Liberal Vision

The Bishop’s Gambit

It’s not often I write to a bishop, let alone 26 bishops. But I was inspired by (not to mention encouraged by the easiness of) the Power2010 website’s call (and tool) to email all 26 Lords Spiritual and ask them to support a fully elected Upper House of Parliament.

Naturally, I didn’t just accept the words provided by Power2010. Firstly, I have a natural predisposition to disagree slightly with anybody else’s wording, especially on matters of politics. Secondly, I think that my email has a slightly higher chance of being read and receiving a tailored response if it is not the standard form letter. My letter reads as follows:

Dear Archbishop/Bishop,

I am writing to you as a member of the upper house of parliament to request your help in bringing about much-needed constitutional change in the UK.

As you will appreciate, recent events have highlighted the moribund and unrepresentative nature of our legislature. However, while this has been brought home to citizens of the United Kingdom in recent months, it is in fact a longstanding problem, and one that is increasingly alienating the public and leaving them feeling disempowered and cynical about the leadership of our country.

We need radical reform of the way our country is governed, including the introduction of a more representative voting system, making parliamentarians more accountable to the people, and giving individuals more power over their own lives. One key way that this could be brought about would be to make the upper house, which is currently entirely unelected, an fully elected chamber.

The current House of Lords is a strange admixture of ancient privilege, modern cronyism and bizarre corporatism. It is wrong that legislation should be made and revised by people who are in power as a result of lineage, patronage or the occupation of a particular office.

I am writing to request that you champion a radical reform of parliament, by committing to, and publically advocating the following:
1) That all people participate equally in public life through free debate, civic society and the democratic process;
2) That both houses of parliament be fully elected and publically accountable;
3) That members of both chambers commit to maximising the freedom of all individuals within society, ensuring that each person has the maximum freedom possible such that it does not directly detract from the freedom of others;
4) That the electoral system differ sufficiently between the two chambers that they produce sufficiently different and independent chambers;
5) That parliamentarians recognise that no mortal person is infallible and that parliamentarians should therefore proceed with humility and not assume that they know best.

I would be grateful if you would confirm your support for these principles and work with your fellow bishops, lords and parliamentarians to create a more democratic and accountable parliament.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Tom Papworth
Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate
Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner.

Yes, the correct term of address is “Dear Bishop/Archbishop”. I know!.

If you would like to send an email to all 26 bishops, you can visit the Power2010 website and do so.

Just don’t say anything that would reflect badly on Power2010, eh?

All about Co-ops…

Here are a selection of posts from about the blogosphere on the Tories new Mutualist plans:

Positive:

Co-op Capitalism:

“Co-op’s are neither socialist or capitalist necessarily. Most hedge funds are co-ops, owned by the partners with the profits shared by the workers. Many law firms are co-ops, luxury apartment blocks are run by self-selecting co-ops, huge agri-businesses are run by co-ops of rich farmers, mutual funds are a form of co-op, the list is endless. Lefties might want co-operatives to be non-profit, organic wool knitters but the most successful ones are not. They do this because they are smart and don’t want a third party to profit at their expense. Co-ops have nothing to do with top-down state socialism as designed by Fabians.”

Co-operative Ownership - the Liberal Way:

“I have written before that co-ops and similar ventures are part of the rich tapestry of a market economy. After all, before the days of statutory regulation, the Stock Exchange was a mutual – you can’t get closer to the market economy than that. Co-ops and mutuals certainly have their limitations – access to capital and corporate governance being the two main ones. People complain about profit-making banks being owned by shareholders but mutuals can be captured by management and pay poor interest rates to savers and co-ops can be captured by a senior management clique without any possibility of facilitating change. There is a big literature on all this and I hope that Osborne’s team has read it. Neverthelessm, mutuals and co-ops definitely have their place. Three cheers for George Osborne’s attempts to create co-ops in the public sector then? Not yet.”

