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Latest from BrusselsJust back from Brussels. I was at a meeting where members of the Club de Madrid were advancing their Madrid Agenda on confronting terrorism through democratic means “at the European level”. Both The Council of Europe and Amnesty International’s European office circulated documents. The Council of Europe has 46 member states in a loose alliance (which has to be distinguished from The Council of Ministers of the European Union, of which more in a moment). The Council of Europe document sets out a now familiar back-footed approach that the everything must be done to defeat terrorism provided that the measures are lawful and do not include the use torture. The Amnesty International response available on its website is refreshingly more combative. It argues that it is the breach of human rights that creates the risk to our security. What’s needed is a far more vigorous pursuit of human rights in response to the attack on secular and constitutional values by terrorists. This argument applies to the wholesale moves to secure biometric surveillance now being debated in openDemocracy. As Mary Robinson put it, speaking at a public meeting of the Club de Madrid and the European Policy Centre, we need to “scale up our sense of purpose” if we are to revitalise democracy. I took advantage of being in Brussels to talk to some senior members of the European Commission who serve the Council of Ministers about the impact of the ‘no’ votes. There is a great deal of denial and sleepwalking, and little recognition that the whole political class across Europe, national and continental, has lost legitimacy. It seems that the French ‘non’ was somehow being adjusted for: it was due to Chirac’s unpopularity, or, this is the Blair theory, that Paris has got its economic policy wrong and is not man enough to embrace globalisation. But this does not explain the Dutch vote which has certainly shaken compacency in Brussels. That the Dutch, whose unemployment is relatively low, whose economy s relatively open and competitive, whose people are the most European and linguistically educated of any in Europe, that they should vote two to one against an improved Union defies easy explanation. It can’t be put down to a racial murder however high profile. June 12, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) Francis Wheen calls it rightSorry folks, I’ve been away and my well planned route to technological upgrade failed. Hence the long silence. Now I’m off to Brussels. The capital of a momentous disaster. I agree with Paul Hilder’s comment on my blog entry just before the French ‘Non’ and the Dutch 'Nee'. It is all very well to support them, as I did – and still do. But it is too sanguine to think that a more democratic Europe will necessary follow from a well earned rebuke to the anti-democratic character of the European elite. It is just as likely that a reactionary, retrograde process will be unleashed. Spot on. Next week I will write about why even war might follow if Europe defaults back to its older self. But this was happening anyway. There could be no democratic future built on a constitution being pushed through by a tiny majority based on fear – the only other outcome on offer. Had this happened the disaster already taking place would have been postponed, but when it came it would have been much worse. Now, at least, an ‘popular revolt’ delivered by the ballot box opens the way to a better process. I was fearful that I would be alone as an English Europhile who supported the European refusal. Francis Wheen has ensured a warm cohabitation. By chance I nicked from the plane's club class a copy of Saturday’s Daily Mail of 3 June. This ran an op-ed by Wheen which sets out my views better than I can. (Unfortunately, their wretched website means I can’t link to it.) He opens with self-criticism: “For too long people like me made what philosophers call a ‘category mistake’. As pro-Europeans, we automatically defended the entity that called itself ‘Europe’ in its gradual evolution… Not any more…. There’s nothing wrong with the European ideal. What’s wrong is the arrogance of a political elite who seeks to realise it through lies instead of honest debate, who assume it can be imposed from above rather than shaped by the people.” It is a bit like the way Christopher Hitchens thinks that the Bush invasion of Iraq is the Hitch invasion (but that too is for another day). We hoped that the Europe being created was the Europe that was needed - an advance in democratic terms not a retreat. I was amused to learn that Liam Fox for the Tories demanded a thorough debate over the constitution, without realising that the consitution which most needs this is still Britain's own. June 9, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Historic day - ouch!Today is a turning point in European history and I find myself in disagreement with Neal Ascherson AND Will Hutton AND Timothy Garton Ash AND Danny Cohn-Bendit! The first two signed the Chris Bobinsk letter he wanted