Category Archives: Blog

Cross-party group criticises plans for 42 days detention without trial

Posted on by

In a normal world, having a cross-party groups of experts examine a policy and come up with major criticisms would be reason enough for the government to change course, but I fear that’s not going to happen … for as the BBC reports today:

The government has still not done enough to protect individual liberty in its anti-terror plans, an influential committee of MPs and peers says.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a series of amendments earlier this week aimed at heading off a Commons defeat.

But in a new report the joint committee on human rights said the safeguards were “inadequate”.

And plans to hold terror suspects for up to six weeks without charge would “almost certainly not be lawful”…

Committee chairman Labour MP Andrew Dismore said: “The government has talked of a major emergency, the ‘nightmare scenario’ of simultaneous plots across Britain or two 9/11s at once.

“Yet the amendments tabled by the government provide for possible events falling well short of that.”

The report also said requiring the home secretary to declare publicly there was a serious enough emergency to justify the powers was not much of a safeguard without independent scrutiny.

And allowing Parliament to vote on the individual case within seven days – another concession – would make little difference as any debate would be “heavily circumscribed by the risk of prejudicing future trials”.

Dealing with prostitution

Posted on by

Attended a briefing on tackling the demand for prostitution. The Government is looking at some form of legislation to curb demand for prostitution as opposed to the more traditional emphasis on the supply-side of the equation.

Not going to go into all the complexities of the discussion – as this is not an easy one to get right – but the MP from Ipswich (Chris Mole) where five women were murdered came to tell us of his experience.

Since the murders, the social services, police and other authorities and agencies have all been working together to eradicate street prostitution. They have brought about a reduction from thirty prostitutes on the street to none.

So – as I pointed out to Vernon Coker (Government minister) – maybe legislation isn’t the key; maybe the thrust of the Government’s action should be on support, training, housing and drug rehab exit strategies to get girls off the street and out of prostitution altogether.

The meeting was pretty discursive and Vera Baird, Barbara Follett and Vernon were all seemingly happy to have this wide-ranging discussion.

They did seem to be advancing, however, the view that legislation was the answer in as much as it was an equalities issue and that there could be no equality as long as men could still buy women.

Well – in ideological terms – yes of course. But in my view that has to come about mostly through cultural change – and legislation is at best only part of the route to changing culture – especially in a world where we still have 140,000 women waiting to bring cases about Equal Pay to the tribunal and there is such disparity on women’s pay. We have even had the Equal Pay Act for forty years – and still have issues with unequal pay.

Legislation just won’t deliver a magic wand solution. So legislate with caution was my message. It is more important to get the support in there and give people routes out of prostitution. I am pleased they are looking into it from the male demand perspective – about time! And of course – the volume of trafficking from Eastern Europe brings an whole other level of activity to bear.

Anyway – helpful discussion and much thinking to be done. The world’s oldest profession ain’t easy to tackle…

Congratulations to Jenny Willott

Posted on by

Congratulations to Jenny Willott – my Liberal Democrat colleague from Cardif Central who was promoted on Sunday to be our Shadow Secretary of State for Department Work and Pensions.

About time Jenny joined our Shadow Cabinet – very talented and very experienced in the portfolio having been on the Select Committee equivalent for the last three years.

It came about because Danny Alexander who had the portfolio has also been doing what was meant to be a temporary post as Chief of Staff for Nick Clegg. However, too much to do both and given that they get on so well – Danny asked if he could have a replacement for the Work & Pensions job – couldn’t get better than Jenny.

Labour abuses non-partisan meeting on gun and knife crime

Posted on by

Amongst various meetings, briefings etc yesterday I popped into the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Guns, Gangs and Knife Crime. Massive meeting with lots and lots of young people – excellent!

The APPG is chaired by Dawn Butler – a Labour MP. I could only stay for half and hour – and Vernon Coker (the Labour Minister) certainly made a decent speech. Various members of the audience contributed too – in the usual way.

