Get Cable....
Phewee! Anyone smell that?
That’s the stench of a reeking plot by the Conservative-right to oust their most troublesome coalition comrade. Anyone who doesn’t see through the fog of war over bankers-bonuses and eye this plot for what it is should have their political-senses tested.
I’m talking of course about the Cable ‘gaffage’ which dominates this morning’s headlines, in particular in the Telegraph, which broke the story following its undercover reporters’ work;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/liberaldemocrats/8215462/Vince-Cable-I-could-bring-down-the-Government.html
The first thing that should spark interest in the motivations of this story is the source. The Telegraph is a fiercely Conservative paper, make no bones about that. So it comes as no surprise that they went for a Lib Dem with their undercover work (but they could have gone for a Labour shadow minister too if so inclined). But why Cable? Why not Clegg? Or Alexander? Or any of the other uncomfortable bedfellows to the left of the coalition?
There’s a few reasons of course. Not everyone sits in the coalition so uncomfortably with their Conservative colleagues. Clegg and others get along fine. Cable is different, he struggles with the arrangement more than most, as has been a matter of public debate on a few occasions already.
The Telegraph and some of its more prominent bloggers – Benedict Brogan foremost amongst them – don’t like to see their pals on the right of the party being pushed around by these lefty upstarts. They’re eager to lend a helping hand when possible. They’re also eager to see David Laws, someone very much on the right of the Lib Dems, back in the coalition, to bring a right-leaning skew to the fore. Of course, there’s no room right now for anyone else, so someone would have to go to make way for David. Vince is their preferred candidate.
Cable has been making things tricky for the right-wing of the coalition lately. Especially on the subject of bankers bonuses.
Of course, Cable, being more outspoken than most, having that air of sainthood about him, and leaning to the left, is more in tune with the public on the topic of bonuses than most ministers. He also has some power through his cabinet portfolio.
Tricky then, that the Chancellor has a lot of friends in the banking industry alongside him in the Conservatives, and a strong desire to restrain bank bashing and bonus slashing. Indeed, it’s something they’ve been ‘discussing’ very hard recently;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cable-and-osborne-clash-over-bank-bonus-reform-2141291.html
Right now is a crucial time for the bankers and their Xmas treats – it’s bonus season, and we’re all going to hear very soon quite how greedy they’ve managed to be in the face of another extremely difficult year for the economy, when lending is still at historic lows. This will even be the case for virtually nationalised banks, which will still be doling out some £high-number-followed-by-lots-of-zeros to their staff.
So, the negotiations between Osborne and Cable on what to do must be fairly intense.
What better way to reduce Cable’s stock somewhat than to have him stung. Reduce the value of the cards he has to play with, and so make the deal a little sweeter to the Tory right.
At this point we should go back to the first question of why the Telegraph targetted Cable? Even if the Tory right wanted to get him, and the Telegraph did too, they wouldn’t know how to effectively do that and the sting operation used would be a waste of time unless they had a pretty damned good idea that Cable had been mouthing off to the press/people in his constituency. Think about it; they could have sent 100 undercover reporters to 100 MPs and come away with nothing juicy. No, before they embarked on this exercise they knew Cable was being loose-lipped.
It’s not a huge leap of the imagination to think that one of Cable’s Conservative colleagues might have spotted he was being a bit more ‘open’ about the coalition than they liked to the press in the corridors of power, and suggested to Benedict Brogan or one of his other colleagues the time was right to get Cable via a surgery-sting.
Voila. Cable’s stock reduced, so bonus-bashing negotiations curtailed, put onto cusp of resigning, and into a position where if he does resign it’s through his own fault – because of this gaffe – rather than him declaring that he had to conscientiously go as a result of bad policymaking by the Conservatives – pushing him to do less to stop the bankers bonusizing themselves silly. Door swiftly opens to David Laws – a much more cosy bedfellow for Osborne and the Tory-right.
Simples. Oh, and Benedict hasn’t mucked about stirring up resignation talk either; http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100069155/no-one-in-the-coalition-will-trust-vince-cable-now/
My guess, for what it's worth, is that this sting was arranged by Osborne, or a close MP associate of his.
EDIT - 12.22pm.
Just one last worrying thought.
Perhaps a bigger issue to the Conservative hierarchy at the moment is Cable's hand in the News Corp proposal to buy out Sky. It is quite possible that that is the subject of the most intense negotiations at the moment - and something I have in the past proposed Cable could resign over if pushed too hard.
Cable is not stupid, and anyone who understands this issue will know that it will permanently change UK politics if Murdoch is allowed to buy out the remaining shares of Sky. Change insofar as it will move everything to the right, as a huge proportion of the population would end up getting news through NewsCorp.
This sting may have been motivated with both reducing Cable's stock in terms of bonus negotiations, and reducing the value of his resignation over something like the NewsCorp proposal.
If Cable waves this through now... especially as the news today is that the EU has done so (leaving everything down to Cable), then it will be a dark day for British politics and all those to the left. The sting may play a part in this decision.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, August 02, 2010
Will the Government put the BBC’s website behind a paywall?
That’s the question I’ve found myself asking (myself) lately.
In the past month the Government has predictably been ratcheting up the pressure on the BBC. The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt MP, has made a number of public statements which indicate a flavour of things to come.
One of the most interesting was quoted in a Guardian article on the topic; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/25/bbc-website-jeremy-hunt
In this article Hunt is quoted as saying of the licence fee; "The way we collect it may have to be rethought, because technology is changing, a lot of people are watching TV on their PCs. "We're not going to introduce a PC licence fee and that is something that I do need to have discussions with the BBC to see what their ideas are."
All very innocuous on the face of it. But there’s plenty of room for manoeuvre here for Hunt and there’s a few possibilities of where this will lead.
One has to read between the lines to see at what point Hunt and the Conservatives are going to look to pay back the debts they owe to Murdoch for his media’s favourable coverage in the run up to the elections.
Let’s think for a moment of the possible ways the BBC could start charging for its website content…….. done? That’s right, there aren’t many.
One possibility is to monetarise the website, as hapless bloggers like myself so often try to, by putting adverts up. That’s never going to happen though, because this is, after all, the BBC.
They could fund it using some form of e-licence, but Hunt has ruled that out. The final option? They make it a subscription service. What’s another word for subscription doing the rounds on the internet these days; voila, a paywall.
And who else has recently introduced a paywall to a leading British news website? Rupert Murdoch of course, with the Times. And what has Rupert Murdoch been hoping for ever since he first started looking at the idea of sticking news websites behind paywalls? He’s been hoping for other media organisations to follow suit.
