Power 2010: Will it work?
Power 2010 is asking people to come up with ideas for the democratic and political reforms that are needed in Britain. You can submit them here, the deadline is November 30th.
These ideas will then be considered by a panel of citizens chosen at random, and the five ideas that they like most will become the ‘Power 2010 pledge’, which Power 2010 will try to get politicians to sign up to in the run up to the next General Election.
There’s been a lively discussion about these plans, here, here and here. I think the principle of the campaign is a good one, but have some questions:
1. How can we get ideas from a sufficiently wide range of people?
The campaign seems very orientated towards getting responses from politically engaged people who read and write blogs (it is possible to submit ideas via e-mail, by post or at public meetings – venues to be confirmed). The panel of citizens also need to have the chance to consider ideas from a much wider range of people – those who don’t have computers, people who don’t vote or follow politics closely, people from all parts of the UK. Maybe one way to achieve this would be to hold the public meeting in areas where there have been low levels of responses, in partnership with local community groups. Instead of London and Manchester, why not go to places like Rhyl, Sunderland and Glossop?
A campaign based on ideas from bloggers who don’t like party politics is too narrow a base to build a popular campaign on, and a personal reflection is that most of the ideas highlighted so far are not ones which I can imagine leading to the creation of a credible pledge.
2. How will the top five ideas will be chosen?
I like the idea of getting a panel of randomly chosen people to evaluate the ideas, but what are the safeguards to ensure that (a) they don’t choose some really off-the-wall ideas, while at the same time ensuring that (b) the organisers don’t end up “fixing” the discussion. For example, if the panel chose ‘take the vote away from all immigrants’ as one of its top five, would Power2010 really campaign on that?
3. Why would any politician sign up to the pledge?
For this whole exercise to be successful, it needs to gain the active support of a significant number of candidates standing for election. Some might sign it because they happen to agree with the proposals, but to win over people who are unconvinced, Power2010 needs credible threats ‘x number of people will not vote for you if you oppose this’ or incentives ‘you will be more popular/have a better reputation/get access to more funding and volunteer help if you sign up’. What’s the plan to make these threats or incentive credible?
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Some critics of Power2010 have suggested that the whole exercise is a waste of time, with significant opportunity costs. I don’t agree with them, because I think a range of different progressive campaigns and campaigning techniques are worthwhile (it is not as if we know of any particular way of campaigning which is so amazingly effective that everything else should be abandoned). I’m particularly interested to see how the citizens’ panel idea works.
At the same time, I think that, overall, us lefties and liberals put too many resources into ‘insider’ campaigns such as think tanks and lobby groups which spend their time talking to the small minority who are already politically engaged, and not enough into grassroots community organising which mobilises more people to join us and get involved. Hopefully Power2010 will be able to reach out further and mobilise more people to get involved and campaign for change.
Why are these EU-haters so silent?
In 2007 around 47 Conservative MPs, including prominent ones such as Iain Duncan Smith and Douglas Carswell, signed an EDM calling for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty even if it was ratified.
And now? What will they do? Why are they so silent?
Yesterday Daniel Hannan MEP wrote:
I’ve argued many times that the case for a British referendum shouldn’t be dependent on what happens in other countries. The case for a British referendum is simply that all three parties promised one and that, in any case, no one under the age of 52 has had the opportunity to vote on the EU. Alright, a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty might no longer be the most logical option: it’s hardly for us to tell the Belgians or the Slovenes what institutions they should work under. But a referendum on European integration – ideally on the broad repatriation of powers – is essential.
What a climb-down. Regardless, I can’t wait to see how David Cameron is going to square this circle.
continue reading… »
Will Tories delay Human Rights Act repeal?
The Conservatives may not complete the repeal of the Human Rights Act and the introduction of a new British Bill of Rights in their first term in office if they were elected to government. And it is also becoming increasingly difficult to work out what substantive difference the policy would be intended to make.
