The Debatable Land

Tales from a Convert

A friend of mine, once armed with impeccable progressive credentials, recently came out s a Conservative - much to the bemusement of his family and many of his friends. With Neill's permission, here's the explanation he published on his Facebook page. Sure, this is just one person's story, but I wonder how many other people might have come to similar conclusions after 12 years of Labour government. Anyway, I think this a pretty persuasive critique of Labour in power:

I grew up in a Tory-hating family in Thatcher's Britain. In those divided times, we were definitely not "one of us" - Mum was a teacher, Dad brought up the kids and we lived in a council house. In fact, the shocked response of my family on this wall has been a relief, because it means they are still speaking to me!

I joined the Labour party at university in 1997 - think Spice Girls, Austin Powers, black-and-white photography - and campaigned enthusiastically for Labour in the May landslide. I became Chair of my university Labour club, secretary of the local branch in Leeds, got active with the Young Fabians and Young Labour. I looked forward to the progressive consensus and hoped that - in the words of the slogan - economic progress and social justice would go hand-in-hand. On so many issues I cared about, the Conservatives were on the wrong side: Bank of England independence, the minimum wage, devolution, abolishing section 28, higher spending on health and education.

After I left Leeds in 1999, I got a bit of a shock. Now in the workplace, I experienced some of the negative effects of government policy first-hand. Working on diversity for a multinational, I saw how official family-friendliness was undermining the business case for flexible work and actually hurting families. Running charity projects in Scotland, I saw how welfare spending was being wasted on a merry-go-round of short-term programmes. Setting up a small business, I experienced the burden of paperwork and tax which prevented us from growing and employing more people. The gap between rhetoric and reality was enormous.

By 2005, I knew I was in the wrong party. The war on terror was being used as an excuse for relentlessly attacking our freedoms. An obsession with top-down targets was distorting public services but costing taxpayers more. Headlines, personalities and electoral strategy were all that was driving policy. After a long period of angst I finally left.

I hate political inactivity - in fact, I think it's immoral. But in the last four years, nothing has happened to make me reconsider. Labour has revealed its true colours: it is an authoritarian, high-spending, command-and-control party. Under Brown, it has even distanced itself from its few achievements, for example, watering down the Academies programme which has given such remarkable opportunities to kids in the inner-cities.

In modern terms, I would describe myself as a liberal conservative. I believe that people must be free if they are to make the moral choices which give life value. Our economy should be founded on sound money and living within our means, not bouts of debt funded by taxpayer bailouts. Schools and hospitals should be accountable to local families, not Whitehall box-tickers. Poverty must be addressed at its roots, rather than cynically skimming employable people into work and shouting "success". The constitution must be repaired from recent vandalism to protect our democracy and fundamental liberties.

Needless to say, I pretty much agree with all of this. Lord knows, the Tories will disappoint us in the future, but for now that's less important than defeating the current government.

This Britain

Since coming to power in 1997 Labour has created 3,605 new ways for you to break the law. That's an average of 320 new offences a year or, to put it another way, more than one new offence is created every day Parliament is in session.

Time to dust off an old and favourite proposal: every new offence or law should be accompanied by the repeal of an old one...

Chump of the Day

The National Gallery of Scotland needs to raise £50m to prevent the sale of Titian's Diana and Actaeon from being sold. The painting, part of the Bridgewater Collection, has been loaned to the gallery for decades but is now being sold by its owner, the Duke of Sutherland. Well, £50m is quite a lot of money. Then again, it's a pretty nifty painting (though my own tastes run a little later - to Caravaggio and Velazquez in particular).

Anyway, it's hard to imagine there being any discussion in France or Italy or Germany of the rights and wrongs of committing public money to the fund-raising effort. And while I have some sympathy with the notion that the arts should be self-supporting or rely upon private patronage, frankly I'd rather see the government lavish millions on the arts than on many (most?) other areas in which they currently squander billions.

None of that seems to really concern Labour MP Ian Davidson, however. In a display of provincialism startling even for a paid-up member of the West of Scotland Labour mafia, Mr Davidson told the BBC this morning:

"It is difficult to argue that this is part of Britain's cultural heritage when it's a picture by a long dead Venetian - it's not as if it's Jock McTitian...Very few people will ever have heard of Titian, many will have thought he was an Italian football player. What is the point of wasting this money in this way?"

Now there's an endorsement of the education system north of the border...

UPDATE: Mr Eugenides weighs in too.

Department of Consultation

I don't mean to pick on Tom Harris. After all, I think it a very good thing that MPs should have their own blogs. And, as it happens, I have no firm opinion either way on the desirability or not of a third runway at Heathrow airport. But I thought this a telling part of Mr Harris's latest post on the matter:

I’M DISAPPOINTED by the announcement that we’ll have to wait until next year to get a decision on a third runway at Heathrow.

