Love and Liberty

Next week there’ll be a new Liberal Democrat Leader. One candidate’s team says they have it in the bag; the other adopts the more traditional Lib Dem approach that it’s too close to call. My own tip to get the vote out is that a first class stamp may now be risky with the Christmas post, but that if you’re in London and really want to make sure, the ERS office in Clarendon Road is only a few minutes’ walk from Turnpike Lane (Piccadilly Line Tube). Er, not that I’ve ever delivered a ballot paper very near to the deadline. Perish the thought. But as a bonus, if you’re there just before midday on Saturday you might well run into Simon Hughes, as I once did at a similarly late stage.

The Unmissable Blogs

If you’re still wavering at the last minute – or if you’ve already voted and are agonising over whether you did the right thing – these are what for me are the must-read blog entries of the last few weeks of the Leadership contest. First, of course, is Andy Darley’s viciously barbed piece where he argues that one candidate may not be up to it while the other’s effective but a bastard: unmissable if you want to find out which is a “ripe peach” and which a “pirate submarine”. I feel quite a lot more enthusiastic about both than Andy does, but still agree with a lot of his analysis in a more ‘glass half-full’ way.

For arguments in favour of each candidate by incisive writers who thought long and hard before making their decisions, you can’t beat James Graham’s persuasive argument that while Chris has the right answers for now, Nick is asking the right questions for where we and the country need to be – unless it’s with Rob Fenwick’s mirror conclusion that Chris is ready to be Leader now, while Nick remains something of a blank canvas. Then, of course, there’s the lovely Andy Strange, with whom I got into an entertaining debate down the pub after the London Leadership Hustings when I told him I found his argument persuasive, but in diametrically the opposite way to that he meant.

There’s also my own piece from a few weeks ago on what a Leader’s for. Whether or not it’s any good, it still sums up much of what I feel about the contest (and thanks in particular to Alix and Jennie for being so nice about it!). I can still see advantages in each candidate that the other lacks, and drawbacks that the other doesn’t share: primarily that they’re Blake and Avon; vision versus vigour; that Nick’s more likely to be liked, while Chris is more likely to be heard. And both their slogans are still rubbish. Thankfully, the vitriol has calmed down enormously since I wrote about it – well done Linda, particularly, who’s now far more positive and far more persuasive, and I notice that some of the anonymous blogs clearly set up to attack Chris have dried up.

The Vince Problem

I will be happy with either of the potential victors on Monday, but whichever wins I desperately want the other’s talents in play too. I still hope that either will give the other a very top job – and, as I hope to justify in detail in a future article, I’ll commit heresy by saying that Saint Vince should stand aside as Deputy Leader and the MPs should vote it to the runner-up. Not that I think that’s likely, unfortunately. The success that Vince has had as acting Leader creates too problems. He’s probably unsackable, and is unlikely to want to give up either of his two top jobs – even though that’s one too many. The bigger but less controversial problem is again down to his strong performance.

Vince has ‘steadied the ship’, given us positive press coverage for the first time in ages, and raised party morale a bit at the gloomiest time for us for two decades. In the deadly terms of the media contest, unfortunately, that means that whoever comes next has to follow Vince the Success, while Vince only had to follow Ming the Failure. And it remains a fact that no Liberal Democrat Leader has ever seen a media honeymoon and opinion poll success immediately after their election. That the new guy’ll be called on to make an impression over Christmas – when there’s no opportunity to grandstand, and none of the public will be watching even if they try it – is probably giving each of them sleepless nights.

The best of luck to whoever wins. And if you haven’t yet voted, get down to the Post Box or, ideally, to the Tube. I won’t see you and Simon there on Saturday… But I confess I’ll be carrying two ballot papers to North London tomorrow morning!

Labels: Blogs, British Politics, Leaders' Debate, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, Top Tips

Labour spin doctors seem confused as to what differentiates their many crooks from our one crook from a few years ago. Here’s a handy guide to spotting the difference.

One donor approached the Liberal Democrats – not the other way round – and offered a large donation. We never offered any favours. He never asked for any. He never received any. Watchdog the Electoral Commission says we made all the right checks, and he looked all right. After months of investigation with nothing to do with the Liberal Democrats, police and fraud inspectors found out he was actually a crook. The donation to the Liberal Democrats was fully, openly declared and no-one, including the Electoral Commission, could spot anything dodgy in it at the time. Many months later, the man himself turned out to be dodgy, but that was all his finances, with nothing special about the political ones.

As people who deal in large-scale financial irregularity cover their traces rather well, it was impossible for the Liberal Democrats to have known better than the months of official investigation. Impossible under the current law, that is. Even Labour’s disregard for the Rule of Law and grievous misuse of state power has yet to result in them making it legal for political parties to have paramilitary forces authorised to march in and demand details from any private individual that takes their fancy. We have to rely on the legal process, and absolutely no-one knew at the time there was anything dodgy about the man. Not the Liberal Democrats, not his business partners, not any of the other people to whom he donated or with whom he spent money. And not the police or fraud investigators who had to put in so much effort to catch him.

It’s been a PR disaster for the Lib Dems, and if we were rolling in it I’m sure we’d have given the same amount away somewhere to make a small dent in the man’s debts and make ourselves look better. Unlike Labour, we don’t have unions to bail us out, so £2.4 million – about as much as we usually get every couple of years – would be an incredibly expensive and self-indulgent spin-doctoring gesture. He was a millionaire. He spent lots of money, some of it given to us. His finances went under and left some people in the lurch. It’s natural they go after who’ll get them the most publicity rather than his tailor, his yacht merchant or the people he got his mansion from. But shifting the money around would just create a different set of victims of a man pretending he had more money than he really did and make a different set of people out of pocket, rather than making things ‘right’. The crook is not any of the people he conned: it’s the con-man.

Labour – Many Dodgy Finances Rather Than a Single Dodgy Financier

Several donors approached the Labour Party, but many others were approached by Labour fundraisers. Labour had made huge political capital in the ’90s by exploiting Tory sleaze. To pose as cleaner than clean, they brought in new laws to stop the Tories getting funding in the same dodgy ways they used to. But, short of financial capital, Labour also exploited the sleazy loopholes they’d mysteriously left in their own legislation. At least the Tories were up-front about being greedy bastards and didn’t lecture the rest of us about probity while stuffing their pockets with used fivers! So, Labour are hypocrites. Well, we all know that. It’s evident Labour didn’t bring in these laws to ‘clean up politics’ at all. They just brought them in to attack the Tories. As ever, they see law as a political weapon for the Labour Party and not anything to do with the public good.

There was nothing hidden about the Liberal Democrat donation – none of the checks we could make gave us any hint of anything dodgy, so we had no reason to hide anything. But everything is hidden about Labour’s donors. Because they brought in strict controls on ‘donations’, the Labour Party came up with ‘loans’ as crooked way to avoid the law. The people who gave Labour ‘loans’ could stay secret, even if they were never to be repaid and the ‘creditors’ were then mysteriously offered peerages. In contrast, the few people who loaned money to the Liberal Democrats were always fully declared (the letter of the law said they didn’t have to be; the Liberal Democrats felt the spirit of the law meant we should), and interests paid. We were the only party to do that but, really, how hard can it be?

Pop fact: every single person who’s given over a million pounds to the Labour Party has received either a knighthood or a peerage. No, the police couldn’t find enough evidence to charge a particular individual, but we all know what was going on there. As a stranded Miss Piggy exclaims when a motorbike falls off the back of the lorry right next to her:

“What an unbelievable coincidence!”

So, then, are Labour crooks, or Muppets? Well, just look at their other scheme to avoid the law – well, I should say their other scheme that’s so far come to light; who knows how many more they’ve come up with – which is to have a rich donor give money to a friend or employee, who then gives it to Labour. This ‘loophole’ was such a blindingly obvious bit of fraud that even Labour’s full-of-possibly-deliberate-holes legislation plugged it. It’s explicitly illegal, and the Electoral Commission made that absolutely clear to every political party. It’s only Labour, who made up the law, who’ve been caught red-handed breaking it. Now they want us to believe it’s because they were too stupid and incompetent rather than too crooked. So, you decide: crooks or Muppets? I don’t really want either running the country.

Coincidentally, Labour donor-by-crooked-proxy Mr Abrahams needed planning permission for his new business park and Labour gave it. Well, makes a change from a peerage. Like the ‘cash for coronets’ scandal, this one means Labour are to be investigated by the police, again, going right up to the Prime Minister, again, though this time the new one. Unlike the last Prime Minister, the scandal the new one’s presiding over is so blatantly illegal that even Mr Brown has admitted it was all against the law. Mr Abrahams, meanwhile, has whined that he’s been treated like a criminal. How shocking, in this day and age, that a criminal should be called a criminal. It shouldn’t happen to a member of the Labour Party, as they all no doubt believe!

The Final Difference

The donation to the Liberal Democrats was – as well as fully and openly declared – a one-off. It didn’t try to evade the law, but simply came from what turned out much later to be the wrong man, and we know there aren’t any other large donations to us lurking.

The donations to the Labour Party – as well as trying several different sleazy and hypocritical ways to get around Labour’s own laws – have all been going on well into this year, and precisely because they’ve been hidden all along we have no idea if they’re still happening. That’s the trouble with under-the-counter dealings. We know that Labour officials have come up with illegal schemes to get untraceable money. So how do we know Ray Ruddick Mickey Mouse Janet Kidd Jon Mendelsohn John McCarthy Peter Watt Janet Dunn John Poulson David Abrahams is the only one?

Mind you, at least the Liberal Democrats now have a dodgy donor in our history in this century. Yes, it’s from a few years back unlike the still-ongoing Labour ones, but I’d got tired of desperate Labour spin doctors squeaking “Lloyd George!” at us in pretend shock (their previous laughable soundbite), so by comparison they’re almost bang up to date. Funny that they never mention Robert Maxwell when they go into history like this, the man who put millions upon millions into supporting the Labour Party, when the Labour Party’s never paid a penny to his victims. Must have slipped their minds. They can’t claim that no-one knew he was a crook, after all; it didn’t take months of official investigation to send the danger signals, when brave journalists like, oh, one Chris Huhne were busy exposing him while Labour were proud to be in receipt of Mr Maxwell’s largesse. I wish we’d never had any bad apples, but according to the smears of Labour’s own apologists we have one every eighty years. At the moment, a Labour crook seems to be surfacing every eighty minutes. Saying ‘every party does it’ is a desperate, desperate attempt by an institutionally corrupt party headed by crooks and hypocrites to divert attention from their own lawbreaking. Shameful.