But looking around the audience I noticed they all had a printed piece of literature in front of them – pinky purple in colour. Clearly it had been distributed to them – but then I realised what it was – it was Labour Party literature (their pamphlet for young people) including a request to join the Labour Party.

Well – this is a no no! APPGs are just that – non-partisan – but you can’t get much more partisan than handing out leaflets praising one party! Indeed, it is strictly against the rules to distribute party literature. The Conservative member of the panel is writing to the Speaker and when I spoke to him later that night in Parliament he said that there were three other serious transgressions which he would also report. I had also reported it to our Chief Whip to take further.

Just before the meeting I met a very genuine and successful peace campaigner who works tirelessly with young people – but who was leaving rather than going to the meeting. I asked why he was leaving and he said because he couldn’t sit through another one of those meetings where people just talk – not again.

I still think these type of meetings are worth having – even if they are mostly talk – as they engage quite a lot of young people and the more people we can engage the better. But it’s just not on to use young people as Labour fodder. And that is what the whole thing looked like to me. Anyway – I’m going to meet up on my own with this peace campaigner to see about action not words!

Extending Oyster: one person persuaded!

Posted on by

Keith Flett kindly wrote in the local newspaper about my push to get Oyster more widely accepted on train services:

Full marks to Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, for raising the issue of pay as you go Oyster Card use on rail networks in Haringey. At the moment they can’t be used on the line from Finsbury Park through to Hornsey and beyond, although the train operator First Group seems to be happy for this to take place on its services out of Paddington.

Meanwhile on the other side of the borough, recent changes means that Oyster can be used on services out of Liverpool Street to stations in Hackney which includes Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale, but not beyond.

How visitors and tourists make sense of this glorious mess one can only wonder.
– Keith Flett, Mitchley Road, N17.

Now that I've read Cherie Blair's book…

Posted on by

Over the last week I’ve read Cherie Blair’s autobiography. This follows on from my appearance on Radio 4’s Any Questions? where it came up and I defended the idea of her having written it – saying that everyone should be able to have their say, especially someone like her who has been on the receiving end of judgements from so many other people over the years without really being able to answer back.

But she’s lucky I didn’t read it before I went on air – because having read it – what a dreadful book it is! I mean it’s not dreadful in the sense that the English is awful – or that Cherie doesn’t take us through her life. But she says nothing of real interest.

It’s an I went here, went there, did that sort of autobiography with a smidgen of resigned saint attitude to the unfairnesses done to her.

She was at the heart of ten years of British Government married to the Prime Minister – and it leaves out any of the real, real tensions and pressures of that decade. Sure it covers the Iraq war and says how difficult it was for Tony – but it says nothing real. If you’ve not got much to say – then don’t write a full book! What a let down.

The problems with Gordon Brown's article on detention without trial

Posted on by

So – Gordon Brown flows over many column inches in The Times today defending his insistence on introducing 42 days detention without charge.

He holds forth in fulsome manner over the ‘compromises’, the judicial oversight, the need to come to Parliament for a vote if time beyond 28 days is necessary etc. There’s much to disagree with on the grounds which he chooses to argue – such as how meaningful will Parliamentary oversight really be if we’re all asked to vote suddenly after a new terror horror or scare? Those are just the circumstances in which you get rushed judgements, faulty information (think how often the initial media reports get major things wrong when there is a terrorist incident) and bad or blind decision making.

But what’s really striking is what’s missing from his piece. All those column inches today and not one single example of an instance where more than 28 days was needed. Not one example of where something went wrong because the 28 day limit was reached. Not one example of where something nearly went wrong until a a lucky break just before the 28 day limit was reached. Just not one example to back up his case. That gives it all away.

Instead, he tries to scare us with stories – about the thousands of hours of work now needed to sort through many aliases, many computers, many countries. And yet – no word about employing more people or more computers instead to speed up investigations

When you’re proposing to curtail our liberties – to say it’s OK for innocent people (because yes, many people arrested do turn out to be innocent) to be locked up for long periods – you really do need to make a careful case, with evidence and examples and explaining why the alternatives aren’t sufficient. Do that – and I’m all ears. Failed to do that – and no, I’m not persuaded.

