This is the first time I have been moved to write a blog post on the Greek debt crisis and for good reason. I have always refrained from commenting on the situation, unless directly asked to, as despite being ethnically Greek (half Greek to be precise), I have never lived there and cannot legitimately claim to be anything more than a 'plastic bubble'. However, my family does lives there, several of my friends do work there and I do follow the situation closely from the relative comfort of my laptop every day, so I definitely do have an opinion.
The reason I am choosing to express/vent that opinion now is that (a) I have taken about all the Greece bashing I can stand here in the UK from people who think they know what they're talking about because they buy only directly imported Feta cheese on their weekly visit to Waitrose; and (b) I am tired of people insisting I answer for "my people's profligacy" when they see my surname for the first time.
So, I'm only going to say this once.
Yes the chickens have come home to roost after decades of high public spending and unpaid taxes. That's not just the case in Greece, but also in California and to a degree almost every other country in Europe. This may well be a lesson that Greece could only ever learn the hard way, but they are not a special case. Virtually every western government has been guilty of spending beyond its means, so viewing Greece as some backwater whose fate could never befall them would be a massive mistake.
Yes, cuts clearly need to be made, but before you dismiss all Greeks as a bunch of lazy wasters in need of some tough love, consider the human cost that Greeks across the country are having to bear. Unemployment of 16% and rising, the deepest recession in years, increased VAT, increased income tax, and a new property tax with power cuts threatened for those who cannot pay. Suicide rates are spiralling, sick patients lie on camp beds in emergency rooms for up to 12 hours waiting to be treated, diabetic patients are on the verge of death because they cannot afford their insulin, while hospitals are ruuning out of almost all supplies.
As for the outpouring of rage over the Greek Prime Minister's decision to call a referendum on the latest round of budget cuts, I generally do view referendums with suspicion because of their tendency to empower heads of government at the expsense of their legislatures, often to pass ridiculously populist measures that wouldn't survive 10 minutes of parliamentary scrutiny (think Swiss minarets). In this case though, the need for a referendum is real and justified. The parliament has voted through successive budget cuts at the behest of the government in spite of large scale popular opposition. Greece is approaching the point at which its democracy has ceased to be representative and so must go direct. In any case, if Papandreou can't bring his people with him on this one, he has no remit to negotiate on their behalf.
Now, in the words of Forest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.
Tuesday 1 November 2011
Saturday 5 March 2011
Still proud to be a Lib Dem
So, the Lib Dems are less popular than the BNP? In Barnsley, maybe. Otherwise, can the media please get a little perspective in the aftermath of Thursday's by-election?
I still remember the days when the Lib Dems swept all before them at almsot every parliamentary by-election, but no-one ever intimated that these victories were anything more than a protest vote against the government of the day, even though the unmatched quality of the MPs voted in at those elections, such as Sarah Teather, often had just as much to do with it.
If the significance of the Barnsley by-election is that a vote for the Lib Dems is no longer a protest vote, but a vote for a party in government to be carefully considered come the next general election when it matters most, then I'm fine with that. In the meantime, being dealt the occasional kick up the backside by an electorate determined to be heard, a custom that has been endured by successive Labour and Conservative governments long before the coalition, is a small price to pay and also a testament to democratic accountability.
The bigger threat to the party's long term electoral prospects is the risk of voters across the country as a whole concluding that they are no better off with the Liberal Democrats in the coalition and of the party's members concluding that they made a mistake in joining it in the first place.
Both are wrong. Even the government's most controversial decisions have not shaken by belief in this, including tuition fees. When I first joined the Liberal Democrats, tuition fees were one of my biggest issues and a large part of the reason I signed up over nine years ago. I remain just as certain I made the right decision now as I was then.
A unilateral Conservative (or Labour for that matter) government would have consented to limitless US-style tuition fees as recommended by the higher education review led by Lord Browne, which the latter commissioned and the former supported. The politically expedient thing for the Lib Dems to have done once faced with the responsibility of setting government policy on the matter would have been to implement their pledge to not vote in favour of raising fees (they never pledged to abolish them entirely during the election campaign as is often claimed). Instead, they forced the 'Browneites' to compromise by taking full responsibility for the policy and placing a cap on tuition fees, increasing access to financial support for part-time students, and raising the threshold for repaying student debt to protect graduates on lower incomes.
Nick Clegg and Vince Cable could have sat on the sidelines their party had been restricted to for so long and pat themselves on the back for ticking off another promise kept on their manifesto, while students across the country were left to rue the consequences of their cowardice. They didn't and faced the consequences for their courage instead in the form of mass protests and the burning of effigies. I do not envy the daily dilemnas they must face, but am proud to still be a member of a party that is brave enough to confront them in the name of the national interest, rather than play duck and cover and be anihilated anyway.
I still remember the days when the Lib Dems swept all before them at almsot every parliamentary by-election, but no-one ever intimated that these victories were anything more than a protest vote against the government of the day, even though the unmatched quality of the MPs voted in at those elections, such as Sarah Teather, often had just as much to do with it.
If the significance of the Barnsley by-election is that a vote for the Lib Dems is no longer a protest vote, but a vote for a party in government to be carefully considered come the next general election when it matters most, then I'm fine with that. In the meantime, being dealt the occasional kick up the backside by an electorate determined to be heard, a custom that has been endured by successive Labour and Conservative governments long before the coalition, is a small price to pay and also a testament to democratic accountability.
The bigger threat to the party's long term electoral prospects is the risk of voters across the country as a whole concluding that they are no better off with the Liberal Democrats in the coalition and of the party's members concluding that they made a mistake in joining it in the first place.
Both are wrong. Even the government's most controversial decisions have not shaken by belief in this, including tuition fees. When I first joined the Liberal Democrats, tuition fees were one of my biggest issues and a large part of the reason I signed up over nine years ago. I remain just as certain I made the right decision now as I was then.
