Love and Liberty

This is an exciting day for Liberal Democrat campaigners, with publication of a very short new set of our priorities for these tight economic times and an interview with Nick Clegg in which he tells us which priorities got dropped (highlighting at least one major blunder). Our new approach in two Twitter-style bites:

• “Lib Dems: no to business as usual! A Fresh Start For Britain: creating a sustainable economy; building a fair society; cleaning up politics.”

• “Lib Dems: right on the banking crisis, environment, cleaning up politics and Iraq. The others were wrong. Who’ll be right on the next mess?”

And a more populist go at it added a bit later in the day:

• “Lib Dems’ Fresh Start For Britain. 1: Green jobs & safer banks. 2: Fair taxes & investment in schoolkids. 3: Give you power to sack your MP!”

Libdemologists’ main source of intrigue today will be in reading between the lines of the new extremely-mini-manifesto A Fresh Start For Britain, trying to work out what the very few commitments mean and what’s left out… And their task will be made easier by this morning’s interview in The Independent, in which Nick Clegg explains the strategy rather well, while also offering a couple of hostages to fortune and serving up a handy bullet-pointable list of major priorities which are still very, very important… But which no longer have a budget or start date attached, because we probably can’t afford them right now. And it’s those that Liberal Democrats are most likely to be up in arms about, rather than what A Fresh Start For Britain actually says.

Now, I spent many long years on the party’s Federal Policy Committee, so I’m just about as experienced in reading between the lines of a policy statement as anyone. Having stood down from the FPC last year through ill health (and I’m more than a little peaky today; pass me another bacon sarnie!), it’s fascinating to read through A Fresh Start For Britain and work out what the arguments over it were. Because, of course, although it’s all in the name of Nick Clegg, he didn’t write it all and he’s very unlikely to have got it all his own way. Our Leaders don’t.

So, before this comes for debate at Conference in September – and you may be thrilled to learn that there’ll be a ‘part 2’ coming soon, spelling out the status of major policies in more detail – it’s already gone through the Federal Policy Committee, in a meeting which I’m told went on for five hours, which’d make it one of the longest since the final meeting on the 1997 Manifesto, after which fourteen of us crawled out alive at a quarter to one in the morning. And I’d love to know what went on at that meeting, so if any of my former colleagues fancy giving me a ring… All of which, of course, means that although if you’ve got a pet peeve with what’s in A Fresh Start For Britain (or, more likely, what isn’t), you should not only send a probing e-mail Cleggwards, but put a rocket up any members of the FPC you happen to know. Particularly as I’m not on there any more, so it’s not my fault (ha ha, ha ha ha ha).

A Fresh Start For Britain

A completely new, bold and fresh (and a little bit patriotic) title, which tells you… Er… Um… Well, all right, it’s not the most exciting title in the world, but it does tell you one of the key themes for the Liberal Democrats now – with both the economy and the political system more infuriatingly rubbish than they’ve been for half a century, that we’ve suddenly become less afraid to say, ‘Look, the whole thing’s been really buggered up for ages, hasn’t it? Let’s chuck it all and start again (and you won’t get that from the other two)’. Ironically, this was the message of the first draft of last year’s Make It Happen, but it was felt that a wildly anti-establishment tone was too scary in what was starting to look like might be a recession, so the tone was made more reassuring. Now that the economy’s much more fucked than anticipated and politicians are being spat at in the streets, ‘tear it all down’ suddenly has a more mass appeal. In line with Lib Dem statements of principles always having too many titles, there’s also the subtitle “Choosing a different, better future,” which includes the “Future” I’ve been using to imply “Green,” but sounds even less bold and distinctive than “A Fresh Start For Britain”.

A Fresh Start For Britain is not, of course, to be confused with 1981’s statement of principles commended by a joint working party of Liberals and Social Democrats and attributed (though probably even less written by them than this is by Nick) to David Steel and Shirley Williams, a set of priorities for an economic and political crisis with the entirely different title of A Fresh Start For Britain. Though some of the ideas in today’s fresh and exciting new approach are, of course, so fresh and exciting that they were there twenty-eight years ago, the new one’s better – at least as far as I can remember. It’s a while since I’ve read it and, despite getting dusty and sneezy excavating some of my thrilling collection of old SDP literature, I couldn’t find a copy. I’m peeved that though my old university promises an online pdf, the link’s dead. We should drop our commitment to university funding as a punishment! No, hang on…

A Slightly Fresher Start For Britain is, however, available as a pdf. Slightly confusingly, it’s not on the admittedly rather fresh-looking A Fresh Start For Britain website; instead, you have to e-mail them and ask for it. Still more confusingly, if you read the pdf you’ll find that this swish new statement of our priorities for a Liberal Democrat Government has been slimmed down to just seven absolutely essential short sections… But, if you read it on the website, there are only six of them. Yes – even one of our key priorities isn’t always a key priority, though I suspect that may be a mistake [update: it’s all on there now].

So, What’s In It?

Having been mean about A Fresh Start For Britain, actually… It’s pretty good. If you’re going to pick out eye-catching headlines rather than make a compendium of all known policy, this is pretty good – though I’ll come to two key things that aren’t there later. If you read it, you get a pretty good idea of what we’d do, and a pretty good impression that we’d actually be able to deliver it. And you’d be able to remember both of those points five minutes later.

In comparison with many election manifestos, that’s not to be sneezed at.

It’s phrased – as these things usually are – as a personal message from the Party Leader, and reads rather better than these things usually are. Whether or not it captures Nick’s ‘voice’, it comes across as a person (I remember writing an introduction “by Charles” for a manifesto in 2001, which was partly cobbled together from something attributed to him in 1999, etc, etc). Still more importantly, though I’d use even more vehement language, it’s the nearest to an angry, anti-establishment introduction I think I’ve ever seen in a Lib Dem manifestoish. It recognises people are angry with politicians and bankers – and sets out a narrative where a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to tell the old parties, the greedy bankers and the whole old way of doing things they’ve got it wrong.

“Many people believed they would get change for the better in 1997. Instead, under Labour, the gap between rich and poor has got bigger, our politics has got even dirtier, our civil liberties have been eroded, the environment around us is in danger and our international reputation is at a new low. Labour let us all down.”

But, as well as pointing the finger, this is about choosing the right answers. And before you can provide them, you need to analyse the problem. Well done again, then, for succinctly putting it:

“Britain is in the teeth of three crises: a huge banking crisis and recession, a rotten Westminster system abused by too many MPs for personal gain, and the threat of climate change.”

I agree that those are the three biggest crises – though I’d emphasise a crisis of freedom as part of that crisis of politics – but, of course, not everyone would agree with that analysis. What you choose as the problems ought to determine what your solutions are… And you can see that, with the other parties afraid of taking action on the solutions the Liberal Democrats want, they’re afraid to admit to some of the same problems. That far, the narrative Nick’s telling hits home with me.

I’m less sure about where it goes next. Yes, we need big changes, and they need action. Read the problem, but see if you can spot my wariness at the alternative:

“We need big changes to fix our economy, our discredited politics and our environment, yet both Labour and the Conservatives are letting the City, the House of Commons and polluters off the hook. No action against bankers’ bonuses. No action to give people the right to sack MPs guilty of breaking the rules. No action to slash emissions. They say just enough to get in the headlines, but when the spotlight moves on it’s back to business as usual.
“I believe there’s a better way. This country can be fairer, it can be safer, greener, and stronger in the world.”

Despite the party deciding again and again that, when it comes to our philosophy, “It’s About Freedom,” I worry that freedom is, again and again, the bit that drops out of our priorities. Remember “Free, Fair and Green”? That was a good list of our aims, not always met in the detail – but, as so often, while we have “fairer” and “greener,” “safer” and “stronger in the world” convey a very different message. When the British and world economy’s in turmoil, “safer” has to be part of what we offer – but it’s not the be-all and end-all. When the political system’s in turmoil, too, playing it safe isn’t an option; safety for people in trouble, yes, steadying the financial system, but by freeing up the political system and having people bossed about much less. And the tone of A Fresh Start For Britain really isn’t all about playing it safe. In fact, it’s the furthest from that that any statement of our priorities has been for decades.

Add “stronger in the world” to “safer,” and I get actively worried. The detail here is about choosing our commitments more carefully; the rhetoric of “stronger in the world” just doesn’t match. It sounds like we’re desperately trying to butch up to cover up, say, dropping Trident. And that merely sounds confused, not strong. After Iraq, after ID cards, after any amount of Labour bossiness and politicians saying ‘We know best’ that’s got us into all this mess, I don’t want a Liberal Democrat Government to be butcher still, actually. I want us to have the courage to say, government’s done too much, and too much of the wrong things, and you should have more freedom to live your own life rather than throwing a new law at you for every hour of the day. And that will strike a chord with people even if for no other reason than because enforcing stupid laws wastes money, too.

Where I’d say Nick’s introduction does go for freedom at the end, he doesn’t frame it as such.

“Above all, we must do everything to protect the next generation from the mistakes made today. For me, how we treat young children is the most important measure of what kind of society we want, what kind of values we hold dear.
“Even in these difficult times, giving all children from all backgrounds the life chances they deserve will always be my personal priority.”

And I believe he means it. That does indeed come across as a personal priority, and all the more powerful for it. But – and particularly for all those of us who don’t have kids – he also misses a huge opportunity. What kind of society do we want? What values can be seen in a commitment to education? Because just ‘awhh, kids’ is going to leave a lot of non-parents cold. What about tying our priorities together, and showing our approach to kids as the key to our approach in general, as the importance of education has come back round (as it was in the ’90s) to being our USP?