What’s the difference, then, in the end? Someone approached the Liberal Democrats and offered us money and, naïvely, we took it. Much later, months of police investigation exposed him as a crook. What Labour did was go out themselves to approach lots of people and conspire with them in several ways to get money by deliberately avoiding or deliberately breaking the law. They then coincidentally got favours from the Labour Party.

There is all the difference in the world.

Labels: British Politics, Corruption, Labour, Liberal Democrats

…Is what I’d normally say if an MEP’s defection got a just brief interview at a quarter to seven in the morning and no mention in the radio or online headlines. But a teeny little partisan bit of me is relieved that the defection of Sajjad Karim to the Tories isn’t bigger news.

It’s a shame to lose him; he’s a hard-working MEP, and seemed a relatively decent man. He didn’t sound hugely convincing talking about David Cameron’s “vision” on the Today Programme this morning, though. If Mr Karim knows what that is, he’s the only person in Britain that does. I suspect a more accurate interpretation of his reason for leaving, but one that’s no less a worry for the Liberal Democrats, is the recent result of the North-West European elections list ballot that seems to have triggered his decision.

Mr Karim – far from declaring his new-found Conservative vision – was an enthusiastic contender in this all-member Liberal Democrat election. I believe he was elected relatively narrowly last time, and that the number of seats in that region (as in most others) is being reduced. With Liberal Democrat members voting for him to be in the same place as he was last time, second, it looks like he thought his job was safer in the Tories. Not an ideological threat, then, but an electoral one is enough for us (and our forthcoming new Leader) to worry about.

I can console myself that the only time I’ve noticed Mr Karim talking about anything controversial rather than just plodding on doing a good job for his constituents (which he does), I thought he was depressingly illiberal, and said so. Not a patch on Evan Harris standing up for free speech to beat extremists on this morning’s Today Programme. But I won’t pretend ideological purity beats regret at his joining the Tories – and I suspect he may not find them as congenial a home.

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Defections, European Politics, Liberal Democrats

I have strange thoughts when I’m a bit bleary. Well, all the time, really, but watching David Davis talking to Andy Marr just now I was struck by the two people he seems to be turning into.

Now, I don’t like the man or many of his more loathsome views, but I’ve long thought he was the most effective Tory spokesperson and, to his credit, he stuck up for some civil liberties when the rest of his party didn’t – against ID cards when the rest of them thought they were a great idea for bossing people about, for example. A week and a half ago, as Paul Walter noted with a shudder, both aspects were on display on the Today Programme: he showed just how effective / dangerous (take your pick) he was by effortlessly ‘winning’ a tough interview of the sort that regularly has David Cameron whimpering; and, even more impressively, I agreed with every word as he forcefully demolished the Labour Government’s bullying desire to lock people up for two months without charge.

Watching his face today, though, it’s not his political Jekyll and Hyde liberal / illiberal stance that struck me. Or if it was, it was in a Dorian Gray way, that both were having their effect on the image I saw on the screen. Is it just me, or is he turning into an uncanny mix of Paddy Ashdown and the Emperor from the Star Wars films? Just take a look at that chiselled jaw, those tightly-narrowed eyes, but also that ghastly pallor, that ‘craggy’ becoming distorted as all that use of the Dark Side begins to take its toll.

Even his outstretched-hand-turned-to-the-side gesture looks like he can’t make up his mind between ‘dead spider’ and ‘Force lightning’.

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Star Wars

Pope Benedict has today appointed 24 new Cardinals, increasing the number of Conclave electors for his eventual successor by a fifth in one swoop (after appointing another 15 new Cardinals last year). Catholics round the world rejoiced at this one man, one vote election’s swing from extremely conservative to unbelievably conservative.

‘I’m not running the risk of them electing another wet liberal like me,’ said Pope Benedict (formerly ‘Cardinal Rottweiler’).

Labels: Religion

On this day in 1963, the very first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast. It’s fantastic that it’s still going strong, but the celebrations have been dampened by the very sad news today that the show’s first producer, Verity Lambert, has died at the age of 71. Forty-four years ago, she was not just the youngest producer at the BBC but their only woman producer, and after making Doctor Who a huge success she became one of the legendary figures of British TV, producing such landmark television as The Naked Civil Servant, G.B.H., Minder, Jonathan Creek and Adam Adamant Lives! She even oversaw the 1979 revival of Quatermass.

Verity Lambert was a central figure in British TV through five decades, winning BAFTAs, gaining an OBE, with two of her productions voted in 2000 as the third and fourth Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th Century in a British Film Institute poll of the Top 100 – Doctor Who and The Naked Civil Servant. If you’ve watched TV drama, you’ve probably seen something of hers; if you’ve watched any of those documentaries about the best dramas, you’ll probably have seen one of her charismatic, forthright and incisive interviews; in several just this year, she looked and sounded on top form. It’s dreadful to know she’s so suddenly gone. It’s difficult to oversell her contribution to the industry as both a creative force and a businesswoman.

Still working this year, it was announced just hours before her death that she was to receive a third award (following others in 1991 and 1997) from Working Title Films, this time for lifetime achievement. Sadly she’ll not pick up her award on December 7th, but she’ll be remembered.

Verity Lambert was also recognised on-screen as the Doctor’s ‘mother’ in this spring’s outstanding story Human Nature / The Family of Blood, in which the Doctor becomes a human and, of course, there was only one name he could remember as his mother. The millions of people round the world who love Doctor Who owe her a huge amount for picking the first (and best) Doctor, agreeing the Daleks against the fury of the Head of Drama (her boss), getting the show on the road for the first two years and making it such a success. I never got to meet Verity, but I’m sure she’d have been one of the few people I’d have blushed, looked down and mumbled ‘I’m not worthy’ for. Since I was about five and first read the seminal account of the series The Making of Doctor Who, I’ve regarded her with a degree of awe. Growing up and becoming aware of all her other work and just how talented she had to be to make it, a 27-year-old woman that most of the rest of the BBC treated with disdain, she’s been one of my heroes. She’ll be missed terribly.


November 23rd is usually rather an upbeat day for me. Instead, the loss of Verity has left me feeling bereft. I suspect many of my more Who-ish viewers will be feeling the same. If you need cheering up, I have two recommendations. One is to pop on some of Verity’s finest work, which I’m sure we’ll do tonight; the other is to watch something very silly indeed. One of Doctor Who’s least fine hours was a 1981 story called Time-Flight, featuring Time Crash Doctor Peter Davison, Concorde, the Master and not a lot of glory: there’s now a six-minute version that’s brought me a lot more joy (and far better special effects) than the full-length one ever has, along with a special appearance from my Dad’s workplace of Jodrell Bank, hurrah. Don’t watch it if you want serious drama, but click here if you simply want cheering up with some camp old nonsense, some monsters of which I’m very fond, and a slightly unexpected trailer for Voyage of the Damned – this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special with Kylie! I’ll add my voice to the many people who are already saying they’d like to see that story dedicated to Verity.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch The Aztecs and marvel at just what extraordinary drama Doctor Who was, thanks to Verity, from the very beginning.

Labels: Doctor Who, Obituary, Peter Davison, The Golden Dozen, William Hartnell

The Liberal Democrat Leadership election is starting to look as unedifying as the media ferment that saw Ming having to resign, and this time it’s largely self-inflicted by fellow Lib Dems. Despite that, I’m still happier with both candidates than with any of those on offer last year (and, yes, that does mean I think Chris has improved enormously). I can see advantages in each candidate that the other lacks, and drawbacks that the other doesn’t share. So to help me make up my mind, I’m trying to consider what a Leader is actually for, rather than the current vitriol.

There are three reasons why I’ve not blogged about this Leadership election until now. The first, obviously, is that I’ve not been blogging much about anything; even by my own standards, I’ve not been well (as well as the usual stuff, the heavy cold which faded only to be succeeded by flu was less funny than it sounds). The second is that I reckon I’ve got a fair handle on both of them and rate both very highly, and even though I started off instinctively leaning slightly more towards one than the other, I’m still unable to decide finally – and the contest has made me more undecided still, meaning I keep drafting notes and then thinking ‘Nah, not any more’ a couple of days later. And, of course, I didn’t want to start from here. After losing both Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell in rapid succession, many other Lib Dems will have pretty low morale and be thinking ‘What’s the point?’ But, with the ballot papers going out this week, those of us still floating have to make up our minds.

The Lost Leaders

In an ideal world, I’d have preferred Ming to be a success – losing two Leaders in two years makes us look a mess, and there’s no denying it. Unfortunately, though Ming sharpened up policy, improved organisation, and by all accounts was better at marshalling the MPs, none of that did him any good. So what is a Leader for? I asked Ming in September why, despite all those improvements he’d made, was it the case that – while I remembered lots of people saying ‘I like that Paddy Ashdown’ or ‘I like that Charles Kennedy’ – I’d never heard anyone saying ‘I really like that Ming Campbell’? Noticeably, it was the only question on which he stumbled (and tried to say I was asking about age, which I wasn’t), and I suspect it was the question he asked himself when he stood down. If a Leader does all the right things but just isn’t popular, does none of the rest of it matter? Is the Leader’s only real job to be a loveable front man? In which case, wouldn’t the party have done better if the last two years had all been a dream and we just woke up to find Charles Kennedy in the shower?

I think Leaders have to do more – but that the demand to deliver instantly on opinion poll ratings may well make politics impossible. So what qualities might others have brought to the role?