the English to post to the people of France - an idea he wrote about rufully in openDemocracy. Now his letter has been published on the oD site and also in the Financial Times. Tim Garton Ash went to France to report and meditate upon the campaign and wrote a strong piece in the Guardian calling for a French Yes. But none were as eloquent or forceful as Danny Cohn-Bendit, whom I have followed more or less since 1968, writing in the International Herald Tribune. "I am a realist who believes in social justice, human rights, environmental protection and a strong Europe that can deal withthe challenges of globaliation and project its power peacefully." Well said! But does it follow that if the French vote 'no' Danny as warns, this will all be at risk and, "the French will lose the things they really want: real European solidarity, a true European democracy; in short, the creation of a European Republic"? European democracy will not follow from the constitutional treaty. On the contrary, a 'yes' will convince the Brussels Eurocrats that if they scare the children they can always get their way. I am against a British 'no' if the French and the Dutch vote 'yes'. That debate is for another time - perhaps. But a French 'no' will be good for Europe and especially for the prospects of European democracy. It will be an honest rejection of a dishonest political elite.
May 29, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2) Non not OuiLike a good conversation writing a blog can be a voyage of discovery to your own views. I was against a French ‘Non’and want a ‘Oui’ in their referendum on the European Constitution - for a convoluted reason that was perhaps shamefully local. Polls that ask people in Britain how they will vote show support dropping like a stone if the ‘yes’ argument is led by Tony Blair. Continue reading "Non not Oui" May 26, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) Lessons from Charter 88Comments from: Saturday’s Independent published on its front page a huge list of the four thousand people who had sent in their names to support its Campaign for Democracy. The bottom right hand corner was turned up, in homage, intended or not, to Charter 88. I remember how Keith Ablitt, the exceptional typographer and designer who created the original Charter and the many adverts that followed, carefully explaining his concept of the upturned corner and its impact on potential signatures. Few forms of flattery are more sincere than imitation. But the imitation I look for most of all is support in depth. The problem with all ‘campaigns’ which focus on a single issue like voting reform is that the strength of their simplicity becomes a weakness. The government thinks it can just sit it out. Once initial support has peaked, where does it go? Once it starts to falter, it appears to lose momentum and soon becomes yesterday’s news. What are the conditions for a campaign to become a success? One option is money: lots and lots of it, hiring PR merchants and advertising agents, shaping opinion as columnists are dined and unusual outlets, especially in broadcasting, targetted. The Indepdent does not have this kind of money and anyway it has branded the campaign as its own. The alternative to money is ideas. There has to be an internal richness if there is external scarcity. The campaign must not become boring. Another, brilliant campaign also taking place now, which has gained a high profile in Britain is Make Poverty History. This has a rich hinterland of potential argument to keep it going, from trade to sustainable development. The constitutional agenda as a whole also has this potential. So indeed does “democracy”. It is about identify and nationality, about globalisation and locality, law, myth, culture and, in the United Kingdom, a new ‘settlement’ as well as the delivery of a fair voting system. Will the Indie grasp this and embrace the larger arguments, or will it make the mistake of thinking that because the outrageous election outcome was the original “story” it must stick to this and this alone? May 23, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1) The Hoodies are in 10 Downing StreetThe new editor of the New Statesman asked me to write a column for him. But I addressed its readers in the first person, saying those of us Saddam haters who are not Gallowayites but who opposed the war are the majority and should not fall back into comfortable opposition. I didn't address the news of the day and it wasn't right. By the time I did so - and read the Queens speech in full - I was late and only half got carried. So here is the full thing, punch-line and all. "There is an edge and anger in the air. It feels like one of those moments when the public sentiment changes at a deeper level than fashion and is shaped by what Raymond Williams called the “structure of feeling” to distinguish what is a matter of opinion from mere opinion, and recognise it as a material force. The hyper-activity of the legislative programme in the Queen’s speech is designed to deny and defy this tide. There was a moment for me when I knew it was not going to work. Continue reading "The Hoodies are in 10 Downing Street" May 20, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Make One's Vote CountJust back from the vigil for reform outside Downing Street. The Queen was opening Parliament. I thought she went the other way. But no, much to my surprise I scrambled for my camera as Horseguards marched past followed by her Majesty and her husband in their horse and cart. Here they are coming towards us.
