Wednesday, 8 June 2022
Social Liberal Forum conference: UK and Europe: Offshore island or part of the main?
Many of the problems we face today in the UK such as labour shortages or the reduction in international trade, or political turmoil in Northern Ireland can be traced to Brexit.
But the only political party that wants to exploit that is the SNP. Scotland after all voted to remain in the EU and this is a useful wedge issue for them, a justification for supporting Scottish independence from the UK so that they can then apply to rejoin the EU. There is after all no other way that Scotland can realistically expect to rejoin the EU as part of the UK.
Many Liberals want to rejoin the EU as well. We were after all the most pro-Remain political party at the last general election, to such an extent that we probably went too far. Voters were not impressed when during the campaign we suggested that we would simply reject the Brexit referendum vote and not even bother with a second referendum. Not surprisingly all 4 Lib Dem seats that voted for Brexit were lost (for the record; Carshalton and Wallington, Brecon and Radnor, North Norfolk and Eastbourne), despite an overall increase in the national vote.
That the Lib Dems won the North Shropshire by-election last year shows that voters have, to use a fashionable phrase these days, moved on. Ed Davey may well feel vindicated, a big call he made early on in his leadership was to downplay the idea that we should rejoin the EU as soon as possible.
Although that might be a smart move, he has another problem, in common with Labour also under new leadership; nobody knows what they stand for or intend to do in government. The current 12% in the opinion polls shows slow steady growth from the 6% in 2020, but there are no wedge issues that jump out that would compel people to vote for the Lib Dems. It is a return to the "none of the above" vote, which is likely to be soft, although maintainable if Johnson remains Prime Minister.
I am looking forward to the SLF conference (on the Saturday after the Tiverton by-election, 25th June in London) that will be looking at the theme "UK and Europe: Offshore island or part of the main?". It would be good to see old friends again for the first time since the Covid pandemic and I have plenty of questions I would like to ask.
Should the Lib Dems become a rejoin party? If the UK were to apply to rejoin, would it be able to do so on the same terms as when we left? Those terms were in fact a remarkably good deal. Would we have to sign up to the single currency? Is that a good idea? When you consider how the single interest rate ruined the Greek economy there are reasons to think it might not be.
There is also the question of where ideologically the EU is going. There are 2 ways to interpret the recent French elections. The Observer journalist William Keegan claimed that the result was much better than expected and we should cammpaign hard on opposing Brexit. Others have argued that the results saw Le Pen's vote increase by 9% from 5 years ago, and if she or someone like her increases the vote by another 9% in the next elections in 5 years, they will become president. Surely if that were to happen, it will be over for the EU, at least as a liberal institution? Even without her winning Macron is having to placate some of her illiberal beliefs.
Then there is the electoral impact. Many of the most deprived communities in the UK are now represented by Tory MPs. The left is losing the non-graduate working class vote. For the Liberal Democrats they have been dealt a blow in the Brexit supporting South West where the only seat they won at the last general election was prosperous pro-Remain Bath. Cornwall, Devon and Somerset became Lib Dem free zones at the last 3 general elections. The Lib Dems could make a comeback with good local organisation and campaigning on local issues as the local election results spectaculary show in Somerset recently. But it has taken this long to get there, and noone is saying much about Brexit.
A compromise that I think I could support would be for the UK to rejoin the Single Market and Customs Union. I would like to think this could resolve the problems in Northern Ireland. No doubt the Unionists would complain but how can they convincingly oppose what was previously the status quo? Taking such a stance will not give Ed Davey's leadership a high profile, that remains a big problem. But for a party in government it is a more realistic option.
So there is a lot to talk about, I hope to see you at the SLF conference. For more details see https://www.socialliberal.net/slfconference
Thursday, 31 December 2015
The Lib Dems diversity problems - will they ever be solved?
Many years ago the black Democrat politician Jesse Jackson created what he called a Rainbow Coalition to support his bid for the Democratic nomination for president of the USA. This Coalition was intended to include all those who are oppressed by hostility to their identity, whether women, BAME, LGBT and other groups.
It is something all Liberals aspire to achieve and in theory should be able to achieve. Liberalism celebrates diversity does it not?
The lack of female, BAME and disabled MPs suggests otherwise, but for this blog I want to focus on religion.
People who are religious often look at the great moral issues of the world and find this draws them into politics. It is remarkable that if we take Christianity that as a religious faith it's set of moral values do not sit easily with any political ideology. Christians can be found in all political parties, and it is worth considering that many were founded by Christians based on their interpretation of their faith. Foremost amongst those was the Liberal party of course.
Everything seemed fine for many years, religious and secular members of the Liberal party and Liberal Democrats worked well together. Some were put off Christianity because it was used by Mrs Thatcher in particular to support her "Victorian Values" where women knew their place and homosexuality was not allowed. Generally Christians who joined the Liberal party and the Lib Dems did not support that interpretation of their faith and so there was no problem.
However there has over the past 20 years or so been a dramatic rise in the Humanist movement and parts of this movement has changed the conversation. Today there are humanists who support toleration and those who do not and both types are members of the Liberal Democrats. So if you are a Christian or a Muslim you are often made to feel unwelcome within the party. How can this be?
There is a new cadre of evangelical atheists who not only disagree with religion, they consider it beneath them. This critique of Richard Dawkin's autobiography by John Gray puts it well:
"If religion comes in many varieties, so too does atheism. Dawkins takes for granted that being an atheist goes with having liberal values (with the possible exception of tolerance). But as the Victorians well knew, there are many types of atheism, liberal and illiberal, and many versions of atheist ethics. Again, Dawkins imagines an atheist is bound to be an enemy of religion. But there is no necessary connection between atheism and hostility to religion, as some of the great Victorian unbelievers understood."
And so many followers of Richard Dawkins do believe in Liberal values and naturally would join the Liberal Democrats. But in one sense they are not liberal in that they are intolerant. Why is that? It is their insistence that anyone who believes in a religion can only believe in it literally, as Gray points out:
"Quite apart from the substance of the idea, there is no reason to suppose that the Genesis myth to which Dawkins refers was meant literally. Coarse and tendentious atheists of the Dawkins variety prefer to overlook the vast traditions of figurative and allegorical interpretations with which believers have read Scripture. Both Augustine and before him the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria explicitly cautioned against literalism in interpreting the biblical creation story. Later, in the twelfth century, Maimonides took a similar view. It was only around the time of the Reformation that the idea that the story was a factual account of events became widely held. When he maintains that Darwin’s account of evolution displaced the biblical story, Dawkins is assuming that both are explanatory theories—one primitive and erroneous, the other more advanced and literally true. In treating religion as a set of factual propositions, Dawkins is mimicking Christianity at its most fundamentalist."
And so it is this insistence that the literal interpretations of religious texts are the only valid one which makes it easy to lampoon and ridicule religion. And with that comes a sense of intellectual superiority. Within a political party that believes in diversity, that celebrates that different people think differently, this attitude is counter productive and makes religious people feel unwelcome. As far as the Lib Dems are concerned, in some constituencies with a large Muslim population this could make them unelectable, and if we want more ethnic minorities in the party this will be another barrier stopping them from joining.
There are understandable concerns that many religious people are socially conservative and will not support policies such as gay marriage or LGBT rights in general. Often that is not so much to do with religion and more to do with people coming from societies - particularly authoritarian societies - where are serious debate on LGBT rights has not even started.
Those who have been on the receiving end of homophobia may feel unsafe in the presence of religious people joining the party. But in politics our aim is to change things for the better, not accept them as they are. Many Muslims and Christians support LGBT rights, and many more can be persuaded. It is not the job of the Liberal Democrats to turn religious people into atheists. Maybe Richard Dawkins can do that. And given that is not our job, what we do need to do is make the case for Liberalism and invite people of all varieties to join us and help us campaign for it. A campaign instead to exclude people will only make us a smaller party and less diverse.
The problem though is an ideological one. The believers of evangelical atheism also believe they are Liberals and in many respects they are. On policies outside of religion I often find myself in complete agreement with them. However if the problem with diversity is simply a disciplinary issue, or an organisational issue, that can be tackled. If it is an ideological division, then who gets to adjudicate, or do we somehow muddle along regardless - and not get anywhere?
It is something all Liberals aspire to achieve and in theory should be able to achieve. Liberalism celebrates diversity does it not?
The lack of female, BAME and disabled MPs suggests otherwise, but for this blog I want to focus on religion.
People who are religious often look at the great moral issues of the world and find this draws them into politics. It is remarkable that if we take Christianity that as a religious faith it's set of moral values do not sit easily with any political ideology. Christians can be found in all political parties, and it is worth considering that many were founded by Christians based on their interpretation of their faith. Foremost amongst those was the Liberal party of course.
Everything seemed fine for many years, religious and secular members of the Liberal party and Liberal Democrats worked well together. Some were put off Christianity because it was used by Mrs Thatcher in particular to support her "Victorian Values" where women knew their place and homosexuality was not allowed. Generally Christians who joined the Liberal party and the Lib Dems did not support that interpretation of their faith and so there was no problem.
However there has over the past 20 years or so been a dramatic rise in the Humanist movement and parts of this movement has changed the conversation. Today there are humanists who support toleration and those who do not and both types are members of the Liberal Democrats. So if you are a Christian or a Muslim you are often made to feel unwelcome within the party. How can this be?
There is a new cadre of evangelical atheists who not only disagree with religion, they consider it beneath them. This critique of Richard Dawkin's autobiography by John Gray puts it well:
"If religion comes in many varieties, so too does atheism. Dawkins takes for granted that being an atheist goes with having liberal values (with the possible exception of tolerance). But as the Victorians well knew, there are many types of atheism, liberal and illiberal, and many versions of atheist ethics. Again, Dawkins imagines an atheist is bound to be an enemy of religion. But there is no necessary connection between atheism and hostility to religion, as some of the great Victorian unbelievers understood."
And so many followers of Richard Dawkins do believe in Liberal values and naturally would join the Liberal Democrats. But in one sense they are not liberal in that they are intolerant. Why is that? It is their insistence that anyone who believes in a religion can only believe in it literally, as Gray points out:
"Quite apart from the substance of the idea, there is no reason to suppose that the Genesis myth to which Dawkins refers was meant literally. Coarse and tendentious atheists of the Dawkins variety prefer to overlook the vast traditions of figurative and allegorical interpretations with which believers have read Scripture. Both Augustine and before him the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria explicitly cautioned against literalism in interpreting the biblical creation story. Later, in the twelfth century, Maimonides took a similar view. It was only around the time of the Reformation that the idea that the story was a factual account of events became widely held. When he maintains that Darwin’s account of evolution displaced the biblical story, Dawkins is assuming that both are explanatory theories—one primitive and erroneous, the other more advanced and literally true. In treating religion as a set of factual propositions, Dawkins is mimicking Christianity at its most fundamentalist."
And so it is this insistence that the literal interpretations of religious texts are the only valid one which makes it easy to lampoon and ridicule religion. And with that comes a sense of intellectual superiority. Within a political party that believes in diversity, that celebrates that different people think differently, this attitude is counter productive and makes religious people feel unwelcome. As far as the Lib Dems are concerned, in some constituencies with a large Muslim population this could make them unelectable, and if we want more ethnic minorities in the party this will be another barrier stopping them from joining.
There are understandable concerns that many religious people are socially conservative and will not support policies such as gay marriage or LGBT rights in general. Often that is not so much to do with religion and more to do with people coming from societies - particularly authoritarian societies - where are serious debate on LGBT rights has not even started.
