Love and Liberty

A Merry Doctor Who Special Day to you all, and there's just time, with Ronnie Corbett in full flow on TV and Richard coughing over his turkey at putting on some lederhosen, for me to spoiler an ultra-special Christmas secret. I've got to tell you: Doctor Who Supremo Steven Moffat very nearly pulled off a cracker of a con-job. You think, don't you, that tonight's story is going to be A Christmas Carol again? Honestly. As if the ever-inventive* Mr Moffat would give us such a Dickensian old chestnut that the series first did it more than twenty years ago! Why, just this afternoon we put on the Christmas turkey with killer sprouts**, and even I wrote an A Christmas Carol-referencing Doctor Who story for a friend over a decade ago (it's that obvious an idea. Come to think of it, even Blackadder did it, with the same Doctor Who companion that the Doctor did. And that's on again tonight, too). So it's a brilliant Yuletide prank, isn't it, that Mr Moffat's managed to convince everyone that he's just doing the same again.

So of course it's something much more original. Ignore the Continuity Errors. Yes, from the man who in 2007 brought a Doctor Who story to the screen that he'd first published in the Annual a couple of years earlier, and who this year commissioned Gareth Roberts to adapt a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip for TV, tonight I'm hugely excited to reveal he's got a special adaptation of one of the greatest of all Doctor Who stories, The Iron Legion. Oh, you were going to be so surprised! Which is why, amid all the fake "Dickens" clips (and to think everybody's fallen for it – biggest whopper printed in the Radio Times since Neil Toynay last guest-starred), when they accidentally let through a shot from the real Christmas special, Mr Moffat went hopping mad. Such incompetence! It's amazing so few people spotted it, but just before General Ironicus thrills and delights you by striding onto your screen at 6pm, here's the clip that let it slip, where the real Malevilus Temple was inadvertently revealed.





Sorry to spoil the surprise early.

Will there be any more blogs from me to mark the end of my least productive year yet? With a bit of luck, I might soon be publishing an arguably better-informed review of a spectacularly unChristmassy Doctor Who story. But, as is so often the way, I've got to the end with no problem, but am having difficulty with the start (and it's not even one of Mr Moffat's timey-wimeys).


Apologies, one and all, for my not having sent a single Christmas card. Well, that's not quite true (how unlike most of this post). I handed one to my beloved this morning in person, and I did post one to my Grandma in New Hampshire, as the alternative is execution (only joking). But having been distinctly ill and only out of the flat three times in three weeks, I'm afraid I've not done very much that's Christmassy for the people I love. Except the lovely one who made dinner for me this very afternoon and generally makes life worth living.


And finally, as my previous post was filled with rather unseasonable language, perhaps I could make up for it with a piece of festive opinion polling…

…Don't tell the children.


*As proven mathematically down Mr Miles' sidebar

**Unlike most of this post, it is in fact true that while eating Christmas dinner we watched Doctor Who's The Trial of a Time Lord Part Eleven

Labels: Charles Dickens, Christmas, Colin Baker, Comics, Doctor Who, Matt Smith, Pictures, Richard, Tom Baker

Tonight on tuition fees, the Liberal Democrats reach the climax of their worst political fuck-up for twenty years. This is a cause of ructions for Lib Dems, hilarity for the media, hypocrisy from Labour who created the policy (except the fairer bits), and disgusting hypocrisy from the Labour-run "National Union of Students," whose policy is functionally identical to the Coalition Government's but who pretend outrage.

What you won't see in the terrible press the Lib Dems are getting is that the Leaders of the Labour and, shockingly, the So-Called "Green Party" prioritise embarrassing the Government instead of tackling climate change.

I've meant to write about tuition fees for months, but as you'll have spotted, I've not been writing anything much. As I've been coughing all manner of unpleasantness up all day and I can't access any of the notes I've been making half-heartedly along the way, this won't be a long, methodical, carefully argued and linkful piece. More a shout of outrage at seeing the news. Yes, my temperature has been racing all day, but this evening part of it's self-induced (or at least politics-induced).

Who's Right To Be Outraged? And Who's Faking It?

The many students who voted for Lib Dems who signed a pledge not to vote for increased fees have the right to be outraged. Cutting or abolishing fees for the least well-off (based both on their families before graduation and their jobs after graduation) is a good achievement by Lib Dem ministers that a majority Tory Government would not have delivered, and that Labour proved they would never deliver in their long years of absolute power, when instead they created and then increased tuition fees. Extending the same system to all the part-time students (who tend to be poorer, and who Labour condemned to pay every penny up front) is a big step forward. The amended system is not absolute evil. It does help the poorest. It is more progressive than the system Labour left in place, or Labour's Browne Report on which it's based but which they now pretend to oppose. But it's not good enough. Promising to vote against raising the tuition fees people pay slowly after graduating, then voting to let some universities triple them, is a broken promise, and – more importantly – a broken principle.

Students who complain now but who voted in May for candidates who did not sign the pledge, particularly those who supported the defeated Labour Government which broke all their tuition fees promises, are hypocrites. And students who didn't bother to vote but protest now, leading to the under-25s having by far the lowest voter turn-out at the General Election, should be ashamed of themselves for their laziness (if 'they're all the same', how come you're burning Nick Clegg in effigy rather than any random politician?) – more votes would have meant more Lib Dem MPs and a stronger bargaining position.

As it is, 65% of the Lib Dem Manifesto is being delivered in government, and that's not according to Lib Dem spin doctors – it's from The Guardian, who pour shit over the Lib Dems on a daily basis. As (like everyone else) we didn't win the election, that's not just impressive but near-miraculous.

Do you know what the Lib Dems' top election priority on education was? You can see for yourself: it was on the front cover of that manifesto (tuition fees were not), and it's been delivered by the Coalition Government. It's a pupil premium to load extra money to the poorest schoolkids in the country. I'm proud that Liberal Democrats in government have made sure money's going to help the children who most need it. I'm not happy, though, about the coalition negotiators' work on tuition fees. They had to do a near-impossible job at frantic speed, and mostly they did great work (that 65%), but they should have seen the problems coming. It was the biggest single worry at the Special Conference that agreed the Coalition deal a week later, so it's not as if other people couldn't work it out. Abolishing tuition fees was a major campaigning issue as well as an issue of principle. It was also very expensive. But even if the Tories wouldn't agree to the money for abolition, the double-bind of the pledge not to raise them should have been the fall-back position, not the policy that fell into the abyss. I'm very glad I didn't have to sit in that room and work out what to cut instead. But the fact is, the Lib Dem negotiators made the one huge mistake of agreeing David Cameron's cast-iron promises but bargaining away Nick's. I know which of the Leaders is more instinctively honest, so it's a shame that the other one had the more finely attuned sense for covering his arse.

Oh, and one from the archives: my position on tuition fees from 17 months ago. It's not changed, even if we can't deliver it today. The Coalition is something else I have two big problems with, and once again one of them's tuition fees (though it's at least made a big mark rolling back Labour's hideous attacks on civil liberties).

Pairing – No, It's Not Just Arcane Parliamentary Rules

Almost no-one will know about this, let alone care, because it sounds like an arcane bit of Parliamentary nonsense, and goodness knows there are a lot of those still cluttering up the place. But in fact 'pairing' is not some old-fashioned bit of flummery that politicians use to cover up being lazy, or arrogant, or out of touch. It's one of the few bits of Parliament that helps it work like a proper workplace. Which is why, of course, Labour doesn't actually believe in it – like Harriet Harman pretending commitment to equality but slagging off ginger people against the law she herself brought in, Ed Miliband has refused the sort of cover of which he himself has just taken advantage. Charlotte Henry explains:

"It has emerged that the Labour Leader is refusing to pair Energy & Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne for tomorrow's vote on tuition fees, forcing him to return from the key climate change summit in Cancun. Pairing is the process whereby the absence of an MP who is whipped one way but can't attend a vote is negated by an opposing MP not voting too, and is agreed by the parties' teams of whips."

Basically, you need something to cover MPs who are seriously busy somewhere else or Parliament can't function – both Government and Opposition use and need it. Millennium Dome, Elephant points out that the Opposition parties (now the Coalition Government) co-operated with Labour 'pairs' even when Labour broke their own promises over tuition fees, if you read his Now Labour's Opportunism Threatens Climate Change Talks:

"It's done by a formal agreement between the Whips' Offices (which is just one of the reasons you can't "pair" with a rebel on your own side – never mind that if they're wound up enough TO rebel, they're hardly likely to agree to taking a stand by not being there!)

"It's been used for TIGHT votes before to allow Hard Labour ministers to attend important events such as – not un-coincidentally – the 2004 Higher Education Act (which you MAY recall was a bit of a tight pinch itself with seventy-one Labour rebels opposing, er, the Hard Labour Government manifesto-pledge tripling of tuition fees)."