The turnout was not as large as the 200 the organisers hoped for and although it was also very cold for May it was nothing like Kiev. David Marquand's orange revolution still awaits us. * May 17, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (3) Get Lord Scarman's Train“Hold on!”, says Andreas Whittam Smith. He takes a similar but in one crucial respect very different approach to mine in his cautionary column today about the Campaign for Democracy in the Independent, the paper he founded and now writes for. He says that reformers must not single out voting reform. “By all means let us push strongly for PR but…” Good points about his buts: Andreas compares the British constitution to a large and old machine, he calls for a list of its parts (stand by), he is eloquent on the need for a democratic culture not just different rules and institutions. He is also great on the corrupt way the government is changing the role of Britain’s second chamber. And then he calls for… vigilance. Sorry, Andreas, this is not good enough. Yes, of course, stay vigilant. Should we sleep while our masters play? But we already know what years of vigilance have witnessed. It is a system – the old machinery - that is broken and rulers unable to resist the temptation this offers them. The old machine is a humpty-dumpty long fallen off its wall. Why look at it any more? It won’t grow or inspire a new culture. It can’t. Therefore, there needs to be a democratic, written constitution brought about through an open process that inspires an honest public culture which can lay claim to it. Electoral reform, like second chamber reform, needs to follow this and be part of it, or it will become (this is where I share Andreas’s caution) yet a further piece of the eggshell. There is no panacea within the old machine, or to be found amongst the eggshell, that will right the worst of democratic wrongs and thereby put Britain back together again. Not even super-laser vigilance. In 1992 I organised four Sovereignty Lectures for Charter 88. They were given by Gordon Brown, Shirley Williams, Ferdinand Mount and Lord Scarman (perhaps the country’s most distinguished retired judge). Mount, then speaking as a Conservative, said he was for constitutional reform but argued that we should get off the train before the last stop of a written constitution. In the following lecture Lord Scarman made a lucid call for staying the course and taking train to its destination. Why is it that so few of the political class are still unwilling to get into his carriage? So here is a question for Andreas. In the same issue of the Independent Peter Facey of the New Politics Network and Ron Bailey co-director of Charter 88 publish a letter calling for a wide “mass movement” for reform of the system - and they want a written constitution. Would this qualify for his unqualified support? May 16, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2) A Sunny WarningJust a quick post - and a warning - on a sunny May morning. There is a gathering of what has been called ‘Britblogs’ in the wake of the meeting that launched Storm for Reform. Many of us will be there in the flesh for the vigil on Tuesday 17th May at Downing Street. Robin Grant of perfect has a great overview of the ongoing debate. Nosemonkey of Europhobiagives key quotes of what was said at the meeting (although I think real names should be used by reformers, to set an example for open government). There is an overview by Tim Hicks in Plone, who also takes the argument to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, while after a run in with software that vaporised his work (it happens to the best of us) Paul Davis of Make Votes Count links everyone including dedicated colleague Tom Steinberg of mysociety who has built notapathetic.com . This initiative seems to have been overlooked by Dominic Hilton in his terrific, must-read overview in openDemocracy.net of the rise of what should now be called targetted campaigning - rather than just tactical voting. But I just want to add my cautionary note to the focus on the electoral aspect of the British system. Continue reading "A Sunny Warning" May 15, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1) Storm for ReformStorm for Reform Three things I forgot to add early this morning when I wrote about yesterday's potentially historic meeting. Action starts with the vigil at Downing Street when the new Parliament opens on the 17th. Its organisers have already decided it will continue to gather strength under the stirring banner, 'Storm for Reform'. Second, speaking