Nick and Chris both have it in them to make impressive Leaders, and I expect to be pretty happy with either one. Despite that, I’d have liked a wider choice than two new MPs from the same school, both ex-MEPs, and both with a fairly similar political outlook – which, had they stood a few years ago as part of a wider field, would have had both described unhelpfully as on the modern centre-right of the party, not least because each of them contributed to the widely caricatured damp squib The Orange Book.

Steve Webb was the next-most likely contender, and was usually described unhelpfully as on the left of the party. Why “unhelpfully”? Well, because left and right mean very little these days, and in a party for which the main differences are between Liberals and bullies, or greens and greed, ‘left’ doesn’t tell you much. The way the media try to cram us into labels usually fails – after Ming resigned, Newsnight’s report of the runners and riders said the challenge to Nick was likely to come from a Liberal (meaning Chris Huhne) and a Social Democrat (meaning Simon Hughes), leading us to shout at the screen. Steve’s a brilliant spokesperson, did a good job on the Manifesto That Never Was, and he’s an effective speaker too – though not, for my money, as good as the two ‘finalists’. I think he would have brought an interesting set of issues and views to the campaign. But would his so-called ‘leftism’ have got the support of ‘radicals’? My suspicion is that his prominent backing of Simon Hughes last year had less to do with their economic position and more to do with their shared Christian faith. Liberals might have looked at Steve’s views and thought he was the most socially conservative of the candidates (though only by the Liberal standards of our party, of course). Looking at his chapter of The Orange Book – no, that doesn’t make him ‘right-wing’ on economics – his is the authoritarian odd one out, thinking the state should have more power, and over families, but ducking away from a head-on collision with the pro-marketeers. So does that make him right-wing over social policy?

The opposite problem comes with David Laws, orchestrator of The Orange Book and viewed as the most right-wing bogeyman of the potential candidates. Like Steve, he’s a brilliant policy wonk, and like Chris, he’s good at turning that into news stories. There are plenty of topics on which I disagree with David, but I’d side with him on many of the more libertarian issues against Steve, who I suspect may be more keen on banning things. So on some issues you could call him a right-winger, and on others a radical Liberal. Which is media code for ‘leftie’. Now, isn’t life complicated? David and Steve also have experience most of the potential candidates lack (elected in 2001 and 1997 respectively), as does Ed Davey, elected in 1997 – Ed’s another good speaker and very bright. I suspect he lost out mainly through being not quite as young, not quite as pretty and not quite as good a speaker as Nick.

More temptingly still for me, I’d have preferred to see some of the party’s women MPs in the running – in part because we could do with a woman contender, but mainly because several of them are clearly up to it. Jo Swinson and Julia Goldsworthy are worth putting a punt on for the future (at the risk of raising ‘the age question’), but I’d have liked Lynne Featherstone and Susan Kramer to give it a try this time. Both are superb spokespeople, one more down-to-earth, the other more authoritative. I might even risk grave offence to her by saying Susan might appeal to some Tories missing Mrs Thatcher (and she was much better than Nick rounding up on the last Leadership election). She was a superb London Mayoral candidate, building a profile from nothing and nearly knocking Labour into fourth. Along with David Laws and – should he lose – Chris Huhne, I think she’d at least be a very strong contender to be made Shadow Chancellor, and let Vince concentrate on being Deputy Leader.

The final non-candidate people have pined for was, of course, Charles Kennedy. Too early to come back, to prove he’s up to it again and to rebuild trust in the Parliamentary Party; still a regret, though, and someone else who needs a high-profile post to rebuild the Liberal Democrats once the new Leader’s been elected. There’s a lot of debate on the blogs about what post would be best for him; I have to admit, despite the merits of Ros and Lembit, that I think tying him down to a single portfolio would be a mistake. He’s best at engaging with people on the big picture, and there’s time enough to change the Party Constitution before next year so that he can make another run for Party President. Come on, a largely honorary position which involves going round jollying people up, in effect the deputy leader of the Party in the country (as opposed to Parliament) – there’s no person better-suited to it.

Leadership and the Media

In the end, though, we have two strong candidates. And with Ming “irritated and frustrated” at his media coverage, with his lack of popularity in the press and inability to get them to listen to him being his key reason for leaving, is being able to be loved by the press the key concern? Well, my key concern about that is that I don’t think it’s possible. Of course there were Lib Dems sniping at Ming – but I’ve been a Lib Dem member since I was a teenager, and there’s never been a single day when someone’s not been critical of whoever the Leader is at the time. But Ming was hounded from office entirely by the press, and their sanctimonious hand-wringing when he went doesn’t disguise the fact that the media appear to have it in their power to simply destroy our Leader on a whim. Which makes me wonder – is politics manageable at all? Can it work? Or is it just broken?

Nick Clegg is touted as the media-friendly candidate. Dire warnings are made about what they’ll do to us if we choose ‘the wrong one’. I don’t think that matters. Not one outlet of the old-fashioned media is our friend – and taking their advice will do precisely nothing to save our new Leader if they yawn, stretch and decide to take him down. You want evidence? Almost the entire media told us we had to pick Ming last time. Along with most of the MPs, who tried to stop there even being a contest. Even before Charles was forced out, every newspaper and discussion programme of the small number that covered us had pundits saying Ming’s steady hand was the answer we needed. Then, suddenly, he wasn’t. When Ming resigned, the nearest we have to a supporter tried very hard to say it was a party plot. The Independent offered a pretentious “Merciless” full-page headline, but inside it offered no shred of evidence. They were just trying to cover their backs, because I read the very same paper every day at Lib Dem Conference in September, when the vast majority of the Party thought Ming did well and wished him well, and when every day the Independent had a cartoon of Ming on a zimmer frame, on a life-support machine, as a skeleton… And that was the ‘friendly’ paper. In over 70 interviews by journalists that week, every single one had asked about his age.

And guess what? Neither Chris nor Nick is immune from the age question. Nick cheerleader Linda Jack has (amongst many other attacks on Chris) laid into him because – gasp – he’s old enough to go on a Saga Holiday. And Steve Bell, another cartoonist who depicted 66-year-old Ming as a skeleton, showed Nick as an infant in a nappy the day after Nick launched his campaign. On News 24 after Ming went, Claire Rayner said that at 76 she might start thinking about giving up around 86, at which I cheered; but she then lost all my ageism-related sympathy by patronising LDYS Chair Mark Gettleston (22) and complaining of Cabinet ministers in their 30s and 40s being “Young boys with milk still dribbling down their chin”. Sorry, Claire, but that’s every bit as wrong, offensive and simply stupid. So, Nick is far too young at 40; Chris far too old at 53. That doesn’t leave a very wide window of opportunity for those who wish to run the country, does it? Perhaps – now here’s a thought – we should simply judge whether people are up to the job, and the rest is all bollocks.

The trouble is, we already know that whoever we pick, the media will savage them. Nick will be a clone-of-Cameron-clone-of-Blair; Chris will be a boring adding machine. Of course, neither criticism is remotely fair. Still, anyone willing to put money on them not being the universal media opinion of the new Leader within five minutes of being declared the victor?

The Key Issue?

My biggest problem with assessing the candidates’ media appeal – and it’s probably the key difficulty I have in deciding my vote – is that I think to survive in today’s media environment, between them they have what it takes (though both need to work much harder on seeming anti-establishment), but on their own I remain unconvinced either does. Both are very strong candidates – both are fluent, intelligent, persuasive and know their stuff. What’s the difference? That Nick’s more likely to be liked, and Chris is more likely to be heard.

Nick’s two advantages are the obvious ones. First, he looks better. It’s not just that he’s better-looking, but on TV he’s more natural, more at ease, less stiff. Second, he’s better at putting things into ordinary people-speak – when he answers the question. Less inspiringly, he’s been showing a worrying tendency simply not to answer questions that he doesn’t like, or to seem simply ill-prepared. When his passion shows, it’s captivating, but it doesn’t show often enough. I think his charisma is oversold, to his detriment when people compare the real thing to the messianic ‘sell’, but he comes across as a nice bloke and quite down to earth when he doesn’t waffle. Not as nice and down to earth a bloke than Charles; but slightly less waffly. So he has his advantages, and one of them is that he might be able to shore up our appeal as the ‘nice’ party.

I’ve been contributing tetchily to the argument on Lib Dem Voice about yesterday’s BBC Politics Show, in which neither candidate impressed me (one avoiding the questions, one off-puttingly belligerent). For the lovely Mat, who complained about having to interrupt his Blake’s 7 DVDs to watch the show, I’ll caricature them as Blake, who was sometimes inspirational, sometimes passionate, sometimes clueless; and Avon, who was mean and ruthless but got things done. He was also, incidentally, devoted to Blake, but ended up shooting him. Well before I saw the programme, though, I’d decided that Chris’ greatest strength is also his greatest weakness: that he’s a hungry, ambitious bastard who has an instinct for getting noticed.

In both this year’s and last year’s Leadership contests, Chris has unerringly found the issues that get attention, and in politics you need the killer instinct. Last year, I hoped Ming might be as fearsome as Francis Urquhart; well, Chris is not a clever plotter who will stab you slyly in the back like that. He stabs you in the front and makes sure the cameras are there to see it. He may not be liked, but he gets noticed in a way that Nick’s campaign has been entirely hopeless at doing. It’s a high risk, but is there any Liberal Democrat in the land who is not sick of us never getting a word in edgeways? Chris’ other talent is his consistency. He’s far less dull than he was last year – he’s clearly been working hard at it – and he answers questions calmly, speaking to the point, and always sounding like he knows what he’s talking about. He got a bit ruffled yesterday and make the serious mistake of indulging in putting the boot in, where Nick’s campaign (though not his supporters) have relied on better-behaved innuendo such as Nick’s repeated lines about, for example, not speaking like a policy wonk (gee, who could he mean?), but this has been his first serious error of judgement in the campaign. Nick has been far less consistent in both performance and judgement this time, but hasn’t made any single so serious misjudgement this year – though last year, as the hatchet man for Ming’s campaign, he mounted a public and brutal attack on Chris as ‘Opportunism Knocks’. Chris didn’t whine under fire then, and he hasn’t this year.

