Why Cameron should be insisting that Brown DOESN'T need to apologise

As I listened to the media coverage of the Damian McBride/Derek Draper affair this morning, I knew for certain what David Cameron's reaction would be.

We could confidently expect a terse statement along the following lines:

As Mr McBride no longer works for the government, the Conservative Party fully accepts that Gordon Brown and the Labour party can't reasonably be expected to comment and as far as we are concerned that's the end of the matter.

How could I be so sure? Well, when former Conservative candidate for Watford Ian Oakley was convicted for spreading anonymous smears against political opponents (of a rather worse nature than those in the McBride-Draper email), and mounting a sustained campaign of harrassment and criminal damage against them, the Conservatives were reported as saying the following:

A spokesman for the Conservatives said they could not comment on the issue as Oakley was no longer a member of the party.

It is rather odd, therefore, that the BBC website reports Cameron as being 'furious' and calling on Gordon Brown to 'give a guarantee that such messages will not be sent again'. Meanwhile William Hague has 'demanded an apology from the prime minister'. It seems that the official Conservative view about smearing political opponents has temporarily slipped their memories and perhaps the Conservative Central Office aparatchik who released the statement on Oakley should remind them.

By any standards, however repellent McBride's behaviour may be, it pales into insignificance when compared to Oakley's. Unlike Oakley, McBride did not personally make his poisonous material public, he has offered some kind of public statement of regret, and a Labour cabinet minister has repudiated his behaviour (albeit with in my view quite a bit of dissembling).

In contrast, none of Oakley's erstwhile colleages in Watford Conservatives have expressed regret for his behaviour. Cameron now has apologised, but not until seven months after the conviction, and even then only after being directly asked by a member of the public in a way that meant he could hardly avoid doing so. And he certainly didn't offer a guarantee that it wouldn't happen again along the lines that he now demands of Gordon Brown.

Of course the BBC news report cited above probably doesn't quote the whole of the Conservative party's statement on this matter. Perhaps in full it reads:

The Conservative party are furious and believe that Gordon Brown should apologise for Mr McBride's behaviour, but we accept that first of all he should pretend it's nothing to do with him, that any apology should only be made after several months have gone by and even then issued only if the prime minister is put in a position by a member of the public where it would seem churlish and mean-spirited not to express regret.

Why we should welcome the launch of the Social Liberal Forum

Along with many others, I have generally rejected the all-too-easy attempts to categorise Lib Dems as either social or economic liberals (although this was clearly a bit of an aberration.) As I have said before, the Orange Book in fact lacked ideological coherence and really was just a collection of essays by individual authors, hardly suggestive of a right-wing or any other kind of project. In addition, the supposed social liberal riposte, Reinventing the state, had many contributors in common with its supposed adversary.

I suspect that virtually all Lib Dems would sign up to the appellation ‘social liberal’, but would differ as to the extent to which they might use, variously, the free market, individual choice, decentralisation and variations in taxation as mechanisms to achieve a fairer and better society. One can certainly see differences of emphasis between the editors of the Orange book, David Laws and Paul Marshall, and those of Reinventing the state, Duncan Brack, Richard Grayson and David Howarth on these issues. But all have clearly been arguing within a Liberal framework. For myself, I tend to agree with any one or group of the above depending on the issue under discussion. For example, I find Laws’ begrudging attitude to local democracy and Reinventing the state’s lack of attention to wealth creation, as opposed to distribution, equally frustrating.

My real problem has been with Paul Holmes/Tim Farron/Evan Harris and the Beveridge Group, who seem stuck in a rut of defending public sector professionals, higher taxation and greater state intervention in all things, regardless of context, to the exclusion of actually finding liberal solutions to social or economic problems. To them, more or less any fresh thinking appears to be a sign of a right-wing conspiracy and if they don’t exactly stifle debate, they sour the atmosphere in which it is conducted.

I have long lamented the lack of an authentically Liberal forum what for the sake of brevity we will call the left of the party, and I give a cautious but nonetheless warm welcome to the Social Liberal Forum. I certainly think that Charlotte Gore and Alix Mortimer who seem keen to damn it from the start ought at least to give it a chance. If in a year’s time SLF turns out to be a mere vehicle for calling David Laws and Lib Dems who agree with him crypto-Tories then such criticism might be warranted. But let’s wait and see.

