March 11, 2007
March 10, 2007
I will organise a real Trident consultation as leader
The consultation on Trident has been a sham. By fixing a vote in the House of Commons for next Wednesday, No 10 is bouncing us into a momentous decision years before expert opinion says it is necessary.
As leader, I would re-open this decision. I would arrange a full and proper consultation lasting at least six months, embracing all the relevant options and making sure public opinion is properly heard, followed by at least a two day debate in Parliament, ending with a fresh and much more authoritative vote.
March 07, 2007
One hundred percent it is!
Tonight's vote today in favour of having an all elected chamber represents a huge step forward. It was good to see all the options where there would have been a majority appointed element being rejected so decisively.
Now we must have legislation to act on the will of the Commons – because we voted as we did to reflect the weight of public opinion, which wants a 21st century bicameral parliament, not a 19th century one. We have to see the government commit itself to a bill that will turn tonight's vote into law and give us a properly elected second chamber, where the elections are run on an open list system and places on that list are decided by party members, not by party apparatchiks and the leadership.
Michael Meacher: You ask the questions
(From the Independent)
Labour leadership contender answers your questions, such as 'Why not sell your flats to help fight against poverty?' & 'What's your guilty pleasure?'
Published: 05 March 2007
Are you a socialist? What does that mean today? MIKE WOODBRIDGE, Brighton
Yes, I am. A socialist believes that while the market has its proper place, the fundamental principles underpinning society should be equity, social justice, equality of opportunity, and democratic accountability. Even where the market is a dominant force, socialists believe it should be regulated to ensure high environmental, social and labour standards.
Why, as a socialist, do you own so many houses? GARY BROWNE, Glasgow
As I have regularly stated in the register of Members' interests, I own four flats. I have saved throughout my life, and put my savings into property. I don't think [that] is contrary to socialism.
Given your views on poverty, why not sell some of your houses and give the money to charity? Or are you just another hypocritical politician? V AHMAD, Birmingham
I already give a significant amount to charity . I agree there is an urgent need to build much more social, affordable housing but selling my flats which are already occupied would not contribute one iota to that.
Isn't it delusional of you to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership? MAURICE BURKE, Birmingham
No. There should be a contest because only an election enables us to debate the real policy issues. I also believe that members of the Labour Party should have the right to choose their own leaders. I believe, too, that as New Labour, of which Gordon Brown is perhaps the main architect, has moved continually ever further to the right, the mainstream majority of the party has been left disenfranchised and without a voice. It is not sensible to assume the results of any election before the electors have had a chance to deliver their opinion which may sometimes come as rather a shock to the chattering classes. Not too many people I guess expected David Cameron to come from behind and win the Tory Party leadership.
Don't you think Gordon offers Labour the best hope of winning the next election? VALERIE EVANS, Cardiff
Have you seen the last two polls? Both put the Tories 11 per cent ahead, and one poll found that if Gordon was leader, the Tories would be 13 per cent ahead.
I am a Labour supporter, but I despair that Gordon Brown has been such a coward over the war, talks nonsense on 'Britishness' and seems so in love with Rupert Murdoch that he will hand the next election to Cameron. Do you agree - and if not, which bits do you disagree with and why? DAVE FISCHER, Sheffield
Cameron has certainly, at this stage at least, improved the Tories' poll ratings, but not, I think, for the reasons you give.
A majority on the Labour left support John McDonnell and see your campaign as a spoiler which will only split the vote and stop a contest. Will you stand down if John has more nominations when Blair resigns? SUSAN PRESS, Calder Valley
There is no evidence whatever that a majority of people on the Labour Party left and the affiliated trade union movement support John McDonnell for leader. I have a great deal of respect for John, but I don't believe he can get the necessary 45 nominations, whereas I believe I can. I am not splitting the vote, but rather giving the centre-left the chance, to run a candidate who can pass the nominations threshold. But I do agree that whichever of the two of us has the larger number of nominations, the other should stand down when Tony Blair resigns.
Why not use that photo of you on Blackpool beach (very Daniel Craig) for your campaign posters? CONOR MURPHY, Reading
Good try. At least it shows I'm healthy.
Do you think Blair should stand down now?STEVE HARRISON, Bolton
The sooner he stands down, the better.
Why did you vote in favour of the invasion of Iraq?DEAN PALMER, Norwich
I made the biggest mistake of my political life when I supported the war, on the grounds that the Prime Minister repeatedly gave chapter and verse about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and assured us that if only we knew all the intelligence available to him, we would have no doubts about the necessity for this action. I still find it deeply disturbing for democracy that a prime minister can so massage and fabricate the evidence in order to push through a preconceived war plan.
Do you think Blair lied to his MPs and lied to the country over Iraq?JEFF TERRY, Dundee
I think the highly selective manipulation of such evidence as there was, together with the highly prejudicial use to which it was put, was deeply dishonest.
You claim you were misled that Saddam had a WMD programme. Yet you say the West has no right to tell Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. Aren't you being rather inconsistent over Iraq and Iran?JIM ROLAND, London NW11
No, these are two quite separate arguments. Yes, we were certainly misled over Saddam's alleged WMD programme. While we should try to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons by negotiation and UN sanctions, we cannot say that nuclear weapons are indispensable for our own security, and then say Iran does not need them for their own security, especially when Iran (unlike the West) is surrounded by seven states which are nuclear-armed and some very hostile.
Do you truly believe that the US government knew about 9/11 but failed to prevent it?CHRIS QUIGLEY, by email
Clearly the US government did not know the precise time and location of the al-Qa'ida attack, but equally clearly there was a great deal of intelligence beforehand which, for whatever reason, it seems that they did not follow up.
You have suggested that the US government knew about the 9/11 attacks (which is pretty obvious I reckon, but fair play to you nonetheless). How complicit do you believe the UK Government was in 7/7? PAUL HUGHES, by email
Not at all.
Do you also believe that the FBI shot John F Kennedy, that Princess Diana was murdered and the US government has covered up the landing of aliens?BEN TROTTER, Cirencester
No. Such allegations are cheap and rather silly.
What steps will you propose to counter global warming? DR GEORGE BLAIR, by email
We should rapidly increase our use of renewable sources of energy (windpower, solar, and micro-generation in people's homes). We should require the airline industry, like every other industry, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions each year. We should increase vehicle excise duty sharply for gas-guzzling cars and use the proceeds to subsidise bus and rail, and smaller-engine cars. We should give each family a carbon entitlement which then has to be reduced each year.
How often have you flown in the past 12 months? FIONA MILLS, Edinburgh
Not at all.
You criticise the 'Westminster bubble' but said you spent the last two months talking to MPs about your campaign. Does this not show you have the same disrespect for people's views as the rest of the Westminster bubble? MARSHA JANE THOMPSON, by email
I said that when people around the country come to vote, they may well take a quite different view of things from the inward-looking Westminster scene, and should be listened to. But I also extensively canvassed my colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party because they alone are the ones who make the nominations.
Why did it take you so long to announce your intention to stand for the Labour leadership when John McDonnell has been campaigning up and down the country for months?MAX MITCHELL, by email
I have been told that John McDonnell announced his candidature without consulting his colleagues. I thought it right first to consult extensively to confirm that my candidature would have the necessary range of support.
What are your guilty pleasures (apart from homeowning)?ALICE SHERWOOD, Tadworth
Wouldn't you like to know! Dropping childish comments in the waste paper basket is one of them.
You always look a bit boring. Are you? ROB JACKSON, by email
No. Why? Are you?
March 06, 2007
One hundred percent
It is essential that House of Lords reform, being debated today and tomorrow in the Commons, ends with a clear decision to have a fully elected second chamber. Any extension of Prime Ministerial patronage, which is already far too pervasive and corrupting, over admissions to the Lords would reinforce the gross over centralisation of power which is one of the most damaging trends in Britain today. The power of the Prime Minister has grown, is still growing, and needs to be cut sharply back.
March 01, 2007
Updated: We're being bounced into a £65 billion decision on Trident
We learnt today that the Trident renewal vote will take place on March 14th. There is no way a genuine consultation can take place under such an unwisely truncated timescale. Taking a decision to buikld a new generation of nuclear missile capable submarines now is, in the words of nuclear weapons expert Dr Richard Garwin, “premature ... I see no reason why they should not last 45 years.”
Dr Garwin was speaking to the Defence Select Committee in January. Forcing us into an unnecessary vote now will undermine the important work of the committee in considering the arguments and informing the public and MPs. The government is bouncing us into taking an expensive £65bn decision - to take the MOD estimate - by deliberately preventing a real debate in the country.
UPDATE: CND have called an emergency lobby of Parliament on that day - download and forward the flyer to build the lobby.
February 23, 2007
Why I want to be prime minister
From 
There are three reasons why there should be an election for a new leader when Tony Blair finally goes. Only an election confers democratic legitimacy on the succession. Second, party members expect to have a choice about who should lead them. They have hardly been listened to for most of the last 13 years, and have every right to demand that their voice be listened to now. And third, there are major differences of view about the government's direction of travel which need to be understood, debated and voted on within the party. There are other, better alternatives.
New Labour has over-centralised power at the top, which has undermined democratic accountability at all levels. Its economy, driven exclusively by market forces, has played down intervention to secure a stronger manufacturing industry, a more balanced regional policy, and a lift out of its low pay, low skill, low productivity base. Its authoritarian civil society has eroded civil liberties across the board. Its deregulatory philosophy plays down environmental standards and labour rights.
Its indifference to, indeed embrace of, inequality -- "New Labour is relaxed about people getting filthy rich", as Peter Mandelson told us so charmingly -- has presided over a sharp increase in the gap between rich and poor. And its obsession with privatisation is leaching away the public service ideals which lie at the heart of a caring and committed society.
Because Labour and Tory policies are now so similar, politics has increasingly focused on personalities. But that is a fundamental misapprehension. A large part of the electorate on the centre-left, perhaps even a majority, has effectively been disenfranchised for the last three decades. Old-style Toryism was discarded by the voters in 1997, and now New Labour -- the continuing moving right show -- has clearly run its course. It's time, not for old Labour , but for a new implementation of core Labour values in a modern progressive politics addressing today's profound problems.
We need a new foreign policy which is based on fundamental British interests, not subservience to the US, particularly over the middle east. If our political status is to rise across the world, it is not sustainable to continue as America's glove puppet. We need a new social policy if the growing divisions within our society are to be healed. It is not sustainable for £9 billion of city bonuses to be doled out last year while 12.5 million people, a fifth of the population, remain in poverty.
We need a new penal policy if we are going to be genuinely as tough on the causes of crime as on crime itself. It is not sustainable to go on banging people up even faster than we can build prisons without trying to deal with the underlying causes of criminality and doing more to reduce recidivism. We need a new climate change and energy policy if we are not to become over-dependent on imported fossil fuels. It is not sustainable, let alone not legal, to go on fighting wars to grab control of the remaining reserves of Middle East oil when anyway the oil will soon run out.
So what should be done? To end the continuing horrendous carnage in Iraq, to complete our troop withdrawal and break the impasse over Palestine, we should use our political clout to initiate a wider international peace conference bringing together all the relevant actors for a joint settlement of the related middle east issues of contention which from experience cannot be resolved singly. That must include not only Iraq and Palestine within such a grand bargain, but above all a negotiated, not a military, settlement over Iran. If the US were to attack Iran, I would not put at risk a single British soldier or a single RAF pilot in support of such a crazed venture.
Domestically, the Unicef report marking Britain bottom of the table for children's experience shows how urgent it is to reverse the growing rich-poor divide. Less inequality leads to less violence, stronger community life, better health, longer life expectancy, lower teenage birth rates, as well as more social mobility and higher educational attainment. We should start by raising the national minimum wage (one of Labour's best achievements) quickly to £6 an hour, and then soon to £7 an hour. And recognising that wealth creation is not an individual but a team effort, we should move towards a system where there is no more than an acceptable ratio between top pay and bottom pay, so that pay rises at the top draw up the lower paid behind them too.
Globally we are at war against climate change. Business as usual, while relying on improved technology as a get-out card, is a fool's game. We need a profound change in every aspect of government and our way of life -- not just energy, but transport, industry, building, agriculture, public expenditure and taxation, and foreign policy, in order in every area to give absolute priority to combating climaten change. We need a crash programme, as we have done before in wartime, to develop renewable sources of energy, in which we are very well endowed, plus a massive programme to improve energy efficiency and energy conservation.
Peace, social justice, climate survival - those should be our top priorities. That is why the future lies with a centre-left agenda, and clearly there must be a centre-left candidate to lead this agenda forward who has the necessary nominations in the Parliamentary Labour Party to stand. I am fully confident I do have that necessary level of support, and that is why I am standing.
February 07, 2007
Consultation and “consultation”
Update 19February 2007: links to NPF reports added.
According to these reports from last weekend’s NPF, Des Browne was less than complimentary about the efforts of NPF members to consult with Labour Party members on the issue of renewing Trident.
Lest you assume that this indicates a reluctance to hear the views of Labour Party members, you might be relieved to hear that the party has produced a consultation process of its own, for MPs to poll their constituents. When you read the questions, you’ll probably be disappointed again.
The questionnaire opens with this neutrally phrased gem:
Do you agree that in an increasingly uncertain world the Government should maintain our independent nuclear deterrent?and ends with this one:
It takes a very long time to build a submarine and with the current fleet of subs reaching its expiry date do you think that the Government needs to make this tough decision now?
In both cases, the questionnaire asks for a ‘yes/no’ response. This follows a long letter from the MP which sets out the MP’s position as being in favour of Trident renewal and that not renewing it will “be to take a gamble with the nation’s security”. It also makes the claim that not taking the decision now means “We would effectively be abandoning our deterrent.”
This is plainly not true. As the evidence of Dr Richard Garwin to the Defence Select Committee showed, building new submarines now is premature, as the life of Vanguard submarines (which carry the missiles) could be extended until the 2030s. Renewal of such systems is not unusual - B-52 bombers are still flying today, more than 30 years beyond their projected life span.
It seems that the Party apparatchiks have not learned from the fiasco of the questionnaire on 90 days detention, which was so unbalanced, the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke had to apologise. Labour activists across the country are agreed on the need to renew the Labour Party. Fake or biased consultations like this are not going to help.
February 01, 2007
The jaw-jaw before the war-war
(from Comment is Free)
It is astonishing that the decision to go to war, the gravest decision ever facing a nation, is still taken in this country by one person alone, the prime minister, and there is no requirement to seek parliamentary approval. What is even more astonishing is that even where the prime minister of the day does allow a parliamentary vote, and that vote is opposed to war, the prime minister still has the absolute power to ignore the result of the vote and to commit the nation to war.
This applies both where the vote is taken after the declaration of war, as in the case of the Attlee government over the Korean war and the Major government over the 1991 Gulf War, and where the vote is taken shortly before the start of a war, as was the case of the Blair government with Iraq. In any case, the prime minister would be within his or her constitutional rights to override a parliamentary vote.
It is equally true that there is, at present, no requirement at all to have a parliamentary vote on a substantive motion to take the country to war. That was the case when Britain went to war in the Balkans in the 1990s and there was lengthy fighting in Bosnia and Kosovo. It is also true that even where a vote is called, it can be arranged at such a time - for example, at the last minute when British troops are fully deployed just before the outbreak of hostilities - that parliament is in a very difficult position to abort the build-up to war. This happened over the Iraq war on March 18 2003.
This is not an argument that it was wrong to take Britain to war in Iraq and therefore the decision-making procedures should be changed to prevent such a result in future. The issue is a much wider one - that irrespective of the rights or wrongs of particular wars, the decision to go to war is so paramount to the life of the nation that it should be taken, and only taken, by an elected parliament on a substantive vote, and well before events had moved to such a point that parliament had little or no alternative but to ratify a decision already reached.
This issue, perhaps more than any other single issue, raises the question of democratic accountability in Britain, which has withered away in the face of a marked centralisation of power over the last 30 years. Many of the previous checks and balances have been eroded, and some of the pre-existing autocratic prerogatives in the hands of successive prime ministers have been consolidated further. The right to take the country to war irrespective of parliamentary or public opinion is the clearest example of the latter.
Under the royal prerogative which dates back centuries, the powers of the Crown exercised by the prime minister, without consultation of cabinet or parliament, include the rights to declare war or make peace, sign or ratify treaties, confer honours, make appointments, establish commissions, and grant pardons. The democratisation of these prerogative rights is now being increasingly challenged by all the political parties. In opposition, Labour stated that it would ensure "all actions of government are subject to political and parliamentary control, including those actions now governed by the arbitrary use of the royal prerogative", and emphasised in particular going to war and the ratification of treaties as central areas of concern.
But in addition to the democratic dimension, there is also the strong constitutional argument that the evidence cited to justify such a momentous decision as going to war should be full and transparent, subject to the strict dictates of national security. In the case of the Iraq war, that would mean that the full advice of the attorney general on the legality of the war, the evidence on the existence and threat of weapons of mass destruction, and the proper reporting of the key French position on possible use of the veto in the security council would be laid before parliament. All of these matters would then be much more thoroughly scrutinised, and any manipulation of the evidence would become much more problematic.
For all these reasons, therefore, I am introducing a bill into the Commons tomorrow (2 February) which requires that the approval of parliament must be sought before British armed forces can be deployed in military action. For this purpose it also requires the prime minister to lay before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out the objectives, legal basis and likely duration of the military action proposed. The bill does allow for situations where the prime minister determines that deployment is urgently necessary before approval of the House of Commons can be achieved. But in such circumstances, which would be rare, it requires that the prime minister must still lay the report before parliament within seven days after troop deployment has begun.
Nor are the demands of this bill out of step with constitutional practice elsewhere. In the US for example the War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires that if the approval of Congress for waging war is not secured within 60 days, the president must withdraw US forces within a further 30 days. But in the UK the bill is a crucial change whose implementation is long overdue.
January 29, 2007
War and Parliament
The debate last week on Iraq and the wider Middle East was covered fairly extensively in the media but a crucial issue went mostly unremarked: it was an adjournment debate put forward by MPs, not a full debate of the House. It’s not surprising that it happened in that way, given the immense reluctance of the government to have the decision to go to war in Iraq and that the consequences of that decision formally examined in a Parliamentary debate.
At a time when public trust in politicians is at a low ebb, refusing to take part in the debate and hiding from it (as well as Tony Blair’s absence from the chamber, the government did not appoint tellers, so there could be no vote and presumably, to their way of thinking, no awkward headlines) is a poor tactic to pursue.
All this underlines the thinking behind my decision to propose a Waging War (Parliament's Role and Responsibility) Bill when I found that – for the first time in 30 years – I had actually got a place in the Private Member’s Bill ballot. I don’t expect my Bill to become law – I came 18th in the ballot and the chances of such a bill getting through the required stages would be slim even if a government were supportive. But if we are to restore some belief in the political system, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
Image: © Parliamentary copyright.
December 15, 2006
With great power ... (from Comment is Free)
Two current stories throw a searchlight on contemporary Britain. Farepak collapses, taking with it the £41m that 150,000 customers had saved towards their Christmas hampers. The customers have no rights because Farepak is technically not a deposit-taking bank. Three Natwest bankers are extradited to the US accused of conspiring with senior executives of the now-collapsed Enron to defraud their employers of £20m. There is a row about why they were sent to the US, but that misses the point. Why were no charges brought in this country when their alleged crimes were committed in Britain against a British firm?
It is now typical for the government to turn a blind eye to mega-scale crime or cheating of customers while relentlessly pursuing the pettiest of offenders with Asbos. Corporate crime in particular now almost always goes unpunished, indicating just how far corporate power, allied with a pro-big business government, insulates its holders against redress.
Continue reading "With great power ... (from Comment is Free)" »
December 14, 2006
Money and power
The natural reaction to recent reports about Hayden Phillips' interim review on party funding is to suggest that Tony Blair’s backing for the £50,000 donation cap will destroy the union link and thus the party with it.
Certainly, if it goes through – if the NEC does not stop it in its tracks at its emergency meeting tonight - it would be an unmitigated disaster for Labour. Let’s not beat about the bush: the suggestion of a £50,000 donation cap is a right wing ploy designed to damage us, made easier by New Labour’s ill conceived courting of rich businessmen exemplified by the Ecclestone/F1/tobacco advertising affair.
November 21, 2006
Challenge Freedom of Information changes
I posted recently on government proposals to aggregate FoI requests and the cost implications they entailed. Worryingly true to form - for example the lack of a Green Paper on Trident replacement - the government is making these changes without a formal consultation. The Campaign for Freedom of Information have challenged the basis for the Government's proposals and are asking people to make informal responses as the Government has said these would be considered. The text of the CFoI email asking people to respond informally is below. There's also an article by CFoI director Maurice Frankel summarising the dangers of the government proposals.
Continue reading "Challenge Freedom of Information changes" »
October 23, 2006
How free is information?
Funny how some of the most important issues only come out by sheer chance. It's just happened again - we only found out that 2 alleged terrorism suspects, so dangerous that they had to be subject to control orders, had escaped and have been at large for 2 months and 2 weeks respectively, because someone leaked the security breaches to the media.
Just before that came to light, there were the cases of another 2 terror suspects being heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). The SIAC meets behind closed doors. Evidence in both cases had been submitted by the intelligence serivces. It was found that the evidence submitted in one case contradicted that submitted in the other - not by any formal rules of disclosure, but only because the same barrister happened to be representing both suspects.
October 17, 2006
The heavy, heavy "burden" of regulation
The Companies Bill is currently going thorugh its Commons stages. I was struck by a point that Larry Elliot made in his column in yesterday's Guardian. In particular, this part caught my eye:
“A firm can expect a visit from Revenue and Customs once every 330 years on average and to be found breaking the law once a millennium.”
Continue reading "The heavy, heavy "burden" of regulation" »
September 24, 2006
Past the post is past its sell-by date
It’s only Sunday night and the fringe is buzzing merrily away. This may be day one of the conference but I’ve spoken at several fringe meetings already. Tonight’s was a first for me – the Make Votes Count rally alongside Patricia Hewitt, Charles Clarke and John Denham. I’m a later convert than some to the need for electoral reform and the introduction of proportional representation, but FPTP produces results out of all proportion to the views of the electorate. It is intellectually unsustainable and does not give the winner of a general election a mandate that is acceptable for any political party.
September 21, 2006
Joy in Heaven?
It’s all very well for Tony Blair at this stage, within sight of his departure, suddenly breaking the habit of a lifetime and announcing a consensual, inclusive review of the whole range of party policy before he goes
But it’s a bit rich to have a conversion to this new style of policy making at the end when for 12 years we have had policy settled exclusively in Labour HQ or No. 10 and election manifestos handed down from on high without so much as a flicker of Party consultation. Still, there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth …
August 03, 2006
The end of the Blair era is a springboard for renewal
Parliament must reassert its rights as part of a new constitutional settlement if the current malaise in politics is to be tackled
Continue reading "The end of the Blair era is a springboard for renewal " »
June 13, 2006
The politics of conviction
A socialist or social democratic society is one that exercises moