Here in the UK, it's exactly 100 days to the most likely date of the General Election: 6 May 2010.
The good news for the Labour Government is that at last the recession is officially over.
The bad news for the party is that, in the latest opinion poll, the Conservatives are 11% in the lead.
I was born on 25 June 1948. I like the symmetry of the date - exactly midway between Christmases, so spreading evenly the childhood joy of receiving presents.
Furthermore this was a most historic time. Domestically it was the time that the National Health Service was created (5 July 1948). Internationally it was the start of the Soviet blockade of Berlin (24 June 1948).
Something else important happened at that time. The first significant group of black immigrants arrived in Britain from the West Indies on the "MV Empire WIndrush" (22 June 1948).
It has now been suggested that this date become a public holiday to celebrate the contributions of black, Asian and other minority communities to Britain over the last 60 years - see this short article. I like the idea.
Nick Cohen fears that Labour could be heading for a massive defeat in a few months' time - see this blog posting. He could be right.
But try this for an alternative scenario: the Conservatives win the largest number of seats but no overall majority, go to the polls again in May 2011, and a rejuvenated Labour Party under a new leader is returned to office.
Two General Elections in a year? It happened in February and October 1974 when I was a Parliamentary candidate for Labour on both occasions.
Of course, the British General Election has not been called yet, but it has to be in the next five months and it will probably be on Thursday 6 May 2010.
So it's interesting to read this American view on the forthcoming poll. Especially useful is the graph about the imbalance between votes and seats in the British first-past-the-post system and the table reminding us of how votes were cast last time.
Conservative Party leader David Cameron has received a lot of publicity - much of it critical - for the airbrushed poster that prominently featured his face.
There have been some great spoofs of the poster online which you can see here.
There is currently no vacancy for leadership of the Labour Party, but the "Guardian" today devotes no less than six full pages of its G2 section to a discussion of who would be the best successor to Gordon Brown when - as widely expected - he leads Labour to defeat at the General Election, probably in four months time. Should it be David Miliband, 45 year old Foreign Secretary, or Ed Miliband, 40 year old Climate Change Secretary?
The Milibands are the first brothers to sit in the cabinet together since Austen and Neville Chamberlain in 1931. However, I'm sure that they will not become the first brothers to contest the same leadership election. It will probably be David - but it's good that the Labour Party has sufficient talent to have a choice. A real pity though that a change was not made a year ago.
1) My sister lives there so I visit the city regularly - the last time as recently as a week ago.
2) Some time in the next five years, it will become the first British city where everyone is a member of some ethnic or religious minority - see this article.
I spent five years as the national health & safety officer of a major British trade union, so I become very concerned when I hear the media alleging that we've become health & safety mad (as in this story from the "Daily Mail") and some politicians insisting that expenditure of health & safety should be cut (as in this speech by David Cameron).
Often the media and the politicians will justify their argument with a case which is apparently an over-zealous application of safety rules or precautions - except that often these cases are simply apocryphal and totally untrue.
It's got so bad that the Health and Safety Executive collates and publishes on its web site all these myths - see here.
Here in the UK, there has to be a General Election in the next seven months. The most likely date is Thursday 6 May 2010 when we have local elections. Labour will be defending its record in office of 13 years. Can it win a fourth term? Sadly I think not.
But it may be that the Conservatives will be denied an overall majority. In the "Observer" today, we have the results of an Ipsos MORI poll which puts the Conservatives on 37%, only six points ahead of Labour on 31%. The Liberal Democrats are on 17%. This is the narrowest gap between the two main parties in any poll since last December.
In an analysis piece, Bob Worcester, head of Ipsos MORI, explains that "the Tories need to win 117 seats to achieve a simple majority, but perhaps 140 for a working majority, which is a huge mountain to climb".
If the Ipsos MORI poll is accurate (it may be rogue) and if the voting intentions are replicated at the next election, the Conservatives will hold the most seats but fall 35 short of an overall majority in the Commons.
As a result of my web site, I receive e-mails from all around the world and I'm always happy to hear from readers. Today I had this e-mail from a German student of 27 in response to my web essay on "A Short Guide To The British Political System":
"I am studying English and Portuguese at the University of Heidelberg (translation and interpretation). Next week, I will have to talk about the UK Parliament in class. During my researches I came across your article which I consider quite helpful.
My concern: Since I don't want to bore my audience with plain facts only, I was thinking about including some anecdotes or simply some "everyday life stories". Maybe something that is very strange, typical or special about the Parliament and its members.
I'd be so glad hearing from you!"
So - how did I respond? As follows ....
Continue reading "Something you didn't know about the House of Commons" »
I was at a conference this week held in the House of Commons and entitled "Parliament And The Internet". One of the speakers was Stephen Timms in his capacity as Minister for Digital Britain. He told us a delightful little story.
First Timms reminded his audience that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, has been appointed by the Prime Minister to help the British Government to make its data more easily available online. Then Timms explained how he had taken Berners-Lee along to a meeting of the Cabinet to discuss the opening up of public data.
Veteran Cabinet member and Justice Minister Jack Straw exclaimed: "Meeting the inventor of the web is like meeting the inventor of the wheel." The youthful Environment Minister Ed Miliband immediately quipped: "And how was that, Jack?"
The university department where I did my degree in Management Sciences is now part of the Manchester Business School and the latest "MBS Alumni Relations eNewsletter" features an article entitled "Mountains of National Debt - Hysteria and Myth?". It is by Professor Michael Luger, Director of Manchester Business School, who asks whether the national debt piling up in the UK and US is as bad as it seems.
Continue reading ""Mountains of National Debt - Hysteria and Myth?"" »
The Liberal Democrats are meeting in Bournemouth this week for their Annual Conference and I've been in the city to look at a super fast broadband scheme (more about that later). So far, the aspect of the conference that has attracted the most publicity is the surprise proposal that homes with a value of over £1 million pounds should be subject to an annual tax.
This is an interesting suggestion, but why should the government only tax wealth in the form of property? Why not tax all wealth? This is the position favoured by the lead character in my latest short story entitled "The PM And The MP".
In this list, NightHawk features at No 90.
If you live in the UK and you want to know what expenses your Member of Parliament has claimed recently, BBC online has helpfully provided this guide.
In the early 1960s, there was a BBC television programme called "That Was The Week That Was" which was a bitingly funny piece of political satire. Boy, if it was around today, what material this week would have given them. I did a blog posting a week ago which anticipated some of the excitement, but all political commentators have been stunned by the events of the past five days.
Of course, we knew that there were going to be local elections and that the results would be terrible for Labour - and so it proved. Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire were lost by Labour for the first time in 28 years and Lancashire for the first time since 1989. Nationwide the Conservatives now have over 10,000 councillors to Labour's less than 5,000.
We don't know all the results yet, but it looks as if the parties' share of the votes will be: Conservatives 38%, Lib Dems 28%, Labour 23%, others 11%. This is awful for Labour, but frankly it could have been worse - and it may yet get worse with the European election results (a nationwide test) on Monday threatening to fall below 20% for the party.
We also knew that Gordon Brown would reshuffle his Cabinet in an effort to retain his authority and remain at No 10. What we did not expect was that no less than six Cabinet Ministers - Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears, John Hutton, Geoff Hoon, Paul Murphy and (most dramatically) James Purnell - would resign from the Cabinet and that Caroline Flint would put the stiletto in. Brown's refusal to say earlier in the week that Alistair Darling would remain at the Treasury and then his inability to put Ed Balls in the post betrays a real sense of weakness.
I had speculated about Peter Mandelson leaving the Business Department, but instead he has been made First Secretary of State (a totally new appellation in British politics) and his Department is to take over much of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). The fact that Brown only created the DIUS two years ago and is now dismantling it is yet another example of his chronic indecision and revision.
In my earlier posting, I commented: "Additionally it is not out of the question that some MPs caught up in the expenses scandal may choose to step down now causing further by-elections." So it has proved to be. Norwich North's Labour MP Ian Gibson has resigned from Parliament as a protest at how he has been treated by the Labour NEC in respect of his expense claims. This will force a by-election to add to the one in Glasgow North-East occasioned by the resignation of the Speaker Michael Martin.
Now a key theme of my earlier posting was that there was a further ticking time bomb for Brown which had gone largely unnoticed by the political pundits: the proposed Second Reading of the Postal Services Bill which plans to bring about the part privatisation of Royal Mail. The Second Reading - which involves a vote on the Bill's principles - was due to have been held on Tuesday. However - almost missed by the media - the debate has been postponed with no new date agreed.
This makes sense politically: in the current feverish circumstances, as well as Labour backbench opponents of the part privatisation, any Labour MP who wants to see Gordon Brown step down as Prime Minister would have been tempted to vote against the measure to provoke his resignation. However, in regulatory and business terms, there are strong reasons for wanting to see the remaining sections of the Postal Services Bill on the Statute Book before the summer recess - and time is running out ...
One of my favourite sayings is: "It isn't over till it's over - and then it isn't over". Certainly the debate about Gordon Brown's future as Prime Minister is far from over and Monday is another key day. We will have the European election results and a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. My own judgement is that Brown's days are numbered and I trust that he will recognise this sooner rather than later and help to affect a quick and smooth transfer of power to the new leader (hopefully Alan Johnson).
OK - so I've voted. Here in London, we don't have local elections, only European elections. The electoral system is a regional list system so we vote for a political party and not for one or more candidates.
In London, there are 19 choices so it was the longest ballot paper that I can remember. The parties are listed alphabetically, so the British National Party might obtain some votes simply by being top of the list. "The Labour Party" is listed under T rather than L.
Even after 43 years, I still have a joy in voting. I feel both a sense of power and a sense of responsibility. I am acutely aware that billions around the world do not have this right.
I'll be voting Labour tomorrow as I have done in every election since I gained the right to vote 43 years ago.
I feel strongly about the issue of climate change and support measures to protect the environment but, if ever I was tempted to vote for the Green Party, I would pull back because of its anti-science policies as highlighted in this article.
One of my closest friends is doing valuable pioneering work on stem cell research, but the Greens want to ban all experiments on embryos, including those designed to improve fertility treatment, as well as embryonic stem cell work.
As a lifelong Labour Party member, it pains me to acknowledge this, but I've never known Labour to be in such dire straits. Sadly the worst is yet to come because of a succession of ticking time bombs.
On Thursday, parts of the UK will have local elections and the whole of the UK will have European elections. We will have the local results straightaway. However, most of the other 26 countries in the European Union will not vote for the European Parliament until Sunday, so we won't count our European votes until all nations have voted and consequently we won't know our European results until Monday.
What we do know though is that the results will be terrible for Labour. Last year, Labour won only 24% of the vote in the local elections; in 2004, Labour won a mere 22.6% of the vote in the European elections. This year, anything over 20% will look decent; below 20% will be a disaster.
As well as these large-scale elections, Labour has to face a by-election in the seat currently held by the Speaker of the Commons Michael Martin: Glasgow North-East. Ordinarily this would be a Labour stronghold; these days, Labour will struggle to keep the Scottish Nationalists at bay.
Additionally it is not out of the question that some MPs caught up in the expenses scandal may choose to step down now causing further by-elections. It is in their financial interests to stay on until the General Election, but some may find the pressure or the embarrassment too much.