of Conservatives waking up to the fact that modernisation can only mean they will never again govern in the old way (and if anyone has shown them that they shouldn't do so it is the present Prime Minister). Ferdinand Mount came out for voting reform in the Daily Telegraph. Not strictly a Tory - he did not vote that way in 2001 - he nonetheless wrote Margaret Thatcher's election Manifesto in 1983 and is, in a traditional sense, that difficult thing, a conservative thinker. Let's hope he is influential. Third, and as important as any of the above, the Independent has come out with a 'Campaign for Democracy' after its readers responded, or should I say 'stormed', it with letters, emails and messages to support its front page exposure of the electoral system. The British media monopoly that marginalised calls for a fair voting system may have been broken at last. May 12, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) A Historic MeetingA Historic Meeting I’ve just come from a historic meeting in the Houses of Parliament. No, not in the Commons, the so-called legislature of the United Kingdom, but a public meeting held in the Gladstone Committee room called at short notice by Make Votes Count and the Electoral Reform Society. It was packed. I sat on the floor with many others as over 300 of us listened to calls to bring the rotten voting system to an end. There were five good brief statements then plenty of points from the audience. Early on Peter Tatchell spoke up. He is a veteran campaigner for gay rights who once, wonderfully, tried to arrest President Mugabe when he visited Brussels. His website announces itself as ‘Gay and Human Rights Campaigns’. He told us that our leaders “will not listen to reasoned arguments”. Only popular pressure would do the job. The applause, I thought, was muted, respectful rather than enthusiastic. Most of those present were party members, mainly Lib-Dems, Labour or Greens. Then, towards the end of the meeting, two Tories were identified and given a special welcome. One of them, John Strafford from Buckinghamshire, Chairman of the somewhat loopy Campaign for Conservative Democracy said that he was astonished to find himself in agreement with Peter Tatchell and that he would take to the streets with him! This was cheered to the roof. Neither Strafford nor Tatchell represent ‘grass roots opinion’ whatever that is. But their combination suddenly made the meeting feel that they could move out of the committee room. And so we will. On the 17th, to coincide with the opening of parliament, there will be a mass vigil outside Downing Street. I’m not sure that the plan is to sit down and close the road, as I suggested in my blog two days ago. But having asked them, "Where are you now your country needs you?" I am very happy to report that Make Votes Count is on the ball and also that Charter 88 will be calling on its supporters to join them. Who else spoke? It was Chaired by David Lipsey, who I’ve had little time for, but who now seems to have risen to the occasion. Polly Toynbee from the Guardian led off. Billy Bragg argued we needed a proportional House of Lords as well as fair voting for MPs. Martin Linton, the only MP, was eloquent and factual in his denunciation of “the worst electoral system in the world” which is “poisoning the whole of our political system”. Chris Rennard, a leading Lib-Dem peer noted the anger and in his summing up cautioned us against any reliance on “noisy protests”. There was a palpable sense of injustice. The Labour government has been voted in by just over 20 per cent, a mere fifth of the electorate. Yet only hours before, I think in the same room, Labour MPs had given Blair a standing ovation in a closed meeting of the parliamentary Labour party. According to the Daily Mail, supporters of the Prime Minister said he had made short shrift of any doubters about his leadership. One minister emerged to say: "Whingers routed!" And Defence Secretary John Reid said: "It was a great meeting. The silent majority are silent no longer." It seems that “That loyalists had rallied round Mr Blair to drown out any protests… Everyone who appeared to say Tony Blair was less than perfect got shouted down." So it seems that in the same room, on the same day, tectonic plates moved in opposite directions. For this kind of talk and intimidation shows Labour becoming the old regime, bullying, silencing and toughing it out as opinion widens against it. The spirit of democracy, already coming to life in websites like perfect.co.uk and the sharpener to name just two, is now becoming tangible. May 12, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (3) Making votes count, roll over and barkNope, it's not just Anthony Barnett calling for electoral reform in the UK. From Perfect.co.uk a roundup of similar statements and an open invitation to a strategy meeting at the House of Commons May 11, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) Tony Blair wants to stayI was right, Tony Blair sees the election as his penitance. He has now atoned