‘Giving all children from all backgrounds wider life chances is the single most vital part of building a fairer society. It’s about helping every child grow up having the freedom to live their own life. And we need to tackle both climate change and the debt crisis today – because if we leave it to our kids, they won’t forgive us the rocketing financial, social and environmental costs we’ve dumped on them.’

“Change for real, change for good” is the punchiest bit of politics in A Fresh Start For Britain:

“Britain is in crisis, the worst in modern times. People are right to be angry. There is a great deal to be angry about.
“The economy is in a mess, but the people responsible are still in charge. The political system is rotten, but the establishment is still blocking change. The gap between rich and poor keeps growing, making British society so unequal that everybody suffers. Dangerous climate change threatens us all, but world leaders won’t act.
“…The two old parties have had their chances and failed.”

It frames the problem as one that only the Liberal Democrats can tackle – because only we understand the mess the country’s in, because only we have the ideas to tackle it all, and because only we’ll be honest enough to tell it like it is. And, rather than using headings like “Trust” and “Honesty” as we’ve rather unwisely done in the past, this section uses one of the simplest, most effective ways of communicating political honesty. As I said yesterday, if you want to tell people what you stand for so it actually means something, it’s got to put some people off:

“If you are happy with the way things are, the Liberal Democrats are not the party for you. If you want business as usual, choose Labour or the Conservatives – we know they won’t really change anything.
“But if you want things to be different, really different, choose the party that is different – the Liberal Democrats. There is hope for a different future, a different way of doing things in Britain, if we’re brave enough to make a fresh start. The Liberal Democrats are ready to make it happen.”

Another curiously familiar turn of phrase, there.

That – well-structured, this thing – leads naturally into setting out what our principles for government would be. And here they are! There are two key points that mark out our different approach… Different from the other two parties, and from what we’ve said before:

• “First, any new spending will be paid for by a specific cut made elsewhere, to ensure it is deliverable even in these tough economic times. This means we will not increase public spending overall.

• “Second, the tax cuts we propose to help those on low and middle incomes will not be funded by cuts in services, but by making taxes fairer and greener, so that the richest pay their fair share and polluters pay for the damage they cause.”

Over this decade, the Liberal Democrats have moved increasingly towards fiscal neutrality – but, while it looks like these two points are upholding that approach, they aren’t. Each of those two commitments sounds balanced, but is actually one-directional. The reason in both cases is that Britain’s balances are in a deep hole: tax takes down as people fall out of work; spending up to look after them; and debt rocketing most of the way to a trillion pounds. We quite literally can’t go on that way. So, look carefully at those two pledges: there will be spending on our new priorities, but always paid for by cuts elsewhere, and that means public spending won’t go up overall. But, with government finances in crisis, will there be cuts that don’t pay for other priorities, but instead aim to cut public spending overall? And all tax cuts will be paid for by tax rises elsewhere… Careful readers will realise that the Liberal Democrats have for some time promised that all tax rises will be paid for by tax cuts elsewhere, and that those two clauses have now been swapped – so the corollary may no longer be the case.

In other words, even according to what information Labour lets out, the public finances are in a bloody disastrous hole and need filling in. But if we’re elected and actually get to see the proper books, we may well find out they’re even worse, and if spending cuts or tax rises are needed to fill in the hole, while we’re ruling out extra taxes for extra spending and ruling out extra spending cuts for tax cuts…

Having set out the Liberal Democrats’ values, analysis and approach, it then turns to what many will consider the meat – our specific priorities for changing things. And it’s noticeable how very few of them there are, published here as cast-iron commitments. It means that everything here can be delivered – though what’s here isn’t all we would deliver, it’s all that strict honesty means we could say for certain. That’s quite a risk, and there are, for me, two glaring omissions, only one of them for obvious financial reasons…Usually, I advise people to read the small print in any Lib Dem pre-manifestos. That this one doesn’t even have any small print tells its own story.

• Creating a sustainable economy: boosting employment particularly through green jobs; and splitting up the big banks to stop them gambling the economy away again.

• Building a fair society: “We will empower every individual and community, fighting disadvantage and entrenched inequality” – I like that bit – with fair taxes, specifically and impressively keeping the commitment to raise allowances and boost incomes for low- and middle-earners, raising green taxes and the wealthiest’s loopholes to pay for it; and investing in early years education.

• Cleaning up politics: Cleaning up Westminster, expenses, donations and the Lords, and making MPs sackable; and fair votes to get rid of safe seats.

And because the strongest underlying message of A Fresh Start For Britain is that only the Liberal Democrats will be up-front about the terrible mess the economy’s in meaning no government can do everything it wants to any more, it finishes with our approach to public spending – a short-term priority of maintaining investment to see us out of the recession, and a long-term priority of being far stricter with the public finances. And it outlines some of the major spending areas to be cut as the centralised state of quangos and databases, Trident, future public-sector pensions, deliberate expansion of higher education and tax credits for high earners. And there, at last, is the implication of more freedom.

As I put it yesterday in a Tweet-limited line:

“Can’t afford Labour? We won’t boss you about. We won’t knacker the environment. & We won’t waste your money on nukes, invasions or ID cards.”

So, What’s Not In It?

If you’ve noticed a lot that wasn’t in A Fresh Start For Britain and were wondering why, or how much more was missing, Nick Clegg helpfully gave an interview to this morning’s Independent which, as published, is about fifty-fifty underlining the new narrative and, er, being a bit iffy. Though I suspect rather less than 50% of the iffier bit is Nick’s fault.

The main strength of the article is that it positions the Liberal Democrats as making the tough choices up front about public spending that the other parties are petrified of admitting out loud.

The main weakness of the article is that it frames setting new priorities that can definitely be delivered as a great big retreat on all the other policies that might not be.

That strength is very obvious as the key aim of A Fresh Start For Britain; that weakness is partly in how a newspaper decides to spin it, but also reveals some weaknesses in the manifestoish itself. Perhaps the one that most gets in the way of a stronger narrative (there, even I’m butching up now) of a fresh, bold start is that the fresh, bold start is, er, a great big retreat, with nothing much to show for it. I can only guess at the even more eye-watering belt-tightening that would have been required to do it, but there’s an obvious ‘…but this is what you get instead’ positive message that’s missing that might have taken the place of ‘oops, bang go all our goodies’: to make cutting debt explicitly one of our priorities. To say that, if you’ve maxed out your credit cards and then your pay’s been cut, you need to start paying it off before you buy everything you want to.

Instead, the message The Independent delivers is far less about what Liberal Democrat priorities are, than about what they aren’t:

“Nick Clegg will today jettison many of the Liberal Democrats' long-standing policy pledges in an attempt to convince voters they would make the deep spending cuts needed to fill the hole in the public finances.
“In an interview with The Independent, Mr Clegg revealed that many of the promises cherished by his party will be downgraded from official policy to "aspirations" since there would be no money to fund them. They are expected to include flagship pledges to scrap university tuition fees, provide free personal care for the elderly, and bring in a higher basic state pension.
“The Liberal Democrat leader will ask his party's conference in September to make firm commitments in just three areas at the general election: a boost for education, the creation of "green jobs", and constitutional reform.”

You see, even they don’t fit in the bit about tax cuts, do they? But, still, there’s an impressive level of seriousness to the bulk of the article, where Nick talks about asking the difficult questions, and says clearly that while policies aren’t being dropped, we can no longer say for certain we’d implement them, and certainly not implement them immediately, because Labour’s totally fucked the economy. I paraphrase.

“Some of these might be retained as policies that we could not honestly place at the forefront of our manifesto, because we could not honestly claim they could be delivered in the first few years of the next Parliament.”

I know, I know. Saying it’s not the top priority isn’t the same as dumping a policy altogether. But if I were a Parliamentary candidate again, I’d be very careful indeed about what I said about policies that weren’t ‘on the list’. Getting politically involved when the Liberal Democrats were being up-front about what exactly we would spend, if necessary by raising taxes to do it, and when Labour were making mealy-mouthed noises to every interest group going that implied goodies, but termed them all “aspirations,” I learnt to treat every “aspiration” as something that will never happen. So, while in practice I know that governments usually find the money to do more than the few cast-iron promises they’ve pinned themselves to in advance, I can’t apply any less rigour to Liberal Democrat somewhere-down-the-line policies than I did when I was rubbishing Labour windbags. And that’s why it’s so important that the party debates what is, and isn’t, on that list – because if you want a reputation for honesty, you have to stick only to the bits you can be absolutely honest about.

One wince-inducing moment that I’m willing to bet is down to The Independent, not to Nick (note the lack of quote marks):

“Mr Clegg issued a wake-up call to a party which has traditionally had a long shopping list of policies but been less convincing about how it would pay for them.”

I very much doubt that is what Nick said, but it still needs stamping on. A Fresh Start For Britain is by a long way the toughest ‘spending round’ the Liberal Democrats have ever faced – but I’ve sat on the party’s Federal Policy Committee for three separate General Election Manifestos (and one that never was), and I can tell you that not saying how we’d pay for our commitments is a pile of bollocks. Every single time, we’ve said how we’d pay for every promise, always causing great distress to those wanting more spending, and the Institute of Fiscal Studies has given us a clean bill of financial health – unlike Labour and the Tories, who have never, ever published their manifesto costings, and always been frowned at for not saying where the money comes from. And, no, ‘I told you so’ is rarely an attractive line – though it’s not doing Vince any harm – but rubbishing a record of consistently getting it right is no way to build up trust for the future.

And another wince-inducing moment that suspect means Nick and the FPC should have thought a bit harder:

“Could the NHS, protected by both Labour and the Tories, face cuts? In theory, yes, because no area would be immune. In practice, Mr Clegg admitted, he found it "almost impossible" to think his party would not maintain health spending.”

