A referendum, to be or not to be?

The big question political anoraks will be asking is will there be a referendum on the latest EU treaty which many see as a constitution.

The short answer is no, because if there was, it would be lost and by a handsome margin.

However what will I suspect happen is there will be many demands in the press for one, and rightly so. The proposed treaty is in almost the same every detail the constitution that the French and Dutch have already rejected. In fact quoting from the normally biased BBC, quoting a pro integrationalist Kirsty Hughes gives us this:

"It's much worse than the usual European stitch-up," says writer on European affairs Kirsty Hughes, a firm believer in European integration.

"It's essentially the same as the constitution, but many leaders are trying to sell it as something different, in order to avoid a vote. It's a collective lie."

The press are less than impressed. Saturday's Sun says:

WHATEVER deal is done in Brussels, Tony Blair will surrender power to the EU.

Britain will forever lose its right to veto EU laws in dozens of areas — including energy, agriculture and fisheries, transport, culture, tourism and even immigration policy.

The PM and Gordon Brown are right to fight over their “red lines”. But they are not enough.

With every fresh EU treaty, Britain’s sovereign right to set its own laws is being further eroded. And all without a referendum.

Mr Brown becomes Labour leader tomorrow.

This shabby surrender of British power could come back to haunt him.

Note the use of bold text. If the majority of the print media go on this big time then Gordon Brown will be in problems.

The big question on Europe has to be why? Why do this now? It seems that in many ways the EU is trying to grab as many if not more powers than the federal US government. The people of Europe are not interested. Why don't these people who want to make their names in history just stop, and leave that to someone else.

The Telegraph has this, the Times has this and this and the Mail on Sunday has this.

Just why would we do that?

Just why would we, the British, or indeed any one else, want to sign away powers over things like immigration and asylum, culture, fisheries and agriculture to supra national body like The European Union?

It is madness. If we need immigrants to comer here and work and the rest of the EU don't or vice versa why should there be a one size fits all policy rammed down our throats from on high?

The same applies to the other areas, just why would anyone hand over these powers to someone so far away?

Why would a supra national body want the powers, and think that they might be more competent in those areas than a national or local government?

This is madness.


The BBC has this on the signing of the new constitution which has been called a treaty so as not to scare the voters.

Gordon Brown and the Euro Spin Cycle

Dizzy Thinks has this interesting article on Gordon Brown getting Blair to stand up to the French.

Interesting piece, I recomend you read it.

Gordon Brown speaking David Cameron's language?

In what has to be a strange turn of events Gordon Brown seems to be speaking David Cameron's language. What is equally odd is that David Cameron in his speech on Monday is really talking about very old fashioned Conservative principles right out of the thinking of Edmund Burke about bottom up rather than top down thinking.

Many in the Labour party think that Tony Blair is a closet Conservative as do many in the Conservative party, but we never suspected Gordon Brown of being one as well!

How much of the Conservative ground will Gordon Brown try to steal? We will have to see how this pans out.

The BBC has this.

Salman Rushdie's Knighthood at an insensitive time!

I have just watched Question time on the BBC, one of the guests was Shirley, now Baroness Williams, former labour party minister and leading light of the SDP and now a Liberal Democrat peer.

On the question of the Knighthood given to Salman Rushdie, she said she thought the timing was insensitive.

All questions aside about whether or not his work merited a knighthood, or indeed whether given the offence supposedly caused (if indeed that should be a consideration) the question surely arises when would be a less insensitive time? Next week rather than last? next year rather than this?

The statement implies that it was appropriate to give the honour, just not now. Well if not now, when?

Human Rights Not Gone Mad Shocker!

I first heard this story on BBC Radio 4's news but have also read it in the papers, for example, the Daily Telegraph has this.

The story concerns an elderly lady in a care home where she was placed by the council, her eviction due to issues between the care home's management and her relatives and the human rights act.

Liberty supported her as did the government.

