Hug A Hoodie

Blog open for comments again

2011-07-19T16:32:00.003+01:00

Sorry. Just had an email pointing out that comments are turned off. I'd completely failed to notice.

This is because the blog was dormant for a year or so, and I blocked comments because I was getting fed up with the spam.

Now I'm blogging about my time in Jerusalem, I've re-enabled them, so on the off-chance anyone wants to say anything, they can do. Don't all rush in at once ...

Desert Roadtrip – Part Two, Ein Gedi

2011-07-19T16:10:00.002+01:00

Once we’d finished at Qumran, we drove down to Ein Gedi, on the south-western shore of the Dead Sea. It’s a little oasis on the edge of the desert, and is well known for its nature reserve.

Joanna had booked us a room in a hostel there, and it was surprisingly nice: our own room between us; clean and modern, an all-you-can-eat buffet for dinner; plus a balcony to sit out on late at night, drinking Goldstar and playing card games. Couldn’t ask for more!

In the morning we set out for the nature reserve. Ein Gedi, which literally means “the spring of the goat”, unsurprisingly has a lot of goats (well, ibexes really) and, you’ve guessed it, a spring. On the way up the hillside towards the spring, there are four or five waterfalls with natural pools at the bottom, which are brilliant bathing spots. We had a dip in most of them on our way up. In the desert sun, we dried out completely walking from one pool to the next.

There’s a huge amount of wildlife. There are hyraxes scurrying in and out of the rocks – they look a bit like oversized hamsters. Dragonflies buzz around everywhere. You can see frogs and crabs in the bottom of the pools, and occasionally lizards by the poolside. Looking up to the cliffs, there are ibexes camouflaged against the rocks; they blend in perfectly. The sky is full of little black birds with orange wingtips, called Tristram’s starlings.

We left the nature reserve, and headed towards the Dead Sea. Rather than just run to the public beach and jump in, we decided to treat ourselves to an afternoon at the Ein Gedi spa complex, which offers a range of different pools, and access to the Dead Sea (which is really a lake, despite the name).

We started off at the indoor sulphur pools. The first thing that hits you is the smell: eggy and acrid and tangy. The water feels warm and oily, but it’s actually quite pleasant. The most striking thing is how buoyant you are in it – you float on the surface without even trying. You’re strictly limited to 15 minutes in the sulphur pools, and to be honest, that was about the longest my sinuses could take.

Outside the complex, there’s a mud bath. Or to be more accurate, it’s a big flat area with a huge tub of Dead Sea mud in the middle. You’re supposed to rub the stuff all over yourself, exfoliate a bit, and then rinse off. You get a choice of showers: sulphur water or normal.

Then, there’s the Dead Sea itself. Or rather: the huge salt flat where the Dead Sea used to be. When the spa complex was built, it was right on the shore, but the waters have been retreating at an alarming rate for many years. The Dead Sea is fed by the River Jordan, but both Israel and Jordan use the river as a water supply, and have dammed it further upstream. There just isn’t enough water coming through to keep the Dead Sea going, and the waters have receded to the point where they’re now about half a mile from the spa. You have to travel there by shuttle bus.

On the bus journey, you can see placards in the sand, showing where the waterline used to be at various dates. It’s terrifying. At what looks like a quarter of a mile from the Dead Sea, there’s a sign reading 2001. Maybe a few hundred yards away, there’s a sign reading 2004. It’s shrinking fast, and it’s been shrinking very recently. The place is an ecological disaster.

You need proper footwear to go into the Dead Sea. The lakebed is hard crystallised salt, and it’s spiky. The water is about 35% salt, and when you get in, you can feel every single minor cut and scrape on your body. After a day and a half of climbing up caves and springs and chasing ibexes, I had a fair few, and they stung like hell for the first few minutes.

Because of the high salt content, the water is much denser than normal water, and denser than human beings, so you can float very easily. In fact, you can’t really swim – you just sort of glide over the surface, and it’s hard to get any speed. You also need to really work hard to avoid getting the water in your eyes, or else you’re in real trouble. At one point, I accidentally got a faceful (whilst wearing contact lenses, ouch!) and was more or less blind. Jonathan had to guide me back to the showers on the shore so I could stick my head under them. It cleared up in seconds, thankfully, but it’s best avoided.

Once we finished in the Dead Sea, we got the shuttle bus back to the spa complex, got cleaned up, and hit the road in the direction of Masadah – which is where I’ll pick things up in Part Three. Assuming I survive preparations for my Hebrew speaking exam on Thursday.

Desert Roadtrip – Part One, Qumran

2011-07-13T17:26:00.001+01:00

During my studies here in Jerusalem, I’ve met three PhD whizzkids from Harvard: Cian, Jonathan and Joanna. They’re researching biblical Hebrew, theology, ancient history, and loads of other exciting and esoteric stuff, I’m sure. They’d been thinking of going to visit some of the archaeological sites around the Dead Sea – Qumran, Masadah – and after I expressed an interest, they invited me along.

To maximise our time, we decided to skive off an afternoon of classes. Jonathan had hired a car, so we drove out of Jerusalem and due east into the heart of the West Bank. Jerusalem is up in the hills, and the terrain dips very sharply as you come out of the city. There’s what appears to be a checkpoint on the other side of the motorway, as you come back into the city, but no one stops you on the way out.

Qumran is on the coast of the Dead Sea, about 30 miles from Jerusalem, and it takes less than an hour to get there. It’s very much on the beaten track, just off the main road and well marked out with brown tourist roadsigns. It looks so normal, it’s easy to forget where you are.

The caves around Qumran are famous as the location where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the 1940s and 50s. As you look up into the cliffs around you, you can see the caves where the scrolls were found. On a rocky plateau in the middle stand the ruins of a settlement from the 1st centuries BCE and CE: possibly the home of the same sect of Jews who wrote the scrolls and hid them in clay pots in the surrounding terrain (although there is some serious debate about this in academic circles).

The site is not big – less than five minutes to walk the perimeter. Half broken-down walls show you exactly where the buildings would have been, and what size the rooms were. Looking around, you get the impression that it must have been very similar to a monastery. The Jews who lived there built no fewer than seven mikvehs – Jewish ritual baths – they had a large, long communal dining room, and a room for studying at night, where archaeologists discovered a large number of oil lamps.

We decided to hike up to one of the caves. This turned out to be a bad move. We were in a desert, it was the middle of the day, we were running out of water, and the cave we picked – although it had looked all right from the ground – turned out to be unreachable without climbing ropes, at least, according to a helpful signpost placed about three quarters of the way up the mountainside by the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority, prophesying death and destruction upon our heads if we attempted to do it without professional equipment.

We took a break, recovered from the heat exhaustion in the shade of a large rocky outcrop, and clambered back down again. Once we were back at the ruins, we noticed a small, friendly looking cave much lower down, so we hiked up to that instead. It was small, not very exciting, full of batshit, and clearly didn’t have enough space for any ancient scrolls. It probably wasn’t an official Qumran cave at all. But we made it to a cave in the end, and that’s what counts.

From Qumran, we drove down back into Israel proper, towards our next stopover at Ein Gedi. There was a checkpoint on the way in, but in our tourist gear, and driving our hire car with Israeli numberplates, we were waved through.

I’ll pick up the rest of the story tomorrow in another exciting instalment.

Minor bus disaster

2011-06-26T19:42:00.003+01:00

Minor disaster today.

One of my friends from the course here is called Marijn, from the Netherlands. Most people on campus know him as the one whose name they struggle to pronounce. He's a theologian, with a special interest in the Old Testament and a good grasp of classical Hebrew - but here to improve his modern spoken Hebrew. The two of us went into the modern city centre of west Jerusalem for a drink this afternoon.

We got off the no. 19 bus at King George Street, walked down to Zion Square, found a decent looking little bar, had our drink and a chat, then headed back up the hill to get the bus back to campus. We naturally assumed that the bus home would be on the same road as we'd got off, but on the opposite side, going the opposite direction.

We were wrong. For some reason, the no. 19 northbound and the no. 19 southbound both go in the same direction along King George Street. But with the legendary Jonny spatial awareness, I only realised this after we'd gone a mile and a half along King George Street in the wrong direction without finding a bus stop.

In other news, the Hebrew tuition is going fine. We were learning about rooms of the house today. We had to get into pairs and have a little dialogue; one person has put out a classified ad for a house to rent, and the other person rings up to ask about the house. It was all "how big is the bathroom" and "how many bedrooms" and stuff like that. Good for practising adjective agreements too.

After we'd all been doing that for a few minutes, my partner and I got unexpectedly hauled up to the front of the class to demonstrate our dialogue. We managed to get sidetracked into a massive haggle over the price: she wanted 9000 shekels a month; I was trying to get her down to 3000. The teacher thought we could have spent more time on the new vocabulary and the adjective endings, but said I was clearly getting into the Israeli mentality!

I do at least feel like I can have a very basic conversation with some degree of fluency now. It's all in the present tense, and on a limited range of subjects, but I can actually talk and listen, without being reliant on the script from the textbooks, and I'm starting to build some confidence. I think I can probably achieve a respectable amount in the five weeks I'm here for. Here's hoping.

In Jerusalem

2011-06-23T19:11:00.003+01:00

This blog has been dormant for a while. Back when I had the time and the motivation, I used to write stuff about liberalism and UK politics. Over the last couple of years, I’m afraid I got out of the habit. Now, I’m studying in Israel for a few weeks, and I’d like to keep my family and friends posted. This old blog seems as good a place as any. If my Facebook friends, Twitter followers and former Lib Dem readership want to join the party too, you’re more than welcome.

I’m in Jerusalem, on the top of Mount Scopus, watching the sun set through the window of my dorm room. If I walked round the other side of the building, I’d see the Dome of the Rock glowing red below me in the heart of the Old City. I’ve decided to come to Israel to lean the Hebrew language, and I’m on an intensive five-week course at the Hebrew University.

As a modern linguist, it'll be a great challenge learning a new language, especially one that's unrelated to anything I've studied before. As a Jew, I hope having a basic grasp of Hebrew will make it easier to explore my own culture and heritage. As someone who cares about the politics of the Middle East, I hope my time here will give me more of an insight into this complex, beautiful and war-torn region.

I flew out from Manchester nearly a week ago, and spent a few days with my cousins in Ra’anana, which is a coastal town slightly to the north of Tel Aviv. On Sunday, I got the bus over to Jerusalem, and registered at the University for one of their summer crash courses.

Hebrew U has two campuses. Humanities are on Mount Scopus, which is where I’m based. The Mount Scopus campus, overlooking the Old City, was the original home of the university from 1925, but after the 1948 war, it was cut off – a little exclave of Israeli territory surrounded on all sides by the Jordanian-occupied West Bank. As a result, the university built its other campus in Givat Ram, central Jerusalem, which nowadays houses the science faculty.

In typical Jonny style, I managed to apply for the course about six weeks after the deadline. I don’t think I would even have found the course if it hadn’t been for my brother Alex, who sent me a link to Hebrew U’s website. I rang them up and pestered them in pidgin Hebrew for a bit, and they caved in. Within three days of the first phonecall, I was getting on the plane, and my formal acceptance letter from the University was waiting in my inbox when I touched down at Ben Gurion.

So far, I’ve had three days of tuition, and it’s been a challenge. Before you start, you sit a test, and get sorted into a class based on ability, starting with Aleph (beginners), and working through the Hebrew alphabet to Heh (advanced). Aleph is sub-divided into levels 1-5. I could already read and write Hebrew script, and had a smattering of vocab, so they’ve put me in Aleph 3. The tuition is entirely in Hebrew. If I said it was intense, it'd be an understatement.

First thoughts: I need to start picking it up quickly. I hate being in a country where I can’t string a sentence together. It feels like losing a limb, especially having studied modern languages, and being able to at least get by in most of Western Europe.

Best get cracking with the homework, then. I’ll keep you posted.

This hypocritical Labour campaign

2010-05-12T22:35:00.002+01:00

Like many of my fellow Liberal Democrats, I’ve spent a lot of time recently defending the party’s decision to go into government with the Tories. Much of the debate is happening on Twitter, which leads to two problems. Firstly, you have to squeeze your arguments into 140 characters, which doesn’t leave much room for nuance or for factual background. Secondly, there’s a large contingent of tribalist Labourites trolling around.

Put those two together, and you get this (as well as the accompanying facebook campaign). Seems like a lot of people are quite angry with the Lib Dems for dropping our policy for a phased withdrawal of student tuition fees.

Look at the list of names signed up to the campaign. I can’t see all that many Lib Dems. In fact, it’s peppered with Labour Party members, including NUS President Aaron Porter. I’m sure a lot of these people are sincere and genuine in their opposition to tuition fees, but they’re not exactly running this campaign out of a selfless desire to improve the Lib Dems’ policy position.

Worryingly, the Labour campaigners don’t seem to grasp the concept of a coalition. No party has a mandate to carry out its policies in full. There has to be compromise. Unfortunately, this time, our position on tuition fees didn’t make the cut.

Truth is, we didn’t decide against scrapping tuition fees. The British people did, when they failed to give a majority to the only party proposing to scrap them: the Lib Dems. If we were running the show, there’d be a bill going through this year, abolishing top-up fees for final-year students. Compare and contrast with the Labour Party in 2004: a thumping majority, enough to do what they liked (even with 71 of their own MPs rebelling) - and they chose to break a cast-iron manifesto promise, condemning a generation of young people to crippling debts. Against that background, this sanctimonious and tactically-motivated posturing from Labourites really sticks in the gullet.

If, like me, you’re a student, and if, like me, you’re wondering how to get rid of tuition fees, then consider this. In power, Labour introduced the damn things. The Lib Dems want to scrap them, and if ever we’re in a position to do so, we will.

Now, which party should you spent your efforts fighting against?

Legal fees scandal

2009-12-18T09:54:00.000Z

Personal injury lawyers are under fire today. The Tories have asked some well-aimed parliamentary questions, and discovered that the NHS is paying out a staggering amount of money to meet victims' legal fees in clinical negligence cases. In over 10% of successful claims against the NHS, the lawyers receive more money than the patient, with NHS legal costs adding up to £700m over the past five years.

It's easy to blame this on the lawyers, a profession whose popularity ratings are only marginally higher than Labour MPs and City bankers. But the real cause of this scandal is the lack of any legal aid funding for patients that have suffered from clinical negligence.

If your operation has been botched and you can't afford a lawyer, you have to enter a "no win, no fee" arrangement. Law firms doing "no win, no fee" work end up losing a lot of their cases, and get paid nothing at all. They then have to charge a "success fee" in the cases they actually win (which gets paid by the losing side, ie. the NHS). Supposing the firms lose 50% of their cases, they have to charge double the rest of the time, just to break even. (In fact, the formula is slightly more complicated than this, and takes into account the likelihood of winning each case, but the basic idea still holds.)

The obvious solution is to give legal aid funding to patients who have suffered from clinical negligence. Then, lawyers would get a fixed and fair wage, depending simply on the complexity of the case. If the legal costs clearly outstripped the value of the likely payout, claimants could make an informed choice about whether or not to proceed. The system would arguably be much fairer.

Unfortunately, our gut reaction is exactly the opposite: to cut the legal aid budget, and to feel very smug about wasting less public money on parasite lawyers. The legal aid budget has been slashed, year on year, but rather than save money, it's stopped everyone but the rich from having fair access to the courts. Both claimants and defendants are thrown at the mercy of the casino-style odds game that is the "no win, no fee" system. Populist anti-lawyer rhetoric may make us feel better for a while, but it won't solve the fundamental problems that have led to this latest scandal.

Question Time - what's the worst that could happen tonight?

2009-10-22T13:13:00.002+01:00

It's no longer about whether the BNP will appear on Question Time. It's about how they will appear on Question Time. For good or for ill, Nick Griffin will be on the panel tonight, and we need to ensure that, despite his presence, the programme is a good advert for the tolerant mainstream of British politics.

Clearly, the best possible outcome is for Griffin to be demolished in debate by the other panellists. From any reasonable perspective, his views range between the deeply offensive and the deeply laughable. (See this article from today's Independent for more information.) With any luck, he'll appear unelectable, devoid of any real answers for Britain, and exposed for the ugly racist he is.

Then again, Griffin is an experienced and slick public speaker. In his job, you'd have to be. He will be used to dealing with probing questions, and you can be sure that he will have worked out his answers, long in advance, to the very predictable things that he'll be asked. So this would appear to be the worst outcome for tonight's show: Griffin deflects the criticism, and maintains a façade of reasonableness that wins over yet more disenchanted voters to the BNP.

But there's an even worse possible outcome. Groups such as Unite Against Fascism have been encouraging their supporters to request tickets to the recording, and it's a fair bet that there will be plenty of anti-fascist campaigners in the studio audience. People who have no interest in arguing against the BNP, and are angry that the BNP has been invited along at all. The atmosphere will be confrontational, and Griffin's attempts to debate will be lost under a barrage of jeers and hisses. If that happens, then he will look like a martyr. As a supporter of a tolerant society, which headline would you rather read in tomorrow's papers? "Racist exposed on TV"? Or "Griffin shouted down by protesters"?

I can think of an outcome that is worse still. Perhaps the worst of all. Because the biggest danger is that tonight's Question Time will turn into a debate with no substance. Accusations of racism met with bare denials and counter-accusations: this will do nothing to tackle the very real problems which have led to the BNP's recent and upsetting electoral success.

We benefit hugely from living in a society where we are valued equally, whatever our ethnicity; we benefit hugely from living in a Britain where we are free to choose our religion, our style of dress, our cultural identity. And we benefit hugely from properly managed, legal immigration to our country. Despite this, a large number of Britons feel worried and alienated by the way in which our society is changing. If we want those people to vote for non-racist parties, we need to take their concerns seriously, understand them, and deal with them in a rather more nuanced way than simply venting our spleen at them.

The argument for tolerance is a complicated one. It needs to be made, and made with conviction. But the other panellists, already under fire for appearing on the programme, will be keen to distance themselves from the BNP as their first priority. If they spend most of the time simply shouting "Griffin is a racist, don't listen to him," the argument for tolerance will never be made at all. And for the political mainstream, that will be the biggest own goal of the evening.

Some brief thoughts on Lisbon

2009-10-02T14:35:00.000+01:00

1. The Lisbon Treaty itself is not a problem. It's largely a tidying-up exercise, streamlining the way the EU works and getting rid of a few anomalies. Far from being a Brussels power grab, it gives citizens of EU countries a greater say, especially by increasing the role of the directly elected European Parliament.

2. The way in which the Treaty has been ratified is a major problem. If the Irish voters do indeed say yes to Lisbon today, the Treaty will have been brought into law in the most underhand fashion. Nothing shows more contempt for democracy than asking a country to keep holding referendums until it gets the "right" result.

There's a gulf of mistrust between EU citizens and EU leaders; even a relatively straightforward Treaty such as Lisbon immediately raises people's suspicions. And that's the Catch-22 for Europe - if almost every change to the EU's structure is seen by citizens as undemocratic skulduggery, it makes it impossible for the EU's leaders to reform the system and make it more transparent.

The bungled handling of both the Constitution and Lisbon certainly hasn't helped matters!

3. Is the Lisbon Treaty suitable referendum material anyway? It's all very well talking about democracy, but most people haven't read the Treaty. We aren't exactly going to have a mature national debate on the finer points of EC law (or EU law, as it will be renamed after Lisbon comes into force and abolishes the confusing "Three Pillars" system).

The Lib Dem position (last I checked) was that Treaties such as Lisbon are not suitable referendum topics - they should be negotiated and ratified directly by the government. Our membership of the EU, on the other hand, should be put to a public vote, so we can choose to keep or reject the whole package.

This seems sensible, but the cynic in me thinks it's a purely tactical policy. There's a serious risk of a no-vote if we had our own referendum on Lisbon, whereas a referendum on EU membership is vanishingly unlikely. The Lib Dem leadership obviously wouldn't like a no-vote on either issue.

Quite how this all squares with point 2 (above) is anybody's guess.

4. This can't go on. If Ireland ratifies Lisbon, and it goes into force, the EU will have scraped through this latest crisis - but for how long? The mistrust certainly won't go away, and we will simply be saving the problems and the resentment up for a future generation to deal with. The current ostrich tactics help nobody.

The EU urgently needs to reestablish its relationship with its own citizens - on a basis of trust and respect - or else it may as well not exist at all.

The most patronising political comment of the month ...

2009-09-16T10:19:00.003+01:00

... courtesy of Unite Against Fascism. Complaining about the BBC's proposal to invite a BNP representative to appear on Question Time, UAF wrote:

"As a publicly funded body, the BBC in particular has a duty to oppose racism. Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people pay the licence fee too."

Yes, because all Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people agree with your (failed) tactic of refusing to challenge the BNP in debate, do they? And because Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people care more about combating bigotry than everyone else? (So much for uniting against facism.)

Well done UAF, you've just patronised the vast majority of tolerant people in the entire country.

Rape laws punishing the innocent, and failing to tackle the guilty

2009-08-09T17:09:00.015+01:00

On my way to Chester two days ago, I gave up on trying to listen to my iPod above the racket of the train wheels, and picked up a free copy of The Metro from the seat opposite. The front-page story was entitled "Child rape" teen is saved by Bebo.

It's a story about a 15-year-old by who had sex with an 11-year-old girl whom he thought was the same age as himself. He was charged with rape, although the girl had in fact agreed to sex (if you can really say that an 11-year-old has the capacity to agree to sex, which is a moot point). He was spared a jail sentence; the court accepted his story after learning that the girl had posted explicit photos of herself on Bebo. He still has a criminal record for underage sex, though, and has to sign the sex offenders' register for two years.

It got me thinking about the complete mess Labour has made of our rape law. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 was promoted as a vital modernisation of our outdated laws; an important way of protecting vulnerable women and children. In fact, it’s created more problems than it's solved.

Usually, to convict someone of rape, you need to prove that the victim didn't consent, and the defendant knew that (or, if he made a mistake about consent, you have to prove it was an unreasonable mistake).

However, the 2003 Act introduces a new offence: rape of a child under 13. To be convicted under this section, all you need to do is have sex with an under-13-year-old. Even if she consented, and even if she lied about her age, it's still rape. The logic behind this was that no 12-year-old could possibly consent to sex. It would be unfair and harrowing for child victims to have to go on the witness stand and be grilled by a barrister about whether they’d agreed to it or not.

That's entirely correct in the case of a 12-year-old girl forced to have sex by an older paedophile. But what if she's having sex consensually with her 13-year-old boyfriend? The boyfriend is technically guilty of rape, and he can get a conviction which will go on record and destroy his life. Which, for an Act supposed to protect children, is pretty perverse. (This has actually happened, by the way.)

Not that I'm for a minute suggesting it's a good idea for 12 and 13-year-olds to have sex. But if they do, should they really be dragged through the courts? Surely this is a matter for the family, the community, the school? We do need to deal with children who have sex far too young. But giving them a lifetime record for the second most serious crime is wildly out of proportion, and it completely defeats the object of child protection!

The 15-year-old in the Metro is lucky to have got away with a lesser conviction for straightforward underage sex, rather than rape (which he was technically guilty of, regardless of the Bebo photos). But I was struck by what the judge said to him when releasing him on probation: "I hope you realise this conduct has got you into serious trouble indeed. The maximum penalty for this is ten years' imprisonment."

A boy in his mid teens, having sex with a girl whom he thought was in her mid teens too? Carrying a ten-year jail sentence? My God, half my mates would still be in prison today …

The fundamental problem with our rape law (and the criminal law in many other areas) is that Labour seems to believe you can solve most things if you introduce tough enough laws. It's a case of a lazy government, going for the soft option of shuffling paper around to "make a statement", rather than taking practical action to solve problems.

It's a sad fact, but you'll never get as high a conviction rate for rape as for other crimes. It usually takes place in private, between people who know each other, with no independent witnesses and inconclusive forensics. But we could improve convictions drastically by, say, having 24/7 rapid response cars visiting rape victims, collecting vital forensic evidence as soon as they get the phonecall. Instead, we just re-write the definition of rape, to make it tougher for alleged rapists to defend themselves in court, and in the process, we not only create unfair loopholes that ruin the lives of innocent people; we also miss the chance to do something constructive to protect vulnerable people against the most horrendous crime short of murder.

Aside from lazy governmental thinking, the main culprit is the lobby-group mentality in UK politics. There's a loud and organised women's rights lobby (typefied by Harriet Harman), clamouring for higher rape conviction rates at whatever the cost. There's no equivalent lobby group to represent men charged with rape and demanding a fair trial - and if there was, it wouldn't get very far. Add this to a so-called children's rights lobby that thinks it's acceptable to drag inappropriately-young lovers through the Crown Court, and you have a recipe for injustice.

In other news - I'm moving to London this week, ahead of my final year of legal studies. I don't suppose anyone in the political blogosphere has any advice on how to survive in the big city? ;-)

Jewish students on BNP website

2009-06-27T14:18:00.003+01:00

Since I blogged about the issue yesterday, the British National Party has published a statement condemning the recent court decision regarding admissions policy at the London Jewish school, JFS.

This isn't because the intolerant, racist BNP has any great love or respect for the Jewish community, most of whom they would cheerfully see deported to some random shtetl in eastern Europe. It's because the story gives them the excuse to spout out a load of the usual far-right claptrap: ethnic identity being attacked by the great liberal conspiracy, etc etc.

I looked at the BNP's website today, and noticed they'd put up a picture of some JFS students - the school's Head Boy and Head Girl teams. If I were one of those kids, or their parents, I'd be pretty uncomfortable with that photo on display on a far-right website - more on grounds of safety than anything else. And whilst I will support to the end of the earth the BNP's right to engage in lawful political debate, I wouldn't for a second blame JFS for taking every legitimate legal step possible to have that photo taken down. Copyright infringement, breach of privacy, they'd all help.

Interesting to note that the picture's gone up just before the Jewish Sabbath, so presumably it'll be Sunday at the earliest before the kids and their families can start to do anything about it.

If you're reading this and have any connection to JFS or to the students involved, do please draw it to their attention.

JFS: the court got it right

2009-06-26T11:09:00.006+01:00

First of all, apologies for not blogging in several months (again). In my defence, I had exams, more exams, and then scary pupillage interviews.

Secondly, what I am about to say is very likely to annoy a lot of my fellow Jews who might be reading this. So again, apologies in advance. Take it in the spirit of healthy debate; it's certainly not meant as an attack on Jewish schools or Jewish identity.

But in a nutshell: I think the court got it right this week, when they ruled that a Jewish school's admissions policy was unlawful. Having said that, I'm not quite convinced I agree with their logic; I would come to the same answer for different reasons.

JFS, a Jewish school in London, had refused to admit a boy on the grounds that he "wasn't Jewish". The boy practised the Jewish religion, but from the perspective of orthodox Judaism, that isn't enough. To be considered Jewish, either you must be the child of a Jewish mother, or you must undergo the orthodox Jewish conversion process. The boy's mother had converted to Judaism in a progressive ceremony, not an orthodox one. Through orthodox eyes, this meant that she wasn't really Jewish - and therefore, neither was her son.

The Court of Appeal decided that this was racial discrimination - he was being denied a place because of his parentage. That doesn't entirely ring true, because you don't have to belong to a particular ethnicity to be Jewish. Anyone, of any racial background, can join the Jewish religion, and the worldwide Jewish community is very ethnically diverse.

My real objection to the JFS is that they were applying the orthodox criteria for Jewish status, when they should really have focused on the boy's own religious beliefs. JFS is a publicly-funded Jewish school, and should therefore be prepared to take anyone who practises Judaism, in any branch of the faith, whether orthodox or progressive. Orthodox Jews are quite entitled to decide who can be a member of their synagogues, and take part in their worship. However, no one grouping within British Jewry should have the right to set the legal standard for Jewish status in the British courts.

