Look, do you want a Nanny state or not?

Tony Blair was in Nottingham today (where I have the pleasure of working) delivering a speech on Health. As per usual, the text was published in advance, making one wonder what the point of him reading it to us actually was (we're all perfectly capable of that), but he did us the honour anyway.

The main thrust of his argument was that people should take responsibility for their own health more than they do, by not smoking, not drinking too much and trying to do some exercise. All fair enough by me (and I think most people), but the reaction from some parts of the web (which we conveniently get before the speech is even delivered) seem a bit muddled.

People (often Conservatives) complain, with some justification, that Mr Blair is the President of a Nanny State, with his constant desire to push Government into every aspect of our lives. This speech therefore presented a change in tac for him, shifting the focus onto the individual, which is the exact opposite of nannying.

Yet, the comments today (here and here for two examples) cunningly twist these sentiments into some sort of pseudo snobbish “it's all your fault” rant, which (and it pains me to agree with Mr Blair) isn't what he said at all.

I also question the argument that the government should provide more health education. Is there anyone, anyone in this country who doesn't know that smoking is bad for them? I doubt there are many, and those that do are probably beyond convincing, so the argument is nonsense. Even if they did do more to educate people of the subtleties of diet etc, the Tory lot would still neigh “nanny, nanny” at every available opportunity, so much for Dave's promise to end “ya boo” politics?

 

NB. I hate spending valuable blogging time having a pop at the Tories, and agreeing with the PM, as we really should be concentrating on getting this lot out. However, while they continue to be so wildly inconsistent with their aims, it is somewhat inevitable.

Oaten steps down. Surprise?

I'm sure you've all by now read the story about Mark Oaten stepping down at the next election. I have to admit to being slightly surprised, although the possibility had been discussed. I was told a while ago by a fairly senior source that it would be "best" if he didn't stand again, but I assumed that his recent media work pointed away from him doing that. It seems he was just building profile for a future career.

It is a shame, I've always been a fan of Mark. He wasn't afraid to talk about issues that we're often guilty of avoiding (crime, immigration etc) and always worked against the stereotype of "namby pamby liberals" that the media so often fall into, whereas far too many of our MPs refuse to be so brave.

Morning News Roundup

From the papers and the web today....

Panic in Welsh Labour

The Welsh Labour Party are worried that a Lib Dem/Tory alliance might take the assembly from them next year.

NHS Cash Crisis

"Dozens of hospitals are facing acute pressure and social care services are being scaled back due to NHS deficits, two separate reports say.

The Liberal Democrats said 16 NHS trusts, running 28 hospitals, were facing what they term "high pressure"."  BBC News

Prescott

The Millennium Dome has emerged as the official front-runner to house Britain's first super-casino. The Independent

Blair

Britain should take a much more robust and independent approach to the United States, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today, which finds strong public opposition to Tony Blair's close working relationship with President Bush. The Guardian

MP's Expenses      

The government's commitment to transparency yesterday left MPs wading through no less than 44 written statements as the parliamentary year approached its close.

Many of the documents published concerned the conduct of MPs and members of the government. They included lists of ministerial gifts, overseas trips and special advisers and a report from the parliamentary watchdog, Sir Philip Mawer. The Guardian

Blog Highlights

Liberal England - Polytotnbeeism

Tories is a froth over Bow Group tax plans - Iain Dale, Conservative Home

News Roundup - 24/07/2006

A brief roundup of relavent liberal stories from today...

-CSA abolished. Lib Dems warn of "forgotten" families after disaterously bad agency is finally killed off.

- Tory think tank proposes a tax rise. Can't see the Tory Bloggers falling over themselves to cover this one hey?

- The deepest of ironies as Labour decide to stop villifying the Lib Dems in order to win seats back.

- Vince Cable says that "sofa government" has allowed Gordon Brown to tramp over the public sector, with is big thick roll of red tape in tow.

Does Jack Straw not have a point?

Much vitriol has been unleashed on the web today (from all sides) following Jack Straw's comments that websites such as TheyWorKForYou.com are causing a problem by making people's analysis of MP's performance "quantitative rather than qualitative".

The extrapolation being drawn is that Mr Straw objects to the sort of openness and accountability that such sites bring (see our previous story on David Borrow for a good example). This is, I think, slightly unfair. If you read what he says, the point he is making is a perfectly valid one. If we, as the public, decide to measure our MPs on the number of EDMs they submit, or speeches they make, then that is what they will seek to do. Put another way, if you simply measure the effectiveness of a system by how many times it performs "action x" then the purpose of the system becomes "perform action x as much as possible".

This is the same flawed systems analysis that led to the government deciding that waiting lists were the sole measure of a hospital's performance. What happened? The objective of a hospital became to have small waiting lists, as opposed to having short waiting times, or happy patients, or high standards of hygiene.