I’m worried that Nick seems so easily rattled by relatively gentle assaults, and what this means for us if Nick has to be Leader in the real, nasty world. He seems far too easily floored. Meanwhile, Chris has another potential media drawback – while I’m certain he’ll keep his seat, there is the risk that his 500 majority ‘being at risk’ will become ‘the story’, which won’t stop Chris being re-elected but may stop people seeing us as winners elsewhere.

The choice, then, may boil down to which is more important: to get heard? Or to be liked once people hear you? We desperately need both. My quandary is that each excellent candidate seems to major on just the one ability.

Leadership on Policy

The Leader can’t do it all. It’s mad to think they can. So, naturally, the media perpetuate that myth, and our last two Leaders have faced ritual sacrifice because the rains didn’t come. On policy, the idea that the Leader is a cure-all is particularly pronounced in the media, encouraged by the fact that the candidates have been setting out their policy positions as if they’ll be able to steamroller them into effect as soon as they’re elected. Being the Liberal Democrats, they’ll be able to do no such thing: we vote to accept Leaders, not every one of their wacky (or insufficiently wacky) ideas. That doesn’t mean there’s no point in Leaders staking out a policy position, still less a philosophical one.

No Liberal Democrat Leader can tear up the policy programme like a Tory or Labour Leader, but they have an enormous amount of goodwill and persuasive power. The textbook example of the impact a Leader can have on the Party is, ironically, not from a Leader at all, but a runner-up – Chris’ programme last year was frequently criticised by Ming and even lied about by Simon, but it’s formed the backbone of policy since. Now that’s impressive. So is the way that Chris has managed to take the initiative again this year, when you’d think the cupboard was bare. And while the new Leader can’t overturn policy at will, he will certainly have the right to ask questions and re-open issues… Though I hope this election won’t turn into a referendum on Trident, particularly as I find neither candidate’s answer entirely convincing. Positioning straight to the jugular by Chris, though, and who with long memories (for me, going back before I joined) can fail to enjoy the irony of David Steel announcing specifically that he backs the candidate who’s striking a more anti-nuclear stance than the one supported by Simon Hughes?

Despite the ‘negative’ charge, Chris has put out far more concrete, positive positions than Nick. Chris’ manifesto allowed me to engage, get my teeth into it, find things to agree with and disagree with. Nick’s statement is warm and fuzzy and tells me very little. That leads me to different worries about each candidate on policy. Chris may be too firm on policy, presenting a set menu and putting his Leadership on the line with all of it – but at least you can wrestle with it. He seems desperate to find the issue that lets you get a word in; is it the right one? Is it just to get attention? Nick is instead in no danger of getting too much attention so far on what he says, but on what he doesn’t. So far, the only striking thing he’s said was that he wants us to move outside our comfort zone. That was a couple of weeks ago, and I still have no idea what he means (and judging by how tediously safe his campaign has been, neither does he). Is it just to sound exciting because he couldn’t think of anything? Or is it to get us to sign a blank cheque? I don’t know, and his evasive or tetchy answers to questions he doesn’t like haven’t told me anything more. Assuming it means that he wants the Party’s approach to change, in what way? And will it help? For what it’s worth, and despite my being one of those policy wonks that Nick keeps disparaging, nudge nudge, no names, I think if his analysis is that we need to change our policies to appeal to people, he’s sadly quite wrong. If you’ll forgive a sentence clustered with negatives (it’s late, I’m wrecked): people don’t not vote for us because they disagree with our policies – it’s because we can’t get a word in edgeways. And which candidate is better at doing that, Nick? Whichever wins, I hope they’ll chair the Federal Policy Committee and persuade the Party of their policies, rather than lobbing them at us from a great height.

A Leader must also set much of the Party’s tone and direction. Here, I feel more comfortable with Nick, but I’d like to hear more of the big picture from both. Neither has so far come up with a brilliant, attention-grabbing, instinctively right, or snappy reason why we’re different and why people should vote for us. Why, in short, do we bother, either in mood music or in soundbite form. And I’m sorry to say that both their slogans are rubbish. Chris’ started out as one of those amorphous Fairer, Greener, listier slogans assembled from a kit (like the Meeting the Challenge paper), though I did warm to the ‘People in charge’ bit of it. Now it seems to have metamorphosed into ‘A Liberal Revolution’, which sounds a bit studenty, and not in a good way. Nick, on the other hand, plumps straight for our comfort zone with ‘Britain’s Liberal Future’ – which could have been the title of any of our manifestos for the last half-century, and is indeed borrowed from Jo Grimond’s 1959 book, with a little dash of added patriotism. Mmm, comfy. And I have to say that for all that the litany of ‘Free, Fair and Green’ may not be exciting, each of those words has a certain resonance with the public. Ironically for Nick as the candidate said to be ‘reaching out’, while I love the word ‘Liberal’, I believe it is entirely preaching to the converted.

Leadership and the Led

Last time Ming was the answer for the press and the MPs, and eventually for the Party. This year, that appears to be Nick on the first two counts, and no-one knows for the rest of us. I’ve been writing this for many hours and am very tired so, shh, this is the skimpier bit. Of course the Leader has another job, and that’s making sure people are willing to be led. How consensual or confrontational do you be, how open, and how many people who supported the other one will go along with you?

On the face of it, with so many more establishment endorsements, Nick has the easier job. He also seems to have a less abrasive (if possibly less effective) personality. The media suggests Nick may have a bumpier ride afterwards if he ‘challenges’ the Party, but I don’t think either of us really know what they’ll do. Leaders are like that. I think whichever wins, a sizeable chunk of MPs will be teed off. Well, tough. The Party’s bigger than your ego. And the new Leader should give top positions to his opponent and their supporters, too. Because each has massive talents. But, really, Ming was good at geeing up the MPs, and it didn’t save him. For me, the two wider audiences are more important to give attention to: the Party, and the public. Morale in the Liberal Democrats is lower than it’s been for two decades. If you want the foot-soldiers to work in the Party where that most matters, cheer us up. And public interest in the Liberal Democrats is lower than it’s been for a decade and a half. If you want to improve our votes, get people’s attention and engage them.

As for the allegations of negativity… Well, I’ve dealt with much of that unappetising subject, but the part of the Party that’s really being deeply unattractive at the moment is, I’m afraid, a lot of the blogosphere, and almost entirely the Nick-supporting blogosphere. It’s so much more vitriolic than last year, or than is sane, that I frequently wonder if I’ve accidentally wandered in on another party. We just don’t do bile, as a rule. Yet for some reason, it was horrible from the start. I won’t single out everyone, but there are two offenders that I’ve found particularly make me warm to the person they attack. The big backfirer from Chris’ camp was Matthew Huntbach, who while not having a blog of his own spewed around Lib Dem Voice for several threads that his mysterious inner convictions told him Nick was a Satanic Thatcherite, and that anyone who didn’t precisely agree with Mr Huntbach and particularly anyone with a good word to say about Nick was also a Satanic Thatcherite. He seems to have gone quiet, thankfully. Never quiet, and the single most persuasive voice in tilting me Chris’ way instead, is of course – how could it be anyone else? – Linda Jack.

I find myself constantly perplexed by Linda’s blog. I know her from the FPC, and she is constructive, intelligent, gutsy and often witty. Perhaps she doesn’t have a computer and so has never discovered that some hate-filled obsessive has hijacked her name. Because I genuinely find it difficult to match the two people: the nice one and the horribly, horribly offputting one. Right from the start, she has poured the most appalling vitriol on Chris, taking every issue on which he agrees with her as proof of opportunism and every issue on which he disagrees with her as proof of Satanism. In the last few days, she has been crowing with delight at how he deserves to be thrown from any position he has because he’s so negative – with absolutely no sense of irony. Her blog’s current ‘front page’ shows thirteen anti-Chris posts to five pro-Nick ones, which is still a far better ratio than the almost universally hate-filled comments she’s posted on Lib Dem Voice. I really do not understand what motivates all this – even if she’s never forgiven Chris (nor Ming, who she constantly berated) for beating her hero Simon Hughes last year. Oddly, she’s never commented on the fact that the only candidate to tell flat-out, bald-faced lies about another last year was Simon, about Chris (and I don’t remember Chris nor his supporters constantly bleating about it). Naturally, she proclaimed Simon’s support for Nick as proof that Nick was really a leftie: oddly, when she celebrated his endorsement by Cyril Smith, she somehow forgot to mention that he was seen as the Liberal Party’s one-man far right when, long ago, he was in Parliament. And looking at the attacks on Chris today from Linda and others, I’m astounded at claims that people couldn’t live with Chris as Leader, or that he should be thrown from the Shadow Cabinet – despite holding the only portfolio where opinion polls say we’re ‘ahead’ (and Nick keeps doing Chris down on that, but, whoops, I forgot – team Clegg isn’t negative). This relentless negativity is infinitely more offputting and hysterical than any behaviour they’re denigrating. The fact remains that I’ve not seen a single blogger for Chris saying they couldn’t live with a Nick Leadership, nor a single blogger for Chris saying Nick should be left out of the Shadow Cabinet. If anyone can find examples of anti-Nick bloggers of such ferocity, please let me know and I will turn my fire on them. But I’ve not seen them. And Linda, if you’re reading, I’m sorry to let all this flood out, but really – if you want to aid Nick’s campaign, for goodness’ sake shut up about Chris.

Which Leader Am I Swinging Towards?

Last year I didn’t declare, in part because never felt enthused and I thought a quarter-hearted reluctant endorsement was worse than none at all. This year, yesterday’s interview fiascos aside, I feel much more enthusiastic about both of them. And while from the first I’ve been undecided, at the start of the campaign – well, once it was clear which two were the choice – I leant towards Nick, but not so strongly that I felt I could never change my mind. I don’t know either well, but I know Nick a little better, and was very impressed by him some years ago on the It’s About Freedom paper on the Party’s philosophy: I get the feeling I agree with his Liberal instincts more than I do with Chris. He’s pleasant, engaging, and very bright – he’s absolutely not a lightweight, which is why it’s so irritating to see him give the impression of one in his terminally lacklustre campaign. But I was very unimpressed with his bruising for Ming in last year’s contest, and the only point at which I’ve been impressed with his campaign this year was for about two minutes on last week’s Question Time, when he finally caught fire.