There are various reasons why my welcome is both warm and cautious. In the first place, when I notice the presence of Tim Farron and Paul Holmes, contributors of embarrassingly bad chapters to Reinventing the state, on its advisory board, my heart sinks. But the majority of those associated with SLF are not by any means of that stamp. They represent a diverse range of Lib Dem opinion and at least one leading light, James Graham, is more than aware of the shortcomings of the collectivist left of the party.

Likewise I wince a little when I read Richard Grayson’s reference to ‘two approaches’ to Lib Dem policy, ‘Orange Book' and ‘social liberal’. This makes me feel more uncomfortable as I, and no doubt many other Lib Dems, don’t fall neatly into either camp, and don’t find them mutually exclusive. It smacks of a ‘them and us’ attitude to internal debate. But I am sure that is not Richard’s intention and this is confirmed by the reprinting on the SLF website of David Howarth’s generous and inclusive chapter from Reinventing the state.

Both Richard and David appear to place great importance on the rise of so-called New Liberalism a century or so ago as a vital point of departure for social liberalism. If anything, recent historians have called this into question, suggesting that Victorian Liberals may have been rather less and Edwardian Liberals a little more sceptical of state intervention than is often imagined. My hope is that SLF might draw emphasise the democratic element of Liberal social policy, looking to traditions of citizenship, individualism, participation and decentralisation rather than simply advocating collectivism and greater state intervention.

Last but not least, I fear there is a tendency among those who stress ‘social liberalism’ to ignore economics altogether, to consider only how to spend taxes and not how to generate wealth. I always want to ask those who noisily proclaim that they are social not economic liberals: ‘So how would you describe your economic views then – illiberal/social democratic/conservative/Stalinist?’ In current economic circumstances, liberals of all stripes need to think about reinventing rather more than just the state.

SLF has the opportunity to engage in new thinking about liberalism and Lib Dem policy, stimulate genuine debate with a different perspective from, but without hostility towards sister/rival bodies such as Centre Forum. I look forward to seeing how this new initiative develops.

A man's a man for a' that

The 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birth provides me with an excuse to revive this blog, but sadly it has been neglected elsewhere - at least if the publications I read are anything to go by. History Today, the New Statesman, Guardian and Observer have all arrived with little or no comment on the anniversary, a poor recognition of someone who is not only only Scotland's national poet, but also one with a worldwide reputation and who speaks powerfully of the human condition.

How to explain such neglect. Perhaps it is that with Burns celebrations on 25 January every year, the novelty of a big anniversary doesn't seem that great. I suspect that the London media are tempted to leave Burns to their Scottish counterparts. Secondly, there is a tendency, connived at by at least some Scots, to coat Burns in an aura of tartan tweeness, along with sporrans, Baxter's soup, shortbread and oatcakes.

Whichever way, few enough of us were around for the 200th anniversary or will be for the 300th. This is an opportuninity to celebrate a great lyric poet and a political radical whose writings should be an inspiration to Liberals and everyone with progressive values.

The BBC, under fire from so many quarters just now, has taken the Burns anniversary seriously, so you can watch or listen to any of the programmes listed here. Strangely not listed are is today's edition of Poetry Please on Radio 4, which you can listen to here.

And perhaps also take a little time to read at least one Burns poem, possibly even this one:

Is there for honest Poverty

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

Underdogs 2: Montrose FC

One of the delights of my childhood was the occasional visit to Links Park to watch Montrose FC, then, during the mid-1970s, enjoying the most successful years in their history, including finishing one spot off gaining promotion to the Scottish premiership.

Having moved down to Watford, I never had occasion to go back to Montrose and watch the 'Links Park Dynamo' again. But a few years ago, visiting old haunts, I was disappointed to see that the ground had changed out of recognition since the 1970s.

To my delight, therefore, I have found a series of short videos showing Scottish football grounds in the 1980s. Possibly I am the only person in the world (or at least outside Montrose) who is interested in this, but just in case, here is the link. We used to stand in the terrace (now demolished) that ran along the side of the pitch.