Co-op Dissonance:

“The Conservative Party recently re-asserted its commitment to allow co-operatives and other non-profit bodies to run public services on a contractual basis. It is an idea very similar to the adopted Swedish model of paying for schools, although there are a number of clarifications that need to be made. Whilst the ‘Free School’ model allocates funds according to the number of pupils being educated (i.e. according to outcome), the worker-co-operative proposals have hinged on the use of contracts. This means that while the penalty for a failing school will be the loss of pupils and a corresponding loss of revenues, ultimately resulting in the closure of a pupil-less school, the penalty for a failed contract is still unclear. The ‘Free School’ model means competition is automatic as pupils and parents are instantly able to choose and change the school they would like to attend, but a truly competitive environment based on contracts will be much harder to achieve with co-operatives, as each contract could essentially be a short-term monopoly on government-funded services for its duration.”

Negative:

The John Lewis State:

“If a John Lewis style primary school were a floperoo, would all the teacher-shareholders be sacked, or only the head? A resolution procedure for failing co-ops that didn’t harm pupils - or patients of community nursing teams - would plainly be essential. And what about the power structure within each co-op. Would all co-op members have identical shares and equal votes on strategy and management? Some headteachers, for example, would find such democracy profoundly uncomfortable. Or would there be a boss or senior management team, who would have both management control and the potential to pocket the bulk of any financial gains? The background to all of this - of course - is that revenues for public services will be under pressure for many years, as a result of the shocking state of the public finances. For the looming general election, there are few more important debates than how public services can deliver more out of less.”

Will Tory Co-ops take off?:

“The public finances are dire. The co-op business plan will have to assume the state will be paying less and less for their services over time. Yet somehow they’ll have to work out how to make a surplus to make the venture attractive. This could make sense with a high degree of flexibility over staff pay and terms and conditions. But in the case of nurses and teachers, contract terms would be transferred from the public sector, which gives the workers protection. So the flexibility will come in paying more, or paying any new staff less. Over time this will make a big difference and could be the basis for a decent business model. But big barriers remain, not least the generous public sector pension terms. Will the potential surpluses really be enough to convince public sector workers to become entrepreneurs?”

WTF???!!!:

Vote Blue Get Red?!:

“After they are ostensibly mutualised, social enterprises will be subjected to competitive tendering, internal markets and divisive incentive structures. The economies of scale and low cost finance available to large public sector organisations will also be lost. As an added bonus to the right, a serious wedge will be driven into national pay bargaining and public sector trade unionism further weakened.

In other words, forget all Cameron’s talk about ‘Conservative means to progressive ends’. The big idea here is to open up Jobcentres, schools and NHS trust to marketisation. Those guys remain as high on Hayek as they ever were.”

As if…

Are we turning German? (or, The rise of the dual word)

The lexicon of government neologisms is a heavy and depressing tome. Indeed, politicians and bureaucrats have a remarkable capacity to speak differently from everybody else.

Remember Tony Blair’s ‘sentences’ without verbs? Or the verbisation (sic.) of nouns (the latter not unique to government, as anybody who has ever partied will attest)? When did encouraging and rewarding become “incentivisation”?

The latest fad seems to be in conflating words, creating one word where two would do. A couple of years ago the new anti-smoking legislation led to the creation of “Smokefree” zones.

Today I learn that TfL is to urge London’s motorcyclists to get ‘BikeSafe‘ while being invited to a ‘Smartmoves‘ conference.

The Local Government Association sought to discourage around 200 examples of local government jargon last year, but they seem to be fighting a losing battle against the forces of ‘newspeak‘.

Roy Jenkins: You’re too liberal!

Over the weekend I watch the first episode of the BBC’s series on the Great Offices of State, which focussed on The Home Office. At one point they had footage of Roy Jenkins visiting the wreckage of the Birmingham pub bombings. As he walked past the angry crowds, a voice (or it may have been two voices) shouted out “Bring back hanging!” “Your’re too liberal!”