Chris’ campaign, on the other hand, has barely put a foot wrong until putting a foot in it yesterday, when his instinct for what the Party likes failed to inform him that we don’t like ‘nasty’. Chris has raised his game hugely since last year, meaning that the choice we face is of much better quality, if not variety! He has set the agenda, and, come on, Nick – if you can’t set the agenda even in a Liberal Democrat contest, when can you make waves? Chris has really impressed me, and though when comparing performances Nick’s highs are much higher, Chris is consistent where Nick’s answers are too often vague. Nick needs to move outside his comfort zone.

During the campaign, both must say they think the other would make a good Leader (Chris has, though he’ll need to repeat it after yesterday; Nick, despite being ‘the nice one’, pointedly refused to do so when asked twice yesterday) and would be happy to serve under the other. Whoever wins, I hope they give a senior position to the other. I don’t care if they like each other underneath or can’t stand each other. The Party needs both. And it needs the supporters of each to be critical friends of the new Leader, and for the defeated candidate. We should always encourage constructive criticism – but the sort of blazing vitriol that has come particular from Nick’s cheerleaders should be excoriated. In particular, the new Leader needs to be given time to make an impact, and that means the Party needs to hold its nerve. If your candidate loses and the opinion polls don’t improve, then don’t call for your ‘opponent’ to be sacked. Just make a useful suggestion or shut the f*** up.

There is a fact on which to concentrate your mind. It is that no Lib Dem Leader has ever had a new Leader’s ‘bounce’ in the polls. Never, never, never. Though his failure in the polls and no space in the media for him to recover was the overwhelming reason why Ming decided to go, there is remarkably little in the short term that a Lib Dem Leader can do to improve them. I might still vote for either – I would be happy with either. Even if you don’t share that view, remember that dumping another Leader in another year or two would be an act of sheer insanity.


This won’t – hopefully – be my last post on the Leadership. This morning, I go off with Richard and Millennium to ask questions of Nick Clegg, along with other bloggers and perhaps including the lovely Linda Jack. Coming up, with luck: closer analysis of Chris and Nick’s individual and joint question and answer sessions, and my take on which other leading politicians they reminded me of on Question Time…

Labels: Blake’s 7, Blogs, British Politics, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Nick Clegg

On Richard and my thirteenth anniversary, I feel like writing something fun – nothing serious, nothing political (though Lib Dems may need cheering up anyway), so I’m looking at 2007’s surge of Doctor Who DVDs. Released last month, the highpoint is The Key To Time box set, an extra-packed complete season of Tom Baker that’s the largest and probably the most thoroughly enjoyable Doctor Who package so far. The box doesn’t even boast ‘written by Douglas Adams’ or ‘starring K9,’ but it’s still already sold out in most places, so order it online or grab it if you see it!

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that The Key To Time has been selling so fast, though even people working for the BBC’s commercial arm have admitted they underestimated the demand. The release rate of DVDs from the old series has shot up this year from about seven or eight stories to seventeen, several of them bundled together; partly because they’ve decided they’d like to get them all out ready for repackaging in the 50th anniversary of the show (2013), and partly because they’ve been selling so much better since the new series has been on TV and a big hit. Oh, and there are plenty of new series releases out this year, too, but I can’t review everything at once. And then there are a pile of repackaged and reissued stories as well, which’ll have to wait for another post, if at all! The biggest change this year, though, has been in the number of stories you can buy for Tom Baker, the longest-running Doctor with over forty adventures broadcast. In seven years of Who DVD releases to the end of last year, ten of his stories had become available – by the end of this year, there’ll be twenty-one of them on the shelves (possibly with a gap of six where The Key To Time’s out of stock). Having rather scarily not written a Doctor Who piece on here for half the year, I thought it was more than time that I caught up…

So, by way of updating my last year’s ‘Choosing Doctor Who DVDs Made Easy’, here are all the Doctor Who DVD releases of 2007 – in a very vague order of merit:

The Key to Time Boxed Set

A compelling Doctor and companion having masses of fun, witty scripts, emotion, magic, a ‘story arc’ (in those days less portentously called an ‘umbrella theme’), vivid women characters and even filming in Wales… This 1978-9 set of six stories making up the show’s Sixteenth Season could almost be the new series – well, all right, without the pace, budget or all the old enemies. How much you enjoy this may depend on how much you like The Tom Baker Show, but if you see a sparkly pinky-blue box on sale, I’d recommend it. Tom is accompanied by Mary Tamm’s Romana (surely his most beautiful companion) and the tin dog… And I’d say this is the one year where K9 really worked, so you’ll see him at his best. It’s surprisingly short of monsters, and towards the end noticeably short of cash, but it has wit, character and imagination in abundance, as well as a fabulous set of villains. Striking out into science fantasy with castles and royals and the Doctor as a wizard on a quest, this is the series at its most fairy-tale, but with a darker undertone that gods aren’t to be trusted. The stories are by some of the best writers ever to work on Doctor Who: famous Douglas Adams; Robert Holmes, who Russell T Davies says wrote “the best dialogue ever written”; David Fisher, who for my money gets the best balance of character and wit, and quite grown-up about sex; and Bob Baker and Dave Martin, never as highly rated, but then, Bob’s the only Who writer with an Oscar, so don’t knock him…

I was aged six and seven when this lot was first broadcast – when it took six months to watch, rather than eleven hours (excluding the commentaries, text notes, documentaries, deleted scenes…) – so perhaps it’s unsurprising that I love it so. It was the first Doctor Who season I saw in colour; my Mum tells me that I’d pleaded for us to get a colour TV on the grounds that “having to watch the Multi-coloured Swap Shop in black and white is the mark of a deprived childhood.” So rather than just gush, I’ve written a paragraph on what’s to like in each of the six stories. Before then, on the first disc you’ll find an in-depth documentary covering the 1977-1980 years of Doctor Who produced by Graham Williams, when the series moved from horror and movies towards wit and books – it’s the heart of the extras, and has some great contributions, including actors, writers, directors, new series writer Gareth Roberts and archive footage of the late Graham Williams and Douglas Adams. Even three decades later, it’s still a period that divides fans: for those who didn’t like it, this does a good job of explaining the curses it was under… Such as Mary Whitehouse, runaway inflation destroying the budget, and Tom Baker eating directors for breakfast. My only complaints are that it gives away one of the best gags in The Power of Kroll, and that for fear of shocking parents it doesn’t include the most famous out-take of the time, when Tom Baker snaps at K9 that

“Yeah, you never fucking know the answer when it’s important.”

If that hasn’t convinced you to read on, try this smashing trailer for the DVD, which sums up all the stories and even includes an explosion that BBC health and safety said was too dangerous for the studio – so they filmed it in a nuclear power station instead. Halcyon days!



The Ribos Operation

The Doctor is rather unwillingly sent on a mission to find the scattered parts of the all-powerful ‘Key to Time’, by someone who may or may not be God but is pretty scary either way… So off he goes to a brilliantly conceived world in its medieval times, surrounded by such vivid characters as a conman, a brutal old general and a psychotic deposed prince, though for many the story’s stolen by this world’s version of Gallileo, tortured for saying the stars are suns and not ice crystals in the sky. It’s funny, intelligent, has impressive music and a lovely Russian-esque design – though new viewers might find it lacks action and that the monster’s a bit rubbish, the season starts with a winner, and the commentary by Tom Baker and Mary Tamm is delightfully bitchy. I’ve written an in-depth review of this one, by the way, but as it refers to the final story, too, you might not want to read it until you’ve watched the lot; the same applies for Millennium’s contrary and rather brilliant theory of who Tom Baker thinks is god.

The Pirate Planet

Douglas Adams’ first TV script, and K9 as a hero… What could possibly go wrong? Well, surprisingly little. This is a brilliantly structured story, with a great mystery that moves gradually and seamlessly from being very silly to being very serious, and Tom Baker is terrific. On the downside, it starts a little slowly, and it’s evident that the budget’s not been spent on the crowd scenes or the video effects. There are two commentaries here, one rather dry one a few years old from the US release (which had little restoration work and very few extras, while this one is packed with them from deleted scenes, to a charming ‘making of’, to a rather overlong and unwise comedy feature that really can’t compete with Mr Adams) and a new commentary in which Tom Baker tests the limits of what he can say for a PG-rated release. Of all these stories, this is the one where the old film and video stock has been polished up most impressively, though some fans are up in arms about an effect that’s been microscopically changed (actually, I spotted a more blatant one that’s been replaced altogether, wrongly, but I’d better not mention it for fear of starting another flame war). The cyborg Pirate Captain looks terrific, too; the local population are quite happy with their murderous dictator because he makes them rich; despite looking very ‘sci-fi,’ it’s still at heart a fairy tale with a wicked old witch and a giant in a castle. And you might notice that the mysterious Mentiads are all male, appear to live in a rave club, and a suburban conservative says he’s glad his son was shot rather than become “one of those – those…” Yes, they’re the Daily Mail’s worst nightmare: young people today who are gay hoodies.