There is a wider debate about whether we should allow faith schools at all; I don't want to get into that minefield right now. I would simply argue that if we are going to allow schools to prioritise students of a certain religion, the sole criteria should be the student's own religious beliefs, and not the criteria set by a particular religious authority (such as the United Synagogue) - because that would mean giving away control of admissions policy to an unaccountable religious grouping with its own agenda. Admissions policy should be a public matter.

(Incidentally, I blogged about this issue last time it was in the courts a year ago: you can read my original article here.)

Ian Tomlinson death: has the Met moved on from Menezes?

2009-04-08T13:33:00.001+01:00

The Guardian today has footage of the attack on Ian Tomlinson, who died from a heart attack shortly after being bludgeoned to the floor by a police officer as he tried to walk home from work during the G20 protests.

The news is shocking. I sincerely hope that whichever officer did it is hauled before a court. Depending on what evidence is available, it may be possible to charge him with manslaughter, and perhaps even murder. It's harder, though, to work out what this case tells us about the police. For example, what about the other police officers that went to help Tomlinson when he collapsed? They formed a human shield to protect him from bottle-throwing protesters. With examples of the very good and the appallingly bad within the space of minutes, what do we learn about the Met?

The answer, perhaps, can be found in the Met's own response on the night of Tomlinson's death. Their spokesman appeared to gloss over the avoidable death of an innocent man, preferring to talk about the professionalism of those officers who went to his aid. We need to be cautious - the true extent of the story, including the damaging footage, has only just emerged, and the police may not have had time to formulate a proper response yet. But if they choose to brush this one off, it will tell us something very sinister: that whilst there may be a great deal of bravery and dedication to service on the front line, there is a very cavalier attitude amonst the top brass.

When Jean Charles de Menezes was shot, the upper echelons of the police, together with Ken Livingstone, closed ranks to pretend that it wasn't their fault, and that we should blame the terrorists who created an atmosphere of fear - conveniently forgetting the criminally negligent series of intelligence screw-ups that led to an innocent man being mistaken for a suicide bomber. They compounded that failure by telling lies, and claiming that Menezes had behaved suspiciously: he hadn't. The Menezes case illustrated the gulf of responsibility between front-line officers and policy-makers. You couldn't really blame the men who shot Menezes, because they had been told comprehensively that he was a bomber. Responsibility had to lie with those in the command chain who made grave mistakes, and then lied to protect themselves.

The real test of how the police has moved on from Menezes will be how they handle these shocking events. If we see an open and cooperative attitude towards finding the truth, something vaguely good might have come out of all this. If we see a repeat, where the Met ducks justice, hiding behind the immunity of being a public servant, then we will have got precisely nowhere.

Assisted dying, and Patricia Hewitt

2009-03-22T22:50:00.009Z

Patricia Hewitt is campaigning for the right to die. She believes that terminally ill people who are mentally competent should have access to assisted suicide, and is calling for a Private Members' Bill in parliament to change the law.

Part of me wants to be cynical; she never said anything about this as Health Secretary, after all, when she might have done something about it directly. But then again, this is a genuinely cross-party issue, and if she can achieve something with her campaign, then all power to her.

I'm strongly in favour of the right of a terminally ill, mentally competent adult to decide to end their own life, as long as they make the choice freely and without being put under pressure. For me, that comes down to the core liberal principle of personal autonomy: my life is mine to dispose of, and not the state's to enforce. I do understand the serious practical arguments against assisted dying (how do we know that it's a genuine free choice?), but I would like to think that they can be overcome with well-drafted legislation and high quality medical care. And is it right to let a question of practicality defeat an argument that seems sound in principle?

Beyond all the political arguments, there's an important legal problem in the mix. Currently the law on assisting suicide is ambiguous. In particular, it's unclear whether a person who travels to Switzerland, to help a loved one get to the Dignitas clinic, is committing a crime. MS sufferer Debbie Purdy went to the Court of Appeal last month, arguing that the government had a duty to make the current guidelines more explicit. The court unfortunately ruled that the guidelines were adequate, so in fact, we're still in the dark.

So far, the CPS hasn't prosecuted friends and family who have accompanied patients to Dignitas, and quite right too. From the point of view of a person wanting to spend those precious last few weeks with a dying husband or wife, this is great news. For the legal system, it's not so helpful: only if a relative returning to the UK from Dignitas is charged and tried will we have a final answer as to whether or not it is a crime to go there to support a loved one.

I'm very uncomfortable with that situation. It seems very wrong for someone to be guilty of a crime if they have no way of knowing that whether their conduct is illegal until it finally comes to court! To me, that seems to be a serious breach of the rule of law, and I hope that if Debbie Purdy takes her case to the House of Lords (or the Supreme Court, as it will shortly become), they will decide to clear things up.

The current saga also sheds light on the cruelty and cynicism of so-called Care Not Killing, the campaign group against assisted dying. They have steadfastly opposed any attempt to clarify the law in this area. In other words, for the sake of their own political campaign, they are happy for an unfair ambiguity in the law to put terrifying pressure on terminally ill people and their loved ones, and potentially to rob them of their last chance to say goodbye. I think that's shameful; and I don't see much that's "caring" about their attitude.

Sir Liam Donaldson is a nutter, Part 2

2009-03-19T10:19:00.001Z

Sir Liam Donaldson is the government's chief medical adviser. Recently, he's been arguing in favour of a new policy: a minimum price per unit of alcohol. That might get rid of the odd handful of dangerously cheap all-you-can-drink deals and promotions, but it'll also force sensible and moderate social drinkers up and down the country to pay more money.

You can argue the toss as to whether this is a good policy or not. Personally, I don't. But the main thing that bothers me is this: why does Donaldson see it as his business to come up with public policy? He's there to advise the government about medical science, so that they can come up with policy measures.

This isn't the first time that Donaldson has put forward ideas that are out of touch with reality. As I blogged last summer, his plans to cut the drink/drive limit for younger drivers were well-intentioned, but dangerous. But when a medical adviser unilaterally decides to invent sweeping measures that touch on licensing law, taxation and highways enforcement, it's not surprising that he comes up with junk.

Now, I'm not for a moment doubting Sir Liam's scientific expertise, and I'm not for a moment claiming that I could come up with any better suggestions of my own. But I would like to think that the state response to alcohol problems is formulated by the Department of Health on the basis of a lot of research and consultation, taking on expertise from a range of different sources. Just introducing something that the CMO dreamed up one evening at the pub is unlikely to make for good law - and if he does want to make the law, why doesn't he just stand for parliament?

E-cigarettes and the smoking ban

2009-03-13T10:24:00.002Z

When the smoking ban came in, Lib Dems were split by the issue. You could legitimately use key liberal arguments on either side. I argued the point against Stephen Williams MP at a student meeting - I opposed the ban on the grounds of individual freedom to wreck your own lungs; he supported it on the basis that smoking in public caused unfair risk to others. We were both quoting Mill's famous harm principle on opposite sides of the same debate!

The whole thing was confused even further by the legislation itself, which defined "public place" very widely, including privately-run businesses that were open to the public. That made it even harder to find the dividing-line between personal rights and public menace.

The device that's now in the news is the e-cigarette, a fake cigarette which lets you inhale a fine mist of pure nicotine. Currently unregulated in the UK, various campaign groups (including ASH) are calling for selling restrictions similar to those in place for cigarettes.

The key difference between an e-cigarette and the real thing is that the e-cigarette poses no risk to others in the vicinity. It doesn't pump smoke, tar, or carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. The only person who might be harmed is the person using it. On that basis, I'd argue that any regulation should be very light. Subject to the usual health and safety rules that you'd expect, there's no good reason for making it difficult to get hold of and "smoke" these devices.

Time to abolish "causing death by dangerous driving"

2009-03-12T15:42:00.008Z

Lord Ahmed, the Labour peer serving 12 weeks for dangerous driving, will now be freed, after the Court of Appeal suspended his sentence. Ahmed was texting as he drove down the M1 on Christmas Day 2007, minutes before being involved in a fatal crash. The crash wasn't Ahmed's fault; it appears to have been a pure accident, entirely unrelated to the texting.

Of course, if the texting had been the actual cause of the crash, he could have been charged with one of two crimes: causing death by dangerous driving, or causing death by careless driving.

The latter offence is a relatively new one, introduced by the Road Safety Act 2006. Before the 2006 Act, the only "death by" motoring offence was death by dangerous driving. This led to problems when the defendant's driving was just careless, rather than dangerous. People whose loved ones died in those sorts of accidents felt that their loss wasn't recognised at all by the criminal justice system, which is why "death by careless" has now been introduced.

Much as I feel for people who lose family and friends in car accidents, I can't see a principled legal reason behind either of the "death by" offences. The crimes that they're based on (straightforward dangerous driving and careless driving) are so-called conduct crimes: that means that you don't have to do any actual damage to be guilty of them. Lord Ahmed's case is a good example - his texting didn't cause any harm, but he was guilty of driving dangerously all the same.

A crime like murder, on the other hand, is a result crime: to be guilty, you have to bring about a particular result, ie. someone's death.

The two "death by" driving offences are neither: they take a pure conduct crime like dangerous driving, and then tack a piece of result crime onto the end of it, which is a hopeless mishmash.

I would argue that it's wrong, in principle, to jail someone for bringing about a particular result unless they have some element of mental guilt related to that result. In other words, to be convicted of a crime that includes the words "causing death", you must either intend someone to die, or you must deliberately run the risk of someone dying.

We need to look at the reason why a person is culpable. If they're culpable simply because of the poor standard of their driving, then we should consider their level of car control, and nothing else. If they're culpable because of the result that they brought about, we need to look for intention or recklessness as to that result.

It's technically possible to charge four-wheeled killers with manslaughter - a proper result crime with a proper element of mental fault - but it only happens rarely. That's because juries are reluctant to convict bad drivers of such a serious-sounding crime, even if they're guilty on paper. The CPS almost invariably prefer to use the specific driving offences.

I've come to feel that there are two main reasons behind the "death by" offences: making it easier to convict people, and making the families of victims feel better. The first strikes me as downright unacceptable; the second, whilst it's important, is surely no excuse to cut corners with our principles. I'm sure this will go down like a lead balloon with car crash families, but I'd cheerfully abolish the two "death by" offences.

Just as an aside: why are we giving jail sentences to dangerous drivers, anyway? I wouldn't be scared to meet Lord Ahmed outside a pub on a Saturday night; what's the sense in locking him away at the taxpayer's expense? Surely a long-term driving ban, coupled with some community service (perhaps in a hospital A&E department) would be far more appropriate!

Vince Cable to become Chancellor?

2008-10-09T15:57:00.001+01:00

Some dare to whisper that Cable may be heading to Number 11. Jonathan Calder doesn't believe a word of it; Duncan Borrowman is quite keen on the idea.

If it does actually happen, remember this: you read about it first on Hug A Hoodie, way back in February.

Vince isn't the only Lib Dem to be gifted with powers of clairvoyance ...

Luke McCormick, and the little weapons we drive

2008-10-06T18:07:00.006+01:00

What a day for the government to decide against cutting the drink-drive limit! The very day that footballer Luke McCormick is jailed for 7 years for drunkenly smashing into another car, killing two young boys and inflicting crippling injuries on their father.

At first glance, the two major news stories don't seem to be related. McCormick was driving at double the limit anyway. The planned reduction - from 80 to 50mg per unit of blood - wouldn't have had any bearing in his case. And according to campaigners for the current limit, the biggest threat comes from drivers who seriously overstep the current limit, rather than those who are just within it.

I understand that argument, but it misses a crucial point. The current limit lets you get away with about a pint of beer. And that gives the impression that it's OK to have a drink and drive, so long as you're careful not to overdo it. In truth though, it's impossible to tell whether or not you're safe behind the wheel. If you're a big ginger lightweight like me, you might be floored by half a lager. If you have the heart and stomach of a ~~fluffy~~ concrete elephant, you might be fine. There's no way of knowing.

Once you establish a principle like "one drink is OK, but don't overdo it," you're inviting people to try and judge a limit which simply cannot be judged. And once they're a few pints down the line, at several times the legal limit, and with their judgement substantially impaired, they're much more likely to think to themselves "I've only had a few - I should be fine."

A limit of 50mg, or even 20mg, would send a very clear signal: just don't do it, at all! The limit isn't there to let people have bit of a drink and still drive. It's there to protect sober people from being arrested because of a small amount of leftover alcohol in their system; that's literally all it should do.

As things stand, we send a badly mixed message. All those taxpayer-funded public safety adverts say "Think! Don't drink and drive", whereas our legal system says "Have maybe one, then see how you feel." With a setup like that, is it any wonder that we breed drivers like McCormick?

A kick up the arse from Jonathan Calder

2008-10-02T21:27:00.002+01:00

Contrary to what some are saying, I've not been eaten by David Cameron. I've just been unforgivably lazy for the past month, and not done any blogging. (I've also done a couple of weeks of legal placements, dashed off to conference for a few days, then started my law conversion course, but none of that's an excuse.)

Normal service resumes as of now, anyway. If my textbook on tort law doesn't send me to sleep, I'll try to stay up for the US Veep debate tonight, and write something about it ...

Into the belly of the beast ...

2008-08-25T10:39:00.002+01:00

Today, I am in Witney!

A British Bill of Rights?

2008-08-10T11:55:00.000+01:00

MPs are calling for a British Bill of Rights, which would go further than existing human rights law. The cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights wants to include greater protections for vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly.

Currently, our main protection in law comes from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - an international treaty - and the UK's own Human Rights Act (HRA), which makes the ECHR into a part of our legal system, and says that UK law has to be compatible with it.

My initial reaction was worry. Are we talking about legislation to supplement the HRA, or to replace it? This might seem like a trivial point - if the new Bill of Rights replaces the HRA, but contains all the same rights and more, what's the problem? But in fact, it's an absolutely crucial detail.

Most countries have a written constitution to protect their citizens' rights, which has sacred status, and which the government of the day can't just amend at will. But in Britain, any Act of Parliament has the same status as any other. A purely British Bill of Rights could easily be messed around or repealed a future government.

The ECHR, on the other hand, is an international treaty. Although it's now become a part of our legal system, the actual text describing our human rights is contained in that treaty, which puts it beyond the day-to-day reach of MPs. Our politicians can't modify, edit or repeal it. In that sense, the ECHR fulfils the same role as the German Grundgesetz or the US Constitution - it creates a red line which politicians can't cross.

If we were to follow David Cameron's policy of scrapping the HRA and completely replacing it with our own British Bill of Rights, we'd throw away an important safeguard against a corrupt or malevolent government in future.

So I was relieved to see the following paragraph in this latest report:

"In our view it is imperative that the HRA not be diluted in any way in the process of adopting a Bill of Rights. Not only must there be no attempt to redefine the rights themselves, for example by attempting to make public safety or security the foundational value which trumps all others, but there must be no question of weakening the existing machinery in the HRA for the protection of Convention rights."

Thank goodness, really. As long as we remain protected by the European Convention, I can't see a problem with a supplementary set of rights. With that caveat, I'm broadly in favour of this report and its findings.

The biggest problem for human rights law, however, is the problem of perception. There's already a mistaken belief that human rights benefit criminals and terrorists more than the law-abiding citizen. It's not helped by the lurid reports in the gutter press every time a prisoner or deportee launches a legal challenge under the HRA. The most important thing the government can do right now is to stick up for their own legislation - to say that the HRA is a fundamentally good thing, and that it protects everyone equally under the law.

George Carey on Max Mosley: "strip kinky people of their legal rights"

2008-07-27T14:57:00.003+01:00

Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has a particularly dreadful comment piece in today's News of the World. It's about Formula One boss Max Mosley and his recent victory in court against the same newspaper. I thought I'd go through it briefly with a few comments:

"A dangerous precedent has been set this week in the victory of Max Mosley over the press. The first major victim is Free Speech itself. Without public debate or democratic scrutiny the courts have created a wholly new privacy law. In itself that's bad enough."

As a student about to embark on a law course, I read through the judgement in full (homework, you understand, not voyeurism!) and it most certainly doesn't involve the judge creating new laws. It involves him enforcing Mosley's existing right to privacy, under Article 8 of the European Convention.

It's interesting that Carey capitalises Free Speech. Was that his idea, or News of the World's? Because this legal case has nothing to do with some great ideological battle in defence of free speech. It's about a tabloid prying into people's private lives in order to shift product. And if he'd bothered to read the judgement, he'd know that Mr Justice Eady spent most of his time looking at the clash between two equally important rights - Mosley's privacy and NOTW's freedom of expression - and came to a very reasonable and nuanced conclusion.

"But, as a Christian leader, I am deeply sad that public morality is the second victim of this legal judgement. Unspeakable and indecent behaviour, whether in public or in private, is no longer significant under this ruling."

As a Christian leader, who voted for you? Where does your mandate come from? And why on earth do you get to sit in our parliament passing laws that we all have to obey, whether we're Christian or not?

As for this argument about public morality - come off it. Are you saying that as a result of the Mosley case, people will start queueing up to have BDSM sex with each other in public?

This entire case is about privacy - a concept you don't seem to have grasped. It's about people having the right to create a little sphere for themselves where they can do what the heck they like. Whatever happens in that little sphere is supposed to be completely detached from the public. The only reason why Max Mosley's unconventional sexual tastes have had any public impact whatsoever is thanks to the trashy newspaper you're writing for and defending!

"And in our celebrity-obsessed age this is a hazardous route to take."

Presumably, as a Christian leader, you're not a fan of our celebrity-obsessed age. Why are you giving the tabloids carte blanche to stick cameras into celebrities' bedrooms, and splash the gory details all over the web? An ex-archbishop encouraging the press to make money by appealing to people's worst instincts! Shocking ...

"In the past a public figure has known that scandalous and immoral behaviour carries serious consequences for his or her public profile, reputation and job. Today it is possible to both have your cake AND to eat it.

But a case can be clearly made for a direct link between private behaviour and public conduct. If a politician, a judge, a bishop or any public figure cannot keep their promises to wife, husband, etc, how can they be trusted to honour pledges to their constituencies and people they serve?"

If you were talking about an elected politician here, you may have a point. If it were an MP who had sounded off about truth, honesty, integrity; who had lined up his wife and kids for publicity photos; who had voted conservatively on moral issues in the Commons; then you might have a point. But Mosley isn't elected and doesn't hold public office, nor does his job have anything whatsoever to do with public morality. He's in charge of organising a sport where jet-powered lumps of carbon fibre go round in circles at 200mph. I can't see what public interest is served by blowing open the lid on his private sex life.

In his judgement, Eady agrees that when he had prison-themed sexual roleplay with five dominatrices, Mosley had an expectation of privacy. NOTW argued that although they breached that privacy, it was justified by the public interest - because Mosley was engaged in dangerous and violent behaviour (which can be a criminal offence even if it's consensual).

The judge disagreed with them - in quite memorable terms, I think:

"As Woman D accepted, it was painful – 'but in a nice way'. Although no doubt interesting to the public, was this genuinely a matter of public interest? I rather doubt it."

Mosley vs. News Group Newspapers Ltd, §114

(It's important to note that this judgement doesn't remotely affect the right of the press to claim a public interest defence in future privacy cases. It merely states that in this case, the public interest defence wasn't applicable, since Mosley's sex life wasn't a matter of any public concern. I can't see any ongoing threat to the freedom of reporting.)

George Carey continues:

"Max Mosley claimed that what consenting adults do with each other behind closed doors—however depraved, brutal and repugnant—is both private and harmless. I think that is deplorable. And I believe most people would ridicule his claim."

Again: come off it. Of course it's private and harmless. It happened behind closed doors, between adults, and in the long run, nobody was hurt - at least, if people were hurt, then it wasn't serious, it was with their full consent, and they were clearly enjoying it!

Carey is trying to apply a Christian view of morality here, where there is a divine arbiter - God - who gets to decide what's morally acceptable and what isn't. The problem is, Britain is made up of people of all beliefs and of no belief. Many of them will disagree with Carey's views on morality, and those people shouldn't have to live under a legal system based on one man's (or one religion's) take.

The only appropriate way to construct our legal system is to criminalise things that harm others, and permit things that don't harm others. Yes, it would create a morally relative society, where actions are good or bad based on their consequences, rather than on anything inherent. Yes, that might sound unpalatable to absolutists like Carey. But the truth is, it would give everyone the greatest possible freedom to decide for themselves what moral code to follow.

"This is a bleak, deeply-flawed 'anything goes' philosophy. It is also dangerous and socially undermining, devoid of the basic, decent moral standards that form the very fabric of our society."

In the whole of Carey's total car-crash of an article, this is the bit I have the biggest problem with. Surely the most basic, decent standard that underpins our society is a fair legal system which applies equally to everyone. But Carey is calling for judges to selectively refuse to enforce people's legal rights because they happen to be into kinky sex. Denying people justice because you disapprove of their private behaviour is, to me, far more depraved than a bit of harmless roleplay with a bunch of hookers.

Mr Justice Eady puts it far more eloquently than I could hope to manage:

"It is not for journalists to undermine human rights, or for judges to refuse to enforce them, merely on grounds of taste or moral disapproval. Everyone is naturally entitled to espouse moral or religious beliefs to the effect that certain types of sexual behaviour are wrong or demeaning to those participating. That does not mean that they are entitled to hound those who practise them or to detract from their right to live life as they choose."
Mosley vs. News Group Newspapers Ltd, §127

Carey goes on (and on ...):

"The new High Court ruling prevents press investigations into matters of clear public interest. It needlessly shackles the press and removes the right of the public to make informed moral judgements."

This strikes me as pretty rich. He's spent the whole article so far asking for a particular moral code - his own one - to be granted special recognition by the law, and forced upon everyone. And now he's pleading for the right of the public to make up their own minds about moral issues.

Partly, this is the desperation of a someone whose argument is slipping away from him as he writes it - but mainly, it's the confusion of someone who doesn't know what he stands for in the first place. Carey claims to have a deeply-rooted, firm moral viewpoint, but this article demonstrates that his views are all over the place. There's only one consistent thread running through this litany of self-contradictory arguments: the desire to use the law of the land to hammer people that he personally doesn't like. The rest is just desperate scrabbling around for any reasonably-sounding argument that might justify this bigoted selfishness.

"Judge Eady's ruling may have made legal history. But I, for one, fear the consequences."

I say again. Why, oh why, is this man in our parliament making our laws for us? Sometimes, I despair of Britain.

Drink-driving: how to send completely the wrong message

2008-07-14T11:54:00.005+01:00

The government's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has urged ministers to cut the drink-drive limit to zero - but only for young drivers. For anyone older than 20, the current limit of 80mg per 100ml of blood will still apply.

At first glance, it seems like a good idea. Fewer young people will drink and drive, and we'll all be much safer.

But there's a very serious flaw in the plan. Even with the current 80mg limit, it's impossible to judge how much you can safely drink and still get behind the wheel. Every single piece of official advice says the same thing. I quote this from the Department for Transport's own website: "... the only safe option is not to drink alcohol if you plan to drive ... You can't calculate your alcohol limit, so don't try."

Unfortunately, if you have two separate limits in force, what you're doing is sending the message that it's somehow possible to tell between them. So whilst the under-21s might start to avoid alcohol completely when driving, older drivers will get the impression that it's alright for them to drink a little bit, so long as they stay within an 80mg limit which they can't possibly judge with any accuracy. Sir Liam may have his heart in the right place, but his comments seriously undermine the government's own campaign against drink-driving.

Just imagine the slogan - "Think! Don't drink more than a pint (give or take, depending on your height, weight, sex, ethnicity and personal alcohol tolerance) and drive."

Surely the right strategy would be to set a nominal but very low limit, perhaps half of the current one? It would be impossible to have an alcoholic drink worthy of the name and still be allowed to drive, but it would also protect people from getting arrested for having a trace level in their blood from a drink they'd had hours before. You could then send out a strong and consistent message to drivers of all ages: don't get behind the wheel unless you're completely sober.

This sort of thing happened during the debate on the smoking ban, and we're seeing it again. Government medical advisers may well be good at explaining the science to ministers, but they're extremely bad at coming up with actual policy!

Talking at cross-purposes about Sharia

2008-07-12T13:24:00.002+01:00

When our most senior judge, the Lord Chief Justice, said about a week ago that British Muslims should be able to use Sharia law to settle legal disputes, he provoked a storm of controversy. "We've got a perfectly good legal system (or more accurately, set of legal systems) in Britain," people said, "and if Muslims don't like it, there are plenty of countries governed under Sharia law that they can go to instead." Many scared Britons seemed to think that a Sharia Act was on its way through Parliament, burkhas would become compulsory, and stoning introduced for capital crimes.

So much for the knee-jerk, gutter press reaction. The truth is a lot more mundane, and a lot less controversial.

What Lord Phillips is talking about is the use of Sharia to settle civil disputes. If two Muslims get into a civil case - an argument about money, perhaps - they have, like anyone else, three choices. They can settle it using the civil courts, costing themselves and the taxpayer vast sums of money. They can come to some sort of personal agreement outside of court, and let matters rest. Or they can go to a mediator, someone they can both agree on, who will look at the dispute and come up with a compromise settlement which both sides are then required to accept.

That third-party mediator could be anyone. Usually, it's a dedicated organisation or profesional problem-solver. But it could be anyone that both sides are happy with. And if both parties are practising Muslims, and if they both agree, then why shouldn't they ask a Muslim religious expert to resolve their case using Sharia principles? It's perfectly legal as things stand. So when you think it through properly, the Lord Chief Justice's comments aren't particularly radical - they're just calling for formal recognition of something which people are quite entitled to do already.

So why, if all of this is so mundane, has it sparked such a poisonous and heated controversy? The main problem in debating this issue is that we're talking entirely at cross-purposes when it comes to the word "law". To most people, a law means a legal rule, which everyone has to follow. As soon as you float the idea of Sharia law in the UK, people get the impression you're proposing actual legislation, which would affect all of us, whether we follow Islam or not. Or even worse - legislation which would only affect practising Muslims, creating a parallel legal system.

But a religious "law" is something quite different to a normal law. It's a personal, voluntary commitment made by an individual. For example, it's against the Jewish law (known as Halacha) to eat pork, and thousands of British Jews, including myself, follow that law. Nobody in their right mind would suggest that we're living in a parallel legal system by avoiding certain kinds of food. It's not really a law; it's more of a personal lifestyle choice.

One of the beauties of English Law is that, unless you're doing something that's actually illegal, you can do what the heck you like. That means that British Muslims are free to make the personal decision to follow whatever religious "laws" they wish, as long as it doesn't bring them into conflict with the actual law of the land. I don't believe Lord Phillips has said anything more radical than that. Unfortunately, the argument he has sparked off has degenerated into a comedy of misunderstandings, rather than a meaningful debate.

Licensed to discriminate: Jewish school wins controversial court case

2008-07-06T18:52:00.000+01:00

The JFS, a Jewish school in North London, has just won a significant court case over admissions. They'd refused a place to an 11-year-old boy, because they didn't consider him to be Jewish, even though he'd been brought up and raised in the religion. The father took the school to court on the grounds of racial discrimination, and has just lost.

I think this is a very significant case, which people outside the Jewish community need to pay attention to. It throws up some very major questions about the relationship between the State and all kinds of religious groups.

A bit of background. There are around 250,000 Jews in Britain, and the majority belong to Orthodox Judaism. The other main group, Progressive Judaism (which splits into Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism), is still a pretty significant denomination, with about 50,000 members. Orthodox Judaism is in a dominant position, however, because it runs most of the key institutions, like the religious courts and the office of Chief Rabbi.