We we rely completely on numbers to judge the effectiveness of our MPs, then we'll get exactly what we deserve, MPs that submit huge numbers of daft questions, which is the point hidden behind Jack Straw's poorly chosen words.

Iain Dale and the Glass House Brigade

I returned from Lunch today to see Iain Dale revelling in more political sleaze, this time to do with the Lib Dems and their £2.5m donor Michael Brown (currently staying at the pleasure of her majesty).  Iain has recent form on this, having driven the recent John Prescott story from broadsheet sideline to official investigation.

It is natural for someone like me to be “wound up” by Iain's latest work, not due to it's content (which is perfectly legitimate) but because of the self righteous drivel that his Tory readers insist on spouting when commenting on his site. Responses range from simple name calling (how very mature from “the next party of government”) to utter nonsense, such as “will the lib dems go bust?”. “Not before you do”, is the only sensible reply. These people are in the same league as the readers of Conservative Home who honestly believe that the Lib Dems will end up with only 9 seats after the next general election.

One must obviously seek to rise above this sort of idle banter, but it masks a more important point, especially for Conservatives. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and the general lack of stone throwing regarding the party funding scandal from politicians themselves shows that they do realise that Westminister is one rather large glass house, which is sensible enough.

Commentators like Dale however should be just as careful, if not more so.  They separate themselves from party lines and control as much as possible (see Iain's recent Newsnight appearance for example), and play the role of a “weighted commentator”, not hiding political sympathies yet being reasonable to all sides. This sort of behaviour is done perfectly well by hundreds of professional journalists and commentators, the best example being the superb American broadcaster George Will, who's comments on all aspects of American politics are always well balanced and worth hearing, despite the fact that he is very much a right winger. 

The problem is that Iain Dale (and Guido Fawkes, for that matter) don't get this balance right at all. They swarm so readily over Labour and now Lib Dem misfortune, which is often not at all politically relevant, and yet often only touch lightly on stories which embaress the Conservatives (such as their recent accounts, showing a deficit some 63 times that of the Lib Dems, how many limbs would Francis Maude give to only have £2m in dodgy money to worry about?).

 

To be fair, since Cameron arrived, the Conservatives have steered clear of anything too bad (which is generally easier when not in government), but that will inevitably change, and then where will Iain Dale be? Will he report with the same enthusiasm on the misfortune of Conservatives? You best he won't, which is in itself fine, but he must then admit to what he is, which is a Tory writing biased commentary in order to help Tories.

 

NB. It is worth mentioning, for the sake of balance, that this is not a reaction to the specific Lib Dem story, which is fine & fair.

 

 

David Borrow MP (Labour) is a Liar

Guido Fawkes has posted a copy of a letter (shown below) from David Borrow MP, responding to a constituent's request for him to sign an EDM (Early Day Motion). Mr Borrow states that:-

I am currently the Paliamentary Private Secretary to Higher Education Minister, Kim Howells MP.   When I was appointed I took the decision that as I was a member of the government, albeit at a very junior level, I would not sign EDMs.

This is a lie, Mr Borrows has signed hundreds of EDMs, over 100 of which are during his current employment. So, David Borrow's MP, you lied to your constituent.

Arrogance and ID Cards - New Labour's Disgrace

I wrote a brief article on this here blog a few weeks ago regarding Labour's inability to listen to the public. My argument at the time was that they simply lacked any mechanism to do so, having come into office with such a clear ideological mandate.

Well, an article in the Sunday Times, since reported by the Guardian, suggests that they are also incapable of listening to their own civil servants. Allow me to elaborate.

The current Government line on the ID card scheme  is that some sort of initial, scaled down system (apparently an idea from the mind of Mr Blair himself) will be rolled out “in 2008”, which gives them, at the most, 29 months to get it designed, procured, produced, tested and rolled out.

Anyone with any experience of this Government, or indeed Government IT systems in general, will know that this is nonsense, and impossible nonsense at that. We however, as the British public, are used to being ignored by this disgraceful, arrogant and obese administration, so such issues rarely spark the sort of anger in me that they once did.

However, it appears that the Government's own advisers are telling ministers that the scheme is, to quote directly, “not even remotely feasible”

"This has all the inauspicious signs of a project continuing to be driven by an arbitrary end date, rather than reality." said one senior civil servant involved with the project.

This should not come as a surprise, neither should the predictable, if well meant, quotes from Nick Clegg and David Davis regarding the objections to the scheme. The question I ask is, where is the media? This story has appeared as a side note in two papers, one of which is probably read exclusively by people who oppose ID cards anyway. Are fleet street now so obsessed with John Prescott's extra marital affairs that they can't find the time to report an  impending £20bn cock up? If we get this wrong, the cost could be as high as that, which is £344 for every man, woman and child in this country. Show me a more important domestic story.