The Law Lords found against, finding that private care homes are not providing a public service. Let us look at some quotes from those who are upset:

The civil rights group Liberty condemned the ruling saying urgent legislation was now needed to change the Act to prevent local authorities from "contracting out of dignity for Britain's elderly".

Quite possibly but that involves constraining the public body not the private one surely? You can't go around placing the responsibilities of government willy nilly on private individuals.

Help the Aged said it was "a sickening blow to older people and their families everywhere" and that it left "vulnerable older people open to neglect, abuse and eviction, without redress through the Human Rights Act".

Well I have some sympathy for the rhetoric, however older people being open to neglect and abuse is either a matter of criminal law or contractual provisions being enforced. As for eviction, as hard as it sounds, a landlord always needs the ability to evict a tenant if they are causing a problem.

The Government, who had argued in favour of the woman's case through the Lord Chancellor, were also disappointed. Baroness Ashton, Minister for Human Rights said they were now "carefully considering the implications of this judgment".

Quite right too. The government needs to consider what it can or can't contract out.

The judgement is right in my view. The Human Rights act is nothing more than enshrining the European Convention on Human Rights in British law (which is odd) which is nothing more that forcing the principles of English Common Law on Europe. The aim of this was to protect the individual against the arbitrary and unreasonably actions of the state.

The care home is a private care home not a state one. It could accept private or publicly funded residents. It operates as a for profit company. To make a private company that does some work for the public sector operate with the same responsibilities as the state is clearly wrong but also commercially not viable.

Trouble at mill for Ming Campbell

It seems that yesterdays revelations to the Guardian about possible jobs for Liberal Democrats in a Gordon Brown administration has had the brown stuff hitting the fan.

This morning the Guardian follows up with this article which indicates how bad it is getting in the party. Some choice quotes:

The disclosures in yesterday's Guardian threw the Lib Dems into turmoil with one frontbencher describing it as a "hand grenade" which had destabilised the party.

"A lot of people are angry, but no one knows who to be angry with," said one Lib Dem frontbencher. A furious colleague described it as "politically toxic", playing into the hands of the major parties.

His claim that for Lib Dems to join the government was never an option was disputed by government sources.

One cabinet minister predicted yesterday's revelations would hasten the Liberal Democrat leader's departure.

I do hope Ming can hang on, he is doing us loads of favours!

Gordon Brown did offer ministerial jobs to the Liberal Democrats!

There was a story in this mornings Guardian saying that Gordon Brown and Menzies Campbell met and discussed offering some Liberal Democrats ministerial posts. What has been clear over the course of the day is that a meeting did take place and jobs were on the table. They were, we are told refused.

This offer was apparently refused, and the Liberal Democrats have also that they did not know that was the subject of the meeting.

We do know that Ming Campbell is closer to Labour than the Conservatives, after all he was on record as setting 5 tests for Gordon Brown and making it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the Conservatives or David Cameron. It would be electoral suicide in my view though as it would make it clearer than ever that a vote for the Liberal Democrats would be a vote for Labour.

Even if it was secretly Gordon and Ming's ambition to form of coalition neither Labour or Liberal Democrat activists would wear it, and Ming now knows that.

So who told the media? And why?

Benedict Brogan of the Daily Mail raises some interesting lines on this on his blog, saying that the Westminster rumour says it was Paddy Ashdown, one of the people in the frame for a job.

Is he so hungry for a ministerial job that he would leak this sort of information or has he got a terminally big mouth? If it was not him could it be one of Brown's team upset at being spurned? We don't know for sure, but it is fun watching the strife it causes.

This is causing much internal strife in the parliamentary Liberal Democrat party (and probably beyond), which is something that grieves me deeply*. Tomorrow's Guardian carries an article to that effect (an update will be made later).

All interesting stuff.

The Times also has this, and Nick Robinson has this on his blog.

*Only joking!

Sack Lord Falconer Now!

Or so the Sun says over the early release of prisoners.

