"We need a fresh start and my party is the only way. Despite the evidence."

So essentially says Jon Trickett in the Guardian today. His thesis is that we are close to another major political turning point in 2015 rather like the one that started with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. He also thinks that Labour (the party he has been a member of for 30+ years) is the only one that can bring about this change.

Here are a couple of snippets:

...when a country arrives at a turning point, as we clearly had, the direction that it takes is not pre-determined. 

Thatcher had understood all of this too. As we now know, it was she who ended the interregnum into which the country had fallen. 

She broke with the Attlee consensus and created a new settlement that has endured (albeit modified by New Labour) ever since. Thus it was possible for Tony Blair to say – in his comments immediately in the aftermath of Thatcher's death – that: "I always thought my job was to build on some of the things she had done rather than reverse them."

And then further down:

Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are hopelessly compromised by their period in office. The Tory modernisation project has been jettisoned partly due to the threat from Ukip, and the Lib Dems have irrevocably embraced divisive neoliberal economic and social reform (such as the NHS reforms). 

Therefore, if there is going to be a government that will usher in a fresh start for Britain it will be the Labour party.

I don't necessarily disagree with Jon's broad thesis. I think something does need to change quite radically in our body politic. I wouldn't be at at all surprised if in decades to come the next few years is seen as another historical pivot point.

But it takes a certain kind of willful blindness to look at the evidence of how all three main parties have bought into the post 1979 Thatcherite consensus including essentially Labour (with a bit of tinkering around the edges) for 13 of those years with massive majorities when they could have forced a change in direction and decide the only party that can effect change is Labour.

If they couldn't do it between 1997 and 2010 why is he so certain they can now?

If we are to see a new political consensus it is likely to require the backing of people across the political spectrum and also from outside. This sort of blinkered tribal thinking will not help us get there.

This is why drugs policy is how it is

There was a fascinating poll published in The Guardian this weekend showing that 77% of MPs do not think current drugs policy is working but that only 31% of them would consider relaxing the current laws. This was done in secret of course. Had they been on the record I suspect far fewer would have put their heads above the parapet.

As I often do with the articles I had a flick through some of the comments below, the vast majority of which were sensible pleas for relaxing of the laws. But one stood out for me in particular (from Craig 67220):

"...The problem is that the media would refuse to support a law that would rob them of easy front page headlines: you can't really print a story based on the stigma of drug use if those drugs aren't so taboo. Sure, abuse would still make headlines, but if smoking a joint or sniffing coke or taking a few pills is seen as on a par as having a pint, or a smoke, it becomes less of an issue...."

Leveson has shown just how amoral newspapers can be in their pursuit of stories that will guarantee sales. Time and again we have seen that increasing circulation takes priority over any sort of propriety. We saw it again recently with the Sun's decision to publish photos of Prince Harry naked whilst on holiday and supposedly in private. There was no public interest in these, they simply helped increase circulation briefly.

I actually wrote a piece about the amorality of The Daily Mail a few years ago regarding their approach to campaigning on the HPV vaccine. They campaigned against it in England, and for it in Ireland. The same vaccine. The same newspaper. Two opposing campaigns. The only rationale that makes any sense regarding this is that they must have thought an anti-campaign here would sell more papers but that a pro-campaign in Ireland would serve the same ends. That is completely and totally amoral. Playing with the health of young girls for financial gain.

There must surely be a fair bit of truth in Craig's comment. Of course if drugs were legal then all those tabloid splashes about some or other pop star snorting cocaine and the "My Drugs Hell" confessionals would be less marketable. They'd still shift copy of course, problems with the legal drug alcohol still does but drugs have an extra cachet because the frisson of their illegality. Ironically this same sort of frisson is one of the things that can perversely encourage young people to try drugs in the first place as an old friend of mine reminded me this weekend.

The fact that so many MPs can (privately) acknowledge our current drugs laws are failing and yet simultaneously refuse to engage fully with the debate about what to do to improve the situation shows what a mess we are in. The salacious tabloid agenda surely has to take a fair bit of the blame for this. Any politician openly voicing these concerns is shot down by those exact same newspapers that profit so heavily from the status quo.

It doesn't take a genius to see why that should be the case.

Would Robin Cook have switched to the Lib Dems?

The former editor of The New Statesman, John Kampfner has an article in the Guardian today where he explains why he is backing the Lib Dems in the coming general election. He suggests that the party is now "a natural home for left-liberal Cookites" like him.

He goes on to say:

I have long described myself as of the centre-left, a left-liberal whose reference point was the politics of the late Robin Cook. His ideological bearings were sensible redistribution, an ethical foreign policy, constitutional change, investment in public services, and environmental protection. Some of his hopes have been fulfilled. Most of them have not.