But this is Ed Miliband refusing to 'pair' a single Labour MP for the Government Ministers away trying to sort out the survival of the planet. I can't think of a more serious issue for him to piss about with for a stunt. And he used to accept pairing personally from the parties that are now in government when he said it was vitally important for him to be away negotiating, back when he was… Energy and Climate Change Secretary.

Labour used to say the Tories were evil in the 1970s when they refused 'pairs' for close votes and forced sick Labour MPs to come from their hospital beds to vote. Today, Labour are happy to dick about with the planet's future to get a headline. Which party's meant to be evil, again?

Never mind the Labour Leader having exploited literally the same cover he's refusing now, the shitty hypocrite, but there are others that do much the same thing that he pretends to support. Think about it. It's not only Parliament that requires cover to function. It's a bit like there being a legal framework to guarantee maternity or paternity leave, so new parents don't have to work the day their baby's born. This comparison's particularly appropriate, because although the Labour Leader doesn't think anyone else should have cover for their jobs, Ed Miliband thought it was important that he take time off for his own baby in the last few weeks. Good for him, as far as that went.

But all those non-Miliband babies who might die because of climate change? But they're mainly in the Third World, aren't they, so they won't be in the news. And even more importantly, they're not little Miliband princes, so why should he give a toss? Oh – he doesn't.

So, Labour are despicable hypocrites who break the spirit and the letter of their own laws just for a stunt, and endanger vital international negotiations as a by-product. No-one can say they're surprised, after thirteen years of appalling Labour Government. But they're not the only opposition party, are they?

If only there were a single MP on the opposition benches whose entire stated raison d'être was to protect the environment, rather than being play politics with the Earth's future like the hypocritical scum in the Labour Party…

Caroline Lucas Says Climate Change Is Only Someone Else's Problem – As She Boasts On Twitter

I care about the tuition fees vote. But next to the threat of climate change, it doesn't matter a rat's fart.

I realise that's not going to win any votes. There's no one single hot-button climate change policy that will raise howls of outrage like tuition fees, and nothing's going to convince anyone reading that the Leader of the So-Called Green Party is a disgusting traitor just because she sits smugly back and, like the Labour Party, pretends that climate change is someone else's problem. But it should.

So-Called Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas could have proven that she, unlike the Labour Party, thought climate change was a serious issue. In fact, several people asked her directly if she would pair Chris Huhne.

She said there was no need, and he could just stay at the COP16 climate change negotiations in Cancún, pretending that wasn't a problem, pretending that would in no way distract one of the key negotiators, pretending that she doesn't know why pairing is important. Exactly along with all those other people who also say, 'Oh, climate change, who cares, someone else can deal with it. I'll just carry on as I was'.

Caroline Lucas, you call Nick Clegg a betrayer for breaking one policy that was a long way down the Lib Dems' manifesto when he had to make compromises with another party to fulfil any policies. What are you, then, for sitting back and putting your own smug ego ahead of the world's biggest climate change negotiations?

What are you for, then?

You are the first Self-Styled Green MP ever elected to the UK Parliament. What do you think people expect is your number one priority? What is the biggest possible betrayal you could commit?

You have no coalition agreement with any other party. Absolutely nothing dilutes your electoral mandate. You can vote however you like. That gives you freedom. It also means that you have no-one but yourself to take responsibility – or blame.

You choose to use your vote to help embarrass the Coalition Government, and you choose to refuse to help the delicate climate change negotiations in which the United Nations say the UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary is leading the charge to make them work. You choose to use your vote to embarrass the Government and put the climate change negotiations at risk.

You don't give a toss about the environment when you can posture to your voters in the two universities in Brighton, do you?

You are a lying piece of shit and the most despicable hypocrite.


I remain a supporter of the Coalition Government. I remain unenthusiastic about many of the compromises involved, and I remain in deep dislike for the Tories. One consolation, as it has been for most of the last six months, is that the Labour Party remain far worse. And for the Labour spin doctor who said on Newsnight last night that tuition fees might be the Lib Dems' "Iraq moment": no, you tasteless gobshite, it isn't. How can I tell? Because it's not killing hundreds of thousands of people illegally.

"Cancún"… Hmm, almost an anagram of a word made popular by Radio Four this week that's appropriate to the Labour and So-Called Green Parties for their fiddling while the Earth burns?

Good News

As I've been writing, news has broken that Chris Huhne is doing the right thing, because he cares about climate change while Ms Lucas only pretends to. Even if the government is defeated, he's staying put to do the more important job. If the tuition fees vote is lost by one vote, Caroline Lucas will crow that it was her that did it. It wasn't. It will have been the Energy and Climate Change Secretary taking responsibility and putting his money where his mouth is about climate change while the self-styled Leader of the fake "Green Party" postures and throws away all her most important principles when it comes to a choice rather than a soundbite.

Labels: British Politics, Coalition, Education, Environment, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, The Golden Dozen

This hasn't been my best year for blogging, has it? Mostly down to my own ill-health, though my computer's recently come out in sympathy. As most of my interaction with the outside world or even thinking time goes through it, this is a bit of a blow. In short, I was rebooting and it suddenly got no further than the company logo (a Dell PC running Windows XP) before the screen went blank. My very limited skills have got as far as unproductively re-plugging things and then failing to start safe mode, which simply sticks on one screen half-way through.



So if I've been grouchy, unsociable, introspective and silent, which I certainly have been, that's made it significantly worse. If you have any brilliant tips, please let me know – in addition to not being able to use the thing, I'm ashamed to admit that my last proper back-up was three and a half months ago, so while not everything is irreplaceable I feel like a chunk of my brain's gone missing, including all my most recent trains of thought.

Tiresomely, having become very much more ill than usual in the Spring, I still am. I seemed to be improving in parts of August and September, which was a relief – balanced by the crushing let-down of getting much worse again (and while he's usually spared my collapsing during the day, all that noisy late-night throwing up is difficult to hide from poor stressed Richard, who could do with a break). So I'm not getting out much, and that's been nothing to do with the weather. Today is my Mum's birthday, and while I'd hoped to be able to go up north to see the family, no chance. Hopefully I'll at least be able to totter out on the particular day in mid-January when my hospital appointment's due… The one my doctor said would come up within 30 days when he applied for it back in August. Ho hum. Maybe I'm just still ill so as not to waste it? Nah, probably not.

I'd like to write something today about the government's rubbish new drugs policy and about Doctor Who and Christmas, but as I'm feeling pretty ghastly and as Richard's laptop (which he very kindly lets me nab from time to time) knackers my hands much more than my usual keyboard does, it's unlikely. So try to imagine that you've read them, and then marvel at how different your memories of my different articles are when you talk amongst yourselves!

Labels: Health, Personal, Technology

There’s only a week to go in the hard-fought Presidential election between two of the Liberal Democrats’ most impressive performers – but back a month ago, I put three questions to each of them, and to Jennie Rigg, who but for a handful of nominations was so nearly the third runner in the race. So here are those nine answers, with each of them saying what they believe the Liberal Democrats stand for, why people should vote for us… And being put on the spot with a personally tailored ‘nasty question’ I wanted to hit them with. Remember to vote! And, as I wrote yesterday, if you’re a Lib Dem Conference Representative, make sure you vote in all the other big internal elections, too (and consider voting for a bit of politics, while you’re at it…).

Remember Lib Dem Conference in Liverpool in September? Yes, I’m afraid that’s how long it’s taken me to type all this up, but here are the answers at last. I hope you’ll think about them if you’ve not yet voted: for me, the questions about what we stand for are the most important for any Lib Dem seeking office. I’ve asked the same of people who wanted to be my local PPC, and of people who are now Cabinet Ministers (and some have answered a lot better than others). So here are what Susan, Jennie and Tim have to say.

I interviewed Tim on Saturday 18th September, chaired by Helen Duffett and along with Nick Thornsby, Sara Bedford, Joe Jordan and Millennium Dome, Elephant. I was triple-booked when Susan met bloggers, so the very lovely Stephen Tall was kind enough to put my questions and take notes on my behalf (you might also like to read the detailed write-ups of that interview from Mary Reid and Andy Hinton). If you’re following the link from yesterday’s Halloween post, you might think of him as my medium – thank you very much, Spooky Stephen! And, finally, though there wasn’t the opportunity for a full cross-examination of Jennie by a similar group, she let me take her to one side on the final day and ask her some questions in the rain.

Those two key questions in full:

“Increasingly, people say of politicians that ‘They’re all the same’. This is an even bigger danger now we’re in coalition. So I’d like to ask two simple questions to get two very brief answers from you about what really fires you up and about what you hope will inspire other people.
“In just a sentence or two, what do the Liberal Democrats stand for?
“And in just a sentence or two, why should people vote Liberal Democrat?”

What Do the Liberal Democrats Stand For?