Those who have been on the receiving end of homophobia may feel unsafe in the presence of religious people joining the party. But in politics our aim is to change things for the better, not accept them as they are. Many Muslims and Christians support LGBT rights, and many more can be persuaded. It is not the job of the Liberal Democrats to turn religious people into atheists. Maybe Richard Dawkins can do that. And given that is not our job, what we do need to do is make the case for Liberalism and invite people of all varieties to join us and help us campaign for it. A campaign instead to exclude people will only make us a smaller party and less diverse.
The problem though is an ideological one. The believers of evangelical atheism also believe they are Liberals and in many respects they are. On policies outside of religion I often find myself in complete agreement with them. However if the problem with diversity is simply a disciplinary issue, or an organisational issue, that can be tackled. If it is an ideological division, then who gets to adjudicate, or do we somehow muddle along regardless - and not get anywhere?
The Lib Dem roller coaster continues
It is 5 years since my last blog post.
In that time there has never been a more challenging time to be a Lib Dem, apart from in the 1950s when the Liberal party almost died.
We can see from what the government is doing today that the Lib Dems did perform a useful role in Coalition in moderating the Tories. Even so, the reputation and the appeal of the Liberal Democrats has taken a battering. Some policies that should not have seen the light of day got through and the Lib Dems have a difficult legacy to deal with as they now hope to recover. The election of Tim Farron as a new leader has given a new hope to those of us on the left of the party, upon which he has only partially delivered.
His majority was small and his strategy all along has been to try and keep the party united and this probably accounts for his record so far. He was able to oppose the Tory welfare cuts with conviction and he has made tackling inequality - not just social mobility - a priority. How that fits in with austerity economics and what our take on it is remains to be seen. On the other hand he has supported Trident replacement and air strikes in Syria.
I think he was relishing outflanking Labour on the left, but the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party has made that impossible. Jeremy Corbyn is on the hard left and they have their flaws as well. In the 32 years that Jeremy Corbyn was elected the MP for Islington North, he has often walked through the same voting lobbies as the Lib Dems, both in opposition to the Tories and Labour. There is more we agree on than we would both like to admit; on civil liberties, tackling global warming, opposing benefit cuts. Jeremy Corbyn has a laid back personality, very different from some of his hard left allies. The hard left have a culture of believing that anyone who opposes them on any issue should be treated with contempt. As the soft left Guardian journalist John Harris pointed out, they are not interested in listening to the electorate if they say things they do not want to hear.
For that reason a lot of the new recruits to Labour have joined the wrong party. Unfortunately because on the policies they are closer to Jeremey Corbyn than Tim Farron, that does not seem obvious. No doubt some will eject from Labour when they find out what it is really like, but it would have been better if they joined the Lib Dems in the first place. The Lib Dems have plenty of new members themselves and that is an opportunity they must capitalise on.
But what about the bigger picture? Global warming will continue it's deadly path. There is no end in sight in the so called war against terror. Will Assad be overthrown and will the Syrian state collapse in a similar fashion to Iraq in 2003? Will the government really find the money to replace Trident? Will Donald Trump or Ted Cruz become the next US president? How will the global economy fare as the Chinese economy falters? What if the British people vote to leave the EU? Will Greece leave the Euro currency, and will others follow? Will the far right prosper in Europe in the UK? How will Daesh be managing in Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebenon, Jordan, Egypt and will they attack Israel? And these are just the known unknowns.
Despite appearances the Tories are not invincible. They governed Canada for 10 years but they got defeated by the Liberals in Canada in 2015. Even so, politics is getting harder whoever is in power. Can the Lib Dems keep up with what is happening in the world today?
In that time there has never been a more challenging time to be a Lib Dem, apart from in the 1950s when the Liberal party almost died.
We can see from what the government is doing today that the Lib Dems did perform a useful role in Coalition in moderating the Tories. Even so, the reputation and the appeal of the Liberal Democrats has taken a battering. Some policies that should not have seen the light of day got through and the Lib Dems have a difficult legacy to deal with as they now hope to recover. The election of Tim Farron as a new leader has given a new hope to those of us on the left of the party, upon which he has only partially delivered.
His majority was small and his strategy all along has been to try and keep the party united and this probably accounts for his record so far. He was able to oppose the Tory welfare cuts with conviction and he has made tackling inequality - not just social mobility - a priority. How that fits in with austerity economics and what our take on it is remains to be seen. On the other hand he has supported Trident replacement and air strikes in Syria.
I think he was relishing outflanking Labour on the left, but the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party has made that impossible. Jeremy Corbyn is on the hard left and they have their flaws as well. In the 32 years that Jeremy Corbyn was elected the MP for Islington North, he has often walked through the same voting lobbies as the Lib Dems, both in opposition to the Tories and Labour. There is more we agree on than we would both like to admit; on civil liberties, tackling global warming, opposing benefit cuts. Jeremy Corbyn has a laid back personality, very different from some of his hard left allies. The hard left have a culture of believing that anyone who opposes them on any issue should be treated with contempt. As the soft left Guardian journalist John Harris pointed out, they are not interested in listening to the electorate if they say things they do not want to hear.
For that reason a lot of the new recruits to Labour have joined the wrong party. Unfortunately because on the policies they are closer to Jeremey Corbyn than Tim Farron, that does not seem obvious. No doubt some will eject from Labour when they find out what it is really like, but it would have been better if they joined the Lib Dems in the first place. The Lib Dems have plenty of new members themselves and that is an opportunity they must capitalise on.
But what about the bigger picture? Global warming will continue it's deadly path. There is no end in sight in the so called war against terror. Will Assad be overthrown and will the Syrian state collapse in a similar fashion to Iraq in 2003? Will the government really find the money to replace Trident? Will Donald Trump or Ted Cruz become the next US president? How will the global economy fare as the Chinese economy falters? What if the British people vote to leave the EU? Will Greece leave the Euro currency, and will others follow? Will the far right prosper in Europe in the UK? How will Daesh be managing in Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebenon, Jordan, Egypt and will they attack Israel? And these are just the known unknowns.
Despite appearances the Tories are not invincible. They governed Canada for 10 years but they got defeated by the Liberals in Canada in 2015. Even so, politics is getting harder whoever is in power. Can the Lib Dems keep up with what is happening in the world today?
Friday, 31 December 2010
Osborne's spending cuts are seriously hurting the Lib Dems
Not long ago the Lib Dems triumphed in their successful campaign for fair treatment for the Gurkas. Then at the last general election we witnessed "Cleggmania" - which lasted briefly but was sufficient to bring in many new members to the party.
It all went wrong on May 6th. The general election result saw a net loss of seats for the Lib Dems, and then of course coalition with the Tories. A coalition with Labour was not an option once Labour decided to exclude the SNP. The Lib Dems need some good news stories, but with the possible exception of winning the AV referendum, it is hard to see where any will come from.
Some claim that this Coalition was a triumph, despite a dramatic drop in the opinion polls. After all, government is about making difficult decisions, you cannot continue to be all things to all people. In any case they argue, the Liberal Democrats are now delivering on many of their manifesto commitments.
However the problem was not so much what was in the manifesto, it was what was not included. Premature and radical cuts at a time of fragile growth threaten to throw the economy into reverse. Radical reforms of the NHS that have never before been debated with the Lib Dems and have not been tested by pilot projects may go horribly wrong. Radical changes to higher education finance - not just student fees but the marketisation of course funding will also have unpredictable results. The cuts in local government are devastating and the impact will not only be regressive, but runs counter to what the Lib Dems stand for in local government. The policy in supporting academies and free schools is against the policy of the Liberal Democrats and this was reconfirmed at the last conference by a 10 - 1 majority.
Of course in a Coalition you will not always get your way, but these are big hits. The concern is that Nick Clegg is not fighting our corner. This is important not only in relation to Lib Dem members and activists, but also to voters.
On the issue of Equality Nick Clegg has played down our commitment to reduce poverty and focussed instead on social mobility. His advisor Richard Reeves dismisses the research in The Spirit Level which shows that only countries with low levels of poverty also have high level of social mobility.
On localism Nick Clegg tells us that the Big Society also equals liberalism. It does not. The Big Society is a welcome advance by the Tory party compared to the centralising days on the 1980s, but the suspicion of local government is still there and without democratically elected bodies with the ability to raise funds locally, this is not good enough. Indeed policies like Free Schools and Academies are likely to benefit the middle classes more and work against any gains the pupil premium may bring to social mobility.
So the question is this; is the current state of affairs sustainable?
We hope the vote on AV will be won, but if not Nick Clegg could go in 2011.
If he remains he still has the reputation issue to resolve. His agenda setting speeches on Equality have not yet won him any popularity and it is hard to see how he can improve things for the Liberal Democrats. Many new party members are scheduled to renew from next March, and if they don't we could start to see a weakening of the party, combined with big losses in the forthcoming local elections.
Even if we win the AV referendum it remains the case that Nick Clegg has to find a way of recovering his reputation. The party cannot go into the next general election at less than 15%. Labour is facing up to a dreadful general election in 2010, but the problems for the Lib Dems look substantially worse than that.
It all went wrong on May 6th. The general election result saw a net loss of seats for the Lib Dems, and then of course coalition with the Tories. A coalition with Labour was not an option once Labour decided to exclude the SNP. The Lib Dems need some good news stories, but with the possible exception of winning the AV referendum, it is hard to see where any will come from.
Some claim that this Coalition was a triumph, despite a dramatic drop in the opinion polls. After all, government is about making difficult decisions, you cannot continue to be all things to all people. In any case they argue, the Liberal Democrats are now delivering on many of their manifesto commitments.
However the problem was not so much what was in the manifesto, it was what was not included. Premature and radical cuts at a time of fragile growth threaten to throw the economy into reverse. Radical reforms of the NHS that have never before been debated with the Lib Dems and have not been tested by pilot projects may go horribly wrong. Radical changes to higher education finance - not just student fees but the marketisation of course funding will also have unpredictable results. The cuts in local government are devastating and the impact will not only be regressive, but runs counter to what the Lib Dems stand for in local government. The policy in supporting academies and free schools is against the policy of the Liberal Democrats and this was reconfirmed at the last conference by a 10 - 1 majority.
Of course in a Coalition you will not always get your way, but these are big hits. The concern is that Nick Clegg is not fighting our corner. This is important not only in relation to Lib Dem members and activists, but also to voters.
On the issue of Equality Nick Clegg has played down our commitment to reduce poverty and focussed instead on social mobility. His advisor Richard Reeves dismisses the research in The Spirit Level which shows that only countries with low levels of poverty also have high level of social mobility.
On localism Nick Clegg tells us that the Big Society also equals liberalism. It does not. The Big Society is a welcome advance by the Tory party compared to the centralising days on the 1980s, but the suspicion of local government is still there and without democratically elected bodies with the ability to raise funds locally, this is not good enough. Indeed policies like Free Schools and Academies are likely to benefit the middle classes more and work against any gains the pupil premium may bring to social mobility.
So the question is this; is the current state of affairs sustainable?
We hope the vote on AV will be won, but if not Nick Clegg could go in 2011.
If he remains he still has the reputation issue to resolve. His agenda setting speeches on Equality have not yet won him any popularity and it is hard to see how he can improve things for the Liberal Democrats. Many new party members are scheduled to renew from next March, and if they don't we could start to see a weakening of the party, combined with big losses in the forthcoming local elections.
Even if we win the AV referendum it remains the case that Nick Clegg has to find a way of recovering his reputation. The party cannot go into the next general election at less than 15%. Labour is facing up to a dreadful general election in 2010, but the problems for the Lib Dems look substantially worse than that.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Has Vince Cable been sidelined? Will there be a double dip recession?