Seasoned readers of this blog, or indeed followers of the rather obvious impending prison space crisis will think this is utter rubbish. For all his faults Cheerful Charlie is the man handed the "hospital ball", "hot potato" or any other metaphor you care to use. One thing is clear is that he is not the architect of the prison systems woes, that responsibility has to lie between various Home Secretaries, Gordon Brown and the editors of the tabloids.

Given that the editor of the Sun has to steer clear of Gordon Brown because Murdoch may want to support him, they set John Reid's agenda and they are not going to resign over their own failings then I suppose that only leaves the poor chap holding the baby!

Nobody was responsible!

It seems that the report into the abduction of the naval personnel and subsequent media storm was unable to find the person responsible for giving the go ahead for the sale of the stories.

WHAT? YOU ARE HAVING A LAUGH?

We were told that a report landed on Des Browne's desk saying that they should be allowed to sell their stories, and that he did not approve them but did not disapprove either until all the rather obvious fuss kicked off. (see Iran Crisis passim)

Did some mindless typist think oh no I have got nothing to do, I ought not to waste my time playing solitaire or surfing the web, so must type a memo? Oh what should it be about? Oh what has been in the news?

Just how on earth did a note turn up on Des Browne's desk, for him to make a decision (by law it was him and only him who could make it) without anyone taking responsibility for authoring it?

Have New Labour really gone that far that there is no responsibility in government at all? Anywhere?

The BBC has this on the reports into the hostage scandal.

The "Two things" Brown Meme

I have been tagged by Arleen Ouzounian of the Regalis Blog (Kings College London Conservative Future blog) to say 2 things Gordon Brown Should be...

2 things Gordon Brown should be proud of:

• Conning people into believing he is not a spinner
• Scaring all his opponents into not standing against him.

2 Things he should appologise for:

• The tax credit fiasco.
• The high rates of effective taxation on anyone who is on tax credits.

2 Things he should do immediately when he becomes PM:

• Stop government departments passing new laws unless they are repealing old ones as well.
• Have a moratorium on PFI projects.

2 things he should do while he is PM:

• Reform the welfare system to remove the poverty trap.
• Reform tax credits so that the effective tax rate is much less.

And I will pass this Meme on to Iain Dale, Dizzy Thinks, Ellee Seymour, University College London CF, The Croydonian, Harry Haddock's Nation of Shopkeepers, Fitaloon's Microshaft blog, and The Thunder Dragon. (Sorry, honest:) )

Brown offers too little too late on Prisons

It seems that Gordon Brown is now offering more money for prison building. The problem is that this is too little and too late. The reality is that the Home Office predictions on prison numbers have been showing an impending crisis for years and not enough has been done to avert it.

There are two things that could have been done, one is build more prisons and the other is lock less people up. What we seem to be doing is the reverse of both.

This has two knock on effects. Firstly the prison service just does not have the capacity to rehabilitate people properly, because prisons are too crowded, resulting in more people being re convicted than would otherwise be the case. Secondly people are being held longer than the current rules would normally allow for because they can't complete specific courses they need to complete to get parole, or the probation service is in such chaos that it can't process the paperwork, leading to arbitrary imprisonment. Both these problems make the overcrowding issue worse, adding to the problem.

Now we hear that Lord Falconer is going to release prisoners early, again in a fairly arbitrary fashion, including prisoners who may have not been properly rehabilitated, which will damage the publics faith in the criminal justice system.

This is clearly the worst of all worlds. We have arguably either populist or correct sentencing policy not backed up with anything sensible leading to a reduction in the quality of the prison service and a reduction in public confidence at the same time. Gordon Brown has not been prepared to pay for his governments policy on prisons and sentencing.

Doesn't it just fill you with confidence that he takes over next week?

The BBC has this.

Blair and Brown, the dirt on the infighting

I have to say that I was amused when I read this article in today's Guardian. It is headlined "Sack the chancellor. Cherie Blair's repeated advice to her husband" which under the circumstances seems good advice to me but alas was not followed.

