like to make an offer to the Lib Dems. This was following Cameron's "open and generous" offer to the party in the morning. After the short statement Claire came straight back into the studio. She spoke briefly to John and then said something like "Mark Thompson, would you like to interpret what just happened for us?"

I am a software engineer who 18 months earlier had started dabbling with a bit of blogging in my bedroom as and when I could find the time. Now I was being asked to interpret fast-moving political events on one of the most important political days in the UK this century on a live radio show being broadcast to millions of people around the world. Surreal is probably an understatement for the situation I found myself in.

I said something along the lines of "Gordon Brown clearly doesn't want to be left as a political wallflower and is showing a bit of ankle to Nick Clegg and fluttering his eyelashes." and tried to put that into a bit more context regarding Brown's mention of PR.

At least I now know how it feels to be Nick Robinson.

Well, a sort of Z-list Nick Robinson.

From Runcorn.

The government thrashed the opposition on Thursday

What a strange title for a blog post you are thinking (yes, I am arrogant enough to assume I know your thoughts by the way). Surely it was a triumphant day for the Labour opposition in the local elections last Thursday and the Conservative and Lib Dem parties are licking their wounds?

Well that depends how you look at it. Yes, the Conservative party's share of the vote was only 31%. And the Lib Dems did as poorly as last year during the local elections and only ended up with 16% of the vote. Labour got 38% and are very pleased with their performance.

But let's take a couple of steps back here. For the last 2 years, Labour have done all they can to paint "the government" as being regressive and ideologically driven to implement the cuts agenda. They have berated "the government" as unfair to the poor and out of touch with ordinary people's lives.

That's right I hear you say (I'm doing it again), Labour have done that and they've done a good job hence your extremely poor showing last week you Lib Dem loser (I'm still doing you talking to me in case you're losing track).

But it strikes me that two different yardsticks are being used here. When Labour want to attack the government they attack it collectively. No quarter is given. No dispensation for the possibility for example that the Lib Dems might have to compromise in any way. No, they are fully complicit in every decision and hence fully culpable. And yet when it comes to the elections, Labour suddenly separate out the Tory and Lib Dem vote. But if we apply the same criteria as Labour normally do, lumping the governing parties together then suddenly the story is very different. In the middle of a parliament, with the government implementing the biggest cuts in several generations and having just tipped back into a recession the governing parties between them got 47% of the vote. The Labour opposition got just 38% of the vote.

Now just hang on a minute you say sharply (a bit too sharply for my liking to be honest), the Lib Dems are always going on about how they are a separate party. Yes indeed we are always going on about that and we are a separate party. But Labour never seem to make that distinction themselves. They are claiming that these local elections are a terrible verdict on the government*. If that was truly the case and the public agreed and enthusiastically wanted the alternative on offer from Labour wouldn't we have expected to see their share of the vote dwarf the combined share for the governing parties?

That didn't happen. Therefore it is hugely stretching credulity to claim that the elections last week prove that the coalition is on the ropes. It might be and there are doubtless lots of problems but the narrative that is being spun is just that, spin.

The reality is that using the criteria Labour usually use when it suits them, the government thrashed the opposition last week.


*I am well aware by the way that they were local elections and I get as annoyed as anyone that the results are automatically extrapolated into a picture of national reflection but hey ho, that's how everyone else interprets them and it would be like urinating into a hurricane to attempt to counter this.

Coalition Negotiations 2015. A Play.

Scene opens on a nondescript room somewhere in Whitehall, 9th May 2015.

Labour Lead Coalition Negotiator: "Well, thank you all for coming today. Obviously it's been a fairly gruelling election campaign but the fact that no party managed to achieve an overall majority has led us to this point. If we can come to some agreement over the next few days then we have a chance to form a majority coalition."

Lib Dem Lead Coalition Negotiator: "Absolutely. We very much hope that we can reach such an agreement between our parties. I have with me a document which forms our red lines if that would help."

LLCN: "OK, thanks. That might help speed things along a little bit!"

(Laughter)

(LDLCN hands over a document to LLCN)

LLCN: "Er, this is your manifesto."

LDLCN: "That's right."

LLCN: "I don't understand."

LDLCN: "They are our red lines. We insist on having every single thing in our manifesto implemented in full."

LLCN: "But surely you must understand that is not possible?"

LDLCN: "On the contrary. We thought you would actually insist that this be the case."

LLCN: "Er, I really do not understand what you are saying here. Why would we want that?"

LDLCN: "Well, for the last 5 years you and your Labour colleagues have taken every opportunity to tell the public that we have renaged on various parts of our 2010 manifesto. You have attacked us for not blocking tuition fee rises, for the NHS reforms, for allowing the Conservatives to reduce the top rate of tax and for putting up VAT amongst many other things. We have taken a big political hit for having compromised previously and as our chief critics for having done so we assumed you would totally understand how we are not able to budge an iota on our manifesto for fear of being accused of the same again."

LLCN: "Er...."

LDLCN: "We'll leave you to decide whether you want a coalition on these terms. It is a take it or leave it offer. Good day!"

(The Lib Dem contingent exit)

(Confused faces, swanee whistle, curtain)