At the time I just chuckled a bit. “You’re too liberal” isn’t a common critique in the UK, where (unlike the United States) liberalism is not conflated with socialism, and people tend to be practical rather than philosophical.

Indeed, for my mind, Roy Jenkins wasn’t liberal enough, in that it was his and our tragedy that he reached the zenith of his political career at around the time that the Liberal Paty was in its nadir.

Yet this morning I was suddenly struck by something that I had overlooked at the time. The woman who was accusing Jenkins of being too liberal was doing so in the context of the Birmingham bombings. Those same Birmingham bombings that led to the wrongful conviction of six people.

Too liberal? Thank heavens Roy Jenkins was liberal. Thank heavens he was Home Secretary after the abolishion of capital punishment, and so was not faced with the onerous duty of overseeing the execution of six men. Thank heavens that we didn’t determine, 17 years too late, that we - too - had killed the innocent.

In fact it wasn’t Jenkins who abolished capital punishment, but James Callaghan. Still, it seems like a very long time since we have been confronted with the prospect of a Home Secreaty who could in any way, shape or form be call liberal.

What’s wrong with a Bill of Rights?

Power 2010, a campaign to reform the UK constitution, is inviting people to vote on five reforms to which they will ask parliamentary candidates to sign up before the coming General Election. There are some excellent ideas, some not so good and some deeply flawed.

Among them is a suggestion that on face value should be welcomed. Over at the Adam Smith Institute’s blog I examine the call for a UK Bill of Rights. As I note, “a Bill of Rights that set out the freedoms that people should enjoy as citizens (not subjects!) of the United Kingdom – bringing together both ancient liberties and new ones – would be a good thing… However, as is so common when talking about ‘Rights’, the authors of this proposal go on to conflate two very different issues, and in doing so they undermine their case…”

To find out where they have gone wrong, read the full article.

[Please also leave any comments there rather than below: why have two conversations when we can have one?]

Lib Dems - go back to your constituencies and prepare to complain….

ITV has announced that on 14th Feb 2010 it plans to broadcast a one hour “interview” with Gordon Brown. Not a hard hitting political examination of the Prime Minister - his policies and actions over the last four years. Not a series of interviews where Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg (and possibly others) are likewise interrogated.

No. This is Piers Morgan interviewing the PM.  No other politician at any other point, just the PM. This is Piers Morgan - former editor of the pro-Labour party Mirror newspaper, up until 2004 (when he was sacked). This is Piers Morgan, Gordon Browns mate. Piers Morgan who interviews the likes of Cilla Black, Katie Price, Boris Becker,Dannii Minogue,Ronnie Corbett, Vinnie Jones,  and.. er…oh.. the Prime Minister (weeks before a general election must be called). Piers Morgan who says of Gordon Brown (presumably with a straight face (and fingers crossed behind his back)) “He’s one of the most famous people in the country, yet remains a man of mystery to many.  I have known Gordon Brown for over 15 years – he is a man who has enjoyed great triumph, suffered terrible tragedy, and will soon face the biggest challenge of his career.” Sound like a one hour party political election broadcast to you too?

Much has been said about how cynical Gordon Brown is to use this programme as a vehicle to gain public sympathy etc. I dont care whether he cried or stripped naked and did the hokey Cokey - what I care about is how the hell those people in charge of ITV let Gordon Brown’s mate interview Gordon Brown within weeks of a general election without any regard to their internal or external commitments to impartiality.  

ITN must be spitting teeth. All that time and effort ensuring that their news coverage over the course of any one period is “balanced” and “fair”and then boom! some idiot head of Light Entertainment who can’t see past the ratings or dare not challenge the over-inflated ego of Mr-Big-Bucks-Morgan goes and blows it. What useless, dim-witted idiots are in charge down there these days?  

Personally I cannot see how this can be allowed under OFCOM rules - there is a whole section (Section Five) concerned with ..”Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions“.