for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and, having suffered the pain of being abused and punished by the voters he is now cleansed, and can continue as the country’s leader - all the more justified by what everyone else regards as his defeat. Everyone except his close circle. Between them and those with judgement in the Labour Party a battle is developing that will determine the future of the British state. A key date is the French vote in their referendum on the European constitution on the 29th of this month. A non and Blair is saved for the time being, but if they vote oui then UK is committed to its own referendum. Voters have just made it as clear as possible that Blair cannot win any such referendum. If Labour lose it then the Tories will be positioned as the party that defines what it means to be British. From that point on the next election will belong to them. From Labour’s point of view, therefore, it is essential that a swift transition takes place, before the Autumn, to give a new leader, which if it is fast will be Gordon Brown, the time and space to create a programme that can win the referendum. I'd say this is the last thing Blair wants. For him the political is personal. He would prefer that the party which he has 'borrowed' turns to ashes without him, so that the glow of its aftermath puts him in a good light historically; rather than risk his term in office being overshadowed by by Brown. There is no evidence that TB has any feeling of loyalty towards Labour, new or old, whether Brown or light purple - the imperial hue it chose for its election campaign. Instead, he and his Blair court are digging, in using all the powers of the British system they can to preserve themselves. Immediately after the election Blair told the country he would "listen". Then up pops Pat McFadden as his spokesman, telling the cameras that opposition to Blair is irrelevant. McFadden has just become an MP after serving as Blair's staff officer in 10 Downing street. A product of the sectarian in-fighting that formed New Labour, McFadden listens in the way that a spy eavesdrops. In a speech that defined his ambitions as premier Blair famously called for ‘education, education, education’. But who is educating whom? He has made another one of his Downing Street gang, Andrew Adonis, an Education Minister by shoe-horning him into the House of Lords. I once had an exchange with Adonis in the monthly magazine Prospect. It was about constitutional chnage under Blair. Formally a Liberal Adonis once supported democratic reform. But his personal style always left me with the feeling that his one aim in life was to look down on you. Now he can do so, having completed his transformation into an apparatchnik and provided one more reason for the abolition of the House of Cronies. These are the moves of a team digging in for positional warfare not renewal let alone democracy. "Listen" - don't make me laugh. Real name comments welcome or email anthonysblog@opendemocracy.net May 10, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) The results do not add upThe most astonishing aspect of the election is its utterly undemocratic result in terms of the parliamentary balance of power. The proportion of the votes were: Labour 35.2 percent This is what the number of MPs should have been – and what they are: Labour should be 227 but is 357 Others includes the Scottish and Welsh nationalists and the Northern Irish parties. The outcome is even more distorted in national terms. Overall, the Conservatives got 8,100,000 votes in England while the Labour Party got 60,000 LESS. The Tories WON England in votes cast. But they got only 193 English seats as against Labour’s 286. Certainly, one reason for this imbalance is that Labout has many safe seats in which there is little point in voting. A genuinly proportional system in which all votes mattered would have seen an increase in Labour votes. Nonetheless, the system is worse than a charade. Labour’s own proportion slumped from a low 42 per cent in 2001 to 36 per cent of the actual vote last week. Nonetheless it gained outright control of both the executive and the legislature. Why is there so little protest? Why aren’t the Liberal-Democrats making a real fuss? Why aren’t the Tory MPs that were elected planning to sit down in front of Parliament next week to prevent its opening until we are promised reform of the electoral system? If they did this and called on the people to join them, there would be a million and more overnight. Why is it that it is only Labour modernisers like Polly Toynbee and David Marquand are calling for Britain to have an ‘orange revolution’? The Tories dirty little secret is that they want to steal all power next time on a small swing of the votes. And the Lib-Dems? Well, they are celebrating their defeat. Somebody needs to do something about this. What about it, Charter 88, Liberty, New Policy Network, ACT, Make Votes Count? Where are you now your country needs you? PS: Gareth Young of the Campaign for an English Parliament predicted that Labour would only win a minority