The rumblings from inside the stomach of the Labour Party clearly seem to be leading up to a bout of violent projectile vomiting once the expected defeat occurs next year. The spookiest of these reverberations comes from Lord Mandelson, the Prince of Darkness himself, who seems to be entertaining ideas of leading Labour once the mighty one has been thrown out. The really interesting feature of this is not any vision of a newly encommoned Mandelson facing Cameron at PMQ. It is hard to imagine Peter settling for at least five years of such limited fun. No power, no money, not quite the thing for which he gave up Brussels. No, the smart money in his case must be on the entirely possible scenario, given the bias to Labour in the present electoral setup, that the next election will be quite close-run without a clear Conservative majority. In such a situation, would it be entirely surprising to see Peter leading at least part of the Parliamentary Labour Party into some kind of national government coalition with the Conservatives? As commentators often observe, Labour is in his blood ─ you know, the Ramsay Mac lineage.
At least one must suppose that Mandelson has some kind of political strategy though one, which for obvious reasons, he keeps close. Other contenders, who have begun set out their stall, seem oblivious to any need for anything similar. David Miliband comes closest with his proposal basically to eliminate the need for any conventional political party just a vague body of ‘supporters’ who can chip in money or run phone lines as required without having any inconvenient ideas about forming party policy. (www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/08/07/how-the-next-decade-can-belong-to-labour) This idea does at least have the merit of formalising the present situation in the Labour Party but one has to wonder at the insight of a man whose idea of “a new relationship with three million-plus affiliated trade unionists” consists of getting them “signing up to the political fund of their union, making them a much closer part of a genuine Labour movement.” In other words, giving the Labour Party money. Not sure how the army of labour will take to that.
Passing over Harriet Harman in silence, always best, the other notable rumble has been the unlikely double-act of Jon Cruddas and James Purnell, one having Neal Lawson’s Compass think-tank as his PR machine, the latter working out of a rather weird project in the Demos think-tank (www.openleft.co.uk) which seeks to answer the question: What does it mean to be on the Left today? Both write freely about the ‘left’, without making much effort to define what they mean by this carpetbag word, and appear to be setting themselves up as Labour’s pathfinders for its post-2010 world. One can expect much in the way of a ‘narrative’ involving ‘paths to equality and individual empowerment’ as well as ways to ‘reclaim Labour’s lost constituency’ before the year is out. The problem with both Cruddas and Purnell is that they appear to see the left as an inchoate mass just waiting to be mobilised for Labour if only the right policy buttons can be pressed. They lack any apparent sense of the current structure of the left; political life is frozen for them perpetually in 1997 when, as Blair children, (both have been Blair aides), they saw what seemed to be a united coalition of the left supporting Labour. Both seem to regard the early Blair as their exemplar, promising a new world without being too specific about the details and gathering around them a joyous mass of the left.
Meanwhile, on the lonely extremities of the Labour Party, there seem to be the first stirrings of revolt. John McDonnell, perpetual leadership contender if he could only raise enough MP votes to be nominated, suggests standing as “Labour MPs making it clear at the next election that they stand on a policy platform of real change as ‘change candidates’” (http://l-r-c.org.uk/press/labour-left-threatens-candidates-for-change-slate-if-policies-dont-change). It remains uncertain as to just what this means. If mouthing off about the deficiencies of the leadership, then there’s little new. If he means standing with a published manifesto different to that prepared by the central machine then it would mean deselection and expulsion. This encapsulates the central contradiction of the Labour Representation Committee which McDonnell leads. As the statement goes on: “These would be Labour candidates binding together as a slate, committed within Labour, setting out the policy programme they will be advocating as a group and supporting in Parliament if elected. Only in this way can we demonstrate to the supporters that want to come home to Labour that there is the hope and prospect of change.” In other words, setting up as an electoral faction to persuade supporters (of what exactly?) to “come home to Labour” knowing that such a move would result in instant expulsion from this same party and, presumably, setting up some kind of alternative political group in opposition to it. This is the nettle which the LRC has to grasp at some point.
