LabourList

I Agree with Jack, End EU Elections

Dan McCurry — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:08:06 +0000

I agree with Jack Straw. EU parliamentary elections should be abolished.

It’s not that we object to democracy, it’s that we object to failed democracy. We object to democracy that continues to exist as a pointless halfway-house absorbing considerable revenue without delivering anything in return.

“The directly elected European parliament should be abolished after failing to achieve its purpose of bridging the divide between the European people and the European Union” is what Jack actually said at the recent IPPR event.

Jon Worth, a regular EU commentator on this website, provides a counter argument, but misses that central point. It’s not just about turnout, Jon; it’s about the failure to achieve that goal of connecting people to the institution.

For people to be inspired to engage in an election, they need to be confronted by two opposing views in a debate. They become intellectually engaged in the choice and this generates discussion at street level, in the pub, or over the water cooler.

But the EU is designed to avoid conflict and move straight to consensus. Every sinew in this post-war institution is stiffened towards avoiding confrontation. The effect of this is that decisions become a fudge, before the electorate are given a chance to be involved.

Look at the example of the recent Lisbon treaty which promised a democratically elected President of the Commission. You’ll remember the glint in Tony Blair’s eye. If Blair had run for President, the whole of Europe would have been fired up, not just in support, but huge swathes of the electorate would have been opposed to elevating the proponent of the Iraq war, and they would have looked for an alternative candidate.

It would have been an exciting election, in the true sense, that the issues that matter (whatever they are) would have been raised to the surface and the electorate across the whole of the EU would have become a part of the debate.

Yet Angela Merkel feared the comment made by David Miliband, that President Blair would “stop traffic” on foreign engagements. She ended the candidacy of Blair after pressure from an envious David Cameron, who hated the idea of being in a room with “El President” Blair. So an anonymous Belgian, Herman Van Rompuy, became President of the European Council, working alongside the President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which is currently Denmark.

In reality, all of these three Presidents of Europe are over-ruled by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, because that’s where the real power lies, in this complex pseudo democracy.

It’s not that Jack Straw is arguing against democracy. We all want more democracy, but democracy that has a point, rather than democracy that exits as a throwaway vote.

If someone calculated the amount of man hours wasted in these huge debating chambers, when decisions could far more efficiently be made in committee, we’d probably be talking about 100s of millions of Euros each year. Money which could be better spent developing the economies of the central European states, in order that we also prosper, by their success.

78% of British people believe their voice does not count in Europe. After 30 years of trying to answer that central question of “How do we end the democratic deficit?” the time has come to accept there isn’t an answer. We need to simply accept that it hasn’t worked and won’t work.

We need an EU. We need the institutions of the EU. We need to appreciate the work that the EU does. But as long as that work is seen through the prism of pointless expensive elections and pointless expensive debating chambers, the people of Europe will continue to have scorn for the European Union, rather than appreciate it as the institution that ended war, stabilised the eastern-bloc, and created the single market.

Why are we losing police officers? asks MP

LabourList — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:19:18 +0000

Mp Clive Betts put Cameron on the spot over policing at PMQs, but do his arguments on “visible policing” really stack up? Watch their exchange and see for yourself:

Gordon Brown slams Greek bailout – and warns Europe over austerity

LabourList — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:38:41 +0000

In an article for the Washington Post entitled “Europe’s shortsighted response to a worsening fiscal reality“, Gordon Brown has hit out at German-led austerity in Europe, lambasting:

“policies that the whole world can see have already failed.”

In fact, Brown goes further still in tackling head on the central argument around austerity – that any failings that arise from austerity are because there isn’t enough austerity:

“the unfolding tragedy of a bankrupt Greece is only a symptom of an even more fundamental miscalculation: a wrong-headed conviction, widely held across Europe, that if austerity is failing, it is because there is not enough of it.”

His prognosis for Europe as a whole is bleak. As he discusses a global shift towards emerging economies, he warns European leaders that:

“What Europe is experiencing may prove to be a permanent and irrevocable loss of prosperity.”

You can read the full article here.

PMQs verdict: How could anyone have “won” something as dreadful as that?