This is, I’m afraid, the worst of both worlds. The Tories, terrified that Labour’s single campaign message of ‘We’re shit, and we know we are, but, ooohh! The Tories! Scary!’ actually has some bite on the NHS, have tied themselves in knots saying that they won’t cut a penny from the health budget (which, as it’s such a massive proportion of public spending - over £100 billion out of around £700 billion – means Labour are gleefully talking up the concomitantly bigger slashes to everything else). Do the Liberal Democrats avoid that political danger by saying ‘Not a penny cut from the NHS’ too, or do we get the ‘honesty’ gain by saying, ‘We hate cutting anything, in fact, but look – the NHS is vast and do you seriously think every penny’s well-spent? Let’s look at how every single bit of public spending adds up’? It appears we’ve decided to fall between the two stools.

Whether these came from Nick himself, from our background briefings, or from The Independent looking at our previous big spending commitments and simply circling the missing ones with a big red marker, the article concludes with a handy list of bullet-points summarising the priorities that were – and that might not be any more:

“Mr Clegg has grown in stature in recent months, winning over doubters in his own party with high-profile and timely interventions on the Gurkhas, the former Commons Speaker Michael Martin, the Trident nuclear missile system, and Afghanistan. Now his call for "candour" and a "grown-up" approach to public spending will test whether his party is prepared to grow up too.

Safe policies

• Education £2.5bn "pupil premium" for a million children from disadvantaged backgrounds, smaller classes and extra tuition.

• Tax Raise personal allowance to £10,000, reducing bills for most earners by £705 a year, funded by £17bn package of tax increases including abolition of top-rate tax relief for pension contributions and closing tax loopholes.

• "Green jobs" Package to create zero-carbon homes, insulate existing homes, schools and hospitals, and expand rail network.

• Political reform To clean up politics after MPs' expenses scandal, including proportional representation for Commons, elected House of Lords and state funding for parties.

Under threat

• Universities Free tuition for first undergraduate degrees for full and part-time students.

• Care Free personal care for those over 65 at cost of £2bn.

• Pensions Higher "citizen's pension" with immediate restoration of link between state pension and earnings.

• Disabled £200 a year winter fuel payment.

• Post Offices £2bn pledge to keep open rural post offices.”

So, What Are The Two Big Misjudgements?

A Fresh Start For Britain has the right idea, and most of the right detail (that is, not much). But it makes two serious mistakes, in my view. One of them I’ve mentioned several times along the way already – it needs to punch up freedom as well as security. Because by keeping the balance still towards “safer” and “stronger” and not towards “freer,” it misses a key reason for doing much of what we do, and sabotages its own narrative by making us sound just like the two old, failed parties that boss people about and think they know all the answers. It wouldn’t have taken a major redraft: thinking about the rhetoric; adding the Freedom Bill to our list of priorities (a repeal of some of Labour’s thousands of bossy laws, something which in itself adds no extra public spending, and instead takes a lot of burdens off government departments, the police and people alike)… A major missed opportunity.

You might expect the other big problem I have with all this to be that it doesn’t make paying off the debt a big enough priority. Well… Actually, I’m torn on that one. It makes for a clearer narrative, but blimey, to make a really big impression there’d need to be so much cash paid off that almost all the spending we’d shift couldn’t be to other spending but just to keeping the interest down. So I suspect we just have to pay it off over even longer, as the final section on public finances implies, because there are some things so vital they simply need paying for.

No, the other serious misjudgement in A Fresh Start For Britain is one of its relegated priorities. It means finding more money – but not doing so would simply do us too much damage, in terms of narrative, in terms of practical aims, and in terms of hard-headed politics. While I wish we could find the money for all of those bullet-points The Independent this morning reports us putting a bullet into, dropping – I’m sorry; indefinitely postponing – free tuition fees for first degrees is the killer.

It cuts across our narrative. What are our priorities? Education is back to being our biggest issue… Yet we’re dropping one of our two biggest commitments on it. We’re firm on protecting government spending to keep jobs up and the debt down… So what message does it send to explicitly add to massive student debts, at the very point when graduate jobs have gone through the floor and everyone who’s just been to university realises they’ve got a mortgage-sized hole in their pocket and none of the promised salaries to make it worthwhile? We’re committed to investing heavily in early years education, which I accept is the key place to increase social mobility – but making university the place for the richer and richer clamps down on it too.

And then there’s the hard-headed politics of the issue. Tuition fees and Iraq were Labour’s greatest betrayals. This has for so long been a Liberal Democrat USP that we will be absolutely clobbered for dropping it – I’m so sorry, de-prioritising it into the unguessable future – and, looking at those other big-spending commitments we can no longer afford, to be cynical about it, for all the money we’ve kept down every other priority to throw at them, old people don’t vote for the Liberal Democrats, while students do. Despite the fact that I hope to get help in old age eventually, and have nothing direct to gain from making tuition fees free again – though I believe the economy and society as a whole will gain. And, of course, for those who say that a lot of the cost of tuition fees is a middle class pay-off… Yes, it is. And with taxes rising, pips squeaking and every kind of job looking insecure, with tax credits for the better-off one of the Liberal Democrat targets for cuts, tuition fees are a crucial way to persuade the people who pay most of the taxes that they get something out of it. And on top of all that, free education – at the very least, the education itself – is one of the clearest principles in public spending. Like being a little bit pregnant, this is one of those that’s an absolute.

On grounds of our political message, then, and on the fairness we’re trying to achieve, and naked political calculation, and even – good heavens, I’m so old-fashioned – of sheer political principles, the Liberal Democrats can’t afford to say ‘We can’t afford to pay for tuition fees’.




And in at number 63 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.

Labels: British Politics, FPC, Liberal Democrats, Newspapers, Nick Clegg, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton

There are some “F-words” that you hesitate to use in politics for fear of offence, but David Cameron’s new European Parliament Conservative Group, bodged together with sticky tape and suspicious armbands, has already had a rebellion, an expulsion and a putsch. Much more of this f-wording about and they’ll be completely F– ascisted. Newly re-elected, newly expelled Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott described the Polish extremist who seized the Group’s Leadership as “essentially a fascist,” and on last night’s PM programme, you can hear what the Conservative Leader said about “fags” that made one of his staff exclaim, “Oh my God!”

I’ve often criticised David Cameron for not having the honesty to make any policy commitments, merely asking people to vote for… Something that he hasn’t thought of yet. The Liberal Democrats make it clear what we’re offering, but Mr Cameron has been desperate to avoid doing any such thing. And, this week, it’s hard not to have some sympathy with his approach. In the three and a half years since he stood to become Conservative Leader, Mr Cameron has made a whopping two cast-iron unbreakable commitments, and both of them are causing him terrible difficulties. At home, he’s absolutely committed to one policy, one tax cut… But unlike the Liberal Democrat commitment to close loopholes on the ultra-rich and raise green taxes in order to raise allowances, helping those on middle incomes and taking millions of the lowest-paid out of tax altogether, Mr Cameron’s one tax pledge is to slash the inheritance tax paid by millionaires (even Ken Clarke, a man who knows his populism and his political poison, was forced to apologise for trying to back down on that). Unsurprisingly, now all of us non-millionaires are finding it harder than ever to make ends meet, Mr Cameron and his millionaires’ club are taking a lot of flak for getting their priorities greedily wrong.

Even that out of touch, self-serving tax disaster seems like wisdom, however, when measured against Mr Cameron’s one other promise – made when he was struggling for the more extreme voters in the Conservative Leadership race – to leave the largest, most influential group in the European Parliament and set up a ‘Billy No-Mates’ sect of their own. Not only has this alienated all the major centre-right governments in Europe – the ones Mr Cameron would have to work with should he be elected – and relegated the British Conservative MEPs from the largest part of the most powerful group, able to get things done, to a tiny squeak at the sidelines (dropping instantly from the biggest Group to the, er, fifth-biggest, and shrinking), but several of their new bedfellows are extremists of the most disgusting kind. And, to cap it all, on the new group’s very first day together in the Parliament, it was already straining at the seams. Was it worth it?

Conservatives Held To Ransom By “Essentially Fascist” Fruitcakes

The big problem is that the “European Conservatives and Reformists Group” is made up of only 55 MEPs from eight countries, only just enough to qualify as a “Group” within European Parliament rules – by contrast, the major players that can actually get things done, the European Socialists, the European Liberals and the European People’s Party that the Conservatives have just flounced away from all each have between two and four times as many MEPs, from three times as many countries. This isn’t just a matter of voting strength and influence, though obviously that’s important: the unfortunate fact for Mr Cameron is that if one or two MEPs from the ‘wrong’ country drop out, he suddenly ceases to have a Group at all.

Unlike any of the three major groups, then, Mr Cameron’s new Conservative Group can be held to ransom by most of the crackpots within it. And guess what? It’s already happened. On its very first day, Mr Cameron’s extremist Polish partners threatened to pull the plug unless their man became leader. So the brave British Conservatives instantly surrendered. If that’s his idea of standing up to Europe, I’d be interested to see what difference he can find between that and complete collapse of all negotiating positions.

Who knows what demands the smaller parties can get the British Conservatives to cave in on, when almost any one of them can nuke his Group on a whim?

And how did Mr Cameron get himself into this corner in the first place? Because the promise was forced out of him in surrender to the most hardline anti-European extremists among the British Conservative MPs. If Mr Cameron becomes Prime Minister, how many of them will he be forced to surrender to, how often, and on what scarily right-wing policies, now that he’s proved that his instant response to being held to ransom is to give in completely?

