We all knew it was going to be fear, fear, fear

The Brexit debate has been going on for about four weeks and we have 99 days until the referendum on 23 June.  At this stage—and there’s a long way to go—the outcome appears to be finely balanced but the standard of debate was really been lamentably poor.  In fact, I would suggest, it has yet to have any real impact on the people who will eventually make the decision…you and I.  The debate, such as it is, appears to be based round the principle that when one side says that something will occur, the other side says no it won’t.  So when the Brexits said that our security would be strengthened and that we would be safe out of the EU, those in favour of staying simply said that’s nonsense.  The defence secretary, Michael Fallon, has said the UK will be taking a ‘big gamble’ with its security if it votes to leave the European Union.  However, former defence secretary Liam Fox, a prominent Out campaigner, has condemned the ‘project fear’ tactics of those who suggest leaving the EU could weaken the UK's security and its international standing.

The other strand in the debate is the fear factor and it’s been the dominant theme for the remain campaign. They are not without support from a range of different organisations that are all prepared to stand up and describe Brexit as the constitutional equivalent to the apocalypse.  For instance, If Britain votes to leave the European Union it could have a negative impact on the Nato alliance, a senior US military commander has warned. Lt-Gen Ben Hodges, head of the US Army in Europe, said he was ‘worried’ the EU could unravel just when it needed to stand up to Russia.  He acknowledged the vote was a matter for the British people, but said he was concerned about the outcome. Out campaigners say a leave vote would not affect the UK's position in Nato.  It’s the equivalent of: ‘Yes I know it’s your decision but you’ve been warned…’ Both sides need to become more ‘human’ and stop bellowing at each other about statistics. 

It seems to me that everyone from the US President to the Chinese Premier has an opinion about whether the UK should leave the EU—and that generally means they are in favour of Britain remaining in.  The problem is that their statements do little to enhance the debate; it simply smacks of interference.  It may be interesting to know what Obama thinks about the EU but he doesn’t have a vote and you can well imagine the reaction of Americans to British politicians telling them how they should vote.  The problem at present is that the debate has not really got out of the Westminster bubble…yes, politicians are beginning to canvass on the issue but they have not really begun to engage with the voters.

Fear, more fear and yet more fear

Although we will not know whether David Cameron has been able pull the proverbial rabbit from his hat until Friday and come back from Brussels with a settlement that he can put to the people, the campaigns for and against remaining in the EU started well before Christmas.  Some argue that what Cameron has negotiated is largely irrelevant to whether people are in favour of remaining in the EU or not.  This is a campaign that will be won or lost on the basis of fear.  This is already evident in the media with newspapers putting forward fear stories on an almost daily basis.  For instance, the Sunday Express says congestion charging could be introduced into towns across Britain under EU guidelines to reduce global warming…now that’s guaranteed to anger motorists and those who see the EU as simply interfering in people’s lives..while in the Sunday Times travel chiefs suggest that, in the event of Brexit, cheap flights are at risk…so no more cheap continental holidays. Eurosceptic Conservative Sir Bill Cash claims German MP Gunther Krichbaum told him the UK would not be able to survive on its own and could face crippling trade tariffs on its exports. Mr Krichbaum denies the claim and says he simply warned that Britain would no longer have access to the single market.

Although there is great enthusiasm either way for the referendum in the Westminster village.   The Independent on Sunday highlights a poll suggesting the prime minister's personal ratings have slumped amid dissatisfaction with his EU renegotiation efforts. The numbers who look on David Cameron favourably dropped seven points in the past three months to 31 per cent- although the same poll sees support for the Tories over Labour extend to 14 points.  I do not get any real enthusiasm from talking to people in Dunstable. In fact, if anything, it’s the reverse. Even those who say that they intend to vote in favour of the EU—and remember this is before the deal is finalised—do so with little enthusiasm…it’s a case of, on balance, I think we’re better remaining in but I can’t say that I have any real feeling for the EU.  Young people, especially if you’re 16 and 17, feel short-changed by politicians who gave them the vote in the Scottish referendum but deny them in the equally constitutional EU referendum.  That many would have voted to remain in the EU is perhaps why this was the case but that’s a political rather than constitutional decision.  Although the current polls suggest that the ‘leave campaign’ had a slight lead, it is a campaign that is incoherent, divided and leaderless with competing organisations seemingly unable to come together while the ‘stay campaign’ appears—with the exception of Alan Johnson’s Labour pro-EU organisation—to have really not got going at all…whoever thought that Lord Rose should be the face of the remain campaign really don’t understand the general public at all…a bucket of Fried Chicken would have greater appeal.

In fact, looking at the limited nature of the negotiations, the mess of the remain campaign, the internal divisions in the leave campaign and the lack of enthusiasm among the public for the whole thing…it’s all a big stitch-up as one person confided in me…it’s hardly surprising that it’s a case of fear, more fear and yet more fear. 

A piece of paper!

In his review of  Peter Wilson’s recently published The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe’s History, (Allen Lane), 2016,  John Adamson began by stating: ‘Surveying the various models available in 1787 for governing the still-constitution-less United States, James Madison, perhaps the shrewdest of the Founding Fathers, was certain of one thing: the Holy Roman Empire, at that date the largest of all European states, exemplified the one type of federal constitution that he most wanted to avoid. The Empire was a body, he concluded, ‘incapable of regulating its own members; insecure against external dangers’, and with a history marked by ‘general imbecility, confusion and misery’. It is no coincidence that the Holy Roman Empire has acquired a new and topical prominence in Eurosceptic punditry as a mirror for the ills of the European Union. Like the Holy Roman Empire of old, the EU is hard put to regulate its own members, incapable of securing its internal or external borders, and beset with consensus-obsessed processes of decision-making that render decisive collective action all but impossible. The lessons of history are clear, it is claimed: supranational federalism has been tried before – and it doesn’t work.’

The coronation of Charlemagne

 

Yesterday, the draft settlement defining Britain’s relationship with the EU was published and a couple of hours ago David Cameron made a statement to the House of Commons.  It is an important document as a statement of principles about the future direction of the EU but whether it will have a significant impact on the referendum is more debatable.  As I have said before I think that people’s decision for or against Brexit  comes down to those who are, as yet undecided.  For those in favour of Brexit, what the Prime Minister was able to renegotiate really doesn’t matter as they have already made up their minds.  In many respects, the same can be said for those in favour of remaining in the EU.  Yes, they want reforms but are prepared to accept anything that David Cameron can negotiate.  It’s those who are not decided or who are persuadable either way who are the key to the result.  Jeremy Corbyn is in many respects right when he dismissed the negotiations as a ‘smoke and mirror sideshow’.  Despite his assertion that Britain could have the ‘best of both worlds’ by giving it access to the single market and a voice around the top EU table, while retaining its status as a ‘proud independent country not part of a superstate’, critics say that the draft deal, thrashed out with European Council President, Donald Tusk, fell far short of what Mr Cameron had originally promised.  Reading the draft settlement is a bit like reading a statement of intent rather than a clear statement of where Britain wants to go with the EU. 