Tim Farron:

“We’re a party that believes in genuine freedom. Genuine freedom only exists if you have the means to exercise it. So it means the freedom to decide what kind of life you want to lead, freedom of choice about your personal circumstances, about where you want to live, about what sort of life you want to live, who you want to live it with – but also about having freedom to have a home, to work, to have access to decent healthcare. It’s a distinctly Social Liberal concept of freedom. And also a fundamental acknowledgement that the biggest single bar to freedom is poverty.”

Susan Kramer:

“Freedom and fairness – it’s overused and trite, but it’s why I joined the party. Labour’s surveillance state is terrifying, and the Tories would do nothing about it but for Liberal Democrats being involved. I have lived in the USA, so I treasure the notion of social justice as the centre of our tradition, along with a genuine opportunity to be involved in decision-making.”

Jennie Rigg:

“The best and only answer? It’s on the back of our membership card, balancing the ideals of liberty, equality and community that we carry around all the time.”

Why Should People Vote Liberal Democrat?

Susan Kramer:

“The Liberal Democrats are in tune with the kind of Britain voters want to see. People want to be sure individuals are respected, communities are balanced and the vulnerable are looked after, at the core of government concern. Standing up for freedom – that is very central to the British tradition. Just think of the rhetoric around our role in the two World Wars that members of my family fought in for those freedoms. Freedom matters; social justice matters; that’s why you should vote for the Liberal Democrats. And I’ve always championed the environmental movement – I remember that being seen as freakish but for the Liberal Democrats, yet now it’s mainstream.”

Jennie Rigg:

“For what we stand for, and because unlike the other two parties, we don’t decide policy on ideology, but on what will work. Particularly in a time of austerity, there’s no point in throwing money at things that don’t work.”

Tim Farron:

[Continuing directly from previous answer!] “And why should people vote Liberal Democrat? Because we’re the only people who think that. The Labour Party say they will give you the latter… They didn’t, in thirteen years – they talk about the economics, the kind of freedom from poverty, but one of the reasons I joined the Liberals and not the Labour Party under Mrs Thatcher in Lancashire in 1986, was because they’re an illiberal party, they’re a very illiberal party, an authoritarian party, a conservative party, and we’re a radical party, a party that believes in genuine tolerance, and understands and gets freedom on every level.
“More pithy – probably not pithy enough. But we’ll get better!”

The Nasty Questions

Jennie Rigg: You’re up against an MP and ex-MP, both of whom have a big impact already on the media. Nobody’s heard of you; when even Ros as a peer didn’t get on TV, why will they think you’re credible?

“Well, the media don’t think any of us are credible! But I’m difficult to miss – people remember me. And I already have a new media infrastructure. Most importantly, I can show every member – you can stand up and do it!”

Tim Farron: The Party effectively has two Deputy Leaders – one chosen by the MPs, the other a President chosen by the members. How much of a clash should there be between the two, and are you going for this one as your consolation prize second choice because you failed to get the other – or to follow the example of some past Presidents in raising your media profile in the hope of becoming the next Leader?

“It would have been wrong if Simon had been the only candidate for Deputy. There’s not a fag paper between us on ideology; he’s a great friend, and he said he was grateful for the contest. I won the hustings, and lost everything else! Look, I wasn’t planning to stand for either position – I only heard about President a week ago – and I wouldn’t stand in normal circumstances, but these aren’t normal circumstances. I get to hear the good things we’re doing in Government, but there are 60,000 members who don’t get to listen to Vince’s soothing words in the corridors. I want to connect the Party to our people in Government. There’ll be no freelancing – Simon and Nick are joined at the hip. This’ll be a different sort of Presidency because of the situation we’re in – we don’t need to restructure after Ros’ hard work and the loss of POLD money. What we do need is a distillation of what we stand for. I joined the Party at 16, I love the Party, I’m delighted we’re in power – but I’m terrified at what that might do to us. And a lot of people feel that way. The President should communicate why we should belong and why we should believe. And I honestly hope Nick will be Leader for so long that I’ll be too old when he goes!”

Susan Kramer: Why should the Party Presidency be a consolation prize for losing your seat?

“I don’t need consolations. I’ve had a wonderful time with the Party, and made a real difference to Liberal Democrats in London, not only as an MP but also as a London mayoral candidate. I’ve had 5 years as MP – I would never have not have done that. I feel incredibly privileged. My heart goes out to PPCs who slogged their guts out but at the end of a brilliant campaign, they didn’t win. I had 5 years I’ll always have. So now, I’m standing for the Presidency because I can, because I’ve been so lucky, for the party and for the grassroots who have campaigned for me as MP and for Mayor of London over the years. If I can make those people feel better.”

If you want to put your own questions, try the Presidential hustings meeting around the country. Helen Duffett has already conducted an online hustings which you can view, and also organised a London hustings for this Wednesday. If there isn’t a hustings you can get to, send them your questions directly – Susan on Twitter and on her own site, and Tim on Twitter (twice!) and on his own site.

Labels: Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Susan Kramer, Tim Farron, What the Lib Dems Stand For

Are you a Liberal Democrat member? Then, if you haven’t already, vote – and ask questions. Here are mine to the Presidential candidates:

“Increasingly, people say of politicians that ‘They’re all the same’. This is an even bigger danger now we’re in coalition. So I’d like to ask two simple questions to get two very brief answers from you about what really fires you up and about what you hope will inspire other people.
“In just a sentence or two, what do the Liberal Democrats stand for?
“And in just a sentence or two, why should people vote Liberal Democrat?”

I’ve also asked a ‘nasty’ question individually tailored to a candidate or two, but more on that story later.

All Liberal Democrats should now have received ballot papers to decide the next Party President, in effect the deputy leader of the members, and elected by one person, one vote (no Labour-style vote-rigging by interest groups or MPs’ votes worth 6,000-times those of ordinary members). If you’re an elected representative to the main party’s Conference, you’ve also got ballot papers for the party’s crucial committees. Turnout for both these sets of elections is usually poor. If you can vote and don’t, ask yourself – why can’t you be bothered taking part in democracy? Come on. Get off your arse, get out a pen, read the manifestos, scribble what you like and don’t like about them to make up your mind, fill out your ballots and get them in the post. When the party’s at the most crucial crossroads since the day it was founded, this is literally the least you can do.

I’m not pretending to be the most animated member in the world. In fact, there are plenty of things I’m crap at. I did some interviews last month that I’ve still not written up (being both more ill and more low even than usual through this year), which included the answers to those questions above. But I’d be utterly ashamed of myself if I didn’t even vote, and you should be too. Seriously – if you’re in a political party and you think voting doesn’t matter, where is your brain?

Don’t Know How To Vote? Why Not Look For Some Politics

I’m not even standing for the Federal Policy Committee this time, so I can write this sort of post (though ludicrous internal election rules mean I can’t say who I’d vote for). And if you’re having trouble deciding, with a sudden rush of people who are standing now we’re in government, I can’t say fairer than ‘read Nick Barlow’s blog’.

When I used to stand, I’d make sure I put three things in my manifesto, and look for them in others’: what I’ve done (my experience); what I want to do (what sort of things would I do were I elected to FPC); and why I want to do it (my political philosophy). I can’t say anything about any individual candidates (even those ignorant enough to suggest you vote with an “X” in an STV election), but you might at least consider those, depressingly in a minority, who actually put some politics into why you should put them into a political post. If all they can say is ‘Here is my wonderful CV as a time-serving non-entity and I want another line to fill it out with,’ what the fuck are they standing for (in both senses)? Particularly for the FPC, where I’m old-fashioned enough to think political ideas, positions and philosophy matter.

But back to the Presidential elections.

Question Authority Before You Vote For It

Last month, I wrote about the upcoming Lib Dem Presidential election, and what the job involves. Since then, it’s got a little less interesting, with a putative four candidates down to two on the ballot paper (though I’m happy to report that the one who was getting nominations by deceit is one of those who’s dropped out). It’s still, though, a hard-fought and exciting election between two heavyweight candidates.

Whether Tim Farron or Susan Kramer gets the job, each has it in them to be a brilliant President. In fact, in the past I’ve said of each of them (in different years) that I’d have liked to see them as Deputy Leader – a very similar job description, albeit elected by the MPs rather than the full membership. But just because I think both of them are outstanding doesn’t mean that I don’t think both need intense scrutiny before the election.

That’s why I’ve put the questions I’ve published above to both of them – and I’ll publish their answers to both tomorrow, along with a ‘nasty question’ and a special guest Presidential appearance.

In the meantime, why not get your thinking cap on about your own questions? What do you want to ask them? How do you want to test them?

You can take a question to your own hustings and challenge them there – I have two more I’d like to ask, on top of the ones I prepared earlier. You might also like to check out the Number One Priority for the next Party President from Jennie Rigg, who was just a handful of nominations short of being the third competitor in the race, and whose question might be more pertinent than most.