Now all these ticking bombs are well-known and well-understood and there is very little that Gordon Brown can do to avoid them. But there's a less visible ticking bomb that Brown (or his successor) could defuse. It's called the Postal Services Bill. In the Government's language, this proposes to create a strategic partnership between Royal Mail and a suitable private sector partner. In the language of the Bill's opponents, it will bring about the part privatisation of the mails business just when the Government has taken most of the banks into public ownership.
The Postal Services Bill has already completed all its stages in the House of Lords and had its First Reading (a technical measure) in the House of Commons. It will have its Second Reading in the Commons - which involves a vote on the principles - very shortly after the local and European elections, possibly as soon as the following Tuesday.
Many Labour MPs are deeply unhappy about the part privatisation section of the Bill - the rest is largely uncontentious - and will be tempted to vote against it. And why shouldn't they, if they think that it will get through anyway on Conservative votes and if they think that they are unpopular enough already with their local party and local electorate?
So what's going to happen? Many scenarios are under discussion in the fevered atmosphere of Westminster, but let me outline two - one quite likely, one less likely but more attractive.
A quite likely option is that, in the aftermath of a Labour wipe-out at the polls this coming week, Gordon Brown as Prime Minister will seek to give the Government a fresh look by reshuffling his Cabinet, dropping some members and bringing in some new talent.This could happen as soon as Friday. In this scenario, he might well change the leadership of the Business Department, moving Lord Mandelson (who doesn't face any election) and putting in someone more sensitive to Labour backbench opinion on the Postal Services Bill.
A less likely - but not impossible - option is that the election results this week are so utterly awful for Labour that Brown comes under irresistible pressure to step down either immediately or over the summer, so that a more popular Prime Minister can lead Labour into the coming General Election in which the party might still lose but retain a more creditable number of seats. If this scenario came to pass, the obvious candidate for the Labour leadership would be the current Health Minister Alan Johnson. Now Johnson is a former General Secretary of the postal workers' union (where he was my boss) and a one-time postal minister and you can be sure that he would find a quick way to get the Government off the privatisation hook.
I have great respect for Gordon Brown who is an honourable man, but his premiership has not worked for the country or the party. Right now Alan Johnson would be better for both.
Of course, it does - and, spurred by understandable outrage over MPs' expenses, all sorts of proposals are being mooted. Today the leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron contributes a major article in the "Guardian" newspaper of all places.
So I've taken the opportunity to up-date my essay "A Short Guide To The British Political System" to list some of the main reforms that have been suggested.
He is black, he is a Conservative Member of Parliament, and he sits on his party's Front Bench - but you've never heard of him. He is Adam Afriyie - Conservative MP for Windsor and Shadow Minister for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
I first came across him during the last General Election campaign when I was visiting Ascot and picked up one of his election leaflets. I was surprised - but impressed - that the Conservatives were running a black candidate in such a seat. Equally I was surprised that then and now he receives so little national publicity. But he does not seem to seek such exposure and he clearly does not trade on his blackness to win a profile.
I first blogged about him two and a half years ago here. Why do I mention him again now? Two reasons.
First, in the current scandal on MPs' expenses, he is revealed as one of the ten lowest claimers of expenses out of the 646 members of the House of Commons. OK, so he's rich and doesn't need to claim lots of expenses. But that hasn't prevented many of his Parliamentary colleagues from exhibiting greed. The man shows good judgement.
Second, we are no more than a year away from a General Election which the Conservatives are clear favourites to win. If David Cameron does become Prime Minister, watch out as Adam Afriyie makes a rapid rise up the ministerial ladder.
And remember where you first heard of him.
The National Minimum Wage is a real achievement of the Labour administration in the UK that has made a material difference to many low-paid workers. But some Conservatives want to freeze the current levels and others want to abolish it outright. To support the National Minimum Wage, go here.
A former professor at the London School of Economics has contacted me to ask about a discussion we had when I was Special Adviser to the Home Secretary in 1977. Now I don't know about you, but I can't remember details of meetings which I had 32 years ago - but I have kept a daily diary since I was 13, so I was able to do some checking for him.
While looking at my diary for 1977, I came across this entry: "I took a taxi to Wanstead House for my speech to Wanstead Branch Labour Party. At 9 pm, I gave a 40-minute speech entitled 'The Future Of Democratic Socialism' in which I examined the elimination of poverty, the redistribution of income & wealth, economic planning, public ownership, individual rights, internationalism and democracy."
I can't be absolutely sure after all this time, but I'm fairly confident that I didn't mention nationalisation of the banks - that would have been far too radical. I wonder though: do Labour Party Branches still have this kind of discussion? I doubt it.
Incidentally I see that, over in the United States, the Republicans have decided that calling Barack Obama "a liberal" is too mild, so now they are accusing him of being "a socialist" and even the "New York Times" has got into the act [see here]. So it looks as if I'm in good company.
"Once in a generation you have an opportunity to change society in profound ways. For all the hardship and insecurity bound up in recent events, we are lucky to live in such a moment. What seemed infallible until recently – the essential credo behind the last 30 years of economic history – has crumbled, like communism before it. Yet this is not a crisis of capitalism, but a crisis of a society and democracy that have failed to regulate the market. It will become a crisis for our planet, too, unless we resolve it."This is the conclusion of a thoughtful piece on the current financial crisis written for the "New Statesman" by Compass Chairman Neal Lawson and "Guardian" John Harris.
The pressure group Compass has created a short video to make the case for change:
You probably won't have noticed it but the British Government has just launched a new web site to explain to UK citizens what it is doing to tackle the economic recession. It's called "Real Help Now".
The idea is said to borrow from the the wish of the Obama administration in the United States to show how the financial package just approved by Congress is actually been spent. That web site is called "Recovery.gov".
One can only welcome government efforts to be more transparent although, of course, a third of UK homes and a quarter of US homes don't have connection to the Internet.
I attended a meeting at the House of Commons today and found the entrance to the building besieged by the media. The meeting - convened by the UK Internet Governance Forum - was held in Portcullis House and the strong media presence was not for us but for the bankers about to appear before the Treasury Select Committee to explain how they led the British banking system into catastrophic collapse.
And what did they say? See here.
The British House of Commons currently has 646 seats which will increase to 650 seats at the next General Election (the number varies slightly from time to time to reflect population change). This is a large legislature by international standards. For instance, the House of Representatives in the USA has 435 seats but, of course, each of the 50 US states has its own legislature. The Conservative Party has said that, if it wins the next General Election, it will reduce the number of Commons seats by around 10%.
The Conservatives say that they want to improve efficiency and to reduce the variation in the size of constituencies. Typically a constituency would have around 60,000-80,000 voters, depending mainly on whether it is an urban or rural constituency. However, the largest constituency in the country is the Isle of Wight with 108,253 electors at the last General Election, while the smallest is Na h-Eileanan an Iar (formerly known as the Western Isles) with an electorate of only 21,884.
Two types of seats are likely to be impacted by the Conservative proposals: Welsh seats which could be cut from 40 to 30 and inner city constituencies which tend to be small. In both cases, the reductions would benefit the Conservative Party. But first they have to win under the current structure and then get their Bill through both Houses ...
Any doubts that our local communities are fracturing under the multiple pressures of modern life are dispelled by new research commissioned by the BBC. This shows that community life in Britain has weakened substantially over the past 30 years. Analysis of census data reveals how neighbourhoods in every part of the UK have become more socially fragmented and that even the weakest communities in 1971 were stronger than any community now.
More information here.
"The downturn is expected to be severe in economies most vulnerable to the financial crisis or to sharp house price falls. These include Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Spain, Turkey and the UK."In its half-yearly health check of global growth, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has stated that the UK economy will shrink by 1.1% in 2009.
Full OECD report here.
If a week is a long time in politics (as former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson once famously declared), then - especially in current turbulent financial times - two months is almost an eternity. So, according to the pollster Ipsos/MORI, in September the Conservatives had a lead over Labour of 28% and today that lead is a mere 3%: 40% to 37% with 12% for the Lib Dems.
In fact, things were probably not quite that bad for Labour in September and they are probably not quite that good now. But the polls show that political opinion is very volatile, generally Brown's management of the financial crisis is winning him back support, and that - while Labour will still find it very tough to win a fourth term - there is a fighting chance of such a victory.
The immediate political battle is over how to respond to the recession. The Labour Government believes that we should spend our way out of recession by borrowing more as a nation, while the Conservatives believe that we should have tax cuts funded by spending reductions. This is why David Cameron has now abandoned his pledge to match Labour's spending plans. Upon the result of the argument rests a lot of jobs and a lot of votes.
Two and a half months ago, I did a blog posting on the contrast between American and British politics. It attracted more comments that I usually obtain on this blog, so you might like to revisit it.
Now that the presidential election is over, this is a good time to make some further comments about the differences between the two political systems as it especially affects the transfer of power between leaders:
In all the euphoria over the election of Barack Obama in the United States (and I share that excitement big time), we political observers in Britain should not overlook the significance of the Labour Party victory in Thursday's Glenrothes by-election.
Not only was the victory unexpected even by Labour itself, it is the first by-election since February 1997 when Labour has both increased its share of the vote(by 3%) and won the seat. Since taking office in May 1997, there have been only three other occasions when Labour has increased its share and on each of those occasions Labour came second.
The Scottish National Party will claim that they lost because Labour hit hard (and, in the SNP view, unfairly) on the single issue of the local council's introduction of large home care charges - and there may be something in that. But the significance of the setback to the SNP was underlined by Labour's victories in two local council by-elections the same day.
It was a personal triumph for Prime Minister Gordon Brown: he broke with convention by visiting the by-election twice and his wife Sarah made repeated visits. Brown's personal position had strengthened since the economic crisis and this by-election victory underlines and reinforces that.
It is tempting to try to make some comparison between the Obama and the Brown victories. No doubt the Conservatives will hail Obama's success as showing that voters want a fresh young face (and so they should vote for David Cameron). On the other hand, Obama and Brown have much more in common ideologically than Obama and Cameron. Obama and Brown both see government more as part of the solution rather than as simply the problem and they should work well together in tackling the international consequences of the global financial crisis.
It's been a good week for those on us on the Centre-Left.
"Perhaps because of the nature of the technology, there is a tendency for political blogs to have a 'Samizdat' style. The most popular blogs are rightwing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes. Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour government. Perhaps if there was a Tory government, all the leading blogs would be left-of-centre?This is a quote from a speech made this week to a Hansard Society conference by Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary of State in the Cabinet. I think that there is something in what she says. NightHawk is not a political blog as such but it does address political issues at home and abroad and I always try to make my postings thoughtful and respectful of politicians.But mostly, political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy. Until political blogging 'adds value' to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair."
Matrix management is very fashionable in the business world - although far from easy to achieve effectively. But the concept seems to be growing in popularity in the political world.
Take, for instance, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (snappy title that) which I deal with most because of my involvement in consumer affairs (notice that the Departmental title does not mention the consumer).
Four of the five junior ministers in BERR exercise their responsibilities jointly with another Government Department - see details here.
