Category Archives: Conservatives

State-sanctioned mob justice, don’t you just love it?

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Pensioner, 83, notches up ASBO:

“Police said Mr Hughes, of Vane Lane, Coggeshall, Essex, had not been convicted of any child sex offence. But magistrates had decided to use civil anti-social behaviour laws after police received a number of complaints about him.”

Welcome to Britain in the 21st century. To be branded a paedophile, and to have both your name and the street on which you live broadcast across the newswires, all you need is for your neighbours not to like you very much. No kiddie-fiddling required – but torch-wielding lynchmobs almost guaranteed.

And here we all are complaining about the insanity of the Sudanese courts…

So, are the Tories going to have the guts to offer up a policy overturning the glorious summary “justice” of ASBOs and, you know, perhaps going back to the traditions of innocent until proven guilty and the rule of law that used to be taken for granted prior to the Blair years? We’ve had some promising rhetoric from Cameron on ID Cards (though not so much, that I’m aware of, on the database state) – what are they going to do about the other Labour-introduced injustices of modern Britain? Or are they doing too well in the polls to care any more?

Labour and Tory EU attitude shifts

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It’s hard not to find the idea that the EU could be moving in to the old Tory Smith Square HQ quite amusing, considering the decided shift against Europe in the party during the last thirty years.

The Tories moved in to number 32 Smith Square back in 1958 – the year after the EU was founded – before moving round the corner onto Millbank earlier this year. It was the time of Macmillan, the chap the Tories brought in to sort out the messy legacy of Churchill and Eden. Macmillan, the chap who first attempted to get Britain into the then EEC after Eden singularly failed to take any interest in the new alliance, and Churchill – despite being one of the prime instigators of the idea of European integration – deliberately ignored the new developments. Macmillan, the man who tasked Edward Heath with the job of buttering up our European cousins – a task Heath kept up with dogged determination for more than a decade until he finally managed to usher us in to the union in 1973.

It’s still quite bizarre to think that it used to be the Tories who were the party of Europe. But it was only with the onset of the rebate dispute from 1979 – with Maggie taking the then fair enough position that Britain was contributing too much to the EEC’s coffers – that the Tory love affair with Europe began to sour. Even then, the party remained largely keen on membership right up until the late 1980s (the EEC after all – and unlike the UN or USA – gave Britain its full, official support during the Falklands war), when Maggie set out her stall opposing further integration. It’s been downhill ever since, the Tories seemingly having given up any hope of the EEC/EU returning to the relatively simple customs and trading union they always wanted it to be.

Labour, meanwhile, though now painted as rabidly pro-European by the majority of anti-EU types, were constantly opposed to membership throughout the first 25 years or more of the EEC’s existence – campaigning for a “no” vote in the 1975 referendum, for Britain to leave during the 1983 general election, and for the rejection of Maastricht in 1992.

The Tories’ shift to opposition to the EU is, for me, entirely understandable. Its seemingly ever-expanding powers and swelling budget, not to mention the various aspects of the EU which have stifled free trade over the years, have increasingly begun to make it look like everything conservatives dislike – big, protectionist government.

But why have Labour shifted towards supporting the EU, having been so massively opposed to it for so many years? The rest of the radical policy changes the party’s gone through during the last twenty years make perfect sense – they’ve increased Labour’s electoral viability. But support for the EU is – rightly or wrongly – an electoral liability in the UK.

If you take the usual line that the shift from old to New Labour was designed to bring the party closer in line with the thinking of the country at large, jettisoning unpolpular socialist rhetoric in the process, how to explain the shift to favouring the EU, when the EU is supposedly so unpopular with the public? It’s something I’ve never quite understood.

Brown’s only error:

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Not ruling out an election sooner.

This insane hyperbole (“humiliating retreat”? “cling to office”? “extraordinary indecision and extraordinary weakness”? You what?) shows just how worried the Tories still are. Yes, Cameron made a storming speech at the conference the other day, and yes they’ve had a big boost in the polls over the last week or so.

But the one question the advocates of an autumn general election have singularly failed to answer is: “why?”

There are two reasons to have a general election: 1) The government is coming to the end of its legally-limited five year term in office, and 2) The government no longer has a sufficient majority to see legislation through the House of Commons. That’s it.

Brown has a large Commons majority and a good two and a half years left before he legally has to call an election. So why the hell should he? Because the party leader, and therefore Prime Minister, has changed mid-term? So why no elections in 1990, 1976, 1963, 1957, 1955, 1940, etc. etc. etc.? It’s a nonsense.

Yes, Brown could have called an election to get a re-affirmed mandate for his government. But the time to do that was the moment he took over from Blair. Calling one three months later – after riding high in the polls all summer following a series of moderately well-handled crises and a succession of Tory cock-ups – would smack of dangerous opportunism. For what’s to stop any government from repeatedly calling snap elections when they’re temporarily doing well once that precedent’s set?

Brown should have said more forcefully on taking over that he was going to serve the full term (but you can understand why he didn’t – after all, Labour were elected on the promise that Blair was soon to be going). That he didn’t is most likely because he didn’t think the Tories were so desperate as to keep up the election calls all summer, because – excluding the last two weeks of Tory bounceback – an election at any point in the last four months would have seen yet another Labour landslide.

And as for the electorate? Less than two-thirds bothered to show for the election two years ago – what makes anyone think they could be bothered now?

It’s too soon after Brown’s takeover to see just how similar or different he is from Blair, and I doubt if anyone could tell you what David Cameron stands for. (Hell, I’m more than averagely politically aware, and I genuinely haven’t got a clue about either of them… In fact, I’m not even sure where my constituency’s boundary lies any more, since the re-jig a year or so back…) We all need at least another year of Brown in charge to see the real him, preferably two. And Cameron, lest we forget, is still so new that Brown had already been Chancellor for four years by the time young Dave entered parliament…

A snap, three week election campaign would merely ensure that the public is even more uncertain about which of these two slightly mysterious, little-known figures would be best to lead the country. And uncertainty in politics breeds both apathy and resentment far more than does a Prime Minister deciding not to bow to pressure from the opposition and launch an expensive and unnecessary mid-term election.

Quick tax question

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If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing - Ralph Waldo Emerson

As regular readers will know, I’m no economist and don’t pretend to be – which is why I sometimes get all confused.

While I think John Redwood is a bit of a fool for raising the whole scrapping inheritance tax idea again when it still appears to be hugely unpopular, can anyone tell me why allowing people to pass their savings on to their family when they die without the state taking yet another chunk of their hard-earned cash is such an horrific idea?
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Local election results – an immediate analysis before even half the results are in (from someone who doesn’t really care anyway and didn’t vote thanks to being in London)

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Slight winners? Labour, I’d say. In real terms, at least. They’ve still got the Scottish Parliament (despite – or perhaps because of – dire warnings about the rise of the SNP). They’ve still got the Welsh Assembly. In both cases, it looks like they haven’t lost anywhere near as many seats as everyone was expecting. That, under their present circumstances, is a major victory.

Losers? The Tories – they look not to have made anywhere near the gains that they should have done, considering just how God-damned AWFUL and unpopular Labour have been for the last few years. Hardly any progress, once again, outside England – meaning that all other parties can paint any Tory attacks on Gordon Brown thanks to the West Lothian Question as mere sour grapes because the Scots and Welsh don’t like Tories. (Not that that will stop them.)

The major losers? The Lib Dems (bar our very own Nick Barlow – long-time blogger and contributor to both The Sharpener and Fistful). Looks so far like both Labour and the Tories have increased their overall share of the vote at the Lib Dems’ expense. The last couple of General Elections were, after all, an aberration. As the Tories begin to be taken more seriously again, little surprise that the third man of British politics is forgotten once again – people like to back the winner.

More major losers? The Electoral Reform Society. In Scotland it’s being claimed that “tens of thousands” of ballot papers have ended up spoiled – in (at least) one constituency with so many spoiled ballots that they outnumbered the votes of the winning candidate. This doesn’t appear to have been a coordinated “None of the Above” effort, but sheer confusion at the experimental and muddled electoral system north of the border. Which will, for years to come, be used by politicians across all parties to show that proper electoral reform is silly, and shake off all calls for a better system of electing Westminster MPs. This is a very bad thing.

The major winners? The electorate. Despite problems in Scotland, by the looks of things they didn’t allow themselves to get carried away with anti-Blair and anti-Iraq war nonsense, nor with ill-considered nationalist rhetoric in Scotland. The voters of the (still) United Kingdom would, it would appear, generally have based their local votes on local issues – just as they should have done. They also aren’t stupid enough to have got so annoyed with Labour that they’ll vote for the Tories in a landslide, as so stupidly and damagingly happened the other way around in 1997. This is A. GOOD. THING. – replacing a Blair with a massive majority with a Cameron with a massive majority is just about the worst thing that could happen to this country (bar Charles Clarke in charge*)

* Note how the Sun was the only paper stupid enough to interpret Clarke’s comments praising Brown as “faint praise” indicating a last-ditch challenge. No one else (who noticed) did. What a bunch of idiots.

Another reason for the lack of British politics here of late

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An unsolicited email from the “Labour Supporters Network” (to which I have found myself signed up, despite not being a Labour supporter), purporting to be from General Secretary Peter Watt, and encouraging the Labour party’s members to follow their Chancellor’s example when it comes to their personal finances:

“The Labour Party receives £15 for every Co-operative Bank credit card account opened. That could pay for 2,000 campaign leaflets in crucial elections, or allow us to make calls to dozens of voters in key areas who will help decide the results of those elections… For every pound you spend on your credit card (regardless of whether you clear the monthly balance or not), the Labour Party will receive a further contribution”

Ah! Fiscal responsibility!

We’ve buggered up our finances by being rather dodgy with those loans (that may still see charges brought) combined with, erm… spending far more than we can afford. So we need you to bail us out by getting yourselves into debt. Just like wot Gordon’s done with the economy – borrow borrow borrow, spend spend spend, dip into the pension fund (because you can always top that up later, right?) and keep your fingers crossed that it all somehow works out in the long run.

One of the many things that pisses me off about British politics at the moment, that – the pathetic desperation and saleman-like approach to the electorate that seems to be the case with all the main parties. It was only a matter of time before they started flogging us credit cards, let’s face it – it’ll be life insurance next, and double-glazing.

By the by, newsflash to Labour supporters who’ve drifted away during the last few years: no matter who succeeds Blair, nothing’s going to change other than we get taken even less seriously on the international stage. (And that message goes just as strongly for Tories who think Cameron can change things…)

Cameron and the EU Constitution

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Looks like Dave’s finally making vague moves to lay out his approach to the EU in somewhat more clear terms than “we don’t like the EU much, but we won’t tell you quite how much” and “We’ll quit the biggest centre-right group in the European Parliament – in the face of opposition from almost all the Tory MEPs due to the inevitable loss of influence that will bring – but we won’t tell you when, exactly”.

But has he actually clarified anything, or just taken a line out of Sarkozy’s book and learned how to say nothing much at all while rattling on for quite a while? Hard to say, sadly…

In any case, this week’s EU week in Toryland.

Today we get Camoron (I’ll leave that in as a Freudian typing slip) telling Blair to “come clean” on the EU, by which he seems to mean “destroy Britain’s diplomatic bargaining position by outright rejecting any sort of constitution in any shape or form”.