There is no doubt that Vince Cable has a very important job to do. He needs to propose how to split up the banks, make sure they are not too big to fail, that they are properly regulated and the retail and casino functions are split up. People's savings should not be put at risk by irresponsible banking behaviour of the kind we have seen recently. Ideally he should resist Tory urgings that the banks should be privatised straight away. Yes they should be privatised eventually when economic conditions are favourable, but not on the behest of his ideological counterparts in the Tory party. It is said that he is frustrated that he does not have the power to do what he wants and that George Osborne wields some power in all this. This is alarming if true. However even if it is true, Vince should fight his corner and go public if the Tories are being obstructive. He will surely have public opinion on his side. He may have more power than it appears on paper.
But why would the Tories do such a thing anyway? Well the Tories are the party of hedge fund managers and the money markets. Not only that, city institutions will lobby hard and they have the financial clout to do so. Making these changes will be very hard, and the Tories are not our natural allies in wanting to do this.
So there is a battle to be fought on the banking front, but we should not overlook the broader economic picture. This is a government that will make cuts right away. That in itself is a problem, as Vince Cable argued only a couple of weeks ago not to do this; "Slashing spending now could push the economy back into recession and inflict further structural damage on the UK that will make it harder to sustain our credit rating. He (George Osborne) ... fails to appreciate what the markets are looking for is a credible plan to reduce the deficit, not a willingness to slash regardless of economic conditions. In the current climate it is essential that decisions about the speed and timing of tackling the deficit are based on the state of the economy, not political dogma". See http://www.nickclegg.org.uk/press_releases_detail.aspx?title=Osborne_is_out_of_his_depth_says_Cable&pPK=7755ff1f-5e2c-41d5-a82b-7573ca25dab1. Vince Cable will be busy with his own priorities and will not get much of say in all this now.
I have asked about this on-line and got various responses. Some Lib Dems never believed what Vince Cable said at the time and thought he was just playing politics. These are often the same people who thought a the same a couple of years ago when Vince Cable was criticising the government over the high levels of debt. Look how wrong there were!
Others argue that £6billion is not very much, although I doubt it will seem that way once implemented. Some have pointed out that it depends on where the cuts are being made, and this is a more important point. Clearly cutting on national Id cards will not result in big job losses (albeit no comfort for those who do lose their jobs). Maybe it is possible to make cuts without detracting from the economic stimulus? Up to a point this is true, but can we cover all £6billion this way? Probably not. The official party response is that somewhat miraculously we do now have the growth we need to make this cuts less painful. If true this is an astonishing turn of events, coinciding very conveniently with the date of the general election. The latest growth figures do look better, but surely it is too early to say now that the time is now right? particularly given the prospects of contagion from the parlous state of the Greek economy?
The problem once again is Tory ideology. They will advocate we should cut regardless of economic conditions, as Vince Cable warned. Dangerous times.
But why would the Tories do such a thing anyway? Well the Tories are the party of hedge fund managers and the money markets. Not only that, city institutions will lobby hard and they have the financial clout to do so. Making these changes will be very hard, and the Tories are not our natural allies in wanting to do this.
So there is a battle to be fought on the banking front, but we should not overlook the broader economic picture. This is a government that will make cuts right away. That in itself is a problem, as Vince Cable argued only a couple of weeks ago not to do this; "Slashing spending now could push the economy back into recession and inflict further structural damage on the UK that will make it harder to sustain our credit rating. He (George Osborne) ... fails to appreciate what the markets are looking for is a credible plan to reduce the deficit, not a willingness to slash regardless of economic conditions. In the current climate it is essential that decisions about the speed and timing of tackling the deficit are based on the state of the economy, not political dogma". See http://www.nickclegg.org.uk/press_releases_detail.aspx?title=Osborne_is_out_of_his_depth_says_Cable&pPK=7755ff1f-5e2c-41d5-a82b-7573ca25dab1. Vince Cable will be busy with his own priorities and will not get much of say in all this now.
I have asked about this on-line and got various responses. Some Lib Dems never believed what Vince Cable said at the time and thought he was just playing politics. These are often the same people who thought a the same a couple of years ago when Vince Cable was criticising the government over the high levels of debt. Look how wrong there were!
Others argue that £6billion is not very much, although I doubt it will seem that way once implemented. Some have pointed out that it depends on where the cuts are being made, and this is a more important point. Clearly cutting on national Id cards will not result in big job losses (albeit no comfort for those who do lose their jobs). Maybe it is possible to make cuts without detracting from the economic stimulus? Up to a point this is true, but can we cover all £6billion this way? Probably not. The official party response is that somewhat miraculously we do now have the growth we need to make this cuts less painful. If true this is an astonishing turn of events, coinciding very conveniently with the date of the general election. The latest growth figures do look better, but surely it is too early to say now that the time is now right? particularly given the prospects of contagion from the parlous state of the Greek economy?
The problem once again is Tory ideology. They will advocate we should cut regardless of economic conditions, as Vince Cable warned. Dangerous times.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
"Cleggmania" succeeded first of all in galvanising the electorate. But by the time they got to the polling booth their attention had switched to defeating the party they were afraid of most. Under our voting system, that meant they reverted back to "Labservative".
In addition the leadership debates brought up the issue of immigration. Whenever Cameron spoke on this, his vote went up.
And so on election day the Tories got the most votes.
A progressive coalition looked mathematically possible. But Labour tribalist MPs made that impossible.
This left 2 options; go it alone, or align with the Tories.
Go it alone was not really an option. Only the Tory party can afford to fight another election this year.
But aligning with the Tories has risks too. For many on the left, including many Lib Dems, there is the symbolism. The MPs we least want to see running the country; Osborne, Hague and Fox now have their hands on the levers of power. It becomes much harder for the Lib Dems to win votes in Labour areas from now on.
Then there is the question of what the government will now do. 2 weeks ago, the Liberal Democrats claimed that they would not support radical cuts in public spending right away, as this would induce a double dip recession. Now they are doing just that. How can this be in the national interest? There may be a good answer to this question, but I have not come across it yet.
On the other hand there is a lot that is positive about this proposed coalition. Good to see Chris Huhne tackling the issue of global warming for example. Good to see the pupil premium being implemented (although it remains to be seen if the investment will be there to make it work). Good to see civil liberties being supported. The question is whether the benefits on policy outweigh the risks from a possible recession?
The electorate gave the Lib Dems a poor hand for their negotiating position in the coalition talks. They have made the best of a bad hand, but there remains a high risk that our unforgiving voting system; whether FPTP or AV, will come down hard on them next time.
Under our voting system, you do not get many choices in politics. Left Liberals should stay in the Lib Dems and make the best of the situation as they can. It is not clear there is any other choice for the time being.
In addition the leadership debates brought up the issue of immigration. Whenever Cameron spoke on this, his vote went up.
And so on election day the Tories got the most votes.
A progressive coalition looked mathematically possible. But Labour tribalist MPs made that impossible.
This left 2 options; go it alone, or align with the Tories.
Go it alone was not really an option. Only the Tory party can afford to fight another election this year.
But aligning with the Tories has risks too. For many on the left, including many Lib Dems, there is the symbolism. The MPs we least want to see running the country; Osborne, Hague and Fox now have their hands on the levers of power. It becomes much harder for the Lib Dems to win votes in Labour areas from now on.
Then there is the question of what the government will now do. 2 weeks ago, the Liberal Democrats claimed that they would not support radical cuts in public spending right away, as this would induce a double dip recession. Now they are doing just that. How can this be in the national interest? There may be a good answer to this question, but I have not come across it yet.
On the other hand there is a lot that is positive about this proposed coalition. Good to see Chris Huhne tackling the issue of global warming for example. Good to see the pupil premium being implemented (although it remains to be seen if the investment will be there to make it work). Good to see civil liberties being supported. The question is whether the benefits on policy outweigh the risks from a possible recession?
The electorate gave the Lib Dems a poor hand for their negotiating position in the coalition talks. They have made the best of a bad hand, but there remains a high risk that our unforgiving voting system; whether FPTP or AV, will come down hard on them next time.
Under our voting system, you do not get many choices in politics. Left Liberals should stay in the Lib Dems and make the best of the situation as they can. It is not clear there is any other choice for the time being.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Change the system, vote Lib Dem
I have not had the time to write about this election. However I did find the time on Facebook to suggest why not to vote Labour;
"A catastrophic war in Iraq, the never ending war in Afghanistan, failure to stand up to Israel when they invaded Gaza, collusion with torture with the Bush regime, "light touch" regulation of the City, believing that market forces were self-correcting with disastrous economic consequences, failure to reform the finance of political parties - which ... See morenow gives the Tories a massive advantage for decades to come, failure to change the electoral system after they said they would, wasted lots of money on national ID cards and their commitment to replace Trident, locking up petty criminals for short term prisons which are in effect academies of crime with a reoffending rate of 90%, a widening gap between the rich and poor, making the UK the worst in Europe, the consequences of which you can read in The Spirit Level, the Decent Homes initiative that has saddled unsuspecting leaseholders on salaries of £15K with bills from £10K to £70K, failure to introduce the traffic lights system of food health after lobbying from ex-Labour ministers, the UK massively behind Denmark in alternative energy sources, support for a new runway at Heathrow despite commitments to global warming targets ..."
In short, Labour dances to the tune of Rupert Murdoch.
Before "New Labour", the politics of the left was in many ways more liberal than it is today. There is still a hinterland on the left that supports the Liberal agenda, and although many of them would prefer to vote Labour, this time they are either voting Lib Dem or are voting tactically to keep out the Tories.
It was over 50 years ago when Liberal leader Jo Grimond talked about Liberals "realligning the left". Today we must rescue the left, but only the liberal part of it. Otherwise the onslaught from Murdoch will soon begin.
"A catastrophic war in Iraq, the never ending war in Afghanistan, failure to stand up to Israel when they invaded Gaza, collusion with torture with the Bush regime, "light touch" regulation of the City, believing that market forces were self-correcting with disastrous economic consequences, failure to reform the finance of political parties - which ... See morenow gives the Tories a massive advantage for decades to come, failure to change the electoral system after they said they would, wasted lots of money on national ID cards and their commitment to replace Trident, locking up petty criminals for short term prisons which are in effect academies of crime with a reoffending rate of 90%, a widening gap between the rich and poor, making the UK the worst in Europe, the consequences of which you can read in The Spirit Level, the Decent Homes initiative that has saddled unsuspecting leaseholders on salaries of £15K with bills from £10K to £70K, failure to introduce the traffic lights system of food health after lobbying from ex-Labour ministers, the UK massively behind Denmark in alternative energy sources, support for a new runway at Heathrow despite commitments to global warming targets ..."
In short, Labour dances to the tune of Rupert Murdoch.
Before "New Labour", the politics of the left was in many ways more liberal than it is today. There is still a hinterland on the left that supports the Liberal agenda, and although many of them would prefer to vote Labour, this time they are either voting Lib Dem or are voting tactically to keep out the Tories.
It was over 50 years ago when Liberal leader Jo Grimond talked about Liberals "realligning the left". Today we must rescue the left, but only the liberal part of it. Otherwise the onslaught from Murdoch will soon begin.
Friday, 1 January 2010
2010 - A difficult year in prospect for the Lib Dems
When Charles Kennedy stood down as leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2006, many saw this as a great opportunity to shift the party into a more "economically liberal" position. The agenda was to be to advocate a smaller state and tax cuts. Whilst proclaiming that they saw the labels of left or right as irrelevant when defining where they stood politically, they were also keen to point out that the party should not be identified as being left of Labour as it had been in previous general elections.
Early proposals for the party to drop it's support for the Local Income Tax and to support a "Flat Tax" did not make it to party conference. The "Flat Tax" proposal was quickly dropped when the German Christian Democrats who also supported this policy almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the German general election.
Even so, economic liberals were victorious in the leadership election when Ming Campbell supported their cause. When his leadership fell flat, economic liberals won again when Nick Clegg replaced him, albeit by a much smaller margin than anyone predicted.
