Sometime in the next two years the UK will be asked to vote in a referendum on its continuing membership of the European Union. The most likely outcome of that has always been a fairly clear vote to remain members: now I am not so sure.
Is Europe still a beacon of democracy?
Forget the charade of Cameron’s renegotiation as that is very unlikely to make much difference as to how people vote. It is the growing crisis surrounding Greece that is causing people to question the role and nature of European institutions. To many, like me, who have long believed that European co-operation through the institutions of the EU is a valuable contribution to greater political and economic stability in what has historically been a troubled continent the response of those institutions to the economic crisis has been been blinkered from the start. Their brutal response to Greece and its people has reinforced those concerns.
Euro is now deeply flawed
Europe clearly has some deep flaws running right through its institutions and at the core lies the Euro. It was a once idealistic project of some promise but was rushed and ill-conceived in its execution. Greece, along with other weaker southern European economies, should never have been in the Euro but they were needed because without them the Euro would have been too strong and German exports (in particular) would have suffered. Germany’s ability to ride out the global financial crisis so successfully would have been undermined without them.
The trouble was that those economies were always going to struggle to play on the same pitch as the stronger economies. They were cut alot of slack to get them into the Euro club when it suited Germany and its allies. There is no hint today of recognition of the debt the rest of the Eurozone owes Greece, Spain, Portugal Italy and, to a lesser extent, Ireland. Where is the concern for the youth of those countries who are without jobs and bereft of hope? That alone is a huge condemnation of the Euro project – it cares nothing for people.
Where is the Europe that cares?
The underlying problems in the Greek economy were there ten years ago but those weaknesses were useful to the Eurozone then. Now they are no longer useful Europe has turned nasty and it leaves a very bad taste. A Europe that cared would put its arm around its weaker brethren and pick them up, not kick them while they are down.
There is also a disturbing disregard for democracy. Like it or loath it, the Greek people have spoken clearly twice in the last six months. Does that mean nothing in Berlin and Brussels? That we can even ask that should send shiver down the spine of anyone who claims to value democracy. And many commentators are asking that question today.
From there we are inevitably led to ask: what are Europe and its institutions for and do we want to be part of them? Many more people in the UK will now be hesitating in their answers and very few will feel able to make a persuasive case for them when the referendum comes.
Will the UK vote to stay in? I’m now not so sure and it will be Europe and its failing institutions – not UKIP or the Tories – that will be to blame if we do leave.
Sturgeon takes on cybernats – and not before time
Nicola Sturgeon’s attempts to take the bile out of Scottish politics should be applauded. Her article in the Scottish Daily Mail and in her own blog on the Scottish National Party website acknowledges the damage that has been done to democratic debate – especially online – by the SNP’s supporters.
The cybernats have poisoned political debate in Scotland and around the broader debate on the future of the United Kingdom. When you write something you know they will disagree with you take a very deep breath before publishing it on social media and wait for a whirlwind of abuse. That fear of abuse and hatred has intimidated some people into keeping quiet: that is when the flame of democracy starts to dim.
It will take more than one article to cleanse the Augean Stables but it is a welcome start.
Receiving the award from one of the judges, Julie Page, CEO of Marsh’s consumer & commercial practice.
I’m rather pleased to have won the Trade Feature Award at the BIBA Insurance Journalist of the Year Awards for a piece called “The Rise of the Machines” about drones and pilotless planes. Such things were the stuff of science fiction when I first won the same award back in 1984.
Nowadays you get a simple piece of glass as a trophy (and a rather nice cheque) for winning. Back in 1984 it was a silver spirit measure which probably says something about how people viewed journalists then.
As someone kindly pointed out (I think they were being kind) with the other awards from BIBA and the ABI Media Awards I have won over the years I have now won journalistic awards in four different decades. Only another five years to go before I can can try to make it five decades. I’ll probably have to write about insuring flying saucers or making a claim when you are time travelling for that one!
The news that urgent consideration must be given to need to restore the Palace of Westminster – which houses the chambers of the Commons and the Lords – is very welcome for anyone interested in bringing our national Parliament into the 21st century.
I have been a long-time advocate of building a new Parliament and turning the present Palace of Westminster into a Museum of Democracy with a residual function for state and other ceremonial occasions.
Sadly, I doubt it will happen.
This is 2015, not 1815
The present building is inadequate and ill-suited to the demands of a modern legislative assembly. Take the House of Commons itself. It is far too small as even when they are crammed shoulder-to-shoulder it can accommodate little over 450 of the 650 MPs we elect to it. Only ministers have somewhere to put their papers when speaking and no-one has a table or desktop. When you consider the hundreds of pages that modern Bills often run to and the background material you might need to have to hand when participating in a debate this is just absurd.
Then there is the shape. Once we had two parties, Whigs and Tories, and before they were formed you were either a government supporter or you were opposition. This made a chamber originally based on the layout of a collegiate chapel (its first home) with rows of benches facing each other perfectly sensible. Now, we have a multi-party system with 12 parties currently represented and many subtle cross-party alliances on specific issues that make a nonsense of the “them or us” layout. Horseshoe or similar layouts are much more common throughout the world and can be seen in the new buildings for the Scottish Parliament (right) and Welsh Assembly.
This is all before you start to consider the role that technology might play in making the running of Parliament more efficient, with proper IT support for MPs while they are in the chamber. You could have individual built-in screens which could, say, display all the relevant background material for debates, have a news feed and so on. Maybe we could even look at electronic voting instead of having to have 15 minutes of wandering around everytime a vote is taken. Someone might even suggest that we could look at using technology to create opportunities for direct engagement with voters. Many MPs are very effective at using Twitter and Facebook to engage with the wider world so you might imagine they would welcome the opportunity to modernise their workplace. That is far from the case and today as the latest report is published you will see a succession of Westminster dinosaurs objecting to any suggestion that they leave the Palace of Westminster.
I am the first to acknowledge that the Charles Barry and Auguste Pugin building that constitutes most of the present Palace of Westminster is a wonderful building, full of history. I have loved going there ever since I made my first visit back in the early-1970s and frequently wonder at the history that has been made within its walls. But let’s be ruthlessly sensible for a moment.
It is not what it seems
First, the present House of Commons is a replica. The 19th century chamber (itself a replacement for the earlier chamber destroyed in a huge fire in 1834) was completely destroyed in May 1941. After that, the Commons met in Church House and later on in the House of Lords until 1950. So, Churchill’s wartime speeches were not made in the present chamber, the NHS was not born in debates there and going further back, Gladstone, Disraeli and Lloyd George never graced its benches.
Where the real history is
The oldest part of the building is Westminster Hall which you now walk through when visiting the Palace. It is over 900 years old and was the location for the trials of Thomas More and Charles I as well as the lying in of state of many monarchs and great statesmen. Nowadays, it is used when a visiting head of state makes an address to both Houses of Parliament and for other important occasions such as the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations in 2012. There is no reason why Westminster Hall could not continue to be used for such occasions.
MPs already know what modern looks like – and they like it
Second, many of the most significant Parliamentary occasions of the past couple of years have taken place in the modern committee rooms of Portcullis House as the key Select Committees have abandoned the traditional meeting rooms in the Palace of Westminster. This is not surprising as they are cramped and ill-equipped to cope with the demands of the modern media. The popularity of Portcullis House demonstrates that MPs acknowledge the need for better, more modern facilities.
People don’t want crude confrontation anymore
Third, the confrontational culture of the present House of Commons repels many people from politics. The weekly Prime Minister’s Question Time is often acutely embarrassing despite the best effects of the present Speaker, John Bercow, to get MPs to clean up their act. I think he will never succeed in that worthy mission in the present chamber with its architectural invitation to think in crude them or us terms and the associated legacy of hundreds of years of rowdy behavior, once accepted but now seen as wholly inappropriate.
House of Lords could have its wings clipped too
Another huge potential bonus of moving Parliament out of Westminster would be that people might start to look seriously at that bloated anachronism the House of Lords. Why should we pay for a new home for an unelected chamber that by itself is larger than any elected Parliament in the Western world? Permanent reform of the second chamber is a distant prospect at the moment but it would make huge sense to use the need to move out of the Palace of Westminster to take an axe to it and cut it numbers from the present 850-plus to 350.