If there isn’t a hustings you can get to, send them your questions directly – Susan on Twitter and on her own site, and Tim on Twitter (twice!) and on his own site.

If you’ve been receiving e-mails from the candidates, you’re probably already sick of them. If not – and for some reason, though the Lib Dems certainly have my addy, I only get about one in four of the official party e-mails, and haven’t had any for the Presidency – you can read their initial pitches on Lib Dem Voice.

Both Susan and Tim have also given several online reasons to camera as to why they should be elected, of which these are the principal ones:








Tomorrow, then, you can see their answers to me. And if I’m in the right mood the day after, I might say what I think of them and who I’ll be voting for… Or I might not! But I will definitely be voting.

This time, though there’s plenty of crossover, I think Tim and Susan offer a real choice between different ideas of what the President should do. So get off your arse, pick up those ballots, fill them out and get them in the post.


PS Just imagine I’ve written an exciting piece about a scary Doctor Who story for Halloween too, eh?

Labels: FPC, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Susan Kramer, Tim Farron, What the Lib Dems Stand For

Another week of mystery (will the media report anything like what's actually going on?) and suspense (will Millennium finally win the Blogger of the Year Award?) has drawn to a close with outgoing President Ros Scott's final set-piece speech to Liberal Democrat Conference. Yet one of the biggest questions remains unanswered. Why is Ros not standing for another term of office? Conspiracy theories abound as she returns to her village (no, not that Village, as she hasn't technically resigned). Well, I saw her just now at Jury's Inn Hotel before she left, and I can exclusively reveal her new vocation, thanks to a slip from Ros' constant companion, that endearing old buffer Colonel the Honourable Lady Mark.

It turns out that with the murder rate so high in the House of Lords and all those international business conspiracies operating out of the draper's in her 'quiet' little village of St Mary Mead Ottery St Catchpole Creeting St Peter, she has her work cut out for her – so she's retiring to deploy those brilliant listening skills that so deftly directed the Federal Executive and picked up Lib Dem gossip from around the country to fight crime. Her first investigation, I'm told, is to pin down who killed off the Trident programme; was it the Liberal Democrats, in the morning, with the policy motion? Or was it, as incisive old Miss Cable judiciously dropped into conversation the other day while picking up a macaroon, the knives of the Treasury?

So be careful, murderers and masterminds, next time you see a little old lady sitting in the corner apparently fixed on her knitting. It could be Ros, if she looks uncannily glamorous for her 97 years and has a distinguished gent with a beard at her side. Or, more dangerously still, might it be the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Crochet?

I even came under suspicion myself just the other day; my old friend Kiron Reid stopped me in the Arena lobby and asked if I'd like to help him lift some boxes of Liberator Magazine. Of course while nothing could give me greater pleasure, I had a cast-iron alibi in the form of telling him that, no, I had to retire to my hotel room and type up my interview with Nick Clegg from last Friday. While Kiron was eyeing me warily, as if he thought this might in some way be an excuse, at exactly that moment the Deputy Prime Minister happened to walk by and ask, "Have you written up that interview yet?" So, if you think suspiciously conveniently corroborated alibis only occur in Agatha Christie novels, and then only for the guilty party, nothing could be further from the truth. Why, for me to be guilty, I would have to have secretly not in fact wished to lug about several boxes through the rain, and nor would I yet have finished typing up my piece about Nick a couple of days later. Um…

Oh, and there's something else I have to pass on, as well. Ros' implausibly demanding retirement wasn't the only secret Colonel the Honourable Lady Mark let me in on. Apparently she's investigating someone terribly senior, and I've just thought of exactly the clue she's been looking for.

But first, I'll just have this cup of tea that's been left here for me. It must have been Richard, though I didn't hear him come in or say hello – I must have been engrossed in typing. Odd tea they serve here; smells like bitter almonds…

Labels: Liberal Democrat Conferences

I've been rained on; I've hugged confidantes, candidates and Cabinet ministers; and, like everyone else, I've kept a wide berth of the glum Labour hack staffing the TUC stall despite all the freebies they're offering. Yes, it can only be Liberal Democrat Conference time again. For the first time ever, the thing the media say we're all talking about really is the thing we're all talking about – how do we think the coalition's going? So I might write about that tomorrow, because people are also talking about the internal elections and Lib Dem Voice's Blog of the Year Awards. Thankfully, I've been able to get here, with much gratitude to my lovely Richard and to my body for slowly returning to its usual levels of rubbish health over the last few weeks, after four or five months of spectacular horridness (well, last week was pretty horrid again, but I'm hoping it was a blip).

A Much More Interesting Presidential Election Than We Were Expecting

In effect, the Liberal Democrats have two deputy Leaders; one's elected by the MPs and deputises in Parliament or if the Leader falls under a bus or Simon Hughes' taxi – that Deputy Leader is now Simon Hughes – while the other is the President, elected by the whole party to deputise as the voice of us all. In the early days of the Liberal Democrats, the first was a largely ornamental position that didn't do very much while the latter was hotly contested; over time, that's almost swapped over (not least because Simon's two immediate predecessors in the job became Acting Leader), with several Presidential elections going uncontested and every President after the first one (under whom the party nearly went bankrupt) easily getting a second term. Yes, I remember all this stuff; Richard drove four of us up to Liverpool through middle England's scenic traffic jams yesterday, and while not singing new Labour Leadership-related lyrics to War of the Worlds' Brave New World (when you hear the lonely, dying, doomed "ooooh-laaaa" afterwards, think 'Poor Andy Burnham') I regaled everyone with thrilling tales of Presidential terms past. Well, they needed a nap.

This year's Presidential election, then, is a startling change to form. Ros Scott fought a brilliant grassroots campaign two years ago and thrashed poor Lembit to win the post, so everyone expected her to be returned unopposed for a second term, her nomination and consequent re-election this month pretty much a formality. So when she announced a week and a bit ago that she wasn't going to stand, a ripple of surprise went round the party – still more so, as there's no obvious 'establishment' successor. So far, four different candidates have declared, which (if they all get enough nominations) will be a record for the contest, all from a standing start. Millennium and the lovely Helen Duffett are organising bloggers' interviews with all four, and I've already joined one of them at noon today. As we went down to interview Tim Farron, the coronation music from Doctor Who – The Androids of Tara was stuck in my head; I wonder what my subconscious was trying to tell me? Consciously, I'd say the election's between two of the candidates, but I don't know which one's likely to pull ahead; I'll also have great difficulty deciding between three of them for my first preference. The one I don't know was always going to get my fourth, despite having read some good things about him… However, having observed his flunkeys persuading people to nominate him not by saying 'These are the nomination papers for X' but by claiming, "Sign here to ensure there's a contest," I shall be asking him rather curtly about that. I wonder how a candidate will justify a direct and calculated deception of voting representatives to Conference just to get as far as standing for election? Meanwhile, should you wish to enable one of the other candidates to have a fair fight, you can help here (without necessarily committing to vote for her).

Once we've completed all the interviews, I hope to write them up in one post – I'm asking each of them the same couple of questions, plus a specially fashioned extra one individually tailored to be the nastiest I can think of for each of them. So with a bit of luck that'll be sometime later this week.

Spanking New BOTYs Tonight

The highlight of every Lib Dem blogger's year is, of course, the Blog of the Year Awards, unveiled at a glittering ceremony in whatever dingy bar Lib Dem Voice has been able to afford for the first day of Conference. In tonight's, Millennium Dome has been shortlisted again for both Blog of the Year and Best Post on a Liberal Democrat Blog – hurrah (I nominated both him and Caron, both of whom it's lovely to see on the list)! Last year, of course, I was privileged to accept the coveted award for Blog of the Year itself… On someone else's behalf, naturally. Having spoken twice and been nominated twice for the top award, I remain confident that these two functions will never intersect (particularly as I've had such a pitifully low rate of posts this year, falling into ill health and, worse, Twitter). Despite that, I'm one of those up for Best Post, which is very flattering and doesn't actually put me under too much pressure to write more than once a month.

Many are nervous that the terrifying Curse of the BOTYs will strike again; three of the four past winners have almost immediately vanished into oblivion, so there's a bit of a concern that this year's will again say 'Thank you, and good night'. Frontrunner Mark Reckons has slightly presumptuously pre-emptively retired from blogging ahead of the awards; while he would of course be a worthy winner, were I a judge I would of course vote for Millennium. Being what you might call an aggressively secularist little elephant, he holds no truck with curses. Except possibly bad words about Labour Leadership candidates.