All this seemed very radical, and in terms of how previous Lib Dem positions had been in favour of increasing taxes to fund greater public spending it was. However when the nirvana of the economic liberals was finally reached; the "Make it Happen" policy document which proposed tax cuts funded by public spending cuts - which was about the only thing anyone remembers from this document - the policy quickly became out of date for reasons that were perfectly forseeable at the time.
Even if the global economic downturn had not taken place, the charge by Danny Finkelstein of "punk" tax cuts seemed a valid one. The Liberal Democrats had not identified a more efficient way to run public services that would acheive the same or better with less funding. The proposal was simply to spend less. The rhetoric was to spend less on waste, as though the current government had set aside a budget specifically for waste that simply needed to be cut. In truth every government wants to acheive more with less when it comes to public spending. The idea that the Liberal Democrats had found a way of doing so that no one else had spotted was hard to believe. Nor did they back it up with any substance. If they had of done, both Labour and the Tories would have copied the policies. Ideologically there was nothing stopping them.
In any case the Make it Happen policy document with the tax and public spending cuts was proposed at conference despite the fact we were on the verge of a global economic recession. And it was passed by a massive 2 -1 majority. Personally I thought the party had gone insane.
Even more absurd was that many delegates who supported the policy went on to oppose the attempt by the party leadership to drop the committment to scrapped student tuition fees. How on earth did they think they could find the savings in public spending whilst keeping this policy? Equally the party leadership at the time wanted to find the funds to replace Trident, again a policy that did not make sense.
In the end sense prevailed. The Make it Happen tax proposals were shelved. A commitment to replacing Trident "like for like" was dropped. The commitment to scrap student tuition fees has been watered down.
All sections of the party favour the rebalancing of the tax system so that the poor pay less and the rich pay more. Even so, the prospects for any future government are ones of increasing taxes overall and reducing public spending - the worst of both worlds. Maintaining our highly valued committments on early learning and family benefits, and tax cuts for those on low incomes will be hard to maintain, no matter how much we want them.
It is worth reminding ourselves that "economic liberalism" was widely understood as the anglo-US model of capitalism that for years delivered on economic growth, but then collapsed. The growth was financed by debt. It was a bubble that was bound to burst. "Light touch" regulation was previously considered a good thing, keeping the state out of the running of business. Now we know that much of that business was "socially useless" to quote Adair Turner. Only heavy touch regulation can control it. If that was true of banking, then where else in the Anglo-US model of capitalism does this apply?
Of course "Liberal" is a good word. So "Economic Liberal" ought also be good. But it all depends on what you mean by the word Liberal. Freedom for financial institutions to ruthlessly persue short term profit regardless of the long term consequences does not seem very Liberal to me. Either we should redefine "Economic Liberalism" to mean something else or we should drop the term.
Where this has left the Liberal Democrats going into 2010 is a lack of distinctive policies. No doubt our policies are better, but it would be an interesting exercise to ask the electorate what policies the Lib Dems have that might persuade them to vote for us.
It could have been different. We could have opposed replacing Trident in a much more forthright manner than we are currently doing. At present it is not an issue that is on the agenda. In which case even more of a reason to do that and take the credit for doing so. If the Tories say they believe the same things we do, throw that back at them. Tell them we will not do a deal with them unless they commit not to replace Trident.
So why should we vote Lib Dem in 2010?
Well one person who did not follow the Economic Liberal script, despite previously doing so, was Vince Cable. His intervention that we should nationalise Northern Rock even before Labour realised that was the best policy demonstrated from the outset that this was the politician who should be running the economy at this time of crises. He is also right to support the economic stimulus and not slash and burn in public spending the moment you win office. If the Lib Dems hold the balance of power, we have to insist that he becomes the next chancellor.
The commitments on Green Taxes and the Pupil Premium, although copied have not been bettered by the other parties. And unlike the Tory party, there is no sign that the Lib Dems will change their mind over global warming. The commitments on supporting the EU and the rights for immigrants and asylum seekers may not be popular, and may weigh against the Lib Dems in a coalition, but someone needs to stand up on these matters. The commitment not to replace Trident "like for like" may be half hearted, but it is better than what is offered by the other political parties.
The commitment to support proportional representation is a fundamental one upon which the party should not budge. The Alternative Vote that Gordan Brown favours is NOT propotional representation, and in some cases is even less proportional.
Finally we need a better foreign policy. Whether the Liberal Democrats deliver on this would appear to depend on how influential Paddy Ashdown is. From my previous blogs I have to say that I do not think his influence has resulted in a good policy in Afghanistan. However there is still scope for the party to give a leaad on foreign policy, and Nick Clegg is to be commended for his interventions on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The difficulty for the party in 2010 is that the party has not been distinctive enough to be a first choice party. Often we are second - not many people really object to the Lib Dems in the same way as they do the other parties - we are rarely hated by the electorate. But to get that first preference, the only one that counts under our voting system, well it looks as though we will have to depend on the popularity of Vince Cable to get that.
So for the elections on 2010, its a case of fingers crossed.
Early proposals for the party to drop it's support for the Local Income Tax and to support a "Flat Tax" did not make it to party conference. The "Flat Tax" proposal was quickly dropped when the German Christian Democrats who also supported this policy almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the German general election.
Even so, economic liberals were victorious in the leadership election when Ming Campbell supported their cause. When his leadership fell flat, economic liberals won again when Nick Clegg replaced him, albeit by a much smaller margin than anyone predicted.
All this seemed very radical, and in terms of how previous Lib Dem positions had been in favour of increasing taxes to fund greater public spending it was. However when the nirvana of the economic liberals was finally reached; the "Make it Happen" policy document which proposed tax cuts funded by public spending cuts - which was about the only thing anyone remembers from this document - the policy quickly became out of date for reasons that were perfectly forseeable at the time.
Even if the global economic downturn had not taken place, the charge by Danny Finkelstein of "punk" tax cuts seemed a valid one. The Liberal Democrats had not identified a more efficient way to run public services that would acheive the same or better with less funding. The proposal was simply to spend less. The rhetoric was to spend less on waste, as though the current government had set aside a budget specifically for waste that simply needed to be cut. In truth every government wants to acheive more with less when it comes to public spending. The idea that the Liberal Democrats had found a way of doing so that no one else had spotted was hard to believe. Nor did they back it up with any substance. If they had of done, both Labour and the Tories would have copied the policies. Ideologically there was nothing stopping them.
In any case the Make it Happen policy document with the tax and public spending cuts was proposed at conference despite the fact we were on the verge of a global economic recession. And it was passed by a massive 2 -1 majority. Personally I thought the party had gone insane.
Even more absurd was that many delegates who supported the policy went on to oppose the attempt by the party leadership to drop the committment to scrapped student tuition fees. How on earth did they think they could find the savings in public spending whilst keeping this policy? Equally the party leadership at the time wanted to find the funds to replace Trident, again a policy that did not make sense.
In the end sense prevailed. The Make it Happen tax proposals were shelved. A commitment to replacing Trident "like for like" was dropped. The commitment to scrap student tuition fees has been watered down.
All sections of the party favour the rebalancing of the tax system so that the poor pay less and the rich pay more. Even so, the prospects for any future government are ones of increasing taxes overall and reducing public spending - the worst of both worlds. Maintaining our highly valued committments on early learning and family benefits, and tax cuts for those on low incomes will be hard to maintain, no matter how much we want them.
It is worth reminding ourselves that "economic liberalism" was widely understood as the anglo-US model of capitalism that for years delivered on economic growth, but then collapsed. The growth was financed by debt. It was a bubble that was bound to burst. "Light touch" regulation was previously considered a good thing, keeping the state out of the running of business. Now we know that much of that business was "socially useless" to quote Adair Turner. Only heavy touch regulation can control it. If that was true of banking, then where else in the Anglo-US model of capitalism does this apply?
Of course "Liberal" is a good word. So "Economic Liberal" ought also be good. But it all depends on what you mean by the word Liberal. Freedom for financial institutions to ruthlessly persue short term profit regardless of the long term consequences does not seem very Liberal to me. Either we should redefine "Economic Liberalism" to mean something else or we should drop the term.
Where this has left the Liberal Democrats going into 2010 is a lack of distinctive policies. No doubt our policies are better, but it would be an interesting exercise to ask the electorate what policies the Lib Dems have that might persuade them to vote for us.
It could have been different. We could have opposed replacing Trident in a much more forthright manner than we are currently doing. At present it is not an issue that is on the agenda. In which case even more of a reason to do that and take the credit for doing so. If the Tories say they believe the same things we do, throw that back at them. Tell them we will not do a deal with them unless they commit not to replace Trident.
So why should we vote Lib Dem in 2010?
Well one person who did not follow the Economic Liberal script, despite previously doing so, was Vince Cable. His intervention that we should nationalise Northern Rock even before Labour realised that was the best policy demonstrated from the outset that this was the politician who should be running the economy at this time of crises. He is also right to support the economic stimulus and not slash and burn in public spending the moment you win office. If the Lib Dems hold the balance of power, we have to insist that he becomes the next chancellor.
The commitments on Green Taxes and the Pupil Premium, although copied have not been bettered by the other parties. And unlike the Tory party, there is no sign that the Lib Dems will change their mind over global warming. The commitments on supporting the EU and the rights for immigrants and asylum seekers may not be popular, and may weigh against the Lib Dems in a coalition, but someone needs to stand up on these matters. The commitment not to replace Trident "like for like" may be half hearted, but it is better than what is offered by the other political parties.
The commitment to support proportional representation is a fundamental one upon which the party should not budge. The Alternative Vote that Gordan Brown favours is NOT propotional representation, and in some cases is even less proportional.
Finally we need a better foreign policy. Whether the Liberal Democrats deliver on this would appear to depend on how influential Paddy Ashdown is. From my previous blogs I have to say that I do not think his influence has resulted in a good policy in Afghanistan. However there is still scope for the party to give a leaad on foreign policy, and Nick Clegg is to be commended for his interventions on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The difficulty for the party in 2010 is that the party has not been distinctive enough to be a first choice party. Often we are second - not many people really object to the Lib Dems in the same way as they do the other parties - we are rarely hated by the electorate. But to get that first preference, the only one that counts under our voting system, well it looks as though we will have to depend on the popularity of Vince Cable to get that.
So for the elections on 2010, its a case of fingers crossed.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Nick Clegg and Paddy Ashdown fire blanks in Afghanistan
We are at a moment in time, according to the article by Nick Clegg and Paddy Ashdown in today's Guardian, where we have reached the last chance saloon in Afghanistan. I disagree. That moment in time passed by long ago.
Even so, having recognised this is the case, it may well be that the course of action they suggest is not implemented, and the consequence of that will be that the Liberal Democrats will then support a policy of withdrawing our troops sometime soon, maybe before the next general election.
As a policy change, that will be a big improvement, and another reason to vote Lib Dem.
Dealing with the situation as it is today, we need to consider the main drivers of Lib Dem policy.
Paddy Ashdown is held in very high regard by the party, and fully deserves to be. Not just for being leader of the party, taking over at a very difficult time just after the merger fiasco between the Liberals and the SDP. Much more significant was his remarkable success in Bosnia. What he acheived there was simply astonishing.
On the other hand, he also supported the British participation in the war in Iraq, probably the biggest foreign policy blunder in living memory. At a fringe meeting Ashdown did have the humility to admit that "we were right" and "he was wrong" on this issue. I have tremendous respect for the courage it took him to say that.
But did he learn the right lessons? It is true that at previous fringe meetings on Afghanistan Ashdown was very clear about the need to limit expectations about what can realistically be acheived in Afghanistan.
Yet the hubris is still there. By no means some grand neo-Conservative design, but the ability of Westerners to occupy a country that is culturally as different from us as can be, and yet "win the hearts and minds" of the people who live there is not only highly unlikely, it is not happening either.
