Category Archives: Blog

Northern Rock: the views of Peston and Cable

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Good to see Vince Cable pushing the issue of Northern Rock really hard again yesterday in Parliament and then today with both a petition calling on Labour to start letting on as to just how much of our taxpayers’ money has been poured into Northern Rock (sign it here) and also with a Guardian article. Vince is doing an absolutely star job as acting leader.

Also on Northern Rock – spotted an excellent piece over on Robert Peston’s blog. Excellent, clear analysis of some of the ways forward for Northern Rock. Well worth a read.

The level of inequality in this country is a scandal

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I’ve commented before on how I suspect that issues around equality (is promoting equality of opportunity enough? or do we need more emphasis on delivering greater equality of outcome?) is one of the key philosophical differences between Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg.

Don’t get me wrong – I think both their beliefs sit more happily in the same party than plenty of pairs of Labour or Conservative MPs and their beliefs that I can think of! But I think there are some real differences here.

All of which is a long introduction to saying – Chris has a piece today over on Comment is Free:

The level of inequality in this country is a scandal. In Britain today, the strongest indicator of life expectancy is social class. The strongest indicator of children’s chances at school is their parents’ income: as early as age three, children from disadvantaged families lag a full year behind their middle class contemporaries. The chance of someone born into a low income group of moving into a higher group as an adult is lower now that it was 50 years ago.

Liberal Democrats don’t tend to talk about equality as much as we champion liberty. But in reality we can’t separate the two. The extent of inequality is now so large that it is a serious restriction on freedom – and for all of us, not only those at the bottom of the income and wealth ladder.

Not surprisingly – I agree! Because as I said on an earlier occasion:

Your educational chances are strongly correlated to your social class – setting the prospects for children even before they reach school. In health too, inequalities are still increasing. Ever since the publication of the Black Report twenty-five years ago, it’s been well known that inequalities in people’s health are directly related to inequalities in income and wealth. That’s why Greece, with half the average wealth per person of the US, actually has a longer average life expectancy. And in Iraq – after ten years of sanctions, with war ravaged infrastructure and continuing violence – has an average male life expectancy that is 8 years higher than that of the Calton area of Glasgow. The explanation? Inequalities in wealth again.

In fact, a whole host of studies across different countries have consistently shown that not just in terms of education and health, but also in terms of crime, social respect, trust and participation – the outcomes are linked to the degrees of inequality in wealth and income.

Should an MP blog?

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Earlier this year I wrote a piece for Iain Dale’s Guide to Political Blogging in the UK about why I think MPs should blog. I’d not got round to uploading it to my website previously but with the question knocking round on various blogs as to whether or not the Liberal Democrat leadership candidates should be engaging online (e.g. by commenting on blog pieces) now seems a good time to get round to that:

I started blogging back in 2003 because I could not bear the ‘you politicians you’re all the same’ type of comment. I wasn’t an MP at the time I started blogging – but I was a local councillor (Haringey) and also on the London Assembly, and I wanted to tell the people who elected me what I was doing and what I was thinking about what was going on in my working world – the world they had elected me to. I wanted to create a relationship with readers of my blog, that would give them an insight not just into how I spent my day on their behalf – but also some sense of me as a human being.

You can read the piece in full on my website.

Topping out the new TreeHouse Trust building

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Have the real pleasure of ‘topping out’ at TreeHouse on Friday. TreeHouse is a centre of excellence for children with autism and is our pride and joy in the heart of Muswell Hill. To walk around and see the love and care that these children get makes you weep wishing that all autistic children could come here.

When TreeHouse first set up shop, they were housed in a mega portacabin – portacabin on the outside but inside a two story building. Despite early concerns from residents (and me) about building on open land – they won us all over – thank goodness.

Today’s ceremony was for their new building. ‘Topping out’ is the traditional ceremony of the building profession when you get to the top floor. I had to hold trowel with concrete for the photos.