A unilateral Conservative (or Labour for that matter) government would have consented to limitless US-style tuition fees as recommended by the higher education review led by Lord Browne, which the latter commissioned and the former supported. The politically expedient thing for the Lib Dems to have done once faced with the responsibility of setting government policy on the matter would have been to implement their pledge to not vote in favour of raising fees (they never pledged to abolish them entirely during the election campaign as is often claimed). Instead, they forced the 'Browneites' to compromise by taking full responsibility for the policy and placing a cap on tuition fees, increasing access to financial support for part-time students, and raising the threshold for repaying student debt to protect graduates on lower incomes.
Nick Clegg and Vince Cable could have sat on the sidelines their party had been restricted to for so long and pat themselves on the back for ticking off another promise kept on their manifesto, while students across the country were left to rue the consequences of their cowardice. They didn't and faced the consequences for their courage instead in the form of mass protests and the burning of effigies. I do not envy the daily dilemnas they must face, but am proud to still be a member of a party that is brave enough to confront them in the name of the national interest, rather than play duck and cover and be anihilated anyway.
Wednesday 21 July 2010
The real tragedy of locked-in syndrome
Tony Nicklinson is 56 years old. He is married to Jane with whom he has two daughters: Beth and Lauren. He used to work as an engineering executive, a job that took him across the world, and before that he was a rugby player. Now he wants to die, after a severe stroke, while away on a business trip to Athens, left him paralysed, unable to move any part of his body except his head and eyes. He cannot walk. He cannot talk. He cannot feed or bathe himself. Mr Nicklinson is, to use the clinical term for his condition, locked-in. He is highly unlikely to ever recover.
Yet he cannot end his life by his own hand. So, unless he refuses food and water, dying of starvation and de-hydration, someone else must do it for him. His wife has agreed to do just that following what must have been the most agonising decision a loving spouse can possibly face. However, say her lawyers, if she does there is a real chance she will be tried for murder. After all, she is not being asked to assist a suicide. She is being asked to commit a mercy killing.
The debate that is set to follow is a predictable one of an individual’s right to die versus the collective’s right to be protected from a callous abuse of a law that may lead to their lives being ended against their will. Ultimately, this is a moral, not a legal question. It is a matter of conscience, not of right and wrong, and as such can only ever be resolved by an act of Parliament. Even then, the debate will continue for as long as two or more people hold different opinions on the issue. I know which side I stand on, but I will not seek to impose my views on you because that would obscure the wider point of this article.
There is no way anyone can possibly understand what it is like to live with locked-in syndrome without going through it themselves. In Tony Nicklinson’s own words – he communicates with the use of a perspex board and letters, looking, blinking and nodding to spell out words:
“I am fed up with my life and don’t want to spend the next 20 years or so like this. Am I grateful that the Athens doctors saved my life? No, I am not. If I had my time again, and knew then what I know now, I would not have called the ambulance but let nature take its course.”
However, there are some who might say that Mr Nicklinson is one of the luckier survivors of locked-in syndrome. Luckier because at least his condition was correctly diagnosed. As it turns out, an alarming number of people who live with the same condition, but are unable to even communicate their level awareness due to the severity of their disability, are routinely misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state (awake but not aware). Two fates await such people: being cast off into a nursing home to a life of solitude and neglect; or having their feeding tubes removed at the behest of doctors and relatives, deaf to their silent pleas for life.
It is not known how many people in the UK live with locked-in syndrome: no one has ever bothered to count them. However, a study by a team of specialists in the field, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that 43% of patients brought before them over a three year period had been misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state. While their levels of awareness varied, some were most certainly locked in, including one man who spent eight years in a nursing home before somebody finally realised his mind was still active. Eventually, he was sent to a rehabilitation centre where he could receive the specialist care he required and even learnt how to communicate with the outside world again. His first three words in eight years, “I love you”, were directed towards his wife who never gave up on him.
Some might say this makes no difference. They may ask: who could possibly want to live like this? Surely those who have been misdiagnosed and given the quick and painless end that Mr Nicklinson now seeks are the lucky ones? Yet surely that is their decision to make and no one else’s. If you’re looking for hard evidence though, you need look no further than across the Channel to France, the only country in the world that affords its approximately 500 locked-in citizens the dignity of being counted. A survey of 78 of them by the Association du Locked-in Syndrome (ALIS) reported that 71% had never thought of suicide, while only 8% demanded it. Another survey found that when asked how they rated their quality of life and specifically their own personal happiness on a scale of -5 to +5, most answered between +3 and +4.
Needless to say, none of this will make any one of those 8% of people seeking to die now feel any better and I don’t expect it to. Nevertheless, although we can never be sure whether any one of the countless people who have had their feeding tubes removed and their lives ended, was actually locked-in, like Tony Nicklinson, but simply unable to communicate, what data is available tells us that the chances they were misdiagnosed and as such just as conscious of what was happening to them as you or me, but denied their right to choose and subsequently their right to life, were literally almost 50/50. Perhaps we should set about addressing this criminal injustice before we debate whether mercy killing amounts to one too.
Yet he cannot end his life by his own hand. So, unless he refuses food and water, dying of starvation and de-hydration, someone else must do it for him. His wife has agreed to do just that following what must have been the most agonising decision a loving spouse can possibly face. However, say her lawyers, if she does there is a real chance she will be tried for murder. After all, she is not being asked to assist a suicide. She is being asked to commit a mercy killing.
The debate that is set to follow is a predictable one of an individual’s right to die versus the collective’s right to be protected from a callous abuse of a law that may lead to their lives being ended against their will. Ultimately, this is a moral, not a legal question. It is a matter of conscience, not of right and wrong, and as such can only ever be resolved by an act of Parliament. Even then, the debate will continue for as long as two or more people hold different opinions on the issue. I know which side I stand on, but I will not seek to impose my views on you because that would obscure the wider point of this article.
