It would be churlish to begrudge Gordon Brown his assumption of the premiership tomorrow. As architect of New Labour, he helped to make his party electable again. As chancellor, he has avoided the economic crises that proved the undoing of previous Labour governments. And despite the ongoing feud with Tony Blair, he has stayed the course, not resigning nor being so overtly disloyal that Blair could sack him. In the process he has seen all his potential challengers for the Labour leadership fall by the wayside.
Nonetheless, Brown should enjoy such honeymoon period as he gets, because none of the historical precedents suggest that his will be a successful premiership. In the past century or so, none of the prime ministers who have succeeded long-serving party leaders while in office have enjoyed much success. Brown is known to be obsessed with the Anthony Eden example: the second-in-command who waited years for Churchill to retire only to crash and burn within two years of reaching Number 10. Leo McKinstry recently drew a comparison between Gordon Brown and Lord Rosebery, who was Gladstone’s successor in 1894 – both chippy Scotsmen with poor people-management skills. Rosebery led a divided and ineffective government for 15 months before seeing his party go down to a spectacular defeat that marked the start of a decade in the political wilderness.
Other examples tell a similar story. Balfour, succeeding his uncle Lord Salisbury in 1903, took over a party that had won two successive landslide majorities and led it to a landslide defeat in 1906. Neville Chamberlain, Baldwin’s de facto deputy and unchallenged successor in 1937 never faced the electorate as party leader, but his premiership was brief and ended with the catastrophe of the second world war, with his appeasement policy discredited. Callaghan succeeding Wilson in 1976 was much admired as prime minister by his colleagues, but presided over the Winter of Discontent and his electoral defeat in 1979 ushered in the era of Thatcherism. Of course, John Major took over from Thatcher in 1990 and went on to win the election in 1992, but this is perhaps not the happiest of precedents.
A further bad omen for Brown is that governments who have seen their majorities reduced have never been able to turn the tide. In 2005 Labour’s national share of the vote fell from 40.7% to 35.2% and their majority from 167 to 66. Every historical precedent says they will fall further next time. In 1900, the Conservatives saw their majority slightly reduced. In January 1910, the Liberal landslide majority was wiped out and Asquith was thereafter dependent on third and fourth party support to remain in office. The Liberals, of course, never won another general election. In 1935 the electorate slashed the record majority of the Conservative-dominated National government and voted the Conservatives out of office altogether the next time they got a chance in 1945. Five years later, the Labour government’s landslide majority was converted into a very narrow one and the party lost office at the general election of the following year. And the Conservative government of 1979–87 reached its electoral zenith in 1983, had diminished majorities in both 1987 and 1992 and then suffered devastating defeat in 1997.
As if all this is not enough, during the twentieth century on each occasion that a government took the country into a prolonged war, the electorate delivered a harsh verdict at the first general election AFTER the war was over. This was the case for the Conservatives in 1906, following the South African War, the Liberals in 1918 after the first world war and the Conservatives in 1945 after the second world war. Of course, in these three cases there was strong public support for the war while it was in progress – the backlash came afterwards. By contrast there was strong public opposition to the Iraq war from the start and it may be that the electorate will feel that they gave Labour a bloody nose last time. But, equally, in 2005 it was still possible to believe that the Iraq war might have a positive outcome and to celebrate the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Unless, as seems unlikely, British troops come home leaving behind a stable, democratic Iraq, voters may use the next election to reach a very severe judgement on a failed enterprise.
Of course, there are no inevitabilities in history and in many ways New Labour have already rewritten the electoral rules of the last 100 years, keeping the Tories out of office for the longest period since the eighteenth century. Brown may look to the example of Harold MacMillan, who took over after the disastrous Suez enterprise and, even though he had supported it, managed to put it behind him and win an increased majority at the subsequent election. However, unlike Brown, MacMillan inherited a party that was on an electoral upswing.
How does all this affect the Liberal Democrats? Well it is perhaps no wonder that Brown is trying to cosy up to us. If he is re-elected with a reduced majority, Labour’s vote share is likely to be so low as to call into question the government’s legitimacy – for example, if it has an overall majority but less than a third of the national vote. However, there is a real question mark as to whether it would be right to maintain in power a government that had lost the confidence of the electorate. In such circumstances, Brown may need us more than we need him, so we ought to be in a position to drive a hard bargain, if we want to deal at all.
On the other hand, if Brown’s fortunes follow the historical pattern, that spells bad news for the Liberal Democrats. Historically, our worst results, in terms of loss of votes and seats have come when Conservative governments have replaced Labour ones. The 1924, 1931, 1951, 1970 and 1979 election results varied between disappointing and disastrous for the old Liberal party. But then, in most of these elections there were few constituencies where we could mount a genuine challenge to the Labour party. So with our growing strength in urban areas, we have may a chance of bucking the trend next time even if Cameron does end up victorious. And of course, as Michael Portillo has pointed out in the Sunday Times, the wheels may already be coming off the Tory revival.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
How the media loses those shades of grey
The previous posting put me in mind of a story that a former colleague of mine used to relate about the ways in which subtleties and shades of opinion get lost amid journalists’ wish to simplify news coverage.
In 1990, the Tory Cabinet Minister Nicholas Ridley created a sensation and was forced to resign as a result of accusing the Germans of wanting to ‘take over the whole of Europe’ in an interview in the Spectator.
During the media furore over this, one of the broadcasting channels visited Cirencester, in Ridley’s constituency to get his constituents’ views on his comments. My ex-colleage, who lived in Cirencester, was one of those stopped and asked his opinion. Being a contrary type he said that he thought Ridley was completely wrong, but didn’t think he should resign, because it was a good thing when politicians spoke their minds.
Watching television that evening to see if he would be ‘on the news’, he realised that his remarks didn’t fit the journalists’ pre-ordained script. And indeed the interviewees whose comments were broadcast either said ‘Yes, I agree with him the Germans are a rotten lot’ or ‘No, I disagree, he must resign’. Any opinion that was nuanced or quirky didn’t stand a chance.’
In 1990, the Tory Cabinet Minister Nicholas Ridley created a sensation and was forced to resign as a result of accusing the Germans of wanting to ‘take over the whole of Europe’ in an interview in the Spectator.
During the media furore over this, one of the broadcasting channels visited Cirencester, in Ridley’s constituency to get his constituents’ views on his comments. My ex-colleage, who lived in Cirencester, was one of those stopped and asked his opinion. Being a contrary type he said that he thought Ridley was completely wrong, but didn’t think he should resign, because it was a good thing when politicians spoke their minds.
Watching television that evening to see if he would be ‘on the news’, he realised that his remarks didn’t fit the journalists’ pre-ordained script. And indeed the interviewees whose comments were broadcast either said ‘Yes, I agree with him the Germans are a rotten lot’ or ‘No, I disagree, he must resign’. Any opinion that was nuanced or quirky didn’t stand a chance.’
Blair and the feral beasts
Perhaps the moment has passed, but I have been reflecting on Tony Blair’s ‘feral beasts’ speech. He tries to play the dignified statesman, the ‘pretty straight’ guy, having to do battle with the feral beasts.