The person who is speaking the most sense on Afghanistan is oddly enough a Tory. I would love to see a debate between Rory Stewart and Paddy Ashdown on Afghanistan. Rory makes his case very well in this video; http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1240285.
Paddy Ashdown has always been passionate about foreign policy, and that is entirely how it should be for a Liberal Democrat leader.
Nick Clegg has also been passionate on foreign policy, and made it a major part of his leader's speeches in the past. It is clear he agrees with Paddy Ashdown and it is fair enough that he draws on his advice given that is so. I for one would like to see a much higher profile from the Liberal Democrats on foreign policy than it does at present, although it would help if I agree with them first of course...
The question I would like to ask of course is why is it that Nick and Paddy are so determined that the British should continue to participate in this doomed policy?
Partly it is because with some reservations, the Lib Dems supported the war in Afghanistan in order to destroy Al-Qaeda. "Doing nothing" did not seem an option at the time, just after 911, and there is little to commend being a "fair weather friend". There is also a sense that we have a moral obligation to the Afghani people to marginalise Al-Qaeda, and most importantly of all there is huge concern about the knock on effects in the region, and Pakistan in particular. Finally it is the message that will be sent out to the region, the loss of power of the west to influence the region, a signal that being anti-West no longer has a price attached.
The problem with the first part; our support of the US to invade Afghanistan in the first place, is that we failed then to have our own foreign policy. The foreign policy of the UK was whatever the foreign policy of the US was. In fact this failure continues to this very day, regardless of whether the president of the US is Republican or Democrat. We simply agree with them.
The US does not expect to have to negotiate with it's allies what it's foreign policy should be, in which case we do not have to agree with them. We ought to insist that we have a clear set of objectives, a timeline for acheiving them and a plan B if the policy is doing more harm than good. Plan B might be simply to abandon the policy. There is no point in us being loyal to the US if it means being lumbered with a policy that is not working.
Ashdown and Clegg seem to think that the US/UK occupation is what is holding back the Taliban in Afganistan. Yet at the same time the momentum behind the Taliban is unstoppable. In fact a better explanation is that it is our occupation that is causing the support for the Taliban to increase. As Rory Stewart says, whatever moral obligations we have to the Afghani people, we are not morally obliged to deliver what we cannot acheive.
Likewise Ashdown has claimed that a victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan will mean that the government of Pakistan will inevitably fall. This of course is a nightmarish scenario given Pakistan is a nuclear power. There is a real danger that this could happen, but the question here is what would cause it? Again it is the occupation of Afghanistan that is driving the Taliban into Pakistan making it a more unstable country as a result. In other words the proposed solution is causing the problem to get worse.
Finally the message to the region cannot be avoided. The west is losing it's power in the world, especially after the collapse of the Washington Concensus (WC) economic order. It will be humiliating for the west to send that message, but we have no choice.
The new world order will be multipolar. The anglo-US model of economic development will diminish. Expectations behind foreign policy objectives will have to be reset.
To some extent that has already happened. Prior to the war in Iraq, the US/UK were fighting many wars. Since then, no new wars have been started by the west and noone expects us to get involved in any soon.
As far as Afghanistan is concerned, what should we do? Rory Stewart points out that there are some parts that do not want to run by the Taliban. The Shias in the west and the Tajiks in the north are examples of that. Maybe a limited presence can help them, especially when you consider the Taliban never run the whole of the country before when they were in power. Even so, there is a danger of a civil war if we do that.
So we should withdraw from most of the country at least, and adjust of foreign policy objectives accordingly. It may well be the case that democracy in Pakistan will continue for the forseeable future, and it is important that will help them acheive that. At this moment in time it is not clear why a radical take over in that country would be inevitable if the Taliban take over in Afghanistan. There are other factors that might drive this eventuality as well, and we have to mitigate those. A just peace in Israel and a just settlement in Kashmir would be helpful for example, albeit hard to acheive.
It is disappointing the Lib Dems do not have a better policy on Afghanistan, and I would rather wait until after the next general election before I would want to press on this issue. The policy may improve of it's own accord anyway.
Lets hope so.
Even so, having recognised this is the case, it may well be that the course of action they suggest is not implemented, and the consequence of that will be that the Liberal Democrats will then support a policy of withdrawing our troops sometime soon, maybe before the next general election.
As a policy change, that will be a big improvement, and another reason to vote Lib Dem.
Dealing with the situation as it is today, we need to consider the main drivers of Lib Dem policy.
Paddy Ashdown is held in very high regard by the party, and fully deserves to be. Not just for being leader of the party, taking over at a very difficult time just after the merger fiasco between the Liberals and the SDP. Much more significant was his remarkable success in Bosnia. What he acheived there was simply astonishing.
On the other hand, he also supported the British participation in the war in Iraq, probably the biggest foreign policy blunder in living memory. At a fringe meeting Ashdown did have the humility to admit that "we were right" and "he was wrong" on this issue. I have tremendous respect for the courage it took him to say that.
But did he learn the right lessons? It is true that at previous fringe meetings on Afghanistan Ashdown was very clear about the need to limit expectations about what can realistically be acheived in Afghanistan.
Yet the hubris is still there. By no means some grand neo-Conservative design, but the ability of Westerners to occupy a country that is culturally as different from us as can be, and yet "win the hearts and minds" of the people who live there is not only highly unlikely, it is not happening either.
The person who is speaking the most sense on Afghanistan is oddly enough a Tory. I would love to see a debate between Rory Stewart and Paddy Ashdown on Afghanistan. Rory makes his case very well in this video; http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1240285.
Paddy Ashdown has always been passionate about foreign policy, and that is entirely how it should be for a Liberal Democrat leader.
Nick Clegg has also been passionate on foreign policy, and made it a major part of his leader's speeches in the past. It is clear he agrees with Paddy Ashdown and it is fair enough that he draws on his advice given that is so. I for one would like to see a much higher profile from the Liberal Democrats on foreign policy than it does at present, although it would help if I agree with them first of course...
The question I would like to ask of course is why is it that Nick and Paddy are so determined that the British should continue to participate in this doomed policy?
Partly it is because with some reservations, the Lib Dems supported the war in Afghanistan in order to destroy Al-Qaeda. "Doing nothing" did not seem an option at the time, just after 911, and there is little to commend being a "fair weather friend". There is also a sense that we have a moral obligation to the Afghani people to marginalise Al-Qaeda, and most importantly of all there is huge concern about the knock on effects in the region, and Pakistan in particular. Finally it is the message that will be sent out to the region, the loss of power of the west to influence the region, a signal that being anti-West no longer has a price attached.
The problem with the first part; our support of the US to invade Afghanistan in the first place, is that we failed then to have our own foreign policy. The foreign policy of the UK was whatever the foreign policy of the US was. In fact this failure continues to this very day, regardless of whether the president of the US is Republican or Democrat. We simply agree with them.
The US does not expect to have to negotiate with it's allies what it's foreign policy should be, in which case we do not have to agree with them. We ought to insist that we have a clear set of objectives, a timeline for acheiving them and a plan B if the policy is doing more harm than good. Plan B might be simply to abandon the policy. There is no point in us being loyal to the US if it means being lumbered with a policy that is not working.
Ashdown and Clegg seem to think that the US/UK occupation is what is holding back the Taliban in Afganistan. Yet at the same time the momentum behind the Taliban is unstoppable. In fact a better explanation is that it is our occupation that is causing the support for the Taliban to increase. As Rory Stewart says, whatever moral obligations we have to the Afghani people, we are not morally obliged to deliver what we cannot acheive.
Likewise Ashdown has claimed that a victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan will mean that the government of Pakistan will inevitably fall. This of course is a nightmarish scenario given Pakistan is a nuclear power. There is a real danger that this could happen, but the question here is what would cause it? Again it is the occupation of Afghanistan that is driving the Taliban into Pakistan making it a more unstable country as a result. In other words the proposed solution is causing the problem to get worse.
Finally the message to the region cannot be avoided. The west is losing it's power in the world, especially after the collapse of the Washington Concensus (WC) economic order. It will be humiliating for the west to send that message, but we have no choice.
The new world order will be multipolar. The anglo-US model of economic development will diminish. Expectations behind foreign policy objectives will have to be reset.
To some extent that has already happened. Prior to the war in Iraq, the US/UK were fighting many wars. Since then, no new wars have been started by the west and noone expects us to get involved in any soon.
As far as Afghanistan is concerned, what should we do? Rory Stewart points out that there are some parts that do not want to run by the Taliban. The Shias in the west and the Tajiks in the north are examples of that. Maybe a limited presence can help them, especially when you consider the Taliban never run the whole of the country before when they were in power. Even so, there is a danger of a civil war if we do that.
So we should withdraw from most of the country at least, and adjust of foreign policy objectives accordingly. It may well be the case that democracy in Pakistan will continue for the forseeable future, and it is important that will help them acheive that. At this moment in time it is not clear why a radical take over in that country would be inevitable if the Taliban take over in Afghanistan. There are other factors that might drive this eventuality as well, and we have to mitigate those. A just peace in Israel and a just settlement in Kashmir would be helpful for example, albeit hard to acheive.
It is disappointing the Lib Dems do not have a better policy on Afghanistan, and I would rather wait until after the next general election before I would want to press on this issue. The policy may improve of it's own accord anyway.
Lets hope so.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Nick Clegg makes tough choices.
At the one day conference at the London School Of Economics earlier this year, Nick Clegg was proposing that we make radical cuts in public spending. He informed us that we will have to make "tough choices". Soon afterwards Steve Richards told us that politicians often talk about tough choices, without themselves making the tough choice of telling us what they are.
Since then those choices have been made. The first is that the party is no longer committed to a policy of "We-will-cut-current-public-spending-by-£20billion-and-reassign-some-of-it-to-our-existing-priorities-and-anything-left-will-be-tax-cuts", and now the party is no longer committed to replacing Trident. In other words there is not much scope for cuts, but we can cut Trident.
Both are good moves, and what I have argued for on this blog.
I can now look forward to the next general election with the same enthusiasm as I had at the last general election. Last time it was opposition to the Iraq war that made it worthwhile. This time it is opposition to Trident. If only we had not wasted all those years up until now on the wrong track. Now we have just 9 months to get our new message across.
Since then those choices have been made. The first is that the party is no longer committed to a policy of "We-will-cut-current-public-spending-by-£20billion-and-reassign-some-of-it-to-our-existing-priorities-and-anything-left-will-be-tax-cuts", and now the party is no longer committed to replacing Trident. In other words there is not much scope for cuts, but we can cut Trident.
Both are good moves, and what I have argued for on this blog.
I can now look forward to the next general election with the same enthusiasm as I had at the last general election. Last time it was opposition to the Iraq war that made it worthwhile. This time it is opposition to Trident. If only we had not wasted all those years up until now on the wrong track. Now we have just 9 months to get our new message across.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Nick Clegg to give a townhall meeting in Hackney on Tuesday about Turkey and the EU.
In the UK the Turkish/Kurdish/Cypriot communities are the most politically intense I have met. Many are very good liberals and I am hoping they will get more involved in the British political scene. Historically most have supported Labour, but Labour's appalling foreign policy has disillusioned many, notably in relation to Iraq and Israel, and given that many also support Turkey's entry into the EU, with the intention of making the EU work (this latter point distinguishes the Lib Dems from the other parties), then there could not be a better time for the liberal wing of these communities to join the Lib Dems.
The Liberal Democrats Friends of Turkey (LDFoT) provide an excellent hinterland for liberal Turks. A chance to find out more about the party before deciding whether to join.
I have made some very good friends in LDFoT and so far every one I have met so far would make an excellent member of the party. Some already are.