There is no way anyone can possibly understand what it is like to live with locked-in syndrome without going through it themselves. In Tony Nicklinson’s own words – he communicates with the use of a perspex board and letters, looking, blinking and nodding to spell out words:
“I am fed up with my life and don’t want to spend the next 20 years or so like this. Am I grateful that the Athens doctors saved my life? No, I am not. If I had my time again, and knew then what I know now, I would not have called the ambulance but let nature take its course.”
However, there are some who might say that Mr Nicklinson is one of the luckier survivors of locked-in syndrome. Luckier because at least his condition was correctly diagnosed. As it turns out, an alarming number of people who live with the same condition, but are unable to even communicate their level awareness due to the severity of their disability, are routinely misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state (awake but not aware). Two fates await such people: being cast off into a nursing home to a life of solitude and neglect; or having their feeding tubes removed at the behest of doctors and relatives, deaf to their silent pleas for life.
It is not known how many people in the UK live with locked-in syndrome: no one has ever bothered to count them. However, a study by a team of specialists in the field, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that 43% of patients brought before them over a three year period had been misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state. While their levels of awareness varied, some were most certainly locked in, including one man who spent eight years in a nursing home before somebody finally realised his mind was still active. Eventually, he was sent to a rehabilitation centre where he could receive the specialist care he required and even learnt how to communicate with the outside world again. His first three words in eight years, “I love you”, were directed towards his wife who never gave up on him.
Some might say this makes no difference. They may ask: who could possibly want to live like this? Surely those who have been misdiagnosed and given the quick and painless end that Mr Nicklinson now seeks are the lucky ones? Yet surely that is their decision to make and no one else’s. If you’re looking for hard evidence though, you need look no further than across the Channel to France, the only country in the world that affords its approximately 500 locked-in citizens the dignity of being counted. A survey of 78 of them by the Association du Locked-in Syndrome (ALIS) reported that 71% had never thought of suicide, while only 8% demanded it. Another survey found that when asked how they rated their quality of life and specifically their own personal happiness on a scale of -5 to +5, most answered between +3 and +4.
Needless to say, none of this will make any one of those 8% of people seeking to die now feel any better and I don’t expect it to. Nevertheless, although we can never be sure whether any one of the countless people who have had their feeding tubes removed and their lives ended, was actually locked-in, like Tony Nicklinson, but simply unable to communicate, what data is available tells us that the chances they were misdiagnosed and as such just as conscious of what was happening to them as you or me, but denied their right to choose and subsequently their right to life, were literally almost 50/50. Perhaps we should set about addressing this criminal injustice before we debate whether mercy killing amounts to one too.
Sunday 30 May 2010
The future of the Liberal Democrats: new dawn or false hope?
This article was written for the Vibe magazine (before the resignation of David Laws). Read more at www.the-vibe.co.uk
In the short history of the Liberal Democrats dating back to the alliance and eventual merger of the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party, leader after leader, from David Steel to Nick Clegg, has declared the realignment of British politics to be within reach, only for their hopes to be dashed again and again with each general election.
Thursday May 6 was no exception. The party endured a miserable night, losing five seats and several of its most well known MPs including Evan Harris, Susan Kramer, and of course Lembit Opik. Yet just ten days later, I along with over 1650 of my fellow Lib Dem members assembled in Birmingham to sign off on a coalition agreement with the Conservatives that would make Nick Clegg deputy Prime Minister.
Since then, speculation has been rife about the coalition’s chances of surviving a full five year term in government. However, much less has been said about how this landmark agreement will alter the British political landscape in the future, if at all.
Those who claim Britain was not a three party state before this election, cannot possible make the same claim now. Yet, when David Cameron and Nick Clegg call time on the coalition five years from now to call the next general election, the Liberal Democrats will still be entering the contest with just 57 parliamentary seats to their name. If this is the great Lib Dem breakthrough we have been waiting for, it must surely be one of the stealthiest breakthroughs in history.
So, what lies ahead for the heirs of Gladstone and Asquith? I’m no political soothsayer to be sure, but it seems three factors will prove critical in shaping the party’s future: first and most obviously, the status of the coalition; second, the unity of the party itself; and third, the outcome of Nick Clegg’s attempts to secure electoral and political reform.
Can the coalition stand the test of time?
So far the coalition government has managed to divide up cabinet posts and put together a sweeping legislative agenda for the Queen’s speech, which is a lot further than most people thought it would get when the deal was first announced.
However, coalitions are not as anathema to British politics as they may seem. Between 1885 and 1900, Britain was governed by a succession of coalition governments and again, intermittently, between the middle of the First World War and the end of the second. Similarly in the aftermath of the last election, the need to address the national deficit against the backdrop of a hung parliament left both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives with little choice but to enter into coalition with each other lest they incur the country’s wrath for leaving it with an unstable minority government.
Furthermore, both sides seem broadly happy with the full coalition agreement except for a few mumblings on key policy issues such as nuclear power and the Human Rights Act. The real test will come when the government is forced to respond to events it could not possibly have anticipated when drawing up the agreement, such as a foreign policy crisis.
United we stand, divided we fall…
Revisiting that Birmingham conference hall for a moment, even as person after person stood up to speak in favour of the new coalition agreement, the lingering doubts about the party’s future hung in the air like the last residue of an odour that refused to go away. Those doubts were best expressed by Charles Kennedy in an article for the Observer, published that very morning, in which he professed his desire for a progressive alliance with Labour.
Back in 1997, an alliance with anyone but Labour seemed unthinkable. Indeed, under Paddy Ashdown’s leadership, the very real possibility of a Lib-Lab coalition prior to Tony Blair’s landslide victory prompted the party to construct the Gordian triple lock, designed to prevent their leader from unilaterally making any deals that might compromise their independence. Of course a lot has changed since then. Labour’s record on the economy, civil liberties, social mobility – not to mention Iraq – over the last thirteen years made any claims that an alliance with them would be a progressive one frankly laughable.
Yet, as Kennedy’s article highlighted, the party’s diversity remains its Achilles’ heel. I once asked a councillor in my home borough of Camden which party he would choose to support if the Liberal Democrats did not exist, to which he deftly replied: “If the Lib Dems didn’t exist, I think I would have to invent them”. Many of our fellow members across the country, however, continue to identify themselves as anti-Labour or anti-Tory, creating obvious difficulties for any leader who ever chose to get in bed with one or the other.