Once you start to look at the problem in this more dispassionate way it becomes clear that a move to a new building – even temporarily – has both logic behind it and many potential attractions.
The question then becomes, where?
Must be London
I am not in favour of a move outside London, especially as we have now established parliaments in the constituent nations of the United Kingdom. London is our capital city and I can’t think of other national parliaments that are not in their country’s capital (I stand corrected on this point as the Dutch Parliament is in The Hague rather than Amsterdam for complex historical reasons and the Georgian Parliament is in Kutaisi, not Tblisi for more prosaic short term reasons of political popularity).
Could it be in Docklands?
Years ago I always thought the answer was a completely new Parliament built in Docklands. This would have instantly solved the problem of trying to establish the viability of Docklands but forgetting to put in a proper transport infrastructure: MPs and senior civil servants would have ensured that the roads, trains and buses were put in place for them. The moment for a move to Docklands has probably passed, however.
This probably leaves the QEII Conference Centre as the front-runner, although the possibility of stimulating further regeneration in east London shouldn’t be overlooked. The area around the Olympic Park still has potential and Stratford is superbly well connected nowadays including, dare one say it, to Europe.
QEII Centre has plenty going for it
QEII Centre: an obvious alternative
The QEII Centre just across the other side of Parliament Square would certainly work as an interim measure – as has been suggested several times – especially as the case for shutting down the Palace of Westminster for the repairs has now become unanswerable but it might even be the best permanent option. It is a relatively modern building with plenty of adaptable space, it is very near to all the present MPs offices, government departments and Downing Street. It would also mean that it would be easy to continue use of the present Palace of Westminster for ceremonial occasions and that the modern office and committee room facilities at Portcullis House wouldn’t be redundant.
The big drawback of the QEII Centre as a permanent new home is that you would be adapting a building not originally conceived for the purpose of a Parliament building.
Genuine Parliamentary reformers are thin on the ground
A move to a new building has so many advantages that you may think it surprising that it doesn’t have more supporters. Over the years whenever a temporary or permanent move has been mooted, Labour and Tory MPs alike have grumbled at the prospect, with their objections rising to a crescendo as soon as any suggestion of a horseshoe-shaped chamber creeps into the conversation. The institution has taken them over.
We are now into the third Parliament since the need for extensive repairs and restoration to the Palace of Westminster was first known and yet no decision on how to carry them out has been made: that in iteself is a scandal. Yet again we are being subject to squeals of protest from blinkered Parliamentarians horrified at the prospect of having to move out and face the 21st century. The option of staying in the Palace of Westminster while repairs are carried out wouldn’t even be seriously considered by any other institution and should be rejected immediately: the cost, the length of time it will take, the potential dangers are all unacceptable.
Setting course for a future outside of the Gothic grandeur of the present Palace of Westminster is the only sensible option but it is the one that will be most passionately opposed today.
Are there any real reformers left at Westminster?
There is too much lazy journalism around. I don’t mean the sort where under pressure junior journalists cut and paste whole press releases onto websites in order to meet pressing demands for more and more stories per hour to go online. I am talking about the stuff written and broadcast by experienced, senior journalists for major media outlets.
There is too much unquestioning acceptance of conventional wisdom on a wide range of economic, financial and political issues. This does not serve readers and listeners well and does nothing to promote constructive, intelligent debate on some of the key issues of the day. Two examples illustrate the problem very well.
The first is rising house prices. This is invariably presented as a good news story. Experts are quoted “welcoming” rises, “warning” of slowdowns, frequently the headlines are about house price “booms” with the clear implication being that this is a good thing. There is some awareness that rising houses prices are not good for everybody – such as first time buyers – but if this is acknowledged it invariably appears low down in a piece. Surely this is a story that deserves far greater scrutiny and a more balanced approach. There are so many downsides to rising houses prices – affordability, young people priced out, rising debt levels, impact on rent levels, distorted incentives to build the wrong type of homes in the wrong places and so on – that journalists should take a deep breath before accepting an uplift in prices as a positive angle.