The catalyst for this week’s first row of many was a longstanding Conservative MEP, Edward McMillan-Scott – just re-selected by the Conservative Party, just re-elected by the voters – who refused to support the new Group’s nominee for one of the European Parliament’s Vice-Presidents. Yesterday he called Polish MEP Michal Kaminski “essentially fascist” and an unsuitable person to be a Vice-President, or to lead a Group. Now, it’s possible that Mr McMillan-Scott may not have opposed Mr Kaminski on grounds of entirely selfless principle – his preferred Vice-Presidential candidate was the successfully elected MEP with the strangely familiar name of Edward McMillan-Scott – but he made a clear case yesterday about the “essentially fascist” background and “essentially fascist” voting record of Mr Kaminski.

Mr McMillan-Scott, it should be noted, stood by the Conservative manifesto on which he’s just been re-elected, and by the allies that the Conservatives had announced before the European Elections… But didn’t see why he should be committed to an “essentially fascist” Polish party and others with “links with extremist groups” that the British Conservatives did deals with only after the results had been declared. If even Conservative MEPs think they’ve been forced to buy a pig in a poke, what choice did their voters have?

And, of course, on the pretext of Mr McMillan-Scott’s one-man rebellion – though you can’t help wondering if this was their plan all along – the British Conservatives’ Polish partners announced that their man was to become the Group’s Leader, or the deal was off. So he is. Yes, the British Conservative MEPs are now led by a man who one of their own – just expelled for it – described yesterday as “essentially a fascist” and as unsuitable a person to lead a Group as he was to be a Vice-President.

What a success, Mr Cameron!

As Liberal Democrat Voice reports (and is it just me who’s getting a weird effect with LDV at the moment, where the pages won’t load and I have to read them in cached form?), the Financial Times has said Mr Cameron’s decision

“to quit the European People’s Party (EPP), the main centre-right political group in the European Parliament, is backfiring on the Tories in spectacular fashion. The decision was always daft – a bit like the right wing of the US Republican Party splitting off and forming a minority group in Congress – but it now looks more short-sighted than ever.

“To meet the requirement that an officially recognised faction should have at least 25 MEPs from seven countries, the ECR has been cobbled together out of 26 Tories, 15 Poles, nine Czechs and a solitary politician each from Belgium, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands (a Finn was also supposed to be in, but dropped out a couple of weeks ago). The Tories are bound to spend half their time nursing the egos of the last five individuals, any two of whom could destroy the group by leaving it.”

Conservatives In Bed With “Essentially Fascist” Homophobia

The “essentially fascist” extreme nationalism of most of the parties within Mr Cameron’s new sect includes a Czech party that opposes any action to stop climate change, a Polish party that says “homosexuality threatens to bring about the downfall of the human race” and calls President Obama’s election “the end of white man’s civilisation,” and of course the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party, who have a suspiciously swastika-like logo and hold ceremonies celebrating the SS (the British Conservatives explicitly denied before the European Elections that they would do a deal with this party – and, once the elections were over, instantly broke their promise, as widely predicted). Liberal Democrat Ed Davey wrote to the Conservatives challenging them about these “essentially fascist” bedfellows before the European Elections but, of course, they only came clean about them once the elections were over.

In a week where reports of homophobic hate crimes are soaring in London, the British Conservatives have teamed up with parties whose members call for gay people to be locked or beaten up.

I don’t know for certain what David Cameron’s personal views on equality are. He first stood for election as an MP on a viciously homophobic platform, and started his Parliamentary career with solidly homophobic votes; since he became Conservative Leader, however, he deserves praise for some of his personal actions. He’s appointed out gay MPs to his Shadow Cabinet and, when votes on gay rights have come round in Parliament, he’s generally voted for them or abstained – though most other Conservative MPs have voted against, so he’s a Leader without many followers. My gut instinct is that Mr Cameron has no very firm views on gay equality, which is how he could be so opportunistically homophobic just a handful of years ago, and now makes opportunistically gay-friendly noises as part of “detoxifying the Conservative brand”. Make no mistake – I’m extremely happy for the Conservative Leader to be making gay-friendly noises, even opportunistic ones. When I first got involved in politics, the Conservatives made vicious attacks on lesbians, bisexuals and gay men one of their main campaign tools, Liberal Democrats took the flak for supporting equality and Labour were gutless abstainers. I’m glad those days seem to be over for Mr Cameron and at least some of his party.

But if he strongly believed in equality, he couldn’t have formed an alliance with Europe’s biggest bigots. He couldn’t be held to ransom by any one of those bigots. And he couldn’t have his own Group, the one he promised to form and personally made happen, led by a man with an “essentially fascist” record of viciously homophobic policies. While Mr Cameron may personally have a ‘live and let live’ attitude, it’s now been proved beyond doubt that, if the choice is between standing up for equality for lesbians, bisexuals and gay men and another priority, lesbians, bisexuals and gay men will get dumped.

There are signs, of course, that Mr Cameron is worried about what a PR disaster this is, and has asked his Polish playmate to tone down his statements for UK consumption; in interviews with the UK press this week, Michal Kaminski made clear that, while he doesn’t agree with that sort of thing (carefully only hinting at his extreme homophobic policies), he certainly has nothing against “them” and has never used any sort of homophobic language.

How unfortunate, then, that last night’s Radio 4 PM programme, about 43 minutes in (it’ll only be available for a few days, so if anyone captures that item and makes it available on their own site, I’ll happily link to it), dug out a Polish interview in which Mr Kaminski kept using a Polish homophobic word which translates as “fags” even after his interviewer twice challenged him on it, and that, when PM contacted him for a statement on his having told an obvious lie to cover up his homophobia, Mr Cameron’s new Leader in Europe… Refused to talk to the BBC, while the one of his assistants they played the interview to exclaimed, “Oh my God!” The British Conservatives must be so proud.




And in at number 95 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.

Labels: Conservatives, European Politics, Gay, Stupid Ideas, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton

Of all my articles once published on Outpost Gallifrey, this, from 2004, is the one that anybody read. The amazing Jennie quoted it before we met; a US Republican sent me a vitriolic e-mail; Liberator published an alternative version… So, before this link disappears forever, here it is.

“2003 sees an important anniversary for a great British institution. It has inspired countless young people to stand up against conformity, bigotry and oppression. It has fostered individual liberty, internationalism and human creativity.
“But as well as being the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who, it’s also the centenary of the Young Liberals.”

That’s how I opened a rally in September 2003 to celebrate the Young Liberals, and while I did it mainly to get a laugh, the comparison’s crucial to my political life. I’ve always been driven by political ideas, since long before I realised they were ‘political’, and many of them came straight out of how I grew up with Doctor Who. These days my ideas and philosophy have led to becoming the Vice-Chair of the Federal Policy Committee, the main body that puts together policy proposals for the Liberal Democrats. Inside the party, more than a few people know I’m a fan, so when a set of Doctor Who-related questions came in to party HQ from a fan group during the 2001 British General Election campaign, I was given the role of answering them (making the Lib Dems the only major party to do so [I did the gay ones, too, marking me still more obviously as a Doctor Who fan]). This started me thinking…

I don’t think political parties give people a decent enough idea of their political philosophies, and I think that matters (when parties spend so much of their time ‘playing by ear’, it’s only fair to tell people what sort of tunes you like). When Lib Dems talk about our philosophy, it’s usually in dry, academic terms or in soundbites shortened for a headline or a campaign leaflet. That’s not how many people outside parties see their beliefs, though. Most people would express beliefs in terms of their religion, or in examples of how they affect people or things that are important to them; probably not a coherent philosophy, but rather referring to moral codes and ideas from which they’ve borrowed bits that appeal to them. If I was writing a political ‘how to…’ article, I’d probably say the best way to get your beliefs listened to is by relating them to the way they come out of things your audience cares about.

I’m not going to do that here.

No, I’m going to talk about Doctor Who instead, because it’s something I really care about. It’s A Good Thing, and to me it’s a Liberal one, too. I know scientists, actors and authors who all readily claim Doctor Who as their inspiration, though politicians are a bit rarer. However, while what triggered me getting involved in politics was working out I was gay, listening to Weekending, and my English teacher being a bastard and / or pushing me to stand up for myself, my early political instincts were formed by three outstanding influences.

The first are my parents, with a family habit of bolshily standing up for what you believe in; according to my Grandma, my first political act came naked on a beach at the age of four, challenging a teenager who’d arbitrarily kicked over a sandcastle. One parent being Scottish and the other American probably made me a bit less insular, too. My upbringing in Christianity also played a part – half-Baptist, half-Catholic, so again having to make up my own mind – particularly in the notion of individual worth and in a semi-anarchist reaction to Catholic institutions. Then Doctor Who probably did more than anything else to inspire my political interests. It fostered a free spirit, encouraged me to start reading, instilled a passionate internationalism, made me think about ecology, and give me a lasting hatred of prejudice; green scaly rubber people are people too. And, of course, it made me want to change the world, and believe that an individual can make a difference. No, I don’t think Doctor Who has a lot to say about individual policies, and no, I’m not going to write an article setting my own view of Liberalism to compare (though I’ll tell you if you mail me) – but the bits of Who I pick out should be able to give you an idea.

I can’t claim that everything about Doctor Who has a Liberal message – it would probably be very dull if it did. Some series are written for a particular point, or all by one guiding genius; Doctor Who has never had an Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon or J. Michael Straczynski, and all the better for it. When the new series comes, it will be under the guiding hand of Russell T Davies, creator of Dark Season, The Second Coming and Queer As Folk, but – much as I admire that work – it’s an enormous relief that he’s not been tempted to write every one himself, with four other writers for the first season and many others asked. One of the things I like about Liberalism is its celebration of diversity and freedom of thought, so my first (slightly cheeky) claim for Doctor Who‘s Liberalism is its variety, a variety of viewpoints, times, settings and solutions. No other political philosophy could point at the fact that something is all over the place and cry, ‘Look! That proves it’s one of ours!’