“I would like to think we could do it in the course of a parliament”, shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve tells Joshua Rosenberg in an interview for his Standpoint magazine column.
Perhaps the more important part of the policy is that Britain will not pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights – so British citizens will keep the right to appeal to Strasbourg. (Tory Eurosceptics like to grumble about this, but in doing so they are usually appealing to the public’s inability to tell the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Union apart).
More broadly, he makes it perfectly clear that Britain will not pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights. We will not be able to send people to countries where they will be tortured, he promises. Whatever else happens, individuals alleging breaches of their human rights will still be able to take the British government to the European Court in Strasbourg
And so the new “British Bill of Rights” will seek to protect the convention’s rights British law, to prevent British citizens having to go to Strasbourg to protect those rights. Rather as the Human Rights Act has sought to do, it seems to me.
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Reform parliament: abolish the three-line-whip
contribution by Josh Plotkin
The Power 2010 campaign is asking people for ideas to refom our democracy. Here is one proposal.
The idea that British politics needed a radical shake-up; and that this time – unlike any time before – the politicians themselves knew it, gained enormous currency in these heady months. Things were going to change: Brown said so, as did Cameron, as did Clegg, as did almost every other MP with a public profile. Maybe, just maybe, they meant it.
The closest we got was Gordon Brown’s speech, and that was deeply unimpressive on reform. Labour are such pussies that even in the almost certain knowledge that they wouldn’t actually have to live up to anything they proposed, the best they could come up with was a referendum. At some unspecified point in the future. On alternative vote. It’s a stunning lack of ambition, especially since Labour promised a similar referendum in 1997 and never delivered.
This is not good enough. So time for some wishful thinking: perhaps the most obvious and, at the same time, the most seismic of parliamentary reforms would be the end of the three-line whip.
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Why are Tories defending a “propaganda” sheet?
When Ken Livingstone lost the mayoral elections to Boris Johnson, one of the first acts under the new administration was to axe The Londonder – a freesheet distributed by the Mayor.
Even before the election the Tories attacked it as ‘blatant propaganda’. Conservatives were ecstatic – he had saved £2.9million! (Let’s ignore for a moment how much he spent on ‘transition’ and salaries).
It was dubbed ‘Pravda’ for Livingstone and the Tories were glad to see the end of it.
And why not? The Right is ideologically opposed to state-funded media right? Not exactly….
Yesterday the Media Guardian reported:
MPs today accused local councils of producing “propaganda” publications that could put local newspapers out of business. Hearing evidence from representatives of local authorities, MPs of all parties on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee expressed concerns about the effect of council freesheets on rival privately owned newspapers.
They singled out one council-run paper, the fortnightly H&F News produced by the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
Trojan Horse of Tory localism: open letter to John Denham MP
Localism is such a hard thing to argue against. Either you’re genuinely in favour of devolving power and resources, or you can’t really say you’re not.
That’s why the Tories are using it as cover for their plans to introduce, ‘within weeks of coming to power’, says Cameron, sweeping legislation that will allow councils to sweep away a raft of commitments to their residents, and start to compete gleefully with each other for which one can deliver the LEAST services.
I’ve been banging on about this for a bit. Fortunately, John Denham MP has heard my faint call, and we may still be saved.
In that spirit, I have written to John, and this is what I’ve said.
continue reading… »
White riot: welcome to mainstream fascism
It’s ten days before the next election and Nick Griffin is on walkabout when a white leftist with a history of mental health problems plunges a breadknife through his heart before the skinhead heavies can stop him. The British National Party leader is pronounced DOA at the hospital.
Or maybe it’s ten days before the next election and a huge bomb goes off at a mosque during Friday prayers. Some 19 Muslims are dead, dozens injured. Nobody claims responsibility, although police inquiries centre on the theory that this is the work of a lone wolf white supremacist.
Or maybe an Islamist cell gets lucky once – to coin a phrase – and blows a nightclub-load of dancing slags to kingdom come or brings down a couple of transatlantic airliners.