On Tuesday Hackney Liberal Democrats and LDFoT have jointly organised a public meeting with Nick Clegg as the main speaker about "Turkey - our future in Europe". Also every bit as important our current MEP Sara Ludford, plus Jonathan Fryer who according to opinion polls will also get elected on 4th June will also be speaking at this event.
See http://www.flocktogether.org.uk/event/5157
and http://www.hackneylibdems.org.uk/clegg.php where you can reserve your seat.
Maybe the tectonic plates are shifting, Labour in decline and the Lib Dems in the ascendency?
Well anything can happen in a public meeting. One thing I will predict, you will not have seen anything like it before in Hackney (and we have seen many things here!).
PS I removed my previous posting whilst I recheck my facts on what is going on in Turkey. It looks very complicated, more than I appreciated before. Thanks to Barry Stocker for pointing that out.
The Liberal Democrats Friends of Turkey (LDFoT) provide an excellent hinterland for liberal Turks. A chance to find out more about the party before deciding whether to join.
I have made some very good friends in LDFoT and so far every one I have met so far would make an excellent member of the party. Some already are.
On Tuesday Hackney Liberal Democrats and LDFoT have jointly organised a public meeting with Nick Clegg as the main speaker about "Turkey - our future in Europe". Also every bit as important our current MEP Sara Ludford, plus Jonathan Fryer who according to opinion polls will also get elected on 4th June will also be speaking at this event.
See http://www.flocktogether.org.uk/event/5157
and http://www.hackneylibdems.org.uk/clegg.php where you can reserve your seat.
Maybe the tectonic plates are shifting, Labour in decline and the Lib Dems in the ascendency?
Well anything can happen in a public meeting. One thing I will predict, you will not have seen anything like it before in Hackney (and we have seen many things here!).
PS I removed my previous posting whilst I recheck my facts on what is going on in Turkey. It looks very complicated, more than I appreciated before. Thanks to Barry Stocker for pointing that out.
Saturday, 18 April 2009
First the bankers, next the tax evaders
I joined "The other taxpayers alliance" on Facebook recently - a useful opposition force to that motley collection of very rich people in the Taxpayers Alliance who dont want to pay any tax.
They directed me to a meeting at the TUC congress house which I went to on Thursday. It was organised by Compass, the left of centre pressure group within the Labour party who are supporting John Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and their main hope for rescuing the party from it's dead end neoliberal trajectory.
This was a significant meeting as Angela Eagle - a cabinet minister was there, mostly to listen although she did give a brief speech at the beginning.
The message of the meeting was clear, it is time to close in on the tax evaders and the tax avoiders. Although the number of rich people is small as a proportion of the population, they withhold far more of their capital than do those at the other end, the so-called "benefit scroungers".
The opinion poll evidence was clear, public opinion is now wanting the loopholes to be closed. The next budget is on Tuesday. Compass may well be pushing on an opening door.
I hope the Liberal Democrats take the opportunity to pre-empt them on this, this weekend. Vince Cable and Nick Clegg often refer to this injustice in their speeches - it is perfectly consistent with what they have said all along, unlike Labour who only now are thinking about it, and the Tories who have long been financed by tax evaders and dodgers for services rendered. At the meeting our attention was drawn to the activities of Micheal Ashcroft, one of the major Tory donors and still involved with banks in Belize and the Tory party.
I was impressed with the meeting for it's caution. The right wing position (supported by "New Labour" under the influence of Rupert Murdoch) of attacking benefits scroungers still wins votes for Labour/Tory and that was recognised - although not agreed with. A crude "attack the rich" position was not supported by the meeting, with the possible exception of a certain Richard Murphy, who urged us not to be timid.
Richard Murphy is the man who set up the Tax Justice Network (TJN). He is a passionate, colourful individual who knows a lot about his subject, but also has his foibles. The main one being his supersized ego. It is no surprise that he started this group - it is hard to imagine he would be able to join someone else's. It is hard to imagine the TJN can represent anything other than what Richard Murphy thinks at any particular time. Most of what he said fitted in well with what the audience wanted to hear, but he did acheive the remarkable feat of actually being heckled at a meeting organised and attended by people who expected to agree with him.
Well that is an aside for now.
The left have some grounds to be optimistic that public opinion will now support greater redistribution of wealth. Our main challenge is that that in itself will not prevent the rise of the far right, who may also seek to cash in on this, and who are likely to benefit most from the failures of neoliberal economic policy and for other reasons such as the threat of terrorism.
They directed me to a meeting at the TUC congress house which I went to on Thursday. It was organised by Compass, the left of centre pressure group within the Labour party who are supporting John Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and their main hope for rescuing the party from it's dead end neoliberal trajectory.
This was a significant meeting as Angela Eagle - a cabinet minister was there, mostly to listen although she did give a brief speech at the beginning.
The message of the meeting was clear, it is time to close in on the tax evaders and the tax avoiders. Although the number of rich people is small as a proportion of the population, they withhold far more of their capital than do those at the other end, the so-called "benefit scroungers".
The opinion poll evidence was clear, public opinion is now wanting the loopholes to be closed. The next budget is on Tuesday. Compass may well be pushing on an opening door.
I hope the Liberal Democrats take the opportunity to pre-empt them on this, this weekend. Vince Cable and Nick Clegg often refer to this injustice in their speeches - it is perfectly consistent with what they have said all along, unlike Labour who only now are thinking about it, and the Tories who have long been financed by tax evaders and dodgers for services rendered. At the meeting our attention was drawn to the activities of Micheal Ashcroft, one of the major Tory donors and still involved with banks in Belize and the Tory party.
I was impressed with the meeting for it's caution. The right wing position (supported by "New Labour" under the influence of Rupert Murdoch) of attacking benefits scroungers still wins votes for Labour/Tory and that was recognised - although not agreed with. A crude "attack the rich" position was not supported by the meeting, with the possible exception of a certain Richard Murphy, who urged us not to be timid.
Richard Murphy is the man who set up the Tax Justice Network (TJN). He is a passionate, colourful individual who knows a lot about his subject, but also has his foibles. The main one being his supersized ego. It is no surprise that he started this group - it is hard to imagine he would be able to join someone else's. It is hard to imagine the TJN can represent anything other than what Richard Murphy thinks at any particular time. Most of what he said fitted in well with what the audience wanted to hear, but he did acheive the remarkable feat of actually being heckled at a meeting organised and attended by people who expected to agree with him.
Well that is an aside for now.
The left have some grounds to be optimistic that public opinion will now support greater redistribution of wealth. Our main challenge is that that in itself will not prevent the rise of the far right, who may also seek to cash in on this, and who are likely to benefit most from the failures of neoliberal economic policy and for other reasons such as the threat of terrorism.
Monday, 13 April 2009
Maybe we will have nuclear disarmanent after all
The Liberal Democrats made a big mistake when they decided a while back not to take advantage of the new world order and adopt a policy of decomissioning our nuclear weapons. It was Ming Campbell, still fighting the internal battles of the 1980s (when the disarmers in the Liberal party had the upper hand) who insisted on the policy that we now have.
The SNP took full advantage in Scotland and showed beyond doubt that nuclear disarmanent is actually a vote winner, especially since we don't need the weapons.
But we can hope that although the opportunity was missed, maybe it does not matter so much anymore. The economic pressure on Russia, the US and the UK to disarm is so great, they might as well agree to "multilaterally disarm" at the earliest opportunity. With Obama now talking about disarmanent, we should bring forward the talks and agree as soon as possible.
Another military adventure we cannot afford is the war in Afghanistan. Obama said all along that he was going to intervene further in this conflict. He continues to propose this policy whilst wracking up even more debt in order to finance it, debt that neither the US or UK can afford.
Whilst wishing Obama well, the EU still has a responsibility to be a candid friend and tell the US to settle with the Taliban and get out of Afghanistan before it becomes another Iraq.
The US/UK cannot come to terms with their loss of power in the world, the harder they try to find it the more they diminish it even more. And the expense is great human tradegy.
The SNP took full advantage in Scotland and showed beyond doubt that nuclear disarmanent is actually a vote winner, especially since we don't need the weapons.
But we can hope that although the opportunity was missed, maybe it does not matter so much anymore. The economic pressure on Russia, the US and the UK to disarm is so great, they might as well agree to "multilaterally disarm" at the earliest opportunity. With Obama now talking about disarmanent, we should bring forward the talks and agree as soon as possible.
Another military adventure we cannot afford is the war in Afghanistan. Obama said all along that he was going to intervene further in this conflict. He continues to propose this policy whilst wracking up even more debt in order to finance it, debt that neither the US or UK can afford.
Whilst wishing Obama well, the EU still has a responsibility to be a candid friend and tell the US to settle with the Taliban and get out of Afghanistan before it becomes another Iraq.
The US/UK cannot come to terms with their loss of power in the world, the harder they try to find it the more they diminish it even more. And the expense is great human tradegy.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Vince Cable lays into Libertarians
Early on in this Parliament I viewed the utterings of Vince cable with some alarm. He was then proposing that the Lib Dems support a "flat tax", which appeared to be very regressive, and he proposed ridding the party of it's very popular policy of taxing the rich at 50%.
The party very quickly dropped the flat tax idea (as did the Tories) when the German Christian Democrats nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in their general election, having proposed such a policy. However Vince succeeded in changing the 50% policy. At the time he argued that the new replacement policy was even more progressive - more revenue would be generated from Green taxes and these really would be progressive. On the other hand, Ming Campbell suggested another reason; he wanted the policy to "reward ambition" - the same logic you would expect from a Thatcherite.
So Vince Cable was identified with the right of the party, but listening to his speeches I was not so sure. He was coming up with many progessive ideas on taxation, and in my mind I repositioned him as "hard to categorise".
This of course was confirmed when he supported the nationalisation of Northern Rock as an emergency measure. I wonder if other LD MPs like David Laws and Jeremy Browne would have proposed such a policy? Yet the party was united on this, apart from a few fringe bloggers.
Recently Vince has somehow found time to write a book, and this of course gives an excellent opportunity to find out what he thinks, albeit in less than 160 pages.
I have read the book and would heartedly recommend it. I agree with most of it. Because it is short there are obvious gaps - the chapter on Malthus is rather short and inconclusive which is a shame as I for one think it ought to be the most important part.
However there is no doubt what he thinks about extreme Libertarians;
"(quote from Herbert Spencer) 'The ultimate result of shielding man from the efects of his folly is to people the world with fools' . This approach was influencial in the years of the Great Crash, and it helped inform the advice given to president Hoover by his treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon: to do nothing. '[Panic] will purge the rottenness out of the system ... People will work harder and live a more moral life ... enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.' Since Hoover and Mellon emerged as the fools who precipitated the Great Depression, their abstemiousness become seriously unfashionable", page 46, The Storm.
The economic crises we face today has resulted from the policy mistakes of those who believed in the philosophy of "setting business free". The business lobby is a formidably powerful lobby and has persuaded even nominally socialist politicians to buy into this philosophy. We are where we are today because of the failure of "light touch" regulation. However even if you persuade the politicians the policy still has to work, and instead it has failed, big time. The backlash is now well under way, and libertarians will be one of the foremost causalities.
The party very quickly dropped the flat tax idea (as did the Tories) when the German Christian Democrats nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in their general election, having proposed such a policy. However Vince succeeded in changing the 50% policy. At the time he argued that the new replacement policy was even more progressive - more revenue would be generated from Green taxes and these really would be progressive. On the other hand, Ming Campbell suggested another reason; he wanted the policy to "reward ambition" - the same logic you would expect from a Thatcherite.
So Vince Cable was identified with the right of the party, but listening to his speeches I was not so sure. He was coming up with many progessive ideas on taxation, and in my mind I repositioned him as "hard to categorise".