The series’ celeb fans include Ken Livingstone (Labour) and Tim Collins (Conservative), so assuming they’ve occasionally thought, ‘What would the Doctor do?’ it’s obvious you can get different views to mine from it – though perhaps there are odd creatures who may have watched the show, but haven’t bothered to listen to its values. Although Doctor Who had two periods when it ‘got a bit of politics’, the early ’70s on TV and the early ’90s in the New Adventures novels, it wasn’t even consistent within those times, and certainly not between them. The ’70s probably leant towards the Liberals, though the most political author was a communist, while the ’90s tended towards the New Age socialist, yet both have an essential ‘Whoishness’ founded on the freedom to live your own life that I can’t help but interpret as Liberal. These days, there’s BBCi’s animated story Scream of the Shalka, where the Doctor makes disparaging remarks about finding weapons of mass destruction, and interviews with Russell T Davies or Christopher Eccleston make it clear that they’ll join other periods of the series’ history by looking at social issues through Doctor Who‘s prism. Good for them, and I hope I’ll agree with them, but even more so I hope they’ll make all of us think.

In over 150 TV stories and over 200 original novels, let alone CDs, comics and other media, it’s possible to find support for pretty much any point of view (to think some people say Lib Dem policy papers are bad). The series must have inspired other politicians, though sadly Tim and Ken would be bound to charge too much to write an article. Still, I’d be interested to read an alternative political case for Doctor Who, but this is how I find the series. One of the few themes that is absolutely consistent, and born of its time, is a deep-rooted anti-fascism, yet even this can seem at odds with its equally strong predilection for scary monsters whose nastiness is evident from their appearance. While the series often preaches against violence, it’s always trying to square the circle of being for or against the military; some cite The Daleks or The Dominators as attacks on pacifism, while in the DVD commentary for the macho Resurrection of the Daleks Peter Davison gleefully claims a higher body-count than Rambo – First Blood. Remembrance of the Daleks is perhaps the most controversial story for mixing up-front anti-racism with the Doctor making a Dubya-like strike to commit genocide on the Daleks themselves (a mixed moral message on which even the author later changes his mind in The Also People).

The series is frequently revolutionary – but monarchies are usually a fairy-tale good thing. Religion is usually dubious – but while a scientific approach is praised, scientists themselves are usually madmen out to destroy the world. ‘Political’ stories are hostile satires: The Deadly Assassin anticipates by two decades both political ‘spin’ of events and, funnily enough, The Matrix; Tragedy Day lays into Kilroy and Children in Need; The Happiness Patrol is a blatant attack on Thatcherism, but is just as harsh on state as on private control. However, where socialist and conservative fans see contradictions, Liberals would recognise that distrust of the controlling state and bureaucracy is hardly incompatible with often making big business, too, a villain, as in The Caves of Androzani, and endorsing no one system is a much more fluid, Liberal approach than if the Doctor imposed the ‘perfect’ answer on everyone.

With so many stories, by so many authors, you can see that claiming one viewpoint may be a bit silly, yet there is a very Liberal and very British dislike of any big battalions that’s rarely contradicted. The Doctor prizes knowledge and individuality, and doesn’t like despots. There’s an ingrained repulsion from fascism from the very beginning that’s one of the most crucial ideals of the series. I means almost any Doctor Who story carries the belief that conquest and control is a bad thing, whether of a planet or of the mind.

The first political pamphlet I wrote (‘The Human Factor’, in Kiron Reid’s Riot and Responsibility) took its inspiration and several quotes from arguably the ultimate Who story, and one of the most unambiguously Liberal: 1967’s The Evil of the Daleks. The climax features the Doctor and the Daleks each attempting to instil in the other “the Human Factor” or “the Dalek Factor”. The definition of what makes humans Human is my sort of Liberal; it starts with ‘being a bit silly’, and graduates to ‘asking awkward questions’. Freedom of thought and expression is something Dalek society cannot stand; as the Doctor tells the Dalek Emperor:

“Somewhere in the Dalek race there are three Daleks with the Human Factor. Gradually, they will come to question. They will persuade other Daleks to question. You will have a rebellion on your planet!”

This comes to pass, with furious Dalek commanders exterminating their underlings merely for the unheard-of intellectual rebellion of asking “Why”, which on its own is enough to undermine everything Daleks stand for. In contrast, the Doctor defines the core of “the Dalek Factor” as “to obey,” even before “to exterminate”. While from the first and in many subsequent stories the Daleks have been metaphors for the Nazis, here they are broadened to encompass all enemies of free thought who simply do as they’re told.

This message is perhaps the most explicit statement of the anti-establishment ethos that its original producer Verity Lambert saw as the core of its appeal to children and a particular kind of adult. While authors like Paul Cornell, Malcolm Hulke or David Whitaker may have written particularly political stories, it was creator Sydney Newman and his team that made the Doctor inescapably Liberal from the start – a curious traveller in time and space, by definition unbound by rules and by instinct dismissive of authority, to a petty bureaucrat “the most subversive and anarchic figure of his entire career, a shabbily dressed little man known as the Doctor,” able to say that “Bad laws are made to be broken” and to change the world to get rid of them.

It’s from casting the Doctor as an individual and not an enforcer that the consistent Liberal feel of Doctor Who comes, whatever the views propounded in any one story. Others have been inspired by the utopianism of Star Trek, for example, but my own favourite series is about a person, not an organised group, with a wariness of militarism, no ‘one size fits all’ utopian solutions and a deep-seated mistrust of those in authority. Perhaps this is down to what sort of totalitarianism different series are against ‘first’; UK sci-fi tends to oppose fascism, while US sci-fi is more afraid of communism. A hero that isn’t a cop or a soldier or a secret agent or motivated by money, who doesn’t obey rules, who is individualist rather than collectivist but looks out for the little people, is a Liberal hero, on just the right side of anarchism. The Doctor is not a pacifist, but while caught in violent situations, he’s not a man of violence – he tries to find other ways to resolve them, and doesn’t possess a gun. As the novel Human Nature (now on the BBC website) puts it:

“There are monsters out there, yes. Terrible things. But you don’t have to become one in order to defeat them. You can be peaceful in the face of their cruelty. You can win by being cleverer than they are… It’s about not being afraid.”

That’s why I loved the Doctor as a child and found my political ideals inspired by him as an adult. The Doctor travels from place to place doing what he likes, demanding the freedom to go anywhere, see anything and talk to anyone, but never harming others unless it’s to stop them harming people, fighting injustice rather than merely being employed to fight, and if there’s a greater champion of freedom from conformity and ignorance I’ve yet to see one. He finds it all huge fun, too. So, liberty, eccentricity, kindness, standing up for the underdog, not being po-faced about it, and a bit sceptical of politicians – which, when I grew up, sounded a lot like the Liberal Democrats.

As I started watching Doctor Who in 1975, aged 3, we didn’t have videos, so I got the books to keep up my ‘fix’. That meant I had to learn to read much earlier than I would have done otherwise – ‘proper’ books at age 5 – and feeding the instinct for thinking and finding things out is a consistent theme of the series, too. Most of the early stories published were novelisations of Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor. Ironically, when I saw him later on screen his persona seemed more of an old-fashioned Tory than the anarchic Tom Baker, so I probably had it the perfect way round. I saw the more freewheeling Doctor on TV (whose stories had few deep messages, other than to scare small children, much to my delight), but read the more Liberal stories without getting the feel of a more establishment personality.

If the message of the series is a Liberal one of ‘think for yourself’, the messages of more than a few Pertwee stories are only a step away from cheerleading for particular Liberal issues. The Third Doctor was exiled to Earth and, unusually, worked with the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce – a Liberal internationalist idea, if ever I heard one, and not too far from an idea you’ll find in the 2001 Lib Dem Manifesto Freedom, Justice, Honesty (at the same time as something that suspiciously resembles International Rescue. Go on, look it up). Even his rarer time and space travels were like Liberal propaganda – The Curse of Peladon was about a hidebound planet with a monarchy whose ruler wanted to join the Galactic Federation, but was threatened by conservative isolationist villains. Among the members of this Federation were the Ice Warriors, who of course had twice appeared as evil monsters, but were now reformed and peaceful. This was broadcast in 1972, and I’m sure the book had more of an impact on my developing Europeanism than any number of EEC spokesbeings.

Ecological themes pop up in a great many stories, including Robot, the first I ever saw, but the most blatant is The Green Death and its villainous, polluting oil multinational that wants to take over the world in a literal ‘command economy’ that will give freedom from all material need – at the cost of “Freedom from freedom”. Set a vague few years in the future, this 1973 show had a Prime Minister referred to as ‘Jeremy’ just as Jeremy Thorpe’s Liberal Party was rising in the opinion polls (even more outrageous than having a novel in which Liberal Prime Minister Asquith turns out to be one of the Doctor’s mates). Despite the series usually having the dramatic convention that ugly monsters = wicked, I got the message of Genesis of the Daleks, one of the first I saw and in which the Daleks are unsubtly created as a genetically pure super-race in mobile tanks by a charismatic madman in a bunker, surrounded by his black-uniformed elite (some of whom, er, wear iron crosses and carry Lugers).

