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The miserable face of Lib Dem sleaze is back…

By Editor
November 12th, 2015 at 7:45 am | Comments Off on The miserable face of Lib Dem sleaze is back… | Posted in Liberal Democrats

Anthropologists seeking adventure often travel to distant lands to seek out lost tribes. Groups so detached from the modern world that their customs, decisions, and rituals are entirely self-referential. Important to them, meaningful in the context of their own unique history. But uninfluenced by the morals and inhibitions regarded as normal by the civilised world.

Those academics less keen on collecting air miles might instead consider visiting Westminster and studying a group closer to home, they’re called Liberal Democrat peers.

In some ways the group resembles a traditional doomsday cult. Their highest ambition is to abolish themselves. They go to extraordinary lengths to make the public want to get rid of them, from their eye-watering comments during the Cyril Smith scandal, to playing host to a Slytherin caricature who opines on measures to protect the security services and dodgy politicians from scrutiny.

Their latest effort though is their finest yet. They have just elected Lord Rennard, one of the last Parliament’s poster-boys for sleaze, as their representative to the Party’s Board, the Federal Executive. This despite his personal conduct putting the Party through several avoidable crises, most recently a year long media shaming for hypocrisy, incompetence, and cover-ups.

For normal thinking members of humanity it should be self-evident that a man whose behaviour led the Party into one of its worst and longest ethics scandals is not a fit and proper person to sit on the Board that decides how the Party should respond to future ethics scandals. Instead, for the peers and some old campaign allies, that their inadequate procedures and dodgy officials failed to kick the man out, has evidentially been interpreted as a request for a homecoming parade.

This further despite their elected Leader, and titular Chair of the FE explaining very publicly that he wanted nothing to do with the man. And an ongoing grass-roots campaign dedicated to stopping the behaviour for which he was shamed.

Rennard’s ongoing presence and inexplicable lack of self-awareness is unpleasant for those forced to sit in a room with him. Worse it is a huge setback for Tim Farron’s efforts to move the Party away from it’s prior head in the sand attitudes. Why would any person want to commit their time to a Party in the grip of unaccountable bores who feel entitled. Or are happy to turn a blind eye to the minority that behave extremely badly, because ‘hey that’s politics’. Yuk, what a shambles.

Perhaps anthropologists will one day explain why a large subset of Liberal Democrat peers still don’t get it. The rest of us can only stare open-mouthed at the hubristic stupidity. As has been said many times before, we can only hope their more productive activities, notably the aforementioned long-standing campaign to abolish themselves, proceeds with haste.

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Team Cameron’s Negotiations

By Editor
November 10th, 2015 at 12:06 pm | Comments Off on Team Cameron’s Negotiations | Posted in EU

I note with interest that team Cameron has been making a big thing of welfare exemptions as the ‘really difficult’ element of his renegotiation package. I’m not sure he’s right.

Two elements are fairly easy.

Boosting competitiveness – that’s just the normal business of the EU, and the pro-market crowd currently dominate the Commission. Since Cameron doesn’t have a deregulation shopping list, any trade deals or single market directives are going to be claimed as a win there. He’ll even be helped by grumpy pro-European socialists complaining about how well he’s done at ruining the EU in this regard.

Ending ever closer union (for the UK) – also easy. It’s a semantic point open to interpretation. It will not be hard for other member states to agree the UK (and others) can have a rewording at the next treaty negotiations to reflect their real relationship. A partnership of European nations, or something similar.

The welfare issue may not be as easy, but then the PM has built a ‘four-year exemption’ into his opening bid, which will no doubt be whittled down to 1 year and claimed as a mighty triumph. It is also an issue that has more to do with the design of the UK welfare system (based on residency not contribution). It would be very easy to exclude non-UK residents from immediate access to all welfare benefits if the UK had more of a continental style social insurance model. Cameron could get what he wants by reform at home. What happens here may end up being a bit of both.

What he won’t get is the 4 year deal without conceding something in return. Eastern Europeans in particular will not accede to something that is a naked bid to discriminate against their citizens. It will be interesting to see what he offers.