Or maybe an English Defence League march kicks off big time, with a punch-up between the boot boys and the counter demonstrators drawing in passers by until cars are overturned and shops are looted.
Open Primaries: Right diagnosis, wrong solution
contribution by Jason Kitcat
I was interested to see the launch of the ‘Open Up’ campaign, with a very slick website and duck-house videos. I would expect nothing less given the people behind it including the immensely capable Becky Hogge, ORG’s former Executive Director.
There is as a whole swathe of campaigning going on at the moment calling for reform in one sense or another. This is extremely encouraging and welcome, it’s wonderful that people are speaking out and getting involved.
However, in my view party political representative democracy is still the least worst option available to us. All lasting democracies develop groupings of some form another.
Interestingly the Speaker’s Conference in Parliament has recently been touching on these issues too. Clegg was the most honest in admitting many of the people they need weren’t coming forward. He also argued that Westminster itself wasn’t the right kind of place to attract the people we need in politics.
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What might a 21st century Libel Law look like?
I don’t usually do requests, but as libel law reform is a particular interest of mine and a subject I’ve blogged on previous occasions, I’m more than happy to rise to the challenge set by ‘organic cheeseboard’ in comments under Sunder’s commentary on yesterday’s events.
but for god’s sake could SOMEONE writing about this stuff PLEASE offer an idea of what those reforms might actually look like?
Fair enough, lets start with an internet specific reform which, as a blogger, is number one on my own shopping list of reforms, and a measure that we absolutely do want to import from our cousins over the the other side of the Big Pond.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Acy specifies simply that:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Under English libel law, at present, web hosting companies may treated as the publisher of, and held liable for, [allegedly] defamatory content published to their servers by a third party despite having had no absolutely part in in, or prior knowledge, of the that material’s publication. Likewise, bloggers and forum operators can be sued over comments, posted to their blog/forum by visitors, over which they will have had no control whatsoever unless they actively pre-moderate all such comments. continue reading… »
High Court in Contempt of Democracy (Updated)
If you’ve been anywhere near Twitter or any one of numerous high profile British political blogs this morning then you’ll already know that the blogosphere is uproar over the gagging of the Guardian by law firm Carter-Ruck.
Out of deference to Sunny’s blood pressure, I’ll leave it to him to decide exactly how far LibCon will go into the detail of this story, but if you’re at all confused as to what this is all about then try try searching Google or Twitter for the words/hashtags ‘Trafigura’, “Guardian’ and ‘Carter-Ruck’, or just head over to any one of number of established blogs including my own Ministry of Truth, Chicken Yoghurt, Iain Dale, Guido, Mr Eugenides, Devil’s Kitchen, Longrider, Lib Dem Voice, NextLeft, LeftFootForward, Matt Wardman, Spyblog…
…and those are just the one’s I can recall off the top of my head.
What’s got everyone steamed up here is that the injunction served on The Guardian by Carter-Ruck prevents it from reporting the contents of a parliamentary question, tabled yesterday by a member of parliament, as it appear on the order papers published on the parliamentary website.
The injunction, as it stands, prevents The Guardian from:
…identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.
It’s also not allowed to tell us why its been gagged in this fashion, or identify the company that instructed Carter-Ruck to obtain this injunction:
Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.
We’re not even allowed to know exactly who the judge is who handed down this injunction, but for brevity we’ll refer to him/her here as Justice Kafka. continue reading… »
Libdems are rejecting getting in bed with Labour
Nick Clegg today published a paper by Demos called ‘The Liberal Moment‘ which, at 92 pages, is not exactly light reading alongside your afternoon tea. But I’ve skimmed through it. And unlike Dave Osler I have a few positive things to say about it.
First, the political positioning. I agree with James Graham in thinking that Nick Clegg is ending Lib Dem equidistance. About time too. With many on the progressive left arguing, with the impending wipe-out of Labour power, that Libdems and Labour should join forces to defeat the Tories, Nick Clegg points out why he won’t do so. But at the same time pointing out why ‘progressive’ (meaning leftwing) voters should support the Libdems.