Here’s a nice video of an interview with Murdoch on the issue of paywalls; http://fora.tv/2010/02/05/Rupert_Murdoch_The_Future_of_Newspapers#fullprogram
Right at the start of the section dealing with paywalls the interviewer quotes Murdoch; “Rupert Murdoch in his December testimony to the Federal Trade Commission; ‘We need to do a better job of persuading consumers that high quality, reliable news content does not come free’”
Ask yourself this; as one of the most recognisable organisations in the world, with a reputation for providing high quality, reliable news, doesn’t the existence of the free BBC news website stand smack bang in the way of Murdoch, or anyone for that matter, developing a paywall system? How can you convince consumers that high quality, reliable news content doesn’t come free when the biggest provider in the world is still not charging?
The timing here is perfect.
News Corp, and its subsidiaries such as the Times, can more than survive for a while irrespective of the number of paid up members. This is a huge organisation, with a lot of reserves and a lot of capital.
It will take the Government a while to win the argument about sticking the BBC behind a paywall, but with comments like those coming from Hunt, it’s on the horizon.
News Corp and the Times could suffer with low-users in the meantime, but once the BBC website goes subscription only, the paywall would have arrived on the global scene.
That would mark a sad day.
The cost of the information is one issue, driving those on lower incomes out of the high-quality news market and increasing their information poverty. Another, more frightening issue, would be that this would mark a slippery slope towards regulation of a far more regimented online world.
News Corp and many governing bodies around the globe see the freedom of the online world, both in a monetary and liberal sense, as a barrier to their desires; for the business, a desire to monopolise an unruly market, for governments sceptical of what might foment in an entirely free ‘anarchical’ online world, as a threat to law and order.
One only hopes there are enough sane heads in the green seats of Parliament to ensure that the BBC news website stays free. It is a force for good in this world above money, and the more Murdoch, his sons and his pals criticise it, the more it should be lauded.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Some journalism in one of the more forward-looking papers has become lazy of late. Follow this link;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/01/babies-dont-suffer-working-mothers
As an advocate of the emotional needs of children, it astonishes me that progressive organisations like the Observer/Guardian are perpetrating the myth that children can have a healthy upbringing without the stability of consistent care.
Whether that care takes the form of the mother or father, grandparents or a paid-carer, is a key issue within this debate, but the article printed in the Observer (and which made it's front page today) doesn't seek to look into these important aspects; it focuses solely on mother-child relations, and encourages the misguided notion that children can now do without the consistent care they need. In an astonishing paragraph summarising the study it read "It found that, while there are downsides to mothers taking work during their child's first year, there were also significant advantages – an increase in mothers' income and wellbeing, and a greater likelihood that children receive high-quality childcare. Taking everything into account, the researchers said, the net effect was neutral."
It doesn't take much research to see that the authors of the article have a history of writing on feminist topics. Nothing wrong with that, but it puts the piece in perspective. It wouldn't be surprising if many of the Observer/Guardian's writers were young, ambitious left-leaning feminists, and one can imagine the hotbed of excitement in the office at a study that vindicates the desires of those who would rather not be stay-at-home mothers. It was probably that excitement that lead to the article making the front-page.
At this point readers may be jumping to the wrong conclusion that I'm a chauvinist. I'm very far from that and men who truly are chauvinists disgust me.
I won't go any further in taking apart the article itself, if you read some of the comments it has incited you will get the idea. The article didn't get a good reaction from the online readers.
But the item in today's Observer opens up a wider debate which seems sadly overlooked, especially in considering how relevant it is to these issues.
The debate around childcare is always framed in terms of whether it is better for the mother to stay at home or to work during the early, formative, years of the child. It rarely steps into the realm of the father's role. It also occasionally tends to deteriorate into arguments about whether it is sexist or not to argue that mothers should spend more time with their children, instead of working.
All these arguments fail to breach an accepted paradigm; that feminism and the results of its rise were an intrinsic good.
When I broach the topic of whether feminism is an intrinsic good I tread on hallowed ground and must do so daintily.
Indeed, I feel I recognise the importance of feminism more than many. Feminism and its impact on society have been sadly understated by so many across the globe and this understatement continues to this day.
Feminism's rise, and the resulting sexual revolution, was of course a redefining moment in Western civilization, a huge event with little to compare in history. Feminism’s rise was also of course something which occurred in a relatively small moment of time, tiny, even, when looking back over history.
Coinciding as it did with the zenith of excessive capitalism, it became entangled in the economic philosophy of that doctrine. And so, whilst feminism could have happened some thousands of years ago at the dawn of democracy in Athens, and lead to female emancipation at the time, with perhaps little other changes, instead it came about at a time when money was never more central to human affairs. Thus, it became about money.
Feminists will argue - quite rightly - that in order to be on an equal footing with men they must be able to earn equally. Money empowers, and in a society which revolves around money, it empowers a great deal.
But I find it fundamentally saddening that this is how feminism has developed.
Ultimately, money was the creation of patriarchal societies of old. It was also a creation of humankind's, not an intrinsic thing tied to our humanity since the first homo-sapiens existed. Childrearing, on the other hand is something very much tied to us, as with all great apes. To me, this importance is lost in the feminist/patriarchy debate. In a sense, so too have the children who this concerns become lost…. those children who are no longer afforded the opportunity of consistent parental care in their formative years, which was so normal in the past.
It is therefore bizarre, if not frightening, to think that a creation of man's – money, or currency if you will – has as demonstrated by feminism (as the arguments of today's feminists and those of the past attest), taken greater priority in both the mind of the individual and wider society than childrearing.
Perhaps it is utopian folly to consider, but would the sexual revolution not have been more genuinely revolutionary if the role of the child-rearer (at the time predominantly women), was recognised as the most important role an individual can carry out in their lifetime?
There are evolutionary aspects to consider too. These will become clearer over time, as the neuroscientific evidence begins to stack up as to the effects of parental/consistent-carer absence during a child's formative years, but for now there are still points worth looking at.
It is astonishing to think that a human instinct, child-rearing, has been overtaken by the desire to attain wealth, and the trappings that money allows.
The sexual revolution was too big an event in human history for it not to be an aspect of evolution. But is it a change humankind has made which will increase or decrease our survivability as a species?
Anyone who understands evolutionary theory will understand that it is all about adaptations; adaptations that increase the chances of survival, e.g. the increase in the size of our brains was an evolutionary adaptation that lead to us living longer because we could think faster and better.