The most difficult elements though I suspect are more around the protection of the non-eurozone states from eurozone decisions, and any brake to EU Directives from National Parliaments. Not because these are particularly difficult concepts, but because they actually require a vast amount of legwork in the detail of treaties and Directives in order to implement.

Anything involving changing voting procedures and decision-making in democracies is difficult, and usually runs into a lot of vested interests when what you’re up to becomes clear. Think House of Lords reform as an example. Obvious, should have happened years ago, everyone agree’s the current system is rubbish, but few agree on what should replace it. I sincerely doubt Cameron has a magic associate membership formula that everyone will buy in to quickly.

Detail is not Cameron’s forte. It is on the other hand a speciality of the Commission and various insider groups who are going to run rings around the British if they’re not very careful to specify exactly what it is they need to change. And not leave loopholes.

The nearest equivalent we have to this element of the renegotiation is the English votes for English laws debate. There the Conservatives took one look at what would actually be required to put the matter on a statutory footing (a revision of several hundred Acts of Parliament) and ran screaming for a clever procedural solution.

They are unlikely to be able to pull that off in Brussels. Or if they can, it will be so flimsy, it will be an open goal for the Leave campaigners to shoot at. Not least because whatever is achieved will be an agreement in principle, not a real deal.

So I suspect Cameron is setting up welfare as the big ask because he can win something there, and the last thing he wants is to draw attention to the really messy constitutional reform process that will bore the public while motivating his opposition to scream betrayal and failure. We shall see.

Does Britain need a Liberal Movement?

By Editor
September 15th, 2015 at 2:26 pm | 3 Comments | Posted in Uncategorized

This is not a good year to be a British liberal. The Conservatives are putting up fences on the borders. The hard left have taken over the Labour Party, the soft left are running the Liberal Democrats, the Greens remain shrill and extreme, and the SNP/Plaid use left-populism as a rhetorical device for having a pop at Westminster.

If you are live-and-let-live on personal matters, internationalist, think markets work better than state planning, that devolution means empowering individuals as much as communities, and want more democracy, you don’t have an obvious home. You are though a liberal.

Not an economic-liberal… classical liberal… Orange-booker… New Labour… Notting Hill Tory… radical centrist… or any of the other micro-strains of labelling that are largely about what you are not…

You are a liberal.

And it’s a good thing, whichever way you happen to vote.

The desire of liberals in all the various tribes to own a narrow part of that tradition, or relabel themselves in the context of their tribes however makes the huge coalition of interests in the liberal coalition very hard to see. What is possibly the most successful political movement in British political history. A strand of thinking that has dominated the Leaderships and lasting reforms of Government for century is largely invisible. For example:

The Conservatives are currently the most liberal Party available on the economy, but they fail to impress on a range of issues around the constitution and civil liberties. The party’s instincts remain patrician and unsurprisingly… conservative. They have still not adapted to the logic of federal Britain, they doggedly defend and entrench privilege in the House of Lords. Their tendency to be seduced by grand schemes and vested interests is every bit as severe as that of Labour. They have though a very strong liberal tradition, and it’s currently running the Party.

The Liberal Democrats are reliable reformists and civil libertarians (unless you smoke, drive or drink), but are retreating into ‘not them’ opportunism on the really big questions that used to trouble their former leadership. They are happier today talking about 1 hour bus tickets, and the rights of BBC millionaires to claim rent for Strictly Come Dancing, than deficit reduction or public service reform. They are currently publishing articles about how great Jeremy Corbyn is going to be, and celebrating winning Parish Council by-elections. It is a liberal Party, but an increasingly narrow one with a very uncertain future.

Labour’s liberals are regrouping. They’ve had 5 years of Miliband’s brand of parochial populism to prepare for obscurity. They’ve now got another 5 years to prepare for a comeback tour. They are though lacking any obvious leadership or central purpose beyond an appeal to pragmatism and electability… both of which… require good leadership to be convincing. It’s a paradoxical mess. One that opened the door to Corbyn. And may cost them years in the wilderness. A new SDP looks very unlikely. There is no gang of four. There is every reason to believe that a membership that votes for rebels will not punish them for doing a Corbyn to Corbyn over the Parliament.