Liberalism, he says, is about the distribution of power. That is music to my ears because I’ve always seen the left as more obsessed about the distribution of power than simply liberty (on the basis that there is little liberty without power). And it is with good reason that’s he making a pitch for former Labour voters: he points out that despite its stated intentions to help the weakest and poorest many of Labour’s policies has hurt them most, especially on tax. His points seems to be to tell Polly Toynbee at el: look, you have to understand where I’m coming from ideologically before you think I’m going to jump in bed with Labour to ward off the Tories.
continue reading… »
Reasons not to care about election night
Conservative Home have a campaign to ‘Save Election Night’, rather than having voting on Thursday and waiting until the next day to count the results.
Counting election results on a Friday, rather than Thursday night, is fine by me – they counted on Friday this year in the county council elections and it was still just as enjoyable watching Labour make gains.
Election counts are great if you win and rubbish if you lose, the timing doesn’t make much of a difference.
I can understand, though, why Tory activists are so keen to have the results counted as soon as possible while some Labour people are like, ‘meh, no harm in waiting til the next day’. But some of the arguments deployed make no sense.
For example, some people seem to think that if the election count is delayed until Friday, then ZaNu Labour will stuff all the ballot boxes to steal the election.
But why would Labour bother to do that, when we could just get Peter Mandelson to use his mind control rays to get the exhausted officials who are doing the counting after having been working all day to ‘accidentally’ count Tory votes for Labour instead?
Would the left benefit from a Tory landslide?
I’m going to get flamed for saying this, but what the hell. Labour’s a lost cause. The left is going to lose, the right is going to win, and it’s time we started thinking about what kind of Tory government we want.
Specifically, about the type of Cameron majority that would do least damage. There’s a chance, I think, that a narrow Tory victory would be the worst result possible for the progressive cause. A Cameron landslide (this is where I get flamed) might actually be better than a close-run thing.
Think this through for a minute. Imagine that, when the election rolls round, David Cameron becomes prime minister with a majority of 100. That should be enough to let him do pretty much he wants.
What he wants, he says, is a more liberal stance on civil liberties, prioritising spending on schools and healthcare, a more serious approach to climate change… It’s not perfect (hello EU), but lord knows there are worse manifestos out there.
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The BNP and our sick democracy
The question of whether the BNP should appear on Question Time raises a worrying question for the health of our democracy.
Matthew Syed thinks the BNP should appear, on the Millian grounds that:
The more oxygen they are given to publicise their views, the more the British people will choke on their bigotry and hatred.
But this runs into Paul Sagar’s objection – that QT is not a platform for debate but merely a zoo in which soundbites are vomited into an audience who clap like hyperactive seals.
There’s a danger that Nick Griffin could actually emerge well from such a show.
continue reading… »
‘Big Brother Watch’ and Alex Deane
The Sunday Times yesterday carried news of a civil liberties campaign being launched by the TaxPayers’ Alliance in October.
TPA chief executive Matthew Elliott wants the campaign, called Big Brother Watch, “to become the central hub for the latest on personal freedom and civil liberty – a forum for information and discussion on something that directly affects British citizens in their everyday lives.”
In response, Spy Blog challenges many of the claims in Elliott’s article and asks:
Why exactly should Spy Blog, or anybody else who cares about these issues, support Yet Another Campaign Organisation rather than existing ones like:
• the NO2ID Campaign,
• Privacy International,
• GeneWatch UK,
• Open Rights Group
• the Foundation for Information Policy Research
• Liberty Human Rights.
The danger that Murdoch poses
Finally then, we learn some of the identities of those who were targeted by various national newspapers and magazines via Steve Whittamore, the details of which have previously been kept back by the Information Commissioner’s office.
And what an obvious collection of searches in the wider public interest they are. Whether blagging their way into BT’s databases to get home addresses and ex-directory numbers, the social security system, the DVLA or the police national computer, these are names to conjure with.