This follows his article earlier in the week, co-written with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, “Building an EU that we can all be proud of“, and his speech in Brussels, which purportedly set out the Cameron Tories’ approach to the EU. (That approach being “cautiously, because we don’t really understand it”, from initial glances…)

Elaib at England Expects has fisked Camon’s speech fairly nicely (albeit from a rather different ideological standpoint from mine), but still, let’s not be unfair. Sooner or later the Tories are going to come up with a workable and sensible EU policy – why not now?

On the surface – as so often seems to be the case with Cameron – all seems well, with much of the rhetoric being stuff I can fully support: First from the article:

“Fifty years after the Treaty of Rome, we have a new Europe, facing new challenges and with a new generation of leaders. But we have the same EU, still too attached to the tenets of centralisation and regulation and still too interested in itself, rather than worldwide challenges… A new, positive agenda for Europe means reconnecting it to these urgent priorities. It means moving towards a new flexibility and dynamism.”

Then from the speech:

“People in Europe have an ever-increasing feeling that something is going wrong, that an untransparent, complex, intricate, mammoth institution has evolved… grabbing ever greater competences and areas of power; that the democratic control mechanisms are failing: in brief, that it cannot go on like this”

So, nothing radical there, but acknowledging the need for serious reform. Good stuff. But what sort of reform, exactly? Cameron again relies heavily on his “3G Europe” buzzwords “globalisation, global warming and global poverty”, but it’s unclear precisely what his solutions to any of these are – or indeed whether at least one of them even exists. Is the “green Tory” thing he seems so keen on really so much of a potential vote winner that he’s going to apply it to the EU as well? I can’t see it myself, and here it seems little more than a distraction from the key issues.

Still, back to what he actually says. He says his plan is to “work to create a flexible Europe by building alliances with those who share our interests and our ideas”. Which means precisely nothing.

What is Cameron’s vision of “a flexible Europe”? Sounds good, certainly, but does this mean a “multi-tier” Europe, a “two-speed” Europe, a “core” Europe or something else as yet unproposed? As Nanne at DJ Nozem explained at the weekend, there’s all sorts of different options, and nothing that anyone’s worked out sufficiently for it to be plausible to implement.

Nonetheless, journalist and Tory MEP Daniel Hannan was surprisingly impressed with this passage from Cameron’s speech in particular:

Just as member states have in the past agreed to transfer competences to the EU, so it should be possible to move in the opposite direction. How can we enshrine the principle that powers can be returned to member states — not as a vague aspiration, but as a central element of the legal architecture of the Union? What are the tasks that we can return to national or local governments?

Reading between the lines, this does indeed seem to be suggesting a multi-tier Europe, where the UK (for example) can pull back a bit while more enthusiastic member states can press on. It’s certainly not clear, however – and does, as Hannan points out, go against the founding Treaty of Rome’s specific commitment to “an ever-closer union”.

Hannan, it would seem, is quite happy with his leader’s new approach:

David Cameron is not simply drawing up a wish-list. He is proposing a structural overhaul, so that powers could, in future, pass up and down between Brussels and the national capitals as the states decide…

The core, Carolingian nations would doubtless want to continue with their palaeo-federalism: a European Army, a European police force, a European president, a European constitution. But the trading, maritime peoples on Europe’s periphery might begin to loose their bonds: to remain in a free trade area, but withdraw from the accompanying political structures. They might, indeed, link up with the EFTA countries, which already have such a deal and which, largely in consequence, enjoy the highest GDP per capita in Europe…

David Cameron spoke with the air of a man who had given his words considerable thought. The text itself bore the tell-tale spoor of reworking by several hands. And, most important, the words came accompanied by action: an international commission on the repatriation of power, and a new group in the European Parliament to act as its delivery vehicle.”