Speaking of bad words about Labour, I don't know who to back for Best Post on a Liberal Democrat Blog – it would be jolly nice to win, obviously, but I don't think mine's actually the best. Sadly, Caron's is particularly topical given the idiocy of yet another "child protection" nonsense last week. Noticeably, though, all the shortlisted posts (not necessarily reflecting the general tone of each blog from which they're taken) are ones attacking the Labour Party, either directly or – as they're taken from right across the last year – a particular action of the then government. Two of those I sent in to be considered are up there: Millennium's and Andrew Hickey's messages to Labour. Both are excellent, and I'm especially pleased to see Andrew's up there, as it's pithy, sweary and perfect (I suspect the sweariness may get in the way of winning). Millennium also wrote excellent pieces attacking the Conservatives or assessing the coalition, for example, which might have provided a little more balance (yes, yes, I know, critiquing the judges before the results are announced might be unwise). I admit I do quite like my shortlisted Considering the Evidence Means You Must Consider Your Position, being at least among my better posts of the year – this is the good bit:

"When Professor Nutt said that you’re more likely to die horse-riding than taking cannabis or ecstasy, to wails of horror from Labour hypocrites, he was simply looking at the facts of risk. Yet even that’s not really comparing like with like: unlike Professor Nutt, I support legalisation, which would enable proper quality checks (as well as destroying the criminal trade) – no-one gets on a horse, trots half-way along the path, then finds the ‘horse’ collapsing under them because they suddenly discover the beast is in fact half-gerbil."

…But you might also like to read my article on the difference between Lib Dem and Tory tax cuts, from which you can deduce which bits of the Budget came from which party, say, amongst my more anti-Conservative pieces. Or two silly picture ones, if you've had enough words from me already.

For best non-Lib Dem blogger, voting for either Charlotte Gore or Left Foot Forward would do us credit. Charlotte is a former Lib Dem, and voting for her would show that unlike the Labour Party, we can appreciate talent and interesting thoughts even if they've left the party, rather than screaming 'Traitor!' and 'Splitter!' Alternatively, we might show how Liberal and tolerant we are by recognising that Left Foot Forward is quite well-written, interesting and effective, despite also hating everything that their lying, warmongering, hypocritical, bossy, illiberal, bankrupting, pathetically evil party stands for. There, you see – I can play nice about Labour!

Fantastic News Update: Congratulations, Millennium!

It's the day after, and last night was an unexpected one – at long last, Millennium won the Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Award! You can see him with it here, after we left the awards (and after we had a very late meal, and after we were bought a bottle of champagne by someone Terribly Important… Today's been a bit slower, for some reason).

If anyone thinks the shortlistees know in advance who's won, the proof came that it isn't like election night – when any gasps of surprise from the candidates on the platform are completely faked for the cameras – as Richard nearly fell over when the lovely Iain Roberts (finally coming out to, ah, great surprise as the former Costigan Quist, proof that the "Curse of the BOTYs" was in fact no barrier to his writing 600 blog posts in the last year, merely not under his winning name) announced his name and he and Millennium had to go up to the front. I failed him; in previous years, I'd prodded him to get a speech ready, but… Oops. But I was so proud of them! What fantastic news, and I can tell you that they were both absolutely delighted, once recovered from shell-shock. Poor Millennium was so overcome that he didn't speak at all!

I suspect we though Millennium was never going to win after the year that all three of us thought he was at his most consistently brilliant, prolific, inclusive and innovative – and wasn't even nominated (the more embarrassing of the two times I was nominated for the top slot, as I didn't think I remotely should have been and had very much wanted him to win). But if he didn't win for quite his best year, there's no better time for a soft toy to win than, as Richard said – eventually – in his acceptance speech, just as we reach the centre of government for the first time in ninety years and are expected to 'behave' and look just like everyone else. We won't.

Congratulations, too, to the other winners Nick, Nick – people are minded to agree with Nick, apparently; it must be #NickCleggsFault – Alex, Andrew and Charlotte, who looked almost as stunned as Richard. It was only at the Awards that I thought what I might say should I win, not expecting to, and came up with three things: as I was wearing a t-shirt with a particularly striking shot of Tom Baker as the Doctor announcing "I deny this reality" (from my favourite story), I would have insisted that being stuck in the 1970s and denying reality was not a sign that I had suddenly been convinced by Ed Balls; that I was delighted to win the best single post, and with my ever-decreasing writing rate would eventually reach my target of just one post a year, in the hope that it would still be nominated; and that I thought Andrew Hickey's was better, and that he should have won. Fortunately, he did. Unfortunately, as he makes clear below, it wasn't for the post I nominated but a different one (one link above, the other in the comment below), which shows that I shouldn't just glance at a similar title but at least glance at the thing itself again before I link.

Andrew's winning article is a heartfelt and thoughtful appeal to Labour people on how they might bring their party back from the brink; I'll close, though, with a sliver from a slightly earlier one of his. Having simultaneously attacked us as evil Tories and consistently attacked us from the right, particularly in their racist flame-fanning on immigration throughout the election, the moment the election was over, Labour leaders all announced that they had 'won' the election by adding our vote to theirs, because according to them they owned it, really. Many Lib Dems took this as a perfect crystallisation of just why we despise the Labour Party, but it was Andrew's brief and explosive post that hit that nerve better than anyone else for me:

"THERE IS NO LIBDEM-LABOUR COMBO! THERE IS NO LABOUR+LIBDEM. WE ARE TWO SEPARATE PARTIES!

"Yours is the party of war criminals, destruction of civil liberties, and inflating economic bubbles that favour the middle-classed and middle-aged against the young and poor.

"WE ARE NOT YOUR FUCKING BACKUP PLAN."

Labels: Blogs, Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats

I’m immensely fond of the original Doctor, William Hartnell, and it’s a good week if you are too. After showing Hell Drivers on Monday, in which he’s the villain and Patrick McGoohan’s his heavy, at 12.45 today BBC2 present The Mouse That Roared, in which Billy’s the heavy and Peter Sellers is most of the rest of the cast*. Now, if only they’d repeat a season of Billy’s Doctor Who stories as well… And while not all of those still properly exist, tomorrow a CD boxed set of the “missing stories” is released (you can pre-order it for half price). Although the five adventures (across a dozen CDs) in Doctor Who – The Lost TV Episodes Collection One: 1964-1965 have previously been released separately, the box works out a little cheaper (or much cheaper on the current offer) and has some extras this time, in the form of pdfs of the original scripts and a couple of other bits and bobs. Two are particularly good, too, while only one’s a bit shallow. No doubt there’ll be more of these boxes to come, thanks to the BBC’s brilliant archive-burning policy of the 1960s and 1970s.

If you follow BBC7, you might also be entertained by today’s episode (on this morning, on again at 10pm) of The Little World of Don Camillo. I read a lot of these gently satirical small-town 1950s Italian religion and politics stories in my teens, and it’s an occasional pleasure to catch up with one of the stories on radio, featuring Joss Ackland as God. Today’s had a particularly satisfying punchline for me (if not for the Communists), and a bishop like an altogether milder version of Rev’s relishably Satanic archdeacon.

Dynasty

And finally… Yes, I know I should be posting something to celebrate, evaluate or castigate the coalition’s first hundred days, but I’m still too ill and generally grumpy for proper analysis. I have, however, been cheered daily by CBS Drama’s repeats of Dynasty, which have today reached the climax of the series’ penultimate season, and which make me laugh (almost always unintentionally). This was the eighth season, with ratings in free-fall after their mid-’80s glory days – I picked up watching this set of repeats half-way through, in time to catch the hilarious ‘wedding massacre’, surely Dynasty’s finest ten minutes (even if the cliffhanger is then resolved by all the machine-gunned Carringtons and Colbys getting up again save the two unsuitable partners: the gay man and the not-quite-white-enough woman).

I can understand why the ratings declined; I almost turned off during the seventh season, in which evil brother Ben became tortured and saintly, everyone became suddenly concerned with family values and a baby kidnap story went on for weeks and tedious weeks – most spent shouting at the screen for the long-telegraphed kidnap actually to get on and happen, and wondering eventually if the twist would be that it wouldn’t (it did, long after anyone stopped caring) – so I suspect I’d have run out of patience too if I’d seen it at the original pace of one dreary episode per week rather than five. Fortunately, the eighth season got mean and nasty again, so I’ve stayed watching. There’s the running theme of Alexis’ fourth husband, the increasingly psychotic and laughably hammy Sean Rowan, with his Hooded Claw-style plots, multiple names and multiple deaths, and a backstory that, like much of this season, digs shamelessly into the series’ past to dig up threats from beyond the grave (in one episode, all four of Alexis’ husbands were competing for the storyline. Including the dead one). Then there’s the wronged niece who’s turned into the horribly inept ‘bad girl’, the miscast replacement daughter who’s at least better than the horribly miscast replacement other daughter from the previous season (so bad they dropped her between episodes without even a goodbye scene, with even her loving / feuding parents no longer giving a toss) but who they still have no idea what to do with, Blake fighting the world’s least busy and least plausible race for Governor, Alexis challenging him and – incredibly – that leading to some scenes that actually say something interesting about women in politics, before she’s accidentally almost assassinated by her ineptly vengeful husband…

The final season starts tomorrow. I just hope it’s as funny as this one.