Does sexual equality, where both parents are out carrying out the hunter-gatherer function, mean that people are more likely to live? and live longer? In a way it must, because it offers more chances to obtain the money necessary to eat/drink/buy shelter. But emerging neuroscientific evidence shows that brain development in children who are given proper care in their formative years, mostly by their parents and because one of them has stayed at home, tend to show better development patterns around the brain than children who are left at nurseries from a young age. Better cognitive ability, and better emotional stability.
In short, poor care of children in their formative years can lead to more aggressive children - not really surprising if you think about it (no matter how controversial that may seem).
Does a more aggressive child, with poorer cognitive and emotional ability carry better chances of survival and procreation than others? I would contend not.
Of course, it's impossible for me, or for that matter anyone else, to contend whether feminism as an evolutionary adaptation/mutation is going to lead to higher survivability in children or not. Perhaps it is the other side of the coin; as any evolutionary biologist will also tell you, mutations and adaptations can lead to a dead-end of reduced survivability, and the extinction of species.
Whilst I would never be so stupid to argue that feminism will lead to our extinction, it is interesting to think whether in terms of evolution it is a beneficial or negative change for society in the way it has played out, so closely tied to capitalism as it is.
Nothing though can detract from the fact that the parenting instinct has been overrun by an instinct for cash.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/01/babies-dont-suffer-working-mothers
As an advocate of the emotional needs of children, it astonishes me that progressive organisations like the Observer/Guardian are perpetrating the myth that children can have a healthy upbringing without the stability of consistent care.
Whether that care takes the form of the mother or father, grandparents or a paid-carer, is a key issue within this debate, but the article printed in the Observer (and which made it's front page today) doesn't seek to look into these important aspects; it focuses solely on mother-child relations, and encourages the misguided notion that children can now do without the consistent care they need. In an astonishing paragraph summarising the study it read "It found that, while there are downsides to mothers taking work during their child's first year, there were also significant advantages – an increase in mothers' income and wellbeing, and a greater likelihood that children receive high-quality childcare. Taking everything into account, the researchers said, the net effect was neutral."
It doesn't take much research to see that the authors of the article have a history of writing on feminist topics. Nothing wrong with that, but it puts the piece in perspective. It wouldn't be surprising if many of the Observer/Guardian's writers were young, ambitious left-leaning feminists, and one can imagine the hotbed of excitement in the office at a study that vindicates the desires of those who would rather not be stay-at-home mothers. It was probably that excitement that lead to the article making the front-page.
At this point readers may be jumping to the wrong conclusion that I'm a chauvinist. I'm very far from that and men who truly are chauvinists disgust me.
I won't go any further in taking apart the article itself, if you read some of the comments it has incited you will get the idea. The article didn't get a good reaction from the online readers.
But the item in today's Observer opens up a wider debate which seems sadly overlooked, especially in considering how relevant it is to these issues.
The debate around childcare is always framed in terms of whether it is better for the mother to stay at home or to work during the early, formative, years of the child. It rarely steps into the realm of the father's role. It also occasionally tends to deteriorate into arguments about whether it is sexist or not to argue that mothers should spend more time with their children, instead of working.
All these arguments fail to breach an accepted paradigm; that feminism and the results of its rise were an intrinsic good.
When I broach the topic of whether feminism is an intrinsic good I tread on hallowed ground and must do so daintily.
Indeed, I feel I recognise the importance of feminism more than many. Feminism and its impact on society have been sadly understated by so many across the globe and this understatement continues to this day.
Feminism's rise, and the resulting sexual revolution, was of course a redefining moment in Western civilization, a huge event with little to compare in history. Feminism’s rise was also of course something which occurred in a relatively small moment of time, tiny, even, when looking back over history.
Coinciding as it did with the zenith of excessive capitalism, it became entangled in the economic philosophy of that doctrine. And so, whilst feminism could have happened some thousands of years ago at the dawn of democracy in Athens, and lead to female emancipation at the time, with perhaps little other changes, instead it came about at a time when money was never more central to human affairs. Thus, it became about money.
Feminists will argue - quite rightly - that in order to be on an equal footing with men they must be able to earn equally. Money empowers, and in a society which revolves around money, it empowers a great deal.
But I find it fundamentally saddening that this is how feminism has developed.
Ultimately, money was the creation of patriarchal societies of old. It was also a creation of humankind's, not an intrinsic thing tied to our humanity since the first homo-sapiens existed. Childrearing, on the other hand is something very much tied to us, as with all great apes. To me, this importance is lost in the feminist/patriarchy debate. In a sense, so too have the children who this concerns become lost…. those children who are no longer afforded the opportunity of consistent parental care in their formative years, which was so normal in the past.
It is therefore bizarre, if not frightening, to think that a creation of man's – money, or currency if you will – has as demonstrated by feminism (as the arguments of today's feminists and those of the past attest), taken greater priority in both the mind of the individual and wider society than childrearing.
Perhaps it is utopian folly to consider, but would the sexual revolution not have been more genuinely revolutionary if the role of the child-rearer (at the time predominantly women), was recognised as the most important role an individual can carry out in their lifetime?
There are evolutionary aspects to consider too. These will become clearer over time, as the neuroscientific evidence begins to stack up as to the effects of parental/consistent-carer absence during a child's formative years, but for now there are still points worth looking at.
It is astonishing to think that a human instinct, child-rearing, has been overtaken by the desire to attain wealth, and the trappings that money allows.
The sexual revolution was too big an event in human history for it not to be an aspect of evolution. But is it a change humankind has made which will increase or decrease our survivability as a species?
Anyone who understands evolutionary theory will understand that it is all about adaptations; adaptations that increase the chances of survival, e.g. the increase in the size of our brains was an evolutionary adaptation that lead to us living longer because we could think faster and better.
Does sexual equality, where both parents are out carrying out the hunter-gatherer function, mean that people are more likely to live? and live longer? In a way it must, because it offers more chances to obtain the money necessary to eat/drink/buy shelter. But emerging neuroscientific evidence shows that brain development in children who are given proper care in their formative years, mostly by their parents and because one of them has stayed at home, tend to show better development patterns around the brain than children who are left at nurseries from a young age. Better cognitive ability, and better emotional stability.
In short, poor care of children in their formative years can lead to more aggressive children - not really surprising if you think about it (no matter how controversial that may seem).
Does a more aggressive child, with poorer cognitive and emotional ability carry better chances of survival and procreation than others? I would contend not.
Of course, it's impossible for me, or for that matter anyone else, to contend whether feminism as an evolutionary adaptation/mutation is going to lead to higher survivability in children or not. Perhaps it is the other side of the coin; as any evolutionary biologist will also tell you, mutations and adaptations can lead to a dead-end of reduced survivability, and the extinction of species.