The mad thing is, you can’t actually complain to OFCOM BEFORE the programme is broadcast. Once it has been broadcst and everyone complains, presumably ITV will have to ensure that Nick Clegg  and Dave Cameron get their moment in the sun with their best mates in the interviewers chair too …and before the general election is called. If I were Dave or Nick I would get my mates to nip over and get an interview in the can now and just send them to ITV for broadcast - seeing as how thats TV is made down there now. What a joke ITV are.

COMPLAIN TO OFCOM :

Sadly their website is broken at the moment. UPDATE: The website is now working - it makes it very difficult to complain prior to programme transmission but you can try https://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/progs/specific/?itemid=286480 or you can call OFCOM on 0300 123 3333 or 020 7981 3000 or write to them at  Ofcom, Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road,London, SE1 9HA and simply ask them to post date your complaint about the “Party Politcal Broadcast brought to you by Piers Morgan” to Feb 15th (day after the interview is broadcast). Just tell them it seems to break just about every rule in section 5.

COMPLAIN TO ITV:

This you can do by emailing dutyoffice@itv.com (duty officers logs get sent round the big boys - or at least they used to) copied to the viewerservices@itv.com or call 0844 88 14150.

I understand that some libertarians out there will shrug and say that OFCOM should be scrapped and every broadcaster allowed to do what the hell they like. And I have some sympathy with that view. But until the point that OFCOM is scrapped and whilst ITV pretends to operate a news code of conduct then I think we have a right to expect it to adhere to its and OFCOMs rules.

Clause 26 Update

The Liberal Democrats have moved a motion to decline a second reading of the Children, Schools and Families Bill.

CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES BILL: Second Reading. [Until 10.00 pm]

Mr Nick Clegg Mr David Laws Annette Brooke Stephen Williams Dr Vincent Cable Mr Paul Burstow

   That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Children, Schools and Families Bill because it adds hugely to the bureaucratic burdens on schools and colleges without improving real opportunities and educational standards for pupils and without genuinely empowering parents; its proposals for the regulation of home education introduce powers which are excessive and risk undermining key freedoms for home educators; it fails to put in place a coherent system for delivering school improvement; its provisions on family proceedings have not been properly consulted on and do not take account of existing reforms; and it does not include much needed policies to introduce a Pupil Premium to support the education of children from disadvantaged homes or to establish a new Educational Standards Authority to restore confidence in educational standards and to reduce the extent of destabilising political interference in English education.

Fabians, Co-Operativists and the Living Dead of the Left

The news that our Prime Minister was going to rake the Co-op Party over the coals for Labour’s GE manifesto upset me. It really did. Everything the man touches turns to dust before our eyes. I went to bed last night dreading the possibility that the sensible discussion on mutualist solutions that this country so desperately needs was never going to happen having been further cursed by Gordon “Jonah” Brown.

Those of you who read this blog will know that I’m not a big fan of the Co-op Party being an “affliate constituent” of the Labour Party. State socialism and mutualism are not compatible. In fact they are mutually exclusive. So all this talk of co-operative schools and housing settlements mean nothing in the context of a welfare state.

As Simon Cooke quite rightly points out there is nothing remotely ’socialist’ about the John Lewis Partnership. But there is a lot to be said for individuals having a stake in the company or institutions they work for and feeling more connected to the profit that they generate. But there has to be profit.

On further thought what struck me was this: why all this emphasis on co-operativism from Labour all of a sudden? I find unlikely that Gordon Brown is seriously considering dismantling the welfare state… But where are the Fabians? Am I the only one who finds it interesting, however, that instead of harking back and shoring up the core vote in the typical manner, the Labour Party are changing their tack slightly?

Could it be that the Labour Party’s faith in Fabianism is faltering? Afterall we literally cannot afford Fabian style social democracy anymore. I would so much like for this to be to an acknowledgment of that. Alas, I fear this is not likely. Instead what we’ll see is the conflation of the remains of Fabianism conflated with soft mutualist rhetoric, the unfortunate hybrid of which will taint the name of genuine mutualism for years to come. These are very sorry days for any genuine mutualists, indeed.