So one can set out two scenarios for 2010 and the Labour Party. In one, the election results in no clear majority for the Conservatives and the Lord of Darkness marches a small, though perfectly formed, group of MPs into some kind of National Unity government. John McDonnell leads an even smaller group of expelled MPs (though a much bigger proportion of party members) into the wilderness whilst David Miliband or similar organises a party without members but with continuing union finance into the world of virtual internet campaigning based upon a large Facebook group and words of wisdom from Cruddas and Purnell (unless the latter joins the PoD).
In the second, Labour is comprehensively defeated and the LoD slopes off to some well-paid job in an international organisation. Miliband succeeds to leading the much-depleted band of Labour including McDonnell, who decided not to court expulsion just yet but still fails to get the required 12.5% of Labour MPs to nominate him. Cruddas and Purnell both lose their seats and join think-tanks to write books about the future of Labour. In short, nothing much changes.
History favours this scenario but, as Gramsci said, pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. In other words, you know things will get worse but you still hope they will get better.
Tuesday 11 August 2009
Thursday 9 July 2009
The bottom of the barrel
This really must be the bottom of the barrel, the last scrapings of a government that has lost the will to live. The involvement of the British security services and, for that matter, police-forces in the torture of British Moslems held in overseas prisons must now be accepted as fact. The only questions which really remain unanswered are: how many and, more important, has it stopped? Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence, the only response by Labour ministers to questions about this scandal is to lie.
It is quite clear that every Prime Minister, Home, Foreign and Defence Secretary and various junior ministers, certainly since 2003, have signed off a policy which knowingly colluded in the torture of British subjects. Literally, signed off, for we know that, in order to avoid prosecution in the UK for offences committed overseas, security officers need the protection of the so-called ‘class seven authorisations’ which have to be signed by the home, foreign or defence secretary of state. Not, of course, that we are allowed to know how many such warrants have been signed. When asked to supply this information in parliamentary question, the request was refused as “it would assist those unfriendly to the UK”. Certainly it might assist those unfriendly to the UK government inside the UK on the grounds of its shameful human rights record but it is difficult to see who else. Al Qaeda operatives presumably know that they will be tortured if caught and it is difficult to see that they would be much incentivised in their work by knowing that their British torturers will not be prosecuted in Britain.
We know about this because of diligent journalism by one newspaper (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/08/mi5-mi6-acccused-of-torture), a few tireless human rights workers and, most shamefully, because of the release in America of copious documentation about the use of torture. It is all there, on the record. Yet the response of Labour politicians has been to lie over and over again. Blair, Blunkett, Smith, Miliband and Brown have lied and continue to lie. Soon, the new Home Secretary, Alan Johnson ─ the people’s friend ─ will lie about the matter. Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary 2007-2008) when chair of the only parliamentary committee which has any oversight of the security services (albeit in secret) refused to allow it to consider the issue as does the present chair, Kim Howells (minister at the Foreign Office, 2007-2008). Court proceedings are held in secret, court rulings are sealed, evidence is suppressed; all to protect the reputation of the government.
It could all have been handled so differently. In 1972, when the use of torture in Northern Ireland was exposed, the government of the day set up an inquiry headed by the Lord Chief Justice which concluded
“We have received both written and oral representations from many legal bodies and individual lawyers from both England and Northern Ireland. There has been no dissent from the view that the procedures are illegal alike by the law of England and the law of Northern Ireland. ... (d) This being so, no Army Directive and no Minister could lawfully or validly have authorized the use of the procedures. Only Parliament can alter the law. The procedures were and are illegal.”
The Prime Minister of the day, Edward Heath, then stated: “[The] Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with reference to any future operations, have decided that the techniques ... will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation... The statement that I have made covers all future circumstances.”
No one seriously believes that this prevented IRA suspects from being treated roughly thereafter and the Irish government pursued Britain through the European Court on Human Rights. But at least the Heath government refrained from gagging orders and outright lies after they were caught red-handed.