It seems to be though that it is difficult to think simply in terms of a relationship between politicians and the media, because there is so much overlap between the two. It isn’t just that many journalists seek an alternative career in politics, as MPs or spin-doctors, and politicians moonlight on the op. ed. pages of newspapers and magazines.
It’s also that both are to a great extent in the same business – purveying information, news and opinion that we hope will be of interest to a particular audience. For journalists this is their core business – done to sell newspapers or attract viewers and listeners. For politicians it is a means to an end – that of winning elections and carrying out the business of public administration. But it is a great and increasing part of the job. The skills required to produce newsletters (whether Focus, Rose or In Touch) MP’s reports, tabloids and election addresses, websites and blogs are essentially journalistic skills.
They share the same sins too – sensationalism, oversimplifying issues in order to make them seem exciting or interesting, presenting shades of opinion as clear-cut contrasts, as well as making factual errors or writing something in the heat of the moment that doesn’t stand up to later scrutiny. But if we are all to some extend guilty, I can’t help feeling, however biased my view, that Blair and New Labour are that bit more guilty than others. It’s not a question of the Iraq dossiers – the whole message has been to reduce debate to near absurdity – Labour are against crime so everyone else is in favour of it; Labour are against Saddam so everyone who disagrees favours him. (More examples at Millennium Dome Elephant). These have not arisen, as Blair claims, in the early years of New Labour when they were in opposition and struggling to deal with a hostile press, but well into the Blair project when they were in power.
So while some of Blair’s arguments may have some validity, he is in no position to take the moral high ground with the media.
It seems to be though that it is difficult to think simply in terms of a relationship between politicians and the media, because there is so much overlap between the two. It isn’t just that many journalists seek an alternative career in politics, as MPs or spin-doctors, and politicians moonlight on the op. ed. pages of newspapers and magazines.
It’s also that both are to a great extent in the same business – purveying information, news and opinion that we hope will be of interest to a particular audience. For journalists this is their core business – done to sell newspapers or attract viewers and listeners. For politicians it is a means to an end – that of winning elections and carrying out the business of public administration. But it is a great and increasing part of the job. The skills required to produce newsletters (whether Focus, Rose or In Touch) MP’s reports, tabloids and election addresses, websites and blogs are essentially journalistic skills.
They share the same sins too – sensationalism, oversimplifying issues in order to make them seem exciting or interesting, presenting shades of opinion as clear-cut contrasts, as well as making factual errors or writing something in the heat of the moment that doesn’t stand up to later scrutiny. But if we are all to some extend guilty, I can’t help feeling, however biased my view, that Blair and New Labour are that bit more guilty than others. It’s not a question of the Iraq dossiers – the whole message has been to reduce debate to near absurdity – Labour are against crime so everyone else is in favour of it; Labour are against Saddam so everyone who disagrees favours him. (More examples at Millennium Dome Elephant). These have not arisen, as Blair claims, in the early years of New Labour when they were in opposition and struggling to deal with a hostile press, but well into the Blair project when they were in power.
So while some of Blair’s arguments may have some validity, he is in no position to take the moral high ground with the media.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Is political meddling really devaluing the school curriculum?
Is political meddling really ruining lessons as the think-tank Civitas claims and as reported on the
front page of today’s Daily Telegraph?
I heard the discussion on this morning’s Today Programme between Chris McGovern, one of the authors of the Civitas report and Peter Hyman, Downing Street Spin Doctor turned comprehensive school teacher. The strange thing about their argument was that they appeared to describe two entirely different national curriculums for history – the one infected by fashionable policitical nostrums to the point that history has become a bogus subject, the other a highly traditional outline of 1,000 years of British History. Both can’t be right.
The reason for this, I suspect, is not simply that the truth lies somewhere in between, but that the national curriculum includes a strange mixture of both elements. Of course, I am neither a schoolteacher nor a recent pupil – indeed my schooldays are so long ago that they didn’t even have GCSE’s back then. But helping my stepchildren with history homework gave me at least a little bit of insight into the way students are expected to learn.
While they did indeed learn about the Tudors, the Victorians etc., it seemed to me that these were dealt with in a funny order without a clear sense of chronology. And homework projects were rather different from those of my schooldays. Rather than having to outline the key events of 1066 etc., students would have to examine a picture or other contemporary document and then write about how an Anglo-Saxon woman would have felt at her husband leaving home to fight in Harold’s army and then having all their land taken away by the Normans. Or something like that. So rather than what happened, when and why, pupils were invited to make up stories about historical events.
My suspicion is that the history curriculum has become a bizarre amalgamation of the traditional ‘island’s story’ that the Tories wanted when they introduced it and the postmodernist ideas of those who theorise about the learning of history and who reject the idea that we can ‘know’ what happened in the past and instead see it as any number of equally valid stories. (Richard J. Evans’s book In defence of history deals at length with the baleful influence of postmodernist theorists on the historical profession.)
Of course, one wonders also whether the ‘political-correctness-gone-mad’ lobby are protesting just a little too much. Anyone who has read 1066 and all that, whose authors, Sellars and Yeatman subtitled their work ‘a memorable history of England’, will know that there are only two dates in British history that most people remember – 55BC and 1066. The year of the Gunpowder Plot was excised because it was not ‘memorable’ So people having only a vague notion of the key events of British history has a long genesis. Sellars and Yeatman were of course writing in 1930, before political correctness, postmodernism or the national curriculum.
There is indeed a danger in making history about empathy rather than knowledge. But neither should history simply be a story of kings and queens and great men, as many conservative historians might wish. It ought to be possible to give children studying history at school a clear sense of the high politics of British history, alongside the social, cultural, ethnic and religious elements. These things are important too and it is possible to teach them in an academically rigorous way.
front page of today’s Daily Telegraph?
I heard the discussion on this morning’s Today Programme between Chris McGovern, one of the authors of the Civitas report and Peter Hyman, Downing Street Spin Doctor turned comprehensive school teacher. The strange thing about their argument was that they appeared to describe two entirely different national curriculums for history – the one infected by fashionable policitical nostrums to the point that history has become a bogus subject, the other a highly traditional outline of 1,000 years of British History. Both can’t be right.
The reason for this, I suspect, is not simply that the truth lies somewhere in between, but that the national curriculum includes a strange mixture of both elements. Of course, I am neither a schoolteacher nor a recent pupil – indeed my schooldays are so long ago that they didn’t even have GCSE’s back then. But helping my stepchildren with history homework gave me at least a little bit of insight into the way students are expected to learn.
While they did indeed learn about the Tudors, the Victorians etc., it seemed to me that these were dealt with in a funny order without a clear sense of chronology. And homework projects were rather different from those of my schooldays. Rather than having to outline the key events of 1066 etc., students would have to examine a picture or other contemporary document and then write about how an Anglo-Saxon woman would have felt at her husband leaving home to fight in Harold’s army and then having all their land taken away by the Normans. Or something like that. So rather than what happened, when and why, pupils were invited to make up stories about historical events.
