Recent Debates Articles

Wrong end of stick grabbed, shaken vigorously

Mike Smithson over at Political Betting has “just received some information that could have major consequences for bloggers”.

Apparently, the entire adjournment debate on Tuesday concerning libel (I assume this is what he’s talking about) was about ZaNuLiarbore (or whatever it is this week) finding “a way of dealing with government irritants such as Guido and to a lesser extent Iain Dale.”

Sorry Iain and Guido, but you didn’t come up. Denis MacShane did, yes, float the idea of registration on sites as a means of cutting down on anonymous slanderous comments (slander, not libel, being the legal status of defamatory comments), but qualified this suggestion heavily with “except where for good reason, as in a newspaper letters column, a name and address is withheld.” The whole notion was pretty much dropped when Evan Harris pointed out the ease of setting up a pseudonymous identity on the web.
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‘Communities in Control’ – the bloggers’ consultation begins!

A big thanks to all of you who volunteered to contribute to our series on the ‘Communities in Control’ white paper – it looks like we’re off and running!

Here’s a run-down of who’s been delegated to do what:
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Sir Ian Blair sacking: since when did Paul Dacre decide senior police appointments?

You wouldn’t expect a leftie to mount an out-and-out defence of the track record of Britain’s top copper, and I’m certainly not going to do that.

The de Menezes killing happened on Sir Ian Blair’s watch, yet the worst consequence for the Metropolitan Police was a conviction for breach of health and safety regulations, as if the offence was of no more import than leaving packing cases blocking a fire escape. continue reading… »

Will the left gain from the financial crisis?

It is a minor historical irony that the financial markets crash of 2008 comes about at a time when there is no dissent from the neoliberal consensus at any point on the spectrum of establishment politics.

For three decades now, people have been told – by politicians of all parties – that there is no alternative. Understandably, most of them have come to believe it. Young people, in particular, haven’t heard any narrative other than free market ideology.

That much has been brought home to me by my recent experiences as a mature student. Last year, I sat what Americans would refer to as ‘economics 101’ for the second time in my life. It’s not that I particularly needed a refresher on the essentials of supply and demand curves, but the course was deemed a prerequisite for the more advanced modules I’m taking this year. continue reading… »

Lib Dem Party Presidency – Three to Choose From

Just to pause among all the posts about Labour at the moment: nominations closed today for the Lib Dem party presidency, and (as reported on the beeb and LDV) three candidates have gone forward to the next stage: Baroness Ros Scott, Lembit Opik, and Chandila Fernando.

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Why “the left” needs new direction – part 2

I argued last week that Social Democracy needs to be re-invented. This week I show how.

Harold Wilson said that the Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing, a proposition New Labour has tested to destruction. Historically, our ethical impulses have focused on issues of poverty and inequality – or rather, on powerlessness. Empower people, we said, and all will be well. Benn, Scargill, Livingstone and others re-interpreted the ethical dimension as the promotion of the interests of particular social groups. This frame of reference led to a narrative of struggle clearly distinguishable from the Tory narrative of government. The problem with struggle is that either you win, in which case – like the A.N.C. in South Africa – you don’t know what to do next, or you lose, in which case your position is worse than your starting-point. Warlike words such as ‘fight’ and ‘struggle’ need to be dropped from our lexicon. They obscure our necessary ethical focus. continue reading… »

The View Outside Labour’s Bubble

A Blairite acquaintance languishing at the Labour Conference reports:

Conference is generally quite upbeat and behind Gordon. My less confident attitude hasn’t been too popular!

This just before another text asking me whether I’d seen yesterday’s poll in the Observer confirming Labour’s impending electoral annihilation. These delegates know how dire the situation is, and yet they refuse to act against it. A conference packed with loyalists. continue reading… »

Clegg and Cable get Y the credit crunch matters

The Liberal Democrats have been trying to make a splash this week, and at first they may seem to be playing in right-wing waters. Nick Clegg announced that he is “sceptical that central, controlling government gets things right”, and he believes “that tax is a means to an end and government should not take a penny more than it needs”. For the leader of a party that has arguably not entirely come to terms with the abolition of proposals for across-the-board tax rises to fund substantial increases in public spending, that’s quite a statement, and an acknowledgement that, especially in today’s economic climate, the public simply can’t and won’t pay more tax.

The party leadership has realised that the credit crunch will have a huge impact – not only on this generation, but also on the next. At a Reform fringe event at conference this week, Vince Cable said “free everything isn’t a sustainable policy”. As public borrowing increases, Cable is to be commended for pointing out the intergenerational effects of “buy now, pay later” fiscal policy. As if a potential recession isn’t enough of a worry for “Generation Y”, they will also be saddled with the bills for today’s spending splurge in the years ahead. continue reading… »

We need to take on New Tories better

In ‘Is the Future Conservative?’ we argue (pdf) that it is time for the left to take on the New Tories and that this challenge cannot be separated from creating a post-New Labour social democracy. By critically engaging with Cameron’s Conservatives the left can rethink its principles and renew itself.

Whoever wins the next election, the future does not belong to the Conservative Party. Nor will it be a re-run of the neo-liberal economics of the 1980s and 90s. Three decades of restructuring and liberalisation have been brought to an end by recession and the credit crunch. Neo -liberalism has done its work and its creative destruction is now undermining capitalism itself. The financial bubbles make it structurally unsustainable.
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Is Labour really on its knees?

Amid the cacophony of speculation about the future of Gordon Brown’s premiership, the imminent electoral meltdown, and the future direction of the Labour party, I think one aspect is being marginalised, which is the future of the party at a local level, and in local government. It is clear that current crisis is playing out on a national level, with national and international problems catalysed by Westminster intruigue and a failure of national leadership that can speak to the concerns of the people.

Now, the fall-out from this is obviously felt at the local level, as Labour’s loss of councillors in the May elections demonstrates. But it is not clear that the existential worries currently afflicting Gordon Brown and his parliamentary colleagues are shared by their Labour friends on local councils. In Tower Hamlets, for example, the Labour group recently increased their majority after four defections from Respect, and a by-election win (after a popular Lib Dem councillor stood down for health reasons, no less).

Of course, if the local parties are not suffering from the same crisis of purpose, this is probably to do with the differences between the nature of local and national governance. Localities like Tower Hamlets have very specific problems, to which a Labour council can confidently respond within their current ideology, without having to worry about national unity, or whether the same policy would be effective in different boroughs.

So, as the columnists and bloggers search in vain for a viable alternative to Brown, and a new direction for the party, I wonder whether the most coherent and confident voices might come from local government, rather than the national scene, policy wonks, or the unions. They are ideally placed to comment on pressing issues such as community cohesion and knife-crime, and how other concerns such as the environment and immigration can be dealt with in practice.

These are purely my anecdotal thoughts – what are the thoughts and experiences of other Liberal Conspiracy readers and writers?