Orthodox Judaism generally cooperates fairly well with the two Progressive movements, but there's one big area where they can't agree: people converting to the faith. If you convert to Orthodox Judaism, you're recognised as a Jew by everyone, no problems. But if you convert to Progressive Judaism, the Orthodox community won't accept you as a Jew.

It's this little theological spat which has landed the JFS comprehensive in the dock. The boy's mother had converted to Judaism, but in a Progressive community. From the Orthodox perspective, she's not Jewish at all, and therefore her son isn't either. That's why the school wouldn't accept him, and that's why this whole argument has ended up rather messily in court.

I have some sympathy for Justice Munby, who made the ruling. A British secular court isn't the place to decide religious questions like "who is a Jew?". I'm sure he just wanted to get the issue out of his courtroom, and pass it back over to the community. What he's actually done is handed total control over Jewish status to one particular, theologically very conservative Jewish denomination. So perversely, whilst trying to avoid making a religious decision, the judge has come down on the side of one main Jewish group, to the exclusion of the other one.

If you're going to have state-funded Jewish schools, they ought to be open to anyone who practises the Jewish religion, in any of the Jewish denominations. I'm really uncomfortable with a movement that represents 80% of British Jews being able to force its views on the other 20%, and to hijack state funding away from members of Progressive communities. I'm even more worried to see this happen with judicial approval. It sets a very dangerous precedent, and people of all religions and none should take notice.

Hugs all around!

2008-07-04T21:32:00.003+01:00

I got my degree result today. I now have (well, technically, am entitled to claim at some point) a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages, class 2:1. Really pleased with it.

Now I know I've done fine, I'm off to celebrate as befits a ginger Liberal Democrat - with copious alcohol.

And then, on to the next great adventure ...

David Davis resigns from Parliament

2008-06-12T13:26:00.001+01:00

In an unprecedented decision, Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis has announced he plans to resign as an MP, trigger a by-election in his constituency of Haltemprice and Howden, and stand in that by-election. According to his press conference just minutes ago, he's planning to campaign on the issue of 42-day detention, and give the people an opportunity to vote against the erosion of our civil liberties. The BBC suggested that the Lib Dems (in second place in the constituency) had agreed not to stand against him.

Right now, it's very hard to analyse what's going on. The announcement seems to have come as a bolt out of the blue, and Davis refused to say whether or not he'd discussed it with David Cameron. Since Davis lost out to Cameron in the Tory leadership election, he might be trying to grab a bit of attention, but this resignation seems too committed and too drastic, to me, for that to be the sole reason. Maybe, coming up to his 60th birthday, and a senior frontbencher, he feels he's reached the pinnacle of his career, and has nothing to lose by risking his job on an issue he clearly cares about a great deal. Or maybe something more sinister: a massive argument behind the scenes. It's all speculation right now, but I'm sure it'll all come out over the next few hours and days.

One slightly (no, very) anoracky point about the resignation. I'll keep it brief:

MPs technically can't resign, because of archaic rules that go back to the 17th Century. The way they get around this is by asking the Chancellor to appoint them to one of two official positions (in Davis's case, it'll be Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds) which no longer exist in anything but name, but which technically disqualify you from being an MP.

Here's the problem: Davis will be appointed to the Chiltern Hundreds. He'll be barred from sitting in Parliament, and thus deemed to have resigned. There'll be a by-election, and he'll stand in it. But as Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, he'll be barred from taking his seat if he's re-elected. Presumably the Chancellor will have to agree to appoint someone else to the role in the interim, to let Davis stand again - something he's under no obligation to do, as I understand it, and given that Davis is planning to clobber the government, Darling may be less than pleased to have to jump through hoops to help him do it. I don't think there's any precedent here. Should be interesting!

A bit of restraint ...

2008-06-05T16:40:00.003+01:00

The leader of the Conservative Euro MPs, Giles Chichester, has resigned over a serious error with his expenses.

The leader of our own Euro MPs resigned for making anti-Semitic comments. And then had the cheek to stand for re-election.

I suggest we keep very, very quiet about this story.

The intolerant left: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown goes bonkers

2008-06-02T05:34:00.005+01:00

Like all liberals, I think of myself as being on the progressive side of British politics - but you've got to choose your allies carefully. Every once in a while, an article comes along that reminds me that the "progressive" left can be every bit as dangerous as the "conservative" right. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has an article in the Independent which strikes me as one of the most ill-judged bits of commentary I've ever read - from someone who's allegedly on the same side as I am when it comes to civil liberties, foreign policy and social justice.

Her basic thesis is that the right is on the rise, the left is in freefall, and it'll take another generation for progressive politics to come back. Not only does she manage to completely misread the significance of the Tories' recent successes, but along the way, she comes up with some arguments which border on the offensive:

"The sun now rises on the right and those of us on the other side are left despondent as we anticipate a prolonged winter of discontent. We, who believe in fairness, equality, human rights and universal justice, are of no consequence."

This sort of attitude really does hack me off. Nobody of a conservative bent remotely cares about fairness, equality, human rights and universal justice, do they? I may not agree with people on the centre-right on much, but to say that right-wingers hate human rights and justice is ignorant and simplistic. We don't live in a cartoon world of goodies and baddies. Do my Conservative friends really get up in the morning thinking "Haha, how shall I undermine social justice today?"

From experience, most people who get involved in politics, whatever their political persuasion, do so because they genuinely want to work for the common good. We may disagree about how to create a better Britain - or even what a better Britain would look like - but that's the whole reason for having a political debate in the first place! This sort of attitude, branding one's opponents as haters of fairness and justice, does nothing but promote cynicism towards the political process as a whole.

In Yasmin's world, like in any good cartoon, the normal rules of logic don't apply:

"Local election results show the country lurching right, in some parts even embracing the BNP. Instead of condemning the scum, Britons are instructed to 'understand' why these voters are 'driven' to vote for neo-Nazis. We are simultaneously warned to show no such understanding of young Muslims who are seduced by hate-filled Imams. White resentment of 'foreigners' is no more respectable than Muslim hatred of Westerners. Yet in our unequal world it is."

Please, please, tell me how we're ever supposed to beat the racism of the BNP unless we engage with the people who vote for them? How can we possibly win people back to the political mainstream if we refuse to understand what's made them drift away in the first place? It's bonkers. We help the BNP immensely by the hysterical way we react to them: condemning as "racist" anyone who tries to debate against them; accusing politicians of "pandering to racism" when they try and understand what motivates people to vote BNP. How else, pray, are we supposed to campaign against them?

The biggest problem with this argument, though, is that both halves of it are mutually exclusive. Either you can say that BNP voters and radicalised terrorist sympathisers are both "scum" to be hated and ignored, or you can say they're normal people with legitimate concerns who are exploited by extremists. But you can't have a paragraph that simultaneously condemns attempts to engage with the one group, yet calls for greater understanding of the other!

"The coup was complete when Boris took over our London ..."

Again, it's this breathtaking cynicism towards the whole democratic process! Look, I may not like it any more than you do, Yasmin, but Boris was elected legitimately by the people of London. He didn't march into City Hall with guns and tanks; he won the popular vote. What's the point of having a democratic system in the first place, if you're going to cry foul play the second it produces a result you don't approve of?

I think this is how most dictatorships start out, you know. An initially well-intentioned belief that the people sometimes make the wrong choice, and that they need to be controlled for their own good.

But then Yasmin moves on from cynicism to something far, far worse:

"Almost more depressing is the sight of black and Asian Britons following the wind blowing the Tories to victory. Boris has recruited Afro Caribbean 'leaders' who believe in physical chastisement and smart young Asians who deny the existence of racism and want an end to political correctness. The more old-fashioned Uncle Toms and their female equivalents are now expediently making themselves known to the Tories and right-wing think tanks."

Yasmin is effectively saying "If you come from an ethnic minority, you should vote for a left-of-centre party". I think this borders on outright racism, and it's equally insulting to both ethnic minorities and to white people. Why should your ethnicity have any bearing on how you vote? I'd like to live in the sort of tolerant and neutral Britain where people's ethnicity isn't an issue. The sort of Britain where we make up our mind on how to vote by reading the parties' manifestos and making our minds up, rather than on the basis of our skin colour.

Conservatism, whether you love it or hate it, is an ideology based on economics, on a particular social model, on a particular philosophy. If a person happens to agree with that philosophy, surely they're justified in voting Conservative. Exactly the same goes for Liberal Democrat and Labour voters. There's something very distasteful about putting emotional pressure on someone to vote against their intellectual viewpoint on the basis of their skin colour.

The comment about "following the wind blowing the Tories to victory" is pretty distasteful, too. It's suggesting that people are only voting Tory because it's somehow fashionable; Yasmin can't get her head round the idea that someone might make a positive choice to vote Conservative for reasons of principle. When people vote Lib Dem or Labour, fair play to them, we respect their views; but if they vote Tory, they're apparently doing it for spurious reasons rather than from genuine political belief. That's an undemocratic attitude.

As a Lib Dem, I believe in trusting the voters - and that means respecting them even when they make the "wrong" decision. The correct response to recent Tory successes is not to insult, patronise and emotionally blackmail the voters. It's to accept the people's decision, to work hard, campaign hard, and do our best to win the national debate in the future.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is supposed to be from the same end of the political spectrum as I am, but this article makes me feel every bit as far removed from the left as from the right. I may share her views on many of the key issues of the day, but when it comes to fundamental and underlying attitudes, I think she's on a totally different planet. Choose your allies carefully!

Give me a hug!

2008-05-18T08:52:00.003+01:00

My exams start tomorrow. I'm taking my finals in French and German, which run until a week on Thursday. Understandably, blogging will be quite infrequent, probably non-existent, for the next week and a half.

The brutal truth about Lib Dem candidate selections

2008-05-16T10:55:00.006+01:00

I've had an anonymous comment, taking issue with the Lib Dem candidate selection in Crewe & Nantwich, and arguing against my own comments on Iain Dale's article.

(It's actually posted off-topic under my David Icke thread - I hadn't blogged about the by-elections myself until now - but I thought I'd reply by starting a new post. No point in having a discussion about the by-elections buried under a thread about lizard men taking over the world.)

Anyway, this is what Anonymous thinks:

With regard to your comment on Iain Dale. It is not standard practice to reopen selections after a by-election is called; the Tories don't do it (hence E. Timpson in Crewe).

The Libs do it, not out of any principle (this is the Libs! "Having no principles here"), but out of a cynical-and if C&N goes right, touch wood, completely unsuccessful-attempt to hoodwink the voters with a "name" or local somebody. Doesn't detract from it being completely nauseating though.

I thought you were meant to be the non-political party for local people? So what happens to the hard-working PPC who's got on first-name terms with the council officers and knows the place like the back of their hand? Tough - we can get a few more inches in the papers with a "face" who gets elected and then can't find his way round Westminster or his constituency in the next 2 years before the election.

And that's all that matters to the Libs - stuff the residents, if we can get our man in and do down the Tories, all to the good.

Sorry but it's still sick-making.

I've got to hold up my hands here, and apologise. I got it wrong when I said that re-opening selections was standard practice in all parties when a by-election is called. Apparently, it's just us. To be fair, I posted a follow-up comment on Iain Dale, acknowledging the error.

Still, that doesn't change the fact that it's standard practice in the Lib Dems, and has been for years. I think Iain's point was that re-opening the selections in C&N and Henley was a short-term and cynical political move, based on the circumstances of the time. I only wanted to point out that it was entirely normal Lib Dem procedure.

I disagree with Anonymous that there is some sort of anti-Tory conspiracy going on. I think the truth is a lot more mundane. The Lib Dems are a relatively small party who can't afford to fight every seat properly in a general election - we haven't got the money, and we haven't got 600 really top notch willing candidates to go around at any one time. (And if we do, they're generally not too keen on being paper candidates in seats where we're not campaigning properly.) The entire strategy revolves around putting the resources and the best candidates into the key marginal seats. I'm not saying that's a good thing; it's just part of the political reality.

All that changes when a by-election is called. A normally unwinnable seat like C&N or Henley suddenly becomes important because there's only one constituency to put the entire party's resources into. At the same time, we can go on a fundraising drive specificially for the by-election, and match the other parties' spending more closely. It also means that our candidate will come under far more national scrutiny than a normal Lib Dem candidate in a no-hoper of a seat in the middle of a general election. Consequently, we have to be careful to run a much more stringent selection process and hopefully get a better candidate than we normally would for such a seat.

On that basis, I think it makes sense for a party like the Lib Dems to re-open selections whenever there's a by-election. I don't think it has anything to do with hoodwinking the voters, it's just a question of trying to get the best out of limited resources.

If that sounds cynical to you, why not try supporting a change in the voting system? Surely getting rid of first-past-the-post is the answer ...

David Icke

2008-05-10T11:33:00.000+01:00

The Oxford Mail - always at the cutting edge of local news - has finally got round to publishing a review of a talk by conspiracy theorist David Icke, who spoke to Oxford students last February. I vaguely remember being collared by a journo on the way out and asked for a comment.

Nearly three months later, I now find myself being quoted as saying: "It's interesting. I wouldn't say I agreed with much of what he said. There's a point up to where it made sense and a point where it was getting silly."

It's odd. I could have sworn I actually told the journo (after the obligatory liberal blurb about free speech and so on) that Icke was talking a load of complete and unadulterated tosh. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me later in life ...

Cannabis reclassification: what have the government been smoking?

2008-05-08T00:44:00.004+01:00

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has confirmed that cannabis is to be reclassified. Currently a class C drug alongside the likes of Temazepam, the weed is due to be upgraded to class B, putting it in the company of Speed. Possession will now carry a maximum prison sentence of five years, whilst dealers face 14 years behind bars.

This doesn't come as a great surprise; it's been in the pipeline since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and immediately launched a review. And as recently as last month, he said that he wanted to change the law, so as to "send out a message to young people" about the dangers of cannabis.

Hang on a second. We're supposed to change the law - to send a message? Since when has the criminal law been there to send messages to people? The law is there to tell us what we can and cannot do, and to tell us which punishment fits which crime. It isn't there for sending vague moral messages to the population. (That's exactly the sort of misguided attitude that gave us laws like Section 28, for example.)

Let's get this clear. Cannabis is illegal at the moment, and it always has been, whether class C or class B. Messing with the classification doesn't change that in the slightest - it's always been against the law. So we can dispense with this nonsense about sending the wrong signals to people.

There's a counter-argument to that, of course. Supporters of the PM will say that by keeping cannabis illegal but downgrading it to a lower category, people have got the impression that weed is more acceptable than other drugs. And I understand the logic there. But if that's your view, then surely you'd have to dispense with the entire drug classification system altogether? As long as drugs are sorted into different categories with different legal penalties, there's always a risk that people will take certain drugs to be somehow "less illegal" than others. If that's how you feel, then have the guts to make a consistent argument, and call for a scrapping of drugs classification.

I think the classification system is a very good idea indeed. Different recreational drugs have very different effects, both on the health of the users and on wider society. People who use them and traffic in them should be penalised at different levels. Just as it would be madness to give the same sentence for shoplifting as for rape, it would insane to dole out the same punishment for cannabis as for heroin. The classification system, far from sending waffly messsages, is there solely to make sure that drugs offences are punished proportionately.

Which brings me to the main point of my argument here. Brown's supporters argue that the reclassification of cannabis is there to protect young people from the scourge of drugs. So which is a better way of keeping our kids safe when they start to experiment with weed? To confiscate the drugs, give them a stern warning, and a chance to rethink? Or to arrest them, drag them through our criminal justice system, and give them a criminal record which will hang round their necks like a millstone for the rest of their lives?

A drugs conviction can stop you from visiting the USA on the visa waiver programme. It'll show up on a CRB check, and stop you doing voluntary work. You have to declare it on your UCAS form when applying to university. It can bar you from a career in the professions. And our politicians want to inflict this disproportionate punishment on our kids, for the heinous crime of having a couple of spliffs - as a way of protecting them?!

I'm sorry, but this really just beggars belief.

Paddick has flipped his lid

2008-05-02T20:55:00.002+01:00

According to Iain Dale, Brian Paddick has given his second preference vote to Lindsey German, the Left List candidate who in 2004 stood under the RESPECT banner. I am shocked speechless.

Don't get me wrong, I think Paddick has been a very impressive mayoral candidate. He may not have the slickness of a career politician, but his interview performances have improved dramatically over the course of the campaign. His refusal to name a second choice was absolutely spot on. Quite why he's broken his silence now is beyond me.

But that's not the real problem. I suppose, now the polls are closed and the results are being counted, that Paddick's entitled to tell the media whom he cast his second preference for, that's his business. But a vote for Lindsey German? Is he mad, in a coma, or back in time?!

If Paddick had cast his second ballot for Ken or for Boris, I'd say fair enough. It may not be an appetising choice, but you've got to pick the least worst of the two. If he'd backed the Greens, he'd have thrown away a vote in a truly misguided fashion, but I could just about understand his decision. But what business does a Lib Dem have voting for a socialist, far-left, RESPECT candidate? A candidate who believes that economic freedom is the greatest threat to social justice? A candidate who supports Iraqi insurgents in their attacks on our own armed forces?

There should be a blacklist of parties that Lib Dems will never cooperate with, under any circumstances. The BNP and RESPECT (and its derivatives) should be on there without any question.

Harman endorses Lib Dems as second choice

2008-04-25T19:28:00.003+01:00

I've just returned from a meeting of the Oxford University Labour Club, where Harriet Harman was speaking to students. The South London MP was elected deputy leader of her party last year in front of a surprised and dismayed conference hall, but whatever people think about Harman, she's a decent public speaker. She had a good rapport with the 40-strong audience, and although I couldn't find much to agree with in her talk, she at least managed to say it all without sending me to sleep, which is a start.

She spoke initially about immigration policy, but her main aim was actually to chivvy along the young Labour activists ahead of next week's crucial local elections. The latest YouGov poll with its apparent 18-point Tory lead hasn't gone down too well with the grassroots, and Harman wanted to tell them that the situation is far, far better than the facts suggest.

The more time I spend following politics, the more convinced I become that you can spin literally any story in any direction, if only you're brazen enough to keep a straight face whilst you do it. The Labour party in Oxford are campaigning against the minority Lib Dem administration because apparently, below-inflation rises in council tax are putting public services at threat. (And there was me thinking that Lib Dem councillors had simply delivered good value for money ...) Harperson was equally brazen with her spin today. I have no idea how she managed to convince a roomful of students that the economy was in rude health, and that an 18-point deficit in the polls was certain to translate into a clear victory and a 4th term in office at the next general election - but somehow she managed.

In the question and answers session, I asked her whether she'd feel more comfortable going into coalition with the Tories or with the Lib Dems, should there be a hung parliament next time round. I'm fed up of commentators asking this question relentlessly to the Lib Dems, but never putting the same question to the other two parties. I was quite keen to see what the Labour deputy leader would have to say on the subject.

I was actually quite surprised to get a straight answer: she prefers us. She feels we're ideologically closer to her, and wishes the Lib Dems would just join her party so that the combined political "left" could just get on with fighting the Tories.

That answer should be a serious warning to the odd few Lib Dems who fall into very much the same trap. The idea that we're part of a wider progressive movement in British politics, with the common aim of beating the Tories, is exactly the way the Labour Party top brass want us to feel. The real situation is very different - rather than forming a progressive alliance with Labour against the Tories, we need to seek to build a liberal alliance to battle against two authoritarian, instrusive and statist parties that are, in their different ways, just as bad as each other. Labour's commitment to social justice can't justify their invasive style of government; the fact that they share many of our ends can't justify their means.

I have to give the Labour Club members a mention. The students did give Harman a genuinely hard time, with tough, intelligent and analytical questions on the 10p tax band, party political funding, and especially the scandal of the Saudi arms deal. I was very impressed with the young woman who asked why on earth we were going to such great lengths to preserve good commercial relations with Saudi Arabia in spite of their atrocious record on human rights. I don't often go along to the Labour Club, but when I do, I'm usually very impressed by the standard of the debate there. Credit where credit is due.

The three-year-old terrorist from Dorset

2008-04-11T11:27:00.002+01:00

Poole Borough Council has just admitted using anti-terror laws to spy on a family. Who were these neighbours from hell, you may ask. Did they stand accused of stockpiling nitroglycerine? Hijacking a superjumbo? Receiving illicit shipments of heroin from Poole Harbour at 4am, and donating the proceeds to Hezbollah?

No. They were suspected of lying about their address, to get their three-year-old daughter into a better school.

Now, this may well be a gross overreaction by one individual local authority, and I'm sure the government will try to write it off as the work of one loony council, rather than a fault with the legislation. But there's an important lesson for our MPs: if you want to vote in greater powers to curtail our civil freedoms, just ask yourselves who else might be using those powers. I'm sure MPs who back 42-day detention assume it'll be used under the watchful eye of Labour. But who has a good enough crystal ball to predict the day when a corrupt or even a malevolent government (as opposed to merely a misguided one) will walk into Downing Street?

This case from Dorset brings home an even more scary lesson - it doesn't even need evil people to be in power for this sort of legislation to be abused. It only takes a handful of well-meaning second-grade local politicians with a major common sense deficit.

"Wall of Sound" to drown out Blair - when will the anti-free-speech left ever learn?

2008-04-03T15:28:00.002+01:00

Tony Blair, recently converted to Catholicism, is giving a lecture at Westminster Cathedral this evening. His talk, at 7pm, is entitled Faith and Globalisation. He'll be arguing that we risk driving religious groups to the margins, and even into extremism, unless we're prepared to engage with them in the mainstream of public life.

Unfortunately for Mr Blair, Stop the War Coalition are planning to come along to the lecture as well. They're holding a demonstration outside the Cathedral, and are planning to create a "wall of sound" to drown out the ex-Prime Minister's speech. They've asked supporters to bring along every possible kind of musical instrument and noise-making device, with the stated aim of "drowning out the speech of a man who should not be in a cathedral pulpit but in the dock of a criminal court".

Far be it from me to defend Mr Blair. I have a lot of sympathy for the calls for Blair to face the consequences of his disastrous foreign policy. His appointment as peace envoy to the Middle East stretches the definition of a bad joke beyond breaking point. And Stop the War Coalition are right to point out how utterly hypocritical it is for a man who has done so much to damage good community relations in Britain to stand on a pulpit and lecture us about religious tolerance.

But for all that, I am completely exasperated by the hypocrisy and idiocy of the anti-free-speech left. In the run-up to the controversial Irving/Griffin debate at the Oxford Union (which I've already debated to death on this blog, and will try to avoid returning to now), anti-fascist campaigners continually reminded me that free speech is one of the most highly qualified rights we hold. They argued (correctly) that fascists often misuse their right to free speech to incite harm against innocent people, and that it was legitimate to stop them when they threatened the rights of others. They then argued (incorrectly, but using the same logic) that Irving and Griffin should be pre-emptively barred from debating because of the risks to other people. In all of that argument, they appeared to accept the principle that your own rights end where the rights of others begin.

Now, of course, the far left has decided that such lofty and justifiable principles are inconvenient, and can be cast aside. However wrong Tony Blair may be about a great deal of things, there is no risk whatsoever of him inciting tangible harm against others from the pulpit. Surely by the logic these same lobby groups used to oppose Irving and Griffin's right to debate, it is clear that Tony Blair has a right to be heard? By all means protest against him - you're quite right to - but if you explicitly try to drown him out, you're trampling all over his entitlement to free speech, just as badly as the fascists trample over the rights of minority groups.

The truth is starting to dawn on me slowly. The anti-free-speech left doesn't have anything approaching a consistent and justified approach to the acceptable bounds of freedom of speech, and I was wasting my time in sifting through the rhetoric looking for an argument to engage with. They're just after a licence to shout down anyone they don't like.

The EU treaty saga rumbles on ...

2008-04-01T23:58:00.001+01:00

Lord McNally, Lib Dem leader in the Lords, is opposed to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Lib Dem peers are going to vote against holding a public vote. This could be crucial: no party has a majority in the Upper House, which makes it quite possible for the government to be defeated. However, if the Lib Dem peers vote with the government, instead of abstaining as our MPs did in the Commons, Labour should comfortably avoid a referendum.

The fiasco over the Commons vote has cast a shadow over Nick Clegg's leadership, after an otherwise very promising start, and this latest development makes it far worse. We are now quite literally facing in two directions at once. Having an unpopular position isn't great, but appearing to have no position at all is far, far more damaging.

No doubt Lord McNally will come in for serious flak for this. The Eurosceptics will blame him for denying the British people a say on the treaty, and within the party, he'll be criticised for making us look inconsistent. But in truth, McNally comes out of this rather well - certainly better than Nick Clegg. Because, whether or not you agree with Tom Mcnally on this issue (and I don't), he has at least come to a clear viewpoint, and defended it in public. Clegg has deliberately abstained, and made himself look hesitant, petulant, and worst of all, weak.

My own view is this: our initial call for an in-or-out referendum was entirely right. People are kidding themselves if they think there would be a detailed, clause-by-clause public debate on the Lisbon Treaty. Much better to put the entire question of our EU membership to the people. But as soon as it became obvious that an in-or-out referendum wouldn't be forthcoming, we should have backed a referendum on the treaty instead, albeit as a second-best option. It would have been the closest we could have come to fulfilling our manifesto commitment, and would still have allowed us to debate many of the same issues as we would have discussed during an in-or-out ballot.

Alternatively, we could have taken the Tom McNally line of opposing the Lisbon referendum, and whilst I'd have disagreed with that position myself, we would be in much better shape now if we'd decided on it at the time and stuck with it consistently all the way through - because it is, at the very least, an actual position.

This continuing saga will reflect badly on the Lib Dems - but it says far more about Nick Clegg than about Tom McNally. McNally's decision may have led to a serious inconsistency in our approach, but only because he has deviated from the previous position of sitting on our hands and hoping the problem would go away. And the one person to blame for that is Clegg.

Tsvangirai to offer Mugabe amnesty

2008-03-31T10:59:00.003+01:00

Tracy McVeigh in the Observer has a video interview with Zimbabwean Presidential challenger Morgan Tsvangirai. He confidently announces that he expects to win the election, but interestingly, he also appears to offer Robert Mugabe immunity from repercussions if there's a change in government. This quotation is taken from about two minutes in on the video:

If Mugabe would accept the result peacefully and say 'Look thank you very much, I accept the result', I think a lot of people would find it very hard to pursue the man through the deep holes and all these hidden places. I think a lot of people would say 'Look, let bygones be bygones, let's move on'. I think the man has committed so many acts of ... so many crimes against his own people, but personally I am not vindictive.

There you go. Not entirely explicit, but he's certainly floating the possibility of an amnesty for the (hopefully outgoing) President.

It's a clever tactic from the MDC. One of the biggest fears is that Mugabe will simply ignore an opposition win, and declare himself elected regardless - and today's farce, with official results delayed long past the end of the counting, makes that possibility seem even more likely. His motives are not just political, but personal: if he stays in power, he avoids the legal consequences he so justly deserves. It gives him an extra impetus to retain the Presidency at all costs.

These comments from Tsvangirai appear to offer the 84-year-old ruler a slim lifeline - go quietly, and we'll let you retire in peace. And although I hate the idea of a criminal and serial abuser of human rights escaping justice, I have to admit that if it leads to a smooth and peaceful transfer of power, it may be justified. It may be the only way to get rid of Mugabe once and for all.

Gore for President?

2008-03-30T13:58:00.002+01:00

The Telegraph reports that Al Gore - who isn't actually running for President - has a "sporting chance" of beating both Clinton and Obama to the Democratic nomination. The battle between the two remaining declared candidates is turning more bitter by the day, with accusations, smears and attack ads being launched in both directions - to the point where Democrat chief Howard Dean has had to tell Hillary and Barack to cool down their rhetoric for fear of them damaging the party as a whole. And he has good reason: a sizeable chunk of Democrats from each camp are saying that, once the primaries end and the real election begins, they would refuse to vote for the other candidate as President.