The Stones of Blood

There’s rather a good little documentary about Hammer movies as an influence on Doctor Who here, appropriately enough when this is the story that combines Celtic mythology with two direct steals from Hammer (watch closely: they’re The Mummy and The Hound of the Baskervilles). It’s even got that very horror film but very rare for Doctor Who ‘have sex and die’ attitude, in the scene Russell T Davies thinks is the scariest ever. So, is this a return to the Doctor Who horror movie? Well… No. It starts off that way, but twists around into something quite different, and both approaches partly work. Rather than just gothic horror, this is definitely female gothic, with very strong parts for women and (after the gay Mentiads) blatant lesbians. What’s brilliant about it is its wit and cleverness, its actors, and that it beats off several other stories this season to be the campest Doctor Who of the lot. What’s less brilliant is that the first half is plagued by erratic and obviously fake ‘night’ shots that suggest the sun’s bungee-jumping, while the second half is less inconsistent in look but lets itself down with some terribly inconsistent trial ‘rules’. Still, it has some occasionally scary living rocks, a deleted scene that inspired a League of Gentlemen sketch, and proof in another extra that Blue Peter was telling untruths to the nation’s youth as long ago as 1978…

The Androids of Tara

My favourite story of the season is wonderfully light and engaging, like a summer holiday week off from more serious things, running around the countryside, and having the most extraordinary fun for a show that’s never short of fun in the first place. Peter Jeffrey makes a fantastic moustache-twirling villain for an adventure that has a lot in common with The Prisoner of Zenda, but (for people who can only make lists of similarities rather than pay attention to the characters) has almost none of the same themes. Many fans hate this because it’s just light-hearted swashbuckling fluff, while I love it for much the same reason. Oh, and there’s a rubbish monster, but that’s polished off in five minutes for a joke. Among the extras, the ‘making of’ feature is stolen by one very animated, funny actor and another who’s a stylish old gentleman sort, and there’s a rather basic but jolly feature on doubles in Who that’s like an incomplete list illustrated by clips – probably to appeal to younger viewers. But the whole thing’s great fun. Sit back, enjoy K9 playing chess, Romana being disdainful, and a wicked Count exclaiming “Next time, I shall not be so lenient!” on his inevitable defeat. And there’s swordfighting with electric swords, too. Cool (says the seven-year-old me).

The Power of Kroll

New series viewers who were disappointed when the BBC refused to show Captain Jack’s buttocks may be surprised just how much rear flesh is on display here – albeit covered in green paint, and really not very attractive. On a water world, the oppressed ‘Swampies’ are fighting some human exploiters, while their giant squid god that occasionally looks rather exciting and occasionally rather absurd takes them in turns to eat. There’s a lot of King Kong here, and we can never resist singing along to ‘The Kroll Song’ (there aren’t many words), but though there’s some good location filming and some amusing moments in the script, the plot, sets and many of the actors are a bit flat. The most enjoyable person to watch if you know the gossip is Philip Madoc (who gets a little documentary to himself), who was originally offered the main villain part, couldn’t do it, suddenly became free, took the job… And found out too late that part had been cast, so he was now just the sidekick. His character’s visible winces at much of the villain’s acting give a perfect performance of a man who knows he can do a better job than his rubbish boss because he knows he could give a better performance as the boss.

The Armageddon Factor

This double-disc release includes the longer final story and a host of extras, of which the most intriguing are a set of short horror stories read by Tom Baker (one of them, Saki’s Sredni Vashtar, which was never broadcast… Because of a strike, rather than because it was too terrifying. As far as I know). There’s also a pdf of The Dr Who Annual 1979, which has some rather striking pictures of Tom Baker but obviously didn’t have any pictures of ‘Leela’, and is a bit thin; still, I remember finding The Planet of Dust and Terror on Tantalogus suitably eerie. Anyway, there’s a lot that’s brilliant in The Armageddon Factor, with a planet grimly at war, a superbly played character who echoes Churchill and Hitler at the same time, and another who eerily anticipates Princess Diana. Even K9 is great, by turns bitchy, sinister or disturbingly chummy with a talking WMD. Unfortunately, there’s a lot that’s far from brilliant, too; one of the actors is so unconvincing he could be a Tory MP, and the plot structure’s a mess, starting well and recovering by the end but meandering tediously in some beige corridors for a fortnight in the middle. It doesn’t help that all the serious bits are at the start, after which it gets less rather than more doom-laden, and that the ‘comic relief’ appears too late, not in the middle episodes that desperately needed a diversion but towards the end when it’s starving for some drama. But the Doctor does make entirely the Doctorish decision at the very end, and that’s what matters…

If you think you could do better, of course, you can assemble your very own Key to Time here.

New Beginnings Boxed Set

Way back at the beginning of the year, a boxed set of three stories re-introduced the Master, saw out Tom Baker and introduced Peter Davison, all in considerable style. This is another terrific release – with The Key To Time and last year’s The Beginning Box Set, the boxed sets have been strong contenders for the best in the range. Again, there are some superb documentaries, some lovely music that you can play separately, and you also get a pdf of The Doctor Who Annual 1982, which was clearly done in a hurry and without a lot of Peter Davison photos… Most of it’s not up to much, but the poorly-drawn comic strip satirising the publishers is quite amusing, as is the speculative feature inviting you to “Imagine… some hundred years from now” that everyone in the world might have their own private computer and something like GPS. Shame the giant hovercraft didn’t come about, though. I always rather liked hovercraft.

The Keeper of Traken

A marvellous rationalist fairy story in Shakespearean dress and Art Nouveau sets, with a creepy walking statue. It’s a spellbinding tale of evil in Eden, with a sense of impending doom that’s only let down by the actress at the heart of the tragic love story being hammier than you can possibly believe. I wrote an extended review of it earlier in the year, so I’ll skip to the extras: several rather intriguing documentaries, with evil Geoffrey Beevers very watchable; a lumbering trailer from the time; the writer trying to remember which bits he wrote and which he didn’t on the commentary…

Logopolis

Tom Baker’s final story is thoroughly laden with doom and captivating – I wrote most of an in-depth review earlier in the year, but became slightly terrified when the writer found and commented on it! A threat to the Doctor unfolds into a threat to the Universe in a story informed by these new-fangled computers that manages to do three very unlikely things: make the TARDIS scary; make the Master scary; and make Maths interesting. It’s slow, packed with ideas and compelling. There’s another great documentary, particularly with Tom admitting what a monster he was, and the commentary is striking – with Tom Baker, Janet Fielding (Tegan) and writer Jesus H Bidmead, Richard exclaimed “When Egos Collide!” as they introduced themselves. And they’re all pretty… forthright (though Mr Bidmead has a tendency to say ‘That bit’s very clever. But that bit’s rubbish, and it was someone else’s fault’). The best extra for me, surprisingly, is the score: you can press a button to play just the music, and it’s gorgeous.

Castrovalva

I should say up front that the music for this is extraordinarily lovely too, so have a listen; there are even some deleted scenes to watch, too. With this one, I was feeling slightly intimidated and never quite got round to the in-depth review, as it’s a beautiful and character-driven tale with an air of wonder that reflects both the innocence and the darkness of a fairy story, but it’s not quite up to the standard of the other two. There are interesting games with gender and with identity, with one ‘he must be the villain’ character seeming harsh and sinister but turning out to be the crucial ‘inside man’ (these days we’d call him ‘Snape’). Peter Davison is at his best here, giving us a Doctor that turns from reverie to sudden fierceness – he’s very revealing on the commentary, seeming both proud and embarrassed.

Planet of Evil

This earlier, much scarier Tom Baker story came out just last week – it’s from 1975 and the show’s Thirteenth Season, so it would be an ideal thirteenth anniversary present… Except that I think it’s great, and Richard doesn’t. Oh well. Anyway, it’s another science-as-fairy-tale story, borrowing from Shakespeare, Jekyll and Hyde, Forbidden Planet and werewolf legends, though it was so terrifying to kids at the time – I was one of them, and I still remember the ‘sci-fi burial alive’ nightmares – that viewers of the new series may find it eerily familiar, having evidently inspired the writers of The Impossible Planet and 42. Sarah Jane Smith’s in it, too. What most people talk about, though, is the alien jungle, and it looks absolutely awesome… Except in the scenes recorded on video rather than film, which look surprisingly flat. Not looking good at any point are the guest actors’ costumes; people say this season’s all Hammer films, but the only time we get people with seriously plunging necklines, they’re all men. And they’re really not worth it, either. Extras include behind-the-scenes footage, an impressive line-up on the commentary, a ‘making of’ and a slightly odd feature on the actors… If you want to see more, there’s a brilliant (if sometimes amusing for its over-the-topness) trailer on The Key to Time DVDs.

Robot

Tom Baker’s first story, and the first I ever saw; a middle-range story, but well worth seeing (and not unlike a sort of ‘Junior Avengers’ story). Sarah Jane Smith and the Brigadier are lovely, and fascist villain Miss Winters is fabulous, but this has two stars: Tom Baker, instantly seizing the show with hugely energetic performance; and the robot, which is huge and still looks terrific today. Until the last episode, that is, when several things go a little bit wrong (the script fizzles a bit, the characters get dafter, the special effects… Well, let’s say it’s unwise to move from Frankenstein to King Kong, and that we can sing along the ad jingle of a well-known toy of the time that’s used in a model shot). But on the whole, I’m very fond of it: it’s got such heart, humour and energy, it got me hooked, and it’s cleverer than Isaac Asimov, complete with a critique of utopianism. Again, Tom gives a good DVD commentary, there’s an informative mini-documentary on the definitive Doctor Who title sequence and a great one on the making of the story and how Tom started off as the Doctor.

