Voting for Change?

The British House of Commons will be voting later today on whether to hold a referendum on changing the country’s first-past-the-post system of electing Westminster MPs with the Alternative Vote (AV), which would give voters a slightly greater say in choosing their representative as they could order the preferences — 1, 2 etc. For most supporters of proportional representation — which includes a majority of Liberal Democrats — AV falls far short of the ideal. The Single Transferable Vote (used in Nothern Ireland, amongst other places) gives a much fairer outcome. Moreover, the AV system being suggested falls short even of AV-Plus (which involves a top-up list to ensure a more proportional outcome) which was recommended by the late Roy Jenkins and his Commission way back in 1998. That Commission was largely a result of Labour’s 1997 Manifesto commitment to consider introducing PR, but of course fairer vtoes then disappeared off the government’s agenda and have only been resuscitated by Gordon Brown in the twilight of the Labour administration in the hope that this might somehow assuage public anger at the MPs’ expenses scandal. Some bloggers argue that AV would be even worse than first-past-the-post, but I hope the vote in the House today does approve a referendum, as this will then open up the whole issue of electoral reform. Those of us who want STV will then have an opportunity to make our case on a matter previously dismissed by the mainstream British media as ‘marginal’. Indeed, I’ll be taking part in a workshop at the Friends Meeting House in London next week aimed at taking the debate further.

Pre-Carnival

Brazil’s Carnival will take place next weekend –  an annual explosion of partying in the street, parades, drinking and brief encounters (for which the government is distributing 55 million free condoms) before, in principle, everyone hunkers down into Lent. Unlike Rio’s Carnival, where samba schools perform in closed locations in front of a paying crowd, in the rest of the country Carnival is one big street-fest, free and easy. Here in Fortaleza, in north-eastern Céara province, however, the Workers Party local administration has put on a big festival this weekend, as a pre-Carnival, to give some of the samba groups a chance to practise in front of a big crowd, but more importantly for the local population to get revved up. There’s an enormaous stage on the beach at Praia de Iracema, where pop groups are playing, though the thousands of young people who had gathered to dance were a bit put out at having to listen to 15 minutes of speeches from politicians about how great the city council is before the music started. Unlike in the south of the country, where there have been extensive floods, it hasn’t rained in the north-east for four months. That’s not that unusual for this time of the year. One of the first radio packages I did for BBC Radio 4, over 25 years ago, was on the drought here in Céara and the accompanying hunger. The authorities have got much better at handling such extremes of climate these days, but people still flock into Fortaleza from the parched countryside. The population is now approaching three million, not counting all those people who sleep in the doorways of shops in the city centre. At least at Carnival (and Pre-Carnival) everyone, rich and poor, can get up and join in the celebrations and forget their woes.

British MPs in the Dock

Three British members of the House of Commons (all Labour) and one Conservative peer are to be charged with offences under the Theft Act, relating to allegations of false accounting for personal gain. They strongly deny the charges and intend to fight cases that are expected to come to court next month. The specifics range from claiming for a mortgage that had already been paid off to falsified invoices for cleaning and other services. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has expressed his anger over the alleged abuses by his three MPs, former Minister Elliot Morley, Jim Devine and David Chaytor, and Lord Hanningfield has had the Tory whip withdrawn in the House of Lords. One must not prejudge the outcome of the trials, nor should one gloat over the fact that there are no Liberal Democrats involved. Scores of other MPs and peers must be breathing a sigh of relief that they have not had criminal charges brought against them, despite being reprimanded and in many cases obliged to return thousands of pounds of allowances. The system that was exposed in last year’s expenses’ scandal was wide open to abuse, and abuse it many parliamentarians did, sometimes with the encouragement of the parliament’s own Fees Office. The charging of the three MPs and Lord Hanningfield will not bring closure to the affair, however. It is a running sore which will fester right into the forthcoming general election campaign.

BBC Question Time Losing Its Grip?

Twitter was buzzing — and rightly so — last evening when there was no LibDem on the panel on Question Time on an occasion where the Iraq War — inevitably — was a major topic of discussion. Instead, the producers invited rent-a-gob George Galloway, who was in no way an appropriate substitute. Has the BBC forgotten that it was Charles Kennedy and the LibDem members of parliament (without exception ) who opposed the Iraq War, and who received much abuse in the House of Commons and some of the media because of this principled stand? George Galloway´s paradoxically-named ‘Respect’ Party did not even have a single MP at the time and ´Gorgeous´himself was spinning madly that those old videos of him with Saddam Hussein really didn’t mean in any way that he had been endorsing the hideous dictator. Oh dear. BBC Question Time used really to be a flagship political programme, but increasingly it is opting for celebrities and loud-mouths. I guess the powers that be think this will boost ratings. But what it will certainly do is drive people who really care about British politics away.

Phil Willis on Faith and Science

Alastair Campbell famously reined in Tony Blair once by saying ‘We don’t do God!’ Subsequently, of course, it became clear that whatever Number 10’s Spinmeister wished, Blair did God in a big way — and thus had even more to talk about with his pal George W Bush. Together, they were indeed on a sort of Crusade, not just to get rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but to defend what they considered to be good, wholesome Christian values. Campbell’s warning reflected the fact that Britain — in common with most of the rest of Western Europe — has largely become a secular society; only a small percentage of the nation’s Christians could be described as ‘practising’ in any true sense of the word. Nonetheless, within all political parties there is a nucleus of ‘believers’, whether they are Christian Socialists, Conservative CofE or Liberal Democrat Non-Conformists.

Indeed, the Non-Conformist tradition in the old Liberal Party was very strong and there are more than a few remnants today. Methodists, in particular, are well represented among party members, but so too adherents to smaller denominations or sects, such as the Quakers. After the merger with the SDP, at least some of that tradition survived and is well represented by the LibDem Christian Forum (LDCF), whicb notably runs breakfast events during autumn federal party conferences, when many less conscientious delegates are asleep or nursing a hangover. The LDCF has also instituted an annual lecture, named in memory of William Gladstone (who had no qualms about involving God in politics). Alan Beith, MP, gave the first lecture last year and tonight, at the National Liberal Club, the honour fell to the retiring MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, Phil Willis. The former headmaster gave a thoughtful reflection (devoid of his usual stock of jokes) on Faith and Science, arguing that scientists, politicians and theologians are all researchers into truth and act largely out of a desire to serve humanity’s best interest. As Phil said, Gladstone avoided locking horns directly with his contemporary Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution rumbled through the second half of the 19th century until breaking as a great storm in the 20th. Some people blame Darwin for the decline of religious faith, others the horrors of War. And in a sense, Nick Clegg is a product of our secular age. But one hopes that all liberally-minded people – whether of great, little or no faith — can unite round the values being promoted by the party: of tolerance of diversity and the championing of fairness as a basis for society.

Link: www.ldcf.net

Un Prophete

When I was a film critic in Belgium in the 1970s, I used to see five films a week in the various distributors’ screening rooms, whereas these days I am lucky if I get to five films a year. Journalism and politics combined leave little time for ‘normal’ activities. But I was lucky in my first 2010 cinematic outing, as I was taken this evening to see Jacques Audiard’s ‘Le Prophete’, a complex and compelling portrayal of a young Arab Frenchman’s graduation as hardman (yet still with a heart) in the violent world of a prison largely controlled by members of a Corsican mafia. Though gory in parts, the violence is never gratuitous and fascinatingly the story and acting are handled in such a way that the viewer remains concerned for and attached to the central character, Malik (Tahar Rahim), even after he starts commiting terrible murders as part of his survival strategy in the jungle into which he has been thrust. Niels Arestrup is brilliant in the supporting role of the Corsican Big Cheese. The film has already deservedly picked up a number of awards at Cannes and elsewhere and is being predicted for several Oscars. A marvellous testament to the ongoing vigour and artistic creativity of French cinema.

Ken, Julie, Shazia and a Tory Called Dave

There was a rowdy Question Time-style meeting (compered by DJ Stewart Who?) at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in Lambeth last night, at which the main sport for some was clearly Bindel-baiting. Columnist and radical feminist political activist Julie Bindel has upset the transgender community with several of her comments about gender dysphoria and related topics, and about 40 Trans-people and friends held a good-humoured demonstration outside the venue (corraled safely by police, well away from the entrance) chanting slogans criticising the RVT’s decision to ‘give a platform to bigotry’. Inside the pub was much noisier at times, as a few persistent hecklers shouted at her every time she said (or they thought she said) something that offended them, some even drawing parallels between her and Nick Griffin of the BNP. One person threw a plastic name-badge and lanyard at her. Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, the out-gay Tory parliamentary candidate for Eltham, David Gold, and I therefore found ourselves having to speak up for freedom of speech, as well as defining our own varying lines on the LGBT issues that were being raised. Shazia Mirza, the Muslim comedian who, like Julie Bindel, has been receiving death threats, brought some welcome light relief with some well-judged satirical jokes. It was a shame, though, that the evening became rather dominated by the Bindel-bashing, as I would have liked to ask the personable David Gold what he is going to do to protest about his party leadership’s cuddling up to homophobes in Northern Ireland and the European Parliament. And also to explain the extraordinary boxed quote at the top of his website, from ‘a former Labour voter’, viz: “My purse was stolen in the supermarket. Immigration is out of control. We need a change.” That strikes me as pandering to xenophobia, even racism, which sits oddly with his commitment to LGBT rights.

Julia Neuberger Champions Volunteering

The Liberal Democrat peer, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, was the guest speaker at Islington LibDems’ pizza and politics last night. The original idea had been that she would be interviewed by the Leader of Islington Council, Terry Stacy, but he was bedridden with flu. In the discussion, Baroness Neuberger was asked how she got on as an advisor to the Labour government a while back, when Gordon Brown was trying to assemble a government of all the talents, or GOATs (as opposed to the sheep that make up most of his Cabinet). She said that her personal relationship with the Prime Minister was good, having worked with him professionally on various issues when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and her experience as an advisor was happier than that of her fellow LibDem peer Anthony Lester, QC. Perhaps, she surmised, this was largely because there was much greater consensus on the topic of her consultancy: volunteering. She is a strong advocate of the value of volunteering, not last within the National Health Service, and she believes that it will inevitably take on a more important role as our population ages, meaning more frail elderly in need of personal care, but also more fit older people with time on their hands. She also underlined the success of one project she had been involved in, which was to encourage government departments to allow their civil servants to volunteer in working time. This had greatly improved their job satisfaction and performance, she said.

Elspeth Attwooll’s Merton Burns Night

Merton Liberal Democrats’ Burns Night suppers have become something of an institution; odd, really, when one considers that the Willott family that has for so long been heavily involved in the organisation of the event has far stronger roots in Wales. But year after year, local party volunteers put on a splendid three course haggis supper, with copious wine (and of course whisky), a piper and this year, as an innovation, an excellent musical rendition of some Burns songs, arranged for piano and tenor. The star of the evening last night was former LibDem MEP for Scotland, Elspeth Attwooll, who proposed the toast to the immortal memory of Robert Burns with erudition and wit; she could not only pronounce the dialect of some of the quotes but clearly understood it all as well! She even had a saucy anecdote about a canvasser campaigning for the late George Mackie and his encounter with a pipe-smoking old woman way up north — a useful reminder that puritanism does not have a monopoly among Scottish Highland souls. I suppose the reason so many Brits — by no means only the Scots — love Burns is because he was a raffish rebel, a bit of a cad in some ways, but essentially a romantic and a free thinker (though his Whig friends in Edinburgh liked to think he was one of them). Of course, dying so young only embellished his reputation. In the 19th century, that was what poets were meant to do.

Link: www.mertonlibdems.org.uk

The LibDems’ New Generation

The boardroom at the Liberal Democrats’ headquarters in Cowley Street, Westminster, was packed this evening for a New Year reception for the New Generation intitiative, which seeks to make the party more representative of the communities that it serves, notably in the fields of ethnic diversity, LGBT sectors and disability. Since New Generation was first launched six months ago, the number of people directly involved has tripled. But as Nick Clegg — the keynote speaker at this evening’s event — stressed, the LibDems as a party still have quite a hill to climb in making the party’s elected representaties more diverse. There are currently only two LibDem ethnic minority members of the House of Lords, none in the Commons (following Parmijit Gill’s defeat in Leicester South at the last General Election), nor in the European Parliament, following N.W. England MEP, Sajjad Karim’s defection to the Conservatives. However, in recent months, the LibDems have not only selected a number of excellent BME PPCs to fight parliamentary seats, but also many BME Council candidates. Present at this evening’s gathering was the latest addition to the LibDem BME Councillor fold, Brian Haley, formerly a senior Labour representative on Haringey Council who had become disillusioned by that low-performing borough’s Labour administration. Nick Clegg is right: the necessary change won’t happen overnight, but things are moving in the right direction, especially in London — and quite right too, as the capital is Britain’s most diverse society. 

Photo: Cllr Brian Haley is welcomed by Lynne Featherstone MP (Hornsey & Wood Green) and Haringey Council LibDem Group Leader Robert Gorrie