The single most influential book I read was Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters, a somewhat luridly titled novelisation of the TV story Doctor Who and the Silurians. I wasn’t born when the story was first transmitted, and didn’t actually see it until the unimpressionable age of 21, though I can vividly remember where and when I finally did see it – released on video in mid-1993, it was 5am and I was crashing in a sleeping bag on someone’s floor (ooh, the glamour of politics), blearily determined to watch it all before another day’s trudging the streets to canvass and deliver leaflets in the Christchurch by-election. Ironically, the story had already long been a life-changing experience for me, and without having read the book, who knows? Perhaps I wouldn’t have been there at all…

Most readers will know that the story concerns some super-evolved reptile people being accidentally woken from the hibernation they entered to escape the destruction of the dinosaurs. Naturally, they have a prior claim and want their world back. Some of the reptile people are good, some bad; some of the humans are good, some bad. The situation escalates to near war, and the humans end up worse; they kill all the reptile people. The Doctor comes to a crisis point with the Brigadier on the other side of the argument - but that he can still work with him afterwards shows hope that peace can be made, even if not within that one story. Although I never quite took to the Doctor being semi-connected to the establishment and I know the Doctor doesn’t care for politicians, I suspect that story buried within me the notion that working ‘inside the system’ can sometimes be the right thing to do. I read that when I was 5 or 6, and while ‘nasty monsters invading’ never made me worried about ‘foreigners’, two sets of really very similar-acting people who had the same rights to live peacefully, one group different people to those I was used to, had a lasting effect on me. So, that’s the point at which I became a Liberal, even if it was years later before I put a name to what I believed.

Of course, even if you’re not interested in the many political facets of Doctor Who, you could always try and work out what your own political inspirations were. Did Doctor Who ever inspire you to change the world? And if it didn’t, shouldn’t it? Most people I know in politics get jaded from time to time, not just disinterested voters and non-voters. It can be a disillusioning experience, so it never hurts to remind yourself why you really believe in what you do believe in. Things as varied as the shock of Matthew Shepherd’s brutal murder or a Doctor Who story pitching me into an impassioned argument about pre-emptive strikes have, at different times, roused me to get back into political action, so next time you see the Doctor overthrowing a tyrannical regime, why not at least register to vote, if you can’t fly off in the TARDIS and do it yourself? Sure, it’s much easier when the Doctor changes the world in an hour and a half, but that’s no excuse not to find him an inspiration. And if you think politics is too serious to compare to a TV programme… Well, you should get out more. Not everyone’s way of life comes out of things that are Terribly Important, and when politicians sound terribly self-important, a lot of people just prefer telly. Besides, in its heyday, Doctor Who regularly had twelve million people supporting it, and any politician could do with a bit of that.

This idea for an article started out in the Spring of 2001, with a few paragraphs in reply to fan group “The Wolves of Fenric” on behalf of the Lib Dems – a piece that was online for a while, but has long since disappeared. I can, however, reveal that Charles Kennedy’s favourite Doctor was Patrick Troughton. Looking at the rewritten version from Spring 2004, I decided I’d rather not have what might be the most-quoted article I’ve ever written go the same way when the plug’s finally pulled on Outpost Gallifrey in a fortnight. I suppose it’s ‘the one to read’ of my old school BBC-style Summer holiday repeats!

Issue 293 of Liberator in which a version of this appears is still online as a pdf, the differences mainly being that I tweaked it for Liberals who might not necessarily be Doctor Who fans (the one above’s vice versa) and other members of the Collective chopped it about a bit for space, but used the Best! Dalek! Photo! Ever! on the cover. If you’re not familiar with Liberator Magazine, incidentally, despite what you might think, it was actually founded and named about seven years before Blake’s 7 was a glint in Terry Nation’s bank account.

More than any of my other pieces under the looming threat of deletion, I was tempted here to rewrite it, or at least add some observations – as opposed to mere speculation – about Twenty-first Century Who on TV, but I decided to leave the article as originally published (save my ‘house style’ on italics and quotation marks, and putting in some links), with just one small addition in brackets and retaining all the bits I might have got wrong or changed my mind on. This is what I thought in 2004 and, skim-reading it this morning, I’m happy to say also mostly what I still think now.

Since I originally wrote this, Doctor Who and the Silurians has been released on DVD as part of the varying-quality Beneath the Surface box set. That brilliant story, though, features arguably the best single extra in the range, a BBC4-quality documentary on politics in the series, What Lies Beneath, including interviews with several politicians – what an extraordinary idea! And though I’ve still yet to write a full-scale review of The Evil of the Daleks (though there was, of course, a small one that appeared in Liberator a good decade and a half ago and which I probably couldn’t lay my hands on in a hurry), if you read what I have to say on its early Patrick Troughton Liberal stablemate The Macra Terror, you might find very much the same point of view. Of all the Doctor Who stories which are political not just in the series’ overall tone but fiercely so in detail, that’s one of the best places to start.




And in at number 16 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.

Labels: Doctor Who, Environment, In-Depth Doctor Who, Liberalism, Liberator, Outpost Gallifrey Reprints, Personal, The Brigadier, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton, Why Is Doctor Who Brilliant?

Today’s opinion polls show the Liberal Democrats surging to second place over Labour. But, as you shouldn’t be too excited about one day’s figures, you should note that only most polls are predicting the Lib Dems as this week’s big gainers – a couple suggest the United Kingdom Independence Party. Which should you pick? Unsurprisingly, I’m calling for the Lib Dems… But only on three issues. On the fourth, you should vote UKIP. Either way, it’s appropriate the polls make the big fight one between the two parties with the most straightforward views on Europe: make it work, or retreat. Both the Liberal Democrats and UKIP are promising a referendum on whether Britain stays in the European Union or pull out, but the Liberal Democrats want us to vote to stay in and get things done, while UKIP wants us to vote to close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears and ignore the world.

The other parties are somewhere in the middle. The Conservatives want to sound as anti-European as they possibly can without actually following the logic of their ranting and getting out – I suspect because, deep down, they realise that leaving the European Union would both destroy the British economy and leave them with no-one to blame, so they’d rather shout abuse than take responsibility. The Tories are even leaving the biggest, most influential group in the European Parliament – where all Europe’s mainstream conservative parties join together to get things done – to form a tiny sect with a Czech party that opposes any action to stop climate change and a Polish party that’s rabidly homophobic and calls President Obama’s election “the end of white man’s civilisation”. And those are the nice ones. The Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party (clue’s in the name there) have a swastika-like logo and are big fans of the SS. Yes, that SS. No wonder former Conservative ministers are calling Mr Cameron’s plans a “rigid commitment to impotence,” when the modern Conservative Party is even voting to let crooks and murderers go free rather than co-operate to stop crime across borders.

Labour are even less honest, knowing that Europe is good for Britain but too gutless to say so, instead wrapping themselves in the flag and being as vacuous as possible. We got our single Labour leaflet through the other day, which largely consisted of a union flag and very little writing. Until we saw the small Labour logo at the bottom, we assumed it was from the BNP.

Speaking of which, all the other parties are pretty much at one in being rabidly anti-European, so they’re much of a muchness (some bigger liars than others). I hope the polls are right and the BNP are polling too low to win any seats; the only other party that might get anywhere are the Greens, who are likely to keep their existing couple of MEPs but not get anywhere else. And even they, unlike all the mainstream Green Parties in Europe, are on the me-too anti-European bandwagon. I hope they’re being exactly the same as all the other knee-jerk anti-foreigner British parties because they’re cynically trying to get votes, rather than because they actually believe it, but either way, it’s a massive fail on achieving anything. If you want to tackle climate change and protect the environment, you need to work with other countries – pollution doesn’t stop at the Channel. The self-styled “Green Party” talks a good talk, but they don’t do anything about delivery. Only the Liberal Democrats actually want to make the European Union work for real green action.

So, here are the choices.

If you want simply to hit Labour hard, vote Liberal Democrat.

Put simply, most polls are showing that the Liberal Democrats are the party most likely to push Labour into third place. Today’s ICM poll puts us clearly ahead of them. So if you want to give Labour a good kicking, the most effective way is to vote Lib Dem and see us beat Labour in the popular vote. Although I don’t like the top-down nature of the electoral system for the Euro-elections, which gives far too much power to parties and not enough to the people, it does have the advantage that it at least reflects people’s votes for parties more accurately. So while at Westminster we have a two and a half party system in terms of which parties win seats, for the Euro-elections there’s effectively a four and a half party system in terms of who’s got a realistic chance.

Now, though most opinion polls show UKIP on a much lower vote than they got in 2004, there are a couple that put them, rather than the Liberal Democrats, in second place. Assuming for the sake of argument that that’s true, they’re much less worrying to Labour. If Labour are beaten by UKIP, they can say, well, they’re no threat at the General Election, because they’ve never yet won a seat at Westminster (though one MP has left the Tories to join them). But the Liberal Democrats have 63 MPs, winning quite a few seats from Labour at the last General Election, and are an even bigger threat to them next time. Being beaten by the Liberal Democrats – as we’ve done in several local elections in the last few years – leaves Labour with no crumb of comfort.

If you want to get stuck in and make the European Union work, vote Liberal Democrat.

We are stronger together, poorer apart.

The Liberal Democrats are a pro-European party. A lot of the time, we seem like the only pro-European party. And it’s precisely for that reason that we want to make the European Union work better, and work together with a large and influential Liberal group from many countries in the European Parliament. We’ve always called for reform – because we can see the good that Europe can do, it frustrates us when it’s petty, undemocratic or secretive. That’s why for many years we’ve had practical proposals for cutting back waste like the Common Agricultural Policy, for having EU decisions taken by the elected Parliament, not the unelected Commission, and freedom of information at all levels, particularly for the Council of Ministers, where national governments make decisions in secret and then pretend to blame other people. The other parties don’t care about making the EU more open, more democratic, more effective – because they like to campaign against it, and the less well it works, the more they can shift the blame from themselves onto other countries.