The problem, and it’s been a problem since the 1970s, is one of the ‘democratic deficit’ at the heart of the whole EU project.  It is not a project that is based on a consensus of the European peoples but a consensus only among EU technocrats and officials who come hell or high water, political crises or referendums to push the principles of the Treaty of Rome into practice.  They have an ideological commitment to their cause that they are unwilling to compromise irrespective of what ‘the people’ say or how they vote in referendums insisting, as in the case of Ireland, that the country has a second referendum after its proposals were comprehensively rejected in the first.  What will be interesting is, should Britain vote for Brexit, whether the EU will suggest a second referendum after further negotiation?

Loyalty, disloyalty and British politics

The question of loyalty has been important over the last few days in Westminster and it seems tome to represent the growing dysfunction at the heart of both Conservative and Labour parties.  For the Conservatives it is the long-running schism between those who want to stay in Europe and those who do not while for Labour, it’s arguably the even longer battle between the left and the centre for control of the party.

Ken Livingstone, who is co-chairing Labour's review of Trident, has insisted Jeremy Corbyn was right to get rid of Michael Dugher and Pat McFadden, saying: ‘You can't have shadow team going on telly and slagging off Jeremy.’  Why ever not?  This is precisely what Jeremy did on many occasions during his decades on the backbenches.  The outcome of what must be the longest reshuffle in history has been two shadow ministers being sacked and Maria Eagle being moved from defence to culture and Hilary Benn coming to an ‘agreement’ that, although he may disagree in private, he will toe the party line in public, something that his ‘friends’ appear to deny.  Jeremy’s calls for greater discussion and democracy within the party—something he trumpeted during his election campaign and subsequently—is beginning to look somewhat tattered.  This may have been a credible stance when you are oppositionist in attitude but it is increasingly becoming obvious that it is not a credible position to take in opposition.  Of necessity, Jeremy needs to be seen as the leader of the opposition not leader of the oppositionists and in that respect sacking Shadow Cabinet ministers for ‘disloyalty’ is perfectly logical.  This does, however, raise questions about what ‘democracy’ means in the Labour Party today and it increasingly appears that it is Jeremy who is the fount of all democratic wisdom, a reflection of his oppositionist career.  What I find interesting in the attitude of what is increasingly seen by Labour as an anti-Corbyn ‘commentariat’ is that their focus is almost exclusively on what is happening in Westminster rather than in the country.  How far, for instance, have the Corbynistas been able to influence the direction and position of local branches of the Labour Party?  This is something that appears little in the media and yet surely it is at least as important, and arguably more important, than the shenanigans in Westminster.  For Ralph Miliband, this was the source of his ‘parliamentary socialism’.

This morning Chuka Umunna has described David Cameron’s decision to allow ministers to campaign for either side in the EU referendum once a deal is reached on the UK’s relationship with the EU as ‘fairly ludicrous’.  Yet this is precisely what Harold Wilson did with his divided Cabinet in 1975.  Without this relaxation of collective responsibility, there would almost certainly have been resignations so the Prime Minister’s decision removes one of many possible problems those in favour of staying in have removed.  It was a purely practical solution to a problem.

Predicting change 2015-2016

Looking back on 2015, the ‘Ed stone’ seems to sum up the state of British politics during the year…it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Whether it was the  attempt thwarted by the House of Lords to reduce the scale of tax credits or promising a referendum on the EU or the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party ‘by an overwhelming mandate’ (as we are continually and increasingly boringly being told), it has been the year of the political cock-up…yes I know most years are but this has been one of spectacularly bad ideas.  Take tax credits.  If the Chancellor had introduced his changes in a finance bill, then he would still have faced opposition in the Lords but the legislation would have passed as it would have been a ‘money bill’.  Given that he knew the Conservatives no longer had a majority in the Lords, it beggars belief why an individual with the Machiavellian skills of George Osborne tried to get the measure through as a Statutory Instrument…it is true that the Lords normally nodded through secondary legislation but there is no convention saying that they could not reject them…a case of poor advice and vaulting hubris I suspect. 

I suspect that many of those who ‘lent’ Jeremy Corbyn their nominations so that there was a left-wing candidate on the ballot paper are kicking themselves now.  No one expected that he would win… I do wish I’d placed £100 on him to win when the odds were 100/1!!!  But clearly it was a case that ‘The Force was with him’ aided by an electoral system where anyone who paid £3, whether they were Labour party supporters or not, could vote in the election.  Having lost the 2015 General Election because of Ed’s perceived left-wing credentials, the Labour Party then took a leap to the left with the beginnings of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of those no longer seen to have the populist purity of the party’s historic principles.  The problem with this is that when Labour has elected leaders with openly oppositionist principles in the past—I’m thinking of George Lansbury in the 1930s, Michael Foot in the 1980s—it had proved electorally disastrous and exposed the ideological divisions within the Party.

Something that is also evident within the Conservative Party over Europe.  Having already enshrined in law that there would be a referendum over future treaty change, under the perceived threat posed by UKIP and his own Euro-sceptics, David Cameron decided that a referendum over changes he proposed to negotiate with the other EU states.  With the continuing crisis over the Euro and the massive migrations of peoples into the EU in the summer and early autumn—neither of which have had a significant impact on the UK—you might have thought that David would be in a strong position.  Well no.  There is no likelihood of changes to the central tenet of the free movement of people within the EU or over discrimination of EU citizens by imposing a four year ban on in-work welfare benefits.  The Prime Minister’s hope was that if he could get agreement on his ‘four points’, he could sell this to an increasingly sceptical public—the poll published today gives 47 per cent in favour of Brexit. 

Jeremy Corbyn and the referendum will remain central political issues throughout 2016.  Although EU Council President Donald Tusk has called for a ‘serious debate with no taboos’ about Mr Cameron's demands, it is clear that unless the ways benefits are paid to British citizens is changed to take account of the ways they operate in many EU countries he will not get agreement across the EU for benefit changes.  This will inevitably weaken what he will achieve and what he will be able to present to the country.  What politicians seem not to acknowledge..and this was something that was evident when I campaigned for a ‘Yes’ vote in 1975 and in my experience has not changed…is that people’s views of the EU are emotional as much and arguably more than political.  The problem for those who want to stay in is that those leading the campaigns have little credence amongst ordinary voters…in fact what you need is a single campaign with a single charismatic leader who can get the message across in straightforward terms…and that is not what is currently the case. 

