Liberal Vision

Coalition or chaos - it’s your call, Nick

So now its a real fight. Who do we choose? On my left I give you the bullying, bullshitting, bad tempered - bad man of politics - GORDON BROWN. He who wants to be judged on his moral compass yet surrounds himself with unpleasant characters who intimidate and smear his political opponents, from whatever party, at every turn. He who talked up “Prudence” whilst on the biggest spending binge ever, who raided pension funds, sold our gold at its lowest level for years and who invested more of his time and effort undermining the then Prime Minister, than he did keeping watch on the finances of this country. Hmmm.

On my right I give you the smiling snake oil salesman -the suave, the slick - DAVID CAMERON.Yes the one with the airbrushed photos and dyed hair who beams benignly and promises his party has changed but who cannot be pinned down on anything of any substance. Who talks about being liberal and wanting government with ” a lighter touch” but then brings the full force of his party heavyweights down on his own party regional offices if they dare defy him. The man who has talked such a lot - delivered polished speeches to perfection…and yet said so very little. A man who surrounds himself with friends in Notting Hill kitchens (Coulson, Ashcroft, Osborne and co) no matter how dubious their actions, history or levels of competence best that can be said of him is that he is not Brown - the worst that he is another Tony Blair. Been there done that.

Added to this we have seen what happens when one party wields total power - with a huge majority. The party whips rule; minsters all powerful; bright intelligent MPs sidelined because they challenge the leadership; loyal and dimwitted MPs more likely to end up in the cabinet; debate stifled; decisions taken behind closed doors with little or no scrutiny; laws rammed through.

Why would you want either of those leaders in power? Why would you want either party to win a landslide election when we have felt the pain that they bring, one too many times ? No wonder people are confused. No wonder the polls are erractic.  No wonder, people are talking …correction.. welcoming… the prospect of a hung parliament. None of the other checks and balances have worked. Maybe this one will.

BUT!  The prospect of a hung parliament - without a clear view about what that will mean for the finances of the country - is going to send the markets into tail spin. Why? Because they assume that we will end up with a fudged government with no power to make the cuts necessary, fighting day to day to get each tiny bit of legislation through, and almost certainly resulting in another election within twelve months. What the markets want is certainty and that is not what it looks like.

Of course at the moment we don’t have a single party willing to be honest with us about the economy - the severity of cuts necessary. We all know we are being lied to. And every day our debt gets bigger. So it could be argued that it is not clear that any party will do what is needed.

So we are standing on the brink of disaster. Nick, its time to bring some honesty and forthrightness to the debate. Specifically on (1) the economy and (2) what you will actually do if there is a hung parliament.

1. THE ECONOMY : Be honest about the level of the cuts necessary. Vince Cable is the most trusted politician there is on financial matters. He was the lone voice of caution in the boom years. Yes he was derided by both Tories and Labour (and the media) when he told us bust was waiting round the corner. But he was also proven right. So where is he now? We seem to be arguing about the small stuff . Is it green enough, are we too reliant on banks. Maybe, maybe. But can talk about that when we have an economy worth squabbling about? Where is that beacon of light - that honesty now when we need it ? Show us the real Vince. Show us the real plan - not the sanitised one.  

2. HUNG PARLIAMENT: If we were in “the boom years” Nick, you could fudge what the Liberals would do in the event of a hung parliament. If Britain had cash sloshing around in our coffers, if we had a strong £, if we had shrinking unemployment, if we had financial institutions that were lining up to invest in Britain, if our AAA rating was not hanging in the balance yes then Nick, you could get away with it. And it would probably be the right strategy. The dangers of speaking out are immense and caution might be wise.

But country is not in that position. This country is in dire financial straits. The £ is stuttering at the news of the possibility of a hung parliament. Don’t play politics with our lives and livelihoods.

This country needs a strong Lib Dem party to tell us where it stands. Not a sit on the fence - play it safe - we haven’t planned for hypothetical situations - Lib Dem party. (What ? you only make your plans AFTER the event?). We need a bold and brave - forget the past - lets start a new period of politics- tell it how it is - get the country out of this mess  Lib Dem party. 

At the moment no one is at all clear what “working with” the party with a “mandate from the voters” means. Not me. Not the voters. Not the markets. Stop talking Westminster speak and tell us what you mean. Coalition or not?  The Guardian says you are planning to rule out coalition “because aides and senior MPs argue it would be highly dangerous for the Liberal Democrats to become minority partners in a coalition government”.

That would seem to suggest that , in the event that no party gets an outright majority, you allow either party to pass a Queen’s speech if it makes some concessions to your four prioirities (fair tax, investment in education, a rebalanced economy, political reform).

But whispering tit bits to the Guardian is not the same as telling it straight. OK you’ve let the Queen’s speech go through… Will you abstain or vote through the budget ? Shove in loads of amendments to make it more to your liking? How will you vote the next week or the week after that? Will a weak minority Government lurch from one deal to another as you stand by mildly and meekly watching sterling plummet, and the stock market nosedive? Is Vince Cable destined to spend the next 12 months commentating on the news or making the news?

The country goes to the wall because some of your aides and MPs care more about their political careers than the state of the nation? Maybe they just dont like the idea of actually being in power.

Or perhaps it’s that you can’t go into coalition. With all the will in the world you dont have the power to make that decision? The BBC reports that you “would have to get a formal coalition deal past (your) members” . If true then change the rules at next week’s conference. Tell them you can’t run a party on that basis right now. 

Cowardly or castrated. Which is it ?