Whilst I would never be so stupid to argue that feminism will lead to our extinction, it is interesting to think whether in terms of evolution it is a beneficial or negative change for society in the way it has played out, so closely tied to capitalism as it is.
Nothing though can detract from the fact that the parenting instinct has been overrun by an instinct for cash.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Why Mehdi Hasan is wrong.
I read an interesting article by Mehdi Hasan today, who seems to have become the blinkered anti-Government Labour attack-dog of the moment. You can read it here; http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/05/government-clegg-labour
In the article Hasan felt it necessary to shoot down any possibility of significant political reform being undertaken over the course of this Parliament, or at least the possibility of that reform being on the same scale as that achieved under Labour's previous years in office. This is a very eager bit of forecasting by Hasan, given that this administration has only been in place for around a week. But that's not the point, and he's obviously not the only observer (or indeed politician - Clegg's comparison with the 1832 Reform Act and all subsequent political reforms is also a bit cheeky) to fire out spurious comparisons today. However, Hasan makes a much more galling error (or is he being deliberately misleading?) by arguing that the reforms outlined by Clegg are not going to be noteworthy in comparison with the Labour's constitutional reforms.
Silly Hasan;
Mistake no. 1)
In the first few paragraphs of the article, Hasan summarises the main planks of Clegg's reform plans by lazily nabbing a few bits from the BBC website. Naughty Hasan. He obviously read the rest of Clegg's speech so can't have failed to see it laced with tasty morsels of reform committments, but decided to focus on a few dribs and drabs also lazily summarised by the BBC. Here's the BBC post's bullet points;
* Elected House of Lords (note - Hasan 'conveniently' decides here to misquote the BBC as saying a "partially elected house of Lords" - NO HASAN! Partial is Labour's favourite method... the Con-Dem coalition is planning a fully elected OR partially elected House of Lords using a proper proportional system - A) we don't know if it will end up being wholly elected but we can hope, B) even if partially elected that's much more than Labour ever did, despite their promises. ps. I think teacher would deduct points for editing a pasted element from another source without highlighting the edit, even if you feel it is in the sake of your version of 'accuracy'.)
* Scrapping the ID card scheme and the national identity register
* Libel to be reviewed to protect freedom of speech
* Limits on the rights to peaceful protest to be removed
* Scrapping the ContactPoint database of 11 million under-18s"
Reading Clegg's speech, there's much more to it than that, which I can summarise as follows, but I recommend you read Clegg's speech in full; http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/05/government-british-clegg
* A referendum on electoral reform
* Elected House of Lords
* Scrapping the ID card scheme and the national identity register
* Libel to be reviewed to protect freedom of speech
* Limits on the rights to peaceful protest to be removed
* Scrapping the ContactPoint database of 11 million under-18s
* Increased regulation of CCTV
* Prevention of unecessary DNA storage
* Enshrining the right to trial by jury
* Preventing the unecessary fingerprinting of children
* A system to consult on the removal of unecessary laws
* A mechanism to prevent the introduction of unecessary laws
* Safeguards to prevent the misuse of anti-terror legislation
* The introduction of fixed term Parliaments
* Moving the power to dissolve Parliament from the Executive to Parliament
* Giving MPs more control over Commons business through the implementaion of the Wright Committee recommendations (yet another of those committees Labour initiated then ignored).
* Giving communities the power of recall of MPs found guilty of serious wrongdoing.
* Regulation of lobbying through the introduction of a statutory register of lobbyists.
* Reforming party funding and limiting donations
* Reducing the number of MPs
* Equalizing constituency boundaries (not actually in favour of this reform but hey-ho - it's reform isn't it?!)
* Referendum on further devolution in Wales
* Implementation of the Calman recommendations in Scotland for further powers in Holyrood
* Addressing the West Lothian question
Phew.... now that is an ambitious programme of reforms, whether you agree with those reforms wholesale or not.
Do those reforms "pale into insignificance compared with what was achieved, constitutionally, in the early years of New Labour in power." Well, even if we just stick to the ones which deal with constitutional reforms (i.e. political reforms) I don't think they do.
2. So, having corrected Hasan's mistake no. 1, we can take a look at his mistake no. 2 in earnest.
Hasan reckons the reforms proposed by Clegg don't match up with the Clegg proposals, but is that really true?
Hasan speaks about the following reforms by Labour during the early years.
* Devolution to Scotland and Wales and the introduction of proportionally elected assemblies.
* The Human Rights Act
* The Freedom of Information Act
* Removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords
So, first devolution to Scotland and Wales? hmmm... pretty big, and important stuff. But Hasan is taking an interesting line on what he feels is more important to the politics of this nation.
The population of the UK is around 60 million give or take. Five sixths of that is in England.
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland account for just under 10 million people.
Scottish and Welsh devolution meant a lot to those 10 million people, and no doubt some of the other 50 million of us not living in Scotland and Wales were a vaguely interested too. But it didn't affect us much, did it? Furthermore, one must remember that the unification of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the opposite thereof, is a constitutionally significant thing, but that's not what happened here - certain very proscribed powers were devolved, and a lot weren't. Those powers still rest at Westminster, or indeed in Europe.
Taking just a couple of the Con-Dem proposals, in the form of a proportionally elected upper house in Parliament, and the introduction (if successful in the referendum) of the Alternative Vote, these would actually over time lead to very significant changes in the way this country - all of it, including Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland - is governed.
Mistake no. 3.
The other things Hasan summarises from the early Labour years in power following 1997, in my view don't compare to the programme of reform Clegg has outlined. For each and every one of Labour's achievements, Clegg's proposals can trump them;
A) Devolution to Scotland and Wales - not as significant as AV which has more impact on more people. Moreover, the coalition plans to devolve yet more powers to Holyrood and the Welsh Assembly.
B) Directly elected mayors. Hardly groundbreaking stuff, is it? (I suggest Hasan pays a visit to Doncaster Town Hall for a lesson in the positive impacts of this policy). The coalition doesn't really have a like-for-like comparable here in terms of local gov reform, although they do have an extensive programme of reform planned for local government. I'd suggest the planned primaries for the safest Parliamentary seats will have a bigger impact on local democracy. How's about fixed term Parliaments and the power of recall for good measure? bigger constitutionally? you'd have to be churlish to argue otherwise.