For Jeremy, the current situation is unsustainable.  Although Labour claimed victory over tax credits and maintaining police numbers, there is little to suggest that the Labour leadership in the Commons had much to do with this.  It was the Conservative minority in the Lords that led to victory over welfare payments and the massacre in France that made reducing police numbers politically unsustainable.  There is little or no opposition in the House of Commons and little evidence that Jeremy had any significant control over his own MPs.  In the short term, this may not matter as the next election is over four years away.  But, there is a strong sense of a rudderless party increasing buffeted by left-wing pressures beyond the hallowed halls and, despite the rhetoric, of increasingly vicious and internecine struggles at constituency level.  To be effective, political parties need to be led, not a discussion group for weighing contrary arguments.  In both the referendum campaign and within the Labour Party, what is needed is effective leadership, something that both currently lack. 

Walking into the middle of the road might seem a good idea at the time…the problem is that you will eventually get hit by vehicles coming from both sides!!

War or War Plus?

Let’s be clear we are already at war with IS and in bombing in Iraq, as well as killing terrorists, we have already almost certainly killed civilians.  Extending that war to Syria is a logical extension across a border that IS does not recognise.  In doing so we will again kill terrorists in the consequent bombing and again almost certainly civilians.  It makes no military sense to stop at the border especially as Britain is already doing reconnaissance flights over Syria.  Is it, as Liam Fox suggests a  ‘national embarrassment’ for Britain to ‘contract out’ our security to our allies?  It all depends where our national interests lie.  Was it right for David Cameron to call those opposed to intervention in Syria as ‘terrorist sympathisers’ David Cameron, something that has not as yet apologised for?  Certainly not, IS is a despicable regime, something even those opposed to war recognise and the issue for them is not one of appeasing IS but with finding a long-term solution to the problem they pose to democratic institutions in the Middle-East  but also in the West. 

Has the Prime Minister made the case for war?  Barely, I think.  Public opinion, if the poll in today’s Times is to be believed is not behind him—though it must be said considerably more behind him than in 2013.  There are also divisions in both Conservative and Labour parties over the question though it is probable that the numbers are with David in Parliament: he would not have risked a vote unless he was fairly confident of winning.  Bombing won’t defeat IS, something recognised by both sides and that ultimately means that ground troops will ne needed.  It is this issue that concerns MPs on both sides of the argument though it is specifically excluded in today’s motion.  Where will these troops come from?  The Prime Minister banded about the 70,000 local troops available to assault IS but this was certainly a case of smoke and mirrors. There may well be 70,000 combatants opposed to IS in Syria, Iraq and Turkey but they are not a coherent force but merely bands of fighters often with diametrically opposed aims, that could be brought to bear on IS.  An effective attack on IS requires coordinated attacks with air power and ground troops working together to push IS back and currently this does not exist.  We have all seen the consequences of previous western ‘crusades’ against states, such as Iraq and Libya whose leaders we disapproved of…we have removed strong despicable leaders only to see them replaced by strong, despicable terrorist groups.  We’re very good at getting rid of ‘bad’ men but we are appalling at finding a stable replacement…now that’s a real ‘national embarrassment’!

Will extending bombing make Britain safer?  Probably not.  Will bombing destroy rather than simply degrade IS?  Certainly not?  Is there a coherent policy for dealing with IS globally?  There needs to be…lots of words certainly but definitely not. 

Chartism and Jeremy Corbyn

The ‘Six Points’ of the People’s Charter is something that I have written about on many occasions in the last few decades.  They are central to any discussion of Chartism and formed the foundation for what was arguably the most widely supported working-class movement since the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.  Millions of men and women saw in the Charter the solution to their economic, social and political woes.  Although Chartism was deemed a failure by many contemporaries, five of its six points were ultimately translated into law.  That we today have universal suffrage, the secret ballot, paid MPs, single member constituencies and no property qualifications baring anyone from standing for Parliament is a direct result of the Chartist agitation of the 1830s and 1840s.  That annual parliaments—the sixth of the six points—has never been implemented, has been largely forgotten.  Yet it was potentially the most revolutionary of the electoral principle adopted by Chartists and has a particular resonance to the current situation in the Labour Party.

Kennington Common, 10 April 1848

The essence of annual parliaments for Chartists was its participatory nature.  MPs would be elected by their constituents and their actions in Parliament would be closely monitored with, for instance, how they voted and how many sessions they attended would be published in the press.  To keep their seats, MPs would need to consult not just their own supporters but all who could vote in their constituencies regularly to ensure that they represented their opinions.  This did not mean that they were delegates mandated by their electors to vote in particular ways but certainly did mean that they would be held accountable for their actions by those electors.  The link between MPs and their electors would inevitably be more personal, more intimate and more defined. 

Although I suspect that annual parliaments are not part of his thinking, there is much in what Jeremy Corbyn has said in the past suggesting that he favours a more participatory approach to politics, an attempt to push decision-making away from Westminster and placing it more in the hands of the electors.  The Labour leader has sent out a survey to party members asking for their views on bombing IS in Syria and urging them to respond by the start of next week.  He has also told his MPs to go back to their constituencies this weekend and canvas the views of members.  Jeremy's supporters are convinced that his views are closer to Labour’s grassroots than those of dissenting MPs while his opponents suspect him of trying to bypass the parliamentary party and appeal directly to the members who emphatically elected him in September. 

But we do not have a participatory but a representative democratic system—one reason why annual parliaments have never been introduced.  Once elected MPs represent their constituencies as a whole not just the narrow number of activists who may have helped them get elected.  So MPs should not simply be canvassing the views of members, as Jeremy suggests, but seeking the views of electors from across the political spectrum before they make their decision on what is essentially a matter of ‘conscience’.  Even if the notion of a free vote can be seen as the only way Labour can get out of the hole they’ve constructed, when John McDonnell says that MPs should not be ‘whipped or threatened’ and that they should follow their ‘own judgement’ on possible air strikes over Syria, he is restating this long-established principle that there are some issues that are above party politics. 

Syria…bombing?

