Recent Articles

Why UKuncut need to distance themselves from violent protest

There’s been a lot of blogospheric ink spilled of late about UKuncut. One criticism concerns UKuncut’s decision not to condemn violent direct action – its position being, as I understand it: ‘We do peaceful protest, but we do not condemn what others do.’

The non-violent and mildly civil disobedient protest of UKuncut is firmly in the tradition of the American civil rights movement to which Ed Miliband appealed on Saturday. It is precisely because I support UKuncut and want it to grow that I am concerned by the decision not to condemn violent direct action.
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The disability benefit reforms fail the liberal test

‘The worst thing that can happen to one in the relations between man and man’, said Rousseau, ‘is to find onself living at the mercy of another.’

According to some philosophers, freedom is centrally about not living at the mercy of another.
It is about not being subject to another’s power to intervene in one’s life at their discretion. Freedom is, in this sense, independence – the power to refuse dependency on others and their uncertain goodwill.
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A thought experiment for the Libdems

Imagine a parallel universe to our own. This universe is exactly like our own with just one difference: the Conservatives won a solid majority in the May 2010 general election.

So, in this parallel universe, George Osborne got up in the House of Commons just as he did yesterday and delivered exactly the same speech and spending review policy.

Having imagined this alternative universe, I would like Liberal Democrat readers to ask themselves a question. (As we will see, I hope, in posing this question I am not trying to be confrontational or self-righteous.)
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Libdems killed the Child Trust Fund star

Its official. After a short interim in which newborns will receive a mere £50 or £100, the Child Trust Fund (CTF) is in effect to be axed. As of January 2011, there will be no further government contributions into any CTFs, according to the announcement yesterday.

The Conservatives did not fight the election on a platform of completely abolishing the CTF. Their policy was to trim it back to the poorest families. The Lib Dems, however, have fought two elections on a platform of abolishing the CTF. The effective abolition of the CTF is, quite clearly, a Libdem responsibility.
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A fantasy case for Labour to stay in government

Over at LabourList, Brian Barder has been making the case for a minority Labour government in the event of a hung parliament ‘regardless of the outcome in terms of votes or seats’.

Even if Labour came third in the popular vote – indeed, if I understand him, even if Labour also has fewer seats than the Conservatives – Barder argues that Labour can and should assume the role of government under Gordon Brown. It should proceed to present a Queen’s Speech and test the nerve of the other parties – in particular the Lib Dems – to vote it down.

Barder envisages Brown producing a Queen’s speech with plenty of goodies – he refers to ‘Lib Dem shibboleths’ like civil liberties – to woo the Lib Dems.

Barder thinks the Lib Dems would think hard about voting Labour down. Why? Because if they did vote Labour down, the Tories would then get to form a minority government. They would probably offer the Lib Dems less. What would the Lib Dems then do?

Vote this government down? Barder argues this would precipitate a fresh election in which the Tories would romp home with a nice majority, thank you very much. Indeed, he confidently predicts that the result of this fresh election would be a Lib Dem ‘wipeout’.

Now if the Lib Dems rationally anticipate all of this, then of course they will stop at the first step: they will support Labour’s Queen’s speech.

As the saying goes, let’s ‘get real’. Any argument of this kind has to be based on a serious estimation of the costs and benefits to the various parties of various courses of action. What makes Barder’s story fanciful in the extreme – aside from being so objectionable in democratic terms – is the way he selectively ignores some obvious and substantial costs while hugely exaggerating others.

First, and foremost, any attempt by Labour to hold onto office on its own in such circumstances (in particular being third in the popular vote and/or being the second party in terms of seats) would drain the party of credibility in the country.

Labour is lower in the polls at the moment than it has been since the 1983 general election. But I dread to think how low the poll ratings would go if Labour attempted to cling on to office in the way that Barder describes.

Second, because we can anticipate that the attempt to cling to office will be so unpopular, we can also anticipate that it is likely to be strongly opposed from within Labour’s ranks. Could the party’s leader carry the party with him on such a journey?

Third, there is an obvious, huge cost to the Lib Dems of voting or allowing through a Labour Queen’s Speech in these circumstances. They throw away their hard-earned credibility as the ‘party of change’.

But what about the supposedly nightmare consequences to the Lib Dems of failing to support a Labour Queen’s speech? Am I not ignoring these?

It is here that Barder’s analysis switches from a convenient refusal to acknowledge costs of action to an implausible exaggeration of costs.

So let us imagine the Lib Dems do vote Labour down and a Tory minority government forms. Either they offer enough goodies to the Lib Dems to stop them voting them out, e.g., a referendum on PR, or they don’t. If they don’t, why won’t the Lib Dems vote them out too? Barder’s claim is that this would (a) precipitate a fresh election which (b) the Tories would win and (c) would see a Lib Dem ‘wipeout’.

Every single one of these assertions is questionable. Assume, for the sake of argument, that elections do get called. Barder has no basis whatsoever for predicting that the Tories would comfortably win.

If a Lib Dem – Tory deal fell through, why wouldn’t that reflect badly on the Tories? Why wouldn’t fresh elections, occurring against this sequence of events, produce a revulsion against both Labour and the Tories and a further Lib Dem surge?

