The result of the 1962 Orpington by-election, won in a landslide by Eric Lubbock, who became the then Liberal Party’s sixth MP, giving him the nickname ‘Orpington Man’. As Lord Avebury, Eric is still an active parliamentarian campaigning on human rights and other issues. You can read his blog at:
http://ericavebury.blogspot.com/
Thanks to Mark Pack for this excellent infographic:
There have probably been more words written about the NHS than any other topic since the coalition government was formed nearly two years ago, with most attention falling on the tussle between the coalition partners over the final form of the bill.
But we should not overlook Labour’s contribution to the current maelstrom; no matter who had come to power in 2010, they would have had to grasp the nettles which were flourishing following Labour’s 2006 National Health Service Act, which brought widespread competition into the NHS (though without the public debate that is now taking place). The 2006 Act opened up the NHS to the risk of EU competition law being applied in a way that leaves commissioners unable to choose the best way of delivering services. And Labour’s legislation meant that private providers were favoured over NHS hospitals and paid millions for work which they never did.
Lib Dems, in the Commons and the Lords, are not only fighting Andrew Lansley’s ill-considered reorganisation of the NHS, they are also plugging the many loopholes left by Labour’s 2006 Health Act, including:
The involvement of the Lib Dems will surely leave the NHS in a better position than it would have been had the Tories had it all their own way. But what about Labour? What would they be doing now, if they had won the 2010 election? Well, it’s worth having a quick look at their 2010 manifesto, which includes the following:
“All hospitals will become Foundation Trusts … Foundation Trusts will be given the freedom to expand their provision into primary and community care, and to increase their private … services … We will support an active role for the independent sector working alongside the NHS in the provision of care … Patient power will be increased. Patients will have the right to choose from any provider who meets NHS standards of quality at NHS costs … We will expand patient choice, empowering patients with information, and giving individuals the right to determine the time and place of treatment.”
Hmm. Sound familiar?
This is well worth a read. Personally, I’d be much more worried if I were Ed Miliband than if I were Nick Clegg – and Alex Hilton’s blog post makes it quite clear why Ed M is in such trouble.
I have a considerable amount of respect for local activists of all parties – I know how hard it can be to keep your own particular faith when your leaders seem to have lost theirs. Here’s an indicator of how hard it is for this particular Labour activist:
“It shocked me that party members, unions and MPs would back you regardless of the fact that you were so clearly not up to the job, have no vision for Britain and can’t communicate very well.”
Oh dear …
Lots of people are getting worried/rejoicing about low opinion poll figures for the Lib Dems. Well, here are some actual figures for the first three months of 2012:
The Parties’ vote shares in local by-elections over the last 3 months were:
Con 33%
Lib Dem 26%
Lab 22%
That’s actual voters actually voting (5,000 of them).
Like the summer riots, the Stephen Lawrence case provides us with yet another attitudinal Rorschach test; we screw our eyes up, peer closely, and conclude that what we have seen is just what we expected. At least, that’s my view, after hearing Paul Dacre’s astonishing self-congratulation on Tuesday. For him, the verdict was ‘a glorious day’ for the Lawrences, the police, British justice, politicians, British newspapers (especially, of course, the Daily Mail, without whose ‘relentless campaigning’ none of this would have happened). For me, it was a good day; but it was also a reminder of the arrogance, incompetence and racism of the police, the ambiguousness of our justice system, the laissez-faire attitude of our political class, and, of course the hypocrisy of the British press. (The relentless campaigning the Mail is famous for is reflected by these recent headlines: ‘One out of every five killers is an immigrant’, ‘Each illegal immigrant costs us £1m, says study as Government faces calls for amnesty’, ‘UK migrant total is ‘three times the world average’’.)
The police response wasn’t much better. Cressida Dick tells us that the police force has been ‘completely transformed’ in the last twelve years. Hmm. I wonder if that’s the force which has seen section 60 stop and searches rise from 7,970 in 1997/98 to 149,955 in 2008/09? With black people 26 times more likely to be stopped than white people?
I do wonder if we’ve been distracted by the ‘institutional racism’ tag. I’m thinking of the long string of cases which have nothing to do with racism, where the police have not only misbehaved, but have also completely misunderstood public reaction to their behaviour. Harry Stanley (1999). Pamela Somerville (2008). Ian Tomlinson (2009). Nicola Fisher (2009). Mark Duggan (2011). In all these cases (and more) the police have been asked to account for their actions, and have essentially given us a two-fingered salute. When the standard response from the police to any query about why they have shot/hit a fellow citizen amounts to little more than ‘We felt a bit threatened’, it might be a good time to re-look at the whole relationship between the police and us, who pay their wages.
