Proportional Representation, a bit like green veg

'Charlotte Leslie - What voters really want' (I hope it's not her) writes in the Guardian today about how those on the doorstep are just not that into reform of the voting system. She may be right. In times like these, whether FPTP stays or we opt for the AV ranking system, or indeed a form of PR, I'm sure the people of her target constituency aren't losing sleep over it.

But does that discount it completely? I'm sure many aren't losing sleep over Sri Lanka, does that mean governments shouldn't consider it an issue? nope.

MPs, governments, political parties: they're all here to work on what we're worried about, yes, but not only that. Politicians know that the FPTP system is outdated, and that in keeping it, the old rotten politics that people are so sick of stays the same. Regardless of whether Julie Kirkbride or Margaret Moran resign or not, our stilted electoral system will ensure that both Labour and the Tories keep up the scrambling for those few marginal seats. Those few voters who decide the outcome of elections. The needs of those in safe seats can be, and I'm not saying they always are, but can be ignored with relatively little electoral penalty. FPTP created New Labour, and fuelled the creation of the myth of Compassionate Conservatism. It's not an issue on the lips of many in Bristol North West, where Ms Leslie hopes to gain her seat (from a great MP-Doug Naysmith who's retiring, *coughs* vote Sam Townend *coughs*) but it affects the democratic accountability of Westminster, so it should be at least on hers.

I'm wondering why the article Leslie writes is in the Guardian at all. She merely regurgitates every other article written by journalists, candidates, bloggers since the expenses scandal began.

If my pavement pounding, knuckle-wearing experience as a candidate is anything to go by, by all means, Brown can concentrate on rejigging voting systems – and it's true that politics does need a radical change. But I'm afraid I have a feeling that Brown's obsession with political manoeuvring, which is so obviously driving these so-called reforms, is not only out of touch – it's exactly what people outside the Westminster village are so fed up with.

I'm not sure 'people' outside Westminster would be fed up with a change to a voting system where many of their votes are worth about as much as a Woolies voucher. So we may not want or care about electoral reform, but we need it (that's where the green veg simile comes in) Oh and, Charlotte, did that pavement pounding, knuckle wearing experience include your 'Cameron's cabinet in waiting' photo shoot in Tatler? (smug young Tory no.6) Cheap shot I know, but the audacity of that article made my blood boil.

The Tories don't want proportional representation. They don't want anything but FPTP. I wonder why. There are arguments to be made for the pros and cons of all systems, they're dull and tedious, but I think they have to be made. Then we can decide. And the Party who offers that choice will be able to walk tall into future elections.

A letter to Gordon from Vote for a Change

What makes Widders laugh? Poor people and the aspiring middle classes who fail miserably, apparently.

Today's G2 asks a few political figures "So what cheers you up?"...
Here are a few responses

Ann Widdecombe - I need to look no further than Keeping Up Appearances. Hyacinth Bucket's snobbery, her husband's ineffectual attempts to mitigate it, her ghastly in laws (who happen to be working class and drive an old banger, how ghastly) and the much put upon friend are wonderfully portrayed - without the need for smut or innuendo.(funny, Anne, I thought you'd be first in line for Bruno myself. Not a fan of gratuitous nakedness and scenes of a gay sexual nature? I'm shocked)

Shami Chakrabarti - I can't be bothered to write hers out, it was boring. But just the notion that anything can raise a smile to that blusherless faced, crop haired, Tory sympathiser is beyond me.

Alastair Darling - Yes Minister never fails to make me laugh. Although it's less comedy, more documentary. oh, and black humour - it's kept us going over the last two years at the treasury (bless)

Margaret Beckett - The Last of the Summer Wine (Jesus wept) makes me laugh a lot. Have I Got News for You is also quite funny. But I don't like it when it gets too cruel. (Paul, Ian, I do hope you're listening, Margaret would like you to tone it down)

Alan Johnson - Blackadder, Fawlty Towers ... make the Johnson's laugh. (AJ, I expected a few more 'hip' choices considering your cutting edge taste in all things musical) Quintissential, British humour: puns, word play, double-entendres.

There you go. I do hope you're thinking the same as me. Did these people stop watching TV in 1975? A little mention for 'In the Loop' would have gone far in this selection. People say MPs are out of touch, for God sake peeps, don't fuel it.

The Labour Party and the C-word. Part I.

So Jeremy Clarkson has proved what a gentleman he is yet again.

From today's Guardian:

The Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson is at the centre of a new controversy after again making offensive comments about the prime minister in front of the BBC2 show's studio audience.

Clarkson, who previously had to apologise to Gordon Brown in February after calling him "a one-eyed Scottish idiot", described him as a "c*nt" in not-for-broadcast comments during the recording of this week's Top Gear programme on Wednesday night.

"Clarkson was talking about a government policy and said as his payoff line: 'The reason you can't do that is because Gordon Brown is a c*nt,' " the eyewitness said. "Everyone found it very funny."...

During a press conference in February in Australia, Clarkson courted controversy by using personal remarks to criticise Brown's handling of the global financial crisis.

"We have this one-eyed Scottish idiot who keeps telling us everything's fine and he's saved the world, and we know he's lying but he's smooth at telling us," he said.

I'm wondering why the BBC are spending so much time deliberating on when to air the Apprentice to prevent clashes with the election, while overlooking the rotten behaviour of one of their biggest 'stars'.... Actually, I may have answered my own question there.

So while it was never intended to be broadcast, and free speech dictates Mr Clarkson can say what he likes, the issue remains, an issue which has been brought to the fore in recent months- that we pay this imbecile. Public money funds his extraordinary pay packet. Maybe instead of using all his energy on a strangely personal, venemous hatred of Gordon, he could put some more into entertaining people, which I'm assuming is what the BBC, and we, pay him for.

Forget Purnell, it's Mr Benn we should be listening to

From today's Comment is Free , I;m going to publish Tony Benn's artice in it's entirety - pure, common, golden sense.

Arguments the left has to win

We must settle our differences on issues from nuclear weapons to healthcare if we are to exert pressure on the policy makers

• 
• • Tony Benn
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 July 2009 11.30 BST

This week James Purnell launched a Demos project, Open Left, which is asking what it means to be on the left today. To understand the difficulties that face the left you have to start way back. For almost 10 years a consensus has developed within the three main parties inspired by the Thatcher counter-revolution, which argued that government should keep out of industry and leave everything to the market.

It was that very policy that led to the present economic crisis and which has had a dramatic effect on the level of Labour support in two ways: a falling turnout for Labour and the emergence of the BNP.

The present government has many achievements of which we can be proud, not least on the environment, but the party is seen as offering management rather than representation. Policies worked out on the sofas in Whitehall will not, in my opinion, make much of a contribution to the rebuilding of confidence among the voters.

Nor indeed will sectarian strife on the left help.

More and more people worldwide now see that the basic conflict is between the majority who create the wealth and the handful who own it and want jobs and homes, good healthcare and education, decent pensions and peace.

From where I see it now, outside parliament, the reconstruction of a strong left has to begin by developing powerful campaigns centred on the issues that concern people, which can bring in support from across the whole political spectrum.

The Stop the War movement, which has been one of the most successful in my lifetime, enjoyed the backing of conservatives, liberals, greens, as well as those on the left, and will ultimately win a majority for a policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Now some generals are coming out against nuclear weapons at the moment when we are being told we may have to spend billions to upgrade them. This project is the most obvious candidate for a cut in public expenditure.

Housing is another example. We see a long housing waiting list and unemployed builders who cannot be financed because the money is going to the bankers, some of whom are getting huge bonuses, paid for by taxation.

Similarly there is great anxiety about the deliberate privatisation of the public services – which we have seen in academies and the private financing of hospital building – which leaves them outside any democratic control.

It is the same with civil liberties that have been eroded and state pensions which are still dropping behind the earnings with which they were once linked.