Survival

From a first to the last; this double-disc release contains the final story of the original series, starring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor in 1989. It’s good, solid, average Who: story-driven, with something familiar, a few surprises, mostly rather well done drama and the odd let-down. Londoners are being abducted by giant cat people on horseback, a strikingly effective sight, and carried off to their stormy home world… Where the Master waits. The modern setting prefigures the new series, though the council estate is rather less well done – and the little cat ‘familiars’ badly betray the budget (it’s easier to suspend your disbelief with an alien cat-person than with a stuffed moggie that everyone can look at and know doesn’t look right). The alien world casts a strange spell in this allegorical tale which shows no love for machismo and ’80s values… It’s difficult to tell if the score is mocking or overdoing screaming ’80s guitars, too. The Master is underplayed and threatening, though, and one of the extras features him being really rather good for a computer game, as well as cut scenes from this story. As for the other extras… Well, there are a lot of them, and the making of and story of what might have happened next if the series hadn’t been cancelled are interesting (though the ‘fan commentary’ is a disappointment), but – despite the presence of Lisa Bowerman, Professor Bernice Summerfield herself – it leaves a sour taste that there’s nothing about the New Adventures, the magnificent book series that carried Doctor Who on through the ’90s. So, in the end, the DVD is a disappointment, though the story ends with a beautiful, elegiac speech from the Doctor that still echoes today…

The Time Warrior

Jon Pertwee stars in the story that introduces both Sarah Jane Smith and moderately well-known monsters the Sontarans – both new arrivals are great from the start, and Pertwee’s not bad either (terribly sexist at times, but also occasionally charming). Like Survival, this is a ‘kidnap’ story, though here the alien is dragging people into the past rather than to another planet, and it’s a lot funnier. There’s even a gag about the Doctor finding “a young girl” (the first time someone says what everyone thinks about him) and a marvellous line from Sarah about the Middle Ages. Oh, and it’s got Dot Cotton and Boba Fett in it! On the downside, and despite some rather fab location shooting at a real castle (well, a real folly), the direction is very flat and dull, and it’s very poorly edited, so the story doesn’t always flow too well. You won’t be impressed by the robot knight, either. As well as a commentary, interesting but badly proofread text notes and another so-so Annual, the extras include rather a fine ‘making of’ – despite producer Barry Letts getting some ratings facts entirely wrong – and new CGI effects, which are all good bar, unfortunately, the climax in which a dragon apparently sneezes through some slightly singed gates. I suspect The Invasion of Time may get a DVD release next year, so that they can flog it in a ‘Sontaran box set’ with this, The Sontaran Experiment, The Two Doctors and Horror of Fang Rock (featuring their arch-enemies)…

Destiny of the Daleks

Due out a month from today, the last of this year’s old series releases stars Tom Baker in the sequel to the smashing Genesis of the Daleks, and it doesn’t compare all that well. It follows directly from The Key To Time, and like The Armageddon Factor is a mixture of great bits and rather feeble bits. Romana regenerates into a new body (rather unsteadily), and she and the Doctor have amusing dialogue and instant chemistry; there’s some superb hand-held camerawork and an intriguing ‘planet of the dead’ feel that doesn’t quite come off. More original but more flawed is the logical impasse of the latter half of the story, which is a good idea but requires the Daleks and their beautiful disco opponents to be a bit thick. And Davros… Well, the actor, the script and the mask all suffer by comparison to his first story: he’s a ranting maniac rather than a brilliantly persuasive fascist. I’m looking forward to the commentary (not reuniting Tom Baker and his ex-wife for a chat, sadly), the documentary about dependable Dalek writer Terry Nation and, of course, the thrilling new CGI effects. Still, I like it in the right mood, and if you watch the Coming Soon Trailer for it on the Planet of Evil DVD (and not yet added to YouTube, apparently), it looks fantastic.


There are still the two poorest releases to do, and the exciting new series, but it's late, I'm feeling very ill, and my lovely Richard wants to look after me!

…And at long last I’ve come back to it, after a month of illness, procrastination, doing other things, more illness and more procrastination. Why wasn’t I filled with enthusiasm for the next two releases? Read on.

Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity Box

Ah well. The straight run of really impressive stories making up the boxed set releases had to end somewhere, and it ended with a small box of two adjoining stories starring Peter Davison as the Doctor and Janet Fielding as Tegan (and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, but she’s less gobby). There’s quite a nice picture of Tegan on the front, but the covers for the individual stories inside are far poorer designs than usual. And the stories?

Time-Flight

Written by an impressive director, directed by a… less impressive one, you really want to know what it looked like in the writer’s head, with an intriguingly weird Arabian Nights-flavoured fantasy. The dialogue and ‘climax’ by lots of made-up technical gubbins would still be terrible, though. It’s another kidnap through time story, and this time the Master (cementing his image as ‘the camp one’ and with a truly barking plan) is taking Concordes to prehistory to try and rip off an alien ‘super-race’. The Doctor behaves like a credulous idiot, too, and sides with one half of the self-styled super-race to crush individuality and freedom of choice for the other half. Uh huh? Even the music’s terrible (though it’s still a shame it’s not included as a separate track). The commentary is mean-spirited in the extreme, too, though there are some deleted scenes to let you know how much more it could have gone on. Um… The aircraft crew actors are quite jolly, as is some of the Concorde promo filming, but this is the one that even Peter Davison has described (protesting misquotes, but I’ve watched him say it) as “crap”.

Arc of Infinity

This story follows straight on, and while it’s not very good, it is at least a lot better, though the director makes no better use of Amsterdam than he did Concorde. It’s got an impressive set of extras, led by glowy new CGI, two excellent documentaries – I particularly like the one on Omega, linking to the Big Finish audio play – and boasts an amusing commentary by two Doctors, as this is the Peter Davison story with a bit part made ever so much larger by Colin Baker (plus, though the music’s not great, at least you can listen to it separately on this one). In its favour, the villain’s got a great gravelly voice and is nicely designed, though most of the other design is a bit naff: a monster like a man-sized chicken; Time Lords with little horns; Gallifrey not as the stately citadel glimpsed in the new series but more of a bland wine bar. Meanwhile, the similarity of some of it to a porn flick is emphasised by the typo-packed text notes quoting extensively from Freudian slip-packed original script. And you can be inappropriately amused by the ‘murder mystery’ with a High Councillor creeping about in a huge ceremonial collar, which is rather like a Peer of the Realm committing a stealthy murder while wearing a coronet and a long robe trimmed with real cat with a signed donation to the Labour Party pinned to the back of it.

Timelash

As you know, I love Doctor Who. All Doctor Who. And I would of course encourage you to purchase every Doctor Who DVD release, as we do. It’s just that there are some I might encourage you to buy… Once you’ve already bought all the others. Well, you might consider getting 180 or so other stories before you pick up this one but, oh, I’m beyond redemption and can still find things to enjoy about it. Colin Baker is always entertaining, though this is one of his least sympathetic scripts as the Doctor, with rather too much squabbling; Paul Darrow, Avon from Blake’s 7, gives one of the most over-the-top performances ever allowed to be broadcast; and both are fun on the commentary and ‘making of’ (few extras, and again the music is omitted), one trying to look on the bright side, the other mercilessly up-front about how bad it was. The budget is non-existent, the alien Bandrils are hilarious Grant Shapps-like creations and the script is packed with characters telling each other things they must know in such a clumsy way that only the most wooden of actors could deliver them. And they do. Featuring a young HG Wells, these days it would be called a ‘celebrity historical’, but makes a shocking mess of it: not only is he depicted as a prat; not only is it ludicrous to claim his great stories were inspired by this; but the writer of Timelash makes the Calvinist / atheist Mr Wells into a Catholic spiritualist. The only explanation for which is that he mixed HG Wells up with Arthur Conan Doyle. Sigh. Our lovely friend Simon has a moderately more generous review here.

Labels: Colin Baker, Doctor Who, DVD, Jon Pertwee, New Beginnings, Peter Davison, Peter Jeffrey, Philip Madoc, Professor Bernice Summerfield, Reviews, Richard, Sylvester McCoy, The Key To Time, Tom Baker

Apologists for the cosseted, public-subsidy-pampered nuclear industry usually just have to explain why a form of power that’s the top terrorist target, where accidents have the worst effect, where waste is more dangerous and longer-lasting than for any other supply, which relies entirely on foreign supply and which is ludicrously expensive to the taxpayer is the best. The usual answer is that it’s ‘more reliable than renewables’. How unfortunate, then, that on Tuesday – as the Government squirmed down its renewable ‘commitments’ from 20% to 10% – half of Britain’s nuclear power stations had to be, er, out of service.

The Today Programme on Tuesday morning managed a particularly woeful coverage of the expensive and unreliable nuclear programme: look, ‘Today’, just because you’re both called ‘programme’, it doesn’t been you have to be so obviously on nuclear’s side. After a short, pre-recorded anti-nuclear phone call from Michael Meacher (a man with moderately good green credentials, but with no position and no support in a Labour Party that’s turning into nuclear’s biggest cheerleader, so who exactly was he speaking for? If you want a party that stands for something, ask a Liberal Democrat), their prime 8.10am slot staged a nuclear ‘debate’ between… A scientist committed to the nuclear industry, and an employee of the nuclear lobby. Astoundingly, neither of them felt that nuclear power might not be the answer, and the interviewer make the extraordinary naïve mistake of trying to balance between the two pro-nuclear lobbyists rather than press them on why a terrorist-friendly, incredibly dangerous, waste-spewing, import-dependent power source that we all pay through the nose for is so erratic that seven out of sixteen reactors weren’t even working.

The nuclear industry receives public subsidy on a scale unthinkable to almost any other ‘private enterprise’ – not least the multi-billion costs of decommissioning, which are entirely funded by the taxpayer and make a nonsense of the industry’s free-market claims to cost-effectiveness. None of this or nuclear power’s many other drawbacks was raised by or with the two pro-nuclear spokespeople on Today; gee, wonder why? Imagine if renewable technology had had a fraction of the investment that nuclear fission reactors have over the years; Britain could be a world leader in world-saving, job-creating, self-sufficient energy. We’re not, and the Labour Government appears determined to carry on with the same old Tory-Labour consensus of failure – pulling back from renewables, and throwing good money after bad by favouring yet more unsafe, unreliable and unrealistically expensive nuclear power.

Top marks to Lib Dem acting Leader Vince Cable for raising the Labour Government’s climate change-contributing climbdown on its renewable targets at Prime Minister’s Question Time this week – and a weary sigh to Gordon Brown for his well-worn reply of ‘Look! The Tories! Wooh, scary!’ No, Mr Brown, Halloween is next week; you should be ashamed of selling out the long-term future of the planet, not reducing everything in the world to short-term political playfighting.


Careful readers will have noticed I’ve not been blogging much in recent weeks… Well, since Lib Dem Conference last month my health has been especially bad, and for the last couple of weeks, worse still. Gah. On the bright side, I’m feeling very cheered this morning. What could it be? The death of King Alfred the Great? No… The Gunfight at the OK Corral? No… Hillary Clinton’s birthday? No… Some sort of anniversary, I’m sure. I’ll ask Richard when he gets up.