Another topic that recurs frequently nowadays is retirement age. Every time suggestions are made that retirement ages should rise this is inevitably treated as a bad news story. Why? Working until, say 70, is not bad news in itself. People live so much longer than when retirement ages were set nearly a century ago, causing all sorts of sociological and economic challenges. We need people to work longer so they earn longer and save more for retirement. The state cannot support a rapidly growing retired population so raising retirement ages is surely good news from that perspective. Many people even welcome the opportunity to work longer – just look at the success of B&Q in recruiting older people to work for it.
Journalists are, along with everybody else, surrounded by what we might loosely label conventional wisdom. But they are also in a privileged position where they can challenge it. They should do exercise that privilege and their critical faculties far more.
It was a great shock this morning to wake up to the news that Charles Kennedy was dead. He was everything that the many generous tributes from people who knew him far better than I ever did have already said: decent but principled, a man of humility and humour.
Warmth and humanity: That smile we will all remember
He was frequently underestimated as a politician, partially because of the breadth of personality that made him stand out from the generation of politicians around him who were in the 1990s becoming increasingly two-dimensional, frightened to say or do anything that might offend some focus group. Ordinary people liked him because he was what you saw and heard, not some artificial construct constantly struggling to stay on message. He didn’t need all that because he instinctively knew what the message was and never shied away from articulating it.
Kennedy knew the Liberal Democrats could only thrive as a party of the centre-left and made sure they were firmly planted there. He gave them a clear voice on the key issues of the day, never more so than when he joined two million people to march through London and speak against the Iraq War at Hyde Park. That was a proud day to be a Liberal Democrat.
His own frailties meant that he was forced out of the party’s leadership far too soon. It may be that he was never really suited to the demands of that role but who knows what the Liberal Democrats may have achieved if he had remained capable of leading them into another election campaign.
He was, we should also remember, the one Liberal Democrat MP who stood out against going into the coalition with the Conservatives. His deeply liberal, left-leaning instincts told him it was wrong on many levels. It was one of the saddest moments of that gripping election night last month when he lost his seat, a victim of the nationalist backlash against the coalition.
Kennedy had already started making plans for his political future, dropping strong hints that he wanted to be involved in the forthcoming campaign to preserve Britain’s membership of the European Union. With other names being bandied around as potential leaders of a Yes campaign his stood out to my mind. He would have been a unifying force, a man who could have communicated the benefits of European co-operation with a simple passion. He is the leader we will never have.
There will be time to reflect on the election result and, in particular, write Nick Clegg’s political obituary over the next few days but let no-one spare him.
He is a decent, personable guy with some genuinely Liberal instincts but as a leader he has been a catastrophic failure. Full stop. He took over a party with over 60 MPs and has almost destroyed it.
The reasons are many but at the core lies way he has led the party away from the direction it has marched for 50 years since Jo Grimond pointed it towards the sound of political gunfire and a mission to replace Labour on the left of British politics. Clegg’s part in promoting the Orange Book betrayal of the party’s radical values has now borne very bitter fruit.
You can add to that the shorter-term considerations such as the tuition fees fiasco and his own failure as the minister in charge of constitutional reform where he promised much and delivered nothing.
People will try to be kind and find something generous to say over the next few days but he will be judged by history as one of the greatest political failures – deservedly so.
With the latest opinion polls in Scotland showing the SNP vote surging to over 50% and a clean sweep of seats in prospect wise heads in the party should be getting worried.
Why?
If the election sends 59 (or just one or two fewer) SNP MPs marching south on Westminster they will face some significant challenges, not least how do they represent all the Scottish people when only a little over half will have voted for them?
There is a grave danger that an overwhelming haul of seats for the SNP will unleash a wave of nationalist triumphalism – the signs are already there, especially on social media – that will blind them to the fact that a faction under half the Scottish people will have voted for parties that stand diametrically opposed to the SNP’s core policy of independence for Scotland. It is very hard to see how SNP MPs can give voice to those who want to remain part of the United Kingdom so who will speak for them? No-one? If you so completely disenfranchise half the population you store up big trouble. They will get angry and resentful and politics north of the border will get even more bitter and polarised than it is already.
A clean sweep will test the nationalists’ commitment to pluralism and tolerance. Nationalists the world over have always found that a tough challenge.