Several commentators have also asserted that the history of Lib-Con coalitions does not bode well for the party. In an article for the Financial Times, author Peter Clarke wrote: “Historically, Liberals have learned that it is easier to walk into a coalition with the Conservatives than to walk out of it unscathed”. He was of course referring to the schisms within the Liberal Party in 1885 over Irish home rule and then again in 1931 over how to address the Great Depression. In each case, the party split into two or more factions, one of which would join the Conservatives in government leading ultimately to the permanent defection of its members.
However, I remain optimistic, primarily because defections have worked as much in the party’s favour as against it. For example, just as Salisbury’s Conservative government was reliant on the defection of Liberals to his party, the founding of the Liberal party itself in 1859 was a result of Conservative defectors, including William Gladstone, joining with the Whigs and the Radicals in response to the Corn Laws. Similarly, the Great Depression saw much of the party’s social democratic wing defect to Labour, only for them to return to the Liberal fold 50 years later.
More importantly, perhaps, the decision we took this month to enter into coalition with the Conservatives, was taken collectively by the party with near unanimous support across the parliamentary party, the federal executive, and the membership – only 12 people actually voted against the deal in Birmingham.
Furthermore, although there have certainly been some defections amongst the rank and file membership, especially to Labour, in the time since the coalition was announced, the party has received double as many new members as it has lost, according to leading Lib Dem blogger Mark Pack. Most of these people are young, open-minded, and enthusiastic about the new politics promoted by Nick Clegg during the election and are more likely to identify themselves in the same way as my councillor friend, who is incidentally one of the youngest councillors in Camden, than they are with those who grew up amidst the massive political polarisation of the Thatcher years.
Looking to the future: PR or not to PR, that is the question
In spite of all the upheaval of the last election, the biggest obstacle to long-term success for the Liberal Democrats remains the electoral system. The Queen’s speech went some way to rectifying this by promising a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) for elections to the House of Commons, while the coalition agreement went even further by promising pure Proportional Representation (PR) for the House of Lords.
The difference between the two in not immaterial: first off, AV is not a system of proportional representation, it’s just a watered down version of First Past the Post, our current system, where the winner still needs an absolute majority, but second, third, and fourth etc. preferences are counted too. However, if the study conducted by academic John Curtice from the University of Strathclyde is anything to go by, it could go some way to bringing the party’s share of seats in line with its share of the popular vote. His projections show that if each of the three main parties had secured as much of the popular vote as predicted by the polls in the last week before the election, the Liberal Democrats would have won an estimated 217 seats. Labour would have won the most seats with a total of 238, while the Tories would have finished a poor third with just 163 seats despite winning the most votes.
The reason for this outcome is that the Lib Dems tend to be most people’s second choice, whereas the positioning of constituency boundaries would have helped Labour secure more absolute majorities, albeit by smaller margins, than the Conservatives. So, as you can see, AV would be more proportional for some than for others, although you can bet your bottom dollar that David Cameron will take the opportunity to redraw those constituency boundaries to deny Labour their continued advantage.
The full democratisation of the House of Lords, meanwhile, may remain some way off, but a commitment has already been made to significantly alter its composition so that each party’s share of the popular vote is directly linked to their share of seats, resulting in the recent flurry in the number of newly appointed Lib Dem Peers: pure PR.
Conclusion
Amidst all the speculation, the underlying truth is that in spite of our previous dalliances with coalition governments, and the possibility of contesting the next general election under a brand new electoral system, it is impossible to accurately predict what lies ahead for the Liberal Democrats. However, as the coalition continues to buck expectations of its immediate demise, and the party membership continues to stand resolutely behind its leaders, with new people joining all the time, there is good reason to be optimistic.
Indeed, the only side of the coalition experiencing any difficulty placating its base is the Conservatives. David Cameron began an epic battle with his back-benchers for the soul of the Tory party with his attempted takeover of the 1922 committee. If the past has shown us anything, it is that divided Conservatives are just as prone to defecting as anyone else and historically, as in the case of both William Gladstone and Winston Churchill, they have turned to the Liberals. So, perhaps a bigger question is who will win that battle and how will it affect the coalition and in turn the country?
In the short history of the Liberal Democrats dating back to the alliance and eventual merger of the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party, leader after leader, from David Steel to Nick Clegg, has declared the realignment of British politics to be within reach, only for their hopes to be dashed again and again with each general election.
Thursday May 6 was no exception. The party endured a miserable night, losing five seats and several of its most well known MPs including Evan Harris, Susan Kramer, and of course Lembit Opik. Yet just ten days later, I along with over 1650 of my fellow Lib Dem members assembled in Birmingham to sign off on a coalition agreement with the Conservatives that would make Nick Clegg deputy Prime Minister.
Since then, speculation has been rife about the coalition’s chances of surviving a full five year term in government. However, much less has been said about how this landmark agreement will alter the British political landscape in the future, if at all.
Those who claim Britain was not a three party state before this election, cannot possible make the same claim now. Yet, when David Cameron and Nick Clegg call time on the coalition five years from now to call the next general election, the Liberal Democrats will still be entering the contest with just 57 parliamentary seats to their name. If this is the great Lib Dem breakthrough we have been waiting for, it must surely be one of the stealthiest breakthroughs in history.
So, what lies ahead for the heirs of Gladstone and Asquith? I’m no political soothsayer to be sure, but it seems three factors will prove critical in shaping the party’s future: first and most obviously, the status of the coalition; second, the unity of the party itself; and third, the outcome of Nick Clegg’s attempts to secure electoral and political reform.
Can the coalition stand the test of time?
So far the coalition government has managed to divide up cabinet posts and put together a sweeping legislative agenda for the Queen’s speech, which is a lot further than most people thought it would get when the deal was first announced.
