This week, VN found itself in the unusual position of agreeing with senior members of the Labour party. First David Miliband, then Chris Bryant, made very sensible statements on Lords reform. Luckily that old charmer Ken Livingstone to remind us why tensions are still so high between the leading lights within Labour and the Lib Dems.
Brooks Newmark, a Government Whip and Conservative MP for Braintree, took his summer holiday this week. To Syria. With President Assad. He had previously met the dictator, but speaking with Assad when diplomatic efforts are ongoing seems highly inappropriate.
Ed Miliband thought he had ‘won’ another PMQs on Wednesday, until Cameron swiped him away with his final retort. Having avoided discussing the strikes in the exchange, he mentioned them in this interview…over, and over, and over and over again (come on, you didn’t think we could resist?!):
There was also a by-election this week, in the Scottish constituency of Inveclyde. It was held by Labour on a vastly reduced majority. The Lib Dem candidate Sophie Bridger put up an excellent fight, but was only rewarded with 627 votes and a lost deposit.
Apparently the shirt has Cameron 10 on the back. It’s nice to see Cameron supporting a less fashionable team. Prince William, who worked with Cameron on the FA’s disastrous world cup bid, is also known to support Aston Villa.
VN doesn’t imagine that this pic, tweeted by Ross Lydall, will go down well in the blue (or striped, or gold) part of Birmingham,
A journalist who contributes to the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website has mocked on twitter the deaths of three students killed in Thailand on their gap year. Kia Abdullah, who authored the book Childs Play, tweeted:
Abdullah is mocking the loss of three young men, about to start their adult lives, because she decided they were a bit posh. Vile, sociopathic, inverse snobbery at its worse, and it seems to spew out of the left all too easily. (Have a quick look around the comments after David Cameron’s dad, or Christopher Shale, died).
VN hopes the Guardian have some guts, and never publish anything by Kia Abdullah again.
Update: It is only fair to point out that Kia Abdullah has apologised on twitter for her comments. Rather a case of far too little, far too late.
The Cabinet Office has said that only 100,000 Civil Servants were on strike as of 12pm today. This is around a fifth of the total number of Civil Servants, equating to 75% of Civil Servants turning up for work. In a statement realised by the department, Minister for the Cabinet Office Frances Maude said:
“What today has shown is that the vast majority of hard working public sector employees do not support today’s premature strike and have come into work today; I want to thank them all for coming in, ignoring the pickets and putting the public first.”
Furthermore, the Minister insisted that “reform of public sector pensions is inevitable”. Pensions are a key issue, and arguably one of the main reasons many public service workers are happy to take a lower rate of pay during their working life (although there are plenty of very well paid public sector workers too.) However, with improved life expectancy it is hard to see how one can disagree with Maude, and others, when they say that the system does need to change.If it doesn’t, the current generation of young people will be saddled with a huge cost to fill the pension pot of the another generation.
After Mark Serwotka’s grand standing, it is undoubtedly embarrassing for him that so many PCS members have chosen to cross pickets.
Jeremy Hunt is nothing if not a smooth operator. Today he has managed to hide his further approval of the News Corp takeover of BSkyB, with everyone’s focus on public sector strikes.
According to the Guardian, who funnily enough noticed the development, Hunt has approved the takeover on condition that Sky News is “spun off” and becomes an independent company, in order to maintain plurality in new provision. There will now be further consultation into these new proposals.
I’m not entirely sure how this will work, as presumably a lot of the point of Murdoch indulging in this takeover is to influence the news agenda, and to maintain his political power. While many magazines, websites have a declared political bias, television neutrality rules have just about managed to keep things in order. The so called ‘Foxification’ of TV news in the UK would be a deeply worrying development, prompting a race to the bottom.
Furthermore, although Hunt claims he made the decision back in March, and has subsequently toughened his rules, it was a pretty sneaky move to put the information out today, although he faces an urgent question in the Commons at 11.30am.
The National Union of Journalists have said that they will protest today against the decision:
“The NUJ stands opposed to News Corporation’s bid to extend its power. It is unacceptable that the BSkyB merger is even being considered whilst serious charges are outstanding.”
Consensus in politics is a rare thing. Unless it’s a question of adjournment after a long day at the combined tyranny of the Whips and the Speaker, there’s very little agreement. (Even in that case, there’s the possibility for argument, when a parliamentarian deems it to appropriate to gerrymander.) The recent display by the Lords in taking lessons from the American Senate, at the mere mention of electoral reform, will not be swiftly forgotten.
Everyone in Westminster has an opinion, loud opinions. Yet, once in a while, there is wide spread agreement. Sometimes that is even in conjunction with society’s wishes.
Yesterday was one of those occasions. Estimates vary, but the figures range between 92% and 94.5% of the public in accord with parliament yesterday, as they made the decision to ban wild animals from circuses. No division was called. No lengthy trawl through the lobbies was required. No bell of summons rang. Merely a resounding cry of “aye”.
The only disagreement appeared to come from the Powers That Be within the Government – and a singular contributor to the “The Great British Circus”’s brochure.
When agreement crosses the floor to dramatic scales such as this, it is not necessarily concurrent with public opinion. Just over a dozen MPs opposed the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, the decision to intervene in Libya, against 557 MPs in agreement. The decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 had a majority of 310. These decisions were hardly popular in the country. Of course, populism still wins out in many cases of unwhipped votes. Less than a 10th of the MPs who voted on allowing prisoners the right to vote supported it, for example. That 10% flew in the face of public opinion.