*Despite being utterly different in tone to Dr Strangelove, watch the two movies back-to-back and they have so much in common on paper that it’s difficult not to conclude that Stanley Kubrick saw the earlier movie when he was in a really bad mood, and got ideas.

Labels: Comedy, Doctor Who, Dynasty, Film, Reviews, William Hartnell

Of all the many posts I’ve started (either in my head, or more rarely with actual typing involved) in the last couple of months – most of the political ones are now woefully out of date and only marginally likely to see the light of day eventually out of historical interest – the one that I absolutely wasn’t going to write was the self-pitying personal one. I’ve tried to get up the enthusiasm to write, but even an imagined post of a few lines regarding Carry On Up the Khyber passed by at the weekend without setting fingers to keyboard. But this morning I’ve noticed after another rough night that I’ve managed to let a complete calendar month slip with nothing at all for the first time since I started this blog in 2006, which spoils my at times already tenuous record, leaves a gap in my sidebar and makes me more sourly dispirited but ironically (if no doubt temporarily) more interactive than usual.

I am, in case anyone’s concerned, still thoroughly committed to both Doctor Who and the Liberal Democrats, if with more muted enthusiasm for the recent adventures of both than usual. I am, however, just about self-aware enough to know that while this may be a function of Moffat and coalition (though Michael Howard yesterday slagging off what the latter’s doing does, naturally, help), being horribly ill and generally despising most things about my life right now means that it’ll take quite a bit of time before I can be in a proper position to judge, as there’s rather a large alternative reason for not enjoying things to be taken into account. Amongst other things it means I’m still not able to get out much, to put it mildly – I’ve managed to get further than the local shops three times in the best part of three months, after each of which I’ve completely collapsed for several days, so I’ve missed an awful lot to do with both Lib Dems and Who that I’d have wished for (just in the last few days: sorry, Jennie; sorry, Jago and Litefoot).

Richard is being very lovely, trying not to react when I’m a total git, trying to pretend he’s not worried at the repetitive sound of my retching, and trying not to look completely aghast at the state both and I and the flat have got into. I have on occasion been cheered a bit by e-mails from some very nice people, and I’m afraid I’ve not been replying to many, because while I appreciate it my appetite for interaction is significantly suppressed right now (sorry to several lovely people whose birthdays I’ve entirely ignored recently, too). So if anyone feels like cheering Richard up, please do, because he’s not having a great time with me.

Regular readers should know that, while I have several long-term health problems, the vomiting and all the other stuff that kicked off in mid-April have meant the last few months have been an awful lot worse, albeit that while there’s still at least one day a week every bit as bad as when it all started, over time I can I suppose note an improving trend. I can eat and keep it down most days (chocolate too, now, which is an enormous relief). But the general effect of being painfully and exhaustingly ill for a protracted period means that even when it’s very, very slowly abating, I’ve long since stopped putting a brave face on it and coping, and the additional pressure of feeling I have to compose blog pieces then keep them up, explain where I’ve been on Twitter and keep that up, reply to correspondence… Even if I felt any joy or confidence in writing, I’m afraid it’s still much simpler right now to batten down the hatches and not write anything that’ll mean I then have to write something else, which I’ll inevitably not manage.

In short, I’m still alive, just not enjoying it very much.

Labels: Health, Personal, Richard

My message to the Liberal Democrat Federal Executive, meeting this afternoon (mail yours to balancedparliament@libdemvoice.org).

In one line – all four of our cast-iron priorities: deal. Anything less: no deal.

In Full

I hate the Tories. I hate Labour. I don’t want a deal with either of them.

But we don’t have a Lib Dem majority, and we support a system that almost inevitably leads to coalitions. So we must listen to the voters and negotiate in good faith, because while we hate Labour and the Tories, the voters have given them larger chunks of power.

What happens if we don’t negotiate? A minority Tory government, sustained by the DUP. Can any Lib Dem honestly say that a Tory government made less horrible by Lib Dem participation would be worse for the country than a Tory government made more horrible by the Paisleyites?

So, the national interest is to bargain hard for a coalition.

Our party interest is not to touch it with a barge pole.

Clearly, we haemorrhaged votes at the last minute because voters say they like politicians talking to each other, but are terrified of us talking to ‘the wrong ones’ and were scared back to the Labour / Tory to stop Tory / Labour getting in.

If we deal with either party, we run the risk of splitting. And either way will help Labour, who deserve to be ground to dust after their appalling record.

Do a deal with the Tories and we give Labour a lifeline to be the only opposition.

Do a deal with Labour – however that would work, as we simply don’t have enough seats – and we give a lifeline to Labour to keep being in charge.

Either way damages us horribly.

How to Square the Circle

First, if we do a deal, it has to be for a formal coalition, for a fixed term, published out in the open. Otherwise the Prime Minister can just cut and run with a new election for party advantage, and we’re stuffed.

Second, we must learn from Scotland. We went into a formal coalition with Labour to get things done: we insisted on over 20 pages of over 80 firm commitments, so we not just got Liberal Democrat policies made real. We made Scotland better for it – and could point to our explicit achievements. We weren’t rewarded for it at the ballot box – but we weren’t hammered for it, as we would have been if we’d only propped up what Labour were going to do anyway. So any agreement isn’t secret, but written down for all the world to see and so the Tories can’t lie about it later.

Third, Nick’s made it very clear, as has our manifesto, what our bottom lines are. We get the four fairnesses, or there’s no deal. We should bargain for as much as we can of the rest of the manifesto – but if we don’t get those four bottom lines, we can’t possibly agree.

Cameron yesterday said warm words, but no detail at all – basically just the Tory manifesto bits that sounded a bit like us, but with no meat to it.

There’s no way that’s good enough.

Lib Dem tax cuts for low and middle earners, with increased taxes on the rich to pay for them.

Breaking up the banks and a green economy.

Solid money to support poorer kids in schools.

Big money out of politics, elected Lords and above all STV.

All those are hard for the Tories to swallow, but tough. They’ll have plenty of things we don’t like that we’ll have to give way on.

If we get a coalition with at least those four as a baseline, we would change Britain for good, and we can prove it to people. We will still be hurt, but we’d achieve something massive. It would be worth it.

If Cameron sticks to what he said yesterday, we should tell him we’d rather bring him down. Labour lied to us and the country for thirteen years over electoral reform. We would have to be lobotomised to listen to the same from the Tories.

They hate STV; we love it. Fine. Referendum, this Autumn, one question, for or against. Tories free to be against, us free to be for. Sorted. If they’re afraid to defend their system to the people, they’re weak and won’t afraid of the voters.

The Tories have just been given their fifth lowest share of the vote for 200 years. If they think that’s a mandate, it isn’t.

Cameron promises a “committee of enquiry” on electoral reform. That’s what Heath said in 1974. We told him to sod off, too (as quoted in The Independent today!).

Conclusion

Both Labour and the Tories are vile. But if we get our priorities, we get a less vile government. If we don’t, stuff it.

We should be very loud in saying – we told the voters every day what our four bottom lines were. We will stick to every one of them, and hope to deliver more of our manifesto, but recognise we have to compromise on that.

If the Tories say they can’t deliver, Nick should go for the jugular and attack Cameron as a weak prisoner of his extreme party:

“Mr Cameron – if your party want to act like spoiled children and won’t compromise, don’t pretend they aren’t extremists.
“If you can’t deliver your party in the national interest, don’t pretend you’re serious about governing.
“The voters did not give you the power to do whatever you like. Don’t pretend they did.”

Alex Wilcock
Liberal Democrat member
Former Parliamentary candidate, 1997 and 2001
Former member / Vice-Chair of Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee, most of 1993 to 2007


I am, of course, also working on a long version which may be posted later setting out exactly what I think. But the headlines above summarise what I think should be done.

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats

You want the most blatant difference between parties? Tax. The Liberal Democrats would raise taxes on the richest to give a £700 tax cut to low and middle earners; Labour have just raised taxes again on low and middle earners; the Tories claim they want to reverse Labour’s tax rise, but won’t say how to pay for it – while their biggest commitment is a massive handout to double millionaires. And the simplest way to explain that difference? Remember the last Tory Government’s flagship poll tax, taking proportionally most from the poor? Lib Dem fair taxes are the exact reverse.

And, yes, I know this one’s pathetically late, but come on – the Lib Dems will keep on campaigning on it, and the Tories will keep on slashing the poor to subsidise the rich.

