The Liberal Dissenter

The report to this month's Liberal Democrat conference from the party's Gender Balance Task Force includes this intriguing statement:

At close of nominations, 24% of new women candidates were women, an increase on last time - more than either other main party.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 11:57 am 1 comments

Outrageous! Two European governments have dared to interfere in the free market, not only by banning certain airlines from their territory on safety grounds, but also by publishing their blacklists.

This is the nanny state gone mad.

As a consumer, I demand the right to fly on North Korea's Air Koryo and on that sterling Ghanaian outfit, Johnsons Air Ltd. Furthermore, I demand the right not to know that these airlines might be rather dodgy operators.

After all, what could possibly go wrong? The worst that might happen is that the in-flight catering is supplied by Gate Gourmet.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:12 am 0 comments

Right-wingers and other assorted establishment figures in the Liberal Democrats are very fond of stigmatising their party conference in terms of being dominated by a "lunatic fringe" or "wacky ideas". But one wonders who the real fringe elements are when one sees the motion titled "Future of Europe" submitted by the party's Federal Policy Committee to the forthcoming conference in Blackpool. Although submitted in the name of the FPC, the text turns out to be the work of the party's ' Treasury Team' of Westminster parliamentary spokesmen.

Whatever one's views on the EU, a conference motion, especially one from an 'official' source, ought to get its facts right. And such a motion should be drafted in consultation with the party's MEPs and councillors who are involved with these issues and know what they are talking about. However, it seems that the Liberal Democrats' so-called 'shadow cabinet' took the view that such precautions need not apply.

But don't take my word for it. Read what one senior party figure has to say.

The following article (quoted here in full) has been written by Chris Davies MEP (group leader of the British Liberal Democrat MEPs, and a former MP and councillor) for publication in the ALDC's Grassroots Campaigner magazine. It deserves wider circulation.

STORM CLOUDS BREWING

A senior Liberal Democrat MP, who incidentally has never been a councillor, once told the weekly meeting of the parliamentary party: "What do these councillors know about it anyway? This is a matter for parliamentarians." I forget the exact subject under discussion but it related to a local government responsibility. I do remember the dismissive tone of the remark.

It's not only MPs who are tempted to believe that they know best. I know of county councillors who don't think much of their district brethren, and of others who have no time at all for the views of parish councillors. European parliamentarians are not immune from the same infliction. We MEPs have a tendency to assume that our Westminster colleagues are completely out of touch with all things European. In turn, many MPs assume that their colleagues in Brussels have gone completely 'native' and discarded all political judgement.

I draw two conclusions. First, that all Liberal Democrat representatives should make greater efforts to give the views of our colleagues the benefits of the doubt. Second, that we really must improve dialogue and enhance our consultation procedures.

Party conference in Blackpool will be debating a motion on the Future of Europe submitted by the Federal Policy Committee. It includes a call for the "maintenance of the cap of 1% on the EU budget until radical reforms in the budget have been achieved."

Let's leave aside the poor wording and the fact that most people will have no idea what the reference to a "cap of 1%" actually means. Let's leave aside also the fact that it does not exist and so cannot be "maintained". Instead, let's assume that the idea of limiting EU spending and making "radical" but unspecified reforms has a superficial political appeal. But what would it mean in practice?

The motion ignores the fact that the EU has grown from 15 to 25 nations, with two more waiting in the wings. With future spending programmes on agriculture already agreed by Britain and its partners, and much money already committed, the only way in which the EU budget can now be limited to 1% of national GNPs is to make deep cuts in other programmes.

That may mean slashing the research programmes needed to give Europe the chance to keep up with the economies of the Far East. It may mean cuts in spending on measures to combat terrorism, improve security and fight organised crime. It may lead to overseas aid programmes being abandoned and the EU being unable to intervene militarily in crisis situations. If this motion is passed Liberal Democrats will be accused by environment NGOs from Greenpeace to the RSPB of undermining efforts to protect Europe's most environmentally precious areas and halt the reduction in biodiversity.