The question of whether Britain should be involved in bombings inside Syria to confront IS has in some respects been made easier by the massacres in Paris a fortnight ago.  Does IS pose a direct threat to Britain?  Yes.  Should IS be confronted in Syria and Iraq?  Again yes.  Will Britain adding its planes to those already bombing Syria really make a difference?  A marginal effect at best but of far greater symbolic importance.  Did David Cameron make the case for immediate bombing yesterday?  In part I think he did…though he was less clear about how this fitted into plans for defeating IS and he made some grandiloquent statements about the Syrian forces opposed to IS of some 70,000 fighters…I was reminded of Tony Blair’s statements about weapons of mass destruction over a decade ago.   Will bombing make Britain safer?  In the short-term, probably not as there will almost inevitably be consequences. 

Jeremy Corbyn has made his position clear in a letter to Labour MPs.  This will not come as a surprise to his supporters or critics…he has long opposed Britain’s involvement in foreign interventions and has, in most cases, been right in his analysis.  The question is whether as leader of Labour, he has the luxury of putting his own well-established views before what many people see as the necessity for action to stem the threat from IS.  Those critical of his leadership see this as yet another example of the shambolic depths to which Labour has sunk and in a week with the Little Red Book dominating the news rather than Conservative U-turns over tax credits and police funding, the letter simply reinforces their view of him as a liability to both party and country. 

Public opinion has shifted since 2013 when 2:1 were against intervention in Syria—albeit against Assad—to 2.1 in favour…even amongst Labour voters though not amongst the Corbynistas of whom 71 per cent want a free vote on the issues.  The disconnect between the 300,000 activists and the 9 million who voted for Labour in May is very clear.  For MPs, their mandate comes from those who elected them in May rather than the minority of activists and therein lies the problem at the heart of Labour’s dilemma.  The choice appears to be between an activist-based party that lacks the numbers to win an election and Labour voters who are more ‘conservative’ in their views of a range of issues including Trident, welfare and education.  With Labour currently polling at 27 per cent—15 points behind the government—and with public opinion broadly behind bombing, by making clear his stance Jeremy threatens to make the divisions within the Parliamentary Labour Party even worse.

Mixed messages and choosing the right words

Although comments in today’s Sun criticising Jeremy Corbyn for not being ‘sorry enough’ about the atrocities in Paris last Friday are nonsensical—it’s almost as if a newspaper hardly sympathetic to him is saying that being sorry is not enough you have to be really sorry—his comments today have been, to say the least, ill thought.  His interview of Laura Kuenssberg revisited his attitude to military intervention in Syria on which little was added to his well-established views…what is needed is a diplomatic and political solution to Syria and bombing by Britain will do nothing to achieve this.  It was, however, his statement that he is ‘not happy’ with UK police or security services operating a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy in the event of a terror attack. He also declined to answer what he called the ‘hypothetical question’ of whether he would ever back military intervention against extremists: ‘I'm not saying I would or I wouldn't’, he said. But Mr Corbyn came under attack at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, with Labour MP John Mann saying his niece had found herself trapped in a Paris toilet for three hours ‘thinking she was going to be murdered’. Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs committee, said the shoot-to-kill policy was right and the special services do need that power in extreme circumstances…’We live in dark and dangerous times and the shoot-to-kill policy, specifically aimed at terrorists in a hostage situation, is the right policy given the emergency situation that members of the special services will find themself in.’

 

Herein lies his problem and why his position as leader of the Labour Party will, I suspect, be short-lived.  Though people will be sympathetic to what he says, many others will find his timing thoroughly offensive.  Given that he repeated these things on Sky and other news outlets, he is clearly positioning himself as the conscience of the country.  That may be a perfectly honourable position to take as an oppositional backbench MP but not as Leader of the Opposition who could, in the future, be responsible for people’s security. 

J.H. Whitley (1866-1935)

 

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J.H. Whitley (1866-1935):

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‘Speeching', preaching and protection

Over the years I have listened to or read countless speeches--some good, many poor and others downright tedious.  I remember being told many years ago that the essence of a ‘good’ speech is that it should have a beginning—where you outline what you’re going to say—a middle—where you say it—and an ending—where you sum up what you say.  I was also told that a good speech should have a clear theme—or ‘narrative’ in today’s parlance—and should make no more than three points.  Another rule of speech-making that I am reminded of is that if you don’t have anything to say, don’t say it…there’s no point in making a pointless speech.  And finally, length of time speaking is no guarantee of a good speech…Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was delivered in a few minutes and is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of public oratory while the two hour oration by Edward Everett that preceded it is now largely forgotten. 

Yesterday's speech by Jeremy Corbyn was, if these suggestions are valid, was far from being a good speech.  It went on too long…55 minutes.  It had no clear theme apart from persistent calls for a ‘kinder’ new form of politics, whatever that means: ‘a different Britain, a better Britain, a more equal, more decent Britain’.  It lacked real substance…perhaps not surprising as he has only been leader for a few weeks.  As a result it was more a ramble through aspirations, past personal commitments and principles that spoke to his already committed audience in the conference hall but had precious little to say to convince those outside the hall who he needs to convince that Labour really does have an alternative political strategy.  Unsurprisingly, it went down well with his supporters and has been roundly criticised by commentators and the press.  For me, it was a bit like a really nice uncle sitting me down and giving me a talk about what politics should be about. But perhaps that’s the whole point of the Corbyn discussion.

You may find many of the things Jeremy is saying appealing.  As an email I received from him this morning said: ‘are [you] fed up with the inequality, the injustice, the unnecessary poverty – and if you are too, I say this: join us. Join us and help strengthen this movement. Join us, and help us beat the Tories in 2020.’  It’s difficult to disagree with this unless you think that inequality, injustice and poverty are a necessary part of our modern society.  It’s a bit like saying ‘let those of you without sin throw the first stone’ and there’s no doubting the sincerity or, as the media would have it, ‘authenticity’ of his message.  By allowing a free vote on further intervention in Syria, something that appears now to be ‘policy’, he is acting on his long-held principle of reasoned opposition or, if you’re a cynic, recognising that Labour MPs would defy a party whip on the issue.  But, I think that today he has made a major tactical blunder.  Although it will appeal to his supporters and is perfectly in line with his own opinion that Trident should not be replaced, ruling out that he would not use Britain’s nuclear weapons if he was Prime Minister lays him open to the charge that a Corbyn government would be a threat to Britain’s national security.  This is something on which he now has no room for equivocation and will lay him open from now until 2020 to the charge that he is prepared to leave the country’s defences seriously weakened.  Speaking for himself is one thing but speaking for the nation is something different and Jeremy has yet to make that transition.