The Tories Only Cut Taxes For the Wealthy – and Make the Rest of Us Pay

The poll tax was the Tories’ big new idea to take them into the ’90s. It was so shockingly unfair that it brought riots on the streets. Simple idea: instead of taxing people on the value of their homes, everyone would pay exactly the same. Sounds fair for a second… Until you realise people on the lowest incomes would have to pay just the same as a multi-millionaire. A tiny fraction of the ultra-rich’s income; a massive hit to someone working hard to make ends meet. No wonder that tax break for the richest brought down Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister and forced the Tories to cobble together the mess that’s the council tax instead.

Today, exactly the same instinct that created the poll tax has risen to the privileged top of the Tory Party again. They just don’t learn. For three years, it’s been their main tax priority to cut inheritance tax for double millionaires. At a cost of £6 billion to the rest of us, only the richest 3,000 families in the country would get a tax cut of a quarter of a million quid each. Nice if you can get it!

Lib Dems Cut Taxes For Most – Wealthiest Pay More

In complete contrast to the Tories’ tax plans, the Liberal Democrat flagship policy in this election is a massive £17 billion tax switch. Everyone earning up to £100,000 a year would pay no income tax on the first £10,000 they earn. That means a tax cut of £700 for most people on low and middle incomes.

And to pay for that enormous cut? Five different tax rises at the other end of the scale: equalise capital gains tax with income tax, so people can’t dodge taxes by sticking their loot into property; giving everyone the same basic rate pension relief, instead of giving twice as much back to the wealthiest; a 1% mansion tax on any property value above £2 million; cracking down on tax avoidance, including specific measures on stamp duty and a new general law against measures designed to dodge tax; and taxing air travel per plane, not – as it is now – per passenger, so air freight pays its weight in tax and polluting planes fly full instead of half-empty.

Making Work Worth Working For

Everyone who’s ever worked on a low wage – and I know this, but I can’t imagine many Tories do – knows that one of the big problems is that benefits vanish just as your hard-earned cash starts to disappear in tax. It means you’re often hardly any better off working than not. No, if you earn under £10,000, you won’t get the full £700 – but you will get to keep what you earn, rather than see it pocketed by the tax man.

Labour prefers to make people dependent – taking money with one hand, giving tax credits back with the other… As long as you jump through the right hoops, and fill out the right forms, and wait for the money to come through, and hope it doesn’t get taken back because they made a mistake or changed their minds. They just love to control people – they just don’t understand that it’s better, simpler, and cheaper than all the bureaucracy just to have the self-respect of keeping your own money, not relying on the whim of government handouts. And to make sure they keep low and middle earners in their place, Labour have done the opposite of the Lib Dems taking people out of paying tax altogether. They’ve claimed not to increase income tax… But they doubled the tax on every single one of the lowest earners by scrapping the 10p rate. They raised taxes on income without saying the words by raising national insurance – which works in just the same way for most. And rather than lifting that threshold at which people start paying tax, Labour’s frozen it at just about £6,000, so that inflation alone means the lowest earners get clobbered for extra tax.

Tories Prefer To Hit the Poor Rather Than Rich Tax-Dodgers – Who’s Surprised?

The gap between the rich and the poor is bigger under Labour than it was under Mrs Thatcher. The lowest-earning 20% of people pay a higher share of earnings in tax than the wealthiest 20% under Labour. It’s the purpose of the Liberal Democrat tax switch to tackle that, to make taxes fairer.

I’ve written about the Tories’ very different tax-cutting agenda, instead to widen the gap between rich and poor. But the parties also have a different idea of who to chase hardest for money gone missing. I mentioned that the Liberal Democrats want to chase tax-avoiders. Well, let’s look at the figures. Tax avoidance that’s currently exploiting legal loopholes is estimated to cost the taxpayer nearly £50 billion a year: the Lib Dems’ plans assume that, by taking action to close those loopholes, at a conservative estimate about 10% of that would be scooped up – about £5 billion. That’s not counting getting harsher with not the dodgy dodgers but cracking down on definite criminals: illegal tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year.

So what’s the Tories’ priority? Not one word about wealthy tax dodgers. Instead, their right-wing dog-whistle posters shrieked “Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work” and, after twenty years of every government cracking down harder on people who not just refuse to work but are too ill to work or who can’t find a job because the government’s stuffed the economy, how much more do you think can be squeezed by kicking the poor still harder? The Tories scream that they want to kick the poor. The Tories shout that they want to give massive handouts to idle millionaires. And while tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year… Benefit fraud costs just over £1 billion.

You might be more generous or more imaginative than I am, but I can’t think of a single possible explanation for the Tories attacking people who cost £1 billion and giving extra to people who cost £15 billion that doesn’t boil down to them getting all their funding from rich tax dodgers on the one hand, and wanting to grind down the poor and sick who can’t hit back on the other.

The Reverse Poll Tax – The Tax Cut Tories Will Never Agree With

In the election TV debates, David Cameron described the Liberal Democrat tax cut as “a beautiful policy,” but said that it couldn’t be afforded. That was a lie. You can pay for a £17 billion tax cut – by raising £17 billion more from the wealthiest, who currently pay a smaller share of their income than the poorest.

Well, we know why that’s almost literally unthinkable for David Cameron, don’t we?

The difference between Liberal Democrat and Tory tax cuts could not possibly be any clearer. And to return to the comparison with the poll tax…

Remember how the poll tax gave a massive tax cut to people living in huge mansions, while hammering people on tiny wages in tiny homes? The Tories today want to give a much, much bigger tax cut to people inheriting huge mansions – not even to people who’ve earned them. The Liberal Democrats today want to pay for a tax cut for ordinary people, in part, by taxing huge mansions.

Remember how the poll tax took the same amount of cash from everybody, so the rich gave up the tiniest fraction of their wealth and the poor were robbed of a huge slice of what they earned?

The Liberal Democrat tax cuts are the precise reverse of that. By giving back the same amount of cash to everyone earning between £10,000 and £100,000, it’s fair – because everyone gets the same – but helps you more the less you earn, which starts narrowing that gap between rich and poor where lower earners pay a bigger share.

The Liberal Democrats have said they want to give a tax cut of £700 to low and middle earners – which means that the lower down the scale you earn towards £10,000, the bigger the percentage gain to your wages.

The Liberal Democrats have said they want to cap all public sector pay awards, with the economy doing so badly, at £400. Again, a solid cash figure – again, that means that the lowest earners would get the biggest percentage increase, but better-off public servants (like MPs) couldn’t get a larger share.

Not all tax cuts are the same. The Conservatives’ instincts are still exactly the same as those that created the poll tax to help the rich. The Liberal Democrats’ instincts for fairness are exactly the opposite – helping the lowest and lower middle earners most. And, of course – unlike the Tories – the Lib Dem manifesto printed the figures to say how it would all be paid for.

There is all the difference in the world.

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, General Election, Liberal Democrats, Tax

If you’re interested in what the parties have to say, you’ve probably already glanced at their manifestos (available for free online) or bought one of the “Why Vote Party X” books in the shops. I’m not going to do an in-depth analysis of any of them at this stage, though I’ve read some more thoroughly than others. But even at a cursory inspection, you see something of the parties in them. What are their priorities? What do the covers and contributors tell you about their approaches? What about the gays? And why (surprise) do I prefer the Liberal Democrat publications?

Labour?

The cover of their Manifesto mentions “A Future,” but it’s a retro-future, desperate to ignore all the failures of the past and imagine themselves safely back in a cosy socialist utopia (not one on offer within the text): the cover looks like it was drawn in the 1950s as an advert for Nuclear Families For A Nuclear Future. I’m gay, I don’t trust nuclear power, and I don’t want to go back to the ’50s – and I don’t like Labour always telling me their perfect niche into which I should fit (as ever, no new policies on LGBT equality – though Mr Brown personally attacked marriage equality. Their record is to wait for the Lib Dems to come up with them, vote them down, then pick them up a few years later when it looks like they’re ‘safe’). There are no new ideas – just, as ever, that Labour knows best, mixed with authoritarian dog-whistles like calling a chapter “Crime and Immigration” (but with cartoons, though. Surely no-one who uses crayons could be evil). The Why Vote Labour book makes the same approach still more explicit: it has the central stamp of approval from Gordon Brown’s foreword, but the deniability of being written by someone who’s not an MP; the Conservatives are attacked by implication in the book’s first paragraph, and by name in the second; and while there are many paragraphs allegedly written by other people, most of them are just identified by a first name and a town – like a made-up quote on a leaflet – and all of them are put carefully in their place, framed in boxes under orders as examples of the central Labour Truth.

But neither of these publications matters very much. Can you think of a single new policy that Labour’s been campaigning on? Not one. It’s all been about a tiny fraction of government spending that they can pick out as a potential Tory cut to make you scared, then either saying the “Liberals” will do the scary same thing or cosying up with “I agree with Nick” on alternate sentences.

The Conservatives?