There is clearly a disconnect between the police and the citizenry. Here are some issues which currently concern people:
1) police officers collecting their wages from the taxpayer, and bonuses from journalists for providing information;
2) police officers working as agents provocateurs (Mark Kennedy, 2009);
3) hundreds of serving police officers having criminal records (including burglary, robbery, supplying drugs, perverting the course of justice)
4) senior police officers promoting the use of plastic bullets and water cannon at protests;
5) and, of course, the inequality in stop and search mentioned above.
Brian Paddick suggests: “The police must accept that many people feel they are over-policed and under-protected. The police need to work a lot harder to convince some people that they are on the same side as the communities they serve.”
It would be a shame if the end result of the Stephen Lawrence saga amounted to little more than black people being entitled to the same shabby treatment as whites. A glorious day for the press, the police, the politicians? I don’t think so.
In response to the nine month prison sentence imposed on former Essex County Council Leader Lord Hanningfield, for the House of Lords expenses fraud, Cllr Mike Mackrory, Deputy Leader of the Official Opposition Liberal Democrat Group on Essex County Council commented:
“The public have every right to expect that people who abuse their position to defraud the taxpayer, must feel the full force of the law. The case exposed a shocking misuse of power which has undermined the reputation of hard working local councillors. We now await the further police investigations into the outstanding allegations of fraud within Essex County Council by Lord Hanningfield.”
The BBC reports:
Paul White, 70, was convicted of six counts of false accounting relating to nearly £14,000 of claims in May.
White has said he will seek leave to appeal against the verdict. If granted, the Court of Appeal will hear the case.
He was found guilty of claiming money for overnight stays in London when he had actually returned home to Essex.
Peers were able to claim up to £174-a-night when attending Parliament, if their main home was outside the city.
But during his trial in May, the court was told White submitted false claims for hotel bills including one when he was actually on board a flight to India at the time.
He also fraudulently claimed for train fares and car mileage.
Passing sentence at Maidstone Crown Court, Mr Justice Saunders said that while there were “ambiguities” in the expenses system in the Lords, it was clear that White had claimed for expenses “he did not incur”.
“He knew when he accepted a peerage that the job of a working peer was unpaid and he did not have to accept the honour,” he said.
“It is not for me to say whether peers should or should not be paid but whatever you think of the scheme, it was not for any peer to take money to which he was not entitled on the basis that he believes he is worth it.”
Mr Justice Saunders said White’s dishonesty and that of others had had “serious consequences” for the reputation of Parliament.
“Great trust was placed in peers to be honest in their claims for expenses. The public expects no less of them. Lord Hanningfield and others have broken that trust.”
So, the elections are over for another year … and thanks to everyone who voted Liberal Democrat in Rayleigh this May. We had two councillors elected, and actually got more votes than the Conservatives. (They don’t like us mentioning that!)
And we have had one or two successes in the council chamber lately. After a lot of work, led by my colleague June Lumley, in the autumn we will get back a cheap rate 40p parking charge for the first half-hour in council car parks. We were also pleased to see that you will be able to pay by mobile phone (handy if you are stuck at the dentists, or getting a perm!) We’re still not satisfied – we’d like to see free parking after 6 pm to encourage early evening trade. But we’ll keep battling away.
However, I want to write about something that alarms me – not as a Lib Dem – but as a resident of Rayleigh. It’s about how the District Council’s most important committee, the “Cabinet” (officially called the “Executive”) is going from bad to worse from a Rayleigh point of view.
The new situation is that no Rayleigh councillors are in the cabinet at all. It’s astonishing and worrying. And it matters. Rayleigh is by far the largest town in our district; it has the biggest shopping centre; it contributes well over 40% of the total income to the council. All the other large villages and towns are represented. But there’s no Rayleigh member to express a view in important meetings.
I guess I should explain the background a bit. The cabinet consists of the Conservative leader of the council, Terry Cutmore, plus 7 other Conservatives that he picks. Councillors who aren’t in the cabinet aren’t normally allowed to speak at all at the meetings – even if you want to point out a mistake, or even if they are discussing part of your council ward. That’s unlike most other council meetings.
Other councils – like Essex County Council – allow minority parties to have a representative in their cabinet so they can at least make suggestions. And if a Lib Dem were included in the cabinet we would put forward a councillor from Rayleigh. But unfortunately the Conservatives decided the cabinet would have 8 Conservatives and 0 others.