Lord (Tim) Clement Jones chairs the Trust and all the people who work there, the Trustees, the parents, the friends of the Trust and all work with an energy and commitment I have never seen to that degree in any organisation.

So – we climbed up, and up, and up – and with the sun shining and standing on the roof we topped out! The building should be finished next summer. Can’t wait to see it. What a lovely start to my day.

Last stop of day was as Guest Speaker at Ashford Liberal Democrats’ Annual Dinner. It took three and three quarter hours to get there – nightmare. However, as always, once there it was a lovely evening – and they have a great prospective candidate in Chris Took.

Then it was up at 6am to go to Ditchley Park near Oxford for the one day of three I can manage in a new relationship building forum – Chinese / Anglo. It’s a great challenge and a good way forward as China is one of the great powers of the world and there are some challenges for both of us to begin to really understand each others needs and ways of doing business.

The idea is that we will meet at least once a year in this way to build strong ties between our two countries and that way – hopefully – we will be able to work together. It wasn’t an occasion for having a go or hectoring over issues where we think each other could bear improvement – that will come with time. Instead the first steps were team building and relationship building.

The new Chinese Ambassador to Britain gave the after dinner speech in the evening. Madame Ambassador is quite something. Not only delightful and charming – but the way she said things made me think that there really will be a way forward. China is engaging now in the world – and is even helping in Darfur (not enough yet – but definitely engaged). As Madame Ambassador said – we have to help China understand what being a responsible world power means as they don’t have the experience and understanding. And she wants us to help China to gain that knowledge. So – she sold me!

Paddick attacks Labour for politicising the police

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Got an email through this morning from the Brian Paddick campaign team drawing my eyes to an interview he has given to The Telegraph. The very fact that he’s got such a large piece there is a good sign about how credible Brian’s candidacy will be with the media – and he also gives an excellent account of why he’s the best choice for London Mayor.

His comments about Ian Blair’s records at the Met is one of the most interesting parts of the piece:

The problem, according to Mr Paddick, is that Sir Ian has politicised the Met. “When Labour were the only party who wanted ID cards, Ian Blair came out in support of ID cards. When Labour wanted to extend the 90 days detention he sent one of the assistant commissioners into the House of Commons to persuade rebel Labour MPs to vote with the Government. When during the last general election the threat assessment for Tony Blair was that he should travel around in an armour proofed police Range Rover, Number 10 phoned the commissioner’s office and said we want ‘Vote Labour’ on the side of the police car, and Ian Blair did it. The decisions Ian Blair has made, the things that Ian Blair has said, have been very helpful to Labour. He has allowed himself to be seen as too aligned with Labour.”

Mr Paddick claims that Sir Ian forced him to put his name to a press release supporting Government proposals to allow terrorist suspects to be detained for 90 days without trial – even though he had made clear that he opposed the plan. “His office said ‘you are a deputy assistant commissioner in the metropolitan police and as such you will support 90 days’. It felt as if I had a gun to my head,” he said.

The political independence of the Met is, in his view, being compromised. “Police officers want the public to be proud of them, if there’s a perception that their chief is aligned to a political party that undermines rank and file officers.”

You can read the rest of the interivew here.

This is going to be an interesting contest! On Thursday evening I spoke alongside Brian at the Finchley & Golders Green Liberal Democrats AGM – I briefly began my political life there before moving to Hornsey & Wood Green – and he was, as I’d expect! – very impressive. Having this man who knows and cares passionately about London, and was a very senior police officer for years, will change this contest completely. So go and sign up to support him on his website if you haven’t yet!

Fear and control freakery in the Gordon Brown bunker

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Following up the account in the FT earlier this week about how Gordon Brown has already cut himself off from most people and is only listening to a tiny circle of advisters, today it is Martin Kettle in the Guardian:

Relations between the key players at the top are worse than in the summer. Brown’s long hours and short temper – he lost his cool with Bob Shrum, his American adviser, the other day – shape a bad mood inside No 10. Some staff are leaving already. Others are having second thoughts about staying. Good people feel excluded. The animus against Balls in particular is very great. He should concentrate on being a better minister, they say. Michael Heseltine was right, says one veteran. The problem isn’t Brown. It’s Balls.