The madness is, from what I have seen, you are neither. You started slowly (not a bad thing) but it looks for all the world that you are just hitting your stride. Perfect timing. You have the honesty, integrity and personal belief to make a difference. To change politics. So what’s stoppping you?

You will be dogged by these questions and many others of a similar vein over the coming weeks. Constant reference to a 4 point plan is not going to cut it with the voters, with the media or with the markets. Come on Nick. Step up to plate. The Liberals have to piss or get off the pot. If we are not prepared to take up coalition - to take up the reins of power when the country needs it most (now) then we don’t deserve to be the third party. 

I think I am right in saying that both you and Vince have said publicly that the country’s plight is more important than petty party politics. Prove that you mean that. Give us some honesty. Show us your mettle. I think if you will do that, you will win the hearts and minds of this country. Hell, maybe even save it.

Tags: coalition, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, hung Parliament, Nick Clegg, Vince Cable

Early election darling?

Following on from Guido’s post, I have had confirmation from a couple of other news organsations that they too are on standby for an announcement this weekend.

Of course, we have heard this before. And being on “standby” does not mean that a decision HAS been made or WILL be made. But something is definitely going on.

Maybe they could not see eye to eye on the budget afterall…..

Tags: Early election, general election

Past,present,future of the Liberals..

Here’s a 5 minute film put together by BBC’s The One Show looking at the past, present and, most importantly, the possible future of the Liberal Democrats. Timely questions.

You can see the whole programme on iplayer.

Tags: Liberal Democrats, The One Show

How would you change UK democracy? LAST CHANCE TO VOTE

There are but ten hours to go in the Power 2010 vote on changing British democracy.

You can vote, very easily. Takes barely a minute. If you’re going to do it, do it now.

BY CLICKING HERE

In lieu of a grand “which ones should liberals vote for” post, here are some that I’d personally recommend voting for:

• Introduce a proportional voting system
• Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state
• A fully elected second chamber
• Expand the Freedom of Information Act
• Votes at 16

Post your disagreements below.

Councillor gravy train - the sequel…

Back in April 2009 I wrote a piece “Councillors join the gravy train”  pointing out the ludicrous rise in councillors remuneration in recent years.  

Now, despite a demand from the Government for councils to allow public scrutiny of senior local authority officials pay and benefits, Councils have resisted the order. The reason  - it  would lead to a public outcry- that “it could lead to personalised attacks” … officials “families could be at risk of abuse” etc etc. I don’t know about you but that has eyebrows raised in my house  - just how big a scandal is this if Councils think the public reaction to seeing who is being paid exactly what, will be that extreme ? My oh my what are they hiding? Just how big IS this latest scandal.

It was obvious. Following the MP expenses scandal,  public service officials income and benefits needed greater transparency. As part of a “cleaning up of politics” process, the Government, rightly, sought to make public the pay and benefits, allowances and pay-offs of local authority officials earning over £50,000. Its much harder to pay over-inflated salaries and above inflation pay rises when the voters can see what you are doing and who is getting what.

So how come the Government has apparantly backed off from this demand? Following, the frankly ludicrous bleating of councils as to why they should not let the voters see the figures, they have somehow won ! The government has accepted that only those local government officials earning over £150,000 will be identified (thats still over 100 of them). Allowing thousands of senior local authority officials to continue hiding behind anonymity.

And not only are many local authority officials on astonishingly high incomes - they have been getting huge pay rises a over the last couple of years as the rest of Britain suffers.

It’s a disgrace. And something that we, as taxpayers, should not put up with. If officials can’t justify the salaries and benefits they are on - they shouldn’t be getting it.

Tags: local councils

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…

LibDems Are Officially The Most Kinky

It’s what we’ve always suspected…

Still, it’s nice to have a poll we come top in for a change (!)

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.

Tags: capital punishment, Home Office, Roy Jenkins

EU SWIFT Vote Ends Bank Data Sharing

This is quite possibly one of the best things I’ve heard come out of the EU in some time and yet has been woefully under-reported:

The European parliament rejected an agreement on sharing banking data with the US yesterday, delivering a potential setback to long-running US efforts to track down terrorist financing.

Citing concerns about European citizens’ privacy, the parliament voted to scrap a deal that would have given the US continued access to data compiled by Swift, a co-operative that handles interbank money transfers.

The move means that for the first time since the September 2001 attacks, the US will not have access to large parts of the Swift database, which includes information from more than 8,000 financial institutions globally.

Crucially in this vote it was the Liberals (ALDE) who helped sway the vote in favour of our right to privacy. We should be very proud of the role LibDem MEPs played in ensuring this result. The end result was 378 MEPs voting to block the data sharing and 196 voting in favour of it’s continuation with 31 abstentions.

One has to wonder at the sheer nerve of the US:

The US had lobbied hard to keep the data flowing, with Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, and Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, both contacting Jerzy Buzek, the parliament’s president, in an attempt to sway the vote.

The US Treasury had previously obtained the data through repeated subpoenas sited on US soil, but a decision by Swift to move key computer servers to Europe from last month means Washington must now persuade the EU to hand over the data voluntarily.

EU governments agreed, on an interim basis, to continue co-operation last November. Though some had reservations, most were swayed by US arguments that the Swift data led to valuable intelligence that could prevent terrorism in Europe.

No matter how the US try to spin this, it is a victory for the little people against the state. The US demands were grotesquely disproportionate to the threat posed by terrorism. Dutch Liberal rapporteur Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert explained:

“If the US administration proposed something equivalent to the Congress – transferring in bulk all banking data on American citizens to a foreign power - we know what they would say”. In other words, the agreement provides for no reciprocity for the EU.