It is this international commission – the Movement for European Reform which will decide if this new drive succeeds or fails – because it looks like it is the commission which will come up with the actual policies and proposals (which, as so often with Cameron, don’t yet appear to have been formulated…)

Cameron, to be fair to him, has identified the majority of the EU’s biggest problems. If Hannan’s reading of the new Tory approach is correct, Cameron is also pushing towards a version of the multi-tier Europe that I personally favour as a (very complex and potentially disastrous, admittedly) solution to the current EU deadlock. The fact that he makes noises supporting future Turkish, Ukrainian and former Yugoslavian applications for membership is likewise welcome. Whether his odd initial alliance with the Czechs will last, let alone expand into a genuinely continent-wide reform movement, is unclear. But he seems to be full of good intentions – and shush about that “road to hell” business…

But will the Cameron-backed Movement for European Reform be able to come up with any concrete, workable proposals – or is this yet another, albeit slightly fancier-looking stage in the ongoing Tory approach to the EU – never do today what can be put off until, preferably, you’re no longer in a position to have to make a decision on it. Is Cameron serious with this attempt to build a consensus on radical reform for the EU – which should only be welcomed – or is he simply prevaricating once again? Unfortunately, it seems we’ve also got little choice but – to borrow a phrase from John Major that seems strangely appropriate once again – to wait and see…

Stranger things have happened than the Conservative party shaking off its internal divisions over the EU and coming up with workable alternatives. I can’t think of any off the top of my head, it must be said, but still…

Update: More takes I’d missed:

1) Pro-EU Jon Worth (Critical)
2) Anti-EU Chris (Critical)
3) Comparatively unbiased Transatlantic Assembly (Critical)

You can’t please all of the people all of the time, it’d seem. Cameron appears not to have pleased many people at all… I’ll continue to withhold judgement until I can tell what, if anything, it is he’s intending.

Good news for Sir Patrick

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After the surprising news that his local constituency association executive had decided to deselect him after 37 years as an MP – and one of the most dedicated constituency MPs in the House – it turns out that they were even more stupid than I thought:

The vote which would have ousted veteran Tory MP Sir Patrick Cormack has been declared null and void.

David Billson, chairman of Staffs South Conservatives, said there had been a “clerical error” and a fresh vote would be held in the next two or three weeks.

It follows claims there were more votes cast than people present at a meeting last week to decide the MP’s future.

Sir Patrick Cormack’s deselection

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Declaration of interest: I used to work as Sir Patrick’s researcher at the Commons. Though disagreeing with him on a number of aspects of policy (I’m not a Tory, after all), I both like and respect him as a person, and still meet him for a drink/meal every now and then to catch up. I have not, however, been in touch about this news – the following is all my own speculation, based on my (a few years out of date) knowledge of him and his constituency.

Where is the sense of deselecting an MP of 37 years’ service, who is well liked locally, had the biggest swing of any Tory MP at the last election, and is one of the hardest-working and most dedicated constituency MPs in the Commons?

Sir Patrick has never been a party man – voting on principle, not based on what the whips tell him, and never using election material issued from Conservative Central Office. He was also one of those older MPs derided as “bed blockers” last year, when the Tory “A-list” of preferred, younger types was first mooted. In appearance, voice and style he is pretty much the archetypal Tory country squire – the knighthood merely adding to the impression that he is a relic of a bygone age. He is, in short, everything that Cameron’s Conservatives want to get away from in their re-invention of the party.

But despite all this, this deselection can have nothing to do with Central Office. Not if they have any sense, at least.

After 37 years in the House – working from 7am to 11pm six days a week throughout that time, toiling away on the little things that MPs should focus on, like responding to every letter he receives from a constituent within two days at the latest – if the Tories wanted rid of him, all they needed to do was put him up for a peerage and a well-earned rest on the red benches of the Lords, where his constitutional expertise and knowledge of the regulations of parliament would have come in very handy during the next bout of Lords reform.

Instead, by booting him out, it is pretty much guaranteed that Sir Patrick will run again as an independent on a point of principle, much as did Peter Law at the last General Election. Indeed, he’s already said as much.