But I concede that 70,000 submissions to the consultation will have to be considered and that might take a little while. And given that a judicial review - whatever the decision - is inevitable, consideration must be seen to be thorough.

Now I concede that this may be an honest slip and that Mr Harris genuinely wants there to be a proper consideration of the merits of the issue. Nonetheless, given this government's previous form on "consultations" (eg, the hunting and smoking bans) I can't avoid the unkind, perhaps even unworthy, suspicion that it's more important for consideration and consulatation to "be seen to be thorough" than for it actually to be, you know, thorough...

Tomfoolery from the Labour Backbenches

Tom Harris's blog is a very useful creation. Now as it happens I don't think that parliamentary democracy is under threat because Damien Green was arrested, disgraceful though that arrest certainly was. Nonetheless, there's little doubt that this government has, time and time again and to an extent that may be as modern as it is largely unprecedented, ignored ancient parliamentary procedures and consistently demonstrated a contempt for "old-fashioned" concepts of liberty and the rule of law.

Thus Mr Harris's latest post is usefully illuminating. He writes:

As the right-hand man to Shami Chakrabarti the then Shadow Home Secretary, David “Remember him?” Davis, Dominic [Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary] did a sterling job in defending the rights of terrorist suspects because he thought the government was being too, too beastly to the little darlings.

Note the sly insinuation that the Conservative party's heart and mind has been captured by a civil liberties group. Note too, the thuggish pretence that one is either "with" the terrorists or "against" them (even, especially before they've been charged.) And remember that Harris supports a government that wanted to lock citizens up without charge for 90 days and when it couldn't get that tried to push for a mere (but still outrageous) 42 days. To oppose this isn't to be in favour of encouraging terrorists to do their worst. It's the kind of rhetorical tactic favoured by the more rutish, less reflective, type of American Republican in the 2004 elections. A kind of tactic that, were it deployed against Labour, Mr Harris might well find somewhat offensive. Contra Mr Harris, one can be in favour of "law and order" while also being suspicious of handing the police ever-greater powers.

Then again, I suspect he would - rightly in my view - have been outraged had Tam Dalyell been arrested for receiving leaked information from Clive Ponting about the sinking of the Belgrano. That of course was a more serious affair since the information, rightly or not, was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

Once again, one decent test of having reached any sort of intellectual maturity is the ability to judge your own sides blunders (or successes) by the same standards you would use to evaluate those made by the other mob. (This, mind you, is a test that most of us fail occasionally). Still, I suppose it can't be any great surprise that Members of Parliament would fail this test consistently. But do so many of them have to?

Mini-hiatus

Little to no blogging over the next few days, I'm afriad. I'm in East Lothian tonight, speaking at a St Andrews dinner, thence to Hawick to bid farewell to a cousin who is emigrating to Melbourne (an order for Boxing Day Ashes tickets has already, fear not, been placed) and then have a deadline to meet on Sunday. So, talk amongst yourselves peeps: now that counter-terrosim police have taken to arresting opposition politicians for the crime of embarrassing the government, is this government the worst we've endured in more than 50 years or merely one of the worst?

Meanwhile, American readers are invited to speculate upon arguments in favour of, and against, a government bail-out for the Detroit Lions.

Never mind me mate, what about the other mob?

Commenting on this post Ian Leslie - aka Marbury - argues that we're on the brink of a new era and that just as Callaghan was right to appreciate that one era had ended in 1976, so Darling and El Gordo may be correct to suppose that another has been shipwrecked now. Maybe.

Look, I'm not sure this will work, and if it does work it might be partly by accident and yes I know that Brown hasn't really earned his authority over the last ten years. This is a gamble. But taking a gamble at this stage is better than doing nothing and hoping things will return to normal, as the Tories propose. They won't.

Well, are the Tories really proposing "doing nothing"? Granted, their proposals haven't been especially persuasive either. But to say - for the sake of argument - that Labour's proposals are better than what the Tories have to offer is a long way from supposing that Labour's plans should be supported. A rotten plan is not necessarily better than no plan.

At times like these it doesn't really matter what the opposition hae to say: after all they're in no position to do anything. It's rather like the ERM debacle* - the electorate rightly viewed Britain's ejection from the system as a humiliating defeat for the government and a repudiation of their claims to sound economic management and so on. Never mind that the Tories were vastly less enthusiastic about joining the exchange rate mechanism than were Labour. The opposition's policy was revealed to be even more lumpen and untenable than the government's but because they were the opposition they got away with it. And that's more or less how it should be.

Perhaps Brown's gamble will work, but I'd be more enthusiastic about it if he hadn't told a bunch of lies while selling it. Also, I'm peeved, once again, that taxes on booze and tobacco are going up. Again. Nearly 80% of the price of a packet of cigarettes now goes to the government - a rate that would be considered immoral and confiscatory if applied to income - so if there are any Russian/Polish/Balkan smugglers reading this, well, do get in touch...

*Norman Lamont, the hapless Chancellor presiding over the disaster was, like Alistair Darling, schooled at Loretto, a smallish Scottish public school outside Edinburgh. Can this be a coincidence? I think not. The lesson is obvious: never appoint a Lorettonian Chancellor.

New Labour RIP

I've too much respect for my friends at The Times to ask if Rupert Murdoch dictated that this Peter Brookes cartoon appear on the paper's front page today...

The Thunderer's leader column makes it pretty clear, I think, that the Times will not be endorsing Labour at the next election:

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both promised reform of public services that might have allowed the quality of services to be maintained at a lower rate of spending. In the absence of that reform, high spending and the maintenance of a large public sector workforce became the only way of maintaining servive levels. Yet such spending has proven unsustainable.

It is this which led Labour to its fateful decision. At the last two elections it contrasted spending growth with an offer of tax and spending cuts from the Conseratives that it characterised as ideological and unrealistic. This cannot be the dividing line at the next election because Labour will itself have to restrain spending and will be offering only tax rises. So Labour has chosen a different dividing line. It will fight, as it used to, partly on taxing the rich.

The deep international crisis would have been difficult for any Government. For this one - with excessive borrowing already underway - the challenge is particularly severe. It has mortgaged the future on the ideas of the past.

This is the thing that Labour MPs such as Tom Harris do not appear to grasp: everyone appreciates that this is an international crisis, what people are angry about - and not unreasonably so - is that Britain appears more, not less, vulnerable than all its peers. No wonder folk are upset that government debt is set to rise to 57% of GDP - a figure not seen even in the desperate times of the late 1970s.

Of course, in 1976, Jim Callaghan told the Labour Party conference: "We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists."

Apparently it does now.

Big Jacqui's Just Looking Out For You

All Home Secretaries are ghastly, of course. But Jacqui Smith may be an even greater nuisance than previous holders of the office. That's tough competition when you recall that the field also includes Michael Howard, David Blunkett and Jack Straw. The latter, of course, shopped his own son to the police. But here's the lie being peddled by the gruesome Smith today:

Jacqui Smith says public demand means people will be able to pre-register for an ID card within the next few months.

The cards will be available for all from 2012 but she said: "I regularly have people coming up to me and saying they don't want to wait that long."

Does anyone believe this? The sooner there's an election the better.

Glenrothes By-Election Stunner!

It's all very well and good getting excited about the American elections. But let's face it, they were but the appetiser before today's Westminster by-election in Glenrothes. The Kingdom of Fife is a strange place indeed, a sentiment confirmed by the whispers we now hear that Labour have managed to hold the seat.

On the face of it, defending a seat against the 14 point swing needed for you to lose is no great triumph. And yet on this occasion it is, in fact, a rather spectacular victory for Gordon Brown. True, it's his back yard (he represents the neighbouring constituency) and both he and his wife have campaigned in Glenrothes. In such circumstances it would be highly embarrassing for Labour to lose. Worse still, it would have confirmed the sense that the Prime Minister has benefited from the global financial crisis. Perhaps the voters really do think of El Gordo as some kind of economic superhero?

Well, maybe. But I hae ma doots. Labour have lifted themselves off the floor, but they're still a long way from persuading anyone that they deserve another term. Tellingly, their campaign in Glenrothes was almost exclusively concerned with local issues, blaming the SNP-controlled Fife council for, well, just about everything.

But of course Labour didn't need to rely on national issues when the financial crisis was the backgound music to the entire campaign. And in that respect outside events do indeed seem to have damaged the SNP. Salmond's unfortunate past praise for Iceland came back to make him seem foolish in the extreme, while the government bailouts of HBOS and, in particular, the national champion, RBS dented the idea of Scotland and Scottish success - the kind of tartan brio that was supposed to float all boats upon a nationalist tide.

I actually think the financial turbulence ensured that Brown would have survived a defeat, even if a loss in Fife would necessarily have terrified every Labour politician south of the border. That being so, the PM is going to be unbearably smug if Labour have held on, albeit with a reduced majority. There will be mch talk of the "Brown Bounce" about which I remain extremely suspicious.

However, this result would seem to be calamitous for Alex Salmond. The SNP honeymoon at Holyrood - which, with Labour in power at Westminster,  permitted votes for both Labour and the SNP to be counted as "protest" votes - has come to an abrupt end. Salmond co-opted Barack Obama's slogan, vowing the other day that "Yes we can, yes we will". I suspect that some voters will have seen that as Salmond over-reaching himself. Just a little too clever, just a little too pleased with himself.