Some interesting bits in the article:

According to Mr Cox, the problems between the two men had begun in 1994 but "became truly difficult after the 2001 election" because Mr Brown wanted "to be prime minister now".

He said: "I had a conversation with Cherie about how difficult Brown had become and was demanding he resign then. And ever since then, it has been continuous. Cherie reacted personally to what she regarded as Gordon's very bad behaviour, she took deep mortal offence".

To which I say Hark at her! Firstly she refuses to curtsy to the Queen, and secondly autographed a copy of the Hutton report into the death of Dr Kelly to raise money for labour party funds in the most incredibly poor taste.

Charles Clarke, a notable Gordon Brown fan* is quoted as saying:

"I would categorise Tony's approach to social entrepreneurship ... that is to say to give schools, hospitals, universities the resource to get on with it and do it. Whereas Gordon's view is much more traditional Labour view. Which means that you can pass a law or make an administrative decision in central government and that will change behaviour."

Which really goes to the heart of the argument. I have heard some air headed Labour supporters argue that the Conservative party is trying to offload responsibility. This is clearly not clear thinking. The fact is that trying to run things from the centre causes problems. The tax payer demands some value for money, and one thing this government has clearly demonstrated is that you can spend money to your hearts content on public services but it wont always deliver results, whilst people are demanding better public services.

This is in part where the rub arises. Public services are free. Except they are not. Even if the person getting the service is not paying for it, there are millions of tax payers who are.

No matter which way you try and deliver public services the issue boils down to this: I have ticked all my boxes, done my job, so if you don't like it, bog off.

That is unfair on many public service workers, but the ethos is still there that the service is free which it isn't. This problem then leads to some kind of them and us attitude. As an example, I can't remember his name, but a black man (former member of the army if I recall) was involved in a fight outside a night club, was hit on the head, taken to hospital where he became difficult and abusive so the police turned up arrested him and the man died on the floor of the custody sweet from his injuries. His behaviour whilst objectionable was entirely consistent with his injury. He died because he was a number and statistic rather than a customer who had money to spend.

The big issue with public services is how to get them to work better. The labour party under Gordon Brown seems to be setting targets based on spending. The current mantra is to increase education spending up to the level of independent schools. The Conservative party is looking for ways of giving the public ways to "kick" the public services where and when they need it. That is to be able to say to a public servant who is not performing, shape up or I will take the money elsewhere. Incidentally that could be a popular message on the streets. Tony Blair's "choice agenda" is along similar lines and in many ways is merely picking up where John Major's government left off.

*OK, I can think of another couple of people who like Gordon more.

Did any one else notice Gordon Brown's collar?

I have just watched Nick Robinson's report on David Cameron verses Gordon Brown as the battle to come.

In it there was a clip of Gordon Brown addressing a union conference in which he was saying that either you can have more nurses or they could be paid better, going on to cite some pay increase numbers (like 4 and 5%) which attracted some boos.

What I noticed as he walked up and down the stage though was that one collar was out of his suit (his left one, on the right as you look at him) pointing at a jaunty angle whilst the other was some what more conventional.

Is this some attempt to look unspun or just unkempt?

Private Debt, the Governor of the Bank of England's warning

Last week the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King gave a speech suggesting that people were borrowing to much, and ought not to be borrowing on the basis that borrowing will remain cheap.

In many ways it was an understated way of stating the obvious. The issue is that private debt now amounts to £1,300,000,000,000. That is a lot of zeros. £1.3 trillion. Hmm.. Quite a lot of that is tied up in housing and quite a lot in unsecured debt.

If the economy runs in a stable fashion and nothing rocks the boat then fine, the problem is what happens if something does rock the boat? Public borrowing is also high, whilst the tax take always seems lower than Gordon Brown expects. This level of debt reduces the flexibility of the economy to respond to a crisis or a change. We need to stop borrowing at these levels.