What distinguishes this current government is their dogged refusal to face facts and take action even when not to do so will simply result in even more embarrassment. Even when confronted with a new American president willing to put past American practice behind him, at least up to a point, and to release documentation about such practices, they stick by their line.
Why? A bit of ‘new-brooming’ never does an incoming political leader any harm. Of course, admission that the British government had engaged in some dodgy practices would have bruised the moral halo that Blunkett likes to wear and a few other Labour bruisers would have been tarnished. But does anyone care that much about John Reid? The biggest mystery, of course, is just what is it about Tony Blair that makes him untouchable? We know he is a serial liar though some have claimed, in his defence, that he does not lie but rather is a serial fantasist. But whether he deserves criminal prosecution or just sectioning is beside the point. The interesting thing is just why the obvious course of fessing up and dumping it on Tony is always avoided. Too late now, of course. Too many others, no doubt including Brown, have become swallowed by the mire. But one has the impression that Brown is too pleased to see his erstwhile rival, the sainted boy Miliband, banished to seminars on water-boarding too worry about such trivia as his own reputation.
Although it stands by itself for sheer immorality, the government’s behaviour over the torture allegations is of a piece with all its recent actions or rather inaction. It seems to have simply lost the will to live even to take the most obvious measures to salvage its reputation. It must have known that taking a pound of bankers’ flesh would have been received with joy. But it just lets the old lags depart with multi-million pound payoffs leaving slightly newer lags to revive the same old system. Just one prosecution for fraud or corporate malfeasance would have satisfied the mood. But no.
Similarly over parliamentary expenses, a few prominent heads would have sufficed. But no. Even the patently corrupt Hazel Blears is allowed to scuttle back to Salford to marshal her local support whilst a mildly-unwise Ian Gibson is summarily dismissed despite the support of his local party.
Of course it comes as no surprise that really important action in the banking sector or in the political system has been ducked. This is a profoundly conservative government led by a profoundly conservative man. But why have even a few populist gestures been so rigorously abjured? The fact is that we now have a zombie government supported by zombie MPs who are just waiting to be put out of their misery. That the only MP prepared to take a stand on the torture allegations is David Davis, a right-wing Conservative, is really the final epitaph on the Labour left in Parliament.
It is quite clear that every Prime Minister, Home, Foreign and Defence Secretary and various junior ministers, certainly since 2003, have signed off a policy which knowingly colluded in the torture of British subjects. Literally, signed off, for we know that, in order to avoid prosecution in the UK for offences committed overseas, security officers need the protection of the so-called ‘class seven authorisations’ which have to be signed by the home, foreign or defence secretary of state. Not, of course, that we are allowed to know how many such warrants have been signed. When asked to supply this information in parliamentary question, the request was refused as “it would assist those unfriendly to the UK”. Certainly it might assist those unfriendly to the UK government inside the UK on the grounds of its shameful human rights record but it is difficult to see who else. Al Qaeda operatives presumably know that they will be tortured if caught and it is difficult to see that they would be much incentivised in their work by knowing that their British torturers will not be prosecuted in Britain.
We know about this because of diligent journalism by one newspaper (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/08/mi5-mi6-acccused-of-torture), a few tireless human rights workers and, most shamefully, because of the release in America of copious documentation about the use of torture. It is all there, on the record. Yet the response of Labour politicians has been to lie over and over again. Blair, Blunkett, Smith, Miliband and Brown have lied and continue to lie. Soon, the new Home Secretary, Alan Johnson ─ the people’s friend ─ will lie about the matter. Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary 2007-2008) when chair of the only parliamentary committee which has any oversight of the security services (albeit in secret) refused to allow it to consider the issue as does the present chair, Kim Howells (minister at the Foreign Office, 2007-2008). Court proceedings are held in secret, court rulings are sealed, evidence is suppressed; all to protect the reputation of the government.