Underdogs 1: George Harrison - This Song

In all things I root for the underdog, so naturally I have always believed that George Harrison was the true genius of the Beatles, and I have been rediscovering his solo output recently. To support my case, I cite this early (1976) video This song, a humorous response to being sued over his hit My sweet Lord's resemblance to The Chiffons' He's so fine.

The Cruiser versus the tabloid bruiser

Why is it that when someone dies who was not quite in step with its editorial line the Guardian feels the need to trash them? It isn't big and it isn't clever and merely makes the liberal left look every bit as nasty and mean-spirited as the right.

The most notorious case was Polly Toynbee's attack on Auberon Waugh, which however wrong-headed of itself, at least had the merit of appearing heartfelt and reflecting a genuine clash between opposing styles of journalism.

There is rather less excuse for setting tabloid bruiser Roy Greenslade (editor of the Mirror under Maxwell and assistant editor of the Sun during the Falklands era) to flay the earthly remains of Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Mick Fealty of the Slugger O'Toole website commented on negative postings about O'Brien that 'the answer is not that people should not speak ill of the dead, but that people say something of value about them'. This is the test that Greenslade's piece fails. There is an air of the Guardian feeling that because O'Brien was an apostate from the liberal consensus, they needed a hired gun to dole out a verbal beating, even if it is as ill-informed as Greenslade's article.

He starts by describing the obituaries as a 'hagiographic outpouring', which I suppose they may be if you are a republican-sympathising tabloid journalist unable to recognise the subtleties of nuance and qualification in language. My reading of the obituaries, inluding the one published in the Guardian, was that while they were mostly respectful, as they should be to someone who had had such a long and varied career, few were unqualified by criticism.

On the substance of O'Brien's career, the best Greenslade can do is accuse him of 'flip-flopping', particularly over the partition of Ireland. Where to start here? I suppose some people may regard it as a damning indictment that over the course of 60 years, someone should alter their opinion at all on a given issue. Possibly Greenslade has never had occasion to change his 'mind' on anything. But given that O'Brien had engaged with Northern Ireland, its politics and history alternately as a historian, diplomat, politician and newspaper columnist, over several decades, it is no surprise that his thinking evolved, a concept that Greenslade clearly finds hard to comprehend.

In this case, the criticism is that in the 1940s O'Brien organised anti-partitionist propaganda, then became opposed to irridentist nationalism, then in the late 1990s 'he disavowed the very unionist viewpoints he had been prosyletising for'. At face value, hardly a case of serial flip-flopping, but even less so if we consider the reality. Greenslade article offers a link to the book he cites as justification for this claim, but in fact it just turns out to be the Wikipedia entry on O'Brien. Greenslade appears not to have read the book he cites, or if he has has not understood it, and gives no clear evidence that he even knows which one it is.

In his various publications including States of Ireland and Ancestral Voices (links given in previous posts) O'Brien explained how as a civil servant in the 1940s he conducted anti-partitionist propaganda. At the time opposition to partition was almost a given for anyone involved in politics or administration in the Irish republic. O'Brien realised that the propaganda was not doing much good given Unionist hostility to a united Ireland, but felt it was probably not doing much harm. When the Provisional IRA begin its armed campaign in the early 1970s he concluded that the prevailing anti-partitionism of the Irish state offered a kind of moral justification for the Provisionals and began to re-think his view of partition, defending the rights of Unionists not to join a united Ireland. In the late 1990s, fearful of excessive repulican influence in the peace process, and Sinn Fein gaining power in Northern Ireland and the Republic, he argued in his book Memoir: my life and themes that Unionists should consider whether they would stand more chance of sidelining Sinn Fein and wielding greater influence by joining a united Ireland. It was certainly not a case of returning to old-fashioned nationalism. So while his views hardly remained unchanged between the 1940s and 2008, it was more a case of his opinions evolving in response to the course of events (a practice supported by his hero Edmund Burke) rather than of constantly changing his mind.

Certainly he has been more consistent than republican apologists who made excuses for a quarter of a century of violence and thousands of deaths aimed at creating a united Ireland, only to find Sinn Fein accepting a partitionist settlement after all.