Then there is taxation – where the modest increase announced for wealthier people has been denounced by the City but it is nothing compared to the highest level when Churchill left office in 1945 – 95%, justified on the grounds that the money was needed to fight the war and that the rich should share the burdens that others had to bear. These arguments apply to the present economic crisis.

We have to win these arguments if we are to retain power next year.

And that means there has to be much more pressure from below on the policy makers in Downing Street. Out of such pressure will come a revitalised left renewing its commitment to serve those it has always sought to represent.

For the first time in my life the public is more progressive on all these issues than New Labour.

Democracy is the buckle that links the streets to the statute book and to renew the left, democracy must be strengthened in a world increasingly dominated by forces we do not control.

this stood out to me:

The present government has many achievements of which we can be proud, not least on the environment, but the party is seen as offering management rather than representation

I think that's it. The Labour party was seen as a democratic institution answerable to the people it was created to represent. A people who themselves were not fully enfranchised when the party was born. A union movement which should have proportional influence on the party it funds, and a membership which must have a say. If the Unions and the membership of the Labour Party had power, then many more would see Labour for what it should be...a vehicle for change, a vehicle which uses it's power for the good of the majority of our society. We need to represent, as Tony says, rather than manage.
There may lie the answers to our waning popularity, not to mention the financial crisis of our own.

TWITTER!!!!!

I'm sitting in bed, crying with laughter at the recent tweeting trend on twitter - #freeBevaniteEllie.
To all my lovely twitter comrades (and Lousie Bagshawe!!!!) thank you for your support at my untimely ban... Some tweets are verging on the 'she was a lovely person, and we'll remember her'/eulogy side, but I'm ever so grateful.
I think it may have been because someone was trying to hack into my account. Not sure but Twitter is taking it's sweet time to rectify my sentence without trial :-(

So as Grace said 'enough with the twitter funeral already'! but thanks, I'm truly touched.
And Harriet probably won't step in, and Polly (gift of the gab) may not offer up her crucifyingly bare twitter account as a 'prisoner exchange'. But you never know.

I love you all for orchestrating a campaign which Obama would be proud of; Cllr Tim, Grace, Ged Robinson, Hadleigh (yes even your New Labour self), the great gar, jamesTart, and many others I momentarily forget. And I suppose a special thank you (and this truly crucifies me but...) to Louise Bagshawe, crossing the widest party divide to free me.
Peace out comrades, Speak soon... ifTwitter becomes the democratic institution it once was, again!

oh and Louise I will NEVER be ThactheriteEllie. NEVER!

Selling a myth

And today I met the salesmen. Oliver Letwin entered the room sweating, took out his embroidered handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. I'd hasten a guess that the sweat was partially due to the humid conditions in Westminster this eve, and partially because he had just entered a room full of Compass supporters with Jon Cruddas sitting at the table, ready to pounce. Having seen Jon speak at quite a few events, I don't blame Ollie, his perspiration was probably justified.
Anyway, the debate tonight surrounded 'Communitarianism' and its place on the left and on the right. I'm not going to go into great detail, partly because I lack the inclination, and partly because I'm not gonna lie, I don't fully understand the intricacies of the Communitarianist debate.
What I'd like to discuss is New Toryism. Red Toryism. Compassionate Conservatism. Whatever you'd like to call it, I was damn sure it didn't exist before tonight. Was I converted? What do you think...

Philip Blond (a so called 'red Tory') argued for the redistribution of inherited wealth. He didn't go into detail. Quelle surprise. I was biting my tongue, until he finished, to raise the elephant in the room. The gentleman behind me got there first... Maybe Letwin and Blond had forgotten Tory policy on Inheritance tax. Thankfully comrade behind me reminded him. There were protestations of "I don't necessarily support that policy" from Blond, yet when questioned whether he was fighting the policy from within the party, you could hear the proverbial pin drop. This new 'progressive agenda' (LOL) whitewashes over traditional Tory thinking which still has a stronghold on the party. On Cameron too. Cameroonism - talk the talk, but when it comes to walking anywhere - nah, there's a Jag following behind, and they'll hop in.