My suspicion is that the history curriculum has become a bizarre amalgamation of the traditional ‘island’s story’ that the Tories wanted when they introduced it and the postmodernist ideas of those who theorise about the learning of history and who reject the idea that we can ‘know’ what happened in the past and instead see it as any number of equally valid stories. (Richard J. Evans’s book In defence of history deals at length with the baleful influence of postmodernist theorists on the historical profession.)
Of course, one wonders also whether the ‘political-correctness-gone-mad’ lobby are protesting just a little too much. Anyone who has read 1066 and all that, whose authors, Sellars and Yeatman subtitled their work ‘a memorable history of England’, will know that there are only two dates in British history that most people remember – 55BC and 1066. The year of the Gunpowder Plot was excised because it was not ‘memorable’ So people having only a vague notion of the key events of British history has a long genesis. Sellars and Yeatman were of course writing in 1930, before political correctness, postmodernism or the national curriculum.
There is indeed a danger in making history about empathy rather than knowledge. But neither should history simply be a story of kings and queens and great men, as many conservative historians might wish. It ought to be possible to give children studying history at school a clear sense of the high politics of British history, alongside the social, cultural, ethnic and religious elements. These things are important too and it is possible to teach them in an academically rigorous way.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Begrudging Blair
The problem with not keeping up daily posts is that fellow bloggers beat me to posting more or less exactly what I would have written. Not for the first time, step forward Liberal England.
Perhaps there are a few things to add. By 1997, the Tories and the country really did need a long break from one another, and Blair is to be congratulated in putting together a non-Tory electoral force that was capable of winning repeatedly.
The only other period in the past century that the Conservatives have appeared so utterly out of tune with the electorate and incapable of governing was in the few years before and the eight years after the 1906 Liberal landslide before the first world war intervened. Blair too got Britain into a war that it would have been better to stay out of. But because the war was on a lesser scale and much further away, his party has survived intact.
Liberals should be wary of lionising the Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith administration, but they certainly contributed towards making Britain a fairer, more democratic and humane society. I don’t believe that the same can be said for Blair’s government.
My particular complaint is about the criminal justice process, where the Blair government has abandoned Labour’s liberal traditions and reduced law and order policy to a bidding war for Sun and Daily Mail headlines. Even back in the days when Labour opposed neighbourhood watch schemes, I don’t think anyone claimed they were on the side of criminals – an accusation that Labour willingly level at opponents who dare to oppose any of their criminal justice bills.
It is perhaps a bit begrudging to pick on this particular issue while overlooking independence of the Bank of England, civil partnerships or the minimum wage. But there is something deeply cynical about the way Blair and New Labour have cheapened political debate that induces such begrudgery.
Perhaps there are a few things to add. By 1997, the Tories and the country really did need a long break from one another, and Blair is to be congratulated in putting together a non-Tory electoral force that was capable of winning repeatedly.
The only other period in the past century that the Conservatives have appeared so utterly out of tune with the electorate and incapable of governing was in the few years before and the eight years after the 1906 Liberal landslide before the first world war intervened. Blair too got Britain into a war that it would have been better to stay out of. But because the war was on a lesser scale and much further away, his party has survived intact.
Liberals should be wary of lionising the Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith administration, but they certainly contributed towards making Britain a fairer, more democratic and humane society. I don’t believe that the same can be said for Blair’s government.
My particular complaint is about the criminal justice process, where the Blair government has abandoned Labour’s liberal traditions and reduced law and order policy to a bidding war for Sun and Daily Mail headlines. Even back in the days when Labour opposed neighbourhood watch schemes, I don’t think anyone claimed they were on the side of criminals – an accusation that Labour willingly level at opponents who dare to oppose any of their criminal justice bills.
It is perhaps a bit begrudging to pick on this particular issue while overlooking independence of the Bank of England, civil partnerships or the minimum wage. But there is something deeply cynical about the way Blair and New Labour have cheapened political debate that induces such begrudgery.
Simon Jenkins encore
One point I missed in my previous post was the wrong-headedness of his comparison between the Lib Dems’ attitude to Scottish independence now and the Liberal party’s support for Irish Home Rule a century or so ago:
The whole point of the Gladstonian Liberal party’s position was that it saw home rule as a final settlement that would recognise Irish aspirations for self-government while reconciling Ireland to the union. The Liberal party certainly did not support Irish independence.
The Conservatives and the schismatic Liberal Unionists opposed home rule inter alia because they thought it would inevitably lead to complete separation while the Liberals saw it as a way of averting such an eventuality. In the end, because home rule was never tried, the failure to grant it did indeed lead to independence.
So there is nothing odd here at all about the attitude of the Scottish Lib Dems. In supporting a devolved parliament for Scotland, while resisting independence, they are being entirely consistent with the views of their Gladstonian forebears.
That the party of Irish home rule should reject so liberal a proposal as territorial self-determination is odd..
The whole point of the Gladstonian Liberal party’s position was that it saw home rule as a final settlement that would recognise Irish aspirations for self-government while reconciling Ireland to the union. The Liberal party certainly did not support Irish independence.
The Conservatives and the schismatic Liberal Unionists opposed home rule inter alia because they thought it would inevitably lead to complete separation while the Liberals saw it as a way of averting such an eventuality. In the end, because home rule was never tried, the failure to grant it did indeed lead to independence.
So there is nothing odd here at all about the attitude of the Scottish Lib Dems. In supporting a devolved parliament for Scotland, while resisting independence, they are being entirely consistent with the views of their Gladstonian forebears.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Scotland needs to break with the soggy social-democratic consensus
Simon Jenkins is one of the heroes of this blog. His guide to English parish churches accompanies us on our perambulations about the country and I have consistently admired his championing of localism. Even if he has never been very positive about the Liberal Democrats, he has always struck me as the sort of commentator we ought to be wooing.
So it is disappointing to read his attack on the Liberal Democrats in this morning’s Guardian, Nice but hopeless, the Lib Dems should call it a day. At one level it is easy to fisk Jenkins’ logic. He seems to be lamenting on the one hand that under proportional systems the Lib Dems have a ‘golden share’ in representation, putting them in the position of kingmakers, while on the other criticising us for our failure to exercise our pivotal position to put ourselves back in government. Without PR Scotland would almost certainly be governed by a permanent Labour majority under first-past-the post and direct election of the executive would have led on Thursday to power being conferred on party with less then a third of the vote.
Yet somehow, there is something in what Jenkins is arguing if you ignore the cheap jibes at the Lib Dems. The party’s Scottish leadership appears to have lost the propaganda battle over coalition-making, painting itself into a corner of appearing undemocratic in opposing an independence referendum.
It seems to me the Scottish party had two choices given last week’s results. The first was to declare that as part of a ruling coalition that had lost its majority, and having seen our own representation reduced, we had lost the election, should accept our defeat gracefully and leave it to the other parties to work out governing arrangements. Instead we have gone: ‘Well, we won’t talk to Labour, but we will talk to the SNP, but on second thoughts we’re not sure about that, in fact probably we won’t.’ All of which just makes us look indecisive.