A thousand words: a continuing crisis

If a picture is worth a thousand words then the enduring image of the week has to be that of the body of the three year old Alan Kurdi—his mother Rehan and Galip his brother also drowned—being carried from the beach gently by a local policeman.  As is often the case, the death of thousands is a statistic while the death of an individual a tragedy and it often takes something like this to prick the conscience of the nation.  I am reminded of the picture of the girl, her clothes burned off by napalm, in Vietnam in the late 60s and its impact on public opinion in the United States. 

There were also three further issues of importance raised this week that have historical resonance.  We forget that, before the Nazi era, after the United States Germany was one of the most welcoming countries for immigrants.  For instance, it took in French Protestants and Jews and others from eastern Europe in large numbers.  Then we have the unwise and inflammatory words of the Hungarian prime minister about many of the migrants huddled round Budapest station being Muslims…immediate condemnation from the western countries of the EU.  They forget that Hungary was a buffer state between Christian and Muslim Europe from the mid-fifteenth century for over three hundred years and that its king and much of its aristocracy were killed in battle at Mohacs in 1526 in defence of the Church.  While the prime minister’s words may have been repugnant and morally unjustifiable to most people beyond Hungary’s borders, they reflected a sense of its past that is deeply engrained in the Hungarian psyche.  Finally, frequent comparisons have been made between the situation today with that at the end of the Second World War when two million people were displaced, something resolved in part by the Marshall Plan and massive investment from the United States.  What has been remarkable over the last few weeks has been the almost complete silence of the United States’ government on the migration crisis…no comments, no offers of help…absolutely nothing.

Politically this week has seen a deepening of the crisis within the EU.  ‘Free movement’ is one of the guiding principles of the EU. It is now self-evident that the Schengen system has, if not collapsed, is not really functioning at all and it seems highly likely that border controls will be re-introduced with time-consuming and costly effect on the free movement of goods and services.  There are also increasing concerns about how this will impact on the free movement of labour.  The notion that the EU is a community is also threatened over the question of EU quotas for asylum seekers.  Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland have rejected any quota system creating an intense division between the eastern and western halves of the EU.  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said the surge in arrivals was ‘Germany's problem’, since that was where most people wanted to go.But Chancellor Merkel has called for refugees to be fairly divided among EU members. 

Growing pressure in the UK with a petition calling for Britain to take on more refugees now has almost 400,000 signatures - four times the amount needed for the issue to be considered for debate by MPs, has led David Cameron to modify the government’s stance.  On Friday, during a visit to Portugal and Spain, he said the UK would act with ‘our head and our heart’ on a major expansion of the programme to resettle vulnerable refugees from the camps bordering Syria and that the scheme would avoid the need for the refugees to make hazardous attempts to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, which has seen thousands perish in recent months.  Meanwhile, International Development Secretary Justine Greening has dismissed the prospect of Britain joining a proposed EU plan to redistribute the 160,000 migrants already in Europe, arguing that it ‘simply fuels the people smuggling business’.  While this represents a speeding up rather than a shift in policy—4,980 Syrians have been granted asylum since 2011 and the UK is providing significant humanitarian aid to refugees in the countries surrounding Syria—it does little to address the current situation across Europe and is designed to appeal to a domestic audience.

So in practice, despite the pictures of death and despair, little has really changed in the last week…refugees are still moving towards Europe in considerable numbers, the EU seems incapable of finding any solution on which its member states can agree and public opinion is increasingly outraged by this.  

Refugees or migrants?

Events this week have reminded me of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall and his description of the hoards of barbarians poised on the borders of the Roman Empire. Were they refugees seeking asylum from the rampages of other barbarian tribes, seeking protection within their stronger neighbour’s frontiers or were they economic migrants who gazed at the wealth and opportunities the Empire possessed and aspired to be part of it?   There were accepted points of entry guarded by Roman legionaries; walls like that built by Hadrian across northern England to keep the unwanted invaders out; some barbarians were allowed into the Empire to supplement depleted Roman forces and they were keen to keep other barbarians out once they had achieved this; there were perennial debates about what the Roman state should do about the barbarians and equally perennial failures to find any workable solution resulting in different parts of the Empire adopting different approaches.  Yes, I’m still writing about Gibbon but this could equally apply to the lamentable mess that the EU has got itself into over the migrant crisis. 

In a week when people suffocated in a lorry in Austria and hundreds drowned off the Libyan coast, our contribution to the issue has been an entirely fatuous debate about whether to call those moving across the Mediterranean refugees or migrants. I’m absolutely certain that this is not the critical question on their minds.  The Schengen system means migrants can arrive on the shores of Greece and Italy and make their way to wealthier countries like Germany, which expects to receive 800,000 new arrivals this year.  German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has said the agreement is only sustainable if Europe agrees a permanent mechanism for relocating refugees so that the burden is spread more evenly.  Britain and Ireland are not members, but Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are, even though they are not part of the EU.  This, and growing anti-immigration sentiments across Europe, mean that finding a solution to the problem of surging migration is extremely difficult.  It’s not the scale of the migration but its speed that causes the real problem.  Countries need immigration to support their economies and most countries have planned immigration policies in place to deal with this…the critical word here is ‘planned’.  But what is happening now is unplanned and unpredictable which is why the EU has difficulty finding a solution and yet thousands more people are trudging towards the EU each week.

All the solutions proposed by governments in the EU are reasonable.  The notion that there should be a quota system for allocating migrants to all member states seems eminently reasonable…it would spread the burden.  Dealing with the people smugglers and traffickers, who pray on human misery and hope, is equally reasonable.  Finding solutions to problems of conflict in, for instance, Syria and Eritrea so that people do not feel the need to move elsewhere, are also thoroughly sensible.  But they all take time and do not address the immediacy of the crisis.  Even establishing refugee camps, one solution that has been suggested, takes time.  So we’re left with small groups, families, individuals getting into the EU and then having to find their own solutions to the problem.  So we have the unedifying sight of people wandering along railway lines, waiting in the street, sleeping in railway stations, establishing ‘jungles’ in Calais as they wait for ‘something to turn up’.  They are discovering, much as medieval peasants who moved to towns found, that the streets of Europe are not paved in gold. 

When faced with an unstoppable wave of humanity, you have two choices…stand against it and be swept away or embrace it, recognise its potential and understand that there will inevitably be a period of disruption to your settled lives.  At present we’re doing neither, we’re simply wringing our hands and crying ‘we don’t know what to do’. 