There is still some control over things. For example, we can ask for something to be dealt with at a meeting of the Full Council instead of the cabinet – that’s what we did with car parking. Though by that stage the Conservative councillors were so whipped into line that hardly any of them spoke and the whole meeting on car parking charges, budgets, types of machines and methods of payment was over in 16 minutes!
Decisions can also be ‘called in’ by 3 backbench members or by the Chair of the Review Committee. But quite often things can’t be called in at all because some decisions are urgent.
Now I’ve never liked the cabinet. I prefer the traditional system of having committees, where all councillors are fundamentally equal and everyone can have their say and every part of the district can be represented. The old system is also about £46,000 a year cheaper, because the council wouldn’t be paying substantial extra payments to councillors.
And this year the Cabinet has no Rayleigh councillors at all. There’s one from Ashingdon, one from Barling , one from Hawkwell, two from Hockley, two from Rochford and one from Great Wakering . A totally unbalanced arrangement – which may well put Rayleigh at a disadvantage when some issues are discussed. There are 12 Conservative District Councillors in Rayleigh – not one of them has been included.
By the way, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Council this year are both from Rayleigh. You’ll see their photos in the papers a lot as they visit places, and we wish them well. But these are really ceremonial posts, and have nothing to do with the cabinet.
Another worrying sign is the “Local Development Framework Subcommittee”. That’s a long title, but this is basically a panel that decides which bits of the green belt get houses built on them. It’s made up of 5 Conservatives and 1 Lib Dem. I’m the Lib Dem, so Rayleigh and Rawreth have some representation. But guess what – the Tories haven’t picked any Rayleigh members for this one either. Why is that ?
As Lib Dems , we will carry on regardless. At least we aren’t under the Tory whip and can say what we like, which helps us achieve things. We will push to get big issues discussed at Full Council (like car parking). But it’s worrying to see that the ordinary Rayleigh backbench Conservatives have been completely outmanoeuvred and sidelined.
Yes to AV?
Two years ago I wrote about the possibility of reforming our out-dated voting system (see here). Things have moved on, and I thought it might be a good idea to address some of the issues again.
The first point to be made is that while AV is not the system Liberals prefer, it is the only one on offer. I would argue that although it does not address all the issues (in particular it does not offer proportional representation), it does address some of them, and for that reason is worth voting for.
David Cameron has proposed an alternative view – he does not want AV. You can read here the speech he gave on the subject on 18th February 2011. If you have not read it yet, I would recommend that you do. It’s not often that you get a chance to see such political dishonesty, dissimulation and disingenuity in print. I’d guess Cameron skipped his Oxford lectures on voting systems – I’d give it a delta minus if I were his tutor! I shall come back to this speech later; but in the meantime let’s have a look at some of the arguments being deployed against AV.
This is the plaintive cry of the political dinosaurs, Tory and Labour, who have benefited from the current system. The Conservatives want to keep things the way they are (that’s where they get their name from). The First Past The Post system has served us well for 200 years, they say – why change it? It’s traditional, it’s our heritage! (To be honest, I’ve no idea why Labour are so fond of the old system, other than self-interest. But I can’t help feeling that if John Prescott, Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Margaret Beckett are opposed to something, it must have some merit.)
It’s worth taking a quick look back over the history of voting in this country, and seeing what has changed. In 1432 Henry VI established that male owners of property worth at least forty shillings (quite a lot of money in those days) were entitled to vote. In England that was the only voting qualification until the Reform Act of 1832, which gave the vote to 1 in 7 adult males. (As you might expect, the Great Reform Act was promoted by the Liberals and opposed by the Tories.)
The next big change came in 1918, following the Great War. Millions of returning soldiers were given the vote, along with women for the first time – as long as they were over the age of 30 and fulfilled certain property criteria. In 1910 fewer than 6 million of us could vote; in 1918 it was just over 16 million.
1918 also saw voting restricted to one day, instead of being spread over several weeks as it had been before – a point we’ll come back to later. From 1928, all adults over the age of 21 had the vote, and in 1969, the voting age was reduced to 18. The UK electorate now numbers nearly 40 million.
The Conservative logic that now wants to keep FPTP would also have the vote restricted to property-owning males of 21 or over. But the Conservatives are capable of changing their minds (sometimes rather slowly) when circumstances change. In 1918, for instance they felt they had to extend the vote to the soldiers who were returning home from the horrors of the Great War.