C) The Human Rights Act? - incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights you mean? well, that wasn't really Blair's big idea was it? he just incorporated something into British law. Whilst introducing the Human Rights Act in one breath the Labour administration introduced internment, removed the right to trial by jury, and has in short done more than any other British government in living memory to impede civil liberties. I don't think Labour's record on are something to laud, Hasan is mad to suggest otherwise.
Henry Porter and many others have spoken with relief at the massive programme of reform on this subject planned by the coalition; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2010/may/10/conservative-liberal-democrat-coalition-civil-liberties. Again, trumps what Labour did with the Human Rights Act, moreover remedies the huge injustices done to our rights under that Party's administration.
D) The Freedom of Information Act. People shouldn't downplay the significance of the FoI act, but regulating lobbyists and reforming party funding, along with addressing the West Lothian question and reducing the number of MPs are together a bigger change to our democratic system.
E) Removal of the rights of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords. A big change indeed, but what long-lasting change to our democracy did it make by having a primarily appointed upper House as opposed to a primarily hereditary House of Lords? I didn't feel the empowerment personally. The plans for an elected upper chamber using PR are far more significant than this.
So, I say NO HASAN! go back to school! Criticise the proposed reforms by all means, but do not underestimate the programme of reform outlined, for it is huge, as he you well know. Comments about the Conservatives opposition to Labour's past measures is completely irrelevant. The article was about comparing the achievements of Labour with the proposals. Sticking to that, the proposals go much further than what Labour achieved. Let's hope they can put most of the good ones into action. And try to resist churlishness, which appears to be the symptom of some of the New Statesman's commentators.
Hasan's pop at Clegg et al for the 55% rule is disgraceful. He accuses Clegg of being disingenuous. Will Hasan deny that this is a NEW power being given to Parliament? not a change to an existing one? Beware articles attacking the 55% rule, they are being written by people with an agenda who hope the readers are less familiar with Parliamentary practice than they arer.
Oh, and one final thing. In view of Hasan's closing comments about costs, even if the coalition adds many hundreds of Lords to the upper chamber, each Lord costs around £100,000 a year to fund, whereas an MP costs around £600,000. So if you reduce the number of MPs, you'd have to then introduce six times as many people to the Lords to negate the cost-saving.
Clegg, disingenuous? Hasan ought to look at that kettle and check the colour.
I read an interesting article by Mehdi Hasan today, who seems to have become the blinkered anti-Government Labour attack-dog of the moment. You can read it here; http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/05/government-clegg-labour
In the article Hasan felt it necessary to shoot down any possibility of significant political reform being undertaken over the course of this Parliament, or at least the possibility of that reform being on the same scale as that achieved under Labour's previous years in office. This is a very eager bit of forecasting by Hasan, given that this administration has only been in place for around a week. But that's not the point, and he's obviously not the only observer (or indeed politician - Clegg's comparison with the 1832 Reform Act and all subsequent political reforms is also a bit cheeky) to fire out spurious comparisons today. However, Hasan makes a much more galling error (or is he being deliberately misleading?) by arguing that the reforms outlined by Clegg are not going to be noteworthy in comparison with the Labour's constitutional reforms.
Silly Hasan;
Mistake no. 1)
In the first few paragraphs of the article, Hasan summarises the main planks of Clegg's reform plans by lazily nabbing a few bits from the BBC website. Naughty Hasan. He obviously read the rest of Clegg's speech so can't have failed to see it laced with tasty morsels of reform committments, but decided to focus on a few dribs and drabs also lazily summarised by the BBC. Here's the BBC post's bullet points;
* Elected House of Lords (note - Hasan 'conveniently' decides here to misquote the BBC as saying a "partially elected house of Lords" - NO HASAN! Partial is Labour's favourite method... the Con-Dem coalition is planning a fully elected OR partially elected House of Lords using a proper proportional system - A) we don't know if it will end up being wholly elected but we can hope, B) even if partially elected that's much more than Labour ever did, despite their promises. ps. I think teacher would deduct points for editing a pasted element from another source without highlighting the edit, even if you feel it is in the sake of your version of 'accuracy'.)
* Scrapping the ID card scheme and the national identity register
* Libel to be reviewed to protect freedom of speech
* Limits on the rights to peaceful protest to be removed
* Scrapping the ContactPoint database of 11 million under-18s"
Reading Clegg's speech, there's much more to it than that, which I can summarise as follows, but I recommend you read Clegg's speech in full; http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/05/government-british-clegg
* A referendum on electoral reform
* Elected House of Lords
* Scrapping the ID card scheme and the national identity register
* Libel to be reviewed to protect freedom of speech
* Limits on the rights to peaceful protest to be removed
* Scrapping the ContactPoint database of 11 million under-18s
* Increased regulation of CCTV
* Prevention of unecessary DNA storage
* Enshrining the right to trial by jury
* Preventing the unecessary fingerprinting of children
* A system to consult on the removal of unecessary laws
* A mechanism to prevent the introduction of unecessary laws
* Safeguards to prevent the misuse of anti-terror legislation
* The introduction of fixed term Parliaments
* Moving the power to dissolve Parliament from the Executive to Parliament
* Giving MPs more control over Commons business through the implementaion of the Wright Committee recommendations (yet another of those committees Labour initiated then ignored).
* Giving communities the power of recall of MPs found guilty of serious wrongdoing.
* Regulation of lobbying through the introduction of a statutory register of lobbyists.
* Reforming party funding and limiting donations
* Reducing the number of MPs
* Equalizing constituency boundaries (not actually in favour of this reform but hey-ho - it's reform isn't it?!)
* Referendum on further devolution in Wales
* Implementation of the Calman recommendations in Scotland for further powers in Holyrood
* Addressing the West Lothian question
Phew.... now that is an ambitious programme of reforms, whether you agree with those reforms wholesale or not.
Do those reforms "pale into insignificance compared with what was achieved, constitutionally, in the early years of New Labour in power." Well, even if we just stick to the ones which deal with constitutional reforms (i.e. political reforms) I don't think they do.
2. So, having corrected Hasan's mistake no. 1, we can take a look at his mistake no. 2 in earnest.
Hasan reckons the reforms proposed by Clegg don't match up with the Clegg proposals, but is that really true?
Hasan speaks about the following reforms by Labour during the early years.
* Devolution to Scotland and Wales and the introduction of proportionally elected assemblies.
* The Human Rights Act
* The Freedom of Information Act
* Removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords
So, first devolution to Scotland and Wales? hmmm... pretty big, and important stuff. But Hasan is taking an interesting line on what he feels is more important to the politics of this nation.
The population of the UK is around 60 million give or take. Five sixths of that is in England.
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland account for just under 10 million people.