However, coalitions are not as anathema to British politics as they may seem. Between 1885 and 1900, Britain was governed by a succession of coalition governments and again, intermittently, between the middle of the First World War and the end of the second. Similarly in the aftermath of the last election, the need to address the national deficit against the backdrop of a hung parliament left both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives with little choice but to enter into coalition with each other lest they incur the country’s wrath for leaving it with an unstable minority government.
Furthermore, both sides seem broadly happy with the full coalition agreement except for a few mumblings on key policy issues such as nuclear power and the Human Rights Act. The real test will come when the government is forced to respond to events it could not possibly have anticipated when drawing up the agreement, such as a foreign policy crisis.
United we stand, divided we fall…
Revisiting that Birmingham conference hall for a moment, even as person after person stood up to speak in favour of the new coalition agreement, the lingering doubts about the party’s future hung in the air like the last residue of an odour that refused to go away. Those doubts were best expressed by Charles Kennedy in an article for the Observer, published that very morning, in which he professed his desire for a progressive alliance with Labour.
Back in 1997, an alliance with anyone but Labour seemed unthinkable. Indeed, under Paddy Ashdown’s leadership, the very real possibility of a Lib-Lab coalition prior to Tony Blair’s landslide victory prompted the party to construct the Gordian triple lock, designed to prevent their leader from unilaterally making any deals that might compromise their independence. Of course a lot has changed since then. Labour’s record on the economy, civil liberties, social mobility – not to mention Iraq – over the last thirteen years made any claims that an alliance with them would be a progressive one frankly laughable.
Yet, as Kennedy’s article highlighted, the party’s diversity remains its Achilles’ heel. I once asked a councillor in my home borough of Camden which party he would choose to support if the Liberal Democrats did not exist, to which he deftly replied: “If the Lib Dems didn’t exist, I think I would have to invent them”. Many of our fellow members across the country, however, continue to identify themselves as anti-Labour or anti-Tory, creating obvious difficulties for any leader who ever chose to get in bed with one or the other.
Several commentators have also asserted that the history of Lib-Con coalitions does not bode well for the party. In an article for the Financial Times, author Peter Clarke wrote: “Historically, Liberals have learned that it is easier to walk into a coalition with the Conservatives than to walk out of it unscathed”. He was of course referring to the schisms within the Liberal Party in 1885 over Irish home rule and then again in 1931 over how to address the Great Depression. In each case, the party split into two or more factions, one of which would join the Conservatives in government leading ultimately to the permanent defection of its members.
However, I remain optimistic, primarily because defections have worked as much in the party’s favour as against it. For example, just as Salisbury’s Conservative government was reliant on the defection of Liberals to his party, the founding of the Liberal party itself in 1859 was a result of Conservative defectors, including William Gladstone, joining with the Whigs and the Radicals in response to the Corn Laws. Similarly, the Great Depression saw much of the party’s social democratic wing defect to Labour, only for them to return to the Liberal fold 50 years later.
More importantly, perhaps, the decision we took this month to enter into coalition with the Conservatives, was taken collectively by the party with near unanimous support across the parliamentary party, the federal executive, and the membership – only 12 people actually voted against the deal in Birmingham.
Furthermore, although there have certainly been some defections amongst the rank and file membership, especially to Labour, in the time since the coalition was announced, the party has received double as many new members as it has lost, according to leading Lib Dem blogger Mark Pack. Most of these people are young, open-minded, and enthusiastic about the new politics promoted by Nick Clegg during the election and are more likely to identify themselves in the same way as my councillor friend, who is incidentally one of the youngest councillors in Camden, than they are with those who grew up amidst the massive political polarisation of the Thatcher years.
Looking to the future: PR or not to PR, that is the question
In spite of all the upheaval of the last election, the biggest obstacle to long-term success for the Liberal Democrats remains the electoral system. The Queen’s speech went some way to rectifying this by promising a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) for elections to the House of Commons, while the coalition agreement went even further by promising pure Proportional Representation (PR) for the House of Lords.
The difference between the two in not immaterial: first off, AV is not a system of proportional representation, it’s just a watered down version of First Past the Post, our current system, where the winner still needs an absolute majority, but second, third, and fourth etc. preferences are counted too. However, if the study conducted by academic John Curtice from the University of Strathclyde is anything to go by, it could go some way to bringing the party’s share of seats in line with its share of the popular vote. His projections show that if each of the three main parties had secured as much of the popular vote as predicted by the polls in the last week before the election, the Liberal Democrats would have won an estimated 217 seats. Labour would have won the most seats with a total of 238, while the Tories would have finished a poor third with just 163 seats despite winning the most votes.
The reason for this outcome is that the Lib Dems tend to be most people’s second choice, whereas the positioning of constituency boundaries would have helped Labour secure more absolute majorities, albeit by smaller margins, than the Conservatives. So, as you can see, AV would be more proportional for some than for others, although you can bet your bottom dollar that David Cameron will take the opportunity to redraw those constituency boundaries to deny Labour their continued advantage.
The full democratisation of the House of Lords, meanwhile, may remain some way off, but a commitment has already been made to significantly alter its composition so that each party’s share of the popular vote is directly linked to their share of seats, resulting in the recent flurry in the number of newly appointed Lib Dem Peers: pure PR.
Conclusion
Amidst all the speculation, the underlying truth is that in spite of our previous dalliances with coalition governments, and the possibility of contesting the next general election under a brand new electoral system, it is impossible to accurately predict what lies ahead for the Liberal Democrats. However, as the coalition continues to buck expectations of its immediate demise, and the party membership continues to stand resolutely behind its leaders, with new people joining all the time, there is good reason to be optimistic.
Indeed, the only side of the coalition experiencing any difficulty placating its base is the Conservatives. David Cameron began an epic battle with his back-benchers for the soul of the Tory party with his attempted takeover of the 1922 committee. If the past has shown us anything, it is that divided Conservatives are just as prone to defecting as anyone else and historically, as in the case of both William Gladstone and Winston Churchill, they have turned to the Liberals. So, perhaps a bigger question is who will win that battle and how will it affect the coalition and in turn the country?