The Telegraph suggests that the Democrats might call off the damaging Clinton/Obama battle and appoint Al Gore as a peace-keeping compromise. This would require about a hundred of the so-called super-delegates to abstain from voting. That would stop either candidate winning mathematically, and could pave the way for Gore to be appointed. Gore's an attractive choice in some respects - although he lost last time, he still won a majority of the popular vote (that's FPTP for you ...) and with a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar under his belt, he may just go one better this time, given the chance.

But I can see some serious holes in this rather gripping theory. It would need a large group of determined super-delegates to organise themselves, which is a bit of a stretch - and even then, one of the declared candidates would have to throw in the towel and agree to the plan, which is even more of a stretch. It would still allow the nomination battle to continue right up to the DNC in August, by which time the majority of damage will have been done anyway.

But the biggest problem is this: the battle for the nomination has been genuinely exciting, and Americans have felt a real sense of purpose in turning out to vote. It really has done wonders for voter engagement, especially as the later Democratic primaries, usually an irrelevance, have suddenly become crucial. If a small group of Democrat bigwigs take the decision out of the hands of the electorate, and appoint their own candidate, there will be a lot of disaffected voters feeling very cheated.

Still, it's a nice theory.

Sarkozy comes to Britain

2008-03-26T11:58:00.003Z

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is in the UK today. He'll be chatting to Gordon Brown, addressing both Houses of Parliament, and most importantly of all, he'll be meeting the Queen.

This is quite an important visit for the French premier. Back in the Hexagone, detractors accuse him of lacking gravitas, so this is an key opportunity for him to play the dignified statesman abroad.

Of course, there's nothing more dignified than being photographed with the British Royal Family. Ever since the French guillotined their own royals, ours have held a special fascination for them. Sarko will be keen to put on a good performance, and really impress Her Majesty.

Incredibly for a European head of state, Sarko's English isn't really up to scratch. He's apparently been practising it intensively over the past few weeks, so he has something to say to the Queen when he meets her. (She does, however, speak fluent French!)

I wonder if Sarko's language skills will be as impressive as this fellow's:

Clegg ditches Lib Dem commitment to PR

2008-03-10T00:29:00.012Z

Yesterday, on the quiet, Nick Clegg scrapped the Liberal Democrats' long-standing commitment to reform Britain's electoral system. So it appears, anyway, from his speech to the party's spring conference in Liverpool. He may not have meant to do it, but the following paragraph, buried in the middle of a 50-minute note-free oration, destroys the long-held liberal hope of a fairer voting system:

The day before I was elected leader, Mr Cameron suggested we join them, he talked about a “progressive alliance”. This talk of alliances comes up a lot, doesn’t it? Everyone wants to be in our gang. So I want to make something very clear today. Will I ever join a Conservative government? No. Will I ever join a Labour government? No. I will never allow the Liberal Democrats to be a mere annex to another party's agenda.

I may be very naïve, but I had always been under the impression that Lib Dems were in favour of coalition government, on a matter of principle. Coalitions are supposed to be more effective, more representative, and more democratic, especially in a country where even the most popular political party can only muster 35% of the vote. Democracy doesn't mean the largest minority group in society getting to steamroller their views over the heads of the rest, and Lib Dems have always rather liked the idea of forcing parties to work together. But here's Clegg, perhaps two years before a general election, ruling out a coalition with either of the other two. What on earth is he doing?

Yesterday's announcement fatally undermines our most identifiable policy position. If we refuse to work constructively with parties that don't share our ideology, yet still support proportional representation, what on earth are people supposed to conclude, if not that we want to see permanent minority government? That surely can't be tenable.

Now to be fair to Clegg (and he's had a rough time lately), I can think of at least one excellent reason for this announcement: the coalition question always screws us over. In the buildup to an election, all it takes us for somebody to ask us who we'd rather go into coalition with, and our campaign goes off the rails. We've never yet found a satisfactory answer.

If we declare a preference for one of the other parties - say, Labour - we throw away our ability to set an independent liberal agenda. Suddenly, there's no point in voting Lib Dem: if people know we're only going to prop up Labour anyway, they might as well vote for Labour in the first place, if they support them, or the Tories if they don't.

But suppose we decide to keep our independence, and refuse to declare a preference for Labour or the Tories. Suddenly, we become the sleazy party of backroom deals, who've already sewn up the result of the next election behind closed doors, without ever consulting the people.

And suppose we say, quite sensibly, that we'll wait until the next general election, chat to the other parties, and try to thrash out the most liberal policy programme we can under the circumstances, without any predetermined favourite. Well, people switch off and don't listen. That sort of message takes a bit of explaining, and is almost impossible to get into a catchy soundbite.

It seems whichever way we turn, we can't win. And so Nick Clegg is going for option four: to refuse to go into government with either Labour or the Tories, instead promising us the nebulous waffle of "a new type of government ... based on pluralism instead of one party rule" - frankly, I struggle to see how that ambition could ever be put into practice without a coalition-based system, even if it's expressed in English so hazy as to require fog-lights.

Don't get me wrong: I sympathise with Clegg a great deal. PR is one of those awkward areas where we have a very coherent and justified position, but one which is too nuanced to be explained simply, and which can be undermined with depressing ease by one well-aimed jibe from our opponents. But Clegg needs to watch out. There's no point countering those jibes if the only way to do it is to sacrifice all the coherence that made our position worthwhile in the first place.

Ed Davey – the hardest question

2008-03-04T19:28:00.002Z

Last week, I was privileged to be able to interview Ed Davey, Lib Dem Shadow Foreign Secretary, alongside James Graham, Gavin Whenman, Meral Ece, James Schneider, Linda Jack and Millennium Elephant.

In typical final-year student style, I’ve left it quite late to write up my report, not unreasonably judging that my essay on Erich Kästner was a slightly more urgent priority.

In the meantime, a diplomatic row complicated enough to give the Foreign Office a headache has broken out amongst Lib Dem bloggers. Nich Starling has problems with the way the bloggers’ interviews are arranged; Alex Wilcock has problems with Nich Starling’s behaviour; Iain Dale sits back and titters. I’m not at all keen to add fuel to the fire, and won’t pass comment, but it’d be wrong to blog about the Ed Davey interview without at least drawing attention to the spat it’s generated. People can look at the posts in question and draw their own conclusions.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs (and I’ll keep my opinions on this private), it’s depressing to see Lib Dem bloggers at each other’s throats. The blogosphere suffers enough as it is from allegations of being petty, personal and self-obsessed. We’re at our best when we manage to have our disagreements in a civilised way, and when we concentrate on politics rather than on each other. Sometimes, I’m afraid, that means holding back and staying calm, even when you feel that somebody richly deserves to have their spleen massaged with a heavy rolling pin.

Coincidentally, that’s more or less exactly what Ed Davey said at the interview, when Gavin asked him – with reference to Uganda – whether he preferred justice to peace. For the recently-appointed foreign affairs spokesman, sometimes it’s necessary to put justice to one side for the greater good. He spoke passionately about the Northern Ireland peace process: one of the hardest things he’d had to do as an MP was to vote for an amnesty for “terrorists – no, murderers”. It “stuck in [his] throat” as he walked through the lobby, having to let them get away with cold-blooded killing – but he could rationalise it to himself because the lives that would be lost, if the peace process failed, would be an even greater injustice.

Gavin’s question was in fact a follow-up to one of my own. I asked Ed how he could balance respect for other people’s cultures – not ramming Western values down the throats of the Arab world, for example – against concepts like universal human rights. To what extent should we let countries like Iran do things their own way, and to what extent should we be prepared to stand up and say: no, some of our values are objectively better than yours?

Ed didn’t have a comprehensive answer to this, but he was open enough to say that he was still grappling with the issues. He called it the “most difficult philosophical question for liberal democrats”, and I agree entirely. He did point out, quite fairly, that engaging in illegal wars in the name of democracy doesn’t do anything to help us find the balance.

It’s a question which fascinates me, and which I haven’t completely resolved in my own mind either. At a student political meeting last autumn, I chatted to Tory (and former SDP) MP John Horam about this. He argued that in many cases, there’s not much we can do to influence the internal affairs of sovereign countries. According to Horam, we can often do more good by turning a blind eye towards human rights abuses in the short term, and trying to influence things slowly over a longer period.

That argument would square very well with Ed’s answer to Gavin’s question. If the main aim is to do as much net good as possible, then presumably we can justify being polite to abusive regimes if that allows us to improve things in the long term? It’s uncomfortable territory for Lib Dems, and needs more thought – but Ed’s position on the IRA amnesty may just begin to suggest an answer.

Of course, the question also highlights the major difference in perspective between a party of government and a party of opposition. When you’re running the country, or likely to take over after the next election, you’re constrained by all the realities of diplomacy. When you’re the third party, albeit a third party with serious ambitions, you have a much freer reign to say what you think, safe in the knowledge that you won’t start a major international incident that will cost innocent lives.

One thing that was especially noteworthy, throughout the answers to all the questions, was Ed’s caution, his tendency to talk in generalities, and his polished, measured delivery. This wasn’t a chat amongst Lib Dem activists in a pub (well, the House of Lords bar) – it was a press interview, and Ed treated my dictaphone like a loaded gun, just as he’d have done for any journalist. He didn’t relax his guard just because we were on the same side as him.

To my mind, that says something quite positive about the Lib Dem blogging scene. The frontbenchers don’t see us as a mouthpiece or as a convenient way of disseminating the party line – we’re regarded as independently-minded commentators who examine the MPs sympathetically but critically, and are prepared to challenge them where we disagree. That can only be a good thing.

Cynical sniggering ...

2008-02-28T13:59:00.002Z

Apparently, for the last 24 hours, it's been "energy saving day" - or E-Day - in the UK. And compared to a normal day, they saved ...

minus 0.9%.

(as of 1.16pm)

There's a flashy website with counters and dials, which measure the day's energy consumption and compare it with the "normal" baseline figure used by the National Grid. It's a good job they programmed it with the ability to display negative energy savings!

Hat-tip: Jon Ayling

World Champion: racist abuse justified

2008-02-28T12:28:00.001Z

These comments from so-called F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso are truly disgraceful. He tries to justify racial abuse against Lewis Hamilton, and to make excuses for the people who shouted racist slogans at the British driver. He should be kicked out of motor-racing immediately. I'm embarrassed to have him in our sport.

Unpresidential behaviour from Sarkozy

2008-02-24T21:58:00.007Z

Monsieur le Président has been behaving badly. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, was caught swearing on camera yesterday morning. He visited an agricultural fair, and had a bit of a tiff with someone, as you can see from this footage, courtesy of Le Parisien.

He turns up and starts doing exactly what you'd expect a President to do: walking up and down, saying bonjour, shaking hands. Then, somebody heckles him:

Heckler: Ah non, touche moi pas ...
Sarkozy: Casse-toi alors!
Heckler: ... tu me salis!
Sarkozy: Casse-toi alors, pauvre con!

The heckler is shouting "No, don't touch me, you'll dirty me!" The BBC rather generously translates Sarkozy's resonse as "Get lost then you bloody idiot, just get lost!"

My Collins-Robert French Dictionary has a neat little labelling system for French slang words, to help English speakers avoid causing offence (well - more offence than they cause anyway, simply by daring to set foot in France whilst in possession of a UK passport):

* means that whilst it isn't standard French, and not acceptable for essays or formal letters, it's "used by all educated speakers in a relaxed situation".

** means a word should be "handled with extreme care" unless you're totally sure of the company you're in.

*** means "Danger!" - "liable to offend in any situation" - "to be avoided".

"Casse-toi" gets two asterisks, which probably puts it on about the same level as "sod off" in English. "Pauvre con" gets three asterisks, and I suspect the translation "bloody idiot" doesn't quite do it justice.

However you choose to translate the outburst, it really isn't very dignified behaviour for someone who, as Head of State, is supposed to represent his country to the world. You really couldn't imagine the Queen telling anyone to sod off in public, still less call them a - well, whatever translation you've settled on for "pauvre con".

More to the point, it's surprising that somebody could spend as long in politics as Sarkozy has done without learning how to deal with hecklers. He was elected to the Assemblée nationale in his early thirties, and held a number of cabinet posts, including minister for the interior and finance minister. By the time he ran for President, you'd expect he'd have had to deal with a lot of troublemakers, especially in a country with such a colourful and highly polarised political scene as France. Surely the best and most dignified strategy is to ignore them?

UPDATE: I spoke to my language tutor, a native French speaker, about this. She reckons that "pauvre con" is on about the same level as "f***ing idiot". Apparently, putting the "pauvre" in front of it makes it about ten times worse. That's the subtleties of the French language for you.

More political than the politicians

2008-02-22T23:59:00.002Z

Sorry to sully what ought to be a purely political blog with yet another Formula 1 story, but I saw this article and couldn't resist. This is such hilariously-bungled spin that it almost feels more at home on a political website than a motor-racing one.

Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher, less talented and more annoying younger brother of world champion Michael, was fired last season by his team, Toyota. He's spent the whole of the winter break desperately trying to find himself a team for 2008. He sucked up to McLaren in the press when they were looking for a second driver to partner Lewis Hamilton, only to be told he was "not under consideration". He even went so far as to test-drive for Force India, the outfit which came dead last in the 2007 championship. You might have reasonably concluded that he was pretty desperate to carry on racing.

But now that even the worst F1 team on the grid has turned him down, we suddenly learn that Ralf never wanted to race this year, and that even if he'd been offered a drive, he'd have refused it. All the bleating to the media, and all the begging at the feet of the team bosses was in fact an elaborate trick. Ralf wanted to retire quietly and without a fuss, and this was apparently his way of creating a diversionary tactic, to allow himself the most dignified exit possible:

"I just said that [I would remain in F1] because there were a lot of people talking, and the situation was difficult at Toyota, so I just wanted to finish the season in peace. I did test [for Force India] over the winter, but that was just something for a friend."

Cable to replace Darling at Number 11?

2008-02-18T19:26:00.003Z

To look at today's news coverage, you'd never guess that it was Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable who first proposed a temporary nationalisation of Northern Rock. The BBC report makes no mention of the Lib Dem position until the penultimate paragraph.

The Lib Dems called it correctly, whereas the government spent months dithering before finally coming round to our opinion. But you'd never guess it. It looks like we've been royally screwed out of coverage on this issue. Indeed, the main political story this evening appears to be the Tories calling for Darling's head.

The right tactic for the Lib Dems is obvious: Nick Clegg should offer Vince Cable to the government as their new Chancellor. We'd offer to release Vince from the Lib Dem whip, so he could sit in Cabinet as an independent MP "for the duration of the crisis".

Don't worry: I haven't flipped my lid! I know full well that this scenario is about as realistic as Michael Jackson's nose. Even if Labour had some sort of collective brain fade and accepted, the deal would do us more harm than good. But we should make the offer nonetheless. It would quickly become the main headline, and it would certainly remind people which party got its sums right over Northern Rock. George Osborne's face would be priceless.

Thoughts anyone?

Licensed to smoke!

2008-02-15T20:28:00.003Z

Health for England, an advisory body to the government, is proposing to charge people £10 for a licence to buy tobacco. They want the process to be as complex and inconvenient as possible - a long form to fill in, a photograph, and a requirement to renew annually. Chairman Julian Le Grand said: "If you just make it that little bit more difficult for them to actually re-start or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference."

Obviously, this is a proposal that's been floated by an interest group, and has a long way to go before becoming actual policy. But ominously, when asked about the proposals by the BBC, the Department of Health refused to rule it out.

This is all starting to get silly. First, a blanket ban on smoking, covering not only pubs (which non-smokers frequent), but establishments like shisha bars (which they generally don't). Now, a proposal which aims to make buying cigarettes as difficult and complicated as possible.

I really resent this nannying attitude that tries to use legislation to save people from themselves. Lib Dems supported the blanket smoking ban on the basis of the Harm Principle, and that's all very well - but the anti-smoking lobby doesn't really care about the Harm Principle. The main objective doesn't seem to be protecting non-smokers from other people's noxious fumes, but rescuing mature, adult smokers from their own lifestyle choices. When the ban was first debated, one of the most frequent arguments in support was that, by making it harder for smokers to light up, more people would be tempted to give up.

It would have been quite easy to cut down drastically on passive smoking without going as far as a full ban. Compulsory separate smoking rooms with extractor fans, a ban on smoking at the bar - that would easily have done the trick. And whichever way you spin it, shisha bars should always have had an exemption; they exist solely for the purpose of smoking! The sheer uncompromising nature of the legislation makes me very sceptical about the true motives of ban-supporters.

I quite like the idea that I can go into a pub and take in a lungful of clean, unpolluted air. But I also quite like the idea that, if I really am dead set on buying a pack of smokes to use privately, nobody can stop me. I hope it stays that way.

Dinner with Dale

2008-02-14T13:28:00.004Z

Top Tory blogger Iain Dale came to Oxford last night, speaking at a joint event hosted by the Oxford Union and the student Conservatives. I got wind of the invitation about a month ago, and immediately dashed off an email to Ed Waldegrave, the Vice-President of the Union. The slightly quirky debating society usually treats its guest speakers to dinner beforehand, and there are usually half a dozen spaces for ~~the President’s mates~~ ordinary students to come along. I told Ed a load of guff about being a talented and influential Lib Dem blogger; somehow, he bought it, and I got my invite.

When I told my Lib Dem friends that I was going for dinner with Iain Dale, they were slightly underwhelmed. A certain blogger (who shall remain nameless) suggested I slip something in his drink, and I’m not entirely sure he was joking. For my part, I was quite excited. It’s always fascinating to pick the brains of an experienced political commentator, and arguably even more useful if it’s someone you disagree with.

I arrived at the Union at 7pm, and met the other guests, who turned out to be the committee of the student Conservatives, almost in its entirety. I was feeling a little outnumbered. I made small talk for a few minutes, reassured myself that they were real, warm-blooded human beings, took a deep breath, and outed myself as a Liberal Democrat. We made our way up to the Poetry Room – a cosy little annexe to the Union’s library, which had been neatly laid out for dinner – and started on the wine.

Iain Dale turned up around a quarter of an hour late. Apparently, he’d been driving around in circles, trying to find somewhere to put his car. Oxford is, to be fair, a complete nightmare to navigate. It’s a mess of one-way systems, most sat navs don’t have a clue which roads are accessible, and parking spaces are like gold dust.

After a round of hand-shaking and introductions, we sat down and tucked into our starter. The conversation quickly turned to the London mayoral elections, and more specifically, Boris Johnson’s campaign. Most people round the table seemed to feel that Boris was much more intelligent than the buffoon he’s often portrayed as, but that his policy platform wasn’t yet eyecatching enough, and that his campaign hadn’t really stepped into gear.

Iain identified one serious threat to Boris’s campaign: another terrorist attack. Ask most Londoners who they would most like to have in charge, if the capital were attacked, and it probably wouldn’t be Mr Johnson. Ken Livingstone was in charge last time, and held his nerve. Brian Paddick spent much of 7/7 on TV in his police uniform, staying calm and keeping the public informed. It’s a horrible thought, but if there were another attack on British soil, it would seriously sway the vote.

Over main course, the conversation drifted towards Nick Clegg, and his recent comments about being prepared, perhaps, to go into coalition with the Tories. It’s odd how many Lib Dems see it as an act of betrayal to even think about the idea. To my mind, the tribal anti-Tory reaction is extremely unhelpful. I think Clegg’s absolutely right – there’s no particular reason to favour one over the other, and it would be political suicide to indicate a preference.

Iain identified two possible dealbreakers that could sink a blue-orange coalition: Europe and electoral reform. I don’t think a political debate between a Tory and a Lib Dem would be complete without an argument about PR, and that’s exactly what we launched into. Iain thinks it’s undemocratic for a third party to become kingmakers, and to wield disproportionate power. I can’t see how it’s any fairer for a party to have almost unconstrained legislative power on the basis of 35% of the vote.

We nibbled down the last of the fruit salad and ice cream, and headed down to the Union’s beautiful library for a quick photoshoot, and for Iain to sign the Union’s guestbook. Then we headed across to the room where Iain would be speaking. There was a reasonable crowd; nicely mixed between Tories and other interested students. A round of applause as Iain and Ed walked in, and then we began.

Iain started off with his experiences of the selection procedure for parliamentary candidates. He spoke about the different sorts of interviews he’d been to, and the different styles of questioning he’d been subjected to. He also told us that he probably wouldn’t seek selection as a PPC again.

He took a look at the three party leaders in turn, starting with Gordon Brown and the week where it all went wrong. At the start of the Tory conference, Brown went to Iraq. Not only did it look like a stunt to take the spotlight off Cameron, but by taking only broadcast journalists with him, he managed to alienate the newspapers. Shortly after that, he managed to alienate everyone else as well, by cancelling the general election and by giving only one interview: to Andrew Marr.

Iain then turned to the Lib Dems. He claimed that ditching Ming was the right thing to do. In his view, there was a period, about two months before his resignation, where we had almost become an irrelevance. He was generally quite reasonable towards both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne – he told us that either would have made a good leader for the party, and that we were lucky to have two heavyweights like that in our ~~Shadow Cabinet~~ frontbench team.

(We had a slight argument about the term “Shadow Cabinet” in the library, during the photo session before the talk. Iain apparently thinks that “Shadow Cabinet” is a formal term with a specific meaning, rather than simply a useful way for any opposition party to organise its frontbench. I don’t know where he gets these ideas from …)

Looking at David Cameron, Iain argued that there were supposed to be three stages to the Cameron strategy: an initial “detoxification” process to make the Tories palatable once more, then a long process of “constructing a narrative” and giving people an idea of what they stand for, followed by a much shorter process, in the run-up to the general election, of putting out concrete policy proposals. The stillborn election campaign of 2007 had badly interrupted that process, and the sense of narrative was still not quite there. That would be the main challenge for the Conservatives over the next year and a half.

The talk drew to a close, and Iain opened it up to the audience. Things kicked off with. a question about the relationship between bloggers and the mainstream media. Iain’s answer: they mainly do different things, rather than compete with each other. If he’d wanted to be a journalist by profession, there would have been nothing to stop him. The blog was more of a way for him to get his opinions of his chest. Having said that, bloggers are becoming far more influential and important than they were a couple of years ago; the US TV coverage of the primaries devoted 15-minute slots to blog roundups.

That led into a question about the US elections, to which Iain’s response was that none of the candidates was really a danger to the UK, and that Britain could work with any of the frontrunners. He was still backing McCain, but had been very impressed by Obama. He made one extremely telling comment: Obama is rather like David Cameron, in the sense that he’s got an awful long way without having many actual policies!

There were a number of other questions about the London mayoral election; I won’t go over all the material again. Iain’s opinions didn’t change very much between dinner and the talk!

The Q&A session finished off with a question about the BBC, its role as a public service broadcaster, and allegations of bias by the political parties. Iain argued that some parts of the BBC deserve to be thought of as public services – the list included BBC1 and 2, Radio 4 and 5 – but that other parts of the organisation have no business being in the public sector – Radio 1, as well as BBC3 and 4, came into this category. As far as bias is concerned, Iain asserted that there are most definitely conservative-minded people in prominent positions in the BBC, but that in general, journalists were more likely to be centre-left than centre-right. All parties claim that the BBC is biased against them, and the BBC usually use that as evidence that they’re getting it right; according to Iain, this is a very lazy response to a genuine problem. He singled out the Today Programme for particular criticism, and asked where there were never any credible eurosceptics on there.

That’s where the talk ended. Another loud round of applause, Iain slunk off to retrieve his Audi, and most of the rest of us slunk off to the pub to carry on the argument. A good night, I’d call it.

Inquiry into MPs' expenses - are they serious?

2008-02-05T12:29:00.000Z

Michael Martin, Speaker of the House of Commons, has pledged a thorough investigation into all aspects of MPs' finances. As the chair of the Estimates Committee, he's appointed three members - one Labour, one Conservative, and one Lib Dem - to report back later this year.

The problem is, the Tory representative is one David Maclean MP. The same David Maclean who last year tried to exempt Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act, and who might even succeed if his snotty rag of a private members' bill makes it through the Lords. The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was entirely unnecessary - it was claimed to be an important protection for MPs handling the confidential details of their constituents, but letters from constituents are already exempted, and always have been. Maclean's bill was tabled for no reason other than to protect MPs from proper scrutiny by the people who elect them. If this charade is supposed to reestablish trust in our political system, I can't think of a worse person to head the enquiry than Maclean.

Still, the problem runs far deeper than one disingenuous MP. Maclean's distasteful bill would never have made it through the Commons last year without the help of the government, which gave its tacit support, and which could certainly have squished it without breaking sweat if it had wanted to. Maclean may have tabled the motion, but many MPs in very senior places are complicit, thanks to their deliberate inaction.

As Iain Dale points out, the three MPs in question (the others are Sir Stuart Bell and Nick Harvey) are all old hands, and are well and truly steeped in the parliamentary culture. There's no representation from industry, or from outside of the Commons. Iain's predicting a whitewash; I'll reserve judgement until the report comes out, but I can't see how any report produced under these circumstances can have any legitimacy.

There's something rotten in Britain's political culture, and it'll take far more than a report by the Estimates Committee to sort things out.

MPs and buggers

2008-02-03T18:58:00.000Z

No, not the race of insectoid aliens intent on wiping out humanity. It's about Labour MP Sadiq Khan, who was apparently bugged by the police when visiting constituent Babar Ahmad in jail. Justice Secretary Jack Straw is now investigating matters. He's described it as "unacceptable" for an MP to be spied on when talking to a constituent - and he's on solid ground, since it's completely illegal for the police to carry out surveillance activities against an MP.

That's not how some of the public see it, though. Reading through the comments on BBC's "Have Your Say" can be a risky business for a liberal, as it has the potential to double your blood pressure within seconds. The opinions on the current fiasco are no different; these are currently the three top-rated comments:

MP's should have the same conditions in life as the people who elect them and be exempted from nothing.

Surely if they're doing nothing wrong they have nothing to fear or does that only apply to the public?

Am I exempt from police bugging? No i'm not, so why should an MP be exempt?

Maybe these goons don't realise it, but it's not the privacy of MPs we're talking about here. It's the privacy of their constituents. As anyone who's ever worked in an MP's office will tell you, much of their work involves looking after people who have fallen through the gaps, or been royally screwed over by the system. Some of it is genuinely heartbreaking. If police are bugging MPs' conversations with their constituents, then they are bugging us, at the most difficult and horrendous times in our lives. This isn't a special law to protect MPs - it's a special law to protect the general public.

It's quite similar to the exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act, which protect MPs' correspondence with their constituents, giving the lie to David Maclean's cynical and dishonest stunt last year.

And then there's this little gem:

Of course they [MPs] should [be bugged] when they are visiting such a person in Jail as Babar Ahmad. Has anybody given a thought to the families and friends of those killed by terrorist activities? No I thought not. All we ever hear these days is Human Rights - what about the rights of those killed and maimed?

Would this be the same Babar Ahmad who has been in jail for the past three years, despite never having been charged with a crime?

Of course I care about the families and friends of terrorist victims; of course I care about those who are killed and maimed. I believe those people deserve justice. But justice means not punishing people unless we can prove them guilty. Babar Ahmad hasn't been called to account in court, and there's been no evidence produced against him: how can you possibly know whether or not he's done something wrong?

People just do not seem to get the concept of what it means to have a right. A right is a fundamental entitlement, granted to every person, under a given legal system. Every time I hear someone bleating about how criminals and terrorists should "forfeit" their rights, I want to shout: No! You are wrong. You are illiterate. If it can be forfeited, then by definition, it isn't a right. It's a privilege.

The prize for the most hideous Formula 1 car of all time goes to ...