Scottish and Welsh devolution meant a lot to those 10 million people, and no doubt some of the other 50 million of us not living in Scotland and Wales were a vaguely interested too. But it didn't affect us much, did it? Furthermore, one must remember that the unification of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the opposite thereof, is a constitutionally significant thing, but that's not what happened here - certain very proscribed powers were devolved, and a lot weren't. Those powers still rest at Westminster, or indeed in Europe.
Taking just a couple of the Con-Dem proposals, in the form of a proportionally elected upper house in Parliament, and the introduction (if successful in the referendum) of the Alternative Vote, these would actually over time lead to very significant changes in the way this country - all of it, including Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland - is governed.
Mistake no. 3.
The other things Hasan summarises from the early Labour years in power following 1997, in my view don't compare to the programme of reform Clegg has outlined. For each and every one of Labour's achievements, Clegg's proposals can trump them;
A) Devolution to Scotland and Wales - not as significant as AV which has more impact on more people. Moreover, the coalition plans to devolve yet more powers to Holyrood and the Welsh Assembly.
B) Directly elected mayors. Hardly groundbreaking stuff, is it? (I suggest Hasan pays a visit to Doncaster Town Hall for a lesson in the positive impacts of this policy). The coalition doesn't really have a like-for-like comparable here in terms of local gov reform, although they do have an extensive programme of reform planned for local government. I'd suggest the planned primaries for the safest Parliamentary seats will have a bigger impact on local democracy. How's about fixed term Parliaments and the power of recall for good measure? bigger constitutionally? you'd have to be churlish to argue otherwise.
C) The Human Rights Act? - incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights you mean? well, that wasn't really Blair's big idea was it? he just incorporated something into British law. Whilst introducing the Human Rights Act in one breath the Labour administration introduced internment, removed the right to trial by jury, and has in short done more than any other British government in living memory to impede civil liberties. I don't think Labour's record on are something to laud, Hasan is mad to suggest otherwise.
Henry Porter and many others have spoken with relief at the massive programme of reform on this subject planned by the coalition; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2010/may/10/conservative-liberal-democrat-coalition-civil-liberties. Again, trumps what Labour did with the Human Rights Act, moreover remedies the huge injustices done to our rights under that Party's administration.
D) The Freedom of Information Act. People shouldn't downplay the significance of the FoI act, but regulating lobbyists and reforming party funding, along with addressing the West Lothian question and reducing the number of MPs are together a bigger change to our democratic system.
E) Removal of the rights of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords. A big change indeed, but what long-lasting change to our democracy did it make by having a primarily appointed upper House as opposed to a primarily hereditary House of Lords? I didn't feel the empowerment personally. The plans for an elected upper chamber using PR are far more significant than this.
So, I say NO HASAN! go back to school! Criticise the proposed reforms by all means, but do not underestimate the programme of reform outlined, for it is huge, as he you well know. Comments about the Conservatives opposition to Labour's past measures is completely irrelevant. The article was about comparing the achievements of Labour with the proposals. Sticking to that, the proposals go much further than what Labour achieved. Let's hope they can put most of the good ones into action. And try to resist churlishness, which appears to be the symptom of some of the New Statesman's commentators.
Hasan's pop at Clegg et al for the 55% rule is disgraceful. He accuses Clegg of being disingenuous. Will Hasan deny that this is a NEW power being given to Parliament? not a change to an existing one? Beware articles attacking the 55% rule, they are being written by people with an agenda who hope the readers are less familiar with Parliamentary practice than they arer.
Oh, and one final thing. In view of Hasan's closing comments about costs, even if the coalition adds many hundreds of Lords to the upper chamber, each Lord costs around £100,000 a year to fund, whereas an MP costs around £600,000. So if you reduce the number of MPs, you'd have to then introduce six times as many people to the Lords to negate the cost-saving.
Clegg, disingenuous? Hasan ought to look at that kettle and check the colour.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The coalition between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives should not be viewed with such disdain by those of a progressive frame of mind.
This was an inevitable situation once the results became clear. Had the Lib Dems and Labour scored as few as ten or so seats more than they did, at the Tories' cost, this could all have turned out very differently.
Once the results were out, anyone in the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats eager to see the grand alliance made real will have realised that that was never going to work.
In seeking their aim of a referendum on electoral reform, the Liberal Democrats knew immediately that this would have been unachiavable in a coalition with the Labour Party and assorted other minor parties. Only a small rebellion would have seen the referendum proposal fail to obtain necessary legislative assent. This would have been a sure thing in the fractured and poorly disciplined Labour Party, reeling from loss of seats in the general election, and split by the forming of a coalition, the possibility of electoral reform preventing them future majorities, and the process of appointing a new leader.
No, the progressive grand-alliance was impossible from the off. It wouldn't have even been effective enough to deal with the severe economic cuts on the horizon, let alone the radical political reform the Liberal Democrats rightly wish to pursue.
So they had two choices. Either sit it alone and allow the Tories to form a minority government, or go into a full coalition.
The Liberal Democrats have been fighting for a fair system of voting for many years, and anyone with a modicum of political science understanding will admit that the systems they wish to implement - the Single Transferable Vote, or the "Alternative Vote +" (recommended by the Blair-initiated and then Blair-ignored 1998 Jenkins Commission), both being systems of Proportional Representation (PR) - are the next step towards genuine democracy, in an otherwise very undemocratic nation. People of all political pursuasions will argue over the efficacy of such a system of PR achieving their interpretation of 'good governance', but one cannot argue with the fact that PR is far closer to democracy than the system we have.
Proportional Representation virtually always leads to coalitions. This is the case worldwide, and it is an accepted part of the political system where it exists. The political culture in countries where PR is used is therefore very different from the Anglo-Saxon model of 'adversarial' politics seen in Britain, and both the House of Commons and the House of Lords are built to accomodate this style of politics; these type of institutions are called 'bicameral'. Elsewhere, politics is more 'consensual', involves more dialectic, and the institutions in which this type of politics operates are more suited to this, mainly being circular.
The Lib Dems of course are not so stupid as to fail to understand that PR virtually always leads to coalitions. During the election campaign, and particularly notably in the Leader's Debates, nobody will have failed to notice Clegg's constant reference to 'new politics', a 'new way of doing things', an end to the 'pass the parcel' politics between the 'two old parties'.
At the end of the campaign then, the Liberal Democrats had a huge political imperative to go into coalition with the Conservatives for a number of reasons.