The cover of their Manifesto offers an “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”. Only the Tories could frame a populist appeal to every citizen in the style of a £500-a-head white tie do, as if assuming everyone goes to them all the time, like they do; only the Tories could invite everyone to participate in government, then spend their entire campaign taking fright and shrieking panicky scare stories about the awful danger of, er, anyone but the Tories forming the Government of Britain. So I admit I’m biased against a cover that might as well be a neon sign saying ‘We Don’t Mean It’. Open it up, though, and it does look more inviting. There’s none of the faux pas of the cover – instead, it’s a graphic designers’ paradise, easily the prettiest of the manifestos. And the mood music is early David Cameron: it feels more like a “liberal” Tory manifesto than any that have gone before. There’s no sign of the hard right policies that have appeared in desperation in speeches and posters as Tory support has sagged during the campaign – there’s little sign of much in the way of firm policies at all, but there are lots of nice full-page pictures of towns across Britain and in other countries, as if the Tories are taking credit for them, or possibly preparing to annex them.

The Conservative Manifesto was launched a couple of days after their Shadow Home Secretary was caught saying one thing in public and another thing in private about gay rights, yearning for the days of signs in windows marked “No Blacks, No Gays, No Catholics”. I wonder, I thought, if the manifesto does the same thing? Well, in panic at their plummeting gay vote, David Cameron… No, actually, he’d just made that awful fuck-up in a Gay Times interview and had to ask them to stop the camera, hadn’t he? Then he spun to the gay press that he’d begin the campaign on 6th April by mentioning gays in his first election speech, but having said that to the gay press, said “Black and white… Rich and poor…” but didn’t say “Gay or straight…” to the crowd and the TV cameras. Say one thing in one place, say something completely different to someone else. That’s the Tory way of speech – what are they like in print? So, amazingly, George Osborne was thrust out as a ‘safe pair of hands’ and promised to tackle homophobic bullying, at long last, and even came up with a uniquely Tory policy none of the other parties had mentioned and which I thought was a good idea and on gay rights. Credit where it’s due – that’s a first! He said they’d go some way (though, of course, not all the way) to quashing convictions of men who’d had sex with men that was only illegal because the law at the time was discriminatory. But… No. Again, the Tories say one thing to gays, but something else to other people. Because on the day their manifesto launched, “homophobic bullying” was put on the front page of their website… But it’s not in their manifesto. Nor is their other idea. Or any other pro-gay policies whatsoever. They do, though, have a nice pretty picture of Brighton, and mention how gay it is, because if that’s in a Tory manifesto it must all be down to the Tories. Somehow, I don’t think it works that way.

Oddly, the Why Vote Conservative book has a more coherent stamp to it, every word written by the same person and advancing an argument… But it’s also by a long way the most deniable of the three. Written by a Tory blogger, it opens not with a foreword from Mr Cameron but a disclaimer that he had absolutely nothing to do with it, nor any Tory MP nor employee. Gosh. So, they’re really keen to be pinned down on policy, then.

Oh, and in the last few days, David Cameron’s rushed out a “Contract” on Britain with a different set of policies again. Some of which were in the manifesto, and some on the posters (no, not the first set – nor the second – you know, this week’s Tory posters), and some presumably were just what Rupert Murdoch told him to say to try and salvage his investment.

It’s not clear which, if any, of these publications indicate what the Conservatives would actually do if given power – except enjoy it.

The Liberal Democrats

The cover of the Liberal Democrat Manifesto is quite plain – in both senses. “Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2010,” it’s labelled. “Change That Works For You – Building A Fairer Britain”. And the only other thing on the cover is, would you believe it, policy. Imagine that, for a manifesto? It sets out the party’s four key priorities about Fairness. The same ones Nick settled on last year; the same ones he made the centrepiece of his speech to Lib Dem Conference in March; which I picked out as the party’s key themes at the start of the campaign; the same ones he’s explained in every interview; the same ones I saw him give a barnstorming speech about on TV at his final campaign rally last night. Inside the manifesto, it explains those four key priorities in more detail, right at the front. Then sets out all the other policies, saying up front that the key priorities are the most important, but that they’d try to implement the rest too, depending on how much influence the Lib Dems win in the election (oh yes – and after several decades of being the party most committed to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, even when they were wildly unpopular, there are commitments to plenty of them in there. Including, in the section on education, with tackling homophobic bullying, as well as that on “families of every shape and size,” the workplace, hate crimes…). Every single section has green tabs next to commitments to show how a green approach runs through every area of policy. And, at the back, there’s an index so you can find every issue you’re interested in more easily, and a full set of costings – the only manifesto that sets out how a single policy can be afforded. And this sets out the figures for every single commitment.

This is very odd, after the other two manifestos. Words and numbers, rather than just packing the pages out with pretty pictures (though there are a couple)? It’s as if the Liberal Democrats want you to know what they’re promising, be able to check the figures, and hold the party to them. Imagine!

Then there’s the Why Vote Liberal Democrat book. It has a foreword from Nick Clegg, and it’s written by Danny Alexander, the MP who’s Nick’s Chief of Staff and who also edited the manifesto. Well, I say it’s written by Danny… But, although it’s not afraid to say up front that all this is the Liberal Democrats saying exactly the same here as everywhere else – though, in fact, I prefer the more expansive Liberalism of Nick’s introduction here to the much shorter, more businesslike values page in the manifesto, a document boiled down to concrete promises on fewer pages with larger type – it’s not all written by Danny, and nor do other contributors only walk on as directed to give their name (or part of it) to a carefully spun paragraph. While Danny edits the book and provides the overarching theme, each chapter is written by a different Lib Dem spokesperson or supporter. Where the manifesto gives the bullet-point commitments, this explains the thinking and the philosophy behind them, not by central party diktat but in many people’s own words: MPs; councillors; a former senior police officer; a former Director of Public Prosecutions; actors like Colin Firth; musicians; and, yes, an out gay Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate – Ed Fordham, who I hope very much will win Hampstead today – writing about gay equality. It’s a party not of iron control and a single voice, but people working together and unafraid to speak out. It isn’t just the same as the manifesto – but it’s entirely in harmony with it, complimentary, not contradictory. They’re the only two publications from any of the three parties that actually work together persuasively to say why you should vote for them.

What the Parties Stand For

For weeks, I’ve wanted (but not had the energy) to write a piece on each of the manifestos, which I’ve finally got out rather late… And a piece comparing each of the parties’ key pledges announced at the start of the campaign, which – as the Lib Dems had four, Labour five and the Tories six – was going to be Torchwoodishly called ‘The 456 Are Coming’. Perhaps it’s just as well I never got to write the latter: while Nick Clegg and his party have been campaigning so determinedly on the Lib Dems’ Four Fairnesses that I suspect every Lib Dem and a substantial chunk of the public could name them, the other parties’ focus-grouped ‘pledges’ have formed such a minuscule part of what they’ve actually said that I bet they’d be news even to most of their candidates. What, I have to ask, is the point of campaigning to get elected if you don’t know what you intend to do? Are Labour and the Tories really only about power and nothing else? It looks like it.

All the Tories stand for is their sense of entitlement. They think they were born to rule, and they’re damn well going to do it, and do whatever the hell they like, even if only a third of people vote for them. Exactly what they want to do is still unclear: “liberal” Conservatives gave way to ferocious personal attacks on Gordon Brown; now the policies they’re campaigning on are of the hard right, while trying to scare anyone who thinks they shouldn’t have absolute power. Having changed all their policies and their approach several times just in a month’s campaign, it’s difficult not to conclude that they want power because they just want power.

All that Labour stands for is stopping the Tories. Seen their posters? Seen their broadcasts? Heard their speeches? They’re the only party in this election running an even more negative campaign than the Tories are. After thirteen failed years, they’ve got nothing left but scaring people into voting unenthusiastically but worriedly for more of the same. As I’ve observed of them so often, their one theme is, “We’re shit, and we know we are, but – ooh! The Tories! Scary!”

And what do the Liberal Democrats stand for?

The same as we did at the beginning of the campaign. The same as we did before the campaign. The same as we did last year. The only party that’s set out firm priorities, and stuck to them – not panicked and changed them from week to week, or just tried to define themselves by being ‘not the scary other lot’.

The Liberal Democrats stand for fairness:

• A Fair tax system, with no tax to pay on the first ten thousand pounds you earn – paid for by more tax from the richest and on pollution

• A Fair start for children, with a pupil premium for schools to invest in the least well off

• A Fair economy, rebalanced to stand up to bankers and with investment in new green jobs to start the country growing again

• Fair, clean, open politics, including fair votes, the ability to sack your MP if they let you down, no more unelected second chamber so no more cronies, and a Freedom Bill to scrap many of Labour’s unfair 4,300 new laws.

If you vote for the Liberal Democrats, you know what you’re getting. And I will – because I want to get it.

Labels: Books, British Politics, Conservatives, Gay, General Election, Labour, Liberal Democrats, What the Lib Dems Stand For