I think it is hard to judge whether Robin Cook would have decided to join the Lib Dems. There had been a rapprochement between him and Gordon Brown in his final couple of years and there was the expectation that he would have been given a senior post in Brown's eventual cabinet. Indeed it is arguable that with another political big beast such as Cook alongside him who was also evidently very principled, Brown's government would have been better than it has turned out to be. However if he had not been able to make much of a difference and things had panned out roughly as they have done then I would suggest all bets are off.

If people such as Kampfner who are self described Cookites are backing the Lib Dems then it is not hard to imagine that Cook himself would have been tempted.

Sadly we will never know if it would have been more than just temptation for one of the best Labour parliamentarians of his generation.

The hung parliament doom-mongers

I know I keep blogging about hung parliaments but it's the polls wot made me do it. For example there is one just out from Channel 4 that shows that in 60 of the marginals that Cameron will need to win, the Tory lead has slipped from 7 points to just 2 now. If that is right then Cameron cannot win a majority.

Timothy Garton Ash has a good piece in the Guardian today entitled "Don't be afraid of a hung parliament". In it he argues that we should not be intimidated by an unholy alliance of currency traders and the Daily Mail. He's right. It is now starting to feel like the electorate is being blackmailed by the market into voting Conservative. This tactic could backfire horribly. People don't like to be told how they should vote.

The doom-mongers cry that there will be a run on sterling and we could end up having to go cap in hand to the IMF unless there is a "strong" government after the general election. Really? Are Germany on the verge of having to do that? After all, they have had coalition governments for many years.

The truth is that it is the "strong" governments of the last 30 years that have got us into this mess. Perhaps if those governments had had to win the argument more often rather than just whipping through the votes then we might have been in a better position now. Imagine if Vince Cable who called the market problems years before they occurred had had some influence on economic policy instead of being pilloried by Brown and his acolytes. Maybe the worst of the economic crisis could have been averted.

Garton Ash also makes another very good point in this little snippet:

The very term "hung parliament" is calculated to deter. Like "hung jury", it suggests crippling indecision. But a hung parliament is actually a stronger parliament, since the executive is more dependent on the goodwill of the legislature. Properly arranged, this produces not weak government but limited government, something Conservatives have traditionally favoured.

Indeed. I would have thought that the constraints that a hung parliament could place on executive power would be right up the Conservatives' street. I wonder why it isn't...

Barbara Ellen's double standards

I read this article in the Guardian yesterday with a deep sense of unease. Barbara Ellen is essentially arguing that Madeleine Martin, the 39 year old RE-teacher who was recently jailed for 32 months for having an affair with a 15 year old male pupil should not be treated the same as a male teacher would be in similar circumstances.

Barbara's argument seems to be that boys at 15 are "up for it" and having sex with a 39 year old woman for them would be seen as a conquest whereas for a 15 year old girl to have sex with a 39 year old man would be very damaging for them.

This seems to me dismissive of the harm that cam be caused to boys in this sort of situation. just because they might be "up for it" does not mean that they would not be emotionally damaged by having an affair like this.

Anyway, I was going to do a longer post but the comments below the article do a pretty comprehensive job of pulling apart Ms Ellen's arguments so I will instead direct you to them.

Val Swain and Emily Apple - Shocking police footage

The Guardian has shocking footage here of two protesters being manhandled for what appears to be no good reason during the Kingsnorth protests last year. Here is the footage from Youtube:

Val Swain and Emily Apple were apparently arrested for trying to identify the officers involved. What seems to spark it off is when they try to photograph an officer who has refused to identify himself. They are grabbed and bundled to the floor. Pressure is applied to their necks and Emily has her foot stood on, is bound and thrown into the back of a van.

They were then held for 4 days after which they were released without charge. By then the protests were over.

Now I have written about this sort of thing before. The Ian Tomlinson case where a man died some time after being pushed by a police officer during the G20 protests sparked a great deal of public concern and anger. I said not long after that that the use of new technology would eventually force the police to change.

Now the events shown here took place last year before the repercussions of the Ian Tomlinson case had been felt but I think it is a prime example of what the public is concerned about. It certainly shows that the sort of things we saw at the G20 were not isolated incidents or indeed confined to the capital (Kingsnorth is in Kent and the police officer who refused to identify himself was apparently from West Yorkshire according to the footage). There are distinct parallels with the sort of things we saw at the G20 protests, refusal of officers to identify themselves, disproportionate force seeming to be used when it seems unwarranted etc. I hope this footage gets wider coverage and other abuses like this come out into the open.

Emily and Val are members of Fit Watch, an organisation which aims to film and record police officers as they record the public at things like demonstrations. This is exactly the sort of thing the public should be doing and as long as the police are acting correctly then there should be no problem with people doing this.

As I said before, the technology will eventually force the police culture to change. This is another example that will hopefully contribute to this.

UPDATE1: Updated to include the Youtube footage. Hattip to Fausty for this.

UPDATE2: Emily Apple has written a piece for Comment is Free about this incident.

UPDATE3: The original Youtube footage I embedded has been removed so I have replaced it with another version which is the same footage (I think, from memory).