Primarily, the Lib Dems had said all along that a hung parliament was not such a bad thing - 'don't be afraid' they said. They also condemned the constant passing of political power between the Labour Party and the Tories. Furthermore, they wished to give the impression of political credibility by acting not in party interest, but in national interest; which has rarely been more pressing in the light of the financial and social meltdown in Greece, and the clear risk of that spreading to the UK in the form of a double dip recession. The contagion fears in the days immediately prior to the 6th May election would have made this highly prominent in the Lib Dem negotiators' minds.
A coalition with a perilously small majority, between the Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties, would have undeniably caused financial concerns in the City, and would have done little to allay fears of a return to recession in the UK. This could indeed have lead to a run on the pound. One must remember that the economic policies of both parties were cautious and populist in their proposed handling of the economic downturn. Labour are also notoriously slavish to their paymasters within the Unions, who would have made unreasonable demands during a time when public sector pay and job cuts would be unavoidable. So the economic situation could have easily spiralled out of control had the Lib Dems and Labour attempted to forge an unlikely Rainbow Alliance with one another and the remaining hotch-potch of minor party's representatives.
But what then of the coalition with the Tories? Just today the Liberal Democrats' conference voted overwhelmingly to support the coalition, but that will have done little to allay the views of many observers or those within the Lib Dems themselves, who believe the coalition will destroy a significant amount of the Liberal Democrats voting base, i.e. that it will erode their 'core support'; the support that they fell back on at the elections which roughly maintained their representation in Parliament, with 57 seats (down from 63), following the last minute two-party squeeze. Without this to rely upon their future support could prove highly volatile, which would prove all the more galling should it happen under a system of 'Alternative Vote', which the Conservatives have agreed to hold a referendum on introducing.
There are already prominent voices of dissent in both the Liberal and Conservative ranks (see Lord Tebbit and Charles Kennedy), yet some significant causes for hope and gratefulness are being ignored, especially from those on the left.
Without this coalition, there were two possible alternatives, coalition with Labour or a minority Conservative government.
Coalition with Labour would have held risks as I have described, but yet further, should those risks have been realised, any referendum on PR would have failed as people would have viewed both the coalition a failure and undemocratic (a "coalition of the losers"), and this would have dissuaded many people from ever supporting PR. Moreover, it would have driven people into the welcoming arms of the Tories in an election that would have been unavoidably soon in the coming.
As I see it, Blair has engineered a position for Labour that Thatcher never quite managed to engineer for the Tories. Thatcher incrementally dismantled the traditional industries and unions which were the source of so many votes for Labour. Blair more easily shifted the entire Labour Party ethos to occupy a blurred middle ground which could appeal to voters of virtually any pursuasion under the right circumstances. In other words, Blair changed the Party to fit the people. Thatcher tried to change the people to fit the Party. Blair was more successful in this endeavour, and his success has cast the Tories as the sole party occupying an outdated mode of thought which barely fits 30% of the voting electorate. In the last election the Tories managed to get this plus a few more wavering voters more disgusted by Labour than impressed by the Tories. Even then, it was not enough to secure a majority, and one wonders whether it ever will again.
Had the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party formed a coalition, which would invariably have failed as the austerity measures became tougher and less popular, the following election would have delivered a hefty Tory majority. Such a majority, allowing the Tories unfettered ability to carry out executive functions, pass primary and secondary legislation willy-nilly, would have been a veritable disaster for the UK. They would have introduced far more regressive taxation measures and cuts than is currently being planned in the form of a VAT increase. They would have pandered entirely to the whim of Rupert Murdoch in return for favourable coverage by his media empire. They would have redrawn the political boundaries and disallowed the Scots and Welsh from voting to Parliament, all in the name of consolidating their position. In short, we would have suffered an enormous, encroaching lurch to the right, which would have made it very difficult for the Labour Party to ever achieve a majority again.
As it stands, the Liberal Democrats can shackle the Tories and prevent them from enacting their worst ideas. The Liberal Democrats have already managed to get the Tories to commit to a set of leftist policies which would never have come out of the Tory party alone. The abolition of taxes on the first £10k earned is foremost amongst these, but we will also see significant action taken to curb the greediness and power of the banks and the City, which has remained the basket with too many eggs for long enough. In addition, significant political reform will now take place - a referendum on AV will happen, which is far more likely to succeed in a nation where is has been proven that coalitions can and do work. The House of Lords will be primarily elected by Proportional Representation. People will be given the right to recall MPs, political donations will be limited, and lobbyists will be obliged by statute to sign a public register.
Another often overlooked issue for those on the left is that by the Liberal Democrats taking the Conservatives into power for a sustained period, the likelihood is that at the end of this period power will swing back decisively to the Labour Party, and with it, to the Left. This is as opposed to the suggestion I have already made that a coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems would have ultimately resulted in a majority for the Conservatives, which would also have been likely had the Conservatives been allowed to form only a minority government.
It would have rightly been seen as putting party interest above that of the country if the Liberal Democrats had refused at any cost to go into coalition with the Tories, as a minority government would struggle to deal with the economic situation, uncertainty would have made that worse, and an election would have been forced very soon thereafter. However, one should not ignore the fact that having sustained their electoral credibility by campaigning that hung parliaments could work, it would have been ridiculous to then spurn the offer of a coalition, and would have made a mockery of their eagerness to introduce an electoral system which always produces such outcomes.
This was an inevitable situation once the results became clear. Had the Lib Dems and Labour scored as few as ten or so seats more than they did, at the Tories' cost, this could all have turned out very differently.
Once the results were out, anyone in the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats eager to see the grand alliance made real will have realised that that was never going to work.
In seeking their aim of a referendum on electoral reform, the Liberal Democrats knew immediately that this would have been unachiavable in a coalition with the Labour Party and assorted other minor parties. Only a small rebellion would have seen the referendum proposal fail to obtain necessary legislative assent. This would have been a sure thing in the fractured and poorly disciplined Labour Party, reeling from loss of seats in the general election, and split by the forming of a coalition, the possibility of electoral reform preventing them future majorities, and the process of appointing a new leader.
No, the progressive grand-alliance was impossible from the off. It wouldn't have even been effective enough to deal with the severe economic cuts on the horizon, let alone the radical political reform the Liberal Democrats rightly wish to pursue.
So they had two choices. Either sit it alone and allow the Tories to form a minority government, or go into a full coalition.