I would - but apparently one in five voters in Britain and one in two voters in the United States would not.
"In the US survey, the most electoral objectionable group was atheists, with 53% of Americans saying they would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified Presidential candidate who was an atheist. One would expect that figure to be much lower in the UK, but actually it is still surprisingly high at 20%. One might not have guessed it, but not believing in God would appear to be almost as much of an electoral handicap for a potential leader in the UK as being Muslim or gay."See full story here.
Let's forget for the moment that Prime Minister Gordon Brown, during his decade as Chancellor of the Exchequer, presided over the deregulation of the financial markets that has now cost us all so dear.
In the last couple of weeks, he and the current Chancellor Alistair Darling have put together an impressive rescue package that exhibits both boldness and pragmatism. The key elements are now being replicated throughout Europe and the United States.
Brown and Darling have worked extremely hard and shown coolness and decisiveness. But I know, from my four years in two Whitehall Departments as a Special Adviser, that this package could not have been put together and implemented without the expertise and skill of many officials who so far are publicly unsung.
In the next few weeks, we may learn the names of some of them. We owe them our appreciation and gratitude.
It is rare to see such an open discussion of the Prime Minister's vision problems as we find in this piece.
More openness on this issue may enable the electorate and the media to take a fairer view of Brown's demeanor and manner as well as encourage understanding of the large number of people in this country who have poor sight.
When the Communication Workers Union was created through a merger in 1995, I was asked by the Joint General Secretaries to become the Head of the Research Department for the new union and fulfilled that role for the next seven years before I took early retirement. My two bosses were Alan Johnson and Tony Young, both immensely able and personable individuals with whom I loved working.
In fact, in 1997, Alan became a Member of Parliament and is now the Secretary of State for Health. Four years ago, Tony became a member of the House of Lords and I was pleased to attend his introduction which I blogged about here.
Now, over the weekend, the Prime Minister has been completing his Ministerial reshuffle and I'm delighted to learn that Tony has been appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills as explained here. Tony has been a good personal friend for 30 years and I know that he will serve the Government and us well.
I just love politics - never a dull moment. The reshuffle of the Cabinet today makes really interesting news.
The headline appointment is clearly the return of Peter Mandelson. This is as inspired as it is unexpected. It shows that Brown is big enough to put past hurt behind him.
I met Mandelson a couple of times when he was Secretary of State at the DTI (now BERR). He is a really impressive Minister who energises his officials and his four years as an EU Commissioner has only strengthened his business credentials. I just hope that he shows more interest in consumer issues than his predecessor John Hutton.
I had occasion to visit 10 Downing Street today. Now, over the past 35 years, I must have been there around 20 times - but only when the office has been occupied by a Labour Prime Minister: Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan, Tony Blair and (for the first time today) Gordon Brown.
However, I could not help wondering today whether Brown will be at No 10 much longer. Once Labour Party delegates gather at the Annual Conference this weekend in Manchester, who knows what will happen? Last year, a collective mania hit the delegates as speculation over a sudden General Election became frenzied. This year, the comrades may be calling for a different kind of election.
At last the Government has published its package of measures to address the rapidly rising issue of fuel poverty. BCC online has this summary. Is it enough?
The consumer watchdog Energywatch issued a statement insisting that:
"The lack of political will to tackle fuel poverty is not just disappointing, it approaches negligence. While Government has now woken up to the scale of the challenge and is becoming alert to the need for some action; the sense of urgency is lacking. The elements that are sensible and welcome are sadly overshadowed by what is lacking.”Sadly the Government's package does not provide enough immediate relief to those facing fuel poverty this winter; neither does it address the fundamental issue of a non-competitive energy industry in the UK.
The Local Government Association, a cross-party organisation representing more than 400 councils in England and Wales, commissioned independent experts SQW energy to investigate the published financial statements of the six major energy suppliers. You can see the results here.
in summary, the analysis found that dividend payments have risen from £1.378 billion in 2006 to £1.635 billion in 2007, an increase of £257 million or 19% and equivalent to £75 per household. Clearly the main energy companies are using their windfall profits, not for investment as they claim but, to raise dividends to shareholders.
Meanwhile, with the record price rises and no extra fuel payments it’s estimated that up to 6M households will be in fuel poverty this winter. The Government must act and Gordon Brown's response to this crisis will be a key factor in whether or not he survives as Prime Minister.
London residents can see how much crime is being committed in their neighbourhood on a new website launched today. The £210,000 projects shows robbery, burglary and car-crime statistics for the capital.
Crime maps were a key manifesto pledge of the London mayor, Boris Johnson, who said today that the site would be "hugely beneficial" and would help reduce crime by putting public pressure on the police. Users can type in their postcode and zoom in to see statistics for their local area.
You can see the site here. I live in London and my local area is said to be average in terms of crime - but I have no idea whether this sort of information is useful.
The Olympic flag has now passed from Beijing which hosted this year's Games to London which will be the host in 2012 and today there have been a number of events to mark the occasion. One was 4.45 pm fly past over Buckingham Palace by the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows display team - always an exhilarating sight - and I just managed to catch a view of them as they wheeled north.
The last Olympic Games in London were held in the year of my birth. When they return to London in 2012, I will be 64. I feel a Beatles song coming on ...
This is a fun idea.
New research reveals that the vast majority of Brits (80 per cent) admit to wasting time everyday. Just under half estimate they ‘faff around’ for as much as 2-3 hours a day. Waiting around for the kids, colleagues and queuing top the list of how Brits waste their time
New research into how the average Brit spends their time, by the Learning and Skills Council to celebrate Skills and Apprenticeships, reveals the huge amount of time, an average of 40 days a year, which is wasted by Brits as they live up to their reputation as the world’s greatest faffers.
Further information here.
I'm afraid that I have very little interest in sport, but even I could not fail to be impressed by the spectacular opening ceremony in Beijing and the outstanding success of the British athletes over the weekend.
Buy why are our Olympic competitors called Team GB? Do we have no athletes from Northern Ireland? Are the initials a reference to our Prime Minister? I'm sure that one of NightHawk's many readers can shed light on this for us.
The pressure group Compass is is campaigning for such a windfall tax and has set out its case here.
As I returned home from a meeting in central London today, I found that my local underground station of Sudbury Hill had something unusual positioned at the ticket barriers. There were several policemen selecting young men to go through a metal detector to see if knives were being carried.
I guess this is a sensible measure in view of the number of knife killings in the capital in recent months - but it is really sad that our society has reached this stage.
The fall and fall of Gordon Brown continues ... The scale of the decline is well described in Andrew Rawnsley's column for the "Observer".
It is a slow-motion tragedy that has unfolded over a year now with the end seemingly not far from sight. It is a tragedy because this is a throughly decent and incredibly hardworking man who has not done anything spectacularly wrong, but whose undoubted skills belong much more to a different time (economic stability rather than worldwide recession) and a different place (the strategic role of the Treasury rather than the issue-a-minute challenge of No 10).
There is no easy or obvious 'saviour' for the Labour Government. I think this is too soon for David Milliband to assume the helm. The best communicator in the Cabinet is my former CWU boss Alan Johnson. I voted for him as Deputy Leader and, right now, I'd vote for him as Leader.
More than 10 months ago now, I did a posting expressing despair at the parents of missing Madeleine McCann being declared suspects and expressing my view that they were totally innocent of involvement in the disappearance of their daughter. So I welcome the much belated acceptance by the Portuguese police that the McCanns should no longer be arguidos (suspects).
In the meanwhile, however, much of the British media has behaved outrageously in libelling the McCanns and the other suspect Robert Murat. Last week, Murat won £600,000 from 11 newspapers and Sky News following the judgement that scores of their reports were libellous. The level of these financial penalties to the individual newspapers is pathetic and we need to think again about the regulation of our media.
A month ago, I did a posting on the decision of Conservative frontbencher David Davies to resign and force a by-election and wrote:
"All that will happen is that the public purse will fund a totally unnecessary by-election in which there will no serious opposition and a very poor turnout. Davies will destroy his career, the Conservative Party will look divided and stupid, and Gordon Brown will be grateful for some diversion from his multiple troubles."I stand by that assessment. Today we have the news that inevitably David won on a much reduced turnout of 34%. He has raised the profile of the 42 day detention issue a bit, but this was was a self-indulgent act by a man who was frustrated and bored.
All of the media today mark the first anniversary of Gordon Brown taking over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister. Naturally the "Guardian has a good deal of analysis. It could hardly bee a worse day for anniversary reflections, following on appalling opinion poll ratings for Labour and for Brown specifically and today's news of the party coming fifth in the Henley by-election.
For a Labour loyalist like me who has long had a great respect for Brown (and even greatest admiration - with qualifications - for Blair), the last 12 months have seemed like a Greek tragedy. How did someone so talented who wanted the job so much for so long fall from favour so far and so fast?
One cannot blame Brown for the increases in oil and food prices and the slow-down in the economy which are the result of global factors, but of course one can blame him for a string of indecisive positions, most notably the fiasco over the Autumn General Election that never happened (at the time, I blogged about my opposition).
So, should we have seen this coming? Consider these two quotes taken from a decade apart:
"'There is a great streak of self-doubt about Gordon'. Others have made a similar point, on a deep background basis, though, in a man whose springs of action were forged in such a religious setting, it is perhaps not surprising that there should be theological-style doubts from time to time. Set against those misgivings is the enormous intellectual effort he puts into making up his mind before he acts. Brown, his friends and aides agree, takes a very long time to reach decisions - but once there, it is virtually impossible to shift him.""Gordon Brown: The Biography" by Paul Routledge 1998
"The Guardian has spoken to eight people who have either known Brown for up to 20 years or have worked closely with him; they describe a man who works fiendishly long hours and is preoccupied by minutiae. There is anxiety that he is too short-term, worrying about the immediate, rather than concentrating on the strategic. The early morning and late night messages are often brusque though they are certainly keeping people on their toes. His image in Whitehall is undoubtedly being fashioned by the shock many civil servants experience when Brown emails them directly for the first time, expects an instant response and draws them into a vortex of activity that runs into the night and the next day.""Guardian" article, 25 June 2008
NightHawk has been described as a political blog, but I think of it as a personal blog that reflects the fact that politics - both national and international - is a major interest of mine.
There are only four political blogs in the UK that have a really large readership:
One way of looking at these blogs is that they have a strong Right of Centre position; another way of looking at it is that they are essentially critical of the government of the day which - for 11 years now - happens to be Labour. I hope that Labour supporters like me won't wait for the party to lose office before they correct the political bias in UK blogging.
Too much of the blogosphere seems to be oppositional - but blogging should involves positive messages as well as challenging ones.
Roy Greenslade thinks so - as he explains here - and it's hard to disagree with him.
First, we have the absurdity of a Labour Government making an outrageous attack on our civil liberties by forcing through Parliament provision for detention without charge for up to 42 days by bullying its MPs and even bribing some of them and the Democratic Unionist Party. This is in spite of the fact that the measure is not necessary according to many knowledgeable observers; it won't get through the House of Lords; and, if somehow it did, it would probably be challenged in the courts; and, if it did manage to be implemented, it would very rarely be used and, given all the concessions, its use would have no real effect.