Everyone associated with New Labour, from MPs to party members should be ashamed of their association with the disgrace that ID cards will surely be. Not just because it is such at atrocious idea to begin with, because they continue to ignore all the warnings, no matter where they come from. Such brazen arrogance mustn't go unnoticed, and it has to be the job of the media to hold such a reckless Government to account.

Edit: Now run by the superb <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/09/st_id_cards_doomed_emails/">Register</a>

Ruth Kelly wants more localism. Yep, you heard that right.

New Labour, who have created the most bloated and unwieldy British government in living memory, are starting to bang on about the virtues of localism. Hooray.

The latest "convert" is Ruth Kelly, who has stated her desire to strip back the 1000 or so performance targets imposed by Whitehall on every local authority in the country.

How can the architect of such over-regulation actually say such things with a straight face? It is, apparently, because the superb improvements in public services over the last 9 years mean that such close scrutiny is no longer required.

Stop laughing at the back.

Now, credit where credit is due. I don't think anyone would realistically argue that the NHS isn't a better service than it was a decade ago. Whether value for money have been obtained is a different argument, but there has been a noticeable improvement. However, Ruth Kelly was talking about local authorities. The idea that we have seen significant improvement in local government since 1997 is complete bollocks. Even if any authorities have improved (I'm sure some have) it will be nothing to do with the ludicrous burden of legislation imposed by this Government, and this Government alone.

In its desperation to find a new direction, New Labour have subtly changed tack from claiming everything was the fault of Mrs Thatcher (which the people are sick of hearing) to basically saying that all is now so brilliant that they can abandon everything they did in the first 4 years in charge.

What utter nonsense. Besides, a Labour government wouldn't recognise localism if it fell on it's head. Localism requires government to trust the people, something New Labour have constantly shown themselves incapable of doing (see Iraq war et al).

This latest dose of mind vomit from deep inside the bowls of New Labour HQ is yet another page in an increasing incoherent story, from a government which has absolutely no idea what to do next.

Ming Campbell steps up for accused Natwest bankers

I'm please to see Ming Campbell stepping into the case of 3 Natwest bankers who are due to be extradited to the USA under our ludicrous and unbalanced treaty (Guardian Story).

This is an ideal opportunity for Ming to show of his undoubted skills as an eloquent and consistent defender of liberty. The political opportunity lies in the fact that these people are white, middle and upper class men, not the sort of people who usually find themselves having their liberties trampled on. By using this case to demonstrate to the white, middle class majority that civil rights do matter to everyone, Ming addresses both the moral and political demands of his role.

What if the Tories realised that everyone isn't as rich as them?

The Guardian has a good comment article today from Polly Toynebee on some plans to close a tax loophole. It demonstrates quite well that either The Conservatives (in particular George Osbourne) will either say absolutly anything to oppose the Government (the return of Yah-Boo politics) or have no idea how much the "average" British person earns.

£21,500 as it happens, probably not enough to keep David Cameron and his dinner party set in shoes for a year.

Edit: I must admit however that Ms Toynbee's definition of Middle England (i.e. those earning the average salary) leaves quite a lot to be desired.

Why the Liberals must support the Tories on the West Lothian Question

Its not often you'll hear me arguing that we should side with Conservatives (not because of ideology, they just spend most of their day being wrong), but the current debate about Scottish MPs voting on English matters provides a good opportunity to change approach.

The “West Lothian Question” is actually a remarkably simple debate, and I'm amazed that we still haven't tackled it. English MPs cannot vote on measures that directly affect only Scotland (a result of having a Scottish parliament), yet Scottish MPs are able to vote on legislation that only effects England (as Westminster).

This situation is simply mad, and the only reason it hasn't been tackled by the main parties is due to our intrinsic fear of tackling issues related to nationality or patriotism (see also immigration, St Georges day etc.). This attitude plays into the hands of extremists (within which I count the BNP, UKIP etc.), who misinterpret our lack of action as yet more evidence for the erosion of British culture etc.

There are delicate issues to do with nationality and identity, but this is not one of them. Politicians of all flavours need to grab this issue by the proverbials and fix it.

The proposals from the Conservatives, from what I've seen, are sensible and balanced. There are obviously political motives to them, with Gordon Brown being Scottish we could have a Prime Minister introducing legislation that he couldn't vote on. That however is only a problem if he lets it be (which he surely will) and we should remember we are an opposition party trying to gain seats, and making the Government uncomfortable should be considered a good thing.

So, provided the Conservatives don't do anything stupid with these proposals, we should support them and make it loud and clear in public that we do. There is no more natural patriotic party than the Liberal and Social Democratic Party, and we should all stop running around worrying about our plans upsetting a small minority, and get on with the job of providing real opposition and bettering our poll numbers.