Mark Ferguson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:29:48 +0000

So much of the coverage of PMQs is focussed on the snap verdict. Who won? Who lost? I’m aware that this blog is as guilty as anyone for playing that game. So let’s make this one simple – nobody won today. How could they have, when the event itself was so deeply, stunningly, mind bendingly dreadful.

It started off relatively normal. Loud admittedly, but normal. Ed began with the NHS. Still normal. Cameron dodged the question. Still supremely normal. But something seemed to happen early on in these exchanges that soured the whole mood. Suddenly the pitch of the “debate” was vile, the noise overwhelming.

It’s often said (usually by the speaker) that the public don’t like the behaviour in the chamber. That they find it off putting, raucous and bawdy. Usually I disagree with Parliament’s diminutive referee, but today I was in his corner. ORDER, indeed. A few years ago I considered becoming a teacher, but was put off by the behaviour of kids in classrooms. On reflection this was a naive error – most ruler wielding teenagers are far more decorus and mature than our “honourable” members, on the evidence on today’s 30 minutes of hate.

Trust them to run the country? Either side? On that performance the public would be mad to.

The piece de resistance came near the close of the session when chief irritant and sub-tabloid punster Peter Bone rattled off another of his self-revertial “questions” about the now infamous “Mrs Bone”. Who outside that chamber gives a toss? Lord, give me strength.

The close of the “debate” between the two leaders saw the noise reach it’s crescendo and the two party leaders get off their final salvos. Miliband will be pleased to have squeezed out his “This is your poll tax” barb for the evening news, but it was Cameron who took the veritable biscuit, quoting Alex Hilton’s blogpost from last week. Fair game, you might say. And you’d be right, why not quote the odd blog now and again? (or every other week).

Well it’s always nice to meet a reader Dave, so let me be helpful and get you prepared for next week.

I think your performance today was a disgrace to the office of Prime Minister. I think your support of Andrew Lansley’s health reforms threatens to destroy the NHS. And I think your economic policies will create a lost generation – my generation.

Print that out. Pop it in your file and read it out next Wednesday at noon – that’s if you’re bothering to turn up. I kept it pithy for you so you won’t need to misquote me.

And don’t even get me started on the “fist-bump“…*shudder*…

David Davis launches a scathing attack on the government’s close relationship with big business

LabourList — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:52:19 +0000

David Davis has launched a broadside against the PM – and especially the government’s relationship with big business (or “crony capitalism” as he calls it) – in an interview with Prospect Magazine. The former leadership challenger (who lost out to Cameron in 2005) has spoken out against the government’s handling of Hester’s RBS bonus, tax avoidance and the media. Interestingly, the quotes have come to light on the same day as fellow Tory right big hitter Liam Fox returns to the fray. Co-incidence? Perhaps, but not a happy one for the PM. Read a few of the quotes below:

On Stephen Hester and RBS

“Apparently the government…feared Hester would quit if it vetoed the bonus. So what?”

On Cameron’s close relationship with the media

“David Cameron has accepted in parliament that he got too close to newspaper proprietors after becoming leader. It is arguable that the Leveson inquiry should be looking as much at the behaviour of political leaders as at the behaviour of newspaper editors.

On big business

“Wherever you look in Whitehall the government is too close to big business

On tax avoidance

“Then there are the revelations that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has allowed some of the world’s biggest companies to pay far less tax than they owe. Companies that have allegedly benefited from HMRC’s generosity have been investigated by the Public Accounts Committee following reports in the media and dismay among the public.

15 Lib Dems who must support Labour, and the NHS, today

Mark Ferguson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:48:39 +0000

Update: The results are in, and they’re not great for the government. More than half of backbench Lib Dems failed to support the government. Of the “Risk Register 15″ who signed the original EDM, 4 backed the motion, 2 backed the government and 9 abstained/did not vote. You can see how each individual MP voted below:

Backed the Labour *identical* motion (and were therefore consistent):

Andrew George, Mike Hancock, Greg Mulholland and John Pugh

Opposed the *identical* Labour motion (and were therefore inconsistent):

Duncan Hames and Adrian Sanders

Abstained or failed to vote:

John Leech, Dan Rogerson, Mike Crockart (PPS to Sarah Teather), Annette Brooke, Julian Huppert, Alan Reid, Bob Russell, Martin Horwood and Ian Swales.