This of course was confirmed when he supported the nationalisation of Northern Rock as an emergency measure. I wonder if other LD MPs like David Laws and Jeremy Browne would have proposed such a policy? Yet the party was united on this, apart from a few fringe bloggers.
Recently Vince has somehow found time to write a book, and this of course gives an excellent opportunity to find out what he thinks, albeit in less than 160 pages.
I have read the book and would heartedly recommend it. I agree with most of it. Because it is short there are obvious gaps - the chapter on Malthus is rather short and inconclusive which is a shame as I for one think it ought to be the most important part.
However there is no doubt what he thinks about extreme Libertarians;
"(quote from Herbert Spencer) 'The ultimate result of shielding man from the efects of his folly is to people the world with fools' . This approach was influencial in the years of the Great Crash, and it helped inform the advice given to president Hoover by his treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon: to do nothing. '[Panic] will purge the rottenness out of the system ... People will work harder and live a more moral life ... enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.' Since Hoover and Mellon emerged as the fools who precipitated the Great Depression, their abstemiousness become seriously unfashionable", page 46, The Storm.
The economic crises we face today has resulted from the policy mistakes of those who believed in the philosophy of "setting business free". The business lobby is a formidably powerful lobby and has persuaded even nominally socialist politicians to buy into this philosophy. We are where we are today because of the failure of "light touch" regulation. However even if you persuade the politicians the policy still has to work, and instead it has failed, big time. The backlash is now well under way, and libertarians will be one of the foremost causalities.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Nick Clegg still in a tangle over tax
I went to the one day Lib Dem conference today at the LSE. It was an excellent forum, but once again the issue of taxation was raised and the answers were not forthcoming.
Nick Clegg spoke about "tough choices" - a favourite phrase of Tony Blair from years gone by.
Steve Richards, who chaired the next event has heard it all before. He reckoned that it was a complete myth that the Liberal Democrats will find £20Billion public expenditure cuts (albeit cuts that will be reallocated to expenditure elsewhere, plus tax cuts if anything is left over), and he warned about politicians who talk about tough choices and then not say what they are.
Of course student tuition fees - which the LDs plan to scrap but the leadership intend otherwise - is an example of the kind of cuts we will have to make.
Danny Alexander had to respond to that, but instead of talking about hard choices, he downplayed the prospects, saying that a lot of the cuts had already been accounted for (scrapping ID cards for example), and that 3% of overall spending is not very much.
Well come on then, are there tough choices or aren't there?
The question I wanted to ask was a) how much of the £20Billion cuts has already been accounted for and what are they, and where of the remaining £xBillion are the rest of the cuts going to come from? Students tuition? NHS? Scrapping and not replacing Trident? Afghanistan troop withdrawal?
Will we get a say in these cuts, or will they appear rabbit from a hat just before the next general election?
These tax cuts are the remnents of the ideas proposed by parts of the Orange book, an emblem of free-market economics of the kind that we do not need just right now.
However the marketisation of public services has fallen short. Private companies cannot be trusted anymore than the public sector. I am sure that the original idea of tax cuts was related to streamlining public services, but how it has turned out the Liberal Democrats are simply resorting to cutting budgets. This is what Danny Finkelstein calls "Punk Tax Cuts". Cuts not made possible by public services being run more "efficiently", but by simply being cut.
Of course I have my own suggestions; scrap Trident and don't replace it, and withdraw from Afghanistan (as well as Iraq), but I am sure I will not be taken up.
The issue of student tuition fees has not gone away. Despite a change in policy having been rejected on the Federal Policy Committee (FPC) by a massive 14-5, it looks like the matter will be discussed in our Harrogate conference coming up soon. The FPC vote indicates that the party is not ready to make these tough choices, although I would submit that without seeking to change our policy on Trident and Afghanistan, then the same is true of the leadership as well.
All the more absurd that we passed this policy on taxation in Bournemouth in the first place.
Nick Clegg spoke about "tough choices" - a favourite phrase of Tony Blair from years gone by.
Steve Richards, who chaired the next event has heard it all before. He reckoned that it was a complete myth that the Liberal Democrats will find £20Billion public expenditure cuts (albeit cuts that will be reallocated to expenditure elsewhere, plus tax cuts if anything is left over), and he warned about politicians who talk about tough choices and then not say what they are.
Of course student tuition fees - which the LDs plan to scrap but the leadership intend otherwise - is an example of the kind of cuts we will have to make.
Danny Alexander had to respond to that, but instead of talking about hard choices, he downplayed the prospects, saying that a lot of the cuts had already been accounted for (scrapping ID cards for example), and that 3% of overall spending is not very much.
Well come on then, are there tough choices or aren't there?
The question I wanted to ask was a) how much of the £20Billion cuts has already been accounted for and what are they, and where of the remaining £xBillion are the rest of the cuts going to come from? Students tuition? NHS? Scrapping and not replacing Trident? Afghanistan troop withdrawal?
Will we get a say in these cuts, or will they appear rabbit from a hat just before the next general election?
These tax cuts are the remnents of the ideas proposed by parts of the Orange book, an emblem of free-market economics of the kind that we do not need just right now.
However the marketisation of public services has fallen short. Private companies cannot be trusted anymore than the public sector. I am sure that the original idea of tax cuts was related to streamlining public services, but how it has turned out the Liberal Democrats are simply resorting to cutting budgets. This is what Danny Finkelstein calls "Punk Tax Cuts". Cuts not made possible by public services being run more "efficiently", but by simply being cut.
Of course I have my own suggestions; scrap Trident and don't replace it, and withdraw from Afghanistan (as well as Iraq), but I am sure I will not be taken up.
The issue of student tuition fees has not gone away. Despite a change in policy having been rejected on the Federal Policy Committee (FPC) by a massive 14-5, it looks like the matter will be discussed in our Harrogate conference coming up soon. The FPC vote indicates that the party is not ready to make these tough choices, although I would submit that without seeking to change our policy on Trident and Afghanistan, then the same is true of the leadership as well.
All the more absurd that we passed this policy on taxation in Bournemouth in the first place.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Nick Clegg calls for an end to supplying arms to Israel
The fastest ever Facebook group I ever set up can be found here;
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3950994014#/group.php?gid=54403996833
I am delighted at the overwhelming response from fellow Liberal Democrats to joining this group. Even more impressive when you consider that both the Labour and Tory parties would not dare suggest we stop selling arms to Israel.
Yet this is a matter of regret rather than triumph. The USA has made Israel the most powerful country militarily in the Middle East. In comparison to the Palestinians, most Israelis live comfortably. They have no reason to seriously negotiate with the Palestinians, they have the power to impose their own preferred solution on the conflict and they have the miliary force to do it.
Barack Obama is unlikely to change that. Even if he were so inclined - and there is no evidence that he is - his Democrat party will not allow it.
So what are we to do? There are some things we can do. As Nick points out, stop selling arms to them. Maybe stop trading with them altogether.
On the other hand if we are too confrontational, would we be able to play a diplomatic role as the Norweigans did some time ago?
It is a devil of a problem, and the US has made it almost impossible.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3950994014#/group.php?gid=54403996833
I am delighted at the overwhelming response from fellow Liberal Democrats to joining this group. Even more impressive when you consider that both the Labour and Tory parties would not dare suggest we stop selling arms to Israel.
Yet this is a matter of regret rather than triumph. The USA has made Israel the most powerful country militarily in the Middle East. In comparison to the Palestinians, most Israelis live comfortably. They have no reason to seriously negotiate with the Palestinians, they have the power to impose their own preferred solution on the conflict and they have the miliary force to do it.
Barack Obama is unlikely to change that. Even if he were so inclined - and there is no evidence that he is - his Democrat party will not allow it.
So what are we to do? There are some things we can do. As Nick points out, stop selling arms to them. Maybe stop trading with them altogether.
On the other hand if we are too confrontational, would we be able to play a diplomatic role as the Norweigans did some time ago?
It is a devil of a problem, and the US has made it almost impossible.
Monday, 29 December 2008
Problems pile up for Obama
It is worth pointing out that Barack Obama won the presidential election by only 5%. As far as US elections are concerned, that is supposed to be a big margin, but lets bear in mind that despite the monumental failure of US foreign policy in the Middle East, and notably Iraq, the Republicans were actually inching ahead until the US economy took a sharp downturn. It is hard to imagine a more incompetent president than GW Bush, yet the Democrats won by just 5%.
In terms of the demographics it was women, and a late swing from Latinos that built up the Democrat vote. And best of all, it was young voters, indicating a shift similar to that which supported New Labour in 1997 and forced the Tories to painfully reinvent itself as a nice "liberal" party.
However there is not a harder time to imagine taking power than now. The economic problems have been long debated. Obama is less likely to be constrained by the free market dogma that got us into this mess. He may not pull it off in terms of resetting the economy - it may not be possible for one thing, but he is more likely to get it right.
Foreign policy is just as troublesome. His gung ho utterances on Pakistan and Palestine during the campaign did not read well, and continue not to do so.
The best we can hope is that that was just a ploy. Maybe the rhetoric in public is meant to impress the right people, but behind the scenes real progress is being made. I suspect this will be wishful thinking.
But why the rhetoric in the first place? Until recently we were living in a unipolar world, with the US far and away the most powerful nation on earth. And now? The case can still be made that this is the case. Militarily it is still the case, the US spends an extraordinary amount and no one can keep up with them. How was this possible? The narrative of the Republican party about the need for US power in the world, conflating the interests of the world with that of the US, and reinforced by the "Shock Jocks" radio talk show hosts who loved attacking "weak" liberals all contrived to win public support for this.
Failure in Iraq has presented the Democrats an opportunity to attack this illusion. Unfortunately many of them bought into this illusion in the first place and it does not look impressive to "flip-flop" in public. And it is not an easy shift to make. To admit that the US is a declining power is not a positive message, and does not fit in well with the need to be patriotic.
Yet it is clear now that it is not enough to be strong militarily and weak politically, which is what the US is now. It remains easier to pretend that the US can still throw its weight; by siding with Isreal whatever it does, by threatening Pakistan and by "surging" in Afghanistan. The problem Obama faces is that the US does not have the power by force to control these countries, and yet the need to find political solutions remains paramount.
In terms of the demographics it was women, and a late swing from Latinos that built up the Democrat vote. And best of all, it was young voters, indicating a shift similar to that which supported New Labour in 1997 and forced the Tories to painfully reinvent itself as a nice "liberal" party.
However there is not a harder time to imagine taking power than now. The economic problems have been long debated. Obama is less likely to be constrained by the free market dogma that got us into this mess. He may not pull it off in terms of resetting the economy - it may not be possible for one thing, but he is more likely to get it right.
Foreign policy is just as troublesome. His gung ho utterances on Pakistan and Palestine during the campaign did not read well, and continue not to do so.
The best we can hope is that that was just a ploy. Maybe the rhetoric in public is meant to impress the right people, but behind the scenes real progress is being made. I suspect this will be wishful thinking.
But why the rhetoric in the first place? Until recently we were living in a unipolar world, with the US far and away the most powerful nation on earth. And now? The case can still be made that this is the case. Militarily it is still the case, the US spends an extraordinary amount and no one can keep up with them. How was this possible? The narrative of the Republican party about the need for US power in the world, conflating the interests of the world with that of the US, and reinforced by the "Shock Jocks" radio talk show hosts who loved attacking "weak" liberals all contrived to win public support for this.
Failure in Iraq has presented the Democrats an opportunity to attack this illusion. Unfortunately many of them bought into this illusion in the first place and it does not look impressive to "flip-flop" in public. And it is not an easy shift to make. To admit that the US is a declining power is not a positive message, and does not fit in well with the need to be patriotic.