2008-01-29T16:45:00.000Z

... Honda.

Heaven knows how it was possible to make something worse-looking than last season's offering, but somehow they've managed it.

Naked students terrorise Oxford college

2008-01-19T16:57:00.000Z

This is an actual email sent to all undergraduate students at St Peter's College, Oxford, by their Junior Dean:

Dear JCR,

Quick email to remind you that the dress code in the College library is - clothes of some description. If there is a problem with the heating in the Periodicals Room, please tell us rather than remove your clothes.

Also, in reponse to the email that I sent out about the soft, pink, pig toy abandoned last vacation that needs claiming: whoever felt the need to send me, anonymously, another pink pig with 'gnome on holiday in Amelie' style pictures and an adoption note - thanks - but not quite the result that I was expecting.

Have a good weekend all,

Kate

Why Nick Clegg won't rebrand us as "The Liberal Party"

2008-01-13T21:28:00.000Z

Nich says that Iain says (having heard from Dizzy) that Nick Clegg wants to rebrand the Liberal Democrats as "The Liberal Party".

Except he can't. That's because there's already a party registered as the Liberal Party. The rump party that stayed on under the old name, after the merger in 1988. The party that, until fairly recently, campaigned under the very catchy slogan of "Stuff the Euro!".

All parties have to register their names with the Electoral Commission, and a name can be disallowed if it sounds too similar to an existing one. This is to stop the sort of shenanigans that went on in Winchester at the 1997 election, where some joker stood for parliament under the label of "Liberal Democrat - top choice for parliament", and helped himself to several thousand votes that were really destined for Mark Oaten.

If a party goes defunct, its name is still treated as copyright for a set period afterwards - I think it's a year, but it might be two. All Clegg needs to do is persuade the continuing Liberal Party to disband, wait a long time, and then surprise the media with his daring, bold and entirely unexpected rebranding.

Alternatively, he could just stick with a well-established and really quite successful brand, and call us the Liberal Democrats.

PS. Dizzy - if you're prepared to put "LDYS" and "the beautiful people" in the same sentence, you need your head testing!

David Cameron treated unfairly

2008-01-11T18:27:00.000Z

I was quite upset by this story. David Cameron attempted to take a publicity photo outside the Salford Lads' Club yesterday. He was recreating the iconic picture of The Smiths taken in 1985, but local protesters got in the way and stopped him from taking the snap. The placards included the charming slogan "Salford lads not Eton snobs".

Far be it from me to cry any tears for Dave, but I can't help thinking that he was hard done by. How can you criticise your political opponents' views if you don't give them a chance to publicise what those views are? Democracy is supposed to be a high-quality national debate. This sort of behaviour turns it into a competition to see who can drown out their enemies the most effectively.

Still not feeling sorry for David Cameron? Take a look at this footage of Labour activists disrupting the Lib Dem campaign launch at the Sedgefield by-election. If it wasn't fair to do it to us, it isn't fair to do it to the Tories.

Most of all, imagine if it was a working-class politician being ridiculed for their background, rather than an old Etonian. Class prejudice and social slurs are wrong, and it doesn't matter which direction they go in. Dave didn't choose to have wealthy parents, any more than you might choose to be black, or gay, or disabled. It doesn't make the slightest difference which school somebody else chose to send him to when he was a kid. I'm much more interested in what the adult Mr Cameron thinks about modern-day Britain.

Let's hear the Lib Dem frontbenches condemn this undemocratic thuggery, and get back to some proper politics.

Israel: Bush calls for an end to occupation

2008-01-10T17:59:00.000Z

George W Bush has called for an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, as part of a comprehensive peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Three times in the past, I've looked at the news and been absolutely bowled over. First was 9/11 - the last major turning point in world history. Second was the destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia, which I'd visited on the launchpad before its final flight. Third was the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, whom I'd seen at the Oxford Union the year before.

This evening I am even more bowled over, as for the first time in my life, I find myself agreeing with the President.

The settlement would involve Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state. It would get around the controversial issue of a Palestinian right of return by creating a system of financial compensation. It would also likely involve diplomatic recognition of Israel by the Arab states. Bush believes the deal could be done by the time he leaves office, this time next year. It all sounds like the biggest dose of common sense I've heard on the issue in quite a while.

And it won't work. The idealist inside me is willing it to work, but my realist side knows it can't happen.

The last time there was a realistic proposal for peace on the table, it was cut short because of the US electoral cycle. There are a huge number of political reasons why the 2000 Camp David summit failed, but Clinton's desire to rush things through before he left office is arguably one of them. The peace process has to be conducted at its own pace - not at a pace based on the US President's terms of office.

Beside that, the main obstacles which sunk Camp David still haven't been dealt with properly. The right of return is the biggest issue; no Israeli government could realistically allow Palestinian refugees to return to all parts of the pre-1948 Mandate, because it would be demographic suicide, and Israeli voters wouldn't accept it. Financial compensation in lieu seems to be the most likely compromise - but would Palestinians see it that way?

The issue of settlements and borders will also get in the way significantly. The most sensible solution, to my mind, is the one proposed in the unofficial Geneva Accord, where Israel is allowed to annexe settlements in the West Bank that are close to the pre-1967 border, in return for donating land bordering the Gaza Strip, which is desperately hemmed-in and needs room for expansion. The majority of currently illegal settlements could be regularised in this way. It wouldn't entirely solve the issue, but it would make the problem a lot more manageable. Bush hints at something like this in his proposals, and I really hope this idea is followed up.

Still a major problem is the status of Jerusalem. The Camp David talks in 2000 hit a brick wall at this point. Giving up the claim to Jerusalem is a line which the leaders of both sides cannot cross; both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships would be utterly pilloried by their own people if they did. The entire peace process will hinge on this issue, and I have yet to see a constructive and workable solution that would be palatable to both Israelis and Palestinians. Without one, the whole project is a non-starter.

But the fundamental issue is this: all three individuals involved cannot carry the support of their own nations. Bush is hated by his own people and the Republican candidates for his job are openly distancing themselves from him. Olmert has approval ratings that make Bush look like the Archangel Gabriel, and Mahmoud Abbas has lost control of a large chunk of his own territory, let alone his popular support. It doesn't matter if the leaders can come to a fair compromise if they can't take their respective nations with them.

The surpsising change of rhetoric is good, and some of the proposals on the table are eminently sensible. Today's development is very welcome. But somehow, I can't quite contain my pessimism.

Nick Clegg on faith schools: an uncomfortable grey area for liberals

2008-01-01T19:58:00.000Z

It’s often said of the Liberal Democrats that we vote as one on issues of party politics, but are regularly split down the middle on moral issues. The argument about faith schools, currently making waves amongst Lib Dem bloggers, is a case in point. It was kicked off by Nick Clegg, who recently gave an interview to a Jewish newspaper. The atheist Lib Dem leader lent his support to Britain’s faith schools:

If we are to create a society in which everyone has a fair chance in life, we need to focus on education, above all. Faith schools have an important role to play in that, and I am keen that they become engines of integration, not of segregation. I would like to see faith schools working together, so you get a network of different schools and faiths. That way children will grow up in an environment where they are aware of the plurality of faiths and views around them.

The response from the bloggers has been varied. Charlotte Gore calls for an end to faith schools, claiming that a religious education can have a disproportionate effect on kids’ futures. Leo Watkins can’t see any difference between teaching a child Christianity, and indoctrinating them with Marxism. Peter Bancroft is happy to trust parents to make their own decision, and points out that you can’t reasonably force a child to believe something once they get to a certain age. And according to Alix Mortimer, the debate shows how “people can reach wildly different conclusions on allegedly the same principles. And will probably continue to do so long into the night.”

The fundamental problem is that the liberal ideas we usually rely on in these situations are all geared towards mature adults. If people are grown up enough to be legally responsible for themselves, they can make whatever lifestyle choices they like. With young children, that all breaks down, because kids take on trust the things adults tell them. As Dawkins points out in The God Delusion, it’s an important survival mechanism which has been drummed into our offspring by many thousands of years of natural selection. The kids who listened to their parents when they said “Don’t stroke the sabre-toothed tiger!” were more likely to survive than the kids who decided to try it out and see for themselves.

Being trusting and dependent, kids have to rely on their guardians to make decisions for them – but they’re also vulnerable to being influenced by ideas which their adult selves may later regret. Which freedom do we go with? The parents’ freedom to make their own decisions about what’s in a kid’s best interest? Or a kid’s freedom to have a neutral upbringing, so that they can make more permanent choices later on in life?

Realistically, it’s impossible for a kid to have an entirely neutral upbringing – and I’m not convinced that it would do any good, either. Far from creating thinking, questioning and well-balanced individuals, it would breed a generation of young people who were unable to hold opinions of their own, because their growing brains had never had any intellectual meat to chew on. More to the point, any attempt to shield children from political or religious influence would involve a horrendous and unworkable intrusion into the private lives of their families.

A sensible modus operandi for liberals, then, would be to trust parents to decide what sort of upbringing is best for their children, even if it is a religious one – and only step in if that upbringing becomes so extremist as to count as psychological abuse.

But faith schools still give us a serious institutional issue to deal with. We may be happy to let parents bring their kids up in a certain religion at home, but is it acceptable for them to do it at a public institution, funded by the state? This is where Clegg gets onto more shaky ground. The use of taxpayers’ money to fund and promote religion crosses a line, and goes far further than simply tolerating parents teaching religious views to their children in private.

Added to that is the thorny issue of school admissions. I fail to understand how we can live in a country where selecting children on the basis of their academic needs is completely taboo, treated as a divisive and prejudiced exercise in social engineering, but where selecting them on the basis of their parents’ preferred brand of mythology is perfectly acceptable and actually rather popular!

I think it’s perfectly liberal to say that a religious upbringing should come from the family rather than the taxpayer, that all state-funded schools should be prepared to accept all pupils in the catchment area, and that a culturally mixed peer group is a better environment for children to grow up in – the sort of environment government should actively promote.

For that reason, I’m coming out against faith schools, but I’d also like to disagree with some of the more strident flavours of anti-religious rhetoric that we’ve seen during the debate – to take a dual line of respecting people’s right to a religious private life if they want one, but asking them to forgo state funding and state support.

Whilst I'm at it - happy new year to everyone!

Eight for 2008

2007-12-27T18:58:00.000Z

Jonathan Calder has just infected me with the “Eight for 2008” viral meme. The contagion was first inflicted on the blogosphere on Christmas Eve by Iain Dale, who appears to have caught it off a slightly mouldy Jack Russell.

The idea is to list eight things you’d like to see happen in 2008, and pass on the plague to another five victims.

Here are mine:

1. Lib Dems regularly polling 23% of the vote.

If we’re polling better than we did at the last general election, we’ll have successfully drawn a line under a miserable couple of years.

2. A Democrat in the White House.

Any Dem will do …

3. A comprehensive settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tony Benn gets it wrong in his own 2008 wish list: “I would like to see Israel withdraw to its historic frontiers, to make possible the establishment of a Palestinian state.” It won’t work: you could go in an infinite loop, with Israel refusing to withdraw until the end of the terrorist attacks, and Hamas et al refusing to stop the rockets until the occupation ends. The only answer is a comprehensive peace agreement, with Israel withdrawing to agreed borders, and the simultaneous establishment of a State of Palestine.

Sadly, I can’t see this happening in 2008, or frankly, any time before 2108. It’s a vicious circle. The continuing conflict is a scar on the conscience of the globe.

4. Led Zeppelin go on a proper tour.

It's not fair, I never had a chance. They stopped touring 6 years before I had even been born, let alone bought my first Zeppelin LP. I tried for tickets at the O2, but predictably didn’t get them. C’mon guys, think of your younger fanbase.

5. BBC Question Time drop the fifth panellist.

And Dimbleby lets the guests get a word in edgeways, and the behind-the-scenes BBC people pick some sensible questions. When that show's good, it's excellent. When it's bad, it's a total snoozefest.

6. I get a good degree.

I’ve spent four years at university, and dug myself into a fair bit of student debt. I’d like to make sure it was all justified!

7. Sheffield Wednesday ~~get promoted to the Premiership, where they really belong~~ don’t get relegated to League One, where they really belong.

8. McLaren win the Formula One Constructors’ Championship.

Because they won it fair and square in 2007, and were robbed by the FIA. Why not just give the World Championship to Ferrari at the start of the year? It’d save a lot of time and effort and heartache.

I now breathe germs in the faces of Sam Tarran, Leo Watkins, James Schneider, Lawrence Alexander and Hasta La Vista, Vista!.

Can an atheist be a fundamentalist?

2007-12-22T18:58:00.000Z

Barry Morgan, the archbishop of Wales, has complained about a phenomenon which he calls 'atheistic fundamentalism'. According to the archbishop, it is every bit as dangerous as Biblical or Islamic fundamentalism. It consists primarily of the belief that "religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance", and indeed the belief that they are "superstitious nonsense".

I have trouble seeing what is quite so fundamentalist about this viewpoint. Surely it's normal for atheists to believe that religion has no substance? If atheists didn't think that Christianity was "supserstitious nonsense", they probably wouldn't be atheists in the first place.

The archbishop continues: "All of this is what I would call the new 'fundamentalism' of our age. It allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion. It leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarisation, and the claim that because God is on our side, he is not on yours."

I find this argument utterly two-faced. The archbishop talks about God's existence as a given, as an axiom - perfectly fair behaviour for a Christian. But if people talk in certain terms about God not existing - perfectly fair behaviour for atheists - they are 'fundamentalists', and should be condemned for allowing no room for debate. The archbishop's logical error is so basic and so glaring that it almost doesn't need pointing out.

Personally, I very much doubt that atheism could ever be considered a 'fundamentalist' philosophy. There's a crucial difference between atheism and religion: religions actively promote a certain belief, whereas atheism is a rejection of such beliefs. Atheists don't actively disbelieve in God any more than they actively disbelieve in the tooth fairy, or indeed the Flying Spaghetti Monster. They simply reject them, complaining about the lack of evidence. You may agree with them, or you may disagree, but I can't detect anything even approaching fundamentalism in that sort of approach.

It's ironic that this story comes on the same day as a nine-year-old boy was banned from his school's Christmas party for not believing in God. In the middle of the perennial and largely fictitious war against Christmas, surely the headteacher should be pleased to see a non-Christian child joining in the celebrations? A minority of Christians believe with paranoid fervour that secularists hate Christmas, and are trying to get it cancelled - yet this man was prepared to punish and exclude a small child who doesn't believe in God, but sees Christmas as a culturally important time of shared celebration, and wants to join in with it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I'm a secularist, but that doesn't make me in any way anti-religious - indeed, as a Jew, I'm very proud of my religious background and heritage. Secularism, for me, is the belief that religion, or lack of it, should be a private choice for each individual, rather than a matter of state. I find it a little sad, for example, that Tony Blair felt he had to wait until he'd resigned his office before becoming a Catholic. This clearly hasn't happened overnight; he must have been planning it for quite some time, and it's a shame to think that he felt unable to join the Roman Catholic Church whilst in his role as Prime Minister. As long as the PM legislates for the entire population, rather than simply those of a religious bent, he or she ought to be allowed to hold and practice any creed whatsoever. One of the few genuinely praiseworthy aspects of Tony Blair's premiership was the way he ignored religious objections, notably against gay rights, and instead liberalised the law in that area. In effect, he allowed everyone to make their own judgement call, rather than permitting a certain brand of Christianity to dictate morality to the entire population. It contrasts sharply with the moralising tone of the Brown administration.

Principally, secularism means that no belief system should be privileged above any other, and that faith shouldn't be accorded any more respect than lack of faith. In practical terms, this means that the archbishop can talk about Jesus's teaching to his heart's content, if it makes him happy - but that Dawkins, Grayling (one of whose essays inspired that title of this post) et al are equally entitled to express their own views. To call them 'fundamentalists' is to bring politically-charged smears into what ought to be a reasonable and level-headed discussion.

Whatever personal position people take on God's existence, I hope they'll celebrate the next few days in whatever manner they like, loudly and proudly - but that they'll extend the same courtesy to others with opposing views, who want to enjoy the festive season in a different way.

Nick Clegg: game on!

2007-12-19T00:29:00.000Z

Finally, the Liberal Democrats have a new leader: Nick Clegg. During the leadership contest, I’ve refrained from openly supporting one candidate or other on my blog, but it’s worth saying that I voted for Clegg, and am very glad to see him win.

This is a crucial juncture for the Lib Dems, and comes at the end of a period where we’ve struggled to make progress. The trouble started at the last general election, where we achieved our best result in living memory, but still undershot our expectations – expectations which were understandably quite high, given the favourable political landscape. Returning 62 MPs was too impressive for Lib Dems to complain about, but given our hopes of making a big breakthrough, it left us feeling unfulfilled and uncertain. It’s that uncertainty which has led to the turbulence of the past two years, far more than Kennedy’s alcoholism or Ming Campbell’s failure to get a fair hearing from the press.

Clegg’s top priority, therefore, is to draw a line under what has been, in his own phrase, a very introspective time for the Lib Dems. There needs to be a clean break from the past few years. I don’t mean a break in terms of policy; we had a very clear one of those under Ming Campbell, who dropped Kennedy’s 50p tax rate in favour of his own policy of fiscal neutrality – without it making the blindest bit of difference to the perception of us as a tax-and-spend party. Good policy is very important, but on its own, it won’t take us beyond the level of a liberal think-tank.

Rather, the clean break needs to be made in terms of psychology. The media and the public won’t trawl through the fine detail of our policy papers, but they will respond to changes in tone and atmosphere, which is a far more subtle problem for the leader. The challenge is to paint a picture of a party that is confident, that has a vision, and that knows exactly where it’s going. If Clegg can generate that ambience, the troubles of the past couple of years will be quickly forgotten.

How to do it? Much as I hate the dumbing-down of political debates, he has to create a simple Lib Dem story, one which is easily told. It needs to be the story of an anti-establishment party, coming from the outside to take on a stifling and complacent political consensus. This is a story we’ve already started to tell; the “fighting the cosy consensus” soundbite has been cropping up for a while now. That soundbite needs to be taken up as our motto, and it needs to be the thread running through every announcement the party makes in the coming few months. We can’t hope to beat the other parties if we fight them on their own terms, as part of the political establishment. We don't have the resources, the core voter base, or – however much it pains us to admit it – the credibility with the media and the wider public. More to the point, within that establishment, the others have drawn up and designed the playing-field, and it’s slanted against us. It’s only by coming at them from outside that we can hope to make progress. For a realistic strategy, that theme needs to be incorporated into every single press release, statement or speech.

It’ll be a question of choosing the right phrases, the right angles, the right perspectives – and using them consistently, again and again, until they’re entirely associated with the Lib Dems. The rest will be down to the subtleties of body language, a few good interviews and speeches, and a fair bit of luck. From there, it should snowball. If we create the right atmosphere around the party, it will begin to affect the way other people see us, and utlimately, the extent to which they're prepared to trust us.

One thing is certain: we can’t afford to stagnate. Forget about Christmas: Clegg needs to get cracking. If he can put the troubles of his predecessor into a box, file it neatly away, and start a new, relentlessly positive era for the party, then we have a bright orange future. If he can’t, we’re doomed to another few years of misery. It’s game on.

An interview with Vince Cable - Part 1

2007-12-13T14:58:00.000Z

A week last Monday, a group of Lib Dem bloggers interviewed our acting leader Vince Cable, as a sequel to our entertaining little chats with the two leadership candidates last month. In the world of 24-hour rolling news, it’s quite inexcusable that it’s taken me ten days write it up. In my defence, I spent half of the time looking after Oxford interview candidates applying to my college, and the other half of the time in bed with the dreaded lurgy. I have thus been beaten to it by:

James Graham
Linda Jack
Millennium Dome, Elephant
Jonathan Calder
Alix Mortimer
and Paul Walter

which means that the only blogger still to report is Alex Wilcock. No doubt he’ll spend the rest of the winter hibernating, appear out of nowhere sometime in March, post the single most incisive and witty piece of political analysis ever seen on a Lib Dem blog since blogs began, and go back to sleep again.

Revenons à nos moutons. We met Vince in one of the committee rooms in the House of Commons. The seating was unfriendly: a large horseshoe bench, ideal for grilling some hapless MP but not great for an informal and friendly interview. We did our best to sit close together at the curvy end, but it still seemed a bit distant, lacking the relaxed atmosphere of our café chat with Chris Huhne.

James Graham kicked off the questioning. He talked about the “conservative consensus” on inheritance tax, and asked if we shouldn’t distance ourselves from the IHT proposals put forward by the other parties, as a way of showing opposition to entrenched privilege.

Vince Cable argued that the Lib Dem position was not to shift the tax burden away from inheritance, it was to make IHT more effective. This would involve raising the threshold for the tax, but at the same time closing the loopholes that allow large estates to bypass the system. Vince said that the majority of people paying the tax were ordinary families with no experience of this area of law, who’d just inherited mum or dad’s nice suburban semi-detached house and been hit with a large bill from the Treasury. The estates that ought to be targeted by the tax, meanwhile, had hired a lawyer and an accountant, and exploited every possible exemption and loophole.

I think this is a reasonable answer. Both Labour and the Tories have played a very dishonest game on inheritance tax, using it as a symbol and a votewinner, when in truth, it affects a small percentage of families, and is in any case a tax on a one-off windfall. We’re far more affected by the basic rate of income tax we pay, and by the rising costs of council tax, areas where Lib Dem policies would save people a lot of money. Why do middle-class voters cream over the Tories’ plans to raise the IHT threshold, when they would be far better off with the Lib Dems’ 4p cut in basic rate income tax?

Paul Walter started off his question by asking about Vince Cable’s apparently warm friendship with Gordon Brown. Vince interrupted him to “set the record straight”: his relationship with Brown is nothing like as close as the press like to imply. Paul pressed on with his question regardless, asking if Vince could give us some insight into Brown’s mental state: is the Prime Minister really “psychologically flawed”?

Vince told us that he isn’t interested in amateur psychiatry, and that Gordon Brown’s mental health isn’t the issue at all. Brown’s premiership, he argued, was probably doomed from the start, picking up the leftovers of the Blair years. The decision not to call an early election was a serious mistake too. But the biggest flaw in Gordon Brown, according to Vince, is his misguided belief in the power of central government to fix things. He loves to sit in his office and come up with grand schemes and brilliant ideas which, when put into practice, become nightmares of bureaucratic inefficiency. Tax credits were an “enlightened” idea but “hopelessly impractical”.

It’s a good answer, but rather diplomatic. I’m not convinced you can neatly classify Brown’s failings as intellectual rather than psychological. Time and time again, hard-working people have been sucked under by the same overcomplicated tax and benefit systems that were meant to help them. To make those mistakes once could be seen as an error of judgement or an intellectual lapse. When those mistakes become the norm, you have to ask what sort of control-freakery and personal insecurity might be at work.

Jonathan Calder asked Vince about his performances at PMQs – what made him so good? Vince told us that he was very used to asking questions in parliament, but as Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor, he was far less likely to be reported in the press. For him, it largely came down to practice, coupled with an aggressive streak: often in the past, we’ve been “too polite”.

Alex Wilcock asked about the role of deputy leader of the party – what could Vince do to raise the profile of the deputy leader’s position, and give the job more of an identity?

Vince told us that the deputy leader didn’t have a major role in the normal run of things. We have a lot of people who talk across a range of issues – the president for example, and the party leader himself. We don’t need another general issues expert. We have enough trouble getting publicity for the full-time leader, and the effort should be concentrated on raising the profile of Nick or Chris, rather than some deputy.

I think this is pretty much spot on. If you stopped British teens at random and quizzed them about politics, I hope most of them would be able to name the leaders of the three biggest parties – but would you expect many of them to know the parties’ deputy leaders? For the sort of geeky people who write and read political blogs, it’s easy to forget that plenty of voters don’t follow British politics as intensely as we do. For the time being, if there’s one high-profile, popular Lib Dem whom most people recognise and talk about, I’ll be happy.

It was my turn next, and I asked Vince the following: your Mr Bean gibe in PMQs was very funny, but didn’t it play to exactly the same politics of image over substance that spelt the political death of your predecessor?

The answer was no – the crucial difference is that the papers were mocking Ming for his age. Vince was mocking and caricaturing Brown for his incompetence. According to Vince, that sort of snappy soundbite is an unfortunate necessity in politics: the key question is, does the soundbite stand for an acceptable underlying message? If a soundbite represents an message of “Ming is a bit old, and therefore useless”, it’s blatant ageism, and unacceptable. If a soundbite stands for “Brown is running the country very badly”, it’s an entirely legitimate thing for an opposition leader to say.

I thought this was a very sound answer to a very mean question. Still, it typifies everything that’s wrong with our political culture. If you ask people on the street, they’ll probably tell you that they want a serious and high-quality national debate, where substance takes precedence over spin, and where the argument is nuanced and detailed, rather than condensed into quick soundbites. But then you try and put a high-quality, nuanced debate on TV, and people vote against it with their remote controls. Why is it that a political party can spend months or years working on some ingenious policy document that gets utterly ignored, whereas Vince can come up with a single clever one-liner and get a week of good coverage? The problem isn’t with the politicians: it’s with us, and what we like to see, hear and read.

Alix Mortimer went next. The Heathrow consultation was likely to be a stitch-up, and the pattern was likely to carry on with, for example, nuclear power stations. How could we break the cycle?

At this point, the Commons division bell started to ring, making an awful racket in the background.

Vince began his answer by saying that the Heathrow situation wasn’t a given – but he told us that the situation had changed since the battle over airport expansion had last been fought. Previously, it was a case of the supposed national interest being pitted against “nimbys in south-west London” – now, it was different, because of heightened concerns about the environment. Airport expansion was no longer clearly in the national interest. Far more people, far outside of London, think of the environment as a top priority, and if the government want to force expansion plans through, they’ll have a much tougher fight against public opinion than the previous time.

The division bell was still going loud and clear, and Vince decided to run off to the lobby and vote. We paused the interview for a few minutes, and tucked into some of Millennium’s doughnuts. This would also seem like a good point to pause in my writeup. I’m already getting close to the word count for a decent-length German lit essay, and I don’t want to try my readers’ concentration spans.

Watch out for part two!

Vince Cable – talent, luck, or media mischief?

2007-12-02T14:58:00.000Z

Acting Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable has been having an excellent time of late. Almost every political story to hit the press has carried a prominent Cable quote. His performances at PMQs have been widely praised, and commentators are starting to wonder if he shouldn’t have stood for the top job himself. The Lib Dems seem to have been enjoying a recovery in the polls, with ICM putting us on a healthy 19% last week. To top it all, activists have even set up a Facebook group in appreciation of the soft-spoken economist from Twickenham.

How do you think he does it? What makes him so good?

I posed the question to Nick Clegg last Thursday when he spoke at the Oxford Union (as if we weren’t all sick of the place by now!). In his capacity as home affairs spokesman, Clegg gave an excellent speech about Darfur, heavily criticising the way in which we deal with refugees from Sudan, pointing out the absurdities in our asylum system, and setting out a detailed programme for reforming the process. He took questions afterwards; although it was off-topic, I asked him how he would explain Vince Cable’s success, and how he would try to emulate it if he were elected leader.

Clegg suggested a couple of reasons. Firstly, he praised Cable for being a good communicator who could talk to people in language they could understand. (He then launched him into one of his stock leadership rants about “not sounding like Westminster policy wonks” and the suchlike.)

Secondly, he argued that Cable was in a very unusual situation. As acting leader, he was under far less pressure – the media knew he only had a short while in the job, and didn’t think it worth their effort digging up the dirt on him. And in a more sinister vein, he suggested that the media are deliberately giving him an easy ride, in order to give his eventual successor a hard act to follow. The papers would like nothing more, Clegg argued, than to write a story about either himself or Chris Huhne spectacularly failing to match the achievements of Vince Cable: “the best leader we never had”.