That won’t be their only challenge, however.
They will have to elect a leader. Yes, that charming Nicola Sturgeon won’t be there. She isn’t standing for Westminster, a point that Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have failed to get across.
Sturgeon won’t be SNP leader at Westminster – but who will?
The SNP has a leader at Westminster, the bluff but ineffectual Angus Robertson. It is hard to believe that Alex Salmond won’t stage a coup the moment he arrives back in London. This will at the very least be distracting for the SNP while it decides how to play its cards as kingmaker and, worse, could prove very divisive. As it is very unlikely that the SNP will enter a coalition with anybody it means they will have alot of backbench MPs with relatively little to keep them occupied in London and history shows that large numbers of idle MPs sooner or later make mischief. We could quickly discover that the SNP is not such a unified force after all.
Finally, they will face the challenge of what to do with an electoral system that now lies shattered and broken across the United Kingdom.
First Past The Post will have delivered 55 plus SNP MPs to Westminster when a fair electoral system would have given them half that number. The SNP has always supported proportional representation and has prospered under a PR system in Scotland. With the last vestige of credibility now stripped away from FPTP and the specious claim that it produces strong governments ruthlessly exposed as the fraudulent argument it always was electoral reform will be back on the agenda. The current system must surely be something that even its most blinkered adherents now realise has no place in a modern, multi-party democracy. How foolish must the proponents of the strong government argument feel now it is about the deliver them chaos and instability?
If electoral reform forces its way back on the agenda in the next Parliament will the SNP turkeys vote for Christmas? Half of them will lose their seats under a PR election. Will they put principle before career?
This election may turn out to be a case of beware what you wish for for the SNP.
The polls increasingly confirm what we have known for months: that neither Labour nor Conservatives are galvanising voters sufficiently to give either any hope of gaining an overall majority. The most likely result at the moment seems to be a minority Labour government, possibly with sufficient Liberal Democrat support to give it a decent chance of governing without being derailed by the SNP.
It will leave more than “who governs” up in the air.
It has been a passionless, plastic campaign with party leaders kept carefully away from ordinary people. Endless over-managed photo opportunities have just served to exaggerate the growing gulf between most of us and the political class. Election campaigns used to be an opportunity to bridge that gap and to engage in conversation and debate with people from outside your party, outside any party. Not anymore. The campaign managers are excessively timid, fearful of exposing our politicians to dissenting viewpoints and frightened of losing control. The Tories especially have so over-protected David Cameron that they have made him look weak and almost semi-detached from the campaign.
Ed Miliband has at least attempted to inject some passion into Labour’s campaign although his attempts to connect with ordinary voters have been far too modest. He has been constantly distracted by the SNP question as Nicola Sturgeon successfully commanded the media agenda for over a week. If he can push that issue aside he has a chance in the last week to open up a gap between his party and the Tories, although not sufficient to gain an overall majority.
To question all the parties – with the exception of the SNP – must ask themselves after the election is: how do we engage, motivate and enthuse voters. The rush to the centre ground over the last 25 years has made them indistinguishable in most people’s eyes and election campaigns have become more about competence to govern than a belief in changing things for the better. Competence is important but it doesn’t excite most people. Where will that spark of passion come from?
Who leads the SNP?
One question I am very surprised hasn’t featured more in the campaign is the SNP leadership. All the focus has been on Nicola Sturgeon but she won’t be at Westminster when the deals need to be done and decisions made on what to support and what to reject as she isn’t standing for a Westminster seat. The SNP’s current Westminster leader is the relatively ineffectual Angus Robertson who has been almost invisble in the campaign. Is the plan to oust him and put Alex Salmond in his place if he gets elected? This is an important question and one the media has been remiss in not posing.
Our broken electoral system
The first-past-the-post electoral system hasn’t been fit for purpose for over a generation, ever since the two party duopoly started to crumble in the 1960s. The failure of Nick Clegg to bring about any significant constitutional change – including electoral reform – is a dreadful indictment of his time as Deputy Prime Minister. He screwed up the golden opportunity he had with the botched referendum on the alternative vote. Ironically, his party could now be one of the beneficiaries of the total failure of our current system to cope with multi-party politics.