At the last general election, Sir Patrick gained over 50% of the vote in his constituency. Labour came second with just under 35%.

If Cormack runs as an independent, the fact that a decent chunk of the constituency’s electorate have not had another MP in their lifetimes – plus the fact that, for the constituency if not for his party in Westminster, he has been doing an excellent job – means that he will pick up a sizable chunk of the vote purely on name recognition value. His lack of official Conservative party branding on his election material over the last four decades also means that few people will notice the difference.

In other words, if he can pick up just 15% of the vote as an independent – which he should do easily – then the Tories will lose South Staffordshire, one of their safest seats.

So this was not Cameron’s doing – he’s not stupid enough to throw away a seat so easily when he could get his own candidate in purely through a handy peerage (which few in either the Commons or the press would object to after Sir Patrick’s long service).

This must instead have been local party discontent, for whatever reason. While Sir Patrick has been busy in Westminster (and Northern Ireland, in his current capacity of Chairman of the Northern Ireland Select Committee) during the week (popping back up the the constituency every weekend for Saturday surgeries, as good MPs should), someone has been playing Brutus. Whether that someone is whoever ends up selected in Sir Patrick’s place or not, that in itself will help to tarnish the official Tory candidate at the next election, and prevent them from winning. Nobody likes a back-stabber.

In other words, this is yet another example that local Conservative constituency associations simply do not understand the realities of politics.

It will in turn be seen by Central Office not as a relief for getting rid of a “bed blocker”, but as a worrying indication that they simply have to get the local parties under control if Cameron is going to succeed with pushing through his reforms.

The irony is, of course, that Sir Patrick is precisely the sort of MP that the old-style Tories that Cameron is trying to get rid of would normally adore… But then again, they are known as the stupid party for a reason…

Update: Iain Dale’s launching the Save Sir Patrick campaign. I’m in.

A continent-wide Euro round-up

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OK, so what have I missed while I’ve been busy?

The Centre For European Reform blog has been discussing the failure of the EU constitution and the need for a new kind of “pro-Europeanism”, in relation to that “Europe’s Story” idea to kick off debate from Timothy Garton Ash (which I strongly encourage everyone to get involved with – could be good, so I’ve made my first contribution).

Also on the future of Europe, the Financial Times’ Brussels Blog has had a couple of pieces on Britain and the EU after Blair (and the follow-up), which nicely update this piece of mine from back in July. FT Blogger George Parker is, however, almost certainly right that “Blair’s critics in Europe may one day look back at his leadership as a halcyon moment in the UK’s engagement with the EU.”

On a similar note, the Open Europe Blog asks whether Peter Mandelson will keep his job at the EU Commission under a Prime Minister Brown…

Also in the world of the EU, there’s been another proposal to revive bits of that damned constitution from French Green MEP Gerard Onesta, but it sounds like even less of a goer than previous efforts. Jon Worth has more – and doesn’t reckon Gordon Brown would ever go for it.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema also has some suggestions for the constitution – largely springing from the desperation of knowing that the EU is currently functioning on rules meant for 15 with a membership of 27 – and has also announced that Italy (under former EU Commission President Prodi, at least) “wants the EU to admit all the Balkan nations and Turkey as members”. Hell, at least that’d mean that Italy’s economy looks better in comparison, right?

Italian Minister of the Interior Giuliano Amato has weighed in to the constitutional debate too, sensibly suggesting “let us not wonder whether we need a constitution. Let us ask ourselves if the questions outlined in Laeken are still valid, if the constitutional treaty provides adequate answers and if new responses are necessary.”

Meanwhile, further east and south, nothing’s changed in Turkmenistan – and although that Economist article was written before the election (“blatantly falsified” according to Pravda), as Registan points out, the outcome was such a foregone conclusion that the post-match analysis could easily have been written weeks ago. The only question is, can the new President ever hope to get as nutty as his predecessor, the god-like Turkmenbashi the Great?