There is one way around the slash and burn approach that would still keep EU spending within a 1% national ceiling. It is to follow the lead of Gordon Brown and demand the 'repatriation' of EU spending on regional aid so that it becomes an entirely national responsibility. Not surprisingly this would be an approach opposed by all the poorer nations; one object of the EU programme is, after all, to address the economic imbalances and raise every part of Europe to a minimum standard. It would also be opposed by just about every Liberal Democrat councillor involved in the campaign to secure for Britain a fair allocation of regional aid in the next spending programme.

Liverpool councillor Flo Clucas has led for the Liberal Democrats in many of the cross-party debates. When I asked her what would be the consequences were the FPC motion to be approved she told me it would "cut the ground from under us. The effect would be major."

EU structural fund programmes allow councils to plan ahead for a 7-year period without fear of political change. Put the Treasury in charge and there would be no guarantees or security, just uncertainty and year by year negotiations. The Brussels principle of 'additionality' would struggle to survive. National support for structural fund projects is supposed to be in addition to normal expenditure, but left to its own devices many suspect that the Government would claim to be funding projects while in fact cutting the cash from normal budgets. Councillors tend to have more confidence in the fairness of Brussels bureaucrats than in that of Whitehall mandarins.

Guarantees for continued funding for Objective One areas would go, councils receiving Objective Two funding would be left uncertain, every local authority involved in InterReg programmes in partnership with bodies elsewhere in Europe would see the projects end. The efforts of Liberal Democrat councillors to build a cross-party consensus would be blown apart and all for what?

The call for a 1% of national GNP cap on EU spending has come from the party's Treasury team at Westminster. I am not aware that either our LGA representatives or the ALDC have been consulted. I can say categorically that no attention whatsoever has been paid to the views of the European parliamentary party. If this is an early example of the way in which policies are now to be fashioned then we should all assume that rough waters lie ahead.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 7:24 pm 14 comments

Following my request for information about railway locomotives named after Liberal Party leaders, three more engines have come to light.

A fourth Lloyd George has been found - a Great Central 4-6-0 built in 1920. The website tells us, intriguingly, that

No. 6167 Lloyd George lost its nameplates on the orders of Sir Frederick Banbury, during August 1923. The nameplates were lost until 1963 when Kings Cross Top Shed was being demolished, and they were found behind a partition.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 8:12 pm 1 comments

Here's the best idea yet for fighting the religious fruitcakes who want to teach creationism in school science classes.

Parents in Kansas are combating the pressure for 'Intelligent Design' with this open letter to the Kansas School Board. They are demanding that their belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster is given equal recognition.

They have some strong arguments.

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 6:58 pm 2 comments

The sad death of Mo Mowlam removes from British politics one of the few 'real' people among leading politicians. Most prominent politicians nowadays have contrived a stilted and pretentious public persona, dehumanised to the extent that one could never imagine going down the pub with them.

New Labour's front bench is media-trained and soundbitten to within an inch of its life. Among leading Tories, only Ken Clarke regularly displays any earthy qualities. Among leading Liberal Democrats, one's worry about Charles Kennedy would be getting out of the pub.

Which brings us to the question of funeral orations. Robin Cook's recent funeral was enlivened by the "totally uncalled for" contribution of racing pundit John McCririck.

Mo Mowlam had an even more irreverent sense of humour than Cook. During the Northern Ireland peace negotiations, she regularly addressed Martin McGuinness as "babe" and once famously told Ian Paisley to "fuck off". She is hardly likely to have been concerned to spare anyone's blushes at her own funeral.

So I'm looking forward to some female equivalent of John McCririck (hard to imagine, I know), climbing into the pulpit next week to insult Tony Blair and generally steal the show. Any suggestions for likely candidates?