Thursday 13 May 2010
Why I'm backing the Lib Dem - Conservative coalition (updated version)
This Sunday, I will be travelling to Birmingham to attend the special conference of Liberal Democrat members called by Nick Clegg to approve the formation of a coalition government with the Conservative party. I plan to vote in favour of this new alliance and having been chosen by my branch party to represent them to this conference, I feel compelled to explain why.
I should begin by clearly stating that ideally in a hung parliament scenario, I would always prefer my party to retain its independence and work with a minority government on a case by case basis in return for co-operation on passing the reforms expected of them by the voters. However, these are exceptional times and minority governments don't tend to last long in this country. Maintaining the tentative recovery of the economy is everyone’s top priority right now and I therefore agree that the decision to commit ourselves to a long-term agreement was the right one.
Despite the near unanimous approval of the coalition deal by Lib Dem MPs and the federal executive, thereby circumventing the formal need for a conference, Nick Clegg has wisely chosen to consult with the party’s membership nonetheless to ensure their views on his new ‘kind’ of government are heard. To be sure, there will be many who will echo the reluctance of several MPs to enter into coalition with the Conservatives at the expense of a ‘progressive alliance’ with the Labour party. I will not be one of them.
Ultimately, the numbers game alone made any possibility of such a pact unworkable in that even a full Lib-Lab coalition would have had to operate as a minority government, relying on the support of a wide range of other parties each with their own demands. However, my opposition to a partnership of any sort with the Labour party was more fundamental than that.
As hard as it is to admit, it cannot be denied that Labour and the Liberal Democrats were the losers of this election and the Conservatives the winners; they just didn't win by enough. As the party of proportional representation, a hung parliament presented the Liberal Democrats with a unique opportunity to sell the desirability of coalition government to the public. To use their new found power to freeze out the party that received the most votes and the most seats would have had precisely the opposite effect.
I am also bemused by the notion that an alliance with this Labour party would have been a progressive one. I still remember Glenda Jackson, the Labour MP for my home constituency, defending her party’s record on the economy by unashamedly admitting that Labour ‘courted’ the City to win election after election. I still remember Gordon Brown abolishing the 10p tax band, doubling the rate for some of Britain’s poorest earners. I still remember the attempts to allow 90 days of pre-charge detention. I still remember the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Instead, let us call a spade a spade and realise that there is no progressive alliance to be made, but rather a sensible compromise of campaign pledges. Let us also give credit to David Cameron’s Conservatives for the concessions they have made in return for our support. Liberal Democrat MPs now hold five cabinet posts, positions awarded at the expense of five Conservative shadow secretaries. In addition, we now have commitments to a referendum on the Alternative Vote, to our plan to lift low earners out of income tax and restore the earnings link of state pensions, to pupil premiums, financial reform, and perhaps most importantly fixed parliaments to ensure the long term survival of the coalition.
Finally I would urge any Liberal Democrat members who remain sceptical still to consider the alternative: a minority Conservative government. It is doubtful that such a government would last long on its own. It is certain that we would be blamed for forcing another election in which our opponents would have no problem convincing the public we could not be trusted with real power and in which the Conservatives would almost certainly achieve the sweeping majority they crave. In the meantime, the passage of any legislation would be dependent on the support of hard-right Tory backbenchers enthusiastic about tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for everyone else as well as hostile to gay rights and our continued membership of the EU.
So, while I will definitely heed the calls of my fellow members to demand that Nick Clegg think carefully when dealing with the issues that will inevitably arise as the new government gets to work such as deciding on a cap for non-EU immigration, consolidating the parties’ divergent positions on nuclear power, and realising the full implications of the proposed ‘sovereignty bill’, I also urge them to join me in offering their full support for the coalition deal as it is put before us on Sunday.
I should begin by clearly stating that ideally in a hung parliament scenario, I would always prefer my party to retain its independence and work with a minority government on a case by case basis in return for co-operation on passing the reforms expected of them by the voters. However, these are exceptional times and minority governments don't tend to last long in this country. Maintaining the tentative recovery of the economy is everyone’s top priority right now and I therefore agree that the decision to commit ourselves to a long-term agreement was the right one.
Despite the near unanimous approval of the coalition deal by Lib Dem MPs and the federal executive, thereby circumventing the formal need for a conference, Nick Clegg has wisely chosen to consult with the party’s membership nonetheless to ensure their views on his new ‘kind’ of government are heard. To be sure, there will be many who will echo the reluctance of several MPs to enter into coalition with the Conservatives at the expense of a ‘progressive alliance’ with the Labour party. I will not be one of them.
Ultimately, the numbers game alone made any possibility of such a pact unworkable in that even a full Lib-Lab coalition would have had to operate as a minority government, relying on the support of a wide range of other parties each with their own demands. However, my opposition to a partnership of any sort with the Labour party was more fundamental than that.
As hard as it is to admit, it cannot be denied that Labour and the Liberal Democrats were the losers of this election and the Conservatives the winners; they just didn't win by enough. As the party of proportional representation, a hung parliament presented the Liberal Democrats with a unique opportunity to sell the desirability of coalition government to the public. To use their new found power to freeze out the party that received the most votes and the most seats would have had precisely the opposite effect.
I am also bemused by the notion that an alliance with this Labour party would have been a progressive one. I still remember Glenda Jackson, the Labour MP for my home constituency, defending her party’s record on the economy by unashamedly admitting that Labour ‘courted’ the City to win election after election. I still remember Gordon Brown abolishing the 10p tax band, doubling the rate for some of Britain’s poorest earners. I still remember the attempts to allow 90 days of pre-charge detention. I still remember the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Instead, let us call a spade a spade and realise that there is no progressive alliance to be made, but rather a sensible compromise of campaign pledges. Let us also give credit to David Cameron’s Conservatives for the concessions they have made in return for our support. Liberal Democrat MPs now hold five cabinet posts, positions awarded at the expense of five Conservative shadow secretaries. In addition, we now have commitments to a referendum on the Alternative Vote, to our plan to lift low earners out of income tax and restore the earnings link of state pensions, to pupil premiums, financial reform, and perhaps most importantly fixed parliaments to ensure the long term survival of the coalition.