You would think that Gordon Brown has enough problems at the moment. So why is he doing this? Does he want to look as tough as Tony Blair? Does he want to make the Conservative Party look weak on terrorism? Both would be ignoble motives.
Then, we have the farce of the Shadow Home Secretary resigning from Parliament to the fury of his leader and his colleagues because he wants to fight a by-election on a single issue - very, very hard to guarantee - on a matter on which his party in Parliament is in agreement with him but on which many Conservative votes probably disagree with him. Only to find that neither Labour nor Lib Dems intend to co-operate with this charade by fielding a candidate but a Right-wing hack is going to enter the fray with the support and funding of no less a figure than Rupert Murdoch.
All that will happen is that the public purse will fund a totally unnecessary by-election in which there will no serious opposition and a very poor turnout. Davies will destroy his career, the Conservative Party will look divided and stupid, and Gordon Brown will be grateful for some diversion from his multiple troubles.
Al-Qaeda leaders must be laughing all the way to their caves in Waziristan.
If it wasn't for the Irish blowing the new EU Treaty out of the water to the chagrin of 26 other Member States, we might look the nuttiest nation in Europe just now.
For Labour, the result of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election was about as bad as it could be. Just weeks after Labour's poorest local election results in 40 years, the Parliamentary by-election saw a Labour majority of 7,078 turned into a Conservative majority of 7,860 - a 17.6% swing from the 2005 General Election. The pressure group Compass has this analysis of the lessons from Crewe.
Some political commentators are pointing out that this is first Conservative gain from Labour in a by-election for 30 years. In Ilford North in March 1978, the swing was only 7%. I remember Ilford North well.
In those days, I thought that I wanted to be a Labour MP (I had already fought the two General Elections of 1974) and I went for the Labour candidacy in the by-election. I attended nine meetings involving the selection, I won three nominations and was shortlisted with five others, but the chosen candidate was Tessa Jowell who lost the by-election but went on to a successful Ministerial career which continues to this day.
Such is life ...
Gordon Brown is offering to answer questions from the public via YouTube as you'll see here. It won't do anything to reverse his spectacular fall in popularity but, if it helps some people to engage more in political debate, then that can only be a good thing.
Of course, it would have been a little more exciting if one didn't have to wait up to a month before the questions were answered. This is not exactly broadband speed.
In my posting on the day of the recent local elections, I affirmed my belief in a fairer and more equal redistribution of power and wealth in our society. Given this belief, I found myself in full support of a letter which my friend Jeremy Mitchell wrote recently to the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. With my friend's permission, I share it with you ...
Continue reading "How much does Labour care about inequality?" »
Two days ago, I did a posting about the London elections. In the event, Ken Livingstone did not come that close to holding on to the post of London Mayor and now we have at least four years of Boris Johnston in the top seat. It will take some getting used to - but he may surprise us. I liked his statement: "I was elected as new Boris and I will govern as new Boris, or whatever the phrase is".
Although there was an encouraging turnout in London of over 45%, appallingly the British National Party (BNP) still managed to win a seat on the Greater London Assembly (GLA) because they exceeded the 5% threshold. The only good news for Labour in London was the winning of the Assembly seat for Harrow and Brent by Navin Shah. That's my seat and of course I voted for him.
Nationally the result has been a disaster for Labour. I joined the party in 1969 and have been a member continuously ever since. Thursday's results were the worst for Labour since 1968 with a mere 24% of the poll putting the party behind the Lib Dems. I guess it means that we won't have a General Election now until 2009. Meanwhile a lot of thinking and rebuilding needs to come from the Labour side.
Part of the defeat is the consequence of being so long in power; part of it is the result of the global downturn in economic conditions; but an important element is self-made and Labour clearly needs to reconnect with its core voters while not forgetting the middle class vote. It won't be easy and there is not much time - but it can be done.
The organisation Compass has been quick off the mark with its analysis of what went wrong and what needs to be done.
Ever since I obtained the right to vote at the age of 18 - almost 42 years ago - I have never failed to vote in an election and I have never failed to vote Labour. This may make me predictable and old-fashioned but, if (as I do) one supports a fairer and more equal redistribution of power and wealth in our society, I don't see that one needs to change one's vote from election to election.
Today I voted four times: my first choice for Mayor of London, my second choice for Mayor, my choice of constituency candidate for the Greater London Assembly, and my choice of political party for the GLA.
It seems to be touch and go whether the new Mayor will be the incumbent Ken Livingstone for Labour or the main challenger Boris Johnson for the Conservatives. I have long believed that essentially there are only two election slogans: one is "It's experience that counts" (used by the incumbent or Establishment figure) or "It's time for change" (used by the challenger or outsider). So it has proved in the London Mayoral election.
I believe that Livingstone is a flawed candidate who supports some odd causes and places too much faith and power in his friends, but he has helped to make London effectively the capital of the world, he has been brave and right in introducing the congestion charge, and he has by far the best policies for our multicultural and dynamic capital.
However, I believe that he has made a mistake is attempting to portray Johnson as a buffoon and a fool. Johnson is certainly colourful and idiosyncratic, but he is intelligent and shrewd and he has run a disciplined and effective campaign. It would have been better for Livingstone to treat Johnson with more respect and focus on the weaknesses of his polices compared to those of the Labour leader.
We'll see soon what the electors of London have decided ...
After weeks of controversy, the Government has today announced that there will be a compensation package to deal with the effects of the abolition of the 10p tax rate on certain low income groups.The compensation deal will be unveiled in the autumn and backdated to April. As a result, Labour MP Frank Field has withdrawn his amendment - due to be voted upon on Monday - backed by 46 Labour MPs calling for compensation.
The question which I find myself asking is: why were the effects of this tax change not appreciated at the time it was announced a year ago, instead of only after the tax change was actually implemented? Indeed why didn't the Treasury comprehend the impact before the Chancellor announced the decision? Surely the first thing Treasury officials do when a Minister looks at a tax change is to assess who will gain, who will lose, and by how much. Perhaps officials did advise Ministers and the advice was ignored.
The truth is that Frank Field - whom I first met before he was an MP and when he headed the Child Poverty Action Group - immediately recognised the impact and tried to draw attention to it - but nobody (including the then Chancellor and now Prime Minister and the media) was listening. There's a lesson for us all here: don't rubbish a message because you don't like the message or the messenger; only oppose a message if it is wrong and you are sure it is wrong and, if you're not sure, check the situation with an open mind..
The last two months has been one of the toughest periods of my professional life as I have experienced the wrath of customers faced with the likely closure of their post office in London. Some 169 offices - one in five - is scheduled for closure and I have spoken at many public meetings attended by outraged citizens.
The G2 section of today's "Guardian" has a major feature on post office closures focusing on three particular offices, including one in London on which oddly Postwatch has only received one representation.
I've recently written an article on Postwatch's role in the closure programme with particular reference to my patch of Greater London. I reproduce it below for those who want to go beyond the understandable but simple emotion of the issue.
The location of Berwick-upon-Tweed might seem to be a simple matter. It's in the UK, right? Yes, but which part of the UK?
Between 1147 and 1182, it changed hands between England and Scotland no less than 13 times. Although it has been part of England for five centurie now, a local poll found that residents of the town would rather be in Scotland and ruled by the Scottish Parliament than in England and ruled by Westminster.
This might seem to be a trivial - even a humorous - matter but it begs a fundamental question: What is the nature of the nation state? Subsidiary questions include: How do we define a nation state? Who decides whether a territory is to constitute a state? How do we deal with those who do not identify with the state?
I've explored these questions in this short essay.
I am now a member of the Board of the New National Consumer Council which, in October, will take over Energywatch, Postwatch and the current National Consumer Council. So I'm really concerned by the recent rises in UK fuel prices to consumers.
Fuel poverty is defined as occurring when a household spends more than a 10th of its net income on electricity and gas. When the present Labour Government came to power, the then Chancellor Gordon Brown made the issue a priority and subsequently committed itself to the legally binding target of eradicating fuel poverty among vulnerable households in England by 2010 and across the UK entirely by 2018.
Yet there are now an estimated 4.5 million households in Britain who suffer from fuel poverty - the highest since Labour came to power. As explained in this piece, Friends of the Earth has told the Government to come up with a plan to tackle fuel poverty or face a judicial review.
This is proving to be a particularly busy week with meetings morning and afternoon every day. What makes it especially challenging is the publication of the Post Office's plans to close 169 post offices - around one in the five - in the capital. As Chairman of the Greater London Region of Postwatch, the consumer body for postal consumers, I've done six radio and television interviews on the planned closures.
Nobody likes to see post offices close but the sad reality is that fewer people are using post offices – visitors are down from 28M a week to 24M a week – and Post Office Ltd is losing more and more money – losses have risen from £100M a year to £200M a year. Therefore Postwatch accepts that the network needs to be smaller if it is to be sustainable.
The closures proposed for London are similar to the scale of closures taking place in every other part of the country. Even after the closures, however, there will still be 681 offices in the capital, almost 90% of Londoners will still be able to go to the same office, and the other 10% or so should not have too far to travel to an alternative office.
We need to be sure, however, that these closures cause the minimum disruption and inconvenience to customers. This is why Postwatch took advantage of the opportunity to spend three weeks examining and challenging the Post Office’s proposals for London before they went into public consultation and why we stand ready to make further representations if the public consultation reveals new information.
If you want to read what the Archbishop of Canterbury actually said on this subject - although his thinking is odd and his language opaque - you can check it out here.
My personal position is very clear: there should be a complete separation of religion and the state and there should be a single system of law equally applicable to all the nation's citizens regardless of their religious belief or non-belief.
In the week in which the Government has issued a 10-year Children's Plan running to 170 pages, it is salutary to appreciate that, although new research shows nearly 41% of the British public believing that there is "very little" child poverty in this country, official statistics reveal that around 3 million child are still in poverty in one of the richest countries on earth.
The Government defines child poverty as children living in a household on less than 60% of median income, adjusted for the composition of the household. The median is the halfway point between the nation's highest and lowest incomes.
When Labour took power in 1997, it inherited the highest levels of child poverty in the European Union which had tripled since 1979. It has found tackling the issue in government harder than it expected.
The Government has a declared target of cutting child poverty from 3 million children in 1999 to 1.7 million in 2010. At present the number of families in child poverty has fallen only to 2.8 million. In fact, there was an increase of 200,000 children living in poverty in 2005-06, the last year for which there are figures.
You can find more information on the situation here and check out the End Child Poverty Campaign web site here.
To be honest, the thought had not occurred to me until I read this article today. I had not appreciated that apparently the Welsh are unhappy with the current flag because it does not include the the cross of St David or the Welsh dragon.
Our flag was introduced in 1606 following the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne as James I when the cross of St George was combined with the saltire of St Andrew. This principle continued in 1801 when the St Patrick cross was incorporated following the Union with Ireland Act 1800.
You can read a fuller history of the Union Jack - as the UK's flag is commonly called - here.
In the week that Britain yet again insists on taking a different position on a key European Union proposal - this time a new Treaty to replace the failed proposal for a constitution - in this column, "Guardian" reporter Michael White puts his finger on why this country has not just an insular geographical position in relation to the rest of Europe but an insular psychological attitude in relation to all our EU partners:
'A pub quiz question rarely asked is "How many of the EU's 27 member states were occupied by foreign armies and/or terrorised by dictatorships, domestic and foreign, in the pre-EU 20th century?" The answer is a surprising 25, all but Britain and Sweden. It may help to explain the contrast between the formerly oppressed EU majority and the cussed scepticism, merging into downright hostility, so evident again in Britain as Gordon Brown sets out this morning for the Lisbon summit.'We don't realise how fortunate we are that for the last 1,000 years our history has been so different from that of almost everywhere else in Europe (and indeed most of the world).
Wow - hours after I go on radio and television urging Royal Mail and the CWU to settle the postal dispute (see previous posting), they reach a settlement.
I'm now thinking of going on the media and calling on the Israelis and the Palestinians to agree a solution to the Middle East conflict ...
In the year and a half that I've been at Postwatch, the consumer watchdog for postal services, I've done almost 50 radio and television interviews for the organisation, but I've managed to stay clear of industrial relations issues. After all, I worked for the Communication Workers Union and its predecessor unions for a total of 24 years.
However, the current dispute between Royal Mail and the CWU has been going on so long and has hit customers so hard that this week I've had to do my duty in speaking out for customers and urging a resolution of the strike. The Postwatch blog now has over 60 comments from customers [see here], while the BBC web site has attracted a staggering number of comments now approaching 8,000 [see here].
So today I've found myself doing three media interviews on the dispute, making the case for the consumer.
Over two years ago, I blogged that the next General Election would be on 7 May 2009. That was when I thought that Tony Blair would stay on for three years and that Gordon Brown would want a year to establish himself as the new Prime Minister. In the event, Blair was forced to go a year early and Brown has won more support more rapidly than anyone imagined.
Until a week ago, I would have said that a General Election this Autumn was out: when the Government has three years of its mandate left and that mandate is backed by a significant majority in the Commons, why go to the polls so soon? However, in politics, events have a way of taking over from everybody - including th Prime Minister.
There 's now so much speculation about an early election - much of it whipped up by the media who love elections because it makes the news more interesting - that, if Brown doesn't go, he will be accused of chickening out. But really there is no need for an election now and I simply don't believed that Labour's lead is anything like that suggested by some of the most recent polls.
All this feverish discussion of a General Election reinforces my view that there is a lot to be said for fixed-term parliaments. To leave this decision essentially to one person is fundamentally anti-democratic and not good for the stability of the economy. After all, every other level of our political system has fixed terms between elections and many other national parliaments have fixed terms.
Earlier this week, there was a little-reported meeting of the virtually unknown British-Irish Council. This was the first meeting of the Council since the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive and the first time it has ever been held in the Stormont Parliament.
But what is the British-Irish Council and what does it do?
The British-Irish Council was established under Strand Three of the Agreement reached in Belfast on Good Friday on 10 April, 1998 ‘to promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands.’
The Council was established on 2 December 1999 on the entry into force of the British-Irish Agreement, which was signed by the British and Irish Governments as part of the Good Friday Agreement on 8 March 1999.
Membership of the Council comprises representatives of the Irish and British Governments and of the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, together with representatives of the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey.
The British-Irish Council works as a forum within which Members consult and exchange information with a view to co-operating on issues of mutual interest within their respective competences. The BIC meets regularly in various formats to review areas of common interest and use best endeavours to reach agreement on co-operation within the competence of the Member Administrations. However, the BIC does not have any legislative or regulatory remit in regard to these areas.
If you want to know more, there's an FAQ section on the Council's web site.
Admit it - the things you learn from this blog ....
I'm just finishing a 500-page book on the Second World War, so - in spite of being something of a political junkie - I'm not sure that I will immediately take up the 800-page Alistair Campbell diaries which are published tomorrow. However, I have read today's "Observer" profile of Campbell, I am checking out the official web site for the diaries, and I will be watching the three-part television series which starts on BBC 2 on Wednesday.
Gordon Brown has now finished his massive restructuring of the Labour Government and you can see the full list of Ministers here.
House of Lords reform is unfinished business. The 'mother of Parliaments' cannot be the only legislature in the democratic world with a chamber which does not have any elected members.
The Campaign for a Democratic Upper House is a group of Labour Parliamentarians and activists who support a second chamber at least half of which is elected.
Formed in 2000, it took an active part campaigning for an elected upper house in the 2003 and 2007 Parliamentary votes, as well as in responding to earlier consultation proposals.
Its supporters as individuals back options from 50%+ to 100% elected, but understand the vital importance of compromise to achieve change on this issue.
You can check out the web site here.
Size:
Old Cabinet 23, new Cabinet: 22
Women:
Old Cabinet 8, new Cabinet 5
Scots:
Old Cabinet 5, new Cabinet 4
Ministers over 60:
Old Cabinet 5, new Cabinet 1
Ministers under 40:
Old Cabinet 2, new Cabinet 5
Average age:
Old Cabinet 54, new Cabinet 49
Number that I have met:
Old Cabinet 12, new Cabinet 8
Note: Many of Blair's Cabinet were contemporaries of mine but, as the Cabinet becomes younger, I'm becoming less connected.
In spite of periodic media froth, it has been evident for 13 years that Gordon Brown would succeed Tony Blair as leader of the Labour Party. On the other hand, the election for Deputy Leader - the result of which was announced this afternoon - was always doubtful.
I voted for Alan Johnson [campaign site here] - my former boss at the Communication Workers Union - and expected him to win. The news that Harriet Harman [campaign site here] is the victor genuinely surprised me. However, I met her several times in the 1970s when she was solicitor for what was then called the National Council for Civil Liberty (now just Liberty) and she is both principled and competent.
It was really close: Harman won 50.43% to Johnson's 49.56%. At first sight, it looks as if the result was decided by the trade union vote. It is believed that only around 10% of members in affiliated unions bothered to vote and that clearly made a difference. As a former trade union General Secretary, Johnson might have expected more union support, but his hard line on labour laws must have cost him votes. On the other hand, Harman had the support of her husband, a senior official in a large union.
John Cruddas [campaign site here] - as the only backbencher in the field of six candidates - did remarkably well to come third and the amount of support he received needs to be factored into Brown's thinking.
You can check out the round-by-round figures for the election result here.
Some people whom I know and respect signed an advertisement this week to publicise a campaign called Make It An Issue. What's it all about?
"makeitanissue.org.uk is the campaign of The Power Inquiry. We believe that the the next phase of constitutional reform should be a more inclusive, democratic process that involves ordinary citizens. We also believe that leaving these issues to the politicians is no longer the answer. make it an issue seeks to campaign for this purpose. We aim first and foremost to elevate the debate surrounding the problems facing our democracy through our website and in events around the country. We hope to unite a community of people who not only believe that British democracy is in trouble, but who also want to do something positive about it."
When Gordon Brown becomes Britain's Prime Minister at the end of the month, he will be the 52nd person to occupy that role - the line stretches all the way from Sir Robert Walpole who served from 1721-1742. This weekend's "Guardian" contains a wall chart picturing each of these Prime Ministers.
Understandably there has been much speculation about the policy changes that we can expect from a Brown Administration but, for Whitehall watchers such as myself, there is also keen interest in the style of government that Brown will exhibit.
As PM, Tony Blair has centralised power in No 10 and deployed political advisers to a greater extent than any other occupant of the role. Some have talked of the structure he has created as representing in effect a Department of the Prime Minister.
This has led Andrew Blick (author of "People Who Live In The Dark: The History Of The Special Adviser In British Politics" [my review here]) and G.W. Jones (Professor of Politics at the London School of Economics), to contribute a thoughtful article for "History & Policy" which argues that:
"Tony Blair has constructed a semi-official 'Department of the Prime Minister'. Historical experience suggests this body should be disbanded. Premiers have always relied on aides and each incumbent has made a personal mark on his or her team. One way in which a successor to Blair can establish a distinct identity is through using assistants in a different way The process of attaching functions to the team of the Prime Minister and subsequently separating them from it is well established. The next British premier can easily discard some of the aides and units that have served Blair."
The early signs from Brown are reasonably promising. In an article in the "Times", Peter Riddell suggests: "We are not going to see a prime minister’s department, as recently urged by Sir Michael Barber, the former head of the Delivery Unit. The Brown camp does not want to give the appearance of presidentialism: rather the reverse." Also, as evidenced from this article in the "Guardian", Brown's first civil service appointments are well-chosen.
It is reported today that the former Cabinet Secretary Lord Butler claims that, in the first eight months of the Blair Government, the Cabinet only took one actual decision. I can believe it.
First, Tony Blair had found it necessary in Opposition to adopt a powerful system of control to restore credibility to a party that too often was feuding with itself - and he simply carried this style from Westminster to Whitehall. Second, he had never previously been a Minister, let alone a Prime Minister - so he had absolutely no experience of Cabinet government.
From 1974-1978, I was a Special Adviser to a member of the Cabinet in the Governments of Harold Wilson and then Jim Callaghan. I read many minutes of Cabinet meetings and clearly there were debates and sometimes strong disagreements. In the Cabinet meetings that discussed the IMF crisis of 1976, there was real debate and alternative policies were submitted and considered.
Flash forward to 1998. I was then Head of Research at the Communication Workers Union and I accompanied my General Secretary Derek Hodgson as he had a series of private meetings with around half of the Cabinet Ministers in the Blair Government to argue against the suggested privatisation of Royal Mail. One of my abiding memories of those meetings was the clear message we were given that these matters simply were not discussed by, let alone decided in, Cabinet. No Cabinet member put this more starkly that the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
Lord Butler states that Cabinet government has been on the decline since the end of the Second World War. Margaret Thatcher dealt it a major blow and Tony Blair has almost extinguished it. Will Prime Minister Gordon Brown adopt a more collegiate style? Let's see ...
Taking up the challenge made by Peter Mandelson in 1997 to judge the Labour Government in ten years time on their equalities record, centre-left pressure group Compass has launched a new report examining progress on a range of social policy areas. The report "Closer to equality? Assessing New Labour’s record on equality after ten years in government", features expert contributions from amongst others Professor Danny Dorling; Child Poverty Action Group; Dr Katherine Rake, the TGWU and the NUT.
The report's headlines show that on:
The report also finds that progress has been made on child poverty, parental rights and childcare and on rights for gay people.
You can read and comment on the report here.
At the conclusion of a challenging article on the infringement on our freedoms under recent Governments, Shami Chakrabarti - Director of Liberty - writes: "One thing is certain, if we as an educated electorate give up as much in the next decade as we did in the last, our grandchildren will not forgive us for the constitutional poverty in which they must live."
I've been a member of Liberty for around 40 years and share many of her views, although I'm not sure that Liberty really understands how serious the threat is from Islamic fundamentalism and the unfortunate necessity of making some compromises with our traditional freedoms - but not as much as we have done - to combat the terrorist threat.
Interestingly Shami Chakrabarti writes in the "Sunday Telegraph", not an organ noted for its defence of civil liberties. Predictably some readers have been critical of her liberalism.