—————-

Just over three weeks ago, 15 Lib Dems signed an EDM urging the government to abide by the ruling of the Information Commissioner and release the NHS “risk register”. The EDM said:

“That this House expects the Government to respect the ruling by the Information Commissioner and to publish the risk register associated with the Health and Social Care Bill reforms in advance of Report Stage in the House of Lords in order to ensure that it informs that debate.”

Today Labour has an opposition day debate on the same issue, with almost exactly the same wording:

“That this House calls on the Government to respect the ruling by the Information Commissioner and to publish the risk register associated with the Health and Social Care Bill in order to ensure that it informs public and parliamentary debate.”

The wording couldn’t really be any closer – and none of the 15 Lib Dems have since withdrawn their names from the EDM – so they’ll all be supporting Labour when the vote comes this evening, right?

Just to be sure we’ve posted the names of the 15 Lib Dem MPs below – and their Twitter accounts if they have them. Get in touch with them this afternoon. Remind them that they should be voting with Labour this evening. We’ll be posting a list of those who kept their word, and those who didn’t, this evening.

The Risk Register 15 are:

Andrew George (@andrewgeorgeld)

Greg Mulholland (@GregMulholland1)

Mike Hancock

~~John Leech (@johnleechmcr)~~ (see update)

John Pugh

Dan Rogerson

Mike Crockart

Annette Brooke (@Annette4MDNP)

Julian Huppert (@julianhuppert)

Alan Reid

Bob Russell

Martin Horwood (@MartinChelt)

Duncan Hames (@duncanhames)

Adrian Sanders (@adriansandersmp)

Ian Swales (@iswales)

Update: John Leech MP signed the EDM, but won’t vote for a motion that says the same thing. Work that one out, if you can… Incidentally, Leech has a majority of less than 2,000.

Labour MP injured in wheelchair fall

LabourList — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:22:50 +0000

Labour MP Dame Anne Begg – the first full-time wheelchair user to be elected to the House of Commons – is being treated in hospital for a broken leg and wrist after falling from her wheelchair. According to the BBC:

“The 56-year-old Labour MP is being cared for in hospital after falling in London. It is understood she will not be in a position to attend the House of Commons for some time. However, she told BBC Scotland she was not going to let the accident get in the way of her work.”

Begg was appointed “Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire” for services to disabled people and equal opportunities in the most recent New Year Honours list, and received the honour at Buckingham Palace earlier this month.

Everyone at LabourList wishes her a swift recovery, and we look forward to seeing her back in the chamber again soon.

The curious return of Liam Fox (or why everyone wants tax cuts but George)

Mark Ferguson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:39:35 +0000

So “disgraced former Cabinet Minister” Liam Fox is back today with a shopping list of requests/demands for the Chancellor that seeks to re-inforce his position as the would-be leader of the Tory Right.

Obviously the most prominent battle cry from the now Werrity-free Fox is for spending cuts to go further and faster – proof (if needed) that the most savage cuts in living memory are still not considered “red meat” enough for the Tory benches, a terrifying prospect. Considering the current impact on the economy of Osborne’s no growth plan (with only a small percentage of cuts so far implemented), Fox is like a backseat driver urging his speeding friend to go further, faster – and ignore how hard the car is to control at that speed…

Registering similarly high on the predictability register is Fox’s call to scrap further rights for workers. Presumably spiralling unemployment isn’t spiralling quickly enough for the Doctor. Perhaps he wishes to see that go further and faster too. What easier way to do that than to make it easier to sack people? It all fits in with his involvement in Aidan Burley’s (yes…him) TURC campaign. So far so right wing.

But enough on what’s predictable. What about what was a surprise?

Tax cuts.

“Surely not?”, I hear you cry. “Tax cuts are always demanded by the Tories. The endgame of shrinking the state is to offer bumper tax cuts to the middle classes and buy a re-election. Isn’t it? So how can Fox’s call for tax cuts possibly have been a surprise?”