Sticking with the Economist and the former USSR (I’m still in a post-Soviet mindset at the moment, unsurprisingly), Edward Lucas on the opposition to Vladimir Putin, which features an interesting – but important – line about old Alexander Litvinenko: “The Litvinenko murder was a disaster for the Kremlin.” You see, a lot of Litvinenko’s case against the Russian security services for their alleged role in planting the apartment bombs that killed hundreds in Russia in September 1999 and kicked off the second Chechen war is simply that the Chechens had the most to lose from launching terror attacks. Same goes for the Kremlin with killing Litvinenko, by my reckoning. Before his death he was just a random conspiracy theorist. After his death he became a martyr, his death itself seemingly proving that his theories about the murderous nature of the Russian regime were true. (They almost certainly are, by the way, but still – I very much doubt that Putin’s lot ordered his asassination…)

It’s all been kicking off with Russia in the last couple of weeks: Is there going to be a new Cold War? Who can say? Mmassive military expansion never does sound good – but don’t believe the hype…

Back west, the French presidential election is hotting up, with Royal launching her manifesto – but she’s now lagging 4-8% behind, having been neck and neck with Sarkozy towards the end of last year, when I made my prediction she would win… Will the huge surge in voter registration be enough to give her back a chance? Should she even get a chance? Methinks Stanlavisbad may not be the only one starting to think Sarkozy’s the better choice…

Then a bit more on the future (and past) of Europe, as that 50th anniversay of the signing of the Treaty of Rome gets ever closer. Via Kosmopolit comes a .PDF from the European Policy Centre looking at the various challenges facing the EU. Articles include French conservative MEP Alain Lamassoure on “Relaunching Europe after the constitutional setback”, the head of the Paris Political Studies Institute’s European Centre, Professor Renaud Dehousse on “Can the European institutions still be reformed?”, Paul Gillespie of The Irish Times and openDemocracy on “Would today’s leaders still sign the Treaty of Rome?”, and many more. Looks to be an interesting read.

That should do it for now, I think…

Lords Reform White Paper

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Sounds like an absolute mess, from its brief introduction just now. The somewhat surprising thing, however, is that in (Tory Shadow Leader of the House) Theresa May’s response to (Labour Leader of the House) Jack Straw’s introduction, I’m finding myself agreeing with pretty much every single word. Wholeheartedly – especially the bizarre Labour proposal of “preferential votes” to force the thing through the Commons… Something which, by the by, they have consistently refused to allow in general elections…

Update: Tory Sir Patrick Cormack’s take on Labour’s proposals – it’s a “constitutional outrage”. Damn straight.

The current Lords situation is a mess. The new proposals (50% elected, 50% appointed, and a reduction in the number of peers as first preference, with other options available) are no real improvement, especially as they seem designed to strengthen the ability of the Commons (i.e. the government) to get legislation through with far less of a challenge than is even now the case with the powers of the Parliament Act (which allows the government simply to ignore the Lords if they can drag debates out long enough).

To add to this, the proposal for the vote on the issue in the Commons has the definite potential to remove even the Commons’ ability to throw out government proposals. In this case, rejecting the various proposals put forward by the government is seemingly not an option for the Commons. By introducing a system of preferential voting, one of the proposals WILL be implemented, no matter how bad. Straw himself effectively referred to the outcome of such a vote being the selection of the “lest bad” option. We don’t need the least bad. We need the best.

Quite what the Tories’ own proposals are, I have no idea. But they are entirely right in opposing this mess.

Not only would these proposals not resolve the chaotic Lords situation, but instead they would further weaken not just the Lords, not just the effectiveness of Parliament in preventing bad legislation from being passed, but also – through the precedent set by this bizarre proposed voting system – they have the potential to undermine the power of the Commons to hold the executive in check. Parliament, in such a situation, would end up the weakest it has been since the early 17th century.