It could all have been handled so differently. In 1972, when the use of torture in Northern Ireland was exposed, the government of the day set up an inquiry headed by the Lord Chief Justice which concluded
“We have received both written and oral representations from many legal bodies and individual lawyers from both England and Northern Ireland. There has been no dissent from the view that the procedures are illegal alike by the law of England and the law of Northern Ireland. ... (d) This being so, no Army Directive and no Minister could lawfully or validly have authorized the use of the procedures. Only Parliament can alter the law. The procedures were and are illegal.”
The Prime Minister of the day, Edward Heath, then stated: “[The] Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with reference to any future operations, have decided that the techniques ... will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation... The statement that I have made covers all future circumstances.”
No one seriously believes that this prevented IRA suspects from being treated roughly thereafter and the Irish government pursued Britain through the European Court on Human Rights. But at least the Heath government refrained from gagging orders and outright lies after they were caught red-handed.
What distinguishes this current government is their dogged refusal to face facts and take action even when not to do so will simply result in even more embarrassment. Even when confronted with a new American president willing to put past American practice behind him, at least up to a point, and to release documentation about such practices, they stick by their line.
Why? A bit of ‘new-brooming’ never does an incoming political leader any harm. Of course, admission that the British government had engaged in some dodgy practices would have bruised the moral halo that Blunkett likes to wear and a few other Labour bruisers would have been tarnished. But does anyone care that much about John Reid? The biggest mystery, of course, is just what is it about Tony Blair that makes him untouchable? We know he is a serial liar though some have claimed, in his defence, that he does not lie but rather is a serial fantasist. But whether he deserves criminal prosecution or just sectioning is beside the point. The interesting thing is just why the obvious course of fessing up and dumping it on Tony is always avoided. Too late now, of course. Too many others, no doubt including Brown, have become swallowed by the mire. But one has the impression that Brown is too pleased to see his erstwhile rival, the sainted boy Miliband, banished to seminars on water-boarding too worry about such trivia as his own reputation.
Although it stands by itself for sheer immorality, the government’s behaviour over the torture allegations is of a piece with all its recent actions or rather inaction. It seems to have simply lost the will to live even to take the most obvious measures to salvage its reputation. It must have known that taking a pound of bankers’ flesh would have been received with joy. But it just lets the old lags depart with multi-million pound payoffs leaving slightly newer lags to revive the same old system. Just one prosecution for fraud or corporate malfeasance would have satisfied the mood. But no.
Similarly over parliamentary expenses, a few prominent heads would have sufficed. But no. Even the patently corrupt Hazel Blears is allowed to scuttle back to Salford to marshal her local support whilst a mildly-unwise Ian Gibson is summarily dismissed despite the support of his local party.
Of course it comes as no surprise that really important action in the banking sector or in the political system has been ducked. This is a profoundly conservative government led by a profoundly conservative man. But why have even a few populist gestures been so rigorously abjured? The fact is that we now have a zombie government supported by zombie MPs who are just waiting to be put out of their misery. That the only MP prepared to take a stand on the torture allegations is David Davis, a right-wing Conservative, is really the final epitaph on the Labour left in Parliament.
Thursday 11 June 2009
A Tale of Moloch and Belial
We are now governed by a viceroy ─ a direct appointee of the Queen who rules as monarch over a subject people. His court is filled by lords and ladies ennobled at his command and by various other temporary appointees. It is not a happy place. His food is tasted to prevent poisoning and there are guards at every entrance searching those who seek audience. Banished courtiers plot in their country houses whilst, in the taverns, bolder citizens talk of uprising. The viceroy maintains a parliament which meets occasionally to acclaim his decrees and has recently sent a delegation to request audience with him. Accept our solemn vows of allegiance, sire, they say but please listen to the grievances of your devoted subjects. And, with a smile, he graciously accepts their petitions, promises to consider them most carefully and rewards them with permission to spend the summer relaxing at his country estate. Meanwhile, on the borders, an army assembles raised by a pretender to the throne. It is said that it will invade next year and few of the court would survive the slaughter. Some send him discreet messages of support. Other avail themselves of the plentiful wine in the cellars and plan their escape to happier realms.