It is also one very good reason why George Osborne insists that the stability of the economy will come before tax cuts. There are an awful lot of people in an awful lot of debt and they won't be happy with risk takers.

The Telegraph has this.

Progressive Conservatism?

I have to say that my fists normally itch when someone talks of "progressive" politics, because it is the language of the left used to suggest that anyone who does not agree with them is "reactionary". I also tend to find that what ever policies then get spouted forth are not about making progress but state control over peoples lives.

Imagine my shock then when David Cameron appears to be talking about "progressive politics" in this article in yesterday's Observer.

Well, it has to be said this is a clever trick, or rather it is a clever unmasking of a trick that the left in politics for years and years. That is the idea that the left have the ideas that will bring progress and the right don't.

Benjamin Disraeli said, on constitutional reform:

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.

Which I think is a good motto for all Conservatism. Making progress forward by preserving what works and fixing or replacing that which does not.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the welfare state is that whereas it was originally built to stop people falling to low, and it was truly needed it seems now to have evolved to keep people tied into a poverty trap. That is not progress. That said figuring out a way to deal with that problem is another matter.

The Conservative party is, and always has been concerned about lifting people out of poverty, educating people and building a strong society. Now we are making it clear that is progress, that the left have failed, and progressive ideas come from the right not the left.

Anyway, David Cameron is going to make a speech later today outlining some more flesh on Conservative policy and making real progress on societies problems. You can read the text here (Many thanks to Iain Dale for the link)

So there you have it. Conservative Home has this, whilst Fraser Nelson has this. All good stuff.

Failing our troops at the front

I have to say that I am shocked to learn that our troops can take up to 7 hours after being wounded in Afghanistan, and an hour and 50 minutes in Iraq.

This is not how long it takes to get treatment but how long it takes to get them collected from the battlefield. Apparently there is not a dedicated helicopter force to do the job.

The Sunday Telegraph has this, about a report by Lt Col Paul Parker in the Royal Army Medical Corps Journal. It seems that he believes many have died who need not have died for the lack of availability of helicopters dedicated to evacuating the wounded.

It should be noted that whilst we take hours to get a casualty to hospital, in Vietnam the Americans managed to do it on average in 25 minutes. That was 40 years ago.

Whilst the MOD are trying to trash the report Lt Col Paul Parker's colleagues agree, apparently though off the record.

And all this after Tony Blair's promise that our boys in Afghanistan could have whatever they needed. Lying scum.

Iraq: Blair knew there was no plan

According to this article on the front page of the Observer and to a channel 4 documentary next week, Tony Blair knew that there was no plan for post victory Iraq, yet carried on.

I have to say that does not surprise me. It is not hard to tell the neo cons in the White House had not got a clue, which is why I wrote this listing why we are in the mess. Then one of them, Ken Adelman had the chutzpah to blame us for not being hard enough with them!

To name the Father

A Labour think tank, the IPPR has come up with the idea of making it compulsory to name the father on birth certificates.

The reasoning is that children who have an early involvement of their father do better than those who don't. This is a key fact that has been missed by the family courts for years even after the passing of the 1989 Children's Act. In principle the act gave the children the rights (for example to have a relationship with both parents) and the parents the responsibilities. Regrettably it still does not work that way in practice.

The policy would have safeguards in the case of abuse and rape.

It seems that campaigners for single mothers object because it would make life difficult for mothers.

All I can say is get with the program, this is not about the mothers it is about the children.

The BBC has this.

Are the Royal Mail really selling of "lost" items?

According to this article in today's Daily Mail the Royal Mail sells off items of post where it has effectively lost them. It seems this runs to 75,000 items a year.

The case highlighted in the article concerns a £1,500 set of bag pipes, which were sold online in an auction for £60, and then went on Ebay. The poor owner of the pipes could only claim £500 in compensation so he is now £1,000 out of pocket.

Why don't they try returning them to the sender? Perhaps they should suggest a return address should not only be on the outside of the parcel but on the inside as well.