Parliamentary convention dictates that bills with moral basis ought not to be whipped. A woman’s right to choose, a person’s right to die, sex education – even if there is accord within a party, the Whips take a back seat. The last minute decision, even as the debate was being held, by the Conservatives to withdraw their three-line whip, was not quite as surprising as the decision to impose it in the first place. Animal welfare is a moral issue. No whip ought to have been imposed, and it is to Mark Pritchard’s credit that he defied it.
This time next week we will know who the new MP for Inveclyde is. The by-election brought about by the tragic and untimely death of Labour’s David Cairns, is to being held next Thursday.
Fighting the seat for the Lib Dems is Sophie Bridger, the 20 year old President of Liberal Youth Scotland. Sophie is a first class colleague and friend of mine, and reports of what a fantastic job she is doing on the campaign trail will come as little surprise to anybody that knows her. She also put in an excellent performance in the STV Debate last night on television, which you can watch online here.
For those of you that can go help the team in Inveclyde please do, they’ll really appreciate it. For those of you for whom it’s rather a long way to travel, let’s show our support in a more modern way – let’s get #BackingBridger trending on twitter!
The BBCs high profile Chief Political Correspondant Laura Kuenssberg is to leave the organisation, to become the Business Editor on ITV, according to her colleague Rory Cellan-Jones:
Kuenssberg was a near ever present on our screens in May 2010 in the build up to the general election and it’s aftermath. A scourge of many in Westminster,(she recently hounded Ken Clarke over his comments on rape,) it will come as a surprise to many that she is taking on a business, not a political, role at ITV.
The BBC are undoubtedly losing one of their major journalistic talents.
Prime Minister David Cameron has been doing his macho, anti-Europe, not a penny more, act this morning in response to the economic crisis in Greece. At the Times CEO Summit(£) he told business leaders that Britain was not in the Euro “Thank God,” and he was “absolutely determined” to ensure that British money to Greece only went via the IMF, not Europe. The Prime Minister said:
“I absolutely don’t believe we should [bailout Greece]. I don’t believe that we will and I shall be fighting very hard to achieve that at the European Council this week.”
Chancellor George Osborne will tell European finance ministers that this is a Eurozone problem only. His number two, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, a former campaigner for British entry to the Euro, told Sky News:
“It’s the eurozone that is taking forward discussions now about the next stage of dealing with Greece’s substantial problems. There’s simply no proposition on the table for the UK to contribute beyond International Monetary Fund involvement, and I don’t expect there to be one.”
They all do have a point. Whatever your opinion on the Euro, Britain chose not to go into it, largely to avoid being involved in situations like this. It would be ridiculous if it were to have to shoulder the risks and responsibilities of a single currency without being in it. Nor is Greece like Ireland, who Britain rightly bailed out due to the exceptionally close trade links.
However, as Mr. Cameron himself pointed out, 40% of British trade occurs with Eurozone countries. We can’t just pull up the drawbridge. Close political interaction and relationships with Europe are absolutely essential in the globalised world.
Macho chest beating from the Prime Minister to appease his currently irritated right-wing achieves absolutely nothing.
It’s 2pm and, having safely made it through the morning of the Social Liberal Forum conference, I’m waiting with some other bloggers in part of the rabbit warren that is City University for Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne. The interview was meant to start at 1.30pm, but working on a combination of Lib Dem time and Ministerial time Huhne, who arrives 5 minutes later, is practically early!
When he does arrive, what is most apparent about Huhne is just quite how immersed in his portfolio he is. No more having a tokenistic Climate Change Secretary, Huhne seems intent on making the green agenda run through government. There is also seemingly nothing in his wide portfolio that Huhne doesn’t have substantive knowledge of, perhaps not a surprise having looked at the issues for many years.
I start by asking him why, given his student involvement with the Labour Party and his self-definition as a social-liberal during the first leadership contest, it was he who was the first person to formally advocate full coalition with the Conservatives. He answers that had only a confidence and supply agreement with either party been reached, it would have showed a lack of trust between the parties, and assumed a general election would be held soon. Huhne says that this would have led a run on British bonds and sterling from the markets, with huge economic consequences. Furthermore, he points out that there is “no evidence in the world” that supply and confidence could have delivered the tough decisions that needed to be made, whereas there is evidence that coalition could.
When asked if anything would have been different had he beaten Nick Clegg to the leadership, he laughs and says he isn’t sure, and has been to busy to worry about. Huhne believes that the central strategy pursued by the party is correct, and the coalition agreement is good, particularly given the Liberal Democrats had not be in government for a long time. Again this hardly comes as a surprise, Huhne having been a key figure in developing both.
Huhne was also asked what his biggest success so far as a minister is. He replied that “it’s not for me to say,” but went on to lists some fairly hefty achievements by his department, including the passing of the 4th Carbon Budget, and the Cancun Agreement (whose negotiations meant he didn’t have to vote for the tuition fees rise). In fact, the list of the achievements is so great it prompted me to ask why we aren’t hearing more about it. Given the clear Lib Dem influence in this area of government policy, you might assume the party would do a lot of shouting about it. Apparently “negative stories are more interesting to journalists,” and according to his Special Advisor “we do try”. This, in all departments, really is the key problem that the Liberal Democrats need to sort out in year 2.
On the controversial issue of Trident renewal, Huhne said that the key point is that no “big money” decision will be made until after the 2015 general election, again due to the Liberal Democrats.
Overall it was very interesting half an hour with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. He seemed very relaxed and keen to engage, despite the ridiculous media circus of the last few weeks. This really is one of the areas of government in which the Liberal Democrats can have huge influence, and it seems that has already been achieved in the first year. It would just be nice to know about it a bit more.