The current opinion polls suggest that the Liberal Democrats’ share of the popular vote could fall to around 7% but that they could still hang on to around 25-30 seats. UKIP is polling at twice that level but probably won’t win a single seat (they may hold Clacton but that looks like it for them). This is a huge anomaly that can’t be easily dismissed.
In Scotland, the SNP is polling at around 40%, a figure that could net the party 50 of the 59 Scottish seats. Another huge anomaly and one that might unwind in next year’s Scottish Parliament elections which will be held under a system of proportional representation.
Clearly, the system is broken beyond repair. It needs to be completely replaced.
Immigration – the elephant in the room
One issue that constantly comes at or near the top of public concern is immigration yet it isn’t being constructively debated in the campaign. Perhaps we should be thankful for this. But running away from it doesn’t make it go away.
UKIP, of course, has tried hard to push it up the agenda but its campaign seems to be struggling and it – and its leader – lack the credibility to promote a constructive debate around the issue. UKIP’s stance is too simplistic and one-dimensional to be taken seriously thus the issue falls by the wayside. I don’t believe they have been helped by the daily toll of human misery in the Mediterranean Sea.
You might have thought the flood of refugees into Europe, many of them making clear their desire to come to the UK, would have boosted UKIP but, thankfully, it hasn’t. The reasons lie in the innate humanity of most British people. They see children dying, they see desperate people prepared to risk their lives and they cannot rush to condemn or judge. When hysterical commentators such as The Sun’s Katie Hopkins do decide to pronounce and wish them dead most people are appalled. She and the minority who support her have made the issue so poisonous that UKIP now can’t touch it. For that we should be grateful to her.
It won’t stop people wanting better answers from our political leaders about how immigration should be managed in a way that supports our growing economy and in the context of a housing crisis due not to immigration but 30 years mismanagement of housing policy.
So, who will govern the country and how?
The smart money has to be on a minority Labour government, largely relying on Liberal Democrat support. It will dare the SNP to bring it down and put the Tories back into office and the SNP will back away despite all its bluster. If the Lib Dems hold sufficient seats to combine with Labour to produce an overall majority then we may even see another coalition although negotiations could be complicated if Clegg loses his seat and the Lib Dems face a leadership crisis.
That government – and all the parties – will have to start thinking very hard about the other unresolved issues before confidence in the political system slumps even lower.
For a generation the Conservatives’ strongest electoral card – apart from their ability to out spend their opponents – has been their economic prudence. This has been a double-edged sword they have wielded to great effect: swipe one way and they show they have fully-funded, costed and well-thought through plans; swipe the other way and they reveal their opponents’ lack of economic credibility with their flaky spending plans, over-promising and financial wishful thinking.
All this they have abandoned.
• £12bn more in welfare cuts: where are they going to fall? Answer: don’t know.
• £8bn more for the NHS: where is that going to come from? Answer: don’t know.
• Slashing of Inheritance Tax: how is that going to be paid for? Answer: don’t know.
Is Labour edging ahead in the electoral race?
Instantly, that old sword of past election campaigns is blunted on both sides. No longer do the Conservatives look like the party of economic prudence , just the people to guide the UK through the still choppy waters of the world economy. That alone significantly weakens their election campaign which, initially at least, was based on playing the “You can Trust Us with the Economy” card. That argument looks increasingly vulnerable as the attempts to break the electoral deadlock drive the Tories to throw economic caution to the wind.
It also severely blunts their ability to attack Labour for its economic imprudence. Goodness knows Labour has a very difficult position to defend on this, not least because it kept Ed Balls, a senior Treasury minister last time round, as Shadow Chancellor. But today Labour is promising us a fully-costed manifesto and has, so far, not been drawn into trying to match the Tories with rash financial commitments. Alongside this Labour has made just sufficient noise about making the better off pay more that it has attracted back to itself some of its core vote that had drifted away to the Liberal Democrats last time and the Greens in more recent polls.
It might be too early to describe this as momentum but it does begin to look as if Labour is building itself a sound platform from which to press on in the final three weeks of the campaign. If only Scotland could be similarly charmed Miliband would home and dry.
David Worsfold 