If Labour fails to win a parliamentary majority at this election it had better respect the wish of the British people – something for which Barder apparently has very little respect – which would have spoken clearly against having a Labour government.

It could and should seek to go into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, not in order to ‘cling to office’, but on a basis of a genuine sharing of power and constructive cooperation on policy.

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cross-posted from Next Left.

Labour still has a problem with liberalism

I posted briefly yesterday on how Labour’s manifesto policies on crime (see chapter 5 of the manifesto) pose a massive obstacle to winning or retaining the votes of liberal centre-left voters.

Rather than trying to learn something from the growing criticism of its record on civil liberties, the party’s manifesto complacently reaffirms Labour’s approach and, with a nice touch of Orwellian ‘war is peace’ bluster, comments that, “We are proud of our record on civil liberties…”, as if there were really no criticism to answer.

According to Allegra Stratton and Patrick Wintour in yesterday’s Guardian, Nick Clegg has said “he was shocked by the lack of reference to civil liberties in the Labour manifesto.”

He is planning to ‘go to war’ with Labour on civil liberties, saying:

It’s a measure of the authoritarian streak of the Labour party that it didn’t refer once to liberty in its own manifesto…..It makes a complete mockery of the claim by Gordon Brown that he can speak for progressive voters in other parties when his own party has turned its back on one of the cornerstones of progressive politics.

I hope that in retrospect Labour will look back on chapter 5 of its 2010 manifesto as the final step in a rather dismal journey – to be promptly followed by a quick turn in the opposite direction.

Its not just that the indifference to civil liberties is objectionable on its own terms – which of course it is.

Its also that if you are trying to defend a seat from a Lib Dem challenger, or persuade Lib Dem voters to support you tactically against a Conservative, this kind of unreconstructed authoritarianism risks being the kiss of death.

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cross-posted from Next Left

DNA Sampling: Wrong in principle, wrong in practice

Over at OurKingdom, Guy Aitchison has posted again on the news that Labour is considering making the retention of DNA samples ‘an issue’ for the election. The latest twist in the tale is that Alan Johnson is reputedly scuppering a compromise with the Conservatives on this issue in order to make it something that Labour can campaign on. The Tories are to be branded as the party that is friendly to burglars.

In a matter of weeks the Labour party leadership will be expecting party members to get out there and make the case for a Labour government on the doorstep. How many in the party agree with the government on DNA sampling and the ‘Tories are friends of burglars’ line?

Let’s remind ourselves what is being proposed. Back in 1995 the police set up a national DNA database. Anyone who was arrested was liable to have a DNA sample taken. This was then put on the database. When a crime is committed, and there is DNA evidence, the police can check it against the database.

The European Court ruled in 2008 that the practice of holding indefinitely samples taken from those not convicted of a crime is in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights (specifically in violation of Article 8 which upholds the citizen’s right to ‘a private life’).

The government responded, somewhat reluctantly and hesitatingly, by proposing to modify the original policy. Under what we may call the Johnson proposal, those arrested but not convicted of a crime will have their samples removed from the national database – but only after six years.

The Johnson proposal has the advantage that, in one respect, it may make it easier for the police to solve crimes. And this, of course, is the basis of the charge that opponents of the proposal are thereby ‘friendly’ to criminals.

But there are at least two strong reasons to oppose the proposal other than sympathy for criminals continue reading… »

Observer repeating right-wing spin on inheritance tax

Andrew Rawnsley has an excellent article in today’s Observer on the changing politics of inheritance tax. In the era of deficits and looming austerity, the Conservative pledge looks less canny than when it was first announced in 2007, as if the one group that the Conservatives can find some tax relief for in these difficult times are the very rich.

The Observer’s Political Editor, Toby Helm, also reports that, in view of the changed circumstances, the government is considering freezing the threshold, rather than increasing it as planned.

This would seem to me to be the least the government could do as part of a program for spreading the burden of paying for valuable public services in what are indeed difficult times.

But consider how Helm chooses to describe the issue:
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Help with legal challenge to kettling

News just in that the Climate Camp is trying to move forward with a legal challenge to the police kettling at Bishopsgate on April 1. As I argued in an earlier post, there is good reason to think that the kettle at Bishopsgate was illegal even if the Law Lords’ decision in the Austin case earlier this year is good law. There is a strong case that the kettle in question did not meet the tests of reasonableness and proportionality which the Law Lords laid down.

However, the Climate Camp needs money to mount the legal challenge:

‘We really, really, need to raise £40,000 quickly to challenge the kettling. It may seem a lot but we think we can do it – small amounts from lots of people will get us to this target. See the Camp Donate page to donate to the Legal fund. Please tell all your friends and rich aunties.’ Relevant links are here (Legal Team) and here (Donations). Let’s give generously!

cross-posted from Next Left

The siege of Climate Camp

There is an old anarchist saying: the state creates the violence which it uses to justify its existence. Like a lot of anarchist sayings, it is an exaggeration of the truth. But it nevertheless contains a partial truth. If you needed evidence of this truth, one only had to be present at the G20 Climate Change Camp in Bishopsgate on April 1, 2009.
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