Prescott: idiot

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Has John Prescott got a clue? Criticising the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition for, erm, doing his job and criticising the government? When his criticisms are effectively more like “I’d probably do it ever so slightly differently” than “you’re a bunch of incompetent idiots”? Did he actually listen to what David Cameron said – or is he just trying to remind us all that it’s him, not John Reid, who’s supposedly running the country in Blair’s absence?Either way, until the current “biggest crisis since Hitler(TM)” reaches such an extent that Labour offer to form a power-sharing coalition or National Government with the Tories and Lib Dems, as happened during the First and Second World Wars and Great Depression, they can shut the hell up when they come in for criticism, ta very much. Until the crisis reaches the extent that they’re prepared to give up a bit of party political control for the national good, they haven’t got any grounds to complain whatsoever.

Blair, Brown, Cameron and the future of British international relations

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One of the perennial problems for an aspiring UK Prime Minister is the need to juggle domestic popularity with workable international relationships – especially with our EU partners. Because if you’re seen to suck up too much to the French and Germans, the rantings of the eurosceptic press combined with a public all too willing to believe that the EU is the root of all evil will swiftly ensure a massive drop in domestic popularity. (Sucking up to the US, meanwhile, seems fine.)

Over the last few years Gordon Brown has done a fairly decent job of giving the impression that he thinks the EU is a bit of a disaster. Be it his famous “Five Economic Tests” over joining the Euro (so famous that no one can ever remember what they are), which promise to keep the UK out of the Eurozone for the forseeable future, or occasional rants about how other EU countries should follow his wonderful example when dealing with all things fiscal, his slagging off of the EU and other EU countries seems to have been calculated to create a domestic image of a sensible, rationally sceptical figure, unwilling to leap headlong into the tepid waters of further EU integration without having tested them first.

In contrast to Blair’s disastrous management of his relationship with the EU – where domestically the Prime Minister looks like a rabid Europhile, willing to give away the rebate and God knows what else, yet our EU partners see him as one of the biggest obstacles to any settlement – Brown has relitively successfully cultivated an image of euroreticence in an attempt to avoid being attacked for europhilia. This has, of course, ensured that our continental partners are not particular fans of the Chancellor – they admire his abilities, but find him personally a difficult man to work with.

With Bush not able to remain in the Oval Office for more than another couple of years, Britain’s relationship with the US could well dramatically change by the next General Election. No one has any way of being able to suck up to the future President before November 2008, and will not be able to risk alienating any of the candidates just in case. As such, the one constant in our international relations over the next few years will be the EU – so any future Prime Minister would be a fool not to try and forge their own personal alliances.

David Cameron’s plans are still being formulated, but show some promise – Gordon, as of yet, appears to have no foreign policy objectives at all. This may sound like a blessed relief after the best part of a decade with Prime Minister who seems to care more about what people overseas think than those of us who are his electorate, launching wars and jetting off all over the world on expensive jollies like there’s no tomorrow, but it’s hardly feasible for Prime Minister to ignore international relations to the extent Brown seems to have done. Yes, he’s fairly well up on British trading relations and the economy – but without the personal relationships with other heads of state he’ll never be able to get anything done.

Say what you like about Blair – through a combination of arrogant self-belief and sucking up to the US he’s managed to build himself an international reputation that puts him on the level only of Thatcher and Churchill in terms of Prime Ministerial profiles. Whether it’s Brown, Cameron or some wild card who follows him in to Number 10 as PM, they’re going to have a tough time maintaining the insanely prominent position Blair has occupied on the world stage during his time in office.

So is it a sign of imminent movement on the Labour leadership front that Gordon has dispatched his most loyal minion to Brussels to start buttering up the bureaucrats? While Gordon’s been starting to stick his oar in to issues of terrorism and civil liberties on the domestic front, this is the first real sign of him making a move on the international scene. Has the countdown begun on Brown’s long-awaited move?