Finally I would urge any Liberal Democrat members who remain sceptical still to consider the alternative: a minority Conservative government. It is doubtful that such a government would last long on its own. It is certain that we would be blamed for forcing another election in which our opponents would have no problem convincing the public we could not be trusted with real power and in which the Conservatives would almost certainly achieve the sweeping majority they crave. In the meantime, the passage of any legislation would be dependent on the support of hard-right Tory backbenchers enthusiastic about tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for everyone else as well as hostile to gay rights and our continued membership of the EU.
So, while I will definitely heed the calls of my fellow members to demand that Nick Clegg think carefully when dealing with the issues that will inevitably arise as the new government gets to work such as deciding on a cap for non-EU immigration, consolidating the parties’ divergent positions on nuclear power, and realising the full implications of the proposed ‘sovereignty bill’, I also urge them to join me in offering their full support for the coalition deal as it is put before us on Sunday.
Tuesday 11 May 2010
Why I'm backing a Lib Dem - Conservative coalition
Five days have passed since last Thursday's election in which the Conservatives won the most seats and the most votes of any party, but failed to obtain the necessary majority to form a government by themselves. The result of this was a hung parliament in which the Liberal Democrats hold the balance of power. The only question that remains now is with whom should they side; Labour or the Tories?
I fully expect to be invited to a special conference, as a member of the Liberal Democrats, in the next few days to be asked to vote on this question and after giving it quite some thought, I have now decided on the answer I plan to give.
How much weight that answer carries depends on the reaction of the parliamentary party and the Federal Executive to whatever Nick Clegg proposes. This is due to the 'triple lock' mechanism drawn up at 1998 Southport conference which decrees that any coalition deal must be approved by at least 3/4 of the party's MPs and Federal Executive. If it is not, a special conference is called in which 2/3 of voting members (that's me) must give their support. If it is not given, a full ballot of the entire party membership must be called in which only a simple majority is required to approve the proposed deal.
Still with me? Good.
As for my answer: I am in favour of a partnership with the Conservatives. I am opposed to a partnership with the Labour party.
Ideally, I would prefer my party to retain its independence and work with a minority government on a case by case basis in return for co-operation on passing the reforms expected of it by the 23% of the electorate that voted Liberal Democrat at the election. However, minority governments don't tend to last long in the UK and at a time when stable government is crucial to maintaining this country's tentative economic recovery, a more long-term agreement is necessary.
Of course that's only half the question answered. The other half is what kind of partnership and under what conditions?
Naturally, the numbers game is a key consideration in assessing the viability of any prospective coalition and indeed one of my main reasons for opposing one with the Labour party is that even a full Lib-Lab coalition would have to operate as a minority government, relying on the support of a wide range of other parties each with their own demands. A Lib-Con calition, on the other hand, would not.
However, my opposition to a partnership of any sort with the Labour party is more fundamental than that. As hard as it is to admit, it cannot be denied that Labour and the Liberal Democrats were the losers of this election and the Conservatives the winners. They just didn't win by enough. If, as the party of proportional representation, the Liberal Democrats intend to use this opportunity to sell the desireability of coalition government in the UK to the electorate, I am certain that using their new found power to freeze out the party that received the most votes and seats would have precisely the opposite effect.
I am also bemused by those who suggest we have a moral imperative to join up with the Labour party in what is billed as a progressive alliance. How a party that used its 13 years in government to empower the banks that brought this country to its knees - just as it empowered the unions to do exactly the same over 30 years ago - to double the tax rate for some of this country's poorest earners with the abolition of the 10p tax band, and to launch the illegal invasion of Iraq can call itself progressive is beyond me.
Instead, let us call a spade a spade and work pro-actively in coalition with the Conservatives to deliver as many of our campaign pledges as possible and minimise what would otherwise be the sizeable influence of the right-wing Tory backbenchers whose support David Cameron would need to rely on to pass any legislation if ours was not available. After all, it would not take much for the Conservative press to convince the voters that our refusal to play ball was jeopardising the country's welfare, resulting in another election being called in which Cameron would almost certainly be awarded the majority he craves.
In other words: lose Labour, tame the Tories.
So, what would be the conditions of this tentative alliance? Needless to say, both parties are right to prioritise an agreement on tackling the defecit, but after that: proportional representation, the big society, fair taxes, national insurance? If any issue should take priority once the defecit is addressed, it should indeed be political reform. However, I'm not talking about people's petitions to sack their MPs, democratising the House of Lords, or even electoral reform. I'm talking about fixed parliaments.
The simple reason for this is that no coalition will ever stand the test of time as long as the Prime Minister is free to call an election, within the maximum five year period, whenever he likes. What purpose would David Cameron have to stick to a coalition if the polls consistently pointed to a Tory majority 6 months from now? What incentive would the Liberal Democrats have to work with the Conservatives if they suspected they were merely being used to spread the responsibility for the painful cuts on the way only to be ditched and blamed for the failure of the coalition when it came to implementing their key pledges?
The latest reports from the ongoing negotiations between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats suggest that an offer of fixed parliaments is very much on the table as one of the several concessions being made to Nick Clegg. If it is, he should take it and I would support him in doing so.
I fully expect to be invited to a special conference, as a member of the Liberal Democrats, in the next few days to be asked to vote on this question and after giving it quite some thought, I have now decided on the answer I plan to give.
How much weight that answer carries depends on the reaction of the parliamentary party and the Federal Executive to whatever Nick Clegg proposes. This is due to the 'triple lock' mechanism drawn up at 1998 Southport conference which decrees that any coalition deal must be approved by at least 3/4 of the party's MPs and Federal Executive. If it is not, a special conference is called in which 2/3 of voting members (that's me) must give their support. If it is not given, a full ballot of the entire party membership must be called in which only a simple majority is required to approve the proposed deal.