Well…tax cuts, almost by definition, cost money. The need to be funded either by a further reduction in spending, a temporary increase in borrowing or higher taxes elsewhere. That’s three possibilities that the chancellor seems resolutely against, and looks unlikely to implement in the budget. Besides, after so much time spent saying that he must stay the course and wouldn’t waver from “Plan A”, how could he so blatantly adopt a “Plan B”? Especially one designed to solve the (no) growth problem he has created and sustained.

So is this a broadside against the Chancellor? Perhaps. Take with a pinch of salt the friends of Fox and Osborne in the media who will seek to play down the significance of this intervention. This is exactly the kind of “right wing outrider from the backbenches” stuff the PM was trying to avoid by keeping Fox in the cabinet. But what’s more significant still is that everyone now seems to want tax cuts to stimulate growth (albeit significantly different kinds of tax cuts). David Laws is also on clearly sanctioned manoeuvres for the Lib Dems. Ed Balls was advocating targeted tax cuts at the weekend. It seems that everyone now agrees that tax cuts are needed, because everyone sees that the lack of growth in the economy is the overriding problem.

Except George Osborne.

Who is starting to look rather lonely – and in denial – trapped between his own rhetoric of staying the course, and the clamour for something (anything) to get growth going. A rock and a hard place indeed…

Abolishing an elected European Parliament is no way forward – a response to Jack Straw

Jon Worth — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:37:46 +0000

I don’t know what annoys me more – that a high-level Labour politician can have such misguided ideas, or that the outcome of an event is reported in such a one-sided manner in the press.

I am referring to The Guardian’s report on today’s IPPR event on the EU’s democratic deficit (I attended), in which former Foreign Minister Jack Straw stated that what he called an ‘experiment’ – direct elections to the European Parliament – had failed and should be abandoned, because election turnouts at EP elections had been declining since the first direct elections to the European Parliament held in 1979.

I don’t deny that there is a problem with election turnout for European Parliament elections – the 34.7% turnout in 2009 is not high enough. But when looking at the stats, EP turnout has, if anything, been gradually increasing since 1979 in the UK, while decreasing in the rest of the EU. Also, as Jack would himself no doubt admit, European Parliament elections are classic second order elections (i.e. people vote on national rather than EU issues), something that he admits to fostering having stated at the very same event how “the commissars had filleted” Robin Cook’s efforts to draft a common EU-wide social democratic manifesto in 2004.

Jack could of course look at his very own constituency for some parallels. Turnout in Blackburn was 73.96% in 1979 and 62.9% in 2009 (and indeed was even lower - 55.5% – in 2001), and a similar pattern has been seen across the EU. Turnouts are declining everywhere, just from a higher starting point in national elections. When we worry about turnout at Westminster elections we try to find ways to solve the issue; we don’t call the parliament into question.

The counterbalance to Straw at the IPPR event, blissfully ignored in The Guardian’s one-sided piece, came from LSE professor Simon Hix. He explained how the election system used for EP elections in different countries made a difference – where open lists are used (Ireland, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden), voters are likely to have more contact with their MEPs, and turnout is higher (something I’ve previously called for on LabourList). Who, of course, was it that decided on the UK’s closed list election system for the EP? Labour’s 1997 cabinet, of which Straw was a member.

The Guardian underlines the role of IPPR, saying “The thinktank has launched a project on the future of Europe that is certain to influence Labour thinking”. What the piece fails to note is that the audience in the room was much more receptive to the ideas of Hix than they were those of Straw.

Straw says abolish the European Parliament

Mark Ferguson — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:55:12 +0000

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called for the abolition of the European Parliament at an event organised by IPPR today. According to the Guardian, Straw said:

“I am now clear that there is a major democratic deficit within the EU. And it is absolutely certain, in my judgment, that the mechanism that was established 30 years ago to fill this gap of the democratic deficit, which was a directly elected European parliament, has not worked and, in my judgment, cannot work in that form. And the paradox is that as the European parliament has been given more powers it has become less, not more, legitimate and that is shown by the drop in the average [election] turnout across Europe.”