of votes in England in his comment on my 'Hang Parliament' entry on 4 May. May 9, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1) Who won the UK election? We did!The voters won yesterday’s election in Britain, and all three major parties suffered existential defeats. Their leaderships immediately set about persuading themselves of the opposite, that a kick in the pants was in fact a pat on the back. Continue reading "Who won the UK election? We did!" May 6, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) Tomorrow's Vote III - John Pilger and Tony BlairThere was one moment when I thought perhaps I should vote for Blair, or at least stand up for those who will. It was when my old colleague and co-author John Pilger wrote in the New Statesman of 25 April (not available on the web). He told those who might cast their vote for Labour: “By voting for Blair, you will walk over the corpses of at least 100,000 people, most of them innocent Continue reading "Tomorrow's Vote III - John Pilger and Tony Blair" May 4, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) Tomorrow's Vote: II - hang parliamentTomorrow's Vote II - hang parliament! Tomorrow’s UK general election will have some world significance because voters (and abstainers) will take out their judgement on the main ally of the United States in Iraq. Without British forces by their side, use of the term ‘coalition’, for the US invasion, already stretched beyond spin, would become farce. Michael Howard leads what is currently the main opposition party (although, if the polls are right – a big-if - it may not be so after tomorrow). Rather than oppose the war he declared that he is even more for the war than Blair. He is for ‘regime change plus’, going in without a care about legality or weapons of mass destruction. We will see what the voters think of that in the privacy of their voting booths. Many of those who I know want a hung parliament. This would mean no single party holding an outright majority. It would force Labour as the largest party into a coalition with the Liberal-Democrats. For Blair this would be a popular defeat and he would have to resign. Then, under Gordon Brown, this genuine coalition would have to agree to introduce more democratic, proportional voting as the condition of Lib-Dem support. In other words, it would be a vote to change the system. An inviting prospect. Can it work? To deliver such an outcome involves taking tactical decisions about who to vote for in each constituency. These may not then add up to a national change. Instead, it could lead to a fix designed to benefit the parties involved, once that will then be more than likely to give another kiss-of-life to modernisation of the old regime. May 4, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) Tomorrow's Vote: ITomorrow's vote in Britain: I In order to defend their journalistic independence The New York Times forbids its columnists from endorsing candidates or reporting how they will vote. I like this – openness as guessing. Even if I did not, while openDemocracy benefits from charitable funding I am forbidden from using its space and resources to advocate that anyone vote for a political party. This does not mean I have to neuter or castrate my own judgement. American formalism and propriety can be taken much too far. When I was in Washington six months ago, just after George Bush was elected president for the first time, Danny Postel presided over a gathering of friends and colleagues. I asked how they had voted. One told us that he no longer voted on principle because he feared that if he did so it would distort the objectivity of his reporting. He had to become someone who did not take sides, he claimed, if he was to give a fair account that would provide readers with the balanced view they expected. A classic dispute broke out over whether it was more honest to be open with readers about your own judgements so that they could assess for themselves if you are wrongly prejudiced. It also seemed to me that it is way too self-important to think that readers will regard ones words as gospel. It greatly underestimates their intelligence. They, rightly, expect you to be a person of views and opinions of your own. More important, such ‘neutrality’ is the slave and servant of the status quo. Presented with a choice between reason and democracy on the one hand, let’s say, and unreason and the undead on the other, should one refuse to make a call? To report them as equally reasonable propositions is bad enough. To train oneself to accept that whatever choice the system throws up is a proper one is to abnegate all responsibility for the most important democratic task of all, that of ensuring we have a say over the kind of choices we are offered. Real name comments welcome or email anthonysblog@openDemocracy.net May 4, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) When voting can be funBritain’s electoral system is certainly overdue for reform (see Anthony Barnett here and Polly Toynbee in the Guardian) but the reasons go beyond the