Post Office closures: Labour admits they're making profits

Posted on by

Watching Labour minister Pat McFadden on TV yesterday (Andrew Marr show) state what we have all been screaming – that even profitable sub-Post Offices are being closed in the relentless decimation of local public services.

I’ve always argued that you can’t judge local public services simply on the basis of direct cash profit and loss – there are indirect costs and benefits too, and many of the benefits are not cash but in other forms. But it really takes the biscuit to be told that even Post Offices that are making a profit on a narrow cash basis are being closed!

For those that aren’t making a direct cash profit – with an open mind and a bit of determination it is not beyond the wit of man to make more of them profitable by introducing other services.

In Highgate, for example, the Highgate Society did a cost / benefit analysis. They obtained from the Post Office the proposed savings from closing that outlet.

And what did they find? Savings from central services around £25,000. Cost to local people in terms of extra time taken to go to further away Post Office alternatives – around £300,000.

So – the cost is to us and the benefit is to the Post Office. Did the Government not think that some of us think the £150 million ‘subsidy’ was actually a subsidy worth paying until more services could be brought in to up the profit of each branch? They are certainly happy enough to throw zillions at useless things like ID cards.

Also – there are fifty councils looking to try and help Post Offices stay open by putting council services through them. I attacked George Meehan (Labour leader of Haringey Council) when I did my surgery from our threatened Salisbury Road Post Office on this – and he promised to look into it. I have, since written to him to ask same. No reply as yet.

You should be able to use Oyster on trains north of Finsbury Park

Posted on by

Extending the use of Oyster to First Capital Connect’s overground train services running north out of Finsbury Park is the subject of my latest local column:

To us public transport users in London it seems as plain as the nose on our faces that Oyster should be extended to our local overground rail (and everywhere actually) – so we can go boldly and easily wherever we choose! But no – we still have to put up with a two-tier ticket system if we want to use our local overground stations like Alexandra Palace and Haringey.

We are stalled because First Capital Connect are holding back from extending Oyster north of Finsbury Park station. Having to get separate tickets to travel in the same city is akin to Soviet-style bureaucracy – not what you expect in a world-class city like London.

These days we’re no long train travellers but customers – but whatever then happened to putting the customer first? This sort of bureaucratic small mindedness does rather make a mockery of their slogan, “Your Journey, Your Choice, Your Railway” – but not “Your Convenience” or “Your choice of ticketing” it would seem.

Other train operators like First Great Western and South West Trains have already committed to making their passengers happy and will install the Oyster pay-as-you-go system in the next year – and they are putting First Capital Connect to shame.

Recently I met with the Oyster specialists Cubic – who delivered Oyster for our tubes and buses – at Alexandra Palace overground station and they are keen as mustard to get on with it. So I’ve written to First Capital Connect calling on them to get on with it – and you can too at Freepost RRBR–REEJ–KTKY, First Capital Connect, Customer Relations Department, PO Box 443, Plymouth, PL4 6WP.

But before you do – you can read the rest of the piece here.

42 days detention without trial: Lord Goldsmith speaks out again

Posted on by

Interesting to see the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is speaking out – again, but in much more strident terms this time – against Labour’s proposals to introduce detention without trial for up to 42 days.

There’s much I’ve disagreed with him on over the years, but he has it absolutely right when he says, “We start ourselves to destroy these values and the very basis of the free society which our ancestors fought hard to create if we readily give away critical liberties, such as the right we all have not to be arbitrarily held without charge.”

Moreover – we’ve still not had a convincing case put that this 42 day proposal is actually needed. I fear it is becoming a game of political macho posturing – Gordon Brown’s said he wants 42 days, so 42 days he must get – regardless of whether or not it is the right policy.