The Liberal Democrats have been fighting for a fair system of voting for many years, and anyone with a modicum of political science understanding will admit that the systems they wish to implement - the Single Transferable Vote, or the "Alternative Vote +" (recommended by the Blair-initiated and then Blair-ignored 1998 Jenkins Commission), both being systems of Proportional Representation (PR) - are the next step towards genuine democracy, in an otherwise very undemocratic nation. People of all political pursuasions will argue over the efficacy of such a system of PR achieving their interpretation of 'good governance', but one cannot argue with the fact that PR is far closer to democracy than the system we have.
Proportional Representation virtually always leads to coalitions. This is the case worldwide, and it is an accepted part of the political system where it exists. The political culture in countries where PR is used is therefore very different from the Anglo-Saxon model of 'adversarial' politics seen in Britain, and both the House of Commons and the House of Lords are built to accomodate this style of politics; these type of institutions are called 'bicameral'. Elsewhere, politics is more 'consensual', involves more dialectic, and the institutions in which this type of politics operates are more suited to this, mainly being circular.
The Lib Dems of course are not so stupid as to fail to understand that PR virtually always leads to coalitions. During the election campaign, and particularly notably in the Leader's Debates, nobody will have failed to notice Clegg's constant reference to 'new politics', a 'new way of doing things', an end to the 'pass the parcel' politics between the 'two old parties'.
At the end of the campaign then, the Liberal Democrats had a huge political imperative to go into coalition with the Conservatives for a number of reasons.
Primarily, the Lib Dems had said all along that a hung parliament was not such a bad thing - 'don't be afraid' they said. They also condemned the constant passing of political power between the Labour Party and the Tories. Furthermore, they wished to give the impression of political credibility by acting not in party interest, but in national interest; which has rarely been more pressing in the light of the financial and social meltdown in Greece, and the clear risk of that spreading to the UK in the form of a double dip recession. The contagion fears in the days immediately prior to the 6th May election would have made this highly prominent in the Lib Dem negotiators' minds.
A coalition with a perilously small majority, between the Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties, would have undeniably caused financial concerns in the City, and would have done little to allay fears of a return to recession in the UK. This could indeed have lead to a run on the pound. One must remember that the economic policies of both parties were cautious and populist in their proposed handling of the economic downturn. Labour are also notoriously slavish to their paymasters within the Unions, who would have made unreasonable demands during a time when public sector pay and job cuts would be unavoidable. So the economic situation could have easily spiralled out of control had the Lib Dems and Labour attempted to forge an unlikely Rainbow Alliance with one another and the remaining hotch-potch of minor party's representatives.
But what then of the coalition with the Tories? Just today the Liberal Democrats' conference voted overwhelmingly to support the coalition, but that will have done little to allay the views of many observers or those within the Lib Dems themselves, who believe the coalition will destroy a significant amount of the Liberal Democrats voting base, i.e. that it will erode their 'core support'; the support that they fell back on at the elections which roughly maintained their representation in Parliament, with 57 seats (down from 63), following the last minute two-party squeeze. Without this to rely upon their future support could prove highly volatile, which would prove all the more galling should it happen under a system of 'Alternative Vote', which the Conservatives have agreed to hold a referendum on introducing.
There are already prominent voices of dissent in both the Liberal and Conservative ranks (see Lord Tebbit and Charles Kennedy), yet some significant causes for hope and gratefulness are being ignored, especially from those on the left.
Without this coalition, there were two possible alternatives, coalition with Labour or a minority Conservative government.
Coalition with Labour would have held risks as I have described, but yet further, should those risks have been realised, any referendum on PR would have failed as people would have viewed both the coalition a failure and undemocratic (a "coalition of the losers"), and this would have dissuaded many people from ever supporting PR. Moreover, it would have driven people into the welcoming arms of the Tories in an election that would have been unavoidably soon in the coming.
As I see it, Blair has engineered a position for Labour that Thatcher never quite managed to engineer for the Tories. Thatcher incrementally dismantled the traditional industries and unions which were the source of so many votes for Labour. Blair more easily shifted the entire Labour Party ethos to occupy a blurred middle ground which could appeal to voters of virtually any pursuasion under the right circumstances. In other words, Blair changed the Party to fit the people. Thatcher tried to change the people to fit the Party. Blair was more successful in this endeavour, and his success has cast the Tories as the sole party occupying an outdated mode of thought which barely fits 30% of the voting electorate. In the last election the Tories managed to get this plus a few more wavering voters more disgusted by Labour than impressed by the Tories. Even then, it was not enough to secure a majority, and one wonders whether it ever will again.
Had the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party formed a coalition, which would invariably have failed as the austerity measures became tougher and less popular, the following election would have delivered a hefty Tory majority. Such a majority, allowing the Tories unfettered ability to carry out executive functions, pass primary and secondary legislation willy-nilly, would have been a veritable disaster for the UK. They would have introduced far more regressive taxation measures and cuts than is currently being planned in the form of a VAT increase. They would have pandered entirely to the whim of Rupert Murdoch in return for favourable coverage by his media empire. They would have redrawn the political boundaries and disallowed the Scots and Welsh from voting to Parliament, all in the name of consolidating their position. In short, we would have suffered an enormous, encroaching lurch to the right, which would have made it very difficult for the Labour Party to ever achieve a majority again.
As it stands, the Liberal Democrats can shackle the Tories and prevent them from enacting their worst ideas. The Liberal Democrats have already managed to get the Tories to commit to a set of leftist policies which would never have come out of the Tory party alone. The abolition of taxes on the first £10k earned is foremost amongst these, but we will also see significant action taken to curb the greediness and power of the banks and the City, which has remained the basket with too many eggs for long enough. In addition, significant political reform will now take place - a referendum on AV will happen, which is far more likely to succeed in a nation where is has been proven that coalitions can and do work. The House of Lords will be primarily elected by Proportional Representation. People will be given the right to recall MPs, political donations will be limited, and lobbyists will be obliged by statute to sign a public register.
Another often overlooked issue for those on the left is that by the Liberal Democrats taking the Conservatives into power for a sustained period, the likelihood is that at the end of this period power will swing back decisively to the Labour Party, and with it, to the Left. This is as opposed to the suggestion I have already made that a coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems would have ultimately resulted in a majority for the Conservatives, which would also have been likely had the Conservatives been allowed to form only a minority government.
It would have rightly been seen as putting party interest above that of the country if the Liberal Democrats had refused at any cost to go into coalition with the Tories, as a minority government would struggle to deal with the economic situation, uncertainty would have made that worse, and an election would have been forced very soon thereafter. However, one should not ignore the fact that having sustained their electoral credibility by campaigning that hung parliaments could work, it would have been ridiculous to then spurn the offer of a coalition, and would have made a mockery of their eagerness to introduce an electoral system which always produces such outcomes.
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