# posted by Simon Titley @ 2:57 pm 0 comments

The other day, I reported major repairs to the preserved steam locomotive Sir Archibald Sinclair, named after the Liberal Party's leader from 1935 to 1945.

This set me wondering whether any other Liberal leaders have been similarly honoured. Railway enthusiasts are not unknown in the Liberal Democrats, so perhaps someone out there could enlighten us?

In the meantime, I have done a quick Google search to find out which leading Liberals are in steam. To begin with, I am fairly certain that none of Sinclair's successors (from Clement Davies onwards) have had a railway locomotive named after them.

There have been at least three engines called David Lloyd George. One, a class 47 diesel no.47409 (pictured here at Crewe Works), had its nameplate unveiled by David Penhaligon MP at London King's Cross station on 14th September 1985, an event I witnessed. This loco was about to haul a special train full of party conference delegates to the Liberal Assembly in Dundee (and if you can remember that notorious journey, you weren't there). The nameplates didn't last long, however; they were removed in August 1986 and the loco was scrapped in 1989.

A second diesel, a class 37 loco no.37428 (pictured here at Crewe station), was named David Lloyd George in May 1987 at Pwllheli. In 1998, the engine was renamed Royal Scotsman but last year it was put into store, destined, one suspects, for the scrapyard.

(Collectors' Corner: One of the nameplates from these two diesels fetched £5,100 at auction in 2002. And railway model fans may care to note that Lima once manufactured a limited edition model of no.37428).

The third David Lloyd George is still in service. It is a narrow-gauge steam locomotive running on the Ffestiniog Railway in North Wales and is named bilingually (David Lloyd George on one side, Dafydd Lloyd George on the other). The loco looks old but was in fact built as recently as 1992. (If mp3 files of steam engines are your thing, you can listen to Lloyd George departing from Porthmadog here - click the 'sample' button for track 1).

The Ffestiniog is also home to a steam engine called Palmerston, built in 1864. Meanwhile, on the nearby Welsh Highland Railway, the pride of the locomotive fleet is named Russell but, since it was not built until 1906, it is moot whether it was named after the first Earl.

Then of course there is Gladstone, built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1882 and preserved at the National Railway Museum in York.

So far, so Google. I can find no trace of any locomotives named after Sir Herbert Samuel, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman or Herbert Henry Asquith (if you wanted to be leader of the Liberal Party in the early twentieth century, it clearly helped if you were called Herbert or Henry, and Asquith took no chances). Going back further, there is no obvious record of a Harcourt, Rosebery or Hartington steaming through Evercreech Junction.

Nowadays, instead of railway locomotives named after army regiments, famous racehorses or Liberal prime ministers, one finds engines with names such as BP Gas Avonmouth, Crimestoppers, and Valhalla Blackpool Pleasure Beach. And they say the age of romance is dead.

PS: Update here.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:10 am 2 comments

If your idea of a good time is subjecting yourself to Stalinist abuse from North Korean propagandists, then why not try the KCNA Random Insult Generator?

# posted by Simon Titley @ 5:41 pm 0 comments

Liberator 304 - out now!

The latest issue of Liberator magazine is landing on subscribers' doormats as I write.

Highlights in this issue include:

• Greg Mulholland MP on community relations in Leeds and maintaining Liberal values, following the London bombings.

• Lynne Featherstone MP on the need to campaign effectively on crime.

• David Boyle on the true meaning of that abused political term, a 'narrative'.

• All the regular features, including Commentary, Radical Bulletin and Lord Bonkers.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:21 pm 0 comments

Call me old-fashioned, but the current craze for iPods and other MP3 players leaves me cold. I could provide a number of rational reasons why I won't buy one (and will do so shortly), but Stephen Fry expressed the emotional case well in an unusually good This much I know column in Sunday's Observer Magazine.

Much of what has evolved for man to use - a pen, a piano - is beautiful to touch, to look at and hold. It is important that the tools we use to work are not just well designed, but vibrant enough to engage one emotionally.