In a world of globalisation, the European Union is vital. Not only has it kept the peace amongst all its member states – for the first time in a thousand years – but it’s where the large majority of Britain’s trade takes place. Outside the EU, we’d still have to trade with all the same people… But we’d no longer have any influence on the rules. How mad is that? Countries working together can tackle the global economic crisis, promote free trade, save jobs, make the banks behave – one country on its own simply can’t. They can protect civil liberties, from global corporations and big governments alike. Gangsters, murderers and terrorists can all be dealt with far more effectively in cross-border co-operation, but anti-European parties like the Conservatives have voted to let them all go free rather than work with other countries. And that’s insane. Above all, we need to tackle climate change and other environmental problems, the biggest threat to humanity. And you just can’t do that in one tiny bit of the world. The more we work with other countries, the stronger we push for common standards, the longer our planet will last. Vote Liberal Democrat to get things done.

If you want to stop the world and get off, vote UKIP.

Obviously, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP are united on one issue, which is to have a referendum on whether or not the UK should stay a member of the European Union, though if we get that referendum the two parties will be leading the opposite sides. So if you like the Liberal Democrats on every other issue but want to leave, you can vote for us without worrying. However, if you’re anti-immigrant, socially conservative, don’t believe in climate change and your main political aim is to pull out of the European Union and pull up the drawbridge against all ‘foreigners’, please vote UKIP, because they’re very slightly less horrible than the BNP.

Don’t vote for them, though, if you want to affect European politics in any more constructive way than just to stick two fingers up to the lot. Despite UKIP complaining that too many of Britain’s laws are made in Europe, they never turn up to vote against them, or for them, or to change them… They simply never turn up. Their attendance record at the European Parliament proves that, rather than critics or champions, they’re Britain’s laziest politicians, taking the money but not doing any work on the laws they pretend are so important. UKIP are the party of thieves and layabouts.

If you want cleaner, more open politics, vote Liberal Democrat.

This week, Nick Clegg launched a campaign for ordinary people to take back power and clean up politics. This morning, David Cameron and Gordon Brown have been trying to jump on the bandwagon. The Liberal Democrats have spent years voting for freedom of information and reform in Parliament, but being defeated by Labour and Tory MPs – so it’s no wonder that the Liberal Democrats have the smallest share of MPs of any party being accused by the Torygraph (even if all their facts are right) and over the most minor things. Not one Liberal Democrat MP has been accused of the big frauds, like Labour MPs’ house-flipping, non-existent mortgages or tax-dodging, or of the lavish luxuries, like Tory MPs’ duck islands, servants’ quarters or moats. UKIP’s one MP, on the other hand, was a strong supporter of the corrupt Speaker who blocked reform, voted against freedom of information about MPs’ expenses (all the Lib Dem MPs supported it) and has been accused in the expenses scandal. So 100% of UKIP MPs are dodgy.

In the firestorm engulfing all parties about expenses, UKIP were leading the way. Unfortunately, they weren’t leading the way on openness or cleanness, but on corruption. Only one Conservative MEP’s been shown to be a crook, but two UKIP MEPs have – one even went to prison for fraud. Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader, boasted last week about pocketing two million pounds in expenses when he thought the microphone was off. UKIP and the Liberal Democrats each had twelve MEPs elected in 2004, and both parties have lost one MEP through defections – in UKIP’s case, the man promoted as their effective leader last time, Robert Kilroy-Silk – but, on the bright side, no Liberal Democrat MEPs have been accused of corruption. Instead, Liberal Democrats have been in the forefront of opening up the European Parliament, publishing their expenses and campaigning for reform. Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies has been called the Parliament’s most unpopular man for constantly whistle-blowing and calling for change. When it came to the big vote in the European Parliament on cutting MEPs’ expenses and forcing them to be open, the Liberal Democrat MEPs voted in favour of change. Most of the Tory and Labour MEPs voted against. And the UKIP MEPs, as usual, didn’t even bother to turn up. So if you want to vote to clean up politics, UKIP are the party of thieves and layabouts. Liberal Democrat MEPs are the ones who’ve actually voted to get things done.


There’s one other issue that you might be considering, and that’s how to stop the racist, lying, loathsome BNP. This is more complicated, but I’ll have a go. The first thing is, I doubt the BNP will get any MEPs. They never have before, even when – like now – Labour has been cynically talking up the BNP in the hope of frightening traditional Labour voters back into the fold. And the media talk up the BNP because ‘ooh, scary fascists’ is a sexier story than talking about European issues. I can’t rule out, though, that some people are lying to the opinion pollsters because they’re too ashamed to say they’ll vote BNP, but will anyway. How can you make it even less likely that they’ll win a seat?

In London and the North-West, two regions where the BNP are relatively strong (but still a long way down), the best party to vote for to stop them is definitely the Liberal Democrats. In other regions of Britain, the best way to judge a tactical vote is to look at last time’s results. Each region elects only a certain number of MEPs, so check who was the last one elected, or the runner-up, then judge how the votes are going. Sometimes the tactical vote might be Labour (though they’re likely to be losing a lot of votes and seats), or Conservative, or even, in some places, UKIP, though that hardly counts as a vote against the far right. In the two examples I mentioned, the Liberal Democrats won two MEPs last time in the North-West. Our second seat there was the last elected, and prevented the BNP from winning a seat last time. So your best bet is to vote Liberal Democrat to stop them again. In London, polls suggest that the Greens will hold their single MEP, but have no chance of getting a second. Liberal Democrat Jonathan Fryer, though, was only 0.06% of Londoners’ votes short of becoming the Lib Dems’ second London MEP last time. So, a Liberal Democrat vote should be able to give him just that tiny bit extra he needs to be elected. Besides, if you really want to make the BNP miserable after the election, can you think of a better way to do it than making sure the MEP that takes the place they were hoping for is from the most internationalist party, the most socially Liberal party, and, in London, an out gay man?


Update: For a more personal and considered post on UKIP, read Andrew’s. But then, as UKIP would point out, I’m the son of an immigrant, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Update: Mary Reid has more on the Tories’ new partners in Europe, with Ed Davey’s questions on why they find working more closely with other countries offensive, but are happy to form a club with homophobes, anti-Muslims, climate change deniers and Nazi sympathisers, clearly all of which they find acceptable and congenial, as they’re literally going out of their way to do it.




And in at number 79 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Corruption, Environment, European Politics, Gay, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Nationalism, Polls, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton, UKIP

This morning’s ICM poll puts Labour in third place for both the General and European Elections, beaten by the Liberal Democrats, for the first time in two decades. That underlines why the Lib Dems are the best choice on Thursday, whether you’re voting to make the European Union work better or just to hit the Labour Government where it hurts. The negative and the positive cases are clear in today’s newspapers: The Sunday Telegraph calls the Lib Dem surge “the worst possible news” for Gordon Brown; The Observer calls for a Liberal Democrat vote as the best party on Europe. I’m voting for the party that best expresses my view on Europe – the Liberal Democrats. But I have to admit, voting to do real damage to Gordon Brown’s Labour Government is a very satisfying bonus.

The Observer comes off the fence today and calls for a positive, not protest, Liberal Democrat vote in the Euro-elections as the best party on the issues:

“There is a pressing need in this country for advocacy of the EU as a good in itself, as opposed to something distasteful that occasionally suits our interests. That view does not preclude criticism of European institutions, but it eschews wrecking tactics against them.

“Nick Clegg is the most instinctively European leader at Westminster. That is currently a lonely position, but the Lib Dems have a decent record of taking minority stands that are later vindicated. On the environment, on civil liberties and on the mounting debt bubble, the Lib Dems were quietly but consistently ahead of the Westminster curve.

“Likewise on transparency. In 2007, they opposed the Conservative move, tacitly encouraged by Labour, to exempt Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The Lib Dems alone took a party line for openness.

“While MPs from all parties are tainted, the parties themselves are not equally guilty. A credible record of support for transparency and for constitutional reform reflects well on Nick Clegg's team.

“This Thursday's vote is being held in a uniquely febrile climate. It should be about Europe; it will be about the expenses scandal. On both counts, it is a moment to reward the principled consistency of the Liberal Democrats.”

After the explosion on MPs’ expenses, columnist Andrew Rawnsley assesses the three parties’ proposals on constitutional reform and voting reform and suggests that the party to trust on changing things is the one that’s always argued for it, rather than the ones who’ve always voted against but suddenly find it fashionable. The Guardian, too, issued slightly half-hearted praise for the Liberal Democrats last week. Jennie has a vivid round-up of today’s Lib Dem news stories.

Today’s ICM poll for a potential General Election vote puts the Conservative Party at 40% (+1 from the previous poll), the Liberal Democrats surging to 25% (+5), and Labour at their lowest since polling began on 22% (-6). Asking the same people their voting intentions for this week’s Euro-elections – nothing about the county council elections – the figures are Conservative 29% (-1), Liberal Democrat 20% (+2), Labour 17% (-7), Green 11% (+2), UKIP 10% (no change) and BNP 5% (+4). Even for the General Election vote, where there’s far lower support for the minor parties and all of the three main parties are higher, the Liberal Democrats are slightly up on our vote at the last General Election, while Labour have lost nearly half their vote. Yes, I know, it’s almost impossible to believe. Over half of the people who voted Labour last time are still planning to. Where do they find them?