The other option was to accept that the SNP had beaten Labour but could only govern with our participation, and made a serious show of negotiations. I heard Iain Smith MSP argue that the problem wasn’t the referendum per se, but that the SNP wanted it in four years’ time after they had had a chance to work up a row with Westminster. This seems a fair and reasonable argument. In such circumstances, it seems to me that the Lib Dems should have insisted on an immediate referendum to get the whole issue out of the way early in the parliament. Assuming that the Scots voted against independence, the Lib Dems could have then held their SNP coalition partners to actually governing, not picking fights with Gordon Brown.
However, the real problem is surely with the make-up of Scottish politics and the fact that three of the four main parties are in much the same centre-left social democratic mould. It is noticeable that the policies with which the Scottish Lib Dems have been most closely associated in government – no tuition fees, free personal care for the elderly, a smoking ban introduced earlier than in England – are all ones that could have come just as easily from Labour or the SNP or both. Although we have STV for local elections, there is little sign of a second level of decentralisation from Holyrood to local authorities.
Since the Conservatives remain a busted flush in Scotland, we have yet to see a clear set of coalition alternatives emerge. This is unlike the position in Ireland where there is a clear alternative between a Fine Gael/Labour/Green rainbow alliance and Fianna Fail.
Scotland badly needs an alternative government that challenges the soggy social-democratic consensus, but is not tainted with the historical baggage that the Conservatives carry in Scotland. Having achieved its own parliament, Scotland needs to develop its own political discourse that turns on more important things than whether there should be a referendum in four years’ time.
So it is disappointing to read his attack on the Liberal Democrats in this morning’s Guardian, Nice but hopeless, the Lib Dems should call it a day. At one level it is easy to fisk Jenkins’ logic. He seems to be lamenting on the one hand that under proportional systems the Lib Dems have a ‘golden share’ in representation, putting them in the position of kingmakers, while on the other criticising us for our failure to exercise our pivotal position to put ourselves back in government. Without PR Scotland would almost certainly be governed by a permanent Labour majority under first-past-the post and direct election of the executive would have led on Thursday to power being conferred on party with less then a third of the vote.
Yet somehow, there is something in what Jenkins is arguing if you ignore the cheap jibes at the Lib Dems. The party’s Scottish leadership appears to have lost the propaganda battle over coalition-making, painting itself into a corner of appearing undemocratic in opposing an independence referendum.
It seems to me the Scottish party had two choices given last week’s results. The first was to declare that as part of a ruling coalition that had lost its majority, and having seen our own representation reduced, we had lost the election, should accept our defeat gracefully and leave it to the other parties to work out governing arrangements. Instead we have gone: ‘Well, we won’t talk to Labour, but we will talk to the SNP, but on second thoughts we’re not sure about that, in fact probably we won’t.’ All of which just makes us look indecisive.
The other option was to accept that the SNP had beaten Labour but could only govern with our participation, and made a serious show of negotiations. I heard Iain Smith MSP argue that the problem wasn’t the referendum per se, but that the SNP wanted it in four years’ time after they had had a chance to work up a row with Westminster. This seems a fair and reasonable argument. In such circumstances, it seems to me that the Lib Dems should have insisted on an immediate referendum to get the whole issue out of the way early in the parliament. Assuming that the Scots voted against independence, the Lib Dems could have then held their SNP coalition partners to actually governing, not picking fights with Gordon Brown.
However, the real problem is surely with the make-up of Scottish politics and the fact that three of the four main parties are in much the same centre-left social democratic mould. It is noticeable that the policies with which the Scottish Lib Dems have been most closely associated in government – no tuition fees, free personal care for the elderly, a smoking ban introduced earlier than in England – are all ones that could have come just as easily from Labour or the SNP or both. Although we have STV for local elections, there is little sign of a second level of decentralisation from Holyrood to local authorities.
Since the Conservatives remain a busted flush in Scotland, we have yet to see a clear set of coalition alternatives emerge. This is unlike the position in Ireland where there is a clear alternative between a Fine Gael/Labour/Green rainbow alliance and Fianna Fail.
Scotland badly needs an alternative government that challenges the soggy social-democratic consensus, but is not tainted with the historical baggage that the Conservatives carry in Scotland. Having achieved its own parliament, Scotland needs to develop its own political discourse that turns on more important things than whether there should be a referendum in four years’ time.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Today Programme hands a small propaganda victory to David Irving
In reporting the death of author Kurt Vonnegut, the Today programme this morning managed to slip in a piece of misinformation that would no doubt have pleased David Irving and other Holocaust deniers.
Vonnegut's best known book Slaughterhouse 5 is in part based on his experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied bombing raids of February 1945. The Today report referred to this and stated that ‘more than 100,000’ people died in the Dresden bombings.
In fact, nearly all scholars who have researched this episode put the figure much lower – somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000. The only one who persists in claiming 100,000+ deaths is David Irving. In his original book The Destruction of Dresden he referred to 135,000 deaths, which he revised upwards to 250,000 using a document that was later shown to be a forgery. Since then he has persisted in the 135,000 figure, contrary to the evidence uncovered by other historians.
Given that Dresden was undeniable a human tragedy on an enormous scale and morally questionable at best, does quibbling about figures matter? Yes, it does, partly because truth matters and partly because deliberately exaggerating the Dresden death count is part of a revisionist project of Nazi-sympathisers like Irving designed to imply a moral equivalence between the Nazis and the Allies in the Second World War.
Irving’s misrepresentation of the figures is well-known. It was exposed in detail in the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial by Professor Richard J. Evans. It is dealt with in a chapter of Evans’s book Telling Lies About Hitler. Any BBC researcher wanting to check the information could have found Evans’s report on the web. Or if they couldn’t be bothered they could have looked at Wikipedia which has quite a detailed entry on the Dresden bombings.
Although Irving wasn’t mentioned by name in the Today report, by repeating his fictions rather than the conclusions of genuine scholars, they give him a small propaganda victory.
POSTSCRIPT: I have noticed in the past Today’s indulgent treatment of Irving. Earlier this year, the programme featured an item on laws against holocaust denial. To represent the views of those who oppose such laws, they interviewed David Irving. In the first place they referred to him as a ‘historian’, a label that many consider inappropriate given his persistent and deliberate falsifications. Then they misleadingly stated that he was no longer a holocaust denier. And when he said that if Britain passed a law outlawing holocaust denial he would be the first to break it, the interviewer failed to challenge him as to why he would do this if he accepted that the holocaust happened.
Vonnegut's best known book Slaughterhouse 5 is in part based on his experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied bombing raids of February 1945. The Today report referred to this and stated that ‘more than 100,000’ people died in the Dresden bombings.
In fact, nearly all scholars who have researched this episode put the figure much lower – somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000. The only one who persists in claiming 100,000+ deaths is David Irving. In his original book The Destruction of Dresden he referred to 135,000 deaths, which he revised upwards to 250,000 using a document that was later shown to be a forgery. Since then he has persisted in the 135,000 figure, contrary to the evidence uncovered by other historians.