Yet it is clear now that it is not enough to be strong militarily and weak politically, which is what the US is now. It remains easier to pretend that the US can still throw its weight; by siding with Isreal whatever it does, by threatening Pakistan and by "surging" in Afghanistan. The problem Obama faces is that the US does not have the power by force to control these countries, and yet the need to find political solutions remains paramount.
Monday, 6 October 2008
The problem with New Labour is that they do not regulate enough
Schardenfraud is a nasty trait, and yet it was hard to avoid enjoying the experience when Sarah Palin got caught out in a high profile interview recently.
The question she was asked was about specific actions that John McCain took to tighten regulations to prevent irresponsibility in the financial markets. The only way she could have answered the question is to not answer and quickly move on to another point and make the interviewer ask questions on that instead. No doubt some politicians can do it, and it is one thing to have the skill to do it, but the fact remains that the question is unanswered.
The reality is that the economic orthodoxy built up since the 1980s is one based on free market ideology, of which deregulation was a fundamental component.
First it was the political right that believed in it, then powerful forces on what was previously the left, and in the UK it is Liberals who have joined the concensus. Indeed many now argue that Liberalism is now defined by this free market ideology.
Now of course this ideology faces a major challenge. It seems so obvious now. Economic growth has been strong because of the bubble in the housing market. Housing in itself does not generate wealth, so it was bound to be unsustainable.
So now we are in a downturn, which we are assured by free market ideologues will not last long.
However if we have learnt the lessons from the housing bubble and we decide to regulate the market to stop this from happening again, then where is growth going to come from in the future?
Vince Cable is absolutely right to point out that he had been warning about debt for years. Some of his colleagues appeared not to take heed however. At a fringe meeting at Lib Dem conference Jeremy Browne argued, incredibly, that as he believes in markets then he was sceptical about nationalising any banks, even in the emergencies that we have today. He also said that although he bought a house with a very expensive mortgage, he was not worried about a slump in the housing market.
However it is not just debt, it is lack of regulation that causes debt. What has Vince said about that prior to 2008? If someone interviewed me and asked me this question, I for one would have a Sarah Palin moment.
What I do recall is a fringe meeting a couple of years ago at a Lib Dem conference where Ed Davey told us how he was going to deregulate further in the financial markets. He seemed very proud of this policy at the time. Personally I was horrified.
Of course I am sure it is possible to look back at the archives and find in the small print suggestions that might imply greater regulation. Given that Vince correctly identified the level of debt as a major flaw of New labour's economic record, I am sure Vince had a good set of policies to deal with it.
However greater regulation was never the headline solution as it has suddenly become, and the free market ideology had been encouraged within the Liberal Democrats, gaining a momentum where there is now a significant fundamentalist fringe within the party.
That fringe simply has no answers to the economic problems we are facing today. No one knows what the solution is to the economic downturn we are now heading into, but even George Bush is being forced to accept that "more of the same" free market ideology is the last thing we need to turn things round.
However Keynes once warned;
<<
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
>>
That is the problem the Liberal Democrats now face. Can they adjust their thinking quickly enough to account for the new realities?
These 2 links are the best articles I have read so far on the crises we now face;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/28/usforeignpolicy.useconomicgrowth
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/marketturmoil.wallstreet
The question she was asked was about specific actions that John McCain took to tighten regulations to prevent irresponsibility in the financial markets. The only way she could have answered the question is to not answer and quickly move on to another point and make the interviewer ask questions on that instead. No doubt some politicians can do it, and it is one thing to have the skill to do it, but the fact remains that the question is unanswered.
The reality is that the economic orthodoxy built up since the 1980s is one based on free market ideology, of which deregulation was a fundamental component.
First it was the political right that believed in it, then powerful forces on what was previously the left, and in the UK it is Liberals who have joined the concensus. Indeed many now argue that Liberalism is now defined by this free market ideology.
Now of course this ideology faces a major challenge. It seems so obvious now. Economic growth has been strong because of the bubble in the housing market. Housing in itself does not generate wealth, so it was bound to be unsustainable.
So now we are in a downturn, which we are assured by free market ideologues will not last long.
However if we have learnt the lessons from the housing bubble and we decide to regulate the market to stop this from happening again, then where is growth going to come from in the future?
Vince Cable is absolutely right to point out that he had been warning about debt for years. Some of his colleagues appeared not to take heed however. At a fringe meeting at Lib Dem conference Jeremy Browne argued, incredibly, that as he believes in markets then he was sceptical about nationalising any banks, even in the emergencies that we have today. He also said that although he bought a house with a very expensive mortgage, he was not worried about a slump in the housing market.
However it is not just debt, it is lack of regulation that causes debt. What has Vince said about that prior to 2008? If someone interviewed me and asked me this question, I for one would have a Sarah Palin moment.
What I do recall is a fringe meeting a couple of years ago at a Lib Dem conference where Ed Davey told us how he was going to deregulate further in the financial markets. He seemed very proud of this policy at the time. Personally I was horrified.
Of course I am sure it is possible to look back at the archives and find in the small print suggestions that might imply greater regulation. Given that Vince correctly identified the level of debt as a major flaw of New labour's economic record, I am sure Vince had a good set of policies to deal with it.
However greater regulation was never the headline solution as it has suddenly become, and the free market ideology had been encouraged within the Liberal Democrats, gaining a momentum where there is now a significant fundamentalist fringe within the party.
That fringe simply has no answers to the economic problems we are facing today. No one knows what the solution is to the economic downturn we are now heading into, but even George Bush is being forced to accept that "more of the same" free market ideology is the last thing we need to turn things round.
However Keynes once warned;
<<
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
>>
That is the problem the Liberal Democrats now face. Can they adjust their thinking quickly enough to account for the new realities?
These 2 links are the best articles I have read so far on the crises we now face;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/28/usforeignpolicy.useconomicgrowth
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/marketturmoil.wallstreet
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Should we make a deal with the Taliban and pull out of Afghanistan?
Some parts of the Middle East, notably parts of Iraq and Afghanistan are too dangerous for reporters to venture, so we do not really know what is going on.
So from time to time, we are told that things are going well in Afghanstan. Prince Harry loves it out there. He would far rather be there than at home, he said on a TV interview.
But consider this. Our troops have been there for nearly 7 years, and although by now they should have started leaving, in fact we are putting more in. This is a sign of it NOT working.
And now Brig Mark Carleton-Smith has confirmed what we suspected. We are wasting money, lives and resource out there. We are causing more ham than good. We should settle with the Taliban and leave.
If we could do better, then why have we not already done better?
I went to a fringe meeting at Lib Dem conference last month where Paddy Ashdown presented his solution to the problem. It was good to see that he has taken on the lesson learnt from Iraq, he gave a very realistic analysis of the country I thought.
As for his solutions, I would say that most of the pieces fitted, but some did not.
I asked him how he expected local people to "defeat" the Taliban. He clarified that his view of them was more nuanced, and only some parts of the Taliban should be defeated. He then said that we had been in Northern Ireland for 35 years, implying that is how long it might take in Afghanistan. If that really is a timescale you are considering, I would suggest you do not have a viable plan. Northern Ireland, and within it the IRA was a much smaller scale problem in a culturelly similar country.
If it took 35 years there, I dread to think about Afghanistan. 35 years really means no idea how long it will take.
So I was not persuaded by that. Many of the peices in the plan fitted. But for the plan to work, the most important pieces must fit, and I do not think they do.
There is a price to pay either way. There are 3 main objections to the Taliban;
1/ They raise money by selling drugs
2/ They might habour Al Qaeda again.
3/ From a Liberal point of view, we loathe them because of their human rights abuses.
My solution does not fix these problems. But then neither does anyone elses. Having to make this choice is indicative of how the power of the West has seeped away...
There is no perfect solution. Withdrawing our troops is the least worst solution.
So from time to time, we are told that things are going well in Afghanstan. Prince Harry loves it out there. He would far rather be there than at home, he said on a TV interview.
But consider this. Our troops have been there for nearly 7 years, and although by now they should have started leaving, in fact we are putting more in. This is a sign of it NOT working.
And now Brig Mark Carleton-Smith has confirmed what we suspected. We are wasting money, lives and resource out there. We are causing more ham than good. We should settle with the Taliban and leave.
If we could do better, then why have we not already done better?
I went to a fringe meeting at Lib Dem conference last month where Paddy Ashdown presented his solution to the problem. It was good to see that he has taken on the lesson learnt from Iraq, he gave a very realistic analysis of the country I thought.
As for his solutions, I would say that most of the pieces fitted, but some did not.
I asked him how he expected local people to "defeat" the Taliban. He clarified that his view of them was more nuanced, and only some parts of the Taliban should be defeated. He then said that we had been in Northern Ireland for 35 years, implying that is how long it might take in Afghanistan. If that really is a timescale you are considering, I would suggest you do not have a viable plan. Northern Ireland, and within it the IRA was a much smaller scale problem in a culturelly similar country.
If it took 35 years there, I dread to think about Afghanistan. 35 years really means no idea how long it will take.
So I was not persuaded by that. Many of the peices in the plan fitted. But for the plan to work, the most important pieces must fit, and I do not think they do.
There is a price to pay either way. There are 3 main objections to the Taliban;
1/ They raise money by selling drugs
2/ They might habour Al Qaeda again.
3/ From a Liberal point of view, we loathe them because of their human rights abuses.
My solution does not fix these problems. But then neither does anyone elses. Having to make this choice is indicative of how the power of the West has seeped away...
There is no perfect solution. Withdrawing our troops is the least worst solution.
March against child poverty
I congregated with a group of Lib Dems recently to go on a march against child poverty organised by the Child Poverty Action Group.
Nick Clegg is determined that the Liberal Democrats have a high profile on this issue. It was a dominant theme at our last conference with lots of fringe meetings. Martin Narey of CPAG had a high profile at conference and is helping the party develop our policies on this theme.
So I was delighted to see Nick Clegg join the march. I may not be his favourite activist given my opposition to some of his policies, but I was happy to help out holding a banner as background to his photos.
Demonstrations have changed over the years. These days the London School of Samba come along with there drums, and you can put on a special costume and have a dance! I remember the times when it was more serious and if you did anything like that then you were a wierdo and you had to go to the back of the demo. Well it is better the way it is now.
The title was "Keep the Promise". Will Labour stick to it's pledge to eliminate child poverty by 2020? We will probably never know of course. The hardest thing is keeping on track with child poverty when we have serious fuel and food inflation, an economy about to go into recession, and ever worsening public finances.
Despite the gloomy prognosis, we will remain one of the richest countries in the world, so there isn't really any excuse. It is a matter of priorities.
Combatting child poverty should be priority over replacing Trident and ighting an unwinable war in Iraq. But there is a lot more to those arguments of course...
Nick Clegg is determined that the Liberal Democrats have a high profile on this issue. It was a dominant theme at our last conference with lots of fringe meetings. Martin Narey of CPAG had a high profile at conference and is helping the party develop our policies on this theme.
So I was delighted to see Nick Clegg join the march. I may not be his favourite activist given my opposition to some of his policies, but I was happy to help out holding a banner as background to his photos.
Demonstrations have changed over the years. These days the London School of Samba come along with there drums, and you can put on a special costume and have a dance! I remember the times when it was more serious and if you did anything like that then you were a wierdo and you had to go to the back of the demo. Well it is better the way it is now.
The title was "Keep the Promise". Will Labour stick to it's pledge to eliminate child poverty by 2020? We will probably never know of course. The hardest thing is keeping on track with child poverty when we have serious fuel and food inflation, an economy about to go into recession, and ever worsening public finances.
Despite the gloomy prognosis, we will remain one of the richest countries in the world, so there isn't really any excuse. It is a matter of priorities.
Combatting child poverty should be priority over replacing Trident and ighting an unwinable war in Iraq. But there is a lot more to those arguments of course...
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