Gordon Brown is now presiding over the second crisis of his premiership. The first was the economic recession, the second is a crisis of legitimacy over the fundamental processes of democracy in Britain. Like the economic crisis, the seeds of this legitimacy crisis were planted right at the start of the New Labour regime in 1997. It needs to be remembered that Labour’s landslide victory then was based not upon a massive popular vote but upon a drop in voter turnout from nearly 78% in 1982 to just over 71%. You have to go back to the Depression year of 1935 to find a comparably low turnout. It has dropped every election since.
From the very start, Tony Blair made clear his general contempt for Parliament and developed a style of government which was increasingly distanced from Parliamentary involvement, a process in which Brown was a willing participant. The processes by which this was accomplished included rigid control over the party, in particular the selection of candidates which gradually cut back the number of potential rebels; expansion of the ‘payroll’ vote with more nondescript junior ministers; the introduction of huge portmanteau bills with limited time for scrutiny and the use of panic tactics to rush through bills based upon public anxiety. The turning point was undoubtedly the use of biased evidence and outright lies to force through acceptance of an unpopular war and the subsequent cover-up. Once Blair had survived that scandal, it became clear that Parliament could be sidelined with impunity.
Immediately after his coronation, Brown started further down the same path by his use of appointing peers to take over government jobs. Something which began as a vague PR stunt ─ remember Lord Jones, the ex-CBI boss ─ became a serious tool of governance with appointments like Lady Vadera and Lord Myner and has now reached new heights with an unelected peer becoming effectively the deputy prime-minister. Lord Mandelson now presides over eleven junior minsters, six of them peers. Or is it seven? What actually does Lady Kinnock do? Is Lord Sugar in government or not? Who cares. Government ministers, government advisers, party spin-doctors, all have become mixed up into a general melange in which the House of Commons is but a sideshow. The House of Lords, once derided as an hereditary nonsense has been transformed into a vast pool of executive power.
Taken together with the almost total removal of discretionary powers from local councils, democratic process in Britain has been, if not destroyed, then hugely limited. The exception is Scotland where an independent democratic process has been set up which, although not perfect, does maintain levels of independent scrutiny and control of executive power.
It is this process which has precipitated the huge furore over MPs expenses. Most people can see that many of the individual claims are little more than goes on in many private businesses. If MPs were seen as useful parts of government then the fuss would have been much more muted. Ironically, Brown himself could easily have defused the whole business months ago had he allowed openness and scrutiny just as he could have won a general election a few months after he received the call to Buckingham Palace. In both cases, he failed to take notice of a wider public voice, once to his disadvantage, now to his disgrace. Brown, who understands how to control the Labour Party, has only a vestigial knowledge of a wider world.
The new proposals he has introduced in response to the furore have vague references to reforming the Lords, to give MPs more power and to electoral reform. Don’t hold your breath. The definite idea is to create yet another regulator, this one to supervise MP’s expenses and salaries. Remember Oftoff, set up to regulate entry into universities. Well now we are to have Ofpal to keep MPs up to the mark. In other words, another appointed agency with a redundant banker probably heading it, responsible to the executive. They may deserve it but the result will be another diminishing of MP’s power, this time over their own income. Just where this process will end is unclear but it looks increasingly unlikely that democracy will triumph.
Moloch and Belial? Well, in Paradise Lost, Milton imagines a council of the fallen angels banished from heaven for rebellion against God. Living out their lives in a dreary limbo, they are gathered to discuss their future action. Moloch is the big beast with a loud voice, much given to shouting and biffing. We have already met him. Belial is a much lesser devil given over, according to Milton, to the vices of lewdness and peculation. His argument is, in effect, to do nothing but wait and hope for better times. After all, he says, suppose we did something and it made things worse, if God called down all the fires on our heads. It’s not so bad really, Belial argues, and it could be a lot worse. It is left to you to decide just which bunch of craven Labour MPs most match up.