Labels: British Politics, Environment, Labour, Richard

In all the fuss over the Comprehensive Spending Review, in which Alistair Darling surprised pundits expecting his speech to be written by Gordon Brown by having large chunks written by opposition parties too, it’s easy to miss that the infamous Minister of Justice has done exactly the same thing. While announcements on air charges, inheritance tax and scrapping capital gains tax relief seem spookily familiar to followers of Liberal Democrat policies, and while Mr Osborne squeaks ‘You’ve stolen the policies I stole from the Lib Dems! But that’s – that’s stealing!’ Jack Straw is also stealing a Lib Dem policy.

Through the last three General Elections, the Liberal Democrats have argued that incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation should be a crime, in the same way that incitement to racial hatred is illegal. I have a particular interest here: I proposed our policy on hate crime on one of its numerous times coming before Liberal Democrat Conference; and I was the member of the Federal Policy Committee who ensured that the policy on incitement to hatred appeared in our 1997 and 2001 Manifestos. Well, Jack Straw has now caught up with the Liberal Democrats, a mere decade later, and has announced ‘Plans to outlaw inciting gay hate’. Good for him, I say through gritted teeth: Jack has form on hypocritical Lib Dem-smearing, but, after all, I wouldn’t want to have him arrested for peddling hatred on grounds of belief. But I have to admit, because of my own background on this policy (though I wasn’t its initial author, and lots of other people have worked on it along the way), my instinctive reaction is ‘That’s my policy you’re nicking, you git!’

As with the shamelessly snatched tax policies, and as ever when Labour does the right thing for the wrong reasons, we’re caught between selflessly rejoicing that they’re implementing changes that’ll be for the good of the country and feeling rather cheesed off that they’re taking the credit for something we did all the work on – and, of course, took all the flak for at election times (including, repeatedly, from the Labour Party). And, just as lifting half our tax package will mean more hard work in identifying more cuts to make to Mr Brown’s bloated bureaucracy so it’s not so complex that only the very wealthy can afford the advisers to use it to their best advantage, we’ll have to work to think up new policies to appeal to the gay community.

The Liberal Democrat Record on Freedom and Equality

The Liberal Democrats have by a very long way the best record on supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality – including sticking our necks out back when doing so was a major political risk. The 1992 General Election was the first in which I was old enough to vote, the first in which I was politically active and the first during which I was an out gay man. The Tories shamelessly used homophobia to drum up support; Labour kept as quiet as they thought they could get away with; and the Liberal Democrats were such staunch advocates for equal rights that we came under heavy fire for it.

When Paddy Ashdown was cross-examined by Jeremy Paxman for his most aggressive interview of the 1992 Election, gay equality was one of the three ‘ludicrous, extreme and unpopular’ policies on which the sneering Mr Paxman hammered Paddy and on which Paddy stood firm (I’ve forgotten one of them, but the other was green taxes – again, long before anyone else supported them). Just about the only positive press coverage on the issue was in a London-based free gay paper of the time. Capital Gay’s front page after the release of the three parties’ manifestos was one of my defining political memories, and one of the very few times in life when the number of inches really did matter. The front page consisted of three columns, printing what each party had committed to on gay rights: the Tory column was empty; the Labour one had a small, embarrassed sentence; the Liberal Democrat one was full, with the largest commitment any party had ever made at a General Election.

By the 1997 General Election, I was both a member of the Liberal Democrat Federal Policy Committee and a Parliamentary candidate. The Manifesto draft presented to the FPC included similar words to those of 1992; I was determined to set the bar higher, and proposed additions that meant we stood on a platform of twice as many commitments. Labour fell silent; the Tories stayed that way. The Daily Telegraph spoke up, and picked out our gay policies in their Leader Column the day after our Manifesto was launched as the vilest things in there to fulminate against (you have no idea just how proud that made me). And I was one of only two out gay candidates the gay press could find from my party: yes, you’re right. I was gobby, and they weren’t looking very hard.

The Labour Government Inaction

Despite their having no balls at all in the run-up to the election or during the election itself, it was generally expected that Labour would act on gay rights once they got into office.

(sound of tumbleweeds going past)

Funnily enough, I said at the time that they’d be just like the Tories, but most people expected better: virtually all the gay people I spoke to; certainly all the gay press; even quite a few Liberal Democrats. Michael Howard had been famous as a bullying, authoritarian, minority-scapegoating Home Secretary for the Conservatives, with the joke at the time that there was only one person in the country more illiberal than he was, and that was Jack Straw, his Labour shadow (in so many senses of the word). Everything Mr Howard said, Mr Straw shrilled that it was too soft and called for something worse. Not to worry, most people thought; it’s just an electoral pose, so we’ll hold our noses and he’ll be better in office. Well, in office he earned the soubriquet of Jack ‘Boot’ Straw, and was infamously rebuked for his ‘child curfews’ by John Redwood, who announced “Even I’m not that right-wing”. Mr Straw and the newly elected Labour Government were quick to boss people around, and slow to tackle discrimination. Mr Straw, then, was scary at the time – but looking back, it’s scarier still to realise that he was the high water mark of New Labour ‘liberalism’. He took Mr Howard’s title as the most bullying, authoritarian, minority-scapegoating Home Secretary in living memory, but he was only the nastiest Home Secretary ever until the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Still, the Liberal Democrats thought they might be pushing at an open door on gay rights, at least: in Parliament over the next few years, Lib Dem MPs and Peers proposed an end to discrimination in the armed forces, in work, in housing, in sexual offences law, in the age of consent, through abolishing Section 28… And what did Labour actually do? Well, you’re expecting me to say zilch, nada, not a sausage, but that isn’t quite true.

Under Home Secretary Jack Straw and his successors, the Labour Government not only voted down every Liberal Democrat proposal to end homophobic discrimination, but – when victims of discrimination challenged it in the courts – the Labour Government fought them.

I’ll say that again.

When homophobic legislation and practice was fought in the courts, Jack Straw and his buddies in the Labour Government actually spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money (not just heterosexual taxpayers, by the way) defending homophobic legislation at every step of the way. Is it a surprise that I don’t entirely trust Mr Straw’s motives now he’s introducing one of the many proposals he fought tooth and nail to reject?

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrats didn’t just talk about freedom and equal rights at election time. In Parliament, we consistently fought for equal treatment, and in government in Scotland, we ensured the abolition of Section 2A (the Scottish Section 28) and recognised same-sex partners in the Incapacity Bill. At Westminster, Labour could have delivered, but couldn’t be bothered. Labour ran away from the bigots, trying to face both ways with weasel words to the gay press while pandering to homophobia.

Lib Dem Support for Gay Rights; Gay Support for the Lib Dems

Not surprisingly, the 2001 General Election saw a huge surge in gay support for the Liberal Democrats. All the polls among lesbian, gay and bisexual voters suggested that our vote had more than doubled to between forty and fifty per cent, while Labour’s once commanding lead had disintegrated when faced with the reality of their record in Government. Our Manifesto ‘Freedom, Justice, Honesty’ presented an even more comprehensive package of commitments than our 1997 Manifesto; I was then Vice-Chair of the FPC, and even more able to feed in proposals at every stage. It was the most committed programme of equality before the law that any party had ever put forward in an election.

In 2001, we even produced our first ever Liberal Democrat Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Manifesto, ‘Freedom to be Yourself’. Commissioned and published by the main party like all the other mini-manifestos, it was launched in a London gay bar by a team of out lesbian and gay Parliamentary candidates (yes, me again, but this time we had photo-opportunities with Charles Kennedy and two dozen of us), and – to demonstrate that equal rights were not an add-on extra – every single commitment in ‘Freedom to be Yourself’ was taken directly from ‘Freedom, Justice, Honesty’. The rest of the mind-manifesto was made up of background, philosophy, argument, rhetoric… Well, you can guess the sort of thing, because I wrote it, and against the backdrop of Labour’s utter failure, it was an incredibly easy task, with Labour’s apologits reduced to shrilling ‘But the Tories are worse!’

By the 2005 General Election, writing the Liberal Democrat Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Manifesto was a much harder task for Jonathan Wallace (and not, as you may have been told, for some self-aggrandising Tory). The Liberal Democrats remained consistent in our principles and had been staunch throughout that Parliament, but the main Manifesto contained quite a bit less in 2005. In part, that was because the decision had been taken to reduce the word count drastically: compare the 2001 and 2005 tabloid-form programmes and you can see at a glance which is easier to read, so there was a lot less of everything in 2005. In part, though, it was because a lot of the law had changed.

To give the Labour Government credit where it was due, they did finally decide to bring in civil partnerships after years of voting against Lib Dem proposals for them, and that’s probably the greatest single step forward in my lifetime. Being Labour, though, they also shamelessly claim credit where they deserve none at all. The equal age of consent? Equality in the armed forces? Employment discrimination? Transgender rights? Ask a Labour spokesperson today, and you’ll be told they chose to do all of it. The reality is quite different: it was the Liberal Democrats who were at the forefront of all these campaigns before they were fashionable, and on every one of them Labour – far from choosing to act – changed the law only when they were forced to do so by European Court judgements or EU initiatives, and on several they wasted not just Parliamentary time but millions of pounds opposing equality in court. While the Labour Government posed for the Daily Mail, thousands of lives were ruined by their inaction.

Good For Jack Straw. But Why Didn’t He Take Action In 1997?

So, in the last decade, things have got much better for Britain’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens – but Labour deserves very little of the thanks for it. At every stage, they have been cowering behind popular opinion, while the Liberal Democrats have been leading it. Mr Straw said this week that

“It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last 10 years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality.
“It is time for the law to recognise this.”

No, Mr Straw. It is long since past time, but it’s mysteriously just the time that you might be worried that Labour needs to do something to win back the gay vote that rightly deserted you.

I’m all for rejoicing over a sinner that repenteth, but I only hope that shiny new Minister of Justice Jack Straw will gain a better record of delivery than former Home Secretary Jack Straw, who fought every inch of the way against the very same proposal every time it was ever put to him and showered such hatred and invective against the people who proposed it in the past.

Labels: Bigotry, British Politics, FPC, Gay, Labour, Liberal Democrats, The Golden Dozen