Given that Dresden was undeniable a human tragedy on an enormous scale and morally questionable at best, does quibbling about figures matter? Yes, it does, partly because truth matters and partly because deliberately exaggerating the Dresden death count is part of a revisionist project of Nazi-sympathisers like Irving designed to imply a moral equivalence between the Nazis and the Allies in the Second World War.
Irving’s misrepresentation of the figures is well-known. It was exposed in detail in the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial by Professor Richard J. Evans. It is dealt with in a chapter of Evans’s book Telling Lies About Hitler. Any BBC researcher wanting to check the information could have found Evans’s report on the web. Or if they couldn’t be bothered they could have looked at Wikipedia which has quite a detailed entry on the Dresden bombings.
Although Irving wasn’t mentioned by name in the Today report, by repeating his fictions rather than the conclusions of genuine scholars, they give him a small propaganda victory.
POSTSCRIPT: I have noticed in the past Today’s indulgent treatment of Irving. Earlier this year, the programme featured an item on laws against holocaust denial. To represent the views of those who oppose such laws, they interviewed David Irving. In the first place they referred to him as a ‘historian’, a label that many consider inappropriate given his persistent and deliberate falsifications. Then they misleadingly stated that he was no longer a holocaust denier. And when he said that if Britain passed a law outlawing holocaust denial he would be the first to break it, the interviewer failed to challenge him as to why he would do this if he accepted that the holocaust happened.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
From Adam Curtis to the Beveridge Group: negative freedom and economic liberalism are not dirty words
I see that it is almost a month since the last post on this blog. In the meantime I have been tied up variously with local politics in Watford and researching Liberal party temperance policy in Edwardian Britain. Various posts have been planned but somehow never written up.
The first of these was going to have been about the re-launch of the Beveridge Group at the Liberal Democrat conference in Harrogate in early March, the most recent about the final part of Adam Curtis’s documentary on BBC 2, The Trap - whatever happened to our dreams of freedom?. Perhaps now, and rather belatedly, I will attempt to revive this blog by drawing a link between the two.
The flaws in Adam Curtis’s attack on Isaiah Berlin’s concept of negative liberty have been admirably fisked by Thomas Papworth (thorough and analytical) and Alex Wilcock (inspired, impassioned and without paragraph breaks) These do such a good job that there is not much for me to add about the programme itself. But what struck me about Curtis’s argument was the way in which many people the left (including Liberals) have allowed themselves to be duped into believing that so-called negative liberty (i.e. personal freedom and absence of coercion) are nasty right-wing concepts that smack of greed and selfishness and which we ought to be against.
It is true that much of the rhetoric of the Thatcher revolution was about individual freedom. But the Thatcherites’ commitment to that cause was always highly selective. It certainly didn’t extend to social policy – remember Section 28 anyone? But instead of contesting the ground of personal liberty with the right, and promoting their own rival vision, many liberals seemed to conclude that if we are against the Tories and they think personal liberty is good, then it is something that we should regard with suspicion.
In fact, the cause of personal freedom, in the sense of absence of state restriction, has always been an important part of the liberal/left tradition, from supporting free speech to abolishing slavery through to campaigning for homosexual equality. True, the left always had its coercive streak too – witness Liberal support for prohibitionist temperance campaigns in nineteenth-century Britain. But the role of restricting state intervention in people’s personal lives is one that the Liberal left should not meekly concede to the Conservative right.
Which brings me via a rather clunking link to the Beveridge group launch and the opposition of the various speakers – most notably Paul Holmes MP – to the concept of economic liberalism. (For outsiders, here I should say that the Beveridge Group is an internal Lib Dem ginger group which is seen as being on the left of the party and more-or-less opposed to the notorious Orange Book.) Whenever I hear fellow Liberal Democrats attack ‘economic liberals’, I’m always tempted to ask: ‘So you’re an economic what, exactly? Illiberal? Social democrat? Stalinist? Surely, social liberals who want to spread wealth more fairly through society ought to have some idea of what sort of economic approach will be most effective in generating this wealth.
Again, I suspect that because back in the 1980s some Thatcherite Conservatives described themselves as economic liberals, many Lib Dems feel that economic liberalism must be synonymous with Thatcherism and therefore bad. I have never shared this view. For me, being a liberal ought to mean supporting liberal approaches to all aspects of public policy – on economic as much as social questions. If Conservatives try to usurp the concept of economic liberalism, we shouldn’t let them.
Economic liberalism ought to be economics as practised by Liberals. And that includes being part of a reformist tradition. The economic policies of nineteenth-century Liberals were about removing arbitrary restrictions to wealth creation and economic participation. And even in the supposed heyday of laissez-faire it didn’t stop Liberal governments passing legislation to promote public health, enforce better conditions for factory workers or grant increased powers for municipal corporations. And again, Thatcherite Tories were not exactly consistent in their economic liberalism. We didn’t hear much about free movement of labour across international boundaries, for example.
For me personal and economic liberty are important elements of the progressive Liberal tradition. It is true that they are not exclusive to that tradition and just as there are collectivist and libertarian liberals, there are paternalist and liberal Tories. But there is no reason why belief in individual freedom and liberal economics should be seen as crypto-Thatcherism and the fact that some Lib Dems do so shows a lack of confidence in our own intellectual inheritance and allows our political opponents define Liberalism for us.
The first of these was going to have been about the re-launch of the Beveridge Group at the Liberal Democrat conference in Harrogate in early March, the most recent about the final part of Adam Curtis’s documentary on BBC 2, The Trap - whatever happened to our dreams of freedom?. Perhaps now, and rather belatedly, I will attempt to revive this blog by drawing a link between the two.
The flaws in Adam Curtis’s attack on Isaiah Berlin’s concept of negative liberty have been admirably fisked by Thomas Papworth (thorough and analytical) and Alex Wilcock (inspired, impassioned and without paragraph breaks) These do such a good job that there is not much for me to add about the programme itself. But what struck me about Curtis’s argument was the way in which many people the left (including Liberals) have allowed themselves to be duped into believing that so-called negative liberty (i.e. personal freedom and absence of coercion) are nasty right-wing concepts that smack of greed and selfishness and which we ought to be against.
It is true that much of the rhetoric of the Thatcher revolution was about individual freedom. But the Thatcherites’ commitment to that cause was always highly selective. It certainly didn’t extend to social policy – remember Section 28 anyone? But instead of contesting the ground of personal liberty with the right, and promoting their own rival vision, many liberals seemed to conclude that if we are against the Tories and they think personal liberty is good, then it is something that we should regard with suspicion.
In fact, the cause of personal freedom, in the sense of absence of state restriction, has always been an important part of the liberal/left tradition, from supporting free speech to abolishing slavery through to campaigning for homosexual equality. True, the left always had its coercive streak too – witness Liberal support for prohibitionist temperance campaigns in nineteenth-century Britain. But the role of restricting state intervention in people’s personal lives is one that the Liberal left should not meekly concede to the Conservative right.
Which brings me via a rather clunking link to the Beveridge group launch and the opposition of the various speakers – most notably Paul Holmes MP – to the concept of economic liberalism. (For outsiders, here I should say that the Beveridge Group is an internal Lib Dem ginger group which is seen as being on the left of the party and more-or-less opposed to the notorious Orange Book.) Whenever I hear fellow Liberal Democrats attack ‘economic liberals’, I’m always tempted to ask: ‘So you’re an economic what, exactly? Illiberal? Social democrat? Stalinist? Surely, social liberals who want to spread wealth more fairly through society ought to have some idea of what sort of economic approach will be most effective in generating this wealth.
Again, I suspect that because back in the 1980s some Thatcherite Conservatives described themselves as economic liberals, many Lib Dems feel that economic liberalism must be synonymous with Thatcherism and therefore bad. I have never shared this view. For me, being a liberal ought to mean supporting liberal approaches to all aspects of public policy – on economic as much as social questions. If Conservatives try to usurp the concept of economic liberalism, we shouldn’t let them.
Economic liberalism ought to be economics as practised by Liberals. And that includes being part of a reformist tradition. The economic policies of nineteenth-century Liberals were about removing arbitrary restrictions to wealth creation and economic participation. And even in the supposed heyday of laissez-faire it didn’t stop Liberal governments passing legislation to promote public health, enforce better conditions for factory workers or grant increased powers for municipal corporations. And again, Thatcherite Tories were not exactly consistent in their economic liberalism. We didn’t hear much about free movement of labour across international boundaries, for example.
For me personal and economic liberty are important elements of the progressive Liberal tradition. It is true that they are not exclusive to that tradition and just as there are collectivist and libertarian liberals, there are paternalist and liberal Tories. But there is no reason why belief in individual freedom and liberal economics should be seen as crypto-Thatcherism and the fact that some Lib Dems do so shows a lack of confidence in our own intellectual inheritance and allows our political opponents define Liberalism for us.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Lottery is the least worst way of allocating school places
In my rush yesterday to publicise the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, I didn’t get round yesterday to posting about Brighton and Hove’s controversial plan to allocate secondary school places by lottery.
As I mentioned on this blog some while ago, this has always seemed to me the most equitable way of allocating places to oversubscribed schools. I base this conclusion on the following assumptions. Selection on grounds of academic ability is divisive and wrong. A system of schools with particular specialisms selecting on grounds of aptitude for music, sport or whatever is not much fairer. And allocating places on the basis of how close a family lives to a school simply leads to higher house prices in the catchment areas of the more popular schools – selection by parental salary.
If we reject – as I do – the dirigisme of the anti-choice lobby, who appear to think that education officials should simply allocated children to schools without reference to the views of children or parents, then it is hard to see a fairer way of allocating places than by lottery.
Of course it won’t be a panacea. For parental choice to be meaningful, there does have to be diversity among schools in a given area. Some will stress academic achievement, some pastoral care and others sport, music etc. Selection by lottery would mean that the star footballer who wanted to go to the school that specialised in sport might lose out to the child with two left feet who has just applied because that’s where all his/her friends are going. No system is going to be perfect.
But if we want to have parental choice, avoid condemning children to educational failure and create schools with balanced intakes where most children will be able to fit in, learn and thrive, pulling the names out of a hat to allocate places in oversubscribed schools is probably the least unfair way.
As I mentioned on this blog some while ago, this has always seemed to me the most equitable way of allocating places to oversubscribed schools. I base this conclusion on the following assumptions. Selection on grounds of academic ability is divisive and wrong. A system of schools with particular specialisms selecting on grounds of aptitude for music, sport or whatever is not much fairer. And allocating places on the basis of how close a family lives to a school simply leads to higher house prices in the catchment areas of the more popular schools – selection by parental salary.
If we reject – as I do – the dirigisme of the anti-choice lobby, who appear to think that education officials should simply allocated children to schools without reference to the views of children or parents, then it is hard to see a fairer way of allocating places than by lottery.
Of course it won’t be a panacea. For parental choice to be meaningful, there does have to be diversity among schools in a given area. Some will stress academic achievement, some pastoral care and others sport, music etc. Selection by lottery would mean that the star footballer who wanted to go to the school that specialised in sport might lose out to the child with two left feet who has just applied because that’s where all his/her friends are going. No system is going to be perfect.
But if we want to have parental choice, avoid condemning children to educational failure and create schools with balanced intakes where most children will be able to fit in, learn and thrive, pulling the names out of a hat to allocate places in oversubscribed schools is probably the least unfair way.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Hurry! Hurry! while stocks last!
On Friday I am off to Harrogate for what promises to be a truly exciting event. I refer of course not to the Lib Dem conference itself, but the launch there of the publishing sensation of the year – the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, which is the latest venture into hard covers by the Liberal Democrat History Group. It is the definitive guide to the world’s greatest political philosophy.
Modesty of course prevents me from mentioning that I have played a small role in its publication as part of the editorial group responsible for producing the book and also that it includes three entries written by me. Most of the really hard work was done by the indefatigable Duncan Brack and the excellent Ed Randall. It also includes contributions by many distinguished political historians. Lib Dem bloggers will be particularly interested in the article by the late Sir Karl Popper on the political thought of our own dear Lord Bonkers.
The book retails at £35.00, but I see it is also available via Amazon for £23.10. Doubtless there will be some kind of discount for LDHG members (although I can’t swear to this).
Of course, such is the richness and variety of the prose that many readers will not be content merely to own one copy. Since it is the sort of book one can dip into at any time for enlightenment and inspiration, as a minimum it is advisable to have one on the bookshelf to impress visitors, another on the bedside table for late-night reading and another at one’s place of work.
Modesty of course prevents me from mentioning that I have played a small role in its publication as part of the editorial group responsible for producing the book and also that it includes three entries written by me. Most of the really hard work was done by the indefatigable Duncan Brack and the excellent Ed Randall. It also includes contributions by many distinguished political historians. Lib Dem bloggers will be particularly interested in the article by the late Sir Karl Popper on the political thought of our own dear Lord Bonkers.
The book retails at £35.00, but I see it is also available via Amazon for £23.10. Doubtless there will be some kind of discount for LDHG members (although I can’t swear to this).
Of course, such is the richness and variety of the prose that many readers will not be content merely to own one copy. Since it is the sort of book one can dip into at any time for enlightenment and inspiration, as a minimum it is advisable to have one on the bookshelf to impress visitors, another on the bedside table for late-night reading and another at one’s place of work.
Labour – don't cha love ‘em?
There has been another gap in this blog over the last couple of weeks. This has been largely due to my having to write and present a seminar at the Institute of Historical Research on the topic of ‘Herbert Gladstone and Liberal-Labour relations’ between 1892 and 1905. This was quite a formal affair that couldn’t be dashed off in a couple of hours.
The core of my thesis is that contrary to the views of many Liberals of the ‘We was robbed’ school of thought, the promotion of Labour candidates by the Liberal party at this time was a logical and necessary step. The views of Labour and Liberal politicians of that time were pretty much identical and the Gladstone-MacDonald pact of 1903 that gave birth to the parliamentary Labour party was the only possible way of increasing working class representation in Parliament.
In between times, I have been engaging in a furious exchange of letters in the pages of the Watford Observer with members of the Labour party in Watford. My main theme has been what a disaster their party has been for the country in general and Watford in particular and that only the Liberal Democrats offer a serious alternative for progressive politics in Britain.
The core of my thesis is that contrary to the views of many Liberals of the ‘We was robbed’ school of thought, the promotion of Labour candidates by the Liberal party at this time was a logical and necessary step. The views of Labour and Liberal politicians of that time were pretty much identical and the Gladstone-MacDonald pact of 1903 that gave birth to the parliamentary Labour party was the only possible way of increasing working class representation in Parliament.
In between times, I have been engaging in a furious exchange of letters in the pages of the Watford Observer with members of the Labour party in Watford. My main theme has been what a disaster their party has been for the country in general and Watford in particular and that only the Liberal Democrats offer a serious alternative for progressive politics in Britain.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Why Unionists get such bad PR
I’m grateful again to Jonathan Calder for drawing my attention to this example of control-freakery by the Democratic Unionist Party, which is asking their candidates to sign a contract committing them to support party policy.
This one little incident demonstrates why Ulster unionists have such bad public relations. I can’t imagine the Sinn Fein leadership tolerating it for too long if their elected representatives demonstrate quirky, maverick views that contravene official policy. But somehow these things will be well understood without having to be spelled out.
By contrast it is typical that the more literal-minded unionists will want party loyalty rules put in black and white, so that there is no ambiguity. And perhaps typical too that at least one among their number should find it unacceptable and leak the story to the press.
For anyone wanting to understand more about the cultural differences between Unionist and Nationalist/Republican politics I recommend this article by Ruth Dudley Edwards.
This one little incident demonstrates why Ulster unionists have such bad public relations. I can’t imagine the Sinn Fein leadership tolerating it for too long if their elected representatives demonstrate quirky, maverick views that contravene official policy. But somehow these things will be well understood without having to be spelled out.
By contrast it is typical that the more literal-minded unionists will want party loyalty rules put in black and white, so that there is no ambiguity. And perhaps typical too that at least one among their number should find it unacceptable and leak the story to the press.
For anyone wanting to understand more about the cultural differences between Unionist and Nationalist/Republican politics I recommend this article by Ruth Dudley Edwards.
Phil Willis for President (of 'Liberals Against Choice')
Magpie-like, I shall seize on a couple of items from Liberal England that highlight stories I missed when I was away.
Phil Willis’s opposition to parental choice in schools is predictable but still annoying. It is a similar attitude to that displayed by Don Foster on casinos (see previous post). Both seem to have a paternalist, almost Fabian, attitude, with a touching faith that experts know best. ‘You see, the people, the poor dears, they don’t know what’s good for them.’ I can’t imagine that Willis or Foster stop for a second to consider how their pronouncements relate to liberalism either with a small or large L.
And yet somehow they escape the opprobrium that many defenders of Liberalism within the party pour on the likes of Mark Oaten. Although I have by no means always agreed with Mark, at least he genuinely did try to think about the nature of Liberalism and much of what he said was simply about changing how we present our views. By contrast, I find it almost impossible to recognise anything Liberal about many of the public views of Willis and Foster.
Phil Willis’s opposition to parental choice in schools is predictable but still annoying. It is a similar attitude to that displayed by Don Foster on casinos (see previous post). Both seem to have a paternalist, almost Fabian, attitude, with a touching faith that experts know best. ‘You see, the people, the poor dears, they don’t know what’s good for them.’ I can’t imagine that Willis or Foster stop for a second to consider how their pronouncements relate to liberalism either with a small or large L.
And yet somehow they escape the opprobrium that many defenders of Liberalism within the party pour on the likes of Mark Oaten. Although I have by no means always agreed with Mark, at least he genuinely did try to think about the nature of Liberalism and much of what he said was simply about changing how we present our views. By contrast, I find it almost impossible to recognise anything Liberal about many of the public views of Willis and Foster.
The evils of pedestrian guardrails
Where I was in fuller agreement with Alan Duncan was over his strictures against street clutter – he made reference to a roundabout near Kettering where he counted more than 200 poles, signs etc.
This is hardly a new issue. My own bugbear is the hideous pedestrian guardrails, that seem to be installed as part of almost any new urban traffic scheme. In theory they are designed to protect the pedestrian. But in fact they box us in, restrict our freedom and make roads look like racetracks so that drivers feel more confident in going faster.
The one council that has really tried to counter this ‘clutter culture’ is the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (Conservative, unfortunately, not Lib Dem), whose Kensington High Street improvements scheme was based on creating a pedestrian-friendly environment through the removal of excess ‘street furniture’.
I understand that the council had great difficulty getting the scheme past the safety fascists because it broke many of the supposed rules of such scheme – for example cycle parking racks on a central reservation.
This is hardly a new issue. My own bugbear is the hideous pedestrian guardrails, that seem to be installed as part of almost any new urban traffic scheme. In theory they are designed to protect the pedestrian. But in fact they box us in, restrict our freedom and make roads look like racetracks so that drivers feel more confident in going faster.
The one council that has really tried to counter this ‘clutter culture’ is the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (Conservative, unfortunately, not Lib Dem), whose Kensington High Street improvements scheme was based on creating a pedestrian-friendly environment through the removal of excess ‘street furniture’.
I understand that the council had great difficulty getting the scheme past the safety fascists because it broke many of the supposed rules of such scheme – for example cycle parking racks on a central reservation.
Are the Tories for real about localism?
The gap in postings has been at least in part because I have been away at the Local Government Association urban conference in Newcastle.
I heard Alan Duncan, the Conservatives’ Shadow Secretary for Trade, Industry and Energy argue for more autonomy and powers for local government. This seems a bit rich given that during their last 18 years in power the Tories went to almost any lengths to avoid giving extra powers to councils and to take away as many as they could. I mischievously asked whether this conversion was genuine or just because he was speaking to a local government conference. The reply was pretty noncommittal.
It seems all opposition parties sing the praises of local choice and autonomy until they get into power, when the dead hand of the Treasury takes over. And yet the optimist in me keeps hoping that a consensus is emerging that excessive central control of public services just has not worked.
So right now the Liberal Democrats, as a party committed to decentralisation, should be leading the debate and building on the report of the Huhne Commission of a few years ago. Yet somehow I’m still not hearing it and the lacklustre policy paper on local government submitted to the last conference (and rightly rejected) gave a sense that we are resting on our laurels.
Part of the problem is that we are a party dominated by campaigners and matters like the balance of responsibilities between central and local government hardly make for exciting newsletter copy. Yet campaigning is surely about more than just winning votes in a given election, but about changing the intellectual climate in our favour.
I heard Alan Duncan, the Conservatives’ Shadow Secretary for Trade, Industry and Energy argue for more autonomy and powers for local government. This seems a bit rich given that during their last 18 years in power the Tories went to almost any lengths to avoid giving extra powers to councils and to take away as many as they could. I mischievously asked whether this conversion was genuine or just because he was speaking to a local government conference. The reply was pretty noncommittal.
It seems all opposition parties sing the praises of local choice and autonomy until they get into power, when the dead hand of the Treasury takes over. And yet the optimist in me keeps hoping that a consensus is emerging that excessive central control of public services just has not worked.
So right now the Liberal Democrats, as a party committed to decentralisation, should be leading the debate and building on the report of the Huhne Commission of a few years ago. Yet somehow I’m still not hearing it and the lacklustre policy paper on local government submitted to the last conference (and rightly rejected) gave a sense that we are resting on our laurels.
Part of the problem is that we are a party dominated by campaigners and matters like the balance of responsibilities between central and local government hardly make for exciting newsletter copy. Yet campaigning is surely about more than just winning votes in a given election, but about changing the intellectual climate in our favour.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Fostering illiberalism
Stephen Tall has beaten me to exposing Don Foster's ill-considered and illiberal response to the announcement of Manchester's successful bid to host the first regional super casino.
I have often complained about the tendency of some Lib Dem spokespersons to be more nannyish and anti-fun even than New Labour. Foster is among the very worst offenders, previous transgressions being attacking the rail industry for not installing CCTV in all stations and the hysterical scaremongering in 2005 about the effects of the Licensing Bill.
One further absurdity of his reaction is the attempt to invoke local choice to defend a centralist policy. One reason he gives for opposing any further super casions is that they are 'against the... concerns of many local communities.'
Yes, Don, but not necessarily against the wishes of the communities that submitted bids to host super casinos. Otherwise they wouldn't have bid, would they now? And those local communities that are against super casinos can just decide not to bid. It's called local decision-making. It's something the Liberal Democrats are supposed to be in favour of, along with individual freedom. Don Foster evidently either doesn't understand or doesn't much like either concept.
I have often complained about the tendency of some Lib Dem spokespersons to be more nannyish and anti-fun even than New Labour. Foster is among the very worst offenders, previous transgressions being attacking the rail industry for not installing CCTV in all stations and the hysterical scaremongering in 2005 about the effects of the Licensing Bill.
One further absurdity of his reaction is the attempt to invoke local choice to defend a centralist policy. One reason he gives for opposing any further super casions is that they are 'against the... concerns of many local communities.'
Yes, Don, but not necessarily against the wishes of the communities that submitted bids to host super casinos. Otherwise they wouldn't have bid, would they now? And those local communities that are against super casinos can just decide not to bid. It's called local decision-making. It's something the Liberal Democrats are supposed to be in favour of, along with individual freedom. Don Foster evidently either doesn't understand or doesn't much like either concept.
Sidmouth wreck reminiscences
As the MSC Napoli salvage operation gets under way, I note Rod Liddle in last week's Spectator reminds us of the last notorious wreck on the Sidmouth coast. Back in 1974 a hovercraft sank after trying unsuccessfully to gain access to Sidmouth harbour. As Liddle puts it:
As the craft flapped pointlessly in the surf, many yards from shore, a magisterial figure in a smart suit emerged from within its bowels and waded, with steadfast expression and immense resolve, through the waves, a look of destiny upon his face. People looked on in amazement and trepidation. For it was the Right Honourable Jeremy Thorpe MP — and he’d come to do a spot of canvassing.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Belated Burns' night thoughts
I failed to post on the 300th anniversary of the Union and on Burns Night. For the latter I plead the effects of a heavy cold that meant neither haggis nor whisky was consumed.
As I sign off again for a few days, I would merely encourage readers to look at this article by Michael Fry writing in a recent edition of Prospect. Fry advocates independence for Scotland, largely because it would create a real political debate and ideological choice north of the border.
It has long struck me that it is an odd political system where three of the four largest parties are centre/left and essentially collectivist, as is the case in Scotland. While I am sure that the Lib Dems have done good things in coalition, the most frequently trumpeted achievements - free care for the elderly, abolishing tuition fees and a smoking ban - may be worthy enough of themselves but are not really distinctively Liberal policies.
So without necessarily agreeing, I see Michael Fry's point.
As I sign off again for a few days, I would merely encourage readers to look at this article by Michael Fry writing in a recent edition of Prospect. Fry advocates independence for Scotland, largely because it would create a real political debate and ideological choice north of the border.
It has long struck me that it is an odd political system where three of the four largest parties are centre/left and essentially collectivist, as is the case in Scotland. While I am sure that the Lib Dems have done good things in coalition, the most frequently trumpeted achievements - free care for the elderly, abolishing tuition fees and a smoking ban - may be worthy enough of themselves but are not really distinctively Liberal policies.
So without necessarily agreeing, I see Michael Fry's point.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
That adoption row: Christian morality or thinly-veiled bigotry?
It is not so very long ago that a significant proportion of the population would have accepted, at least as an aspiration, the view of most Christian churches that sex was something that should happen within marriage, meaning heterosexual marriage. Views on sexual morality have changed – and a good thing too. By not altering its teaching to move with the tiems, the Roman Catholic Church has come to appear at best anachronistic, and at worst bigoted. Even most practising Catholics have moved on and their views on divorce, gay and lesbian rights, contraception and abortion tend to have more in common with non-Catholics than with the Pope.
And yet, like it or not, Christianity is part of national life. Christian organisations have a long tradition of doing humanitarian and philanthropic work, so the notion that they cannot follow the Church’s teaching in so doing. I can see how it might feel that Christian organisations are being prevented from following Christian morality in the way they work.
For me, as a Liberal and a Catholic, I can understand both sides’ point of view. The question is whether the Church is genuinely concerned to abide by the tenets of its own teaching or whether it is just engaging in a sly bit of homophobia. If the former then no doubt the Catholic adoption agencies refuse to give babies for adoption to heterosexual couples who are cohabiting or where one or both parties have previously been divorced.
If the point is that these agencies exist to find Catholic homes for Catholic children then just possibly it’s fair to allow them to discriminate in favour of couples who are within a marital unit that the Church recognises. Otherwise it might be difficult to bring the children up as Catholics.
If it is just same-sex couples who are being singled out, then the churches’ moral case falls to the ground.
And yet, like it or not, Christianity is part of national life. Christian organisations have a long tradition of doing humanitarian and philanthropic work, so the notion that they cannot follow the Church’s teaching in so doing. I can see how it might feel that Christian organisations are being prevented from following Christian morality in the way they work.
For me, as a Liberal and a Catholic, I can understand both sides’ point of view. The question is whether the Church is genuinely concerned to abide by the tenets of its own teaching or whether it is just engaging in a sly bit of homophobia. If the former then no doubt the Catholic adoption agencies refuse to give babies for adoption to heterosexual couples who are cohabiting or where one or both parties have previously been divorced.
If the point is that these agencies exist to find Catholic homes for Catholic children then just possibly it’s fair to allow them to discriminate in favour of couples who are within a marital unit that the Church recognises. Otherwise it might be difficult to bring the children up as Catholics.
If it is just same-sex couples who are being singled out, then the churches’ moral case falls to the ground.
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