I don’t trust individual opinion polls, though ICM is usually the most reliable pollster, but there’s been a long run of them now showing Labour’s vote disintegrating. The question is, where is it going, and – for actual votes rather than just poring over polls – where would the most effective place be for you to put it? A Populus poll the other day, for example, gave very similar figures, except for putting the Liberal Democrats noticeably lower than other polls and UKIP noticeably higher. We don’t know what the result will be, of course, but in most polls the Lib Dems have been up on their European Election vote four years ago, with UKIP generally down. So it’s possible that either today’s poll or the previous one may be a ‘rogue’ poll (one that’s simply wrong). I would usually expect the Lib Dems to do worse in Euro-elections than in General Elections, with us getting our best votes in local elections, not just because the system enables other parties to make a breakthrough (which hurts each of the three main parties), but simply because Euro-elections are fought on a massive regional basis, and Liberal Democrat bottom-up campaigning is most effective the smaller the area. I’d say hold your breath, but probably more effective to get out campaigning this week, just in case…


Update: I’ve split this article into two and moved the original continuation of it, on the Liberal Democrats versus UKIP, into a piece of its own; I thought it read better that way. It makes more of the case why if you want to hit Labour hard, you should vote Liberal Democrat.




And in at number 59 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.

Labels: British Politics, European Politics, Liberal Democrats, Polls, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton

I rarely watch The Daily Politics except for Wednesdays, after forgetting to watch Prime Minister’s Questions. Today’s boasted all my usual reasons for not watching (unfailingly smug tosser Andrew Neil, Labour apparatchik, Tory sneerer, Tory Press Office’s own Nick Robinson and no Lib Dem), but the lucky Labour Party were handed a late Christmas present. Presented with Norman Tebbit, Labour’s oleaginous Phil Woolas couldn’t believe his luck. On their loathsomely racist immigration policies, you can’t slip a BNP membership card between Mr Woolas and Lord Tebbit, but as a reminder of the wicked ’80s, Lord Tebbit was an open goal.

Bring Back the ’80s! But Only If They’re Ken Clarke

David Cameron’s attempt to present a new Conservatives has so many problems, the poor lamb. He opens his mouth or one of his palatial residences and you think of the Nineteenth Century old rich Tories, of course, but the main problem he’s been desperate to distance himself from is the last century, and the 1980s in particular. He tries not to mention it all, but that decade keeps coming back: his activists scream that he must or he’s an apostate of the Church of Thatchianity; and Labour’s principal, increasingly shrill and desperate message has for years been, ‘We’re shit, and we know we are, but, oooooh! The Tories! Scary!’

At the moment, we’re led to believe Mr Cameron’s wrestling with whether to bring back the Conservative ’80s sole remaining asset, Ken Clarke, to the front bench. In his usual decisive way, the papers have been reporting that he’s been trying to make up his mind over this simple question for the last couple of months, but – though I first remember him as a Thatcherite ultra prompting every ambulance worker in the land to go on strike, and his main activity over the past few years has been to export cancer to kids – to everyone except Mr Cameron it seems a no-brainer. Ken Clarke doesn’t just have a brain (an independent-minded one, at that), but is the only affable-seeming Tory to have come out of the ’80s. Arguably the only affable-seeming Tory in the last couple of decades, too, saving Mr Cameron’s lordly condescension to us all. And, of course, Mr Cameron’s right-hand man Mr Osborne is plainly such a useless lightweight that he really needs someone who looks like he has a clue about the economy. Only two things can possibly have prevented Mr Cameron from announcing Mr Clarke’s triumphant re-entry months ago. One is that, stood next to Mr Osborne as his main lieutenant, Mr Cameron can’t help but look capable and charismatic. Stood next to Mr Clarke… Oh dear. The other reason is, of course, that when I said to everyone except Mr Cameron it seems a no-brainer, I was excluding the swivel-eyed Tory maniacs who want Mr Clarke executed as a traitor (I’d like to say I’m exaggerating some of the views on ConHome for comic effect, but…) for not sharing their knee-jerk Tebbitastic hate of all things beyond the Channel Tunnel (or, indeed, north of Watford).

Tebbit Returns; Labourites Cry With Synthetic Outrage and Genuine Joy

The last thing that Mr Cameron needs, then, is for almost any Tory from the ’80s who isn’t Ken Clarke to rear their philosophically ugly head. So, if he retired from today’s PMQs to see any of Andrew Neil’s self-satisfied nonsense, he can only have groaned, reached for a crucifix, been grateful that very few people watch The Daily Politics and hoped none of it gets pulled out for the news. Because quite literally the worst person to appear for the Conservative case right now, given that Mrs Thatcher is in no fit state to be interviewed, is Norman Tebbit. He has in common with Ken Clarke that he was part of Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet and one of the driving forces of the Thatcherite revolution, but more importantly that he’s one of the very few Tories that a significant section of the population will still instantly recognise (sagging types of my age and older, but still quite a few). And that’s not good. Where Mr Clarke gives an impression of likeability and empathy with the ‘ordinary bloke’, his image of lazy indulgence now all the more appealing after a decade of Labour’s shrill, bullying Puritanism, Norman Tebbit is forever the Spitting Image bovver boy incarnation of Thatcherite callousness, divisiveness and just plain nastiness.

As I’ve said so many times, but still so many thousand times fewer than Labour have, Labour’s main election pitch has long been reduced to ‘We’re shit, and we know we are, but, oooooh! The Tories! Scary!’ Unfortunately for them, this works less and less, like the Tories attacking Labour for the Winter of Discontent well into the ’90s (which they did, to increasingly risible effect): Mr Cameron isn’t associated with the ’80s; many voters no longer remember them anyway; after more than a decade of Labour, the present government have stored up more than a few of their own negatives, persistently dragging up to be as harsh and nasty as the Tories were and now seeming as rubbish as John Major on top; above all, Mr Cameron has worked as hard as he’s capable to try and ‘detoxify the Tory brand’ (despite that being as ’80s a piece of marketing speak as you’re likely to hear). Labour still have no idea of how to attack Mr Cameron – their ‘he’d do nothing’ charge at last has some bite, but their instinctive reaction remains ‘He’s a toff!’ Well, Tony Blair was also in the country’s top 1% of poshness, so while Labour are exercising some of their residual self-loathing over him, most of the country just don’t care. So imagine their delight whenever Norman Tebbit appears. If only the Tories ditched David Cameron and had Lord Tebbit as Leader, Labour would be in heaven. Whether they won the election or not, there’s no doubt that’s the dream election they yearn to fight.

Labour Are Tebbit’s Disgusting Race-Baiting Heirs

So, though Phil Woolas is both deeply unpleasant and almost always wheedling and ineffective, pitched against Norman Tebbit on a show about the economy, even he couldn’t fail to score. One of my defining early political experiences was the newly formed Liberal Democrats, pretty much at their lowest in 1989, alone in standing up for the rights of Hong Kong British citizens. Mrs Thatcher’s Government wanted to stand by our promises to only the richest, offering citizenship by bribery; but that wasn’t racist enough for Norman Tebbit and his fellow travellers in the Labour Party. Mr Tebbit led a Tory rebellion against Mrs Thatcher to stop anyone with the wrong colour skin entering Britain, and the Labour Party voted with him. Two decades later, Mr Woolas is one of the most shameless exponents of New Tebbit authoritarian bigot-pandering, but you’d never have known how much he’s one of Norman Tebbit’s ideological bedfellows by watching The Daily Politics today.

Both Mr Woolas and Lord Tebbit had messages they wanted to get over today, and they each repeated theirs endlessly. For Mr Woolas, it was that the economic meltdown is a global economic crisis; for Lord Tebbit, it was that, if Labour had run the economy better during the good times, they wouldn’t be in this mess now. Despite messages coming in from viewers scorning Mr Woolas’ crib sheet in pretty much his very parroted words, Mr Woolas won hands down. That’s because Lord Tebbit made two very stupid mistakes. The more minor one was laughing when Mr Woolas’ string was pulled and the line came out again. Suddenly, the Labour muppet came alive. Much as his opponent protested that he was only mocking the repeated excuse, Mr Woolas laid into him with shining eyes and the fervour of being able at last to attack the ‘real’ Tories he’d grown up with. My constituents who are out of work won’t thank you for laughing at them, he snarled, to Norman the Idiot. But of course you’re a monetarist, he went on, so we know you and the Tories have always stood back and not cared when people lose their jobs. And, in a recession, everyone who remotely remembers him nods and thinks, yes, that Labour git’s right, the Tories were horrible, and out of touch, and they never cared about unemployment.

Norman Tebbit’s biggest mistake, though, was in indulging his monstrous ego by turning up at all. He lacks the most rudimentary self-awareness. In the ’80s, his uncompromising working class Tory made good image appealed to almost as many people as it repelled. Today, all that’s gone. No-one remembers his life story, and he’s a Lord – he can’t pretend to be ‘in touch’ any more. All he is is a walking billboard for Labour’s wish-fulfilment campaign against the callous, laughing-at-unemployment Tory Government of a quarter-century ago. In short, he is everything David Cameron wants people to forget. If Norman Tebbit wants the Tories to win the next election, he should climb back into his coffin and refuse the bait of any media appearances. He’s been a blast from the past and a mere embarrassment for most of Mr Cameron’s tenure, but in the current economic climate, he’s pure poison. Every time he pops up, he can only do his party harm.

Of course, I’d love him to be all over the airwaves, too, but at least the Liberal Democrats have something positive to say in the event of the Tories not being self-destructively stupid.


In other news of Labour’s out-of-work-in-progress completion of Mrs Thatcher’s thousand-bomber-raids on British industry, the last television factory in the country has closed. For obvious reasons, I’m rather sad about that.




And in at number 49 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.

Labels: Bigotry, British Politics, Conservatives, History, Labour, Stupid Ideas, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton