Free-born John Lilburne: A hero for our time

Geoffrey Bindman (London, BIHR): My old school in Newcastle, founded in 1545, was proud of famous former pupils. Several of them were mentioned in the school song. Eldon was the procrastinating judge caricatured by Dickens in Bleak House, Armstrong an armament manufacturer, Collingwood was Nelson’s second-in–command at Trafalgar. Absent was John Lilburne, leader of the Levellers at the time of the English Civil War, who I discovered years later had been at the school in the early 17th century.

Lilburne is only now coming to be recognised as a fundamentally important figure in our political and constitutional history. He was also a man of extraordinary personal courage and determination. Cromwell thought highly of him and made him a colonel in his army but he became disillusioned with Cromwell when he abandoned the democratic programme which Lilburne passionately advocated.

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Mobilising the young: The lesson for Wales

Tomorrow's Wales (Cardiff): And so, Obama has been elected President of the United States. But does the success of his campaign hold any lessons for us here in Wales? In particular, can we learn from the success of his movement for change as we seek our own change to a law-making Parliament for Wales?

The idea that the young have become disinterested in politics is one that has become increasingly accepted as truth over recent years. However, Obama’s success in persuading young people to go out and vote shows that the young are interested in politics if they are inspired, and that their mobilisation can be key in securing change.

One of the findings of the recent research conducted by the Institute of Welsh Politics on behalf of the National Assembly for Wales was that young people are much more pre-devolution that the older generation. The results for the constitutional preference question, when broken down into age groups were as follows:

The Luck of the Draw – Sortition and Public Policy

Keith Sutherland (Exeter, Imprint Academic): Imprint Academic’s new book series on political lotteries and citizen juries is launched this week. The series is our response to the growing sense that the institutions of liberal party democracy are damaged beyond repair.

The 1997 election was a watershed as it was quite obvious that Labour was prepared to say anything in order to win power. From then on political parties would no longer ‘represent’ anything other than the whims of a few thousand swing voters in key marginals, leaving everybody else, in effect, disenfranchised.
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A new leader for the Scottish Lib Dems

Stephen Glenn (Linlithgow, Lib Dems): What next for the Liberal Democrats in Scotland? They're no longer in a coalition administration but just part of the opposition to an SNP minority government. It's a dangerous position with the Tories strengthening and Labour weakening.

Three candidates have stepped forward to fill the void left by Nicol Stephen's resignation as leader, by the end of next week one of them will be leader. Tavish Scott, a close ally of Stephen, is seen by many as the continuity candidate. Ross Finnie, served eight years in the cabinet when the party was in coalition with Labour after the Scottish Parliament was created. He says the party needs to find its 'narrative' again. Mike Rumbles, who chaired the Holyrood's Standard's Committee for four years, sees a radical path ahead. Read the rest of this post...

Expensive .gov website is expensive

“10 Downing Street website, the official website of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair”

Oh dear. That link, by the way, from Dizzy Thinks, whose comprehensive coverage is better than anything I'll manage. As he hasn't deigned to use a convenient tag, here's the litany of fail: Read the rest of this post...

Rule of law at risk

Geoffrey Bindman (London, BIHR): The interesting OurKingdom debate on Labour After Brown risks becoming too remote from actual policy needs as it discusses general strategy. Of course, government needs to be fairer and extend justice in a way that supports individuals while building shared values. If this is what David Miliband and Sunder Katwala mean by combining social democracy with liberalism, who could disagree? Except that it runs the danger of phrase-making. What I am looking for is a much more principled approach to endorsing the need for public values that explicitly face down the marketisation of government that has been the tragic hallmark of New Labour. After a lifetime of support, I have witnessed this process at first hand, as the legacy of 1945 is systematically undone. What is happening is wrong. We need the new generation to identify that it is wrong and pledge to reverse it. Read the rest of this post...

Northern Ireland could stymie "super-department"

Robin Wilson (Belfast, Policy Analyst): The suggestion that the various secretaries of state for the nations and regions should be wrapped up into one department has made sense ever since devolution was established in the initial years of ‘New’ Labour. But devolution to Scotland, Wales and (always shakily) Northern Ireland was, paradoxically, characterised by the patrician English trope of amateurish muddling through. And so the repeated case made by the Constitution Unit for a formal system of intergovernmental relations, as in Canada or Australia—and of which the unified department would have been one element, along with Lords reform to make the second chamber a voice for the nations and regions—fell on deaf Whitehall ears. Other departments in effect became ‘English’ departments, even when their actions had implications for devolved counterparts.

A decision to move belatedly towards having a single minister for the devolved jurisdictions at the cabinet table—a further step from the rather awkward job-sharing of recent years—would certainly be welcome, if media speculation is borne out. But a fly in the ointment remains Northern Ireland—and if such a move were premised on a belief that imminent devolution of policing and justice powers would slot in the last piece of the jigsaw of a settlement for the troubled region, this could turn out to be a mistaken assumption. Read the rest of this post...

David Davis debates, Thursday 3 July

Commenting in OurKingdom

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Standing by a principle

This is an article written by Roger Gale, Conservative MP for North Thanet, in support of Davis Davis and his campaign.

Roger Gale (Parliament): On Monday evening the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, unveiled the light sculpture, "Breathing", at the BBC`s New Broadcasting House in Langham Place, London and the BBC`s Foreign Editor, John Simpson, read a specially commissioned poem written by James Fenton.* It was a moving experience.

The monument, designed by the Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, stands in the memory of those journalists and their teams of assistants of all nations who have given their lives in the cause of telling to the world truths that others would prefer to have left untold.

Since January of 2007 there have been two hundred and three such fatalities, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but around the world. The most recent, who died on the 7th and 8th of this month respectively, were working for the BBC.

Freedom of speech runs in tandem with those other liberties defined in statute and by custom in the United Kingdom since Magna Carta and more recently since the enacting of Habeas Corpus.

The rights to say what we think, to go freely about our lawful business without interference from the State and not to be imprisoned without charge and fair trial are absolutely fundamental to our democratic way of life. Read the rest of this post...

House of Lords debates Britishness

Lord Taylor of Warwick has called a debate on

 ”the concept of Britishness in the context of the cultural, historical and ethical tradition of the peoples of these islands”

The debate is expected to start around 11am and you can watch it live here. 

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Europe must embrace federalism with or without the Brits

This is a response by David Marquand to John Palmer's article on Ireland's "No" vote on the Lisbon Treaty.

David Marquand (Oxford): The real issue goes far deeper than our blinkered political class and media commentariat seem to realise. The post-cold war world, with a hegemonic US as the only super-power, is dying if not dead. An infintely more complex and more dangerous multi-polar world is coming into existence, with China, India and perhaps a revitalised Russia as super powers alongside the US. The US will for the foreseeable future remain the strongest of these super-powers, but it will not be the only one. Economically it has already ceased to be a hegemon: as the dollar falls, the Euro climbs. The crucial question for Europeans is whether we want the world to be run by the Americans, Chinese, Indians and perhaps Russians, or whether Europe should get its act together and become a quasi-super power as well. Europe’s political elites have either funked or fudged that question, and in Britain virtually no one has so far faced it. But the answer Europeans give to it will determine the shape of global and European politics as the 21^st century proceeds. If Europe wants to hold its own in the multipolar world now taking shape it has to make a qualitative leap towards federalism. Read the rest of this post...

John Major v Matthew d'Ancona

This letter from John Major appeared in yesterday's Sunday Times:

Mathew d'Ancona quotes me as believing "a siege society once in place, will be difficult to dismantle". The quote is correct, but not the context. I did not refer solely to the 42 days pre-charge detention, but also to the establishment of a compulsory ID card system, a national DNA Database, and powers given to the police to permit them to bug homes and cars without the sanction of a High Court judge.

The 42 day extension (if it becomes law) may be easily reversible, but does Mr d'Ancona really believe that is true of ID cards and the DNA database. I do not. I doubt, too, that the new powers given to the police will readily be surrendered. No single part of the package exceeds the internment of the 1970s, but the collective impact - since much of it is intended to be permanent - most certainly does.

Fortunately, a more balanced judgement was to be found in your leading article "A stronger case is needed for the denial of liberty".

Right on John! Hat-tip Glyn Davies.

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Is Brown's spin on 42 days a distraction from the rest of the Counter-Terrorism Bill?

This was posted yesterday on the excellent spyblog:

Remember when Gordon Brown pretended that his Government would not be spinning important policy ideas to the favoured mainstream media before announcing them officially in Parliament first?

There has been no Statement or detailed Government consultation paper explaining the alleged "concessions" and supposed extra safeguards regarding the planned 42 days internment without charge (or even evidence) which is being planned in the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is due to say something about this in the House of Commons later today, but only to potential rebel backbench Labour MPs, and is not making an official Ministerial Statement to Parliament.. Her boss and his expensive meedja spin doctor apparatchiki are doing exactly what Tony Blair used to do, and have published this article in The Times, ahead of any official statement to Parliament.

The Times
June 2, 2008

42-day detention; a fair solution
The complexity of today's terrorist plots means the Government needs more powers
Gordon Brown
Will this controversial 42 days internment issue soak up all the available Opposition time and campaign resources, dominate the mainstream media attention span, and thereby allow the other evil provisions of the Counter-Terrorism Bill, to sneak through without proper scrutiny ?

See Counter-Terrorism Bill - DNA and Data Sharing by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ - no more Duty of Confidentiality or the Wilson Doctrine ?

Where is the compelling, detailed evidence which justifies such an evil law ? It is not to be found in the following media spin article:

Next week, when Parliament votes on the proposal to detain terrorist suspects without charge for up to 42 days, hard choices have to be made.

Britain has lived with terrorist threats for decades. But I am under no illusion that today's threats are different in their scale and nature from anything we have faced before. Today in Britain there are at least 2,000 terrorist suspects, 200 networks or cells and 30 active plots.

This implies that there has been no progress at all in the last 6 months, since these figures were first spun to the media in a speech to the Society of Editors by Jonathan Evans, the Director General of the Security Service MI5, last November. If not, then why not ?

The aim of terrorists is to kill and maim the maximum number of victims, indiscriminately and without warning, including through suicide attacks.

That is not their political or cultish religious aim, is it ? Their misguided aim is to destroy our liberties and freedoms, and impose their own perverted tyrannical ideology, by force.

Look at the scale and complexity of today's terrorist plots and you will understand why the amount of time required before charges can be brought has increased. In 2001 police investigating the last big IRA case had to analyse just one computer and a few floppy disks. The suspects used their own names and never went beyond Ireland and the UK.

Gordon Brown is misleadingly re-writing history again. Read the rest of this post...

Work being done on OK site

Apologies OK readers, we have some minor technical glitches. The OK banner at the top of the page is missing as well as some of the buttons. Techies are on to it and it should be sorted soon!
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University research falls foul of the Terrorism Act

Dejan Djokic has an article on the main opendemocracy site reflecting on the recent arrest under the Terrorism Act of an employee and a postgradaduate at the University of Nottingham for possession of an Al-Quaida handbook. They were released after six days when it was realized they had downloaded the material off a US government website and had been using it for research. Yet one of the men, Hicham Yezza, still faces deportation after living in the UK for thirteen years. The episode reflects a growing climate of suspicion and fear according to Djokic - dangerous not only for academic freedom, but for democracy itself. Read the article here.

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The political class, not the upper class, is the problem

This is a reflection after the by-election by David Lammy MP the Labour Minister for Skills just run in Progress Magazine. It links to our discussion of the political class started by Peter Oborne.

It is easy to dismiss byelections as one-off events. Even with a loss on the scale of the defeat in Crewe and Nantwich, the tendency is to dismiss the result as midterm blues. In truth, the reality is more brutal: the ‘Tory toff' campaign picked the wrong target. The public do feel that politicians are out of touch - but it is the political class, not the upper class, that is the problem.

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How not to do it: Northern Ireland's Bill of Rights

Fair Deal (Slugger O'Toole): In Preparing Britain for the future, the government proposes consulting the UK public about the Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. Such a Bill is based on a strong societal consensus and establishing a route to that consensus will be fundamental to its success.

Northern Ireland has been wrestling with its own Bill of Rights since the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and despite 10 years it remains a distant prospect. The task was set out thus:

4. The new Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (see paragraph 5 below) will be invited to consult and to advise on the scope for defining, in Westminster legislation, rights supplementary to those in the European Convention on Human Rights, to reflect the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, drawing as appropriate on international instruments and experience. These additional rights to reflect the principles of mutual respect for the identity and ethos of both communities and parity of esteem, and - taken together with the ECHR - to constitute a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

A decade later, there is still no agreement on what the 94 words mean. In the first attempt, Nationalism and Unionism took up predictable positions (more from habit than thought) but the fundamental damage to the process was done by third sector representatives. Many queued up to turn their policy agendas into long lists of economic and social rights. With the NIHRC end product closer to Nationalist and third sector demands, government ignored it. Read the rest of this post...

Annoy the Headbangers. Vote "Yes" on the Lisbon Treaty

Jason O'Mahony: Apparently, if you’re against the Lisbon Treaty, you are either an unthinking eurosceptic, a laughing stock amongst continental constitutional amendment fetishists, or on the verge of being tossed out of the EU and into the North Atlantic. On the other hand, if you’re in favour of the treaty, you are the imperialist lackey of a European Pseudo-Empire, in the pay of Global Capitalist Overlords, or plotting to send your neighbour’s four year old to fight in the invasion of Saudi Arabia. Welcome to the calm and rational debate about the Lisbon treaty.

I will be voting yes, despite the moronic antics of some on the yes side to get me to vote yes. Admittedly, many of the reasons advanced to vote yes are just plain dumb. Firstly, It’s a pretty mediocre treaty that does little to give Europe a real democratic structure, but it is marginally better than what we have now. It’s not vital to the future of Europe either, because we have the Nice treaty which is a perfectly good way of running the EU, and I know this because Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowan, Dick Roche and Enda Kenny said so. Read the rest of this post...

The English Chicken or the English Egg

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): What comes first, nationalism or the nation?

For Mark Perryman it seems that an English Parliament is inevitable; England is the human flotsam that will emerge as the good ship Britannia sinks after offloading its Celtic jetsam. And our task - as inheritors of the new state - is to begin preparations for how we want that nation to be: A pluralist England founded on space not race, Englishness, an inclusive nationality for all. In 10-20 years, says Mark, we will arrive at "England after Britain". It's a timescale based on three assumptions:

• Scotland will vote for independence;
• Ireland, due to a Catholic hegemony, will be reunited, and;
• Wales will have a Parliament.

No need, then, for a Campaign for an English Parliament? Except, that of the three assumptions, the only one that I think is inevitable is Wales gaining a parliament. Northern Ireland is becoming greener but a Catholic majority is still a long way off, and since the Belfast Agreement gives the Republic a veto on reunification no outcome should be assumed. And for Scots the romantic dream of "Freedom!" is not yet matched by an overwhelming desire for complete political independence from the rest of the UK. Read the rest of this post...

Iain Dale on Fixed Terms

Iain Dale (London, blogger): In a modern democratic state we ought to believe that power should be transferred from the few to the many. Nowhere is this more important than the system used to decide when elections should be held. In local councils, the Scottish parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the European Parliament we have instituted fixed terms to decide when elections should be held. Only for Westminster elections do we still allow one person – the most powerful politician in the country: the Prime Minister - to determine the date of an election. Should we therefore be surprised when the Prime Minister skews that decision according to when he or she thinks an election can best be won? Of course not. Politicians are only human. Well, kind of. It astonishes me constantly that normally sensible minded people still believe the power to call an election should still be in one person’s hands. It’s as if they want to hark back to the days when a sovereign made all the decisions and the ‘little people’ were expected to implement them.

There are, of course, many variants to the concept of Fixed Terms. The very phrase is in itself a bit of a misnomer in that it must still be possible in a parliamentary (as opposed to a presidential) system for an election to be held within a fixed four or five year term. There are several ways in which this could be achieved. A vote of no confidence is perhaps the most obvious as in Germany. Ah, opponents cry, but a government could engineer its own MPs to vote against it, thereby making the whole concept of a fixed term rather redundant. Factually that may be true, but imagine the electoral consequences if that happened. The opposition would make hay out of it.

David Howarth is to be congratulated for his Bill and for sparking further debate. Ideally, all parties would sit down together and thrash this out, but I don’t expect it to happen. There are too many vested interested in the two main parties for them to want to take this issue seriously in the short term. This is a campaign which will have to be fought over several years if it is to achieve success.

OurKingdom is supporting the Campaign for Fixed Term Parliaments along with Iain Dale, Stephen Tall and Unlock Democracy. Here Iain interviews David Howarth on his Bill:

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Can you have the good without the bad?

Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): There has been lots of discussion on this blog about nationalism, patriotism, identity and even how the centre left should become more nationalist.

I have always been interested in identity, nations and nationalism. I have a strong personal identity and am attracted to the way nation or community identity can bind people together across economic and religious divides.

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Can you believe it 93 - don’t mention the road to hell!

Anthony Barnett (London OK):

“A street preacher in my constituency was told by the police that he could preach the Gospel but that it was harassment to warn people that they might go to hell if they did not repent.”

This is from Dominic Grieve’s lecture on ‘Britishness’ he gave earlier this week. Guy will be posting about his efforts to manage our identity. But we could not resist a special plug for this brilliant, dry illustration of the growing restrictions on freedom of expression under the sign of New Labour.

Asking Cameron if he is English

David (Cambridge, Britology Watch): One of a number of themes that came out in the comments on Anthony Barnett’s First thoughts after Labour’s Debacle, was whether the leader of the opposition is, and whether he himself regards himself as, English or British.

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Discussing motherhood and apple pie with Michael Wills

Alexandra Runswick (London, Unlock Democracy): On the edge of your seat waiting for the latest exciting instalment on how the British Statement of Values and Citizens Summit is actually going to work? No? Just as well really, as the NCVO sponsored meeting last week with Michael Wills was certainly detail-lite.

Anthony Barnett has rebuked me for not sharing the scintillating insights and fascinating public policy lessons learned from the meeting but to be brutal; there were none. All I can report is that motherhood and apple pie AKA participation and engagement are generally considered to be good things. Michael Wills, as ever, was passionate about the agenda and committed to making the Citizens Summit a meaningful deliberative exercise. I have no doubt that he personally wants the British Statement of Values to be a radical citizen engagement exercise. However I don't see how it can be when so little policy detail is available at this late stage.

New Labour gets vindictive

Henry Porter (London, writer): It is the triumphant vindictiveness of Jacqui Smith's speech today which leaves such a bad taste. That and the candid admission that new Labour has long given up being tough on the causes of crime and is instead prepared to let the Sun's editorial line dictate social and policing policy.

Watch this: Alex and Wendy will decide our future

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): If you are used to seeing the old regime at play in Prime Ministers Questions you must take a look at this clip of First Minister's Questions in Scotland's beautiful Holyrood parliament. I can't get the clip into OK so go on it here via the BBC report. The future of the UK is being debated by Wendy and Alex - a much more important contest than Boris and Ken. Note the point that Alex picks up at the beginning. Labour has conceded an absolutely stunning constitutional principle: it has accepted that the Scottish parliament has the right to call a referendum that will decide on that country's independence. This is not in legal terms a devolved power; formally only Westminster can decide constitutional issues. But Labour has has now agreed that the referendum, including its all important wording and timing, will be determined in Holyrood.

Telegraph gets it wrong again: Boris was elected fairly

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): The Telegraph's Three Line Whip blog reports that the total number of "spoiled ballot papers" which included "41,032 rejected first choice votes and 412,054 rejected second choice votes" was "three times the size of Boris Johnson’s 140,000-vote majority". A "fiasco", fumes the Telegraph's David Hughes, a "democratic travesty". The Electoral Commission must take actions since "who knows what the result might have been if there had not been such a spectacular display of voter confusion."

Things Can Only Get Better

Mike Small (Fife, Bella Caledonia): Scottish Labour seem to have missed something pretty key: the SNP are now the Scottish Government. This level of denial and incompetence has led them to come up with a suicidal policy switch - and Wendy Alexander and co. are now backing a referendum on independence. But the Scottish Government will decide the term, timing and process of the now inevitable referendum vote, whatever Labour thinks.

A sceptic speaks on English nationalism

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): Should the left embrace English nationalism? This question is now being asked with an urgency and seriousness that was previously unthinkable (see recent posts by Gareth Young, Mark Perryman and Arthur Aughey for a sample). The collapse of the Labour Party in local elections across the UK and Wendy Alexander's decision to back a referendum on independence will surely play into the hands of those that think it should.