Back to the Future

There are two reports in today’s press that suggest British politics is going through a retrospective.  Jeremy Corbyn says that Labour could restore its historical commitment to public ownership of industry—the old Clause IV of its constitution that many thought had been consigned to the dustbin of history when Tony Blair scrapped it in 1995.  Scotland is to ban the growing of genetically modified crops, Richard Lochhead, its Rural Affairs Secretary had announced.  Or rather he is to request that Scotland be excluded from any European consents for the cultivation of GM crops.  Under EU rules, GM crops must be formally authorised before they can be cultivated.  An amendment came into force earlier this year which allows member states and devolved administrations to restrict or ban the cultivation of genetically modified organisms within their territory. 

In many respects, both moves reflect a denial of developments in the last three decades, an attempt to put the genie back into the bottle.  The Scottish decision appears to be based on ‘keeping Scotland Green’.  Richard Lochhead said:

There is no evidence of significant demand for GM products by Scottish consumers and I am concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand, thereby gambling with the future of our £14bn food and drink sector.  Scottish food and drink is valued at home and abroad for its natural, high quality which often attracts a premium price, and I have heard directly from food and drink producers in other countries that are ditching GM because of a consumer backlash.

Is there a ‘consumer backlash’ in Scotland?  Well as far as I can tell from press reports, no there isn’t.  So it’s an ideological decision, justified by reference to economic necessity, rather than a judgement based on the science and a denial of the view expressed by Huw Jones, professor of molecular genetics at agricultural science group Rothamsted Research, that GM crops approved by the EU were ‘safe for humans, animals and the environment.’

Jeremy Corbyn is right  when he says that the Labour Party needs a new statement of objectives..its confused message played a major part in its defeats in 2010 and 2015…but it is doubtful whether it could win the 2020 election or even 2025 with a socialist agenda.  While this may have an appeal to the hundreds of new applicants to the Labour Party and to those left-wing activists who have long wished to restore purity to the Party with the destruction of what has been called the Blairite ‘virus’, there is little evidence that it’s an election winner. Those of us who experienced the railways and utilities—where public investment was insufficient and  badly spent—would not wish to see them returned to the public sector. It will certainly establish clear blue-water between Conservatives and Labour but at a cost.  For many in the centre and right of the Labour Party it would be unacceptable, a move away from the centre ground that they believe is essential to winning elections. The result will be a divided party with infighting reminiscent of the 1980s.  It  may well contribute to a revival of the Liberal Democrats as disgruntled Labour voters seek and non-Conservative alternative.  For the Conservatives it really would be political manna from heaven…there’s nothing like having an ineffective opposition when your majority is wafer-thin. 

It seems to me that we have lost our historical perspective on politics…presentism is all that seems to matter.  In a whole range of areas from the EU referendum through to questions of public ownership and GM foods, we appear to think that the solution to our problems necessitates going back to move forward.  The problem with this approach is that it’s very easy to get stuck in the past.  We all know that turning a clock back damages its internal workings, some politicians do not appear to have grasped this.

The dog that didn’t bark!

Today we have entered that nether space between the end of the election campaign and the advent of its results.  Time to reflect perhaps on what was both  a ‘safe’—from the politicians’ point of view—and dull—from the public’s—six weeks.  I’ve seen ballets with less orchestration.  We were all waiting for something, anything to happen.  Early on we had Michael Fallon’s mention of Ed’s relationship with his brother when talking about Trident for which he was roundly attacked in the media and by his opponents for ungentlemanly conduct.  Then we had Ed’s stumble in the last TV debate but no tumble.  There were no Gillian Duffy moments as in 2010.  Politicians kept to the script—or were kept to the script—and unsurprisingly the polls did not really change dramatically with the nightly Newsnight poll showing up one seat, down two…with dull monotony.  And where were the politicians?  Yes there was 24/7 coverage of what the party leaders and their deputies were doing with the occasional outing for other leading figures but where were Theresa May, Vince Cable and the rest.  Well apart from sporadic interviews on television and radio when their particular departments were under scrutiny, they have been largely invisible.  The highlights (if that’s what you can call them) of the campaign were the TV debate when the ‘public’ finally had the opportunity of interrogating Cameron, Clegg and Miliband and the inexorable rise and rise of Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.  Douglas Murray in his excellent article in yesterday’s Spectator is right when he argued that ‘This election campaign has shown a democracy in a horrible state of disrepair’.

Now you could argue that none of this is surprising in a political society dominated by the traditional and social media.  What the public knows or is allowed to know is tightly controlled both by the campaign teams and by what the media chooses to cover and social media is often characterised by pundits and politicos talking to each other.  The key was always to be on message.  So the Conservative narrative focused on the economy and persuading voters not to allow Labour to mess it all up (again).  Labour banged on about the NHS only being safe in their hands because of ‘creeping privatisation’ while omitting to say that there had been more privatisation between 1997 and 2010 than in the last five years, and how the better-off in society benefitted from Conservative government while the less well-off and especially those on benefits suffered from an aggressive and inhumane policy of austerity proposing to replace the inequity of the ‘bedroom tax’ with the morally superior ‘mansion tax’.  Conservatives promised to enshrine tax policy for the next five years in legislation while the recent ‘Ed-stone’ from Labour contained promises so vacuous that I’m reminded of the notion of ‘let he who is without sin throw the first stone’.  There has been a great deal of promises but very little substance of how any of them will be funded.

What has been remarkable in the campaign has been the failure of all those involved to address what many people regard as the central political issues.  Given the anger felt in many communities about unfettered immigration from the EU and whether or not Britain should remain within Europe—the silence has been almost deafening.  This is hardly surprising as neither Labour nor Conservative have a good record on either.  The upsurge of immigration took place under Labour’s watch after 1997 while David Cameron’s promise to bring down immigration to tens of thousands a year has spectacularly failed.  The Conservatives argued that the only way to get a referendum on Europe is to re-elect them but then focussing too much on the issue throws up the splits in the Conservative Party over Europe.  For Labour, no referendum unless there are treaty changes—well we’ve heard that before from Labour but we didn’t get a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty under the last Labour government despite the same promise.  The campaign was also bereft of any serious discussion of Britain’s place in the world apart from the Trident question and that’s settled anyway as both Conservative and Labour support Trident just disagreeing over whether it should be three or four submarines.  There was equally little discussion about Libya or Syria or Iraq.  Or law and order, the environment—apart from by the Greens—fracking and HS2…I could go on and on about the things that barely made it on to the political stage.  If an election campaign is to motivate the public, then it needs to address those issues that lead to political engagement and that has been largely missing from what has been a highly controlled, anodyne process. 

Predicting the outcome—a fool’s errand!

The election is too close to call according to all the polls.  Some give Labour the edge, others the Conservatives but they are united in their view that Labour will be, as near as damn it, wiped out in Scotland by the SNP.  The consequent ‘hung’ parliament and the post election horse-trading will leave an unholy mess that we could be stuck with for the next five years under the fixed term parliaments something that I was always dubious about  with five as opposed to four year parliaments.  The Cabinet Manual, designed to address the hung parliament in 2010, will be dissected and deconstructed to provide justification for why, should the Conservatives form the largest party but do not have an overall majority in the Commons, even with the support of other parties, they should make way for a government led by Ed Miliband and his equally unholy alliance of the ‘progressives’.  The problem is, whoever ends up in Number 10, getting any policy through Parliament will be difficult and time-consuming with every vote on every issue contested.  That is not a recipe for effective government or good decision-making. 

So what will we end up with on 8th May?  The Conservatives will end up with 288 seats, the Liberal-Democrats 31 and UKIP 3—I’ve always thought that the polls have underestimated Lib-Dem and UKIP—that would give a 322 seats and that’s not taking account of the Irish parties.  In parliamentary terms this would be more messy than in 2010 but would ensure the continuance of a Conservative-led government.  In part, this outcome depends on a degree of tactical voting in constituencies where Conservatives and Lib-Dems are the leading parties.  You could well argue that there’s little point in the two parties fighting each other in these areas while in constituencies where Labour is the challenger then Conservative and Lib-Dem voters ought to be voting for the candidate more likely to defeat Labour.  Labour will end up with 267 seats, SNP 48, Plaid Cymru 4 and Greens 1 or 320 MPs.  Labour or SNP voting intentions do not alter the political arithmetic in either current Labour or SNP controlled seats even if they change hands to the other party.  The consistent position of the SNP in the polls does not necessarily mean that this will be translated into the large number of seats predicted.  In the isolation of the polling booth, people do not always vote as the polls predict.

Sitting on a knife edge or negotiating legitimacy

Whether or not a single political party can form a government has constitutionally been determined by whether or not it has a majority in the House of Commons, has the 'confidence of the House' and is consequently able to get its political programme through..  If not, then the party with the largest number of MPs is given the first opportunity of trying to establish a working relation with another party to provide that majority.  This is what happened in 2010 when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats established a formal coalition that, to the surprise of many commentators, lasted the full five year term.  There had been previous coalition governments: the Conservative-dominated one under Lloyd George from 1916 to 1922 and the wartime coalition under Churchill and Attlee during the Second World War.  But it was the National Government formed under Ramsay Macdonald in 1931 at the beginning of the depression in the 1930s that is the closest parallel with the government after 2010.  Coalition governments have traditionally been formed to deal with some sort of national emergency: the effects of a global economic slowdown or the threat posed by Germany in 1914 and 1939.  Once that emergency ended, so did the coalition government—though after 1918 it did continue for a further four years.  In each case, some within the political parties involved demurred and went into opposition, something that did not occur after 2010.  No one suggested that these coalitions challenged the constitutional legitimacy of parliament.

When the pundits say that the winners of last night’s ‘audience with the party leaders’ was the audience itself, it demonstrates just how detached many people feel—even at this stage of the campaign—that politicians are from ordinary voters and how little their ideas and proposals have been challenged by the public—largely because the public has really not been given the opportunity to do so.  Meetings, with the exception of the SNP’s, have been rigorously managed and packed with sympathetic faces.  With the emphasis on getting your core voters out, there has been little engagement with people other that supporters and this has made the whole campaign predictably gaff-free and rather dull.  The policies that have been put forward and their potential costs have not been spelled out in any real detail.  We still do not know which departments will see their funding cut under either Labour of the Conservatives…it’s really a case of voting on a wing and a prayer.  Whoever gets the largest number of seats—and every indication is that neither Labour nor Conservative will get an overall majority—government will only be possible by forging some deals with the smaller parties and the bookies’ favourite to do this is Labour.

The target for forming a majority government is generally regarded as 326 seats.  In practice, however, the figure is lower than that.  Of the 650 MPs elected, you can discount the Speaker and also any Sinn Fein MPs elected as they do not attend Parliament since they refuse to swear allegiance to the Crown.  This has been the case since 1918 and there is no indication that the party intends to change this.  If Sinn Fein gets five seats, this would mean that having the confidence of 322 MPs would be sufficient for form a majority government…just.  Tonight's Newsnight Index suggests that a combination of Labour (269), SNP (50), Greens (1) and Plaid Cymru (4) would get them over the 322 figure and that's without taking the Northern Ireland parties into account.  The Conservatives (280), Lib Dems (26), UKIP (1) plus support from the Northern Ireland parties would probably get to around 316 MPs.  This has already raised questions about the legitimacy.  The former Labour First Minister in Scotland, Jack McConnell, has warned that public opinion might not accept the next government unless it is led by the party with the biggest number of seats.  He said: ‘even if Cameron was to lose a few seats, if he still has a few seats more than Labour then public perception will be that he has won. Therefore the SNP argument that everybody else could gang up on him will not work.’ 

Is it all crazy?

Over the last twenty years, the political systems of the western world have become increasingly divided-not between right and left, but between crazy and non-crazy. What’s more, the crazies seem to be gaining the upper hand. Rational thought cannot prevail in the current social and media environment, where elections are won by appealing to voters’ hearts rather than their minds. The rapid-fire pace of modern politics, the hypnotic repetition of daily news items and even the multitude of visual sources of information all make it difficult for the voice of reason to be heard. In his Enlightenment 2.0: Restoring sanity to our politics, our economy, and our lives to be published in the UK in July though already available on Kindle but published in Canada last year,  Canadian philosopher Joseph Heath argues for ‘slow politics’.  It is, he suggests, impossible to restore sanity merely by being sane and trying to speak in a reasonable tone of voice. The only way to restore sanity is by engaging in collective action against the social conditions that have crowded it out.

While it is doubtful whether the campaign in the past week has restored sanity to the election, what has been evident is how far news reporting has slipped.  Other issues, such as the refuge situation in the Mediterranean—though the implication of what Ed said about Libya was unfortunate especially as he voted for British intervention--and the Gallipoli centenary, have rightly taken prominence.  On the front page of today’s BBC News website, the election is mentioned in two stories and in none of the Watch/Listen videos, though of course there is the specific election section.  Is this simply because the election campaign has really yet to leap into life…possible given that there are 10 days before the election? In fact, much of the news coverage is still concentrating on the aftermath of the election and the constitutional implications of another hung parliament.  With Labour and the Conservatives still locked together—though there is a suggestion that the Conservative are edging ahead—this is perhaps not surprising but what is also the case is the growing recognition amongst the electorate that neither Labour or the Conservatives are coming clean about the financial implications of them becoming the next government.  This lack of transparency, though hardly new in elections, is becoming increasingly annoying for voters.  For instance, we know that both parties will make further cuts in public spending but we do not know where the cuts will fall and there is little likelihood that we will before 7 May.  This is a ‘crazy’ situation and is based on the premise that voters just have to trust politicians making it impossible for choice to be based on any rational principles at all…you know we’re going to make cuts and you just have to believe that the cuts we make will be the right ones!

The electoral arithmetic is becoming increasingly complex.  If the current projections are right, the Conservatives will be the largest party on 8 May.  The Newsnight index last night gave them 286 with Labour on 267.  With Lib-Dem support this would give a Lib-Dem-Conservative coalition 310 seats while a Labour-SNP ‘arrangement’ would have 315 seats, both short of the majority they need to govern.  This leaves 25 others, including the Greens, UKIP, Plaid Cymru and the Northern Ireland parties effectively holding the balance of power..a very messy outcome to the election.  The critical issue therefore is how far tactical voting will come into play.  For instance, the polls are certainly looking bad for Labour in Scotland as the SNP builds on the momentum it achieved in the referendum campaign--even though it lost. The result in some parts of Scotland is 'vote for your sitting MP irrespective of which party you support as a way of keeping the SNP out'. This could work if, say Labour supporters can hold their noses and vote say Lib-Dem. It all depends on whether the share desire to hold back the nationalist onslaught is stronger than often long-held party loyalties.  If the same approach were used in England, it could buttress support for Lib-Dem and Conservative sitting MPs…the argument is that to keep Ed out of Number 10 and prevent the SNP calling the tune vote for your incumbent.  In effect, a Lib-Dem-Conservative electoral pact.  Whether this would be popular with the electorate or would be simply seen as electoral opportunism is unclear but it could finally break the electoral deadlock in England.  Now if people vote this way then it will be a rational decision…an assertion that the ‘crazies’ cannot always have things their own way.

Uninspiring so far but there’s three weeks to go!

We’re about half way through the general election campaign.  The manifestos—plush aspirational documents--are published, though few I suspect will read them, party election broadcasts appear each evening, most of the television debates are over and there’s wall-to-wall coverage on the news programmes with every nuance of what is being said debated and re-debated by the pundits.  It’s almost as if the election campaign is panning out in a parallel universe—yes, it’s that uninspiring.  In fact, despite being billed as the most important election ‘for a generation’, I think it’s the most uninspiring campaign that I’ve watched since 1975.  Even the momentously boring 1992 election, notable only for John Major literally taking to a soap box and Neil Kinnock embarrassingly celebrating too early in Sheffield, was more interesting.  Now it could be that I’m being slightly premature and that the public will become really engaged with the campaign as 7 May approaches but, at present, there’s little indication that this will be the case.

There are various reasons for this.  There is a widespread belief—though whether it is true is questionable—that it doesn’t actually matter which party/parties form the government as there’s really little difference between the Conservatives and Labour, it will be politics as usual.  We will still have austerity policies.  People also don’t think that politicians are telling the truth or rather being economical with it particularly over taxation.  They remember being told that the Conservatives had no intention of increasing VAT in 2010 and then, once they were in power they did precisely that.  Their justification was that, as they hadn’t seen the books, they didn’t know how bad things were.  For the Lib-Dems, the albatross of tuition fees has hung around their necks since 2012 and will almost certainly contribute to their standing or rather lack of it in the polls after 7 May.  Apart from UKIP, all the parties have been quiet about immigration and membership of the EU, but these are issues on which the public, particularly in areas where immigration is high, have very strong views. 

Yesterday I received my postal vote containing, not only local and national ballot papers, but a local referendum about increasing the amount of money collected through Council Tax to fund policing.  Though I’m opposed to this—for me it’s the responsibility of those in power to operate, as I do, within their budgets—but at least it’s an honest and transparent approach to taxation.  What this election ought to be about, and it’s the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens that have got it right, is whether as a country we are prepared to pay for things like the NHS and ‘living’ pensions through higher taxation.  You cannot have an effective ‘welfare state’ without being prepared to pay for it.  The problem is that people don’t trust government, of whatever political persuasion, to spend our money effectively.  There’s also the danger, and the police referendum exemplifies this, that if the money runs out you just ask the people for more.  Therein lies the problem and the primary reason why the campaign has yet to take off.

Why personal progressive taxation has failed

If only to emphasise the triumph of Mammon over Christianity, today the emphasis in the election campaign is on taxation.  The problem with personal taxation is that its progressive nature—those who earn more pay at a higher rate—almost inevitably means that people will try to avoid paying some of their taxes by one means or another.  In addition, there is no agreement what the higher level of taxation should be: 45per cent as it is now, 50 per cent as it would be under Labour or 60 per cent if the Greens win (so chance of that then!).  In practice, no agreement at all about what would be an equitable higher rate of taxation. This means that it’s a political question: how far should we screw the rich?

The current taxation regime with its inevitable loopholes and legal—if not moral--means of tax avoidance is the creation of evolution and general election results.  Personal taxation  is in need of a radical overhaul because , in essence, its progressive character has now failed.  So we have to go back to basics and establish the principles on which a taxation system should be based:

1. It is generally agreed that those who earn more should pay more taxation---the rich should pay more than the poor.

2. It is generally agreed that the tax liability of the poorest in society should be reduced, that is if they pay tax at all, through an increase in personal allowance…one of the major achievements of the Lib-Dems while in coalition. 

That’s it.  Now how do you best achieve this?  This does not require any particularly radical thinking simply that everyone should pay the same taxation on their income with no loopholes, exceptions, being able to claim against taxation or whatever.  So if you earn £20,000 a year you pay 20 per cent of your income after personal allowance; if you earn £200,000 a year you also pay 20 per cent of your income after personal allowance.  If you seek to hide your income, then that’s a criminal offence with a mandatory jail sentence and mandatory fine of ten times your annual salary.  All bonuses from whatever source, whether in cash or shares, are taxed in the same way: so £2,000 shares worth £5.00 each would give a tax liability of £2,000.  My only exception to this system would be for those earning over £200,000 who would pay an additional wealth tax of 2 per cent. 

The result would be a taxation system that is easy to understand, remove the need for people to avoid paying tax particularly if a draconian system of punishment was introduced for those who try and ensure that those who earn more, pay more.