Gone are the days of lugging your entire CD collection around on trips, or scrabbling under your car seat for an old cassette that’s encrusted in mud. With an MP3 player (or Digital Audio Player to give it its correct name) you can store an arm's length of CDs in a device no bigger than your mobile phone and play them back in any order you so choose; you can even create custom playlists and compilations to suit your mood.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 2:08 am 4 comments

As Iraq descends into an ever greater shambles, the American and British governments are making increasingly delusional claims about "remaining on track" and "improving security". And, of course, if they can claim to have "won", they can withdraw their troops (or "scale back our commitment", in the current jargon). Their euphemisms can barely disguise a decision to quit.

So why isn't the pro-war lobby protesting? As Matthew Parris observes in today's Times, the journalists who cheered on the invasion of Iraq are curiously silent about the impending withdrawal.

... our own Government is talking about massive British troop reductions in southern Iraq, possibly for "redeployment" to Afghanistan ("or tsunami relief, or Oxfam, or anywhere", gulps Tony Blair into his shaving mirror).

The game is nearly up: not the military game, the psychological one. We can no longer take the strain in Iraq. We are going to make a bolt for it. You know that, don't you? I suspect most British people do. It's bearing down on us with a terrible inevitability.

Well? I am waiting. A number of us are waiting. We were expecting an angry chorus from a particular quarter. So why the silence? You could hear a pin drop. Why don't they sing out, the armchair warriors of Fleet Street? George W. Bush and his friends are preparing to scuttle Iraq, and nobody's complaining.

Where are they, those editorialisers whose confident "Tally-ho!" cheered our lads into Basra and Baghdad and whose cry was that we were "in this for the long haul", to "finish the job"? Finish the job indeed - do they really think, does anybody think, that the job is finished? Does anyone seriously suggest that a free and democratic Iraq is now heading into the home straight?

Of course not. The place is going to hell in a handcart. So where are those who urged our forces in, now that the political will to keep them there is faltering?

# posted by Simon Titley @ 11:57 pm 0 comments

Was the decision to invite racing pundit John McCririck to deliver a tribute at Robin Cook's funeral service part of Cook's last will and testament?

If so, one can only say it was Cook's final political master-stroke.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 12:26 pm 1 comments

This week's moral panic is about alcohol. It has become a headline story again because judges and police chiefs have declared that the imminent change to Britain's licensing laws will increase violent crime.

In the wake of these claims, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have quickly leapt on the (band)wagon by demanding a halt to the implementation of the new law.

The law in question (the Licensing Act 2003, which applies only to England and Wales) will, from 24th November this year, allow licensed premises (both pubs/bars and off-sales) to apply to extend their opening hours beyond 11pm or possibly even for 24 hours. However, the current panic is odd, given that the government announced its intentions four years ago and that the Act passed into law two years ago.

Following the protests of the judges, police and opposition politicians comes the most ludicrous complaint of all. In the wake of last month's London bombings, a group of newly-elected Tory MPs has declared (in a letter to the Spectator) that "Muslims who criticise the 'decadent' nature of British society are right". Among the things cited as evidence of Britain's lapse from "traditional values" is binge drinking. It is all the fault of "wooly-minded liberals", apparently.

This debate is taking place on a false premise. In fact, three completely false assumptions:

1. That excessive drinking is a new problem;


2. That excessive drinking is the preserve of the young, the working class, or more probably the young working class; and


3. That excessive drinking is a function of the licensing hours.

The English have been castigating each other for allegedly drinking too much since St Boniface in the 8th century compared our consumption unfavourably with the Franks, Gauls and Lombards.

It is a weird and scarcely acknowledged fact that very nearly the entire nation ends its days in an alcohol-induced fug. Most of us never see it because we are in it, too. The strangeness of it struck me last year when I had to catch a train late at night from King's Cross in London. I had not touched a drop that evening and I arrived at the station to find the inhabitants of the capital wandering in a soft and befuddled way between the ticket office and the platforms, WH Smith and Burger King. It was as if the place were full of half-beings, semi-aware, semi-articulate, half-asleep, clumsy and, on that occasion, totally unthreatening, even rather sweet, like an exhausted pack of bleary old dogs staggering from the bed to the water bowl and back again, deeply loved by their owners but really not much good for anything else.

I know this is not exactly the violent aspect of alcohol currently exercising judges and the government, but it is intimately related to it. Immoderation may turn some of us into comatose labradors, but in others it releases the urge to aggression and violence. The key is in the quantity. A few sips of Pernod would not change behaviour in the way a skinful of Stella or a magnum or two of Jacob's Creek does. This is not something limited to a particular class. It affects all of us, so the deep and underlying question about the English and alcohol is not why we are aggressive when we are drunk, because not all of us are, but why do we slug it back in such extraordinary quantities, which all of us do?

Applications for extended hours are generally for an extra hour or so on a Friday and Saturday night, from community pubs, and not from city centre locations.

Scotland has recently reviewed its licensing hours which are much more flexible than in England and Wales. Neither the police nor the judges asked for a return to English hours, let alone something more draconian.

Every New Year's Eve, for the last three years, flexible hours have been tried and tested. The result has been less disorder, and fewer problems than on the average Friday night.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 8:12 pm 0 comments

Remember the 1950s? Remember the era when people drove their brand new Ford Anglias along empty concrete roads, and when everybody on TV either smoked a pipe or wore a party frock and was called Muriel? Remember the time when they said nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter"?

Well it may have seemed cheap at the time but now the bill has landed on the doormat.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 12:56 pm 0 comments

Normally I would yield to no-one among the Liberal Democrats in my support for European ideals.

But this time the EU has gone too far.

(With thanks to Guido Fawkes).

# posted by Simon Titley @ 11:03 pm 1 comments

In case you're one of those Liberal Democrats dithering over which of Charles Clarke's new anti-terrorism laws to support, Armando Iannucci, writing in the Daily Telegraph, has a few useful suggestions.

(Link via the excellent David Blunkett is an arse).

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:25 pm 0 comments

I was alarmed yesterday to read this headline in a magazine:

Cylinder liners fitted to Sir Archibald Sinclair

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:03 am 0 comments

On the principle that even a broken clock is right twice a day, the Prime Minister's office has done something sensible. It has shot down in flames Hazel Blears's ridiculous suggestion of an official 'ethnic rebrand', to create hyphenated British people.

The recent wave of terrorist attacks has sparked off a wild goose chase to find or rekindle some sort of 'British identity'. As I explained in a recent post, this will get us nowhere. Politicians seem to be divided between those, such as Hazel Blears, who cannot see that multiculturalism is a busted flush, and more traditionalist elements, whose latest wheeze to unite the nation is 'Citizenship Days'.

Of these two approaches, the revival of flag-waving patriotism is the more obviously flawed strategy (read Blood & Treasure's demolition job on "state mandated ceremonials", via Doctorvee). Multiculturalism, on the other hand, has not been subjected to the same degree of scrutiny.

Multicultural ideology first flourished in the right-on, politically correct 1980s. Following the victories of Thatcher and Reagan, the right was ascendant and was remaking the world. Confronted with this challenge, the left chose to disappear up its own fundament. Instead of refreshing communitarian values, it focused on asserting personal rights.

The left turned out to be as much a part of the 'me' generation as its counterparts on the right. The damage done to the social fabric in the 1980s was not just a product of newly unleashed 'free market' forces but also owed much to the self-obsession of the left, which failed to develop a fresh critique of what was going on in society.

Michael Fitzpatrick's recent essay in Spiked provides a much-needed corrective. It is good that anti-racism has triumphed and is now embraced by the establishment. But the ideology of multiculturalism has politicised identity and created a cult of victimhood.

Multiculturalism has encouraged the politicisation of identity in ethnic or religious terms. Earlier immigrant minorities, such as the Irish or the Jews, cleaved to their national and racial traditions in ways that were largely personal and private. They may have participated in public acts of worship but their ethnicity rarely took a political form. By contrast, the identity of being a Muslim has come to define many people in British society to the exclusion of all other characteristics.

The children of Irish or Jewish immigrants had some choice about whether to follow or reject their parents' allegiances, matters which undoubtedly caused much family strife, but did not become political issues. By contrast, the children of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent or the Middle East have little option but to adopt the label of Muslim, which is thrust upon them by British society as much as by their own parents. If young Muslim women have embraced the hijab as a badge of identity in a way their mothers never did, as a public political symbol, this is more a result of the demands of British multiculturalism than a spontaneous assertion of allegiance.

Furthermore, the distinctive character of the identity promoted by multiculturalism is the identity of victim. In the world of multiculturalism, claims of victimhood provide the basis for recognition and status. Thus British Muslims proclaim a litany of persecutions and humiliations of Muslims around the world - in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Israel, in Bosnia - as the justification for their sense of grievance and their claim to a privileged position in the hierarchy of victimhood. (As a veteran campaigner against imperialist oppression in various parts of the world, I have opposed British interference in all these instances, though also in many others, irrespective of the faith of the victims.) But the cult of victimhood in Britain has merely a vicarious relationship with the sufferings of people in Iraq or Palestine - its real origins are to be found in Britain.

In the competitive struggle for prestige (and state resources) unleashed by multiculturalism, every minority must justify its claim by elevating its sufferings. Even established minorities feel obliged to enter the fray: while Muslims inflate every personal slight into a manifestation of Islamophobia, Jews cite the desecration of graves with swastikas as proof of a new wave of anti-Semitism.

While the opportunism of community leaders is shameful, it is important to recognise the origin of this problem in the British establishment itself. If Tony Blair feels obliged to apologise for the Irish famine or for Britain's role in the slave trade, it is only to be expected that some individuals will take advantage. The elevation of victimhood has a corrupting and infantilising effect: it encourages members of ethnic minorities to exaggerate and parade their sufferings as a means towards personal and communal advancement. The result is to unleash a sense of grievance that is unlikely to be assuaged by the meagre offerings of the state to the local mosque or temple.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 7:24 pm 0 comments

Here's a question that comedian Ross Noble raised on TV last Friday night:

Have you ever wondered why it is that the Mr Universe contest is always won by humans?

If all the world's a stage, where does the audience sit?

# posted by Simon Titley @ 11:54 pm 1 comments

One outcome of the recent terrorist attacks in London is a renewed debate about what it means to be British. Presumably the idea is that, if we expect Muslims living in Britain to be more British, we ought first to have some idea of what this obligation actually means.

This assumption was implicit in Tony Blair's statement on Friday about terrorism, when he said:

If people want to come here, either fleeing persecution, or seeking a better life, they play by our rules and our way of life. If they don't, they are going to have to go because they are threatening our people and way of life.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 11:58 pm 0 comments

A few days ago, I posted on the topic of generational theft, the process whereby the baby boomers are enjoying life at the expense of those under 35.

Another way this process is happening is in the present generations' profligate use of oil. My attention has just been drawn to this article. Although it was published nine years ago, nothing has occurred since to diminish its relevance; if anything, current events are bearing out the author's thesis.

However, the article is also deeply pessimistic and, in case you're into solar panels and windmills, it suggests that none of the so-called 'alternative' energy sources are viable replacements for oil. Not only that, but we are reminded that it would be politically suicidal for any political party seriously to propose weaning people off their cars, so you probably won't want to read it.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:58 pm 0 comments

A few months ago, an acquaintance of mine, a young Japanese woman, was attacked while travelling on the tube in London. A group of white youths shouted racist insults and pelted her with screwed-up pieces of paper. It was not a serious physical assault yet, when I happened to meet her shortly afterwards, she was shaken and in tears.

It turned out that the main reason for her distress was not so much the assault itself; it was that none of the other passengers in the tube car had come to her aid.

It would seem that Good Samaritans are in short supply these days. A much more serious example of 'passing by on the other side' was reported in Thursday's Guardian (G2 supplement). A young man was stabbed to death on a London bus for no apparent reason. Despite his girlfriend's pleas for help, most of the other passengers made themselves scarce when the bus stopped and only five passengers plus the bus driver have so far provided the police with witness statements.

Crimes like these elicit a predictable response from politicians and the media: we must have more police. Yet Britain already has more police officers per capita than at any time in its history. The Liberal Democrats, in this year's general election manifesto, promised to create 10,000 more police officers, as if it were some sort of crude trade-off to reduce crime.

Yet the vast majority of crime is detected by the public. Liberals should focus more on building a higher level of public confidence in the police, which makes police work more effective, and on rekindling a sense of active citizenship, which creates a genuinely safer society.

In the forthcoming August edition of Liberator, an article by Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone contains a lot of good advice on how to campaign locally on crime. Further, she argues that fighting crime is something all of us have to do. She writes,

One of Sir Robert Peel's nine founding principles of policing, laid out when he created our country's modern police force, talks of the relationship between the public and the police, "the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen, in the interests of community welfare and existence."

Fighting crime isn't just something you can pay for through your taxes and then ignore. It's something all of society has to do. Unless we want a police state with policemen and cameras on every street corner, there will always be a role for the eyes and ears of non-policemen. And unless we have every room, phone line and open space bugged and filmed, there will always be a need for evidence seen or heard by members of the public.

Of course, a few dye-in-the-wool Tories in the area said, "It's outrageous. I pay my taxes. Why on earth should I now have to do anything else?"

The answer is simple: "Sorry, we believe in a community where everyone works together. If you want just to leave some money out and then hide yourself away, we're not the party for you."

Getting volunteers isn't about finding a way of making the sums add up to reopen a public service; it's about having a public service that is closely connected to the community.

... a radical new offer from politicians to the public. Not any more 'ask and you shall receive' – nobody believes that any more, least of all the voters. It says: we can achieve these things, but not without your help.

As politicians we can assist, we can provide leadership and some resources, but – they must say to the public – we can't do it without you.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:02 am 9 comments

"And if you're in London," (as Valerie Singleton was wont to say, to the irritation of millions of provincial Blue Peter viewers), you could do a lot worse than visit this year's Great British Beer Festival (2nd-6th August at the London Olympia).

Despite the continuing threats from the corporate brewing behemoths, and continuing brewery closures, craft brewing of traditional ales continues to thrive in Britain. These ales, besides being pleasant to drink, are an important part of our local distinctiveness.

The greater threat nowadays is to our traditional pubs. Yesterday's Guardian usefully reminded us that,

Dr Samuel Johnson once noted that "there is nothing yet which has been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern".

A Camra-commissioned study showed that 26 pubs close down in Britain each month, largely due to developers and publicans cashing in on residential investments. Every time that happens, the pro-pub groups argue, a little piece of the community dies.

"The temptation at the moment is, because of the uncertainty in planning laws and experience, that any pub is probably worth 50% more if you change its use for residential or commercial," said John Longden, coordinator of The Pub is the Hub.

"I know of developers buying a rural pub, putting up a sign saying 'Bikers Welcome' and losing all the local trade, then saying the pub is not viable. This is a wake-up call for the community."

The traditional pub has long been the cornerstone of British culture. If you think this is an exaggeration, then hear it from a Frenchman. Hilaire Belloc, the poet who made England his home in the early 20th century, spent much of his time quaffing flagons of ale in various taverns. Among all the guff about empire, cricket and the playing fields of Eton, Belloc thought he had pinned down where the heart of his adopted nation really lay. "When you have lost your inns," he said, "drown your empty selves. For you will have lost the last of England."

The Countryside Agency laid out the scale of the problem in 2001 when it reported that, for the first time since the Norman Conquest, more than half the villages in England had no pub. The 7,000 rural pubs that remain are closing at the rate of six a week.

"The pub provides a place for local groups to meet and a safe environment for friends and family to relax and enjoy each others company. The loss of a valued community pub will have a negative impact on the local economy, community and tourism. 69% of people recognise the important role pubs play in community life."

# posted by Simon Titley @ 4:51 pm 0 comments

A debate has been raging about taxation policy at, of all places, 'LDO Talk' (a mailing list of Liberal Democrats Online, where the 'talk' is more usually about nerdy computer issues).

I have no problem with this; political debate is a healthy sign. What I have found revealing, though, is the assumption implicit in some participants' comments that controversial policy is not an option. Presumably they think the party should seek some kind of 'policy-lite' whose chief attribute is that it causes no offence. Anyone who has been around in the party for any length of time will know that this belief is not a new problem.

Taxation is always an important political issue but it is particularly sensitive for Liberal Democrats at the moment because of the controversy over the party's flagship policy of local income tax (LIT). This policy caused some embarrassment for the party leader during the general election campaign. Then, immediately following the election, there was an internal row over whether LIT had been an electoral liability.

The party has now appointed a tax commission to make comprehensive policy recommendations. However, the waters have been muddied by some premature spinning to the effect that the party will ditch its policy of a higher rate tax band for people earning more than £100,000.

I'll repeat here more or less what I said earlier today on 'LDO Talk'.

The political problem for the Liberal Democrats is broader than local income tax, broader even than taxation, and it is this. Whatever one's views on local taxation, most party members agree that the present system is unfair and presumably believe it must be reformed. If the party proposes to reform any taxation system in whatever way, it will create winners and losers. LIT or not, the party would therefore face a similar political challenge, which is how to sell its proposed reform to the electorate.

Until this year's general election, the Liberal Democrats used to complain that no-one knew what any of their policies were. For the first time at this general election, people did know what some of the party's policies were. And guess what? Some people didn't like them and the party's opponents criticised them. This is simply evidence that the party is playing in the big league now and it had better get used to it. The post-election panic within the party over LIT suggests that some of its members have not yet made the necessary adjustment.

There's an old saying, "If you try to please everybody, you'll end up pleasing nobody." If the party is to express any policies that are bold and meaningful, rather than bland and anodyne, it will attract some people and repel others. The party needs not just good policies but also the courage of its convictions.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:02 pm 0 comments

Britain's post-war generation was the first to enjoy the full fruits of the welfare state and the last to be able to buy houses before prices rose sky-high.

Succeeding generations, especially those now under 35, are not so fortunate. By the time they retire (which may not be until they're 70), the state pension will be derisory. Already half of the tax they pay is being spent on pensions, healthcare and social services for the elderly, and this burden will increase with demographic change. Much of their remaining income goes in rent - paid to older property owners.

Younger generations are beginning to perceive this as generational theft on a massive scale. From their perspective, the 'baby boomers' enjoyed the good times but failed to make adequate provision for their old age, expecting succeeding generations of taxpayers to pick up the tab, while profiting from over-inflated property values.

Ed Vickers has started a blog titled Out With The Old, inspired by the German pressure group and think tank, The Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations. Look out, too, for an article by Gareth Epps in the forthcoming issue of Liberator, where he argues that this year's Liberal Democrat election manifesto was skewed to the demands of retired people and baby boomers.

Take note of these views. Whatever you think of them, I predict you'll be hearing a lot more of such arguments. Indeed, a generational war, as opposed to the class divide, may become the defining feature of our politics over the next ten or twenty years.

PS: Read this BBC report.

# posted by Simon Titley @ 1:27 am 0 comments