unrepresentative governments they produce. I can’t be the only one who finds something anticlimactic and even distasteful about stepping into the polling booth, picking up a blunt pencil on a string and writing an X – the mark of the illiterate. After four years of waiting and six weeks of relentless debate, surely there should be more to sacred rite of democracy? There certainly can be. The system in use in the Republic of Ireland, for one, gives voters a chance to use their intelligence, their wit and even their spite during those few moments behind the curtain. And it can also offer some measure of escape from the vote-for-me-or-the-other-guy-might-win kind of hostage-drama politics which have afflicted the latest British election. Continue reading "When voting can be fun" May 3, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Has Rupert Murdoch won it?Will it be Rupert Murdoch that won it? (650 words) If Tony Blair remains Prime Minister after Thursday then an ominous figure will loom over the British landscape demanding his pay-back - ‘Rupert’. This was what the great television dramatist Dennis Potter called the malignancy consuming him from within when he was dying of cancer. Now few in Britain even call for an operation to remove the tumour, so deeply has the influence of Rupert Murdoch penetrated. I take my cue from a powerful piece of dissection by Stephen Glover in his media column in yesterday’s Independent. Continue reading "Has Rupert Murdoch won it?" May 3, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Snooker is real!It has been a wonderful sunny spring ‘bank holiday’, the strange term for a Monday that turns a weekend into an official three day break in the UK. It ended with millions of us glued to the snooker. This is another particular aspect of life on our islands. I have always found it odd and parochial for the Americans to talk about ‘The World Series’ in a sport that they are almost alone in playing to first-class standards. But we too have a ‘world championship’ in a sport few nations share. Today Shaun Murphy, 22 years old and a 150 to 1 outsider beat the still young 27 year old Matthew Stevens by 18 sessions to 16 in a gripping final, played out over two full days, to become world snooker champion. It was as if the general election had been turned off by the weather and an authentic competition of sustained nerve, strategy and quality. Televised in close up, with a hushed commentary, character and calculation are played out ball by ball. There is no artificial pumping of crowd enthusiasm. Restraint governs the intense focus of players and spectators. The championship lasts for over two weeks. In the first round where games last less than a day, the odd smattering of competitors from the Far East (including Australia) are eliminated by players from the British Isles (including Ireland). The final is played to the best of 35 sessions. Today’s went to the wire with 34. When it was all over, I channel hopped and there was Tony Blair defending himself over Iraq, pretending it was his decision. There was a tremendous lowering of energy, expectation and belief. The charade was unbearable. Sport has become the location of the real. Real names comments weclcome May 3, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Polly Toynbee did itIt was Polly Toynbee that did it for me in her renewed call for voting reform. No more single issue reforms of the British constitution will do. I used to believe that they worked. That if we passed any single significant reform, such as abolishing hereditary peers, or creating a Scottish parliament, or passing a Human Rights Act, it would be bound to lead to overall reform. Why? Because each one was evidently incompatible with the old, informal, unwritten regime. And I put this belief into practise Continue reading "Polly Toynbee did it" May 1, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | TrackBack (1) Gordon Brown moves on the constitutionI was thinking to write this blog every working day until Britain (or England) has a democratic written constitution. It would be a form of penance and protest. Continue reading "Gordon Brown moves on the constitution" April 30, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | TrackBack (0) Two Sinking ShipsOne should never underestimate the capacity of British institutions to patch themselves up and keep going. But the British general election is like a race between two sinking ships. The Conservative Party and the Prime Minister are both holed below the water line. Continue reading "Two Sinking Ships" April 27, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) Marxism hits the small screenOne journalist who is genuinely grappling with the system from within is Peter Oborne, political editor of the right-wing Spectator. Continue reading "Marxism hits the small screen" April 26, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Media still hypnotisedBritain’s Prime Minister is still at it. Today he vigorously responded to all the attacks about lies and truth, rights and wrongs, legality