Gordon Brown is now presiding over the second crisis of his premiership. The first was the economic recession, the second is a crisis of legitimacy over the fundamental processes of democracy in Britain. Like the economic crisis, the seeds of this legitimacy crisis were planted right at the start of the New Labour regime in 1997. It needs to be remembered that Labour’s landslide victory then was based not upon a massive popular vote but upon a drop in voter turnout from nearly 78% in 1982 to just over 71%. You have to go back to the Depression year of 1935 to find a comparably low turnout. It has dropped every election since.
From the very start, Tony Blair made clear his general contempt for Parliament and developed a style of government which was increasingly distanced from Parliamentary involvement, a process in which Brown was a willing participant. The processes by which this was accomplished included rigid control over the party, in particular the selection of candidates which gradually cut back the number of potential rebels; expansion of the ‘payroll’ vote with more nondescript junior ministers; the introduction of huge portmanteau bills with limited time for scrutiny and the use of panic tactics to rush through bills based upon public anxiety. The turning point was undoubtedly the use of biased evidence and outright lies to force through acceptance of an unpopular war and the subsequent cover-up. Once Blair had survived that scandal, it became clear that Parliament could be sidelined with impunity.
Immediately after his coronation, Brown started further down the same path by his use of appointing peers to take over government jobs. Something which began as a vague PR stunt ─ remember Lord Jones, the ex-CBI boss ─ became a serious tool of governance with appointments like Lady Vadera and Lord Myner and has now reached new heights with an unelected peer becoming effectively the deputy prime-minister. Lord Mandelson now presides over eleven junior minsters, six of them peers. Or is it seven? What actually does Lady Kinnock do? Is Lord Sugar in government or not? Who cares. Government ministers, government advisers, party spin-doctors, all have become mixed up into a general melange in which the House of Commons is but a sideshow. The House of Lords, once derided as an hereditary nonsense has been transformed into a vast pool of executive power.
Taken together with the almost total removal of discretionary powers from local councils, democratic process in Britain has been, if not destroyed, then hugely limited. The exception is Scotland where an independent democratic process has been set up which, although not perfect, does maintain levels of independent scrutiny and control of executive power.
It is this process which has precipitated the huge furore over MPs expenses. Most people can see that many of the individual claims are little more than goes on in many private businesses. If MPs were seen as useful parts of government then the fuss would have been much more muted. Ironically, Brown himself could easily have defused the whole business months ago had he allowed openness and scrutiny just as he could have won a general election a few months after he received the call to Buckingham Palace. In both cases, he failed to take notice of a wider public voice, once to his disadvantage, now to his disgrace. Brown, who understands how to control the Labour Party, has only a vestigial knowledge of a wider world.
The new proposals he has introduced in response to the furore have vague references to reforming the Lords, to give MPs more power and to electoral reform. Don’t hold your breath. The definite idea is to create yet another regulator, this one to supervise MP’s expenses and salaries. Remember Oftoff, set up to regulate entry into universities. Well now we are to have Ofpal to keep MPs up to the mark. In other words, another appointed agency with a redundant banker probably heading it, responsible to the executive. They may deserve it but the result will be another diminishing of MP’s power, this time over their own income. Just where this process will end is unclear but it looks increasingly unlikely that democracy will triumph.
Moloch and Belial? Well, in Paradise Lost, Milton imagines a council of the fallen angels banished from heaven for rebellion against God. Living out their lives in a dreary limbo, they are gathered to discuss their future action. Moloch is the big beast with a loud voice, much given to shouting and biffing. We have already met him. Belial is a much lesser devil given over, according to Milton, to the vices of lewdness and peculation. His argument is, in effect, to do nothing but wait and hope for better times. After all, he says, suppose we did something and it made things worse, if God called down all the fires on our heads. It’s not so bad really, Belial argues, and it could be a lot worse. It is left to you to decide just which bunch of craven Labour MPs most match up.
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