Some of this stuff comes from the usual suspects. And, yes, similar things used to be said about the Blair government. For Mandelson and Campbell in 1997, read Balls in 2007. But if the large domestic lesson from the Blair years was that they wasted too much time thinking like an opposition not a government, the same already seems true of the Brown years. Blair, though, had time on his side. Brown does not.

(Hat tip: Guido Fawkes)

This sort of bunker mentality comes to just about any political leader in the end – but usually after years in the job, rather than before they’ve even been in the post for their first 12 months. Not a good sign for the future!

Fixed term Parliament bill to go before Parliament

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Gordon Brown’s ‘will he? won’t he?’ antics this autumn over possibly calling a general election highlighted the absurdity of letting the Prime Minister choose when to call an election.

Yet why should the PM get to choose the election date? We all know how PMs have chosen the date – they choose a date when they think they have a decent chance of winning. Fixing part of an election system just so you can maximise your own chances of winning – isn’t that normally called fixing an election?

Democracy after all is for all of us – it’s for the public to control who runs things, not for those in power to manipulate the public into re-electing them.

The alternative is to have fixed terms for Parliament. My colleague David Howarth has come out 12th in the ballot (polite Parliament speak for lottery) to choose which MPs are given (a small amount of!) time to present their own bill to Parliament. David’s said his private member’s bill will be one for fixed term Parliaments.

Even Gordon himself used to be in favour of fixed term Parliaments, so it’ll be interesting to see what he says and does on this!

Labour secretly axes £1 billion from overseas aid budget

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Well, well – will Labour never learn? They’ve axed around £1 billion from the UK aid budget (official development assistance) – and then tried to keep it secret.

So here’s the story in black and white. Two pieces of jargon first: “Official development assistance” is what people normally think of as the UK’s overseas aid budget, whilst Gross National Income is a measure of the country’s total wealth.

And on to the evidence.

Exhibit A, from the Treasury’s own website: the 2004 Spending Review which stated: “Total UK official development assistance (ODA) … will have risen from 0.26 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) in 1997 to 0.47 per cent in 2007-08.”

Exhibit B, also from the Treasury’s own website: the 2007 Pre-Budget Report which boasted of: “an increase in overseas aid as a share of national income from 0.37 per cent in 2007-08 to 0.56 per cent in 2010-11.”

So, having promised in 2004 that aid levels would be at 0.47% in 2007-8, they’ve now cut that figure to 0.37% – which is equal to around £1 billion.

As it was an international development debate in Parliament today, I raised the issue of this missing £1 billion which would have gone to help the poorest in the world.

And what did Douglas Alexander have to say? Well, nothing much. He just dodged the issue of spending levels here in 2007-8.

Not impressed! If you’re going to cut a billion like that Mr Alexander – at least have the guts to admit it and defend it in public rather than dodging around and talking about other spending levels in other years.

In the bunker with Gordon Brown

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Interesting piece in the FT from Sue Cameron about life under PM Gordon Brown for those in government:

He has been in Number 10 less than six months but, to the horror of civil servants, he has already hunkered down and cut most communication with the rest of government. Insiders say that no papers, no ideas and no decisions are getting through the barbed wire – only announcements from the leader that have been discussed with no one outside Mr Brown’s inner circle.

As a result, the corridors of power have become the corridors of impotence. Whitehall teems with unhappy cabinet ministers who have not been consulted or even informed about proposals that concern them – little details such as the date of the Budget, troop withdrawals in Iraq or the cancelling of the general election.

Not much change there then from the old Gordon Brown! Reminds me of what I wrote after Gordon Brown’s election as Labour leader:

What can we expect under Gordon? More announcement, re-announcements and then announcement for a third time of the same pots of money – and a dark, brooding, master pulling the central strings from behind closed doors. I hope I’m wrong, but …