It may sound like appalling cynicism, but it has a ring of truth to it. I can well imagine the press giving Cable huge slices of juicy publicity, waiting for the announcement of the leadership result, and then launching a full-scale character assassination on the poor winner. They could then shout: “those idiotic Lib Dems, they’ve elected another hopeless one when they could have had Vince The Amazing”. It isn’t some anti-Lib Dem conspiracy theory, either: it’s the press’s fondness for making life difficult for politicians in general, and the inevitable Schadenfreude when they screw up.

Mischief-making can’t account for all of Vince’s success, though. He's been very fortunate with the political issues that have come up during his stewardship. With Northern Rock, he found himself on comfortable territory as a respected economic commentator. The scandal of the missing personal data has worked very well for the Lib Dems, who are associated most strongly with the campaign against ID cards. And the decision to boycott the Saudi visit was the sort of bold publicity stunt that only a third party could have pulled off successfully.

But like Nick Clegg, I feel that there is something more than media mischief or blind luck behind Cable’s success. He seems to have a genuine feel for the way in which the media like to present stories. An absolute case in point is the recent story on BBC News about the CDs lost by the Treasury, containing the personal details of 25 million people. The report was essentially about a Tory-led debate in the Commons, where Conserative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne questioned the Government’s story, and asked if the “whole truth” had been told. At the same debate, Vince Cable claimed that one person’s stolen identity could be sold on the black market for £60, valuing the entire missing database at around £1.5bn.

Despite it being an Opposition Day debate called by the Conservatives, the BBC ignored Osborne’s bleatings and went with Cable’s £1.5bn figure as their headline. Effectively, Vince stole a Tory story.

It’s sheer genius. Osborne calling Labour dishonest isn’t a particularly exciting story; he calls them dishonest every other week. But Cable’s figure of £1.5bn was concise, eye-catching and completely new. Vince knew exactly what he was doing, and he carried it off perfectly, stealing a headline from under Osborne’s nose. David Cameron must have been fuming.

Vince’s success so far is hard to analyse; some elements can be replicated by his successor, and some can’t. But it’s clear that talent, coupled with an astute understanding of the media mindset, has played a large role in the good publicity of the past few weeks and the revival in the opinion polls. I sincerely hope that Nick or Chris, whichever is elected, will take a serious look at Vince Cable’s tenure in Cowley Street, and draw the right lessons.

BNP debate at the Oxford Union: an eyewitness account

2007-11-27T01:45:00.005Z

I've just returned from tonight's Free Speech Forum at the Oxford Union. It's been a strange night, and to some extent, a really unpleasant spectacle. I believe I've seen the very best and the very worst of political thought and activism on display tonight. I'll try to describe things as I saw them, rather than go on another big rant about free speech.

The anti-fascist demonstration was scheduled for 7pm, so I arrived at the Union at quarter-to, hoping to get in safely before any trouble started. The Union consists of a main building (with the bar and the library), the imposing Victorian debating chamber opposite, and a garden in between. The whole thing is surrounded by a high brick wall, with one small gate giving access to St Michael's Street. There's a back entrance too, but for tonight, it was barred and shuttered: that small gate was the only way in or out.

St Michael's Street is a small, largely pedestrianised road just off the Cornmarket, and the demonstration was taking up the entire road. The police hadn't set up a cordon between the protesters and the Union gate, and it was pretty evident that as soon as the crowd built up, it was going to be impossible to get in and out. I made it in just in time. Within fifteen minutes, the anti-fascist demonstration was filling up the only route into the Union, and a row of demonstrators were sitting down, deliberately blocking the gate.

I went into the bar with Micah, a fellow Jewish Society member. We'd corresponded over Facebook about the event - we'd disagreed over whether or not the debate should take place, but now it was happening for certain, Micah had decided he'd rather be in the chamber arguing with the speakers than outside it demonstrating. He'd had to leave most of his friends on the other side of the barricade. We were both hoping to speak in the debate, so we had a beer together, compared what we'd both written, and chatted about lines of argument. We were both concerned that since the motion was about free speech, it was going to be difficult to challenge either speaker on their more controversial views. We compared incriminating quotations and disgusting BNP policies, and decided that if Tryl told us off for speaking off-topic, we could always invoke freedom of speech as a defence.

At about 7.30, there was a serious commotion outside - we rushed out into the garden to see. Students with tickets for the event had arrived en masse, and were being forcibly prevented from getting in. Cameron, a friend from my college, stuck his membership card and his event ticket between his teeth, and vaulted over the wall. Others pushed or jumped their way through the gate, with anti-fascist protesters trying to drag them back. There were cries of "shame on you", lots of very fuzzy megaphone rhetoric, and anti-BNP chants. We stood in the gardens, the hundred or so that had made it, out of over four hundred that had tickets.

Around 8pm we went into the chamber and sat down, with the debate scheduled for 8.30. We were checked through individually, and our membership cards were scanned one by one. By this time, there were serious worries about the event going ahead, as anti-fascist demonstrators had climbed onto the Union's wall and were overlooking the gardens. It was pretty obvious that security had been very heavily compromised. In the chamber, there was no sign of Irving or Griffin; we were told to sit tight and stay away from the windows.

Then a group of 20 or 30 anti-fascist campaigners got through the gate and into the gardens, and tried to storm the debating chamber. Apparently the security guards had tried to let some Union members in through the gate, but a surge of demonstrators had muscled their way through. Most students in the chamber stayed sitting, but group of around 20 debate-goers stood against the doors and stopped demonstrators from coming in. The standoff continued for 10 or 15 minutes; then a few of the event organisers in the chamber decided it would be best to let the demonstrators in. There were a few scuffles as they came through, and I saw some grabbing and shoving from both sides, but no punches thrown.

Micah commented to me: "I've never felt so threatened by my own side!"

The group staged a sit-in on the floor of the debating chamber, singing anti-racist songs, chanting, and megaphoning us. A few Union members tried to talk to them, but they seemed far more interested in shouting us down than in discussing the issues. I cobbled together a makeshift banner in blue fountain pen and bits of A4 paper. It said "FREE SPEECH IS YOUR BEST DEFENCE. One of the photographers snapped it; I don't think anyone else noticed.

Around 9pm, the police finally arrived, - where had they been up till now? - and herded everyone upstairs into the gallery, checking everyone's membership card on the way. They rooted out the protestors, escorted them out of the building, and a few minutes later brought us back down into the chamber, checking all the membership cards a second time. They obviously didn't do a great job, because I found myself sitting next to two students from Exeter who'd come to demonstrate, but were now curious to hear what Irving and Griffin had to say, and asked me not to rat on them.

At ten to ten, Lib Dem MP Evan Harris came in. He was one of the scheduled speakers for the event. He explained that another large group of Oxford students was in the main building; they'd been brought in via another entrance - I heard anecdotally that they'd come in via the fire escape that leads to the Union's underground nightclub. They couldn't be brought into the debating chamber, because the demonstrators on the wall were making it impossible to cross the garden between the two buildings. Apparently, the forum was going to be split into two halves, with Irving speaking at one, and Griffin at the other.

Five minutes later, Luke Tryl arrived, repeated what Harris had said, and asked us specifically not to applaud, jeer, or make any other loud noise throughout the event. He didn't want to give the demonstrators an impetus to storm the building again; it was clear they could swarm over the wall given half a chance.

He went out for a few minutes, and came back accompanied by David Irving; apparently the other group had the dubious pleasure of being addressed by Nick Griffin. Evan Harris and Anne Atkins were also speaking.

The seating arrangements were interesting. Tryl was in the centre, at the speakers' table, where you'd expect the President of the Union to sit for a discussion forum. Harris and Atkins sat right next to him, on the benches to his left. Irving was on the other side, on his own, right in the middle of a bench. Nobody was sitting anywhere near him. He looked like a pariah; he looked very gruff and very sullen.

As Tryl introduced the speakers, he made it very clear that he was distancing himself from Irving. ("Like all of you, I abhor his views, but ...") He called him "despicable" and "abhorrent". It wasn't quite as eloquent as Lee Bollinger's introduction to Ahmadinejad, but it was heading in that direction. His introductions of Harris and Atkins were very matter-of-fact by comparison.

Evan Harris kicked off the debate. He was his usual self - very slick, very personable, a decent public speaker. He said that he would be fully behind the protesters if only they were arguing against Irving's and Griffin's views; but since they were arguing against their right to express those views, he couldn't back them. He slammed the police for failing in their duty to protect the debate, and asked why they hadn't formed a proper cordon around the Union. He also told us a bit about his decision to speak: he'd been invited to the forum before it became public that Irving and Griffin were going to speak, but once he found out that they were coming, he decided that it would be very unprincipled to drop out.

Irving was up next. I have to say that I was very surprised by him. I expected an angry diatribe from a stern-looking hatemonger. Irving comes across far more like an academic, with a clipped and slightly soft accent, very English. He spoke quite calmly. He started off by thanking the Union for the chance to speak - this was his seventh invitation, and the only one that hadn't been cancelled. He expressed his hope that the demonstrations were largely aimed at Nick Griffin rather than himself.

He began his argument with the words "I'm not a Holocaust denier - but you've never had the chance to find that out." He insisted time and time again that he published what he believed to be the truth, and that he was being victimised because his view didn't correspond to the orthodox one. He peppered his speech with references to the Holocaust, and it sounded as if he was doing it rather self-consciously, almost defensively. He paraphrased Animal Farm, claiming that he was "less equal than other historians".

At this point, the two demonstrators from Exeter who were sitting near me got up, and stomped out of the hall in disgust.

Irving then went on a bit of a general rant about free speech. I felt extremely uncomfortable as I found myself agreeing with much of his rhetoric on the subject, although I was well aware that in every sense, he had utterly failed to live up to what he was preaching. He said "freedom of speech means the right to be wrong sometimes" - I doubt he's admitting that his views are wrong, but in truth, it shouldn't be a crime to lie (or, more likely, to delude oneself) about historical facts.

His parting shot should be a serious warning to the anti-fascist demonstrators: "Every time I'm banned from another country, I regard it as a victory ... it means there's no-one there who can debate against me!"

Anne Atkins was next up. She took much the same line as Harris on free speech; its noteworthy that as a Christian writer, she argued for the repeal of the blasphemy laws ("God doesn't get offended!"). She also told us that the protestors outside had been chanting "kill Tryl", which in her view very much fell outside the limits of legitimate free speech: it was incitement to murder; how ironic. She spoke about people in the past who had been killed simply because they spoke against the view of the majority - her main example was of course Jesus, whose views were considered dangerous and worthy of suppression by the Roman rulers of the time.

By this point, the constant din of anti-fascist protesters outside had almost entirely vanished. It sounded like they'd given up. It was almost 11, close to the time limit for the debate, and neither Micah nor I got to make our speeches. Tryl decided that instead of opening the debate to the floor, he'd allow questions and answers instead. Predictably most of the questions went to Irving.

Wasn't he a hypocrite to defend free speech when he had sued Lipstadt in order to silence her? No, he said, he had agonised for a long time over whether or not to take legal action, but did so ultimately because "she had amassed a landslide against me", and because "free speech doesn't mean a licence to smear". He did, however, agree that "it looks hypocritical". There was, apparently, a "fine line".

He also said that the trial took place seven years ago, and that if anyone accused him nowadays of being an active Holocaust denier, they were slandering him: "I don't buy the whole package, that's all - but it doesn't make me a denier." No jeers - people reluctantly obeyed Tryl's request - but there were hisses, muffled expletives, and very audible intakes of breath.

Micah got his hand in, and asked about Irving's infamous racist poem, which he'd written for his young daughter:

I am a Baby Aryan
Not Jewish or Sectarian
I have no plans to marry an
Ape or Rastafarian

The reply wasn't very edifying. Irving admitted to writing it, told us how it had been used against him in his trial, and pointed out that it was only 19 words long, and was found after people had trawled through hundreds of thousands of words of his diaries. "Whatever that poem represents, it's a very small percentage of who I am ... I told that to the judge, and he wasn't impressed." Nor were any of us, and the under-the-breath hisses told it all.

It was about quarter past eleven, and Tryl called time on the debate. Irving was escorted out of the room; we were told to stay put until it was safe for us to leave. Anne Atkins and Evan Harris kept us amused by taking more questions and answers, until at about 11.30pm we were told we could go. The protest had dispersed by then; just banners strewn all over the floor. St Michael's Street looked like a total mess. I took my little makeshift banner on the way out; somebody patted me on the back as I held it up. Coming onto the Cornmarket, I walked straight back to college, and made a beeline for the computers, which is where I am now. Writing it all up.

It's too late, and I'm too tired, to formulate any sort of coherent response to what's happened today. I'll just set out a few quick thoughts, in the order that they ooze out of my brain.

Firstly, it's ridiculous to claim to be anti-fascist when you're blocking a public right of way, and stopping people from getting to a legal meeting, however much you disagree with that meeting.

Secondly, the argument we heard time and time again about the threat from BNP activists being so great that it trumped the right to free debate. I didn't see any BNP people at all (although I'm willing to admit I wasn't in a position to see everything that happened, and they may well have been there). What I did see was a large group of so-called anti-fascists prepared to use physical force to stop people getting to a debate, use large amounts of amplified noise to try and drown the debate out, shout abuse and intimidation at students going about their lawful business, and call for the death of a 20-year-old young man with pretty mainstream political views.

Thirdly, I felt sickened by Irving's constant references to the Holocaust, coupled with his constant efforts to underplay the scale and meaning of it, and his noxious suggestion that Britain should have done a deal with the Nazis in 1940, and pulled out of the war - it would have meant the subjugation of the entire continent and the eradication of European Jewry, but Irving maintains it would have been in the best interests of Britain. As an internationalist and as a believer in universal human rights, that sickens me.

Fourthly, I'm immensely glad that I was able to hear Irving speak. I don't think it endangered me or put me at risk of corruption. It broadened my horizons and let me find out something about a man who up till now had only ever been a sort of bogeyman - and some of the things that I found out were genuinely surprising. I don't see why I should have been barred from going to this talk because of somebody else's arbitrary judgement. I'm also quite glad that Irving's views were shown up and challenged very strongly by students in the audience.

Fifthly, I'm physically and mentally shattered, it's quarter to two in the morning, I'm not sure I can stomach any more of this whole saga which has dominated Oxford life for the past two months, so I'm going to bed!

Free Speech debate in Oxford: we're guilty of dereliction of duty

2007-11-24T18:59:00.000Z

The saga of the Oxford Union's Free Speech Forum has taken a new twist, after students voted that the controversial debate should go ahead as planned next Monday. The student debating society at Oxford University had invited Nick Griffin (British National Party) and David Irving (Holocaust denier) to speak on the motion "This House believes that even extremists should be entitled to free speech." Plenty of people around the country believe that the answer is "no", and have tried to get the forum shut down. Their efforts were defeated in yesterday's vote.

My views on this aren't a secret: I believe that the truth will always win out in the end, and that unrestricted freedom of debate is our best defence against racism and falsehood. Many thanks to Millennium Elephant for his kind support.

Union members clearly agree with that position. The Union held a referendum yesterday to let the membership decide whether or not the President, Luke Tryl, was justified in inviting the controversial pair. Tryl promised to cancel Monday's forum if the members voted against him, effectively turning the poll into a confidence motion. He won through, and from memory, the vote split 1066 to 640. (The first one is a very memorable number indeed!) The Free Speech Forum goes ahead as planned, and after queueing for an hour in the cold yesterday morning, your favourite blogger has a ticket.

Nevertheless, I'm starting to have serious misgivings about the forum. Irving and Griffin will be debating against a couple of DPhil students, because no mainstream political speakers would touch the Free Speech Forum with a ten-foot battle lance. This is a truly grotesque situation. It mystefies me how the local MPs, the anti-fascist groups around the country, the Jewish and Muslim communities, and the reprehensible Oxford University Student Union are prepared to man the barricades outside the Oxford Union with their placards, but aren't willing to go inside and take on Griffin and Irving. Are they really happy to stand outside the debating chamber massaging their egos, whilst racism and lies go unchallenged inside it?

Unrestricted free debate is a fundamental right, but in order to work, it needs citizens who are prepared to engage with views they find offensive. Everyone can chip in and have their say, so falsehoods don't stand up to scrutiny for very long. It's self-regulating in much the same way as the blogosphere: if I posted factually inaccurate statements on this website, somebody would post a comment debunking me within minutes. But when you isolate and ignore offensive attitudes instead of arguing with them, you undermine the whole system. By refusing to debate against the BNP, the tolerant political mainstream is guilty of serious dereliction of duty.

There's a battle being waged right now across the streets of Britain: a battle of racial tolerance against racist hatred. That battle crucially needs to be won, for the good of every minority group in Britain, and for the benefit of all of us whose lives are enriched by a diverse and welcoming society. But Unite Against Fascism are like an army who refuse to take to the field for fear of getting their hands dirty. That sort of smugness and complacency, in the face of such a serious threat to our way of life, is unforgivable.

Every time the BNP speak, at any sort of public forum, debate or event whatsoever, we have a duty to pit someone against them. That we cannot find one single speaker from the political mainstream prepared to hold the BNP to account is an utter disgrace.

UPDATE: Contrary to earlier reports that he had pulled out, it appears that Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West, will be speaking at the event.

EXCLUSIVE: That Radio 4 interview in full

2007-11-21T13:29:00.000Z

Hug A Hoodie presents a Lib Dem leadership interview even more exclusive than James Graham's excellent offering. This is a full transcript of the interview which LDYS exec member Mark Mills and I recorded for the BBC's The World This Weekend last Sunday. In the final cut, reporter Terry Stiastny only featured a few soundbites from each of us, but you can read the entire exchange here.

This is a "Hansardised" version - the content has been preserved faithfully, but I've edited where necessary for grammar, syntax and style.

Terry Stiastny: What’s the leadership campaign been like from your point of view? Has it been a good debate about the future of the party?

Jonny Wright: Not really, it’s been a bit low key. It’s a bit depressing in comparison with the Conservative leadership election a couple of years ago. To give them credit, although I didn’t agree with much of what was said on either side, they had two genuine points of view about the future of their party, and they had a good debate about it. I think that sort of debate needs to be had within the Liberal Democrats, but it isn’t really happening at the moment. I don’t think either candidate wants to rock the boat.

Mark Mills: I don’t really agree. It’s been low key, but that’s partly due to the fact that as Liberal Democrats, we get less attention paid to us than we perhaps deserve. But they are having a debate, and knocking around issues. It tends not to be a policy debate, because we don’t have the great divide that the Conservatives do; we broadly agree on a lot of things. It’s more about how we move the party forward, and how we make the party work for Britain.

TS: How are you likely to vote when you get your ballot papers next week, and how have your views changed over the campaign?

MM: I started off as a very enthusiastic Huhne supporter. I voted for him in 2006 when Ming Campbell became leader, and am a very big fan. However, I’m wavering a bit. I’m a supporter of the idea of school vouchers, which Chris has come out against. I think that’s an idea we shouldn’t rule out, but should give serious thought to.

TS: So it’s an issue of policy, rather than personality, which is making you doubt your support?

MM: Both candidates are very strong in terms of personality, and I would be happy with both of them. I don’t think we have to worry either way. It comes down to some very small differences in policy, because both can get the message across, and both can command the credibility needed to be a leader.

JW: It is about small differences in policy, but the problem is that it doesn’t give you much to go on. To me, it is more a question of who I could see at the helm of the party; who I could see as a better leader. I voted for Chris Huhne last time, but only as the best of a bad bunch, at what was a slightly uninspiring leadership election. This time, I’m almost certainly going to vote for Nick Clegg. I think he’s a good communicator, and an extremely good public speaker. He’s very good at set-pieces: conference rallies and conference speeches. That’s what sets the tone, and that’s what the media will pick up on. I can see him doing very well in behind-the-scenes discussions with other parties, on amendments and motions, and even if it came to a hung parliament. I could see him being good in those sorts of situations. I agree with what Mark says; either of them would be quite good. But for me, it’s Nick Clegg.

TS: So many people have said they prefer one or the other, for one or the other reason, but would be happy with either one. Is that a healthy debate? Shouldn’t there be more argument?

JW: It’s a good thing and it’s a bad thing. On the one hand, it means there isn’t a massive split in the party. With the Tory leadership election, you had two clear wings: the modernisers, who wanted to go forward and change the party, and the traditionalists. You don’t have that sort of big polar split in the Lib Dems. That’s a good thing, because the whole party is working together, but on another level, it doesn’t make for good internal debate, which we still need to have.

MM: I think we’re debating very vigorously at a certain level, if you read the blogs and other forums for party activists in local branches, but unfortunately, much of it hasn’t filtered through into the mainstream media. There are ordinary members who just pay their money every year, and I don’t know how much of the debate has got through to them.

TS: What about the age factor? Nick Clegg is 13 years younger than Chris Huhne. Does that make a difference in a constituency like this one [Oxford East], with a very big student population living in a marginal seat?

MM: I don’t think so. I’ve seen Chris talk to a student audience, and he’s very good, as is Nick – they’re both very comfortable with that sort of audience. I don’t think the difference is that significant. When most people visualise a politician nowadays, they visualise somebody aged between about 40 and 60, and the problem comes if you’re outside of that band. Within it, I don’t believe there’s much of a problem.

JW: I’m not sure age was that much of a factor even with Ming Campbell. It was more to do with his mannerisms. He was very old school, and sometimes even looked a bit doddery. That had more of an effect than his actual age. Vince Cable [who is almost Ming’s age] is doing very well as acting leader and has received a lot of goodwill and support across the board. I saw Paddy Ashdown being interviewed on the BBC in the run-up to Lib Dem Conference; he’s the same age as Ming Campbell, but looks about 10 years younger. It wasn’t about his age, it was about the impression he gave, and the way in which people responded to him.

TS: To what extent are students interested in politics in general, and in the Lib Dems in particular? If I went up to the people in the JCR watching Neighbours right now, and asked them what they thought about the Lib Dem leadership contest, would I get blank looks?

JW: I’m not sure you’d get blank looks; people probably would have an opinion. But there’s a split amongst students, as much as with any other group. You’ll find people who are very active within politics, for one party or another, and they’ll definitely have an opinion on the Lib Dems, one way or the other. The majority of people are interested in politics in general, and will see the Lib Dem leadership election going on in the background. They won’t have massively strong opinions, but will be following things on the news, in the background, with interest, but perhaps not especially keen interest. And as with the population in general, there’ll be a certain group of people who really don’t care.

TS: Do you think you’ll get a leader who’s going to be able to appeal to student voters, who will get people interested in politics, and interested in voting Lib Dem?

MM: Yes. I think we have a very strong set of policies that appeal to students, particularly on tuition fees, which is a standout issue. But also, students tend to care very strongly about issues like the environment, like Iraq, and like international development, and those are issues where we’re generally seen to be very strong. We can justifiably claim that we have something to offer.

TS: Are these the sort of issues people discuss in the bar?

MM: I can’t remember the last time I heard a political discussion in the bar. We spend far more time moaning about out tutors, or talking about Neighbours. The Lib Dem leadership election is a political issue, in the same way the Conservative or Labour ones were. Politics won’t get people excited until it engages with their ordinary lives. When it comes to deciding who to vote for, whether for a local MP who’ll vote to scrap tuition fees, or one who’ll vote to keep them, that will matter to students.

Listen out for me on Radio 4

2007-11-18T10:59:00.000Z

BBC's The World This Weekend are featuring a report on the Liberal Democrat leadership election this afternoon. As part of their coverage, they interviewed me, alongside Mark Mills, a fellow blogger and OULD member. It's airing today at 1pm on Radio 4. If you don't manage to catch it live, you'll be able to listen again for up to a week.

I have no idea how much of our interview will have made it into the final cut, but given that we spoke for 10 minutes, and the final report is only four minutes, it can't be very much! Chances are they'll have picked out one of the more off-message bits. I'm sitting here in terror, waiting for my summons from the whips' office ...

Chris Huhne on drugs: inconsistent, illiberal, and not very anti-establishment!

2007-11-08T17:59:00.000Z

On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to be able to interview Lib Dem leadership candidate Chris Huhne, alongside fellow bloggers Millennium Dome, Alex Wilcock, Paul Walter, Mary Reid, and James Graham.

In general, I was impressed with what Chris had to say. He was very personable, very confident, and gave some very convincing answers to some very mean questions. There was, however, one answer in particular that I wasn't very pleased with.

I asked Chris the following question about drugs:

Jonny Wright: In your manifesto, you write: “On drugs, we must have the courage of our convictions,” but you don’t say in any kind of detail what those convictions are. I’d suggest to you that we can’t carry on fighting a losing battle against drugs, and that it’s time for a different approach, where mature adults calculate the risks and make their own personal decisions. I think that’s an approach that could be justified very convincingly using our liberal principles. How would you sketch out, in very practical terms, what a Chris Huhne drugs policy would look like?

Chris Huhne: Well let’s start with the liberal principles, because you’ve got me on a good theme there. We had tremendous rows in the parliamentary party on what we were going to do about the smoking ban. Some people talked about opposing the smoking ban as fundamentally illiberal because of the John Stewart Mill principle, which says that the only reasonable basis on which you can coerce anyone is if they are causing harm to others. I argued, on exactly the same principle, that we needed a smoking ban, precisely because smoking in public places does cause harm to others.

It comes down to a balance of judgement on drug issues. I think drugs need to be determined by scientific advice, not in terms of their categorisation, not in terms of what the Daily Mail tells us, or what the editor of the Daily Mail happens to think at a particular moment; so first and foremost – follow the scientific advice.

Secondly, I do very much agree with you here, if that’s the implication, that we need to take a much more medical attitude towards many people who are addicted to hard drugs. We need to make sure that they are able to find what they need without breaking into the local supermarket or robbing the local corner shop. Such an important part of crime is caused by the way we approach addiction. We need to try much harder to see it as a medical problem in which doctors have a much clearer role in ensuring that people are able to meet their addiction needs, and gradually build up a programme, over time, to come off drugs.

I don’t go down the libertarian line. I respect it as a position, but my experience is that when people take drugs, they harm others. Their own families, their own community – it’s not just a question of the individual, it’s also a question of the impact they have on others.

JW: You seem to be saying that we should take the advice of medical professionals in our strategy on drugs. But why should it be the legislators who take the medical advice onboard, rather than individual people in their own individual lives? How do you square that with decentralisation?

CH: I think it’s about taking onboard the impact on society of addiction and of drug use. If you say that people take this decision for themselves, without concern for anyone else, I would say that’s not the real world, because anybody who does become a serious drug user does have a real impact on their family, and on the health service, and on the local community.

JW: You could use exactly that same argument to ban alcohol, couldn’t you?

CH: You could. And clearly, in the past, in our party, the temperance movement, as you know, was very powerful, and did try to do exactly that, and justified itself on the same sort of principles that I’m talking about. For better or worse, alcohol has become a socially accepted part of our society, in a way that the use of other drugs has not. It seems to me that we need to re-think our approach to alcohol; we need to make sure that people are aware of the dangers of alcohol, particularly since alcohol is getting cheaper and cheaper relative to people’s income. There isn’t much that can be done about that, because the excise duty can be so easily avoided by buying in from countries on the continent. There are real issues about alcohol that we need to address, but because it is a socially-accepted substance, I think it’s in rather a different category to other drugs.

For a whole host of reasons, I'm not very happy with his answer. I don't wish to speculate about Chris's past life - it's not much of my business - but if he's been living on the same planet as the rest of us, he will certainly have met people who've smoked the occasional spliff, or popped the odd ecstasy tablet on the dancefloor, without causing any direct harm to their families and communities. I wouldn't in any way wish to suggest that those substances are safe: clearly they both carry significant risks. But just as adults can decide for themselves whether the pleasure of a pint of Tribute is worth the risk of liver damage a few decades down the line, I'm happy to let adult cannabis smokers make up their own minds about the risks of psychosis. I cannot for the life of me see why that very personal risk assessment should be made by legislators in Westminster, rather than by individuals. Liberals, and Chris Huhne in particular, love to talk about decentralised decision-making. There's no kind of decision-making more decentralised than that of an individual making their own mind up about the risks they're willing to take as part of their lifestyle.

The argument about the wider societal effects of drugs falls rather flat when you look at the legal status of alcohol. Alcohol, used irresponsibly, makes people misbehave, and even cause criminal damage - to the tune of £7.3bn a year. But we don't criminalise alcohol itself; we criminalise the people who use it irresponsibly and harm others, because the vast majority of us drink sensibly and hurt nobody. Damage to life and limb is against the law already. I don't see why we should take pre-emptive action against the many to compensate for the indiscretions of the few.

To make his argument on drugs, Chris has to sacrifice his principles. He accepts that alcohol is every bit as harmful as other recreational drugs, but because of its entrenched status, he's happy for people to drink. If alcohol had just been discovered yesterday, he'd have to ban it as well, by his own logic! For the sake of pragmatism, he's being deliberately and knowingly inconsistent.

I love Chris Huhne's rhetoric about being anti-establishment; about coming from the outside to take on the big two. That idea the absolute key to our future success, as I've said before. If we try to fight Labour and the Tories on their own terms, as part of a three-way political mainstream, we'll lose. They have the funding, the experience and the voter base to come out on top; we don't.

Disappointingly, when it comes to a controversial issue such as drugs policy, Chris is quite happy to defend the status quo, even though by his own admission, he has to be inconsistent and illiberal. For all the talk of bravery and radical spirit, when the going gets tough, he's quite happy to bury himself in the middle of the political establishment. If he wants my vote for leader, he'll have to do better than that.

Nick Griffin, David Irving and free speech

2007-10-18T15:58:00.000+01:00

The Oxford Union, the world-famous private debating society (not to be confused with the student union), has been courting controversy. The current President, Luke Tryl, has organised a forum for 26 November, on the subject "Even extremists should be entitled to free speech" - and he's invited two extremists along for the ride. Nick Griffin, leader of the openly racist British National Party, and David Irving, the discredited pseudo-historian and Holocaust denier, have been asked to speak.

The event has caused a huge amount of controversy. The Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) and Oxford University Jewish Society (JSoc) are very strongly against the invitation, and members have set up Facebook groups calling for the event to be scrapped. The NUS and Unite Against Fascism are campaigning for the invitation to be withdrawn.

And I think they're completely wrong.

If free speech is to mean anything, it has to apply to everyone - and not just to nice people. Once you start restricting people's right to debate ideas in public, you're going down a very dangerous road. The only limits to free speech should be against incitement to violence and discrimination - and we already have robust laws for that.

Like the overwhelming majority of Oxford students, I abhor the BNP. I've gone out to campaign against them in local elections. And as a Jew whose great-grandparents fled from the Nazis, I condemn Holocaust denial as a disgusting perversion of history. But I believe the best way to beat racism and deceit is to tackle them head on in open debate, where they will crumble. Silencing Griffin and Irving will only make them martyrs; but if they’re subjected to proper scrutiny, they can be beaten.

To try and counter OUSU and JSoc’s stance, I’ve set up a Facebook group of my own – you can join it here. Over 350 students are members so far, which is encouraging.

Quite a few JSoc and OUSU antagonists have "joined" my group as well, and are using the discussion board to make their case against me. This sarcastic little number is particularly noteworthy: "If only had there been some good debates at the time, perhaps the Holocaust would not have happened? Millions were not murdered because their arguments were not good enough ..."

It goes to show just how completely these people have missed the point. Millions were murdered because the Nazis arbitrarily decided that some people are different; that some people deserve fewer rights than others; that some people deserve to be killed. It's precisely for that reason that we have a concept of universal human rights - basic entitlements that people can't take away from us just because they don't like us.

The supreme irony of the situation is this: it is only because they have the human right of free speech that the JSoc crowd are able to protest against Griffin and Irving in the first place. As my friend Charlie Cooke points out, “It's like holding up Parliament with an assault rifle to force them to ban firearms.”

I’m going to stick my neck out here: those who are trying to shut down this free speech forum are actually more dangerous than either Griffin or Irving. At least the controversial duo hold idiotic, racist and anti-semitic positions, which most people can see straight through. But the useful idiots from JSoc are intelligent, genuinely well-meaning students from Britain's top university, who are asking in all sincerity for our most fundamental human right to be taken away. I know which one of those viewpoints does more damage to society!

It's funny really - JSoc (of which I'm usually proud to be a member) was very vocal about free speech last term, when the ridiculous proposal for an academic boycott of Israel was hitting the headlines. Now that we're talking about the free speech of extremists, rather than Israeli teachers, JSoc has quickly come to the conclusion that free speech needs to be limited, and that they get to decide just what the limits are. The hypocrisy of their about-turn is breathtaking.

The acid test of a true supporter of free speech is this: are you prepared to stand up for the rights of everyone, or just those people you find palatable? It's intellectually very easy to defend mainstream, decent people. It doesn't take huge moral courage to stand up for brave Burmese monks, for politically-blameless Israeli physicists, or for dissident Chinese bloggers. But can you stand up for two truly odious men, who want to exercise, within the limits of the law, exactly the same fundamental rights as everyone else?

If the answer is no, then you are only a fairweather friend of our civil liberties.

Non-sequitur of the day

2007-10-12T00:59:00.000+01:00

I found a complete beauty today in The Cherwell, one of the two main student newspapers at Oxford University.

It comes at the end of an article criticising Oxford's Permanent Private Halls (PPHs), semi-independent academic institutions within the University. They have a slightly different status from the normal Colleges, and are mostly small schools run by religious orders, teaching "subjects" such as theology, and with a high percentage of mature and postgraduate students.

According to a recent internal report, PPHs are unsuitable for undergrad students of school-leaving age, and often fail to live up to the "liberal ethos" found in the rest of the University.

The article includes a reaction from a student at Wycliffe Hall, the PPH which comes in for the most flak from the report. Spot the impeccable logic:

"Everybody thinks it is a terrible shame about what is being reported about Wycliffe. Wycliffe are top of the private halls' academic list. Therefore, you cannot accuse us of not conforming to Oxford's liberal standards."

I'm sure the BNP are at the very top of the league table for right-wing extremists, but it doesn't make them liberal ...

Cameron's a moderniser after all!

2007-09-30T13:57:00.000+01:00

From the Daily Telegraph:

Hazel Blears - prejudice cuts both ways

2007-09-24T17:59:00.000+01:00

I'm not a fan of Hazel Blears. I've always found her smug, patronising, and packed full of nauseating doublethink. She's so irritatingly on-message that I even backed her for the deputy-leadership, as the candidate most likely to damage Labour's standing in the country.

Well, she's excelled herself today. Speaking at the Labour Party conference earlier on, she called Boris Johnson a "fogeyish, bigoted and upper-class twit". A conference hall full of New Labour muppets laughed, and gave her a round of applause.

I'm sure Labour and Lib Dem supporters (and a fair few Tories, I'll bet!) would be horrified to see Boris running Europe's largest city. But how on earth is it acceptable for Hazel Blears to use a class slur against the Tories' mayoral frontrunner?

You can call Boris Johnson a lot of things. He's bumbling. He's incompetent. His rather careless way with words has caused offence - unthinkingly, rather than maliciously, but hurtful nonetheless - to entirely blameless people. And compared to Brian Paddick, he knows very little about policing. These are all completely legitimate reasons to oppose Boris's candidacy. But his social background should be entirely off-limits.

In a fair society, everyone should be judged on their own personal merits and achievements. Nobody chooses their parents or their family, so it's entirely wrong to take their heritage into account. But that cuts both ways. If it's unacceptable to smear someone for having working class parents, it's equally wrong to label somebody a "toff" because their parents happened to be rich.

If Boris had smeared Ken Livingstone by calling him a "working-class twit", we would be up in arms. Ken didn't choose his parents or his background, and they can't be held against him. Hazel Blears would put on her smuggest face, walk up to the nearest camera, and talk about Tory prejudice, bias and bigotry. So how can she attack Boris for being "upper-class", and expect to get away with it? She's guilty of prejudice, pure and simple: bullying someone for circumstances entirely beyond their control, and beyond their choosing.

There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Boris Johnson, but his parentage isn't one of them. And for a Labour MP - a Labour MP - to pour scorn on somebody's upbringing, when the Labour movement has been fighting for over a century to stop children being left behind in society, simply because they were born into under-privileged backgrounds - well, it just beggars belief.

I say this in all seriousness: she should resign, and if she doesn't resign, Gordon Brown should withdraw the whip from her.

A cynical ploy by Ming

2007-09-20T09:59:00.001+01:00

Gordon Brown has made a stand against Robert Mugabe, threatening to boycott a meeting of European and African leaders if Mugabe is allowed to attend. It's a symbolic but important move, and I'm glad he's making it.

I have only one worry. Ming Campbell is speaking this afternoon - isn't there a risk of the Prime Minister's brave words, words which people need to hear, being eclipsed by the Lib Dem leader?

Either Ming's timing today is desperately unfortunate, or he has a cynical media agenda to steal the limelight from poor Gordon Brown. But only a true cynic would think such unworthy thoughts.

Northern Rock crisis - oh the irony!

2007-09-18T10:29:00.000+01:00

The run on the bank continues, despite the Chancellor's intervention. Since Northern Rock went to the Bank of England for a loan last Thursday, their customers have been queuing up to withdraw their money, convinced that the bank is about to sink, and their life savings with it. So far, over £2bn worth of deposits have been withdrawn - that's getting on for 10% of the total holdings.

There was a snowball effect. The more Northern Rock savers closed their accounts, the higher the chances of the bank going under, and the greater the temptation for their remaining customers to pull out too. The initial panic, sparked off by news of the Bank of England loan, could have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By this morning, the panic had started to spread to other banks, too. Alliance & Leicester, Bradford & Bingley and Paragon have seen large chunks taken out of their market value.

Enter the Chancellor. Alistair Darling has tried to calm things down by promising to underwrite all £28bn of Northern Rock's deposits with Treasury funds. To put it into context, he's promising to write a cheque for three quarters of our entire defence budget, or enough money to scrap university tuition fees for the next twenty-five years. It remains to be seen whether or not the people queueing outside the branches will now decide to leave their money where it is.

The irony is this: the Bank of England's job, as a lender of last resort, is to keep confidence in the system. Banking is built on confidence, and by promising to give credit to banks when they hit a crisis, the Bank of England is able to reassure savers that their money is safe. Northern Rock customers ought to feel secure in the knowledge that if their bank hits cashflow trouble, there'll be a loan to bail them out. That loan, however, has been taken by the media and the public as a sign of imminent insolvency - and the resulting run on the bank has precipitated a problem far worse than the original liquidity trouble that made Northern Rock ask for the loan in the first place!

It isn't the Chancellor's job to guarantee the funds in struggling banks - it's the Bank of England's - and I feel that this move from Darling is a mistake. Clearly, there are problems with the way in which the "last resort" mechanism works, the way the public understand it, and the way it was reported. But Darling's decision doesn't help that mechanism - it undermines it further. And if the crisis spreads, the Treasury could find itself writing many more cheques, and much bigger ones.

The beauty of the "last resort" system, when it works properly, is that it's predictable. Under certain clearly pre-defined circumstances, the Bank of England will step in to protect people's savings. By contrast, the Chancellor's intervention is a one-off and arbitrary decision. That introduces an extra layer of uncertainty and unpredictability into the banking system, and does more harm than good. The government needs to make the current system work properly, rather than change the system in this off-the-cuff, reactionary way.

Two discoveries

2007-09-17T09:59:00.000+01:00

I've learned two things:

1. I'm actually half-decent at blogging.
2. I'm pretty useless at off-the-cuff public speaking!

I refer, of course, to last night's Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards, where I scooped best new blog, won an honourable mention for my Chindamo article, and then, under the combined influence of surprise, delight, extreme nerves and two cans of Red Bull, gave an utterly shambolic and truly embarrassing acceptance speech.

I'm sure the video will be online soon, and you can all have a jolly good laugh at it. I'll be curled up in the corner with my fingers in my ears, singing Hey Jude under my breath.

A massive thank you to everyone who organised and took part in the awards. Congratulations to the other winners, James Graham (best blog, best individual article), Mary Reid (best design, best elected blogger) and Don Liberali (most humorous). Commiserations to everyone who didn't win, especially my competitors for best new blog, as well as Millennium Dome (twice unlucky) and Alex Wilcock (who had a cracking entry in the best article category). Well done, and lots of love to you all.

As for me, I'm heading straight back to the Oxford Union to practice my speechifying ...

Thanks!

2007-09-07T14:59:00.000+01:00

I'm sorry this is slightly late - I logged in yesterday, meaning to write this post, and got just a tiny bit sidetracked by Mark Oaten!

Anyway, I'd like to say a very big thank you to everyone who nominated Hug A Hoodie in the Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards. I really am thrilled to be shortlisted for best newcomer, best individual article, and best design. It means even more when I look at the phenomenally high standard across the Lib Dem blogosphere.

When I started blogging, a bit less than a year ago, I was looking for a way of getting myself to think through my opinions more carefully, instead of just shouting them at the TV screen. I wanted to force myself to come up with some sort of coherent argument, and to develop my own knowledge. I'm thrilled to have gone far further than that: to have built up a readership, to have made new friends, and to have had so many productive debates. Things have come a long way, and I really am grateful for the recognition.

Once again, thanks very much for the nominations, hard luck to everyone who didn't make the shortlists, and very best of luck to everyone who did.

I hope I'll be able to make it to Brighton for the awards, and if I do, I look forward to finally meeting the writers behind all those Lib Dems blogs I read regularly, who contribute so much to our little yellow corner of the web.

The coalition question. Again.

2007-09-06T12:59:00.000+01:00

Mark Oaten won't have made himself very popular today. In a very disjointed article in the Times, he argues that a hung parliament now looks likely; that if it happens, the Liberal Democrats should agree to enter a coalition with whichever party is the larger; that we should therefore be prepared to ally with the Conservative Party if necessary; and that the Tories aren't really so different from us anyway.

Nothing derails the Lib Dems more effectively than speculation about a hung parliament. We need a well thought-out, reasonable, and above all, consistent answer. The fact that the question keeps coming up, again and again, shows how badly we usually tackle it. And of all the dreadful attempts, this one by Oaten has to be the worst I've ever seen.

The premise behind the article is shaky to start with - we are not staring a hung parliament in the face. Even taking the figures from the Times' poll on Tuesday, Brown would still have a majority. The last hung parliament was fully a third of a century ago; the one before that was in the year my granny was born. Under Britain's rather eccentric voting system, they come along very rarely, and when they do come, they don't last long. We need to let people know that the idea of a hung parliament isn't credible, and that it only gets so much airtime because the other parties know it gives us a headache.

But just suppose Oaten's right. Brown calls a general election, the vote splits three ways, and any possible combination of Labour, Tory and Lib Dem could form a government. Would we really be right to insist on dealing only with the larger of the other two parties?

The largest party in Parliament clearly deserves to have the first go. However, any grouping with a majority of the seats can legitimately form a government. Talking to either party would be morally acceptable. The guiding factor should be political principles, not numbers. That doesn't mean it would be unthinkable to ally with the Tories - but if we did, it would be because we managed to reach a genuine agreement, rather than because they had a half a dozen MPs more than Labour.

Mark Oaten believes we have plenty of common ground with the Tories. He arrives at this conclusion because "recent votes have seen the Lib Dems walk through the House of Commons lobby with the Tories more often than with Labour in protecting liberal values." Perhaps. But then again, perhaps it's because we're both parties of opposition, in a system where politicians can have a nuanced debate in the chamber, but are forced to make a polar choice in the lobbies.

I know I keep banging on about the importance of the Lib Dems being independent, but it's so crucial, it just can't be overstated. If we give the slightest hint that we're endorsing the Tories over the Labour, we give both of them an open invitation to squeeze us like a floppy yellow sponge. Cameron can say "why vote Lib Dem, when you can vote for the real thing?" Brown can say "if you dislike Cameron (and who doesn't?), Labour are the only choice." Exactly the same process will happen in reverse if we appear to be endorsing Labour.

The only way to get rid of the coalition question is to refuse, point blank, to give any preference to either party. Instead, we have to pledge to sit down with both of them, in the event of a hung parliament, and try our best to agree on a Queen's Speech that would be true to our liberal principles. We have to promise not to enter government, with either party, unless we can agree on a programme of legislation that doesn't betray our manifesto, and where every compromise we make, for the greater good, is explained honestly and openly to the public. That would be the most responsible way to navigate a hung parliament, should it ever occur, and far more effective than some pre-determined strategy based on crude numbers (Oaten) or personal chemistry (Ashdown and Campbell).

Perhaps the best way to turn this back on Labour and the Tories is to point how close together they now are, and argue that they'd do best to form a German-style grand coalition with each other. It's a very cheeky answer. But it's no cheekier than our opponents branding us as opportunistic, for hypothetically making the wrong choice in a non-existent situation.

Matthew Taylor's appointment - Ming should put his foot down!

2007-09-03T13:28:00.000+01:00

Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor has accepted an invitation from the Prime Minister to lead a major review of land-use policy, with the aim of improving affordable housing in rural areas. Menzies Campbell welcomed the appointment, claiming it as a victory for Lib Dem policy, and as an admission of defeat by the Government:

I am delighted that Gordon Brown has once again recognised the knowledge and experience that Liberal Democrats have to offer in tackling major policy challenges that the Government has proved unable to solve.

His analysis is optimistic at best, and at worst, appallingly naïve. Gordon Brown doesn't believe he's failed, and he isn't particularly interested in taking the Lib Dems' advice, either. Ming should know - he gave the PM some pretty sound foreign policy advice last week, and was sent packing.

It doesn't take a genius to work out what Brown's up to. His announcement came at the climax of a speech this morning, where he promised a "new politics" based on consensus, and made lots of noises about the "centre ground". His political strategy revolves around defending the centre, whilst appearing open-minded, listening, and humble. This tactic is absolutely key to revitalising a 10-year-old Government which people were beginning to get thoroughly sick of. Brown will do whatever it takes to make the new image work, even if that means suffering the odd Tory or Lib Dem in his team.

Or to put it more bluntly: Brown is cynically using the Lib Dems. He's allowing them to get a little taste of power, but being careful to offer them jobs where there's already considerable cross-party consensus, and where there's little chance of them setting their own distinctive, liberal agenda. In return for pretty minor concessions, Brown gets to portray himself as a centrist and a moderate; he gets to look diplomatic and broad-minded; and he gets to tap into the tremendous public goodwill towards the Liberal Democrats.

He knows we're likely to accept whatever biscuits he chucks our way. As the third party, opposing a Government with a fair majority, we have precious little chance to change Britain. We hate being a glorified think tank, and are frustrated by the remote chances of getting into power anytime soon. We're ambitious - rightly so - and any of us would jump at the opportunity to make a tangible difference, no matter how specific the brief.

The danger is this: the rubbing-off can work both ways. As Labour can benefit from the Lib Dems' political position, and the general perception of us as a bunch of fairly decent people, they can also begin to offload their own baggage onto us.

More to the point, the eccentricities of the British electoral system put us in a uniquely awkward position. Our vote gets squeezed from both sides, and speculation about our relationships with the other parties, especially in the event of a hung parliament, can entirely derail us. Any form of collaboration with the Government, especially when they have a good majority of their own, could go very wrong indeed.

Our independence is far more important than the opportunity of improving rural housing, however worthy a cause that may be. At a time of intellectually stale politics, and a n ever-decreasing gap between the Government and the Official Opposition, our free-thinking and distinctive voice is more vital than ever. Ming needs to put his foot down. Active Lib Dems in elected positions should be working for their party, or for parliament, but not the PM.

Iain Dale's new logo

2007-09-01T19:58:00.000+01:00

Tory blogging supremo Iain Dale wants a new banner for his website. He's asking his readers to have a go at designing one for him.

In the true spirit of Lib Dem helpfulness, I've had a crack at it. Here's my suggestion, Iain:

Well, I can dream!

Frances Lawrence and Learco Chindamo - whose rights?

2007-08-22T17:59:00.000+01:00

Learco Chindamo, the Italian-born Londoner who at the age of 15 murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence, has won a legal battle against the Home Office. Foreign prisoners are routinely deported at the end of their sentence, but Chindamo argued successfully that, having lived most of his life in Britain, he should be allowed to stay here once he's released. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal heard that Chindamo has no links with Italy, no family there, and doesn't even speak the language - and that sending him there would be in breach of his human rights.

The reaction from the inhuman right has been rather predictable. The Daily Mail carries a photo of Frances Lawrence, her life ruined by Chindamo's senseless act of violence, with the caption "What about MY rights?". Today's leader is a foaming diatribe against human rights - those of criminals, apparently, are "exalted", whereas those of crime victims matter "not a jot". Iain Dale, writing somewhat more calmly and thoughtfully than the Mail, takes a similar line. He argues that the Lawrence family must forever live with the risk of running into the killer of their husband and father, which is a clear breach of their own rights.

It's easy to sympathise. The situation is clearly not fair - Mr Lawrence was killed for no reason, ripped out of the heart of his family. His right to life wasn't respected, and nothing on earth can right the wrong of his untimely death. It must be galling for his family to see Mr Chindamo's right to a family life protected (under section 8 of the ECHR) when he entirely ignored the most fundamental right of his victim.

But this is where we, as liberals, must hold our nerve. The entire point of human rights is that they apply to everyone, without prejudice, from the worthiest saint to the cruellest killer, because they are fundamental. And as The Independent correctly points out, human rights are not a zero sum game. Justice for the Lawrence family does not mean carrying out an injustice against Chindamo, who, once he has served out his sentence, will have paid his debt as best he can under any human system of justice.

Aside from the issue of rights, there are some important practical considerations. All EU citizens can travel freely in all EU countries, and it's very doubtful whether we could stop Chindamo from re-entering Britain. It's also fairly obvious that his chances of reoffending will be far greater if he's deported to a country where he has no connections, can't speak the language, and has no chance of building a stable and legitimate career for himself. And despite the Mail's assertion that Chindamo is a "squalid undesirable", it appears that he has used his 12 years behind bars to prepare himself for a useful life once he gets outside, learning how to read, passing four GCSEs, and mentoring youths who have become stuck in the cycle of gang culture.

A tiny minority of prisoners have been told they will die behind bars. Most know that someday they will re-enter the outside world - and for the safety of everyone, they should be let out in a state where they can lead decent, law-abiding and useful lives. Mr Chindamo, despite his horrible crime, is a good example of what our criminal justice system should be aiming for. It's utterly distasteful that a 15-year-old criminal can be condemned as a total lost cause, whatever his offence.

The dilemmas surrounding criminal justice are difficult for liberals. It's a thankless debate, because if we stick to our principles, we're sometimes forced to support the rights of some deeply unpopular and even deeply wicked characters. The obvious temptation is to keep quiet. The harder road is to tackle the question directly, and put forward an articulate and loud defence of universal human rights, explaining that we can only benefit from them ourselves if we're prepared to extend them unconditionally to all human beings. We might not win over the Daily Mail's editorial team, but we'll earn far more respect in the long run.

Powers of prediction

2007-08-18T10:29:00.000+01:00

Britain's new rising star, Lewis Hamilton, has taken a lot of people by surprise. Last year, he was just one of many talented, up-and-coming racing drivers who had yet to make it into the public eye; this year, he's a Formula 1 driver, and he's leading the world championship.

With the sudden levels of massive hype in the British media, I suppose it's not very surprising that the young sportsman's biography is to be published in time for Christmas. But I was slightly shocked by the alleged contents, according to the book's synopsis on Amazon.

In case it gets taken down (and I hope it is, quickly, for Lewis's sake!), I'll reproduce it here:

This is the story of the boy who proves fairytales do come true. The boy who grew up on a council estate, who, at the tender age of 22, came through against all the odds to dominate and revolutionise the world of motor racing.Thrown in at the deep end 'on a mighty whim' by F1 team owner Ron Dennis, Lewis Hamilton crowned his 2007 debut season by winning the title in Japan in October [ed - the Japanese GP is actually in September] - and was in the running for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year 2007. It was an outcome no one seriously could have predicted: not only did he have to combat his own nerves and fears; he had to overcome a dissenter within his own camp.With behind-the-scenes insight into the intense rivalry between Hamilton and his team mate Fernando Alonso which threatened to derail the young Briton's dream, bestselling sports author Frank Worrall describes how the rookie rose above his critics, keeping his dignity and emerging triumphant as he racked up sensational wins around the world.

Now, unless I missed a meeting, there are six races left in the season, and Lewis hasn't won it yet. There are 60 points left for the taking, and Lewis's cushion is only seven. The fight is far from over. And whilst he is very likely to be "in the running" for Sports Personality of the Year, nobody's announced the shortlist yet.

Frank Worrall, if you're reading this, drop me an e-mail. With your powers of clairvoyance, I could clean out the local bookies!

The rights and wrongs of George Galloway

2007-07-24T19:59:00.000+01:00

What to make of George Galloway's 18-day suspension from the House of Commons?

I've probably made it fairly clear already on this blog that I'm not a fan of Mr Galloway, or of the RESPECT Party. Galloway's views on the Middle East are thoroughly counter-productive, and encourage hatred, rather than co-operation, between Muslim and Jewish communities in Britain. His record of attendance and participation in Parliament is beyond a joke, and his speeches, whilst oratorically very impressive, are truth-mangling bile fests which, rather than making peace more likely, actually set it back.

I'll never be able to forgive RESPECT for their behaviour at this year's NUS Conference, where they tried to block a motion to give Jewish students greater protection against anti-Semitism. The Union of Jewish Students wanted their members to be able to define anti-Semitic behaviour for themselves - a fundamental protection already enjoyed by ethnic minority groups since the Macpherson report. RESPECT argued that Jews should be denied that same protection, as they might abuse it in order to silence criticism of Israel.

With all that baggage, you might think I am delighted to see Galloway go down. In fact, I'm very disturbed that an elected MP can be thrown out of Parliament by his or her peers, on the say-so of the Standards and Privileges Committee. The only people with the power to get rid of an MP should be his own constituents. Much as I dislike Galloway, he was fairly elected, and should sit in Parliament until he stands down or gets voted out.

Unlike Galloway, I believe that the Committee acted in good faith and that their decision was a fair one. They claim they have strong evidence that Galloway failed to declare his charity's financial links with the Saddam Hussein regime, and I'm prepared to trust their judgement. But whatever an MP's misdemeanours, his constituents still deserve a representative in Westminster.

Who knows what might happen during the summer recess? When Parliament resumes, and Galloway's suspension begins, his constituents might have serious need of his help, and they don't deserve to be kept waiting for 18 days for somebody else's misbehaviour.

The Windows Vista Challenge (prize on offer)

2007-07-19T20:29:00.000+01:00

For quite a few weeks now, my technologically-savvy father has been writing an excellent blog about his experiences with Windows Vista. If you haven't yet tried this bug-infested, memory-munching excuse for an operating system, then you are very lucky. It came installed on our new desktop PC, which, despite being more powerful than the old one by a factor of 10, ran at about half the speed. That is, until we upgraded it back to Windows XP.

My dad has set an amusing challenge on his techie blog, and I thought I'd share it with the political blogging community. Imagine that VISTA were an acronym. What might it stand for?