The SNP has liberal elements. The People’s Front of Caledonia they are not. Nor is Scotland a 1970s parody of Scandinavia. They are though somewhat diluted amongst the populists. They are like the nationalist Scottish right prepared to operate under the left umbrella for the greater goals of separation. Should that ever happen, the first victim of it, would be the unity of the SNP. The parrot of Scottish liberalism then is resting, not deceased. It may yet express itself more strongly in this rampantly successful election-winning machine.

So what should liberals do?

I’m fairly sure the answer isn’t to try and start a new Party. Tribalism isn’t a liberal value. Parties are principally vehicles for achieving power, not the battle of ideas. It shouldn’t matter greatly to liberals which coalition of interests, in which wrapper, are forming the Government provided their instincts and leadership are broadly liberal. The competition between groups within Parties as to owns the liberal tradition, one wider and deeper than any of them, does not I think serve that tradition well.

A cross-party Liberal Movement conversely, bringing together liberal talents, reminding each other that there are common causes, and coordinating resistance to the illiberal extremes, has some appeal. There is a vast pool of liberal minded think tanks, campaigns and other groups that already form the basis for such a network. There are groups within all the Parties that represent the liberal view. They just don’t talk to each other, nearly enough.

Perhaps they should.

Crying Over Milk

By Editor
August 8th, 2015 at 11:50 am | Comments Off on Crying Over Milk | Posted in Economics

A reminder that this year’s milk price crisis is principally the result of the ending of previous market rigging. Harsh as it is on the dairy farmers, there are simply too many of them producing too much milk, too expensively, in relation to demand for milk from consumers. They are not inefficient, or at least most are not. There are just too many.

A ‘consumer’ campaign to raise prices, in that regard, is pointless. The idea behind it is that retailers, their margins protected would then pay local farmers more. That is unlikely other than on premium speciality products that already command higher prices. Principally retailers would just enjoy higher profits. Competition for the provision of milk from across the EU would remain unchanged.

There’s no reason to think that combatting that with a ‘buy British’ or ‘save our farmers’ campaign would be any more successful for milk than any of the other attempts for similar products. Do you care if the cod in your fish finger was caught by a British trawler?

It could additionally turn nasty with retailers and importers being bullied, a tactic familiar to the agricultural sector in France. Some of the MP and candidate tactics clearing shelves in shops at the moment, are some distance from les moutons enflammé. But the principle is the same, to intimidate free trade into submission. Bugger the customers. It is largely criminal and nasty producer racketeering, not a glorious expression of public concern.

What has to happen, and is going to happen, is that a large number of dairy farms need to close or consolidate. That is going to be very brutal and unpleasant for the failed businesses, but it is no kindness to pretend otherwise with ‘look at me I’m campaigning’ faux-empathy.

Nor is it any worse for farmers than any other changing industry. Bar the exception that European Governments, including our own, have made the transition more jarring than it needed to be by rigging the market for so long. Something familiar to former miners, dockers, and soon postal workers. Thanks politicians… good job.

Politicians today then might then consider more emphasis on the transition support for those leaving the market. And a little less histrionic poujadism, which will leave those who will need to get out far less ready to change. Beware of politicians bearing campaigns. They are not always your friends.

Tim Farron needs to start closer to home

By Editor
July 17th, 2015 at 1:29 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Uncategorized

The newly elected leader of the Lib Dems, Tim Farron, has already taken to air stating that his ambition is to bring all liberals into the Lib Dem fold.  That would work if the party was actually liberal. Unfortunately it is not.

Mark Littlewood, (formerly of this parish) said what we were all thinking…

ml tweet

Mr Farron is going to have his work cut out keeping the liberals he has inside the party, if he really does intend to move the party massively to the left of where it is now.

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