Last autumn, the Government sent up a new Cabinet Committee called Misc 33 to examine the future of the Post Office network. It was chaired by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister.
In the week in which the Government has confirmed the closure of 2,500 post offices, the following written exchange took place in the Mother of Parliaments:
Bob Russell [Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester]: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister on how many occasions in the last 12 months he has chaired meetings to consider issues relating to the future of the Post Office network.
The Deputy Prime Minister [John Prescott]: I meet regularly with colleagues to discuss a range of issues.
For 13 years, it has been completely clear that Gordon Brown was the best person to succeed Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party. All the rest has been political froth. Every leader has flaws but Brown's talents are immense.
Brown officially launched his campaign yesterday with an unfortunate gaff over use of the autocue. His web site - which the "Guardian" suggests comically should have been called Gordonline - has the clumsy title of GordonBrownForBritain. That's Brown - more substance than spin.
The really interesting contest is for the Deputy Leadership and the range of candidates shows some of the considerable talent that is still coming up inside the Party. I'm impressed by Peter Hain and Hilary Benn - both of whom I have met - but I'm going to be supporting Alan Johnson - who used to be my boss when I was Head of Research at the Communication Workers Union. His background and skills will complement those of Brown very effectively. His campaign site is here.
As long expected, Tony Blair today finally announced his intended resignation as Leader of the Labour Party and therefore as Prime Minister of the Labour Government after 13 years as Leader and 10 years as PM. You can read his announcement here.
During the day, I've been listening to extracts from his speech on the radio and this evening I've been watching the BBC and ITV news assessments of his decade at No 10.
I've heard Tony Blair speak on quite a few occasions and he is a very effective communicator. I've actually met him several times and he is a man of genuine charisma. I believe him to be a fundamentally decent and honourable man and, even over Iraq, I believe that he did not deceive the country so much as deceive himself.
It is far too soon to make a rounded assessment of his legacy, but undoubtedly the economic stabilty, the improvements in public services, the constitutional changes, and the attack on world poverty will come to weigh more heavily as the immediacy of the Iraq debacle starts to fade - which is not now and may be some time away.
What will never be in doubt is that his taking of the Labour Party to three successive General Election victories, each with substantial majorities, is utterly unprecedented and has fundamentally changed the nature of British politics for the better.
At least for a few hours, my son Richard is to become a blogger too. Richard is Media Manager at the think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, and a former Special Adviser to Ruth Kelly. A fuller profile is here.
The "Guardian" newspaper has asked him to provide the Labour perspective on the election results as they come through tonight. He will be joined by other commentators representing the other political parties as they blog comments on the results.
So, if you're up tonight and you're interested in politics, his comments will appear here.
Today there are elections in the UK at local level in some parts of England and at country level in Scotland & Wales. Although we are likely to have a new Prime Minister shortly, we don't need to have a Parliamentary election for three years.
Now some months ago, I gave a lecture to a group of Chinese civil servants entitled "A Short Guide To The British Political System". I put a supporting text on my web site here.
People seem to have found it helpful and I recently had an e-mail which said: "I found your website most interesting and very helpful when explaining the workings of the British Parliamentary system to my young son." However, the writer went on to ask six detailed questions and I thought that you might find the answers of interest:
Technically, no - he can be a member of the House of Lords. The only PM from the Lords in modern times was Alec Douglas-Home in 1963-64. These days, I don't think a Lord as PM would be politically acceptable.
No, they don't have to be MPs - they can be members of the House of Lords instead, although this is rare. No, they can be members of any party or none - but this only happens in very unusual situations such as the Second World War.
The Parliament Act of 1911 reduced the maximum lifespan of a Parliament from seven years to its present five years.
Neither - the term refers to all Ministers whether they are members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
They can only do this by persuading members of other parties to support that legislation or to abstain when it is voted upon. This is not easy and so a minority government usually calls an early General Election.
The Boundary Commissions for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland try to achieve a rough equality of size in terms of electors. But seats in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are generally smaller than those in England (so that the 'national' character of the UK is respected) and rural seats are generally smaller than urban seats (so that they do not become too big geographically).
It is ten years ago today that Labour took office with Tony Blair as Prime Minister. As he comes close to departing 10 Downing Street, how does one assess his tenure? Apparently, when asked about the historical effect of the 1789 French Revolution, Chinese leader Chou En-lai replied:. "It's too soon to tell." So it's certainly too soon to make a balanced judgement about Blair's time in office.
The invasion of Iraq in particular colours any judgement, as does the excessive closeness to George Bush. But already it is clear that there have been substantial and lasting achievements, especially in the areas of economic prosperity, social justice and constitutional reform. An editorial in last wekend's "Observer" newspaper concluded:
"Britain has been discreetly transformed: the minimum wage; free nursery care; tens of thousands more teachers, doctors and nurses - with higher wages; the working families' tax credit; the right to six months' maternity leave and two weeks' paternity leave; a statutory right to flexible working hours; the disability rights commission; the Freedom of Information Act; civil partnerships and the repeal of Section 28; restoring self-government for London; devolution for Scotland and Wales; the Human Rights Act; peace in Northern Ireland. Mr Blair's government has given millions of people unprecedented freedom to live as they choose and given them the wealth and security to do it.We have not heard the last of Tony Blair.Britain is better off after a decade with Tony Blair in charge. Wealth has been created, and wealth has been redistributed. That is what Labour governments have always hoped to do. It has happened without a brake on global competitiveness. That is what New Labour hoped to do: build a vibrant market economy with a generous welfare state; economic freedom and social protection. That is Blairism.
So on Thursday millions of voters will go to the polls intending to bury the Prime Minister. In time they will find many reasons to praise him."
Today marks the 300th anniversary of the Acts of Union when the English and Scottist Parliaments combined into a single Parliament at Westmintser. Ironically, in just two days time, we might see the most serious threat to the Union since its creation.
As I explained in this posting, on Thursday there is an election to the Scottish Parliament when the Scottish National Party looks likely to replace the Labour Party as the largest single party, elected on a manifesto promising a referendum on Scottish independence.
In fact, even if the SNP takes power and even if a referendum is held, I cannot see it securing a majority vote for independence. We could be in the situation that Canada has experienced with Quebec nationalists winning the provincial elections but failing to win a referendum for independence.
However, the debate about independence could be divisive and I look foward to a time when borders mean less not more. It is this sentiment that is behind my essay "A Question For Our Age".
In my late 20s, I spent two years (1976-1978) working at the Home Office as Special Adviser to the then Home Secretary Merlyn Rees. I visited several prisons and officials always gave us a written brief beforehand. One of the figures in the brief was what was called the CNA (Certified Normal Accommodation) which was the figure for the number of prisoners for which the institution was designed. The actual prison population always exceeded the CNA.
Three decades later, the prison population in this country is much, much higher. Indeed this weekend the prison population in England & Wales reached an all-time high of 80,316. The UK as a whole is the most punitive country in Europe. We imprison 148 individuals for every 100,000 population. This is even higher than Spain (145) and the Netherlands (128) and much higher than Germany (95), France (85) or Denmark (77). On the other hand, the figures for Russia (611) and the USA (738) are hugely higher.
We have to ask ourselves serious questions about whether prison works and whether it is value for money. In my view, we cannot simply keep imprisoning ever higher numbers and offering less and less rehabilitation. In the immediate term, we need a new early release progamme for less serious offenders. Then we need to look hard at the numbers of children, drug addicts and mentally ill that we imprison and consider whether alternative programes would not be both less costly and more effective.
The "Guardian" discusses these issues today here.
Since 1999, Scotland has had its own Parliament, but the British national media hardly ever mention Scottish political affairs, leaving this to the Scottish media. As result, many people outside Scotland will not appreciate just how crucial are the elections for the Scottish Parliament to be held on 3 May.
Ever since the creation of the Scottish Parliament, the administration has been a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition with the Scottish National Party - the party wanting full independence - being the main party of opposition. The Conservative, Green and Scottish Socialist parties are all represented in the Scottish Parliament. Perhaps the most notable difference compared with Westminster is that the Conservatives are only the fourth largest grouping in the Scottish Parliament.
But Labour's dominance might be set to change in a few weeks time.
Historically, the SNP has done well in the polls in the mid term but fallen back in support when it comes to an actual election. This year though the SNP is holding on to its lead and the party's private polling suggests that it could win 45 of the Parliament's 129 seats. The SNP is being led - for the second time - by Alex Salmond, a formidable politician who hopes to become First Minister. It has won support through an unprecedented telephone canvassing campaign using sophisticated software. It has been helped by voters' feelings on a range of issues that are not constitutionally within the Scottish Parliament's remit: the unpopular war in Iraq, the intended renewal of Trident, and the proposed independence of Scotland.
The SNP has promised that, if it is returned to power, it will hold a referendum on Scottish independence. Of course, such a referendum would have no formal authority and there would probably not be a majority for independence anyway, but the campaign around it and the vote for it could undermine the unity of the United Kingdom in the year which marks the 300th anniversary of the union of Scotland with England.
However, the SNP policy on a referendum may block its membership of the administration, even if - as seems likely - it wins the largest number of seats. This is because, under the proportional representation system for electing the Scottish Parliament, no one party is likely to obtain an absolute majority of the 129 seats and any winning party will need one or two other parties to join in a coalition to acquire the necessary majority.
All the other major parties in Scotland - Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, Green - oppose the holding of a referendum. So either the SNP will have to give up on this fundamental part of its platform or a combination of the other parties will have to build up a majority administration without the SNP or some sort of compromise is found. I doubt that the Nats would give up either the chance to govern or the independence policy, so I suspect some kind of deal or fancy footwork will occur, perhaps around agreement on seeking an increase in the powers of the Scottish Parliament. There is a deadline of 28 days that the Parliament has under the Scotland Act to elect a First Minister which will put pressure on the parties to do deals within a month.
It's going to be an interesting time ....
Currently not one member of Britain's upper chamber, the House of Lords, is elected. In a series of up to 10 free votes, Members of Parliament in the lower chamber, the House of Commons, will vote tonight on whether they want a second chamber at all, and then on its possible composition - with options ranging from a wholly appointed to a fully elected house.
Former Cabinet Ministers Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn have today launched a new web site called The 2020 Vision intended to open a debate about the future policy direction of the British Labour Party, particularly in the context of an impending change of leadership in the Party as Tony Blair steps down in the summer. I welcome a debate and I would like to see a contest, rather than a coronation, for the Labour leadership - although, given the political history of Clarke and Milburn, there are bound to be doubts about the motives of this particular initiative.
I believe that Gordon Brown will - and should - become the next Labour leader and Prime Minister. Like all leaders, he has his flaws, but he is an outstanding politician who has delivered much for this country in his 10 years as Chancellor and earned the right to tackle the top job that he has coveted for so long. But it would be good for him, the Party and the country for the leadership to be contested.
We don't need a detailed set of policies from Brown - that can wait for the opening of his first 100 days at No 10. But we do need to know the principles on which he will conduct his premiership: how serious are we about tackling inequalities of wealth and power in our society? how committed are we to reducing child poverty? what energy sources are we going to use and how rapidly are we going to combat climate change? what is the role of the private sector in the provision of public services? what is Britain's role in the world's trouble spots and in creating a fairer trade system? why do we need to renew the Trident nuclear deterrent?