Next Greenslade attacks O'Brien for having the 'temerity' to complain about lack of free speech in Nkrumah's Ghana while denying terrorists and their apologists access to broadcasting airwaves in Ireland. Again, I suppose nuance is lost on Greenslade, although the rest of us might understand the difference between the general proscription of free speech in an incipient dictatorship and specific restrictions on organisations dedicated to overthrowing the state. (In the 1970s at least, the Provisional IRA regarded itself of the legitimate government of the 32 counties and did not recognise the 26-county republic.) Whether or not one agrees with O'Brien's solution to this (although the subsequent Fianna Fail government did not repeal his legislation), it is a genuine dilemma for any democratic government faced with a campaign of paramilitary violence.

Bizarrely, Greenslade claims that such restrictions helped to delay the peace process. While he offers no evidence for this, the implication is that if only people had understood republican arguments sooner, all would have been well. But of course the Provos only formally became part of peace talks once they had declared a ceasefire and on the basis of a partitionist settlement. Republican arguments of the mid-1970s bore little or no relation to the discourse of the peace process. In any case they were never lacking for 'useful idiots' in the British left and liberal media to plead their cause. One does not have to be an unswerving follower of the Cruiser to recognise this. Indeed the Guardian's own Northern Ireland correspondence has just written a book about it, Gunsmoke and Mirrors.

In a final display of petty-mindedness, Greenslade chooses to quibble about O'Brien's exact title when he worked for the Observer, nearly 30 years ago. Goodness knows, that there is enough to disagree with Conor Cruise O'Brien about. Even as a stong admirer of his, I might mention his Euroscepticism, regarding Islam as a monolithic force, support for George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, and his opposition to David Trimble's role in the peace process combined with a misplaced confidence that Ian Paisley would not do a deal with Sinn Fein, as examples of where I part company from him. (Although of course one should make allowances for his advancing years and declining health.)

There was certainly room for considered criticism of O'Brien amid the obituaries, but Greenslade's piece isn't it. It is best regarded as the homage that a bad writer unintenionally pays to a much better one. O'Brien's reputation is enhanced rather than diminished by Greenslade's attack.

PS: In the heat of the moment there I forgot to acknowledge Jonathan Calder for drawing my attention to the Roy Greenslade article.

'We don't do relationships'

I never did quite get round to posting properly on the Haut de la Garenne case in Jersey, nor on the Haringey Baby P issue, as I had intended.

This article by Edinburgh University academic Mark Smith, on the Good Enough Caring website run by my father Charles Sharpe, sheds much light on the current difficulties faced by the social work profession and possibly therefore on both the aforementioned controversies.

It begins:

Having spent almost 20 years working in residential child care I now teach social work. I was horrified (although sadly not altogether surprised) when a student reported back from a field visit that she had been told by a children and families social worker, ‘we don’t do relationships anymore”. It wasn’t even said with regret apparently, just a statement of what the social work role had become.

On the death of Conor Cruise O'Brien

‘He was never afraid to take up unpopular positions, with the result that few ever agreed with him all the time’ was the verdict of Irish Labour party leader Eamon Gilmore on Conor Cruise O’Brien, who died on Thursday.

This is reflected in the ambivalence of many of the obituaries. The Cruiser defied easy ideological categorisation. As a former Irish Labour party politician and a member of that party when he died, he can be seen as a man of the left, the more so in the light of his championing of secular values in Ireland and his hostility to the influence of the Catholic Church. His career in the United Nations, and in particular his involvement in the Congo places him as an anti-imperialist. His long-standing opposition to the Irish republican movement is less easy to pigeonhole, but his strong Zionist sympathies, not to mention his support in his later years for George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, meant that he often drew more praise from right- rather than left-wingers. The more so in view of his later identification with Unionism and his opposition to the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

In truth, once he was freed from involvement in front-line politics in 1977, Cruise O’Brien was that rare thing – an intellectual who did not feel himself bound by the set menu of either left or right, but who was willing to think things out for himself and reach his own conclusions. That is what makes him difficult to pigeonhole and therefore why he is not being mourned as a hero of left, right or centre, however respectful most of the obituaries may be. Of course, some of the reactions to his death have not been respectful at all, and the virulence of some of the comments on, for example, the Slugger O’Toole website from republican sympathisers would no doubt have pleased him as much as the positive tributes. 'A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies', as O’Brien’s fellow Trinity College Dublin graduate, Oscar Wilde, once said