Niall Ferguson on the economic crisis

“Though superficially this crisis seems like a defeat for Smith, Hayek, and Friedman, and a victory for Marx, Keynes, and Polanyi, that might well turn out to be wrong. Far from having been caused by unregulated free markets, this crisis may have been caused by distortions of the market from ill-advised government actions: explicit and implicit guarantees to supersized banks, inappropriate empowerment of rating agencies, disastrously loose monetary policy, bad regulation of big insurers, systematic encouragement of reckless mortgage lending — not to mention distortions of currency markets by central bank intervention.”

- Niall Ferguson,  ”Dead Men Walking“, Foreign Policy. 

Lib Dem Measurement Fascist strikes again….

Greg Mulholland clearly has “Measurement Mania”.  Having sought to ban the word “regular” from our coffee shops last week, he has now gone on record welcoming the law requiring pubs to serve small (125ml) glasses of wine alongside larger measures.

EDM 737  27/01/10

“That this House welcomes the introduction of the law, within the Mandatory Code of Practice, requiring pubs, bars and other similar establishments to offer the choice of a 125ml measure of wine alongside larger measures; notes that this follows campaigning since the introduction of the Sale of Wine (Measures) Bill in 2008 and a campaign by the Good Pub Guide also supported by a number of other organisations; believes that obliging venues to offer 125ml size measures gives consumers greater choice by allowing them to order smaller as well as larger size glasses of wine; further believes that this will help standardise wine measures so that it would be better understood that 125ml is a small measure of wine, 175ml medium and 250ml large; further notes that this will mean people will have a better idea of how much they are drinking at any venue; further believes that this is a simple and effective method of increasing alcohol awareness amongst wine drinkers; further notes that this measure need not mean using 125ml sized glasses of wine but that this measure can be dispensed in a 175ml glass with a measure; and looks forward to the implementation of this policy so that consumers everywhere have real choice of wine glass measures everywhere they go”.

This statement refers to the Home Office Mandatory Code Of Practice for alcohol retailers which will, subject to Parliamentary timetable, introduce the following mandatory licensing conditions for pubs, clubs etc: Banning irresponsible promotions;Banning pouring drinks directly into the mouths of customers;Ensuring free tap water for customers; and Ensuring that all on trade premises offer small measures of beers, wine and spirits to customers.

The last of these measures - the one that Greg Mulholland commends to the House - will have no meaningful effect on drinking levels in this country nor on the takings or profits of the pubs. 

Even so it’s annoying and pretty absurd that yet again this Government is telling people its not their fault if they get rat-faced, but somehow the retailers. And I cant see for the life of me why the Home Office thinks that the minority of people hell-bent on going out on a Friday night with the sole aim of getting legless will somehow now desist because there is a mandated option of a small glass of wine on the menu. As for stopping drinks promotions in pubs, that will simply result in people drinking copious amounts away from the scrutiny of responsible landlords. Then go to the pub! The world has gone barking mad. 

Speaking of which, the bit that intrigues me in Greg Mulholland’s EDM is the bit  I highlighted in blue (above).Arrgh!!!  Does anyone know where,when and why an otherwise bright, sane Lib Dem MP turned into the Measurement Facist of old London Town?

Chris Huhne was talking last week about the swathes of needless legislation that has been introduced by this Government over the last decade when current laws exist already to deal with the issues raised? So. If it is true as the Home Office says “The majority of alcohol retailers behave responsibly, but a minorityconduct irresponsible promotions or practices - the mandatory code will stop these where they take place.“, then Councils already have the power they need to stop the irresponsible few - withdraw their licences. End of.. Why the need for MORE legislation? And why is Greg Mulholland praising something that Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary must surely condemn?

Methinks someone should take Greg to a quiet corner and give him a chill pill.