Still with me? Good.
As for my answer: I am in favour of a partnership with the Conservatives. I am opposed to a partnership with the Labour party.
Ideally, I would prefer my party to retain its independence and work with a minority government on a case by case basis in return for co-operation on passing the reforms expected of it by the 23% of the electorate that voted Liberal Democrat at the election. However, minority governments don't tend to last long in the UK and at a time when stable government is crucial to maintaining this country's tentative economic recovery, a more long-term agreement is necessary.
Of course that's only half the question answered. The other half is what kind of partnership and under what conditions?
Naturally, the numbers game is a key consideration in assessing the viability of any prospective coalition and indeed one of my main reasons for opposing one with the Labour party is that even a full Lib-Lab coalition would have to operate as a minority government, relying on the support of a wide range of other parties each with their own demands. A Lib-Con calition, on the other hand, would not.
However, my opposition to a partnership of any sort with the Labour party is more fundamental than that. As hard as it is to admit, it cannot be denied that Labour and the Liberal Democrats were the losers of this election and the Conservatives the winners. They just didn't win by enough. If, as the party of proportional representation, the Liberal Democrats intend to use this opportunity to sell the desireability of coalition government in the UK to the electorate, I am certain that using their new found power to freeze out the party that received the most votes and seats would have precisely the opposite effect.
I am also bemused by those who suggest we have a moral imperative to join up with the Labour party in what is billed as a progressive alliance. How a party that used its 13 years in government to empower the banks that brought this country to its knees - just as it empowered the unions to do exactly the same over 30 years ago - to double the tax rate for some of this country's poorest earners with the abolition of the 10p tax band, and to launch the illegal invasion of Iraq can call itself progressive is beyond me.
Instead, let us call a spade a spade and work pro-actively in coalition with the Conservatives to deliver as many of our campaign pledges as possible and minimise what would otherwise be the sizeable influence of the right-wing Tory backbenchers whose support David Cameron would need to rely on to pass any legislation if ours was not available. After all, it would not take much for the Conservative press to convince the voters that our refusal to play ball was jeopardising the country's welfare, resulting in another election being called in which Cameron would almost certainly be awarded the majority he craves.
In other words: lose Labour, tame the Tories.
So, what would be the conditions of this tentative alliance? Needless to say, both parties are right to prioritise an agreement on tackling the defecit, but after that: proportional representation, the big society, fair taxes, national insurance? If any issue should take priority once the defecit is addressed, it should indeed be political reform. However, I'm not talking about people's petitions to sack their MPs, democratising the House of Lords, or even electoral reform. I'm talking about fixed parliaments.
The simple reason for this is that no coalition will ever stand the test of time as long as the Prime Minister is free to call an election, within the maximum five year period, whenever he likes. What purpose would David Cameron have to stick to a coalition if the polls consistently pointed to a Tory majority 6 months from now? What incentive would the Liberal Democrats have to work with the Conservatives if they suspected they were merely being used to spread the responsibility for the painful cuts on the way only to be ditched and blamed for the failure of the coalition when it came to implementing their key pledges?
The latest reports from the ongoing negotiations between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats suggest that an offer of fixed parliaments is very much on the table as one of the several concessions being made to Nick Clegg. If it is, he should take it and I would support him in doing so.
Sunday 9 May 2010
My conclusions on the campaign
Thursday 6th May marked the end of my first ever campaign for public office. On Saturday, a survey arrived in my post from the University of Plymouth, informing that I had been randomly selected to complete a questionnaire on my experience as a local council candidate. Here is an excerpt of my responses which hopefully will offer a concise insight into the last month of my life as a full time campaigner.
1) Were you elected or not at the 2010 election?
Not elected
2) Overall, did you enjoy campaigning?
Yes
3) Approximately how many hours a week did you spend campaigning during the election period?
60
4) Would you be prepared to stand as a candidate for local election again?
Yes
5) In general, too few women come forward to be candidates:
Agree
6) In general, too few Black, Asian, and minority ethnic people come forward to be candidates:
Agree
7) In general, too few younger people come forward to be candidates:
Strongly Agree
8) Younger people are not interested in politics:
Strongly Disagree
9) In what areas do you think increased public engagement could be effective?
Increasing understanding of local government, identifying local problems, informing the council about residents' priorities, creating opportunities for residents to suggest alternative solutions, increasing trust in local government
10) Do you think recall elections, where councillors can be removed from office if a quarter of the local electorate petition for that to happen, are a good or bad idea?
Bad idea
Make of that what you will. As I've already said, I have no regrets and consider this campaign to have been a truly formative, if gruelling, experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who has something to say about the community they live in and something to offer to make it better. I feel I've achieved a lot and I'd do it again. I'd quite like a holiday first though.
1) Were you elected or not at the 2010 election?
Not elected
2) Overall, did you enjoy campaigning?
Yes
3) Approximately how many hours a week did you spend campaigning during the election period?
60
4) Would you be prepared to stand as a candidate for local election again?
Yes
5) In general, too few women come forward to be candidates:
Agree
6) In general, too few Black, Asian, and minority ethnic people come forward to be candidates:
Agree
7) In general, too few younger people come forward to be candidates:
Strongly Agree
8) Younger people are not interested in politics:
Strongly Disagree
9) In what areas do you think increased public engagement could be effective?
Increasing understanding of local government, identifying local problems, informing the council about residents' priorities, creating opportunities for residents to suggest alternative solutions, increasing trust in local government
10) Do you think recall elections, where councillors can be removed from office if a quarter of the local electorate petition for that to happen, are a good or bad idea?
Bad idea
Make of that what you will. As I've already said, I have no regrets and consider this campaign to have been a truly formative, if gruelling, experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who has something to say about the community they live in and something to offer to make it better. I feel I've achieved a lot and I'd do it again. I'd quite like a holiday first though.
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