So – has anything changed that might make the FPTP system less than adequate as a system for electing our MPs? Here are a couple of graphs which show why the current system is no longer adequate:
No. Australia has used AV for 100 years and has had just two hung parliaments in 38 elections (1940 and 2010). First past the post in the UK produced hung parliaments last year, in February 1974, in 1923 and 1929 and twice in 1910. It has also produced parliaments which became as good as hung after the elections of 1950, October 1974 and 1992.
In any case, the supposed benefit of FPTP – that it produces clear cut results, or strong government – is only a benefit if we’re prepared to give up on the idea that the distribution of seats in Westminster ought to reflect (roughly) the way we voted. In 2010, the Tories managed to garner 36% of the vote, Labour 29%, and the Lib Dems 23%. It is quite clear that no single party had a strong mandate from the voters, and that the coalition represents the views of a substantial majority of the electorate.
David Cameron said in his speech on 18th February: “The idea that everyone has an equal voice and an equal vote is deeply enshrined in our existing electoral system. The principle of one person, one vote is what makes our democracy fair.” But he is wrong. We have many seats in this country which never change hands, and which are never likely to. Instead, politicians have focused more and more on a small number of swing voters in a small number of marginal seats. The rest of us sit back and wait for them to choose our government for us.
He also said: “Caroline Lucas, the country’s first Green Party MP, only got thirty-one percent of the vote in her constituency.” I’m not sure what point Cameron thought he was making here; but this particular case highlights the weakness of the current system. 69% of the electors in Brighton did not want Caroline Lucas to be their MP – but she is, thanks to the vagaries of the FPTP system.
Cameron also claimed that AV is so complex that it is ‘only understood by a handful of elites’. This suggests that he thinks we are all stupid. Using AV, instead of marking a cross by the name of the candidate you want to win, you put a number 1 by your top candidate, followed by a 2 for your next favourite, followed by a 3 – can you see where I’m going with this? Do you think you could manage that? Well, the Australians can – and the Irish have for many years managed the more complex STV with no trouble.
Nick Clegg gave a speech the same day as Cameron; you can read it here.
The pluses of AV that he highlights are these:
• MPs will have to work harder to get your vote – and will have to appeal to a wider range of voters; they won’t be able to just rely on their core supporters
• MPs will be less likely to have a ‘job for life’ – which led to the expenses scandal of the last parliament
• We will be able to vote for the MP we actually want, instead of voting for the MP we dislike least
• We will not be represented by MPs most of us didn’t vote for
The anti-AV campaign has already given up on arguing about the merits of AV, and has been busy spreading rumours and lies. Their anonymous backers have paid for deceitful adverts claiming that babies will die if we vote for AV, on account of its expense. That’s fantasy. £130 million of the money they say it will cost is for electronic voting machines – no one thinks we need them – and they don’t use them in Australia. Also included in their made-up figures is the cost of the referendum – which, of course, will be the same whatever the result.
Let’s leave the last word on the anti-AV campaign to Anthony Green – the election specialist for Australian broadcaster ABC – who has written reams debunking the myths surrounding Australia’s AV system “for those readers in the United Kingdom” who he says have got it all wrong.
“We’ve used AV for 90 years at all levels of government. And Australia has never used voting machines to conduct its elections,” he said. “They need to get their facts right about Australia and AV. The point is you get better representation. That’s what AV is all about.”
Will AV give us better representation? Yes. In the next couple of months you will hear a lot of people claiming that FPTP is quick, simple and easy to understand. I don’t think that is compelling enough for a modern democracy. I’d say we want fair and legitimate in preference to quick and easy.
A final thought. Tory MPs use a version of AV to elect their leader. (They have multiple ballots, with the weakest candidate dropping out at each stage. For the final ballot, all party members are involved.) Had they used FPTP, David Davis would be their leader now – he got 62 votes first time round (that’s 31.3% of Tory MPs) to Cameron’s 56. But after Ken Clarke and Liam Fox had been eliminated, David Cameron eventually got 67.6% to Davis’s 32.4%. Apply his cynical arguments against AV to the leadership election, and David Davis would now be leader of the Tory party!
… which includes the excellent line:
“If you go to the pub and order a pint of Carling but they are out of Carling and you choose a pint of John Smith’s instead, you’ve still only had one pint.”
Three years ago Labour abolished the 10p tax rate, caning the country’s poorest workers. Next month the Liberal Democrats in government are increasing personal tax allowances by £1000 a year. This simple act – the first instalment on one of the promises on the front page of our election manifesto – will take 880,000 people out of income tax altogether and help many thousands more. In Rochford alone 32,500 people can expect to pay £200 a year less in income tax.