Electoral system distortions lets BNP in

There is an interesting article from Hugh Muir in The Guardian today. In a piece entitled "Who opened the door to the BNP?" he says that in their pursuit of winnable seats, Labour and the Tories left a vacuum that the BNP has gladly filled with its county council seats in Lancashire, Leicestershire and a strong showing in Essex.

The whole article is worth a read but this section in particular stood out for me when he addresses the question of why the vacuum is there:

But why was there a vacuum? Because Labour failed and, largely speaking, the Tories were no better. They too were chasing the middle class vote and the marginals and they were not about to worry themselves about areas they regarded as Labour fiefdoms, even those that had become failed states. They concentrated on the winnable seats. There is a logic to it. But the result of the decision by both parties to practise politics as the route to election victory rather as a tool for representing the broadest possible spread of communities left the door wide open for Griffin and his snake-oil salesmen.

Hugh is spot on here.. Our rotten electoral system allows one party fiefdom's to build up which are then neglected and allow parties like the BNP to sneak in by the back door.

Remember this the next time an opponent of electoral reform tries the old canard that a proportional system would let extreme parties in. As I have said time and again, Single Transferable Vote would make it almost impossible for the BNP to get in as voters can list their candidates in order of preference (and stop when they have put numbers against all they favour) so the BNP would not have any numbers next to them at all on most ballot papers. STV means candidates have to have broad support before they can get elected.

Mark Reckons writes for Guardian datablog

I have written a piece for the Guardian Datablog today.

It describes the details of my safe seats/MPs expenses correlation work that I have posted about here previously.

James Graham is spot on about Jo Swinson

James Graham did an extremely good post today about the treatment of Jo Swinson MP by The Daily Telegraph regarding the suggestions that she submitted receipts for make-up and other cosmetics. He describes their treatment of her as mysoginstic and he is spot on. He also rightly points out that it is bollocks anyway but they have worded the article cleverly to make it seem like she has done what they imply.

There's no point in me repeating what he has said as he has taken the words right out of my mouth so please read his post here and then have a look at the letters he has sent to The Telegraph, the BBC (who picked up the story and effectively republished it with embelishments in a full Flat Earth News styley) and The Guardian who really should know better than this.

Please visit his blog and post your comments of support if you agree with his analysis. And if you have time write some letters! A line has to be drawn now. The media is starting to think it can rip into all MPs for anything at all, even effectively fabricated stories and expect no comebacks.

Calls for constitutional change and electoral reform grow

Interesting piece in The Independent this morning where the great and the good give their views on what needs to happen now to repair the political system. Several of them are calling for electoral reform and all of them accept that there needs to be constitutional change.

It is also worthy of note that Paul Staines (Guido Fawkes) spends much of his contribution saying that he thinks that a strong link will be found between abuse of the expenses system and safe seats. He did link to my post on this yesterday in a post on his blog where he called for the voter to be the outside regulator.

Patrick Wintour reports in The Guardian today that many MPs and a number of cabinet ministers are pressing for full constitutional reform including potential electoral reform for the House of Commons. I can only hope that after many long years, this issue is now properly addressed. I feel that radical reform is now the only was that the political classes can show that they understand the depth of anger in the country.

Reinstate Margaret Haywood

This story is absolutely dreadful. Margaret Haywood, a nurse tried to do her best to highlight failings in elderly patient care within a hospital and when the internal procedures she followed did not improve things she filmed undercover for BBC's Panorama.

Her case was referred to Nursing and Midwifery Council which ruled that she should be struck off the nursing register in perpetuity. They also ruled that it was only the broadcast that had forced radical reform. In other words by her very actions she had massively improved things and as a direct result elderly patients are now less likely to be left in their own urine and faeces or be adminstered the wrong drugs and thus be left in agony.

Their reason for striking her off is because one of the patients who could be identified in the background film had not had his permission sought. This is despite the fact that Haywood and the programme makers were very thorough in trying to get permission from all the patients or their families to be included in the film - it seems that one slipped through the net. As Jenni Russell points out in the Guardian piece I linked to above, there is nothing in the whistleblowing rules specifically about this.

It strikes me that the NMC were looking for a reason to get rid of her and they managed to find (or contrive) one. The message is absolutely clear to any future whisleblowers. Yes, you may uncover bad practises and yes, your actions may ultimately improve things but you will lose your job and career as a result. So don't do it.

This is an appaling way for the NMC to behave. They are supposed to be there to uphold the standards of the profession and Margaret Haywood is a shining example to all her colleagues. She cared enough to try and make a difference. Some of her colleagues who knew full well what was happening but did nothing are the ones who should be being struck off. The NMC should itself be investigated by an external body for this travesty of justice and heads should roll. It is the only way that bodies like this will learn that they cannot close ranks like this and get away with it.

Please sign this Royal College of Nursing petition which is trying to get her reinstated and already has over 25,000 signatures. Please also contact the NMC to express your disgust at this decision.