Letwin and Blond spoke, audaciously and rather proudly, of a Broken Britain, which the Tories are now "primed to step in and save".
Every time I hear the BB phrase emanate from a Tory mouth, I feel something in my stomach about to emanate from mine.
Broken Britain, if it exists, was broken by the individualistic ideology, and rejection of community and society of the Thatcher epoch. It sounds old. It sounds easy for Labourites to say. But it's true. And Thatcherism retains a strong influence in the Tory party today. To an extent, it retains a strong influence in the Labour Party too. But we let Compassionate Conservatism paper over that at our peril. The inherent, incessant cracks that Thatcherism produced in our society remain. New Labour tried to use the easy 'plaster of Paris' approach. That hasn't worked. But if the New Tories think they're the best party suited to implement the whole scale reform of the ideology which underpins Politics, economics and therefore British society today, then might I suggest we all give up and leave now?

Labour cannot win another election by moving more and more towards the right, and in doing so, pushing the Tories even further. We must reoccupy the left. The left of centre, and in giving Tories the space to define themselves, probably the centre too. New Labour, I believe, is founded on the core belief that the Tory party are the natural party of government, that we must hijack their appeal and their voters for success. Maybe, maybe not. But success at what price? This country is essentially socialist at heart.Britain has an instinct of collectivism, which we see in times of hardship. Our default setting. Our most treasured institution? The NHS, a purely socialist one. We need functional democracy (i.e. PR) , when we engage people -more people than those in swing constituencies which dictate the political agenda and the battle for centre (-right) ground- they become interested. This moment is too important for the vast majority of our country to feel disillusioned. Tories won't deliver what we need, they won't even pretend to try.

So you'll not be surprised to hear I'm not buying the new model the Tories are selling. The winner of the next election will shape a new political era. The fallacy that markets could rule, relatively unregulated with no casualties was exposed for what it was last year. The market model seeks profit wherever it can, not fairness or justice, or indeed a good society. The Tories don't have the inclination to implement the vital change necessary. Labour, at the moment, may not either. But we've got a history and a fundamental ideology, upon which we were founded, to work with. Whereas the Tories have Phillip Blond.

Polly v IDS. I think that's what you might call a KO.

Just in case you missed it....
12 mins 40 in, IDS capitulates. The Toynbee is just too much for him.

Lookin' good for 61...

So tomorrow our NHS is 61. Not a milestone birthday I grant you, but a birthday none the less. I'm wondering why don't we have a bank holiday to celebrate the finest achievement of Nye Bevan and Attlee's post-war Labour government? Gordon uttered something along those lines last year, I'm not sure if anything came of it.

The 5th July 1948 saw the launch of our National Health Service. From midnight doctor's phones rang off the hook and queues, which would render Wimbledon ashamed, began to form. This was people taking up their new right, their right to healthcare. It was the jewell in our crown and thanks to Labour investment, which buffed a tarnished jewell in 1997, it still is.

Michael Portillo wrote on the 50th anniversary of the service, that it is one wrapped in dogma. I agree. A dogma which underlines Nye's vision, that a fundamental right of each and everyone of us is the right we have to a sick bed, a National Health Service in place of fear. Mr Portillo suggested this Bevanite dogma stilts the service, prevents change and will ultimately be it's undoing. Now I return to my defualt position of fundamentally disagreeing with Mike. We, as a country, complain often and complain freely about our health service. That is only because we are so sure it will always be there. Bevan's ideological dogma has secured the future of the service, any challenge to it's publicly funded nature would be political suicide. Thank God.

As I've said before on here I am, what would be termed, a drain on the service after two episodes of meningitis, and a heart operation within the last 6 years. The Taxpayer's Alliance would have a field day.
I don't want to fear going into hospital. Or to fear family members or friends doing the same. I don't want anyone to have to wait longer than 2 weeks if they have suspected cancer. I don't want anyone to have to wait longer than 18 weeks for a hospital appointment of any kind. I don't want Andrew Lansley in charge of our health service. I don't want a Tory government.