John O'Donnell and Michael Meacher have already declared for the Left, but it looks unthinkable that both could win the 44 nominations required from Labour MPs. Meacher is much the more credible candidate and I hope that he gets the chance to run.
But there should also be a heavyweight candidate from the Blairite Right of the Party. Ideally it should be someone still in the Cabinet who is willing to risk ending his political career for a wider cause. Whatever his current problems at the Home Office, John Reid seems to have the right profile and age.
Meanwhile the race to be Deputy Leader is becoming almost surreal, not least because there is no guarantee that the Deputy Leader will become Deputy Prime Minister and, even if he or she does, there is no certainly that the role will be meaningful. That all depends on Brown. Of the six declared candidates, I would back Alan Johnson who used to be my boss at the CWU.
Meanwhile David Cameron is doing really well repositioning his reluctant Conservative Party and is going to give any new Labour leader a real contest at the next General Election - which is as it should be in a mature, vibrant democracy. Let battle - and debate - commence ...
My local Labour Member of Parliament has revamped his web site and has a useful feature in the form of a map of the constituency with flags that can be clicked for information on his local activity. When I first moved to Brent North in 1984, this was a Conservative-held seat but Barry Gardiner - who is now Government Minister - became the local MP in 1997 and has always been an excellent constituency member.
So former Environment Minister Michael Meacher finally declares publicly that he will run for the Labour Party leadership against Gordon Brown. But the BBC on-line report of this event has no link to his blog and, when you go to the blog, at the time of this posting there is no mention of the declaration!
In fact, Meacher will be lucky to find the 44 nominations he needs and there is no way that he - or anyone else - is going to stop Brown taking the crown that he has coveted for a decade. But a contest would be good for Brown and the party and for us. We need to know where he stands and what he plans to do.
Footnote: The Meacher blog has now caught up with the day's events and gives both his statement of candidature and initial reactions from supporters. Check it out here.
The e-petition asking the Prime Minister to "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" - which I did not sign - has now closed. Below is a response from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
In the week of the news that the courts have insisted that the Government needs to conduct a new, more genuine consultation on the future of energy policy in the UK, the democratic Left organsiation Compass has launched a campaign for a proper debate before we rush to renew the Trident nuclear weapon system.
A powerful coalition of 100 scientists, lawyers, church leaders, actors, writers and MPs is demanding a halt to the rush by the Goverment towards a replacement for Britain's Trident system. One of the supporters of this camapign is the scientist Professor Stephen Hawking who said in a statement:
" Nuclear war remains the greatest danger to the survival of the human race. To replace Trident would make it more difficult to get arms reduction and increase the risk. It would also be a complete waste of money because there are no circumstances in which we would use it independently."
This morning, I spent two hours at London's City Hall - a really impressibe building by Tower Bridge - attending a meeting of the London Assembly's Health and Public Services Committee. I was there as the Chair of the Greater London Region of the consumer watchdog Postwatch to answer questions - together with four other witnesses - on the Committee's inquiry into the future of the post office network.
In Britain as a whole, there are around 14,300 local post offices, but the Government has recently announced the planned closure of around 2,500 of them (although some 500 outreach schemes will also be introduced) because they are losing about £4M a week.
In London, there are currently about 850 post offices and the closure programme might result in some 150 going. All this is going to keep me busy for the last year of Postwatch's lfe (the Government is going to merge the organisation with two other consumer bodies).
You can access a webcast of the hearing here.
On 4th December 2006, the Government published a White Paper detailing its preferred option for the renewal of Trident. On the same day, the democratic left pressure group Compass launched a survey asking its members and members of the public to say what they thought. Over 1000 people responded. A clear majority of respondents (84%) said they did not think the UK should retain a nuclear deterrent after the current Trident system comes to the end of its working life - my own view. The full results of the survey can be seen here.
Tax returns and outstanding tax have to be in by the end of this month and today I was in telephone dialogue with Revenue & Customs to establish how much I owe them (it turns out that they owe me).
After ten years of a Labour Government and in the run up to a leadership election that could set the direction of the Labour Party for another ten years, the Compass group understandably feels that we need to debate new ways of thinking about the economy and taxation and how we can put our money behind a vision for the good society. So they have published a thoughtful paper entitled "A New Political Economy".
As a response, today the right wing tabloid, the "Daily Express", reports that Compass is leading the charge on a “62% tax raid on middle Britain” in a piece of political commentary masquerading as reportage. You can read the Compass response here.
Over the years, I must have visited 10 Downing Street - the home of the British Prime Minister - perhaps 10 times. Given my politics, I've never been to the premises during Conservative Governments, but I've been there under the tenures of Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan and Tony Blair - all of whom I've been fortunate enough to meet.
One of the things I remember most is that famous black door. Everyone thinks that it's polished wood, but in fact it's painted steel - and very thick for security puposes.
Now you can visit No 10 - at least virtually. Check it out here.
In an earlier posting, I linked to the on-line debate run by the pressure group Compass on the issue of whether the UK should renew the nuclear Trident weapon system.
Over 1000 people have already responded to the consultation, prompting the Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne to post a short article on the Compass site offering his views.
"The last few years have been disastrous for British foreign policy, and no one is held to account. The edifice of human rights law and norms, which took half a century of careful work to construct, has been undermined by those who claim to defend it. Maybe 500,000 people have died in Iraq and the rage that fuels terrorism against us has been amply stoked. Meanwhile, the US/UK invasion of Afghanistan, which was legitimate under Article 51 of the UN charter (self-defence), is now risking failure, because too few troops were deployed in the first place. This was very evident from the beginning."
"We are so inured to the rhetoric of anti-terrorism and macho posturing about building democracy while fostering chaos, that it is hard to imagine an alternate direction for British foreign policy. But it is available, as it always was. This alternative lies in consistency of application of international law and a robust defence (including intervention when necessary, as in Kosovo and Sierra Leone) of those under assault or oppression. It lies in remedy to the "diplomatic deficit" whereby those affected by our—and others'—foreign policy have no capacity to influence it while those in whose name policy is carried out—us, the public—also have scant means to affect it. Together, such changes will produce a more just and therefore more stable world. "
"The whole discourse of what is important in foreign policy tends to work off a US agenda: Iran, North Korea etc which, while important, attract diplomatic energy to the detriment of other worthwhile issues. A distinctive and positive British foreign policy is possible, for instance on Israel-Palestine, or the Horn of Africa, which in part through international neglect is now descending once more into chaos and war. In little-noticed Kosovo, the UK is playing a very constructive role in bringing that last piece of the Balkans puzzle to stability. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK has a unique ability to improve the credibility of that damaged institution, including by encouraging its reform. In the Security Council and more broadly, the world needs an international system that gives a legitimate voice to all those affected by others' foreign policy (that means not just states). "Who says so? Carne Ross who was a member of the British Foreign Office from 1989 to 2004, when he resigned after giving evidence to the Butler review. He served as head of the Middle East Peace Process section (1995-97), speechwriter to the Foreign Secretary (1997-98), and First Secretary (Political) at the UK Mission to the UN, New York, where he was responsible for the Middle East, and in particular Iraq (1998-2002).
The quotes are from his written evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in its enquiry on the Foreign Office White Paper "Active diplomacy for a changing world – the UK’s International Priorities".
Today the Government announced a major closure programme for our post offices - some 2,500 will go between summer 2007 and the end of 2008. The story leaked over the weekend and so I've done a number of radio interview this week on the subject of behalf of Postwatch. Altogether I've done five interviews, making a total of 40 radio and television interviews that I've done for Postwatch since I joined the organisation eight months ago.
In fact, we were expecting much more media interest today - after all, a few weeks ago a petition with 4 million signatures protesting against post office closures was delivered to the Prime Minister. However, the Government statement on the closure programme has coincided with the report on Princess Diana's death which is of much more interest to the media.
Apparently, following a three-year investigation, the Stevens enquity has concluded that the death was an accident. I could have told them that nine years ago.
In my previous posting, I talk - as I have on many previous occasions - about the American politician Barack Obama. His mother is white and his father is from Africa. He is young, charismatic and black and is the strongest candidate to be the first man of colour to bid for the top job in the American political system.
So, is there anyone in Britain who might beat a similar path? Is there any politician who is young, charismatic and black who might one day aspire to the Cabinet if not the Premiership?
So far, all the black people who have made an impact of national politics in the UK have been Labour - think Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant, Ooona Macdonald, Baroness Scotland. But maybe - to everyone's surprise - the real breakthrough will come from the Conservative Party?
What about Adam Afriyie? I know, you've never heard from him. Well, he's the Conservative MP for Windsor and he was elected a year and a half ago, so it's very early days. But, just maybe, he's a man to watch. His mother is white and his father is from Africa - sound familiar? He's 41. What he needs now is some profile - and maybe NightHawk can help.
If you want to know more, check out his web site here.
"In the face of the complex economic and social challenge that globalisation represents, I don't think it's enough to praise the open economy and leave it at that. The only serious option is indeed an open economy in an open society, but it is also our responsibility to tell the whole truth - that globalisation has losers as well as winners, and that open economies must be matched by strong societies.We must be honest and admit that the rising tide of the open economy does not always lift all boats. Social justice and economic empowerment involve fixing the broken rungs at the bottom of the ladder from poverty to wealth. A strong society is built on strong institutions - institutions with a social, not just a practical, role."
I agree. In fact, I agree with just about every word in the article from which this quote is taken.
The problem is that the article was written by the Leader of the British Conservative Party David Cameron in the "Economist" magazine The World In 2007" - an annual publication that I read every year. As a lifelong member of the Britsh Labour Party, how is it possible for me to agree with the Tory leader? Something has happened to British politics ....
The Government wants to see more faith schools but, in a recent poll of headteachers, only 9% agreed with this policy.
The Government wants to see more academy schools but, in the same survey, only 7% of headteachers backed such establishments.
You can see more information on the survey here. I think that the headteachers are right and that the Government should listen to the professionals.
Trident, the UK 's nuclear weapons system, is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) system consisting of four British-built Vanguard class nuclear-powered submarines each carrying up to 16 US Trident II D5 missiles.
There are around three British-built nuclear warheads mounted on every missile making about 48 warheads carried by each submarine. Each warhead can be aimed at a different target and each warhead is estimated to have the explosive power of 100 kilotons. This is around eight times the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Trident will become obsolete around 2025. The government is soon to make a decision on whether or not to replace or extend its service life.
Following the statement today by the Prime Minister, the pressure group Compass has launched a consultation and presents useful summary of the relevant information here.
I remained unconvinced of the need to renew the Trident system. It may well have been a deterrent during the Cold War, but that conflict is over. I believe that the military and economic case for renewal is deeply flawed. There is perhaps a political case that possessing such weapons gives us some kind of weight at the international table, but set against that is the encouragement retaining such strategic nuclear weapons would give to those states which do not already possess them.
Who is this Richard Darlington who is quoted today in the "Times"?. You guessed it - it's my son speaking his capacity as Media Manager of the Institute for Public Policy Research. The boy done good.
Today the National Federation of Subpostmasters is organising a rally at Westminister Central Hall and a mass lobbying of MPs, as well as presenting to 10 Downing Street a petition signed by 4 million people. What's it all about?
It's about the future of the rural post office network. We still have around 14,300 post offices nationwide - well down on the figure of 21,300 some 20 years ago. Almost 8,000 of these are in rural areas and 90% of them lose money and only continue thanks to a government subsidy of £150M that is due to end in 18 months time.
I'll be at the rally all morning on behalf of Postwatch, the consumer watchdog for postal services, and I gave an interview on the subject at 12.30 am last night to BBC's Radio Five Live. Both the NFSP and Postwatch want a clear government statement on the role, size and funding of the network with proper consultation on the policy and individual closures.
Footnote: I went along to the NFSP rally simply to sit on the stage, since the Postwatch speaker - our chair Millie Banerjee - could be there only for her actual speech. However, the programme ran ahead of itself and I was asked to address the rally to fill in some time. Also I gave a lunchtime interview to BBC News 24 and another interview to BBC Radio Five Live about 6.15 pm. That makes 34 media interviews for Postwatch since I joined in April.
It's been a very busy weekend. Yesterday I spent most of the day preparing a lecture on the British political system. All day today I'll be delivering that lecture to a group of 25 Chinese civil servants visiting the UK.
I've turned the lecture into a section of my web site in case readers from outside Britain would find it useful.
I first visited Northern Ireland in August 1969, the week after troops were deployed on the streets of Belast and Londonderry to stop what we would now call a version of ethnic cleansing. I could not believe that such an occurrence was taking place in the UK and wanted to see for myself what was the Troubles was all about..
A little later, I spent two years (1972-1974) working in the House of Commons for the Opposition spokesman on Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees. After the return of a Labour Government, I spent another two years (1974-1976) working with him in Whitehall in his capacity as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
So I remember well the Sunningdale agreement of December 1973, concluded at the Civil Service College (now the National School of Government), that led to the first power-sharing government in Northern Ireland and I remember equally clearly the effective overthrow of that government by the Ulster Workers' Council strike of May 1974.
More than three decades later, this week has seen the St Andrews agreement between representatives of the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein. This might mean that Northern Ireland will at long last have a devolved government again by the end of March 2007.
Between 1969 and 2001, 3,523 people were killed as a result of the Troubles. Meanwhile we have created devolved government for Scotland and Wales. We have seen the end of the Cold War and the arrival of democratic governments throughout central and eastern Europe. We have seen the overthrow, largely peaceful, of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the emergence of democratic government there. We have seen the end of armed conflicts and the institution of representative government all the way from Nicaragua to Rwanda.
What did the Provisional IRA really achieve by its campaign of terror, what took the politicians of Northern Ireland so long, and why did so many have to die and be maimed?
I confess that I've never had much interest in sport - either playing it or watching it. But I am fascinated by class and how it determines so unfairly so many life chances. So I took notice of the establishment of StreetGames which is a new national charity set up to bring sport to the doorstep of young people who are currently outside sport but nonetheless keen to play, and to make sure the most disadvantaged young people in the country share in the 2012 Olympic Legacy.
StreetGames is also committed to making British sport better. It highlights that participation rates in sport are profoundly skewed by social class. Roughly, the top 20% of the population are twice as likely to participate in sport as the bottom 20%. In a basket of sports (excluding football and boxing) the top 20% of the population are four times as likely to make it to elite level as the bottom 20%.
This theme has been picked up today by Nick Cohen in his "Observer column.
If you're walking down a street in your town or borough in Britain, what are the chances that the person you meet is from a different racial group? The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has worked out the probabilities after the first full analysis of the racial and religious mix of every local authority in England and Wales.
The London borough of Brent was the most diverse: at the time of the last census in 2001, 29% of residents were white British, 18% Indian, 10% black Caribbean, 9% other white groups, 8% black African and 26% from other groups. The ONS said any two people in Brent had an 85% chance of being from different racial groups.
And where do I live? You got it: Brent. I love meeting people of different cultures and backgrounds. This is why I enjoy living where I do and why I enjoy foreign travel as much as I do.
The ONS report, "Focus on Ethnicity and Religion", brings together statistics from the Census on the key demographic, geographic, household and labour market differences between the main ethnic and religious groups in Great Britain. It analyses factors that contribute to these differences and shows new analysis on ethno-religious groups, changes between 1991 and 2001, and the diversity of different areas.
You can read the ONS report here.
In my capaciry as a member of the Postwatch Council, I spent this morning at Royal Mail Headquarters acting as a judge on a panel to choose the best post office in each of three categories for each of two regions. It was really encouraging to see how much effort Post Office staff and sub-postmasters are putting in locally to make their post office a customer-friendly operation.
Sadly I fear that shortly the Government will announce a major retrenchment of the national network of post offices. The hard truth is that, of the 14,500 or so such offices, only around 5,000 are actually profitable. However much we say we love ourt local post office, more and more of us are using them less and less.
Prepare for political fireworks ...
As is evident from NightHawk, I'm a great enthusiast for blogging and for politics and for the combination of the two. The party conference season has seen the arrival of two new heavyweight political bloggers from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Just before last week's Labour Party Conference, former Labour Government Cabinet Minister Michael Meacher went live with his new blog. In the last few days, just prior to the coming week's Conservative Party Conference, party leader David Cameron has launched his video blog. Come on Gordon - your turn now!
Tom Watson was the most senior of the eight people whose resignations this week forced Tony Blair to be clearer about when he would step down as Prime Minister. Watson has previously been best known as the first MP to have a weblog and through this blog we have his explanation of why he acted as he did.
For the third consecutive year, I'm helping my friend Eric Lee, the founder of LabourStart, with the online course he runs for Indiana University in the United States looking at comparative labour movements. The course examines trade unionism in a vareity of very different countries and this week I am the guest tutor for the UK.
Coincidentally, the "Guardian" today has an interview with Frances O'Grady - someone I know and respect - who is the first female Deputy General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress. The article reveals that for the first time trade union membership in this country is now an equal 50/50 gender split.
Perhaps even more encouragingly, figures due to be revealed at the TUC's annual conference next week will show that British trade unions have "turned the corner", with an overall membership rise of 11,000 up to 6.46 million. However, fewer than one in five private sector employees in the UK join a union, compared with almost three in five public sector employees.
The senior and respected Labour Party politician Robin Cook - whom I met several times - died a year ago this weekend. The orgnaisation Compass remembers him.
The House of Commons rises for the summer recess today to start a 76-day break. Among the many issues with which the Government will have to grapple while MPs are away is the future role, size and funding of the Post Office network. The subject was examined last week by a special hearing of the Trade & Industry Select Committee. Evidence was taken from Adam Crozier, Chief Executive of the Royal Mail Group, and Alan Cook, Chief Executive of Post Office Ltd, a subsidiary of RMG.
Alan Cook indicated that POL’s losses had increased to an expected weekly loss of £4 million this year, against £2 million in the last. Mr Cook and Mr Crozier reiterated that, if the Government wants the network to perform a social role after 2008, it must articulate this role and support it accordingly.
Mr Cook and Mr Crozier again took the opportunity to call for better joined-up thinking in Government and to illustrate the decline in Government services as a proportion of Post Office Ltd’s business. Mr Cook told the Committee that the "commercially optimum network" would contain 4,000 post offices - a reduction of more than 10,000 from the current total.
Nevertheless, Mr Cook reiterated that this was a hypothetical figure, indicating that, if Government support after 2008 was forthcoming, this would allow the shape of the network to remain significantly larger than this hypothetical, purely commercial, figure.
Can we conceive of the closure of 70% of the Post Office network? The social and political impact would be devastating. So how many post offices are we going to retain and how is this network going to be sustained and funded? The relevant Government Committee - Misc 33 - has much work to do this summer.
You've probably never heard of it. But HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) reckon that it accounted for a record £7.4 billion of imports and exports in the first quarter of the current financial year . That represents a six-fold increase in a year. That means that this financial year the total losses to the Exchequer could be around than £35 billion. According to an article in the "Guardian", that is the equivalent to 3p on the basic rate of income tax.
Carousel fraud involves a circular trade of cross border purchases, typically of computer chips or mobile phones, between connected companies, and sometimes controlled by criminal syndicates. In its simplest form, a fraudster imports goods from a zero-rate VAT source, sells the goods with VAT included and then disappears without passing the VAT onto Customs.
Apparently Revenue & Customs has 1,000 investigators working on the frauds - but this ought to ba massive political issue. If a political party went into an election promising to add 3p to the burden on taxpayers or to cut 3p off the tax rate, it would be a sensation. But this huge scale of fraud barely makes the news.
This lunchtime, I attended a seminar organised by the Social Market Foundation at which three different models were proposed for the creation of shares in Royal Mail which is currently 100% owned by the Government.
Model 1: This was put forward by Conservative MP Tom Yeo, former Shadow spokeperson for Trade & Industry. He wants Royal Mail to be totally privatised. One quarter of shares would be given free of charge to something he calls The Post Office Community Trust which would use the income from these shares to help vulnerable branch post offices. One quarter would be given free of charge to the trustees of the Post Office Pension Plan who would be free to sell their shares and use the proceeds to cut the deficit in the Plan. One quarter would be given to the workforce under an employee participation scheme that would give every employee a shareholding based on length of service. One quarter would be sold to investors and the proceeds invested in the business. For good measure, the 500 or so branch post offices currently run by Post Office Ltd would - under his plan - all be franchised.
Model 2: This was put forward by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb, former Shadow spokeperson for Trade & Industry. He would take Post Office Ltd (that is, all the main post offices) out of the Royal Mail Group and keep it in public ownership. Then 51% of the shares in Royal Mail would be divided equally between the Government and a trust for staff based on the John Lewis Partnership model. The other 49% would be sold equally to staff who wanted to buy extra shares and small investors and to the equity market. The proceeds from this 49% would not go to the Government but to fund the Post Office network.
Model 3: This is the proposal put to Government by Allan Leighton, Chairman of the Royal Mail Group. He wants 20% of Royal Mail to be made available to staff. It is claimed that this move would motivate staff to identify more closely with the company and raise producctivity within it. It is said that this would not be privatisation and would not be a precursor to the flotation of the company.
Personally I am politically very uncomfortable with privatisation of such a national asset and social service, I am cynical about the motives for privatisation, and I am very doubtful as to the effect on the movitivation of the staff without other profound culture changes from the top leadership of Royal Mai which currently they show little sign of endorsing.
For all of us in Britain and most especially those of us who live in London, today has been the first anniversary of the four suicide bombs that killed a total of 52 people and injured many more. Last year, I was fortunate that I was not in London - I was out in High Wycombe helping to run a training course and saw events unfold on the television in the company canteen. This year, much more typically, I travelled on the tube into central London and at noon I marked the two-minute silence with colleagues at Postwatch.
Londoners have responded well to the terrorist attack. After just a few weeks, numbers on the tube and both shoppers and tourists returned to normal. People are not overly concerned and relations between ethnic groups have not suffered. Of course, for all the comparisons, this was not an event on the scale of 9/11 in the United States. Also, almost certainly, it will not be the last such attack. But life has to go on ...