Some of these uses of a private detective to obtain information could have been in the public interest: politicians from all the main parties are also represented, among them Peter Mandelson, Peter Hain, Chris Patten, Peter Kilfoyle, a couple of then union leaders. Most though are just scurrilous attempts to back up gossip.
The other thing that Guardian’s obtaining of the information signifies is that it also knows exactly which journalists or even editors were themselves requesting information, as Whittamore also kept their details, maybe in case he was caught and so he could attempt to bring them down with him.
continue reading… »
The Scum editor wait finally over
The waiting then is finally over. The moment the nation has been looking forward to has arrived. After months of tension, irritation and terrible puns, not to mention writing, the next editor of the Sun, taking over from Rebekah Wade will be… Dominic Moron (surely Mohan? Ed.).
Who he? Well, he’s probably best known for being a former editor of the Sun’s Bizarre showbiz pages, which is increasingly becoming a signifier for going on to “greatness”, with Piers Morgan and Andy Coulson both formerly helming the columns.
More recently he’s been the deputy editor for the last couple of years, although even the sad individuals like myself who “watch” the Sun will have been hard pressed to see any of his personal influence on the paper.
Indeed, he’s even been editing the paper for the last month while Wade, sorry, I mean Brooks, has been getting to know her new husband even better, and I doubt anyone has noticed any difference whatsoever.
Free Dana Ali from Home Office blunders
contribution by Salman Shaheen
Iraqi immigrant, Dana Ali, faces deportation after an alleged Home Office blunder failed to recognise his marriage to a British citizen.
One day, Dana Ali didn’t come home. When he turned up at the police station on July 31st, they took him into custody without warning. “I asked them why and they told me they had papers to remove me from the United Kingdom,” Dana says.
“I haven’t been home since that day.” Dana has barely seen his wife since they took him to Oakington, the Cambridgeshire immigrant detention centre exposed by a 2005 BBC documentary for the violence and racist abuse carried out by some of its staff.
“He’s had to see a doctor and a psychiatrist since he’s been there. On one of his arms, he started scratching his skin to bits. He doesn’t realise he’s doing it, he’s so stressed. They’ve put him on anti-depressants, which took over a week for him to get. Even the doctor said she’s disgusted at how he’s being treated,” says Taina.
continue reading… »
Real face of the BNP ‘family festival’ exposed
Yeah I know its the News of The World, but they have done an undercover expose of the real nature of the ‘family’ Red White and Blue festival.
Demos against the BNP event are good, but the numbers won’t match those that voted for them . What is needed is to take apart their arguments, policies and expose what they really stand for and seems like the NOTW has done a good job of that last element.
It’s not enough to shout racist, we need to argue why they are wrong to blame immigrants for a lack of decent social housing and jobs if we are to counter their hate filled message.
Although I’m saying its good the NOTW has exposed this, I’m in not in anyway saying the Murdoch press are on our side, but lets use what they have discovered in our arguments and campaigns.
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Can the Met police change its stripes?
contribution by Helen
Last August, thousands of people camped out at Kingsnorth power station to protest against the continued use of coal power in the UK. There were eye-witness reports and video evidence that police abused stop and search powers, removed their badge numbers, employed sleep deprivation tactics, harassed journalists, arrested any protesters who tried to demand their legal rights, and engaged in unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters and their private property.
But the police were not meaningfully challenged by anyone with the authority to do so. In fact, it wasn’t until after events were repeated at the G20 protests in April 2009 that official questions were asked about the policing of dissent in the UK.
Early this year, cyber-liberties activist Cory Doctorow covered all this in the Guardian about Kingsnorth camp.
Ironically, the article was delayed due to an administrative error, resulting in its publication shortly after the G20 protests. It was already true, even before the same mistakes were made all over again: and in April, it could just as easily have been talking about the events earlier that month.
continue reading… »
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civic cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
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