I hope that at least some liberals will shed a tear for his passing and more importantly should read his work, for however much we too will not agree with him on everything, there is much he has to teach us. In the first place, O’Brien was a scathing critic of nationalism and in particular of the dangerous cocktail of nationalism and religion. In Ireland he exposed how republicanism, even when dressed up in secular language, was closely linked to religious notions of blood sacrifice, which enabled its adherents to see themselves as being on a more profound moral plane than those forced to make the shabby compromises of democratic politics. He was particularly critical of ‘sneaking regarders’ - nationalists who formally opposed violent republicanism but nonetheless were ambivalent about confronting it. O’Brien’s critique of Irish nationalism was all the more powerful because he came from a strongly nationalist background, but the wider message is that we should look upon all national movements with scepticism rather than simply assume that national conflicts are a matter of victims versus oppressors and back the ones we regard as the good guys.

When he was a minister in the 1973–77 Fine Gael–Labour coalition, he was much criticised for extending the ban on representatives of and apologists for the republican movement appearing on state broadcasting channels. This was seen as compromising his liberal credentials and was criticised as an attack on free speech. Yet O’Brien justified it on the grounds that an organisation which did not recognise the legitimacy of the Irish state, formally claimed to be the legitimate government, and used violence in order to undermine the state, should not be granted access to the airwaves by the government which it sought to overthrow. In doing this, he tackled head-on the reality that free speech can never be an absolute and that democracies will in extreme circumstances have to protect themselves from their enemies.

Indeed, one of the threads that run through O’Brien’s writing, is that in general order is better than anarchy and that attempts to overthrow governments by violence generally leads to more bloodshed rather than greater justice. This led him, for example, not only to oppose the republican movement in Ireland, but also American attempts during the Cold War to destabilise hostile governments – he was a strong opponent of US funding of the Contras in Nicaragua during the 1980s.

It is perhaps no surprise therefore, that the historical figure with whom O’Brien most closely identified was Edmund Burke, the eighteenth century Whig reformer who became the earliest and most trenchant critic of the French revolution. His biography of Burke, The Great Melody, is a brilliant, though highly personal study of his fellow Irishman, which argues that in supporting reform of British rule in America, India and Ireland, while opposing revolution based on abstract theory, Burke was being consistent by objecting to abuse of power, no matter from which quarter it came. As I am inclined to think that liberals too easily cede Burke to the ranks of conservative thinkers, I would recommend The Great Melody to Liberal readers of this blog as a way of gaining an insight not only into the mind of one of the great thinkers of the eighteenth century, but also one of the most important public intellectuals of the twentieth.

It is the fate of writers of non-fiction that books go out of print very quickly, but for those who wish to understand the conflicts in Ireland over the last century in its emotional and spiritual as well as political dimensions, it is worth tracking down O’Brien’s States of Ireland, his response to the start of the Provisional IRA armed campaign and also Ancestral Voices, his later reflection on the links between religion and Irish nationalism.

If nothing else, at least read the obituaries, which are many and various, including those in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times, The Times, New York Times.

There is also a very interesting interview from the 1990s in the UC Berkeley Conversations with History series on Youtube.

Coverage of Jersey in the press

Richard Webster's blog inlcudes an interesting discussion of the treatment of the 'murder inquiry that wasn't' in last week's press. He pertinently points out that

...the invocation of evil is too often used to justify all manner of shortcomings on the part of those who crusade against it. Because, in our own culture, we seem to have adopted child abuse as our ultimate evil, the assumption is frequently made that actions which are less than entirely scrupulous can be justified so long as they are aimed at defeating this evil.

While the conspiracy theorists are letting rip about cover-ups and the like, it is perhaps pointing out one more plausible explanation for the nature and timing of the police's announcment. A couple of weeks ago the Jersey Evening Post reported that defence lawyers for the two people so far charged as a result of the child abuse inquiry were arguing that their clients could not get a fair trial because of the media publicity about the case.

Perhaps the police hope that by separating the specific evidence in individual cases from the falsehoods of the 'House of horrors' media sensation they are more likely to achieve successful prosecutions in those cases where there is compelling evidence of abuse. Whichever way, the tactics adopted by Lenny Harper and his supporters have probably hindered rather than helped the victims of abuse and reduced the likelihood of bringing abusers to justice.