and illegality. A decision had to be made and “I decided to remove Saddam”. Hypnotised, the media seems unable to utter the non-word of the campaign: America. Excuse me Prime Minister but the whole thing is a charade, you didn’t decide to remove Saddam you decided to back Bush whatever he decided. April 26, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) 7 great issues“Interesting, but not satisfying, I want to know your view”. This was Solana Larsen on my blog before last. Quite right: blogs are about attitude not just reporting. But to answer her I need to spell out what matters. Continue reading "7 great issues" April 22, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) No, Blair did not decide to remove Saddam - the Paxman interview“I tried desperately hard to reach a second UN resolution”. When this failed, “I decided to remove him”. It is preposterous for Tony Blair to claim that he removed Saddam. But he seems to have got away with it. Hypnotising Jeremy Paxman Britain’s foremost interviewer, who knows how to press a question, in their encounter earlier this evening. Continue reading "No, Blair did not decide to remove Saddam - the Paxman interview" April 21, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) VoteOK, Vote4Peace: two campaigns with an aimA new ingredient is being stirred into the election. Determined campaigners are using of Britain’s first-past-the-post constituency system, to try and swing seats their way. Two are VoteOK and Vote4Peace. Continue reading "VoteOK, Vote4Peace: two campaigns with an aim" April 19, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) More on the manifestos - bodylanguageManifestoes are body language before content: an attitude, a spirit, as well as an approach. Having spotted the missing word in my previous blog, here is a closer comparison of the Tory and Labour offerings. Continue reading "More on the manifestos - bodylanguage" April 17, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) The manifestos - Find the missing wordWhat word is missing from all the party political manifestos? What all-shaping, decisive political word, cannot be found in them at all? Continue reading "The manifestos - Find the missing word" April 14, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) On Blair and Bullshit“Cool Britannia is not a term I have ever used”, Tony Blair claimed last Friday – forgetting that he had used the dread phrase only five days earlier in an article for the Sunday Times. That was seven years ago in April 1998. The quote is from Francis Wheen, its reprinted in his collected journalism, Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies. So the Prime Minister has been at it for a long time. “Why now?” he must be asking Cherie, why don’t they trust me now, I’ve always been like this, and they always used to trust me! Andreas Whittam Smith addresses the issue in his most recent column in the Independent. After listing some of Tony Blair’s recent deceptions he asks himself what sort of person does this? Blair himself could answer that he is at least as honest and open as previous Premiers (a point made by Whittam Smith’s colleague Steve Richards – but would you want this said about you? I’d call it a back-handed compliment.) Whittam Smith seeks out a different kind of comparison: with the crooked newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell who ended up jumping from his yacht. “I believe that Mr Blair habitually states what ought to be the case, regardless of whether it is strictly true or false.” Why ‘strictly’? “Like Mr Maxwell”, Andreas continues, ‘he is unembarrassed when found out and carries on regardless’. This concedes much too much. I tried to analyse what I called Blair’s Campbell's Code If you think that it too conspiratorial, then the other explanation is systemic in a different sense. In a word it is bullshit, as my friend Tom Nairn explains in his new article in openDemocracy, in part stimulated by the reflections in this blog. All real name comments welcome, please send them to anthonysblog@opendemocracy.net April 13, 2005 in Blair's Bust - UK election | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Nick Herbert - Conservative choiceThe public row over the choice of Nick Herbert to be the Arundel and South Downs constituency candidate for the Tory Party is only half of the story. It is who they did not select that says much more. Herbert is by all accounts a shallow, virulent anti-European: regressive not just on taxation, but on national identity and relations with the world. Up against him in the short-list of three who spoke to 400 odd local party members last night, was Laura Sandys. Among Laura's wide and lively range of interests, she Chairs the Board of openDemocracy on which I sit. So praise her I can't. Read her for yourself on openDemocracy, on Europe, on Iraq and especially her star essay on the nature of US politics, written before 9/11. How is it possible for the Conservatives to systematically refuse to choose | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