I'll start you off with my own suggestion:

Very
Irritating -
Switch
To
Apple

Best suggestion in the comments wins a drink at Lib Dem Conference. (Unless you're not a Lib Dem, in which case it'll be a drink somewhere else.)

Mayoral run will wreck Boris’s career

2007-07-15T13:57:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow at 10am, if we're lucky, Boris Johnson will finally tell the world whether he wants to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London. According to his blog a couple of days ago, it was a definite yes – for about 10 minutes. The article suddenly disappeared from the front page, although it stayed in the archive until this morning. Perhaps he panicked and backed out; perhaps he wanted to tease us, to whet our appetites before the big announcement. Either way, we’ll know tomorrow.

He’s right to think it over carefully – and the armies of Boris fans egging him on would do well to reconsider, too. More so than any other Tory, a bid for Mayor gives Boris a serious dilemma, and could very well ruin his career.

Until now, Boris’s buffoonish streak has been a help. The scatty dress-sense, the souffléed hair, the faintly loopy writing style: it’s given him a cult popularity. It’s also helped him to survive in a harsh political world, and one which hasn’t been desperately friendly to Tories for the past decade. There are parts of Britain where people would rather stick pins in their eyes than vote Conservative – but Boris is a household name across the country, and even if people don’t agree with him, they find him amusing and likeable.

All of that would have to go if Boris ran for Mayor of London. It’s one thing having a loveable nutter livening up our TV screens, but do Londoners want a nutter to get his hands on real power? Boris knows that if he wants to be a credible challenger to Ken, he needs to emerge from the buffoon cocoon, transformed into a serious and professional politician.

There’s no doubt that he could manage it. Under the mass of unkempt blondness, there’s a top-quality brain. But right now, Boris must be asking himself whether or not it’s worth the risk. Because once the disorganised, schoolboy charm is stripped away, what you’re left with is an articulate, principled libertarian Tory. And while I mean that as a sincere compliment to Mr Johnson, I don’t think his politically-diverse fan base would warm to the new image. Libertarian Tories are a welcome part of our political landscape, but they don’t play well on the sofas of the nation on a Friday evening. Boris would very quickly fade, and turn into just another politician.

If he became Mayor of London, of course, it wouldn’t matter. He might have jacked in a popular and carefully-crafted media persona, but in return, he’d hold a position of responsibility and power. That’s a no-brainer for any ambitious MP.

The danger, though, is what would happen if he lost – and that is by far the most likely outcome. In 2000, Ken Livingstone’s personal popularity took him to a decisive victory, despite being an independent. In 2004, as the official Labour candidate, he won hands-down, although Labour had slipped in the polls with the Iraq war fresh in people’s memories. In 2008, Labour will have a clean slate and a clear lead – Ken will take an awful lot of beating, however good the Conservative or Lib Dem candidates are.

So where does that leave Boris in May 2008? A failed candidate for mayor; he’s ditched his irreverent charm, and become just another politician. He’s been condemned as a lightweight by his opponents, had all his gaffes (Liverpool, Papua New Guinea) reprinted in large type, and this time, as a contender for major office, we didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s sacrificed an awful lot, and gained nothing. It’s a hell of a gamble!

If Boris is serious about frontline politics, his best bet is to work his way quietly up the ranks of the Conservative parliamentary party. He can gradually blend in the hard-headedness that a frontbencher needs, without needing to perform an abrupt, public about-turn. If it still doesn’t work out, then at least he has a long and happy career in media and broadcasting to look forward to. By contrast, running for Mayor of London is madness.

Boris fans should leave the Facebook groups, and take their name off the petitions. “Boris for Mayor” might appeal to you now, but in a year’s time, it’ll have gone sour.

Liberals abuse our language too

2007-07-13T13:58:00.000+01:00

Tristan Mills has dug up a fascinating little quotation from the 1950s. Democrat politician Joseph S Clark, then Mayor of Philadelphia, misuses the word “liberal” to mean “one who believes in utilizing the full force of government for the advancement of social, political, and economic justice” – a big-state viewpoint which would unsettle many modern-day British liberals. For Tristan, the word “liberal” has been corrupted from both sides: on the one hand, socialists and statists have tried to claim it for their own; on the other hand, conservatives abuse it as a slur against the left in general.

You don’t even need to go back to 1953 to dig up examples. In his rather underwhelming documentary on anti-Semitism last week, Richard Littlejohn used the term “liberals” to describe the people who marched through London last year with banners praising Hezbollah – that well-known bastion of religious freedom and women’s equality. (Dynamite has a provocative review here.) Earlier on this year, Peter Hitchens wrote that “a modern British liberal will defend to the death your right to agree with him. Disagree, and he will call the police.” There certainly are people like that in Britain, such as the Diversity Officer at Wyre Borough Council, but they sure as heck aren't liberals. Are conservatives trying to smear genuine liberals by associating us with these cretins, or is it an honest case of mistaken identity?

The answer is far simpler – it’s lazy use of English. For right-wing commentators, it’s easy to throw the term “liberal” at progressive thinkers across the spectrum. It saves them the effort of exploring the differences between liberalism, social democracy and socialism. It lets them attack a broad range of opponents at the same time, without having to descend to the level of engaging with their views and providing a well-informed criticism.

But it isn’t just liberals who are the victims of this intellectual laziness. Throughout this article, I’ve used the terms “conservative” and “right-wing” indiscriminately, glossing over all the nuances. The “right” of British politics ranges from moralising traditionalists through to hardcore libertarians, and everything in between. The Conservative Party is the home of both Edward Leigh and Alan Duncan; of both IDS and Ken Clarke. On so many issues, they are poles apart: whether the state should be dominant or constrained; whether morality is a matter or private judgement or public interest. The term “right-wing” can’t possibly do justice to all this variety.

What’s more, I’ve held up Peter Hitchens and Richard Littlejohn as flag-bearers for conservatism. They certainly represent a particular brand of conservatism, but they’re individual commentators with their own views, and they can’t stand for every Tory in the country. Peter Hitchens would raise the age of consent for same-sex couples to 21; something tells me that Iain Dale probably wouldn’t. Just as liberals don’t chant the Guardian’s editorial line in unison, it can’t be fair for us to put the words of the Mail in the mouths all conservatives.

The trouble is not just this sort of laziness, but also the tribalism of UK politics. We’re all in little gangs, with our own logo and colour, and it’s very easy to think of ourselves as being “good” and our political opponents as being generically “bad”. As long as we know that we’re fighting the good fight, we’re not that bothered to know the fine detail of what we’re fighting against. It gives us a sense of comfort; it motivates us to get up and go campaigning; but it isn’t especially healthy for political debate.

Equally unhelpful is the increasing need for political parties to have a short and snappy message. With rolling 24-hour news, and increasingly professional and PR-driven campaigning, political parties have a very short space to get a quick and easy message across. Why get dragged into a balanced and detailed debate, when a lazy generalisation will win far more votes?

Tristan is right to complain about the misuse of “liberalism” to mean almost its exact opposite – but it’s far too simplistic to see this as a right-wing smear against the Lib Dems. It’s symptomatic of a far wider problem with the culture of British politics – a problem which severely threatens the quality of our national debate.

HoodieTV: Me v David Dimbleby

2007-07-07T16:28:00.000+01:00

This week's HoodieTV comes courtesy of the BBC. If you want to watch me lock horns with David Dimbleby and the other four Schools Question Time finalists, just follow this link.

The final hurdle

2007-07-04T22:15:00.000+01:00

I'm afraid I didn't make it onto the panel for tomorrow's Question Time. I've had a really good run, and I'm delighted to have been in the final five. The audition involved a mini-Question Time in the studio, chaired by David Dimbleby, and if nothing else, it's good to know that I can stand up to the full Dimbleby treatment without losing it too badly!

Thanks very much to everyone who supported me; I couldn't have made it this far without you.

The recording of the audition should be online shortly, and I'll post a link as soon as it goes up. I'll also post a more detailed account of today's adventure when I get back from London this weekend.

Very best of luck to the winner, Charlie Bell, who put in a great performance in today's audition, and deserves to do extremely well tomorrow night on TV.

The tale of BBC Question Time, Part 1

2007-07-02T13:36:00.000+01:00

The past three weeks have been epic. I roadtripped across seven countries (well, five proper countries plus Monaco and Liechtenstein). Then, I moved out of my flat in Berlin. It took me a day to pack everything, and another day of playing Tetris with my bags and my car boot. By the time I'd wedged three suitcases, two violins, two guitars and two amplifiers into the back of my Mégane, there was no space left for that barrel of Duckstein or that case of Almdudler I'd hoped to bring back; oh well. It took a day, a night and a ferry crossing to get home to Altrincham, and then I went into a couple of days' hibernation.

And now I'm back to blogging.

The biggest political story at the moment, of course, is the battle to be the fifth panellist on next week's BBC Question Time. It's the annual Schools Question Time edition, where a group of sixth-formers get to produce an episode of the flagship political programme. This year, they've decided to have a young person, chosen from the general public, taking the final place on their panel.

When they advertised the competition, I decided to have a crack at it. I had to send in a one-minute video clip explaining why I thought I was right for the job. I put my camera on a table, and told it how frustrating Question Time is when the political guests are allowed to get away with question-dodging and waffle; and then I saved the rant and e-mailed it to the BBC.

A week or two later, mid-way through my roadtrip, I was walking along the seafront in Nice when the BBC rang for a phone interview - they wanted to know a bit more about my political views, and to ask me some awkward questions. The poor beach-goers were treated to 20 minutes of watching me pace up and down the promenade, delivering a heartfelt plea for votes at 16 and the eternal damnation of George Galloway.

Four days later, in the middle of a tricky parallel parking manoeuvre outside a youth hostel in Lugano, the phone rang. I stopped the engine, picked up the phone, and was thrilled to hear that I'd made it into the final ten. My video was put up on the BBC site, alongside the videos of the other nine bright-eyed hopefuls, and we were subjected to a public vote, to narrow the field down to five.

At this point, I'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who voted for me. I know that a lot of my friends from the blogosphere backed me as the final QT panellist, and I'm very appreciative of all the support, especially to Nich Starling for giving me a massive plug.

It all paid off too, because I had another call from the BBC to say that I've made the final five - so I'll be heading to London this Wednesday to try and clear the last hurdle: a mini-QT in the studio, where I'll have to try and be more telegenic than the other four. Hopefully, hopefully, I'll make it onto the show.

Whatever happens, this story will have a Part 2.

I'm glad I'm studying in Germany this year

2007-06-10T01:08:00.000+01:00

Paris Hilton is back in jail. I'm in the country that invented Schadenfreude.

Understanding secularism

2007-06-06T15:58:00.000+01:00

Once again, a Laurence Boyce article on Lib Dem Voice has sparked off a discussion amongst the party faithful. This time, Laurence is riled by Cardinal O’Brien’s pronouncements on abortion. Last week, the Roman Catholic leader called on Catholic politicians to oppose abortion, and suggested that political leaders who vote in favour of it should be barred from Communion. Laurence sees this as “subvert[ing] the democratic process.”

To some extent, I sympathise. Laurence is right to attack the Cardinal’s stance on abortion. A woman doesn’t terminate her pregnancy for fun – she does so under very difficult and individual circumstances. A woman herself is best able to decide if an abortion is necessary and justified – not the state, and not the criminal law.

What I disagree with, however, is Laurence’s outrage that O’Brien should be allowed to air his views. It’s all very well to complain that the Cardinal isn’t elected and isn’t accountable to anyone, but as Jeremy Hargreaves points out, he doesn’t hold any political power either. Anybody who feels strongly about an issue has the right to campaign in public, and try to change people’s opinions. I’ve helped to organise a demo about a contentious and emotionally-charged issue – nobody elected me to represent them, but I really don’t think I was subverting democracy.

If Laurence believes that the religious groups should be entirely private organisations, he must accept their right to have their own policy, however out-of-kilter it is with the rest of society. And as long as churches don’t break the law on discrimination, they should be allowed to decide who is and isn’t eligible to take part in the activities they organise. The Catholic Church excluding a pro-choice politician from Communion is no worse than, say, UKIP refusing to let a pro-European edit their newsletter.

Much of the current debate stems from Laurence's belief that the Lib Dems should position themselves as an “explicitly secular political party”. Rather awkwardly, there are two definitions of the word “secularism”, with significantly different meanings, which often leads to misunderstanding and confusion when people discuss this topic. If we're going to have a rational debate on the role of secularism within the Lib Dems, we need to define our terms clearly.

Firstly, secularism can mean total freedom of belief; the idea that the state should remain entirely neutral, without promoting any religion over another, or promoting theism over atheism. That’s my view of secularism. It’s consistent with liberal thought and with existing Lib Dem policy.

Then there’s the second view, as given by the OED: the doctrine that morality should be based solely on regard to the well-being of mankind in the present life, to the exclusion of all considerations drawn from belief in God or in a future state. This brand of secularism isn’t just a neutral stance on religion, it’s an argument against it. It may well be a good argument, but that isn’t the point. If we’re going to be neutral, and leave religion up to individual consciences, then we’re wrong to attack religion, just as we’d be wrong to as promote it.

I’m all in favour of the Lib Dems having a strong platform of religious neutrality – in fact, I think it’s a fundamental liberal belief. But if we allow secularism to descend into Laurence’s pastime of “bashing religion”, even when it genuinely deserves bashing, we undermine our claim to be neutral and tolerant. It takes a lot of discipline to stay calm, especially when figures like Cardinal O’Brien make such outrageous pronouncements – but true secularism vitally needs that sort of discipline.

Sport and politics will always go together

2007-05-16T14:58:00.000+01:00

The Australian Government has banned the national cricket team from playing against Zimbabwe. Australian PM John Howard threatened to seize the players’ passports if they didn’t fall in line, claiming that their presence in Zimbabwe would be a “propaganda boost” to the “grubby dictator” Robert Mugabe.

It’s been a popular decision; MPs from across the political spectrum tabled an early day motion in Parliament welcoming the move. Whatever people think of Howard, he’s shown a lot more gumption than Jack Straw a few years ago, who shied away from a difficult decision. Straw, then Foreign Secretary, passed the buck to the England and Wales Cricket Board, saying that it was a matter for the sporting authorities, and not for the Government. That effectively forced England to play, because without the force majeure of a Government intervention, they would have had to pay a substantial fine to the International Cricket Council.

When politicians like Straw argue that sport and politics don’t mix, they’re merely running away from a difficult decision – a decision which they ought to tackle directly. For as long as national sporting teams have competed against each other, Governments have used them as a proxy, fighting for political prowess and recognition. More often than not, it’s the least pleasant and least democratic regimes, the ones with something to prove, who feel the need to inflate the national ego with a major sporting event. Sport and politics have always gone hand in hand.

Just as a case study, take the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Government bankrolled the construction of a massive, state-of-the-art racing circuit in Shanghai, where they’ve been hosting a Formula 1 Grand Prix since 2004. The project cost 240 million US dollars; the track is shaped like the Chinese character “Shang”, and has a racing paddock the size of a reasonably large village. It also has two gigantic, impossibly-balanced, glass-and-metal viewing platforms suspended over the start finish line. I have no idea how many people had to slog away to build the thing, but whoever they were, I’m pretty certain they weren’t earning a fair minimum wage, weren’t protected by workplace safety standards, and weren’t entitled to join a union or to strike. They also certainly didn’t have the chance to vote, in a general election, on whether or not a Formula 1 track was the best possible use for $240 million – or on any other political issue facing China.

I should point out that the 2007 Freedom in the World survey awarded identical (and identically atrocious) scores to both China and Zimbabwe – so perhaps if British super-kid Lewis Hamilton is still leading the World Championship at the end of the season, as F1 heads to China, the new Foreign Secretary should have his car impounded. It would devastate the fans, and almost certainly cause a diplomatic crisis – but is it any less morally justified than Howard standing up to Mugabe?

The truth is that sport will always be political. If the Governments of democratic nations stand back, and refuse to sully the purity of sporting competition with external affairs, they’ll simply allow undemocratic regimes the freedom to promote themselves without challenge. Instead, we should play Mugabe and friends at their own game, and use the sporting arena to isolate countries that fail to respect the human rights of their citizens.

We may not be able to stop sport from being infiltrated by politics, but at least we can make sure that it’s the right kind of politics.

HoodieTV: Ming must stay

2007-05-11T16:28:00.000+01:00

Welcome to a much-delayed second edition of HoodieTV.

This week's episode deals with Ming Campbell's leadership of the party, and the reason why he must stay and see us through to the next General Election.

Ming Campbell – constitutionally incoherent

2007-05-10T18:57:00.000+01:00

The Liberal Democrats have submitted a Parliamentary motion, attempting to trigger a General Election. On his blog, Ming Campbell justifies the move, writing:

Before the last General Election Tony Blair pledged to serve a full third term and the British electorate voted for him on this basis.

Now the Prime Minister is leaving it is only right that the British public have their say on who will be their next Prime Minister.

It’s an odd position to take, because a General Election isn’t an opportunity for the people to elect their Prime Minister. A General Election is a chance for voters to choose a local MP. And as long as the executive remains melted into the legislature under the quirky Westminster system, we’ll never be able to choose our Prime Minister directly.

Ah, reply the Mingers, but each local MP is elected on a pledge to fulfil their manifesto promises. Each Labour MP in the Commons was elected on the understanding that Tony Blair would serve out a whole term as Prime Minister. That’s no longer true, so no Labour MP has a mandate to serve. Bring on the Election!

But hang on. The “full third term” pledge wasn’t made in the Labour Party’s manifesto. Blair may have written in the manifesto that he wouldn’t seek a fourth term – but the promise to serve a “full third term” was made during an Andrew Marr interview. Clearly, politicians should be honest in interviews, but it’s really pushing it to say that an interview answer forms a solemn contract with the electorate. And although MPs should be held to account for the way they vote in Parliament, I fail to see how each individual MP must take personal responsibility for their party leader's career plans.

There have been times when the Government really has broken a manifesto promise – for example, by introducing the tuition fees they had “legislated to prevent” – but we didn’t call for a snap General Election. It would have been far more justifiable then than it is now, so why didn’t we?

Because that’s just not what these motions are for. Despite presumably enjoying Conservative support, Ming’s motion stands no chance of passing. Like all opposition motions, it’s a way for a party to set out its own views, contrast them with those of the Government, and claw its way into the next day’s papers.

So this reaction by the Lib Dems is a criminal waste. We get little enough airtime as it is, and we should use it constructively, in the public interest. With no immediate prospect of forming a majority Government, we don’t need to be scraping around for fractions of a percentage point in the polls. We serve Britain far better by concentrating on political issues – and often, we have the freedom to take a more creative and brave line than either the Government or the Official Opposition. In the present political climate, that job of being an independent and creative voice in Parliament is our most important duty to the country. Instead, Ming has put forward a motion which he must know to be constitutionally incoherent, for the sake of a few populist points in the opinion polls – points which, if they materialise at all, will have been achieved off the back of public ignorance about Britain’s political system!

I’m sad to say that since Ming became leader, my initial support for him has been sorely tested. I deeply respect him for his principled and honest approach to politics, his expertise on foreign affairs, and his persistence in talking about issues like extraordinary rendition. But the more he continues, the more it seems as if he’s bitten off more than he can chew. When I argue with Labour and Conservative friends, I wish I could tell them that Ming is an excellent leader – but in all honestly, I can’t anymore.

HoodieTV: Local elections in England

2007-05-04T15:54:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. This vlog experiment isn't going well, is it? To fail once is excusable, especially when you're ill. To fail twice is certainly pushing it. To fail a third time is unacceptable.

The excuse this time: technical problems. I recorded the vlog, but for some reason the video and the audio are out of sync, and I can't fix it. It also looks as if I'm doing something rather dodgy with my left hand, although I assure you this is merely a cruel trick of the camera! To top it all, I'm out of battery, and I'm out of the will to live, let alone re-record the darn thing.

So here's a transcript of what I would have said:

"Paradoxically, the first thing to become clear from these election results is that there is no clear message for any of the main parties. We’re dealing with a pretty nuanced and complex set of data, and all three parties will be able to spin some positives out of it.

"I'm sure the Conservatives will be celebrating the most. Before this vote, Tory bloggers were saying they’d be happy with 40% projected national vote share, and they’ve exceeded expectations with 41 – in theory, that’s enough for a majority at the next general election. In practice, you can’t just neatly extrapolate general election results from the results for local councils, and the Tories can’t just assume they’re on their way to an easy landslide in a couple of years. Still, they’ve given themselves a very good springboard, and David Cameron’s position can only be more secure now.

"Labour must be relieved to have avoided a total electoral meltdown – but the fact that avoiding a meltdown is seen as an achievement shows how bad things have become. With their leadership still unresolved, it’s hard to place Labour at the moment. It’ll take a few months of Gordon to know where they really stand in public opinion.

"Which brings me onto the Lib Dems, and a worryingly indecisive result. Impressive gains in some places, offset by losses elsewhere. Most upsettingly, we seem to have lost some middle-of-the-road votes to the Tories, whilst picking up disaffected Labour support, in a sort of revolving-door action. At a time when we need to be consolidating, building a core vote, and establishing an identity based on policy and on principles, this doesn’t bode particularly well.

"It isn't a disaster by any means. It certainly isn’t the time for panic, or for drastic and rushed remedies. But over the coming weeks and months, we’re going to have to think long and hard about how to make progress, and how to kick-start the party from here."

Selective quotation

2007-05-02T13:28:00.000+01:00

In Prime Minister's Questions today, Tony Blair quoted from the Liberal Democrat document The State They've Put Us In. I'd already read it, but I hardly recognised the words Blair read out. In quotation after quotation, we apparently praised the Government's record in glowing terms, as a horde of Labour backbenchers cheered us on. At the climax Blair said that according to the Lib Dems, he had pursued an "ethical foreign policy".

The problem is that we said no such thing. We said that in 1997, "a Foreign Policy with an ethical dimension was announced", which is true. The rest of the document goes on to demonstrate how that promise was comprehensively broken.

Sometimes, I think we need to be more careful about how we phrase ourselves in leaflets, to avoid being misrepresented, as we were by this (Tory?) flyer:

(I'm sure we actually pledged to use the term "life sentence" only for an actual lifelong sentence, to avoid confusing and upsetting the victims of crime. We surely weren't suggesting that murderers should be let out earlier.)

Still, however carefully we express ourselves, I don't think there's much we can do when the Prime Minister misrepresents us on live TV. Unfortunately, he always gets the last word in PMQs, and if he saves his slapdown till the end, there's no real defence.

Holocaust denial: what happened to European principles?

2007-04-22T18:57:00.000+01:00

In a climbdown from its earlier plans, the EU has decided not to introduce a blanket ban on Holocaust denial. The new proposal, a compromise agreed between Ministers, makes it illegal to trivialise crimes of genocide, but only if it has the effect of inciting hatred or violence. It sounds rather like a waste of time, as you'd have thought inciting hatred or violence was illegal anyway, but even if it's superfluous, it's still a considerable improvement.

Chris Davies, Lib Dem Euro MP for the North West, responded with this superb little nugget:

There are stupid people everywhere but in a free society they should have the right to be stupid.

Yes, quite.

I do wonder, though: why on earth does this sort of thing require EU-wide legislation? Much as I disagree with banning Holocaust denial, I can understand why it's a matter for debate in places like Germany and Austria. The different EU member states have very different histories and responsibilities, so why isn't it up to national parliaments to decide what's right for each country? This certainly isn't an area where the EU should have competence.

Angela Merkel, at the start of Germany's EU Presidency, talked about the importance of reviving the European Constitution. One of the good things about that Constitution was the emphasis it put on the principle of subsidiarity - the idea that everything the EU does should be carried out on the lowest possible level. If the members states can get something done on their own, the EU should keep its nose out of it. This entire episode shows a shocking contempt towards that key principle of subsidiarity. European voters have already rejected the Constitution in its present form, and if even the Council of Ministers can walk all over it with disdain, they can hardly expect people to accept a revised version.

HoodieTV: Cancelled

2007-04-20T15:13:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. Just one week into my vlog experiment, and I have to pull an episode. No HoodieTV this afternoon. I'm down with the Dreaded Lurgy, and you really don't want to watch 3 minutes of me sniffling about liberalism!

Conventional blog posts will carry on as usual - have a good weekend!

A ban on Holocaust denial: music to the ears of the far right

2007-04-19T18:28:00.000+01:00

In 1986, in his book The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi wrote about the difficulties in explaining Auschwitz to new generations:

I remember with a smile the adventure I had several years ago in a fifth grade classroom, where I had been invited to comment on my book and answer the pupils’ questions. An alert-looking little boy, apparently at the head of the class, asked me the obligatory question: “But how come you didn’t escape?” I briefly explained to him [about the malnutrition and starvation, the watchtowers and electrified fencing, the fanaticism of the guards, and the fact that there was nowhere to flee to even if I escaped]; not quite convinced, he asked me to draw a sketch of the camp on the blackboard …My interlocutor studied the drawings for a few instants, asked me for a few further clarifications, then he presented to me the plan he had worked out: here, at night, cut the throat of the sentinel; then, put on his clothes; immediately after this, run over there to the power station and cut off the electricity, so the searchlights would go out and the high tension fence would be deactivated; after that I could leave without any trouble. He added seriously: “If it should happen to you again, do as I told you; you’ll see that you’ll be able to do it.”

That little anecdote made me smile too, but it’s also worrying – it shows how difficult it was for young people to get their head round the Holocaust, even in the 1980s. With each generation, we’re further removed from what took place, and it’s an unsettling sign of the times that nowadays, people can claim that the Nazis didn’t systematically murder millions.

It’s an even more unsettling sign of the times when we start to take those people seriously. The EU is very wrongly proposing a blanket ban on Holocaust denial, as well as “grossly trivialising” other genocides. The suggestion has been around for six years, and since then, there’s been much debate about the exact wording, and which crimes against humanity should be included. (The Armenian genocide, for example, is specifically exempted, to avoid upsetting Turkey.)

There’s very little point in me going back over the classic arguments for unrestricted free speech. I believe there’s no idea so right, or so wrong, that it should be exempt from being discussed, but that argument’s been made for centuries, and much more convincingly than I could put it. What I am certain of, however, is that this sort of legislation will largely help the far right. You only need to look at what happened a couple of years back, when pseudo-historian and revisionist David Irving was arrested in Austria under existing Holocaust denial laws. The British National Party used the news story as a springboard for this very dangerous article, a classic example of the Trojan horse tactics of the far right.

I say “Trojan horse” because the BNP are making a legitimate complaint against a genuine wrong (in this case, a writer being arrested for suggesting a banned idea) – but at the same time, they’re allowing several outrageous claims to piggyback on a reasonable-sounding article. Half of the BNP article is a coherent defence of freedom of speech; the other half consists of subtle insinuations about the truth of the Holocaust, and a defence of David Irving’s deliberate forgeries.

Just over a decade after the Rwandan genocide, and in the middle of the genocide in Darfur, the BNP are able to get away with saying that the events of WWII are “matters of history, not of 21st century politics” – although these events couldn’t be more relevant to us today. And in a moment of extreme cynicism, the BNP claim that discussions about the truth of the Holocaust are irrelevant to the debate, purely a matter for historians, and that they are entirely neutral on the issue – despite the fact that they're sticking up for the reputation of an entirely discredited writer, and defending his debunked views! What coherence.

If we ban Holocaust denial, we’ll give the far right many more martyrs like Irving. And every time the BNP have a legitimate grievance to write about, they’ll manage to sneak in half a dozen revisionist, or downright racist ideas, under a veneer of plausibility. The BNP may claim to be appalled by a ban on Holocaust denial, but if the EU follows through with its idiotic idea, Nick Griffin and his ilk will be laughing all the way to the polling station.