Still, perception matters. This is therefore a terrific result - if confirmed - for Labour and a terrible night - their first in more than 18 months - for the SNP. That's something Unionists in other parties can cheer. But it's too soon to suppose - partly because of the nature of the SNP-Labour relationship - that it's clear that a Labour victory in Glenrothes tells us very much about the future prospects for Labour's fight with the conservatives in England.

In other words, David Cameron is another of tonight's winners.

UPDATE: The final result shows a feeble 5% swing to the nationalists. That's a very disappointing result for them. Hubris is rewarded.That said, it's the LibDems and the Tories whose support has plummeted. Between them, the two partis garnered fewer than 2,500 votes. I'm guessing many of their voters hopped over to Labour, partly because of the financial crisis and partly because of local issues.In any case, they voted against the SNP rather than for Labour, I should say.

Bloggers & Ministers

I'm glad Trixy reminded me about the startlingly daft speech Hazel Blears, the Communities Minister (whatever that means), gave to the Hansard Society the other day. Though the irrepressible Mrs Blears was correct to bemoan the rise of a political class with no hinterland beyond Westminster (this also applies to the media classes, of course), it was her comments about blogs that were the purest Class A piffle. Apparently:

Until political blogging 'adds value' to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair."

But of course the entire point of the blogosphere is that it's entirely open to new voices and, indeed, new ideas. Equally, there's no requirement that it meet some government minister's definition of what kind of protests and chellenges may be considered "legitimate". And thank god for that. Finally, one might say that after more than a decade of this government, cynicism and despair are an entirely rational response to the state of Britain today.

Sarah Brown emulates Sarah Palin

Campaigning is underway in the Glenrothes by-election. Yesterday Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife, made her election debut, knocking on doors in, of all places, bonny Cardenden. How did that go? Not so well, it seems. My friend Stephen McGinty has a fine, entertaining account in today's Scotsman:

SHE was supposed to be Labour's secret weapon, but Sarah Brown ended up being so "secret" yesterday that no-one from the press was allowed to ask her any questions.

It was clear from the moment she arrived in Cardenden to campaign on behalf of the Labour Party that she was not there to speak to the ordinary members of the public. The Prime Minister's wife was instead there to be seen to speak to ordinary members of the public...

During her 30-minute walkabout, she spoke exactly nine words to the press pack that included three camera crews, seven photographers and a dozen reporters. "I'm very pleased to be supporting Lindsay Roy today," she said with a weak smile that quickly curled into a grimace...

HOWEVER, when television reporters tried to do pieces to camera with the Prime Minister's wife in the background, the Labour Party people tried to hustle them out the way. "Move the camera – move the camera. Get the camera off the pavement. You have to let her pass," they said.

Journalists who then found themselves walking beside Mrs Brown struggled to avoid being tripped up as party members muscled in, trying to form a protective phalanx.

Then came the most extraordinary piece of control freakery of the day. "I want you guys on the green," said the man from the Labour Party. "There will be six or seven guys with guns who will keep you away from her. You may be shot and then it won't be my problem."

Good stuff, this. Reporting that, you know, actually reports what happened and doesn't agree to play the game by the politicians' rules. Clearly, this applies beyond the Kingdom of Fife too. So: a modest success for once.

[Via SNP Tactical Voting]

Status: Enraged but Unsurprised

OK, this is from the Sunday Times so the usual weekend caveats apply. But a) this story does seem to be confirmed by official sources and b) it turns out it isn't actually April 1st:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime.

Although the Tories will doubtless give them a run for their money it is hard to imagine how any government could actually be more enraging than the present shower. Mr Worstall has some good, old-fashioned suggestions for what the government should do next. And no, despite what the government says, none of this is actually for your own good.

PS: How long before some government flunky tries to make the (absurd) case that "Well, if we just had Identity Cards we wouldn't need to consider plans such as these"?

How it Works

The government wants to crack down on smoking  - "denormalise" it is a favoured term - so it hands out cash to anti-smoking organisation such as ASH who use this money to fund a project called "Capitalising on Smokefree: the Way Forward" which in turn, it seems, is a response to a government consultation on future tobacco-related legislation.

When the results of this "consultation" are published, one would have to assume that it will, broadly speaking, run along the lines recommended by ASH. After all, that's what the government is paying for.

Simon Clark has the details.

42 Days: Jacqui Smith

Here's video of Jacqui Smith's contemptible performance in the Commons last night. Basically, she says that if you don't support giving the police carte blanche then you're on the terrorists' side. At the very least, if you dare to question the government you don't care about security. And of course all you yoghurt-munching civil liberties pansies also don't care about the liberty of "not being blown up". Seriously. As I say, contemptible.


Note too the bald-faced lies she tells. Apparently every security expert supports the government's proposals. Not so. Former policemen and, as I say, two former heads of MI5 opposed the government last night. So too, one should note, did two former Labour Lord Chancellors - Charlie Falconer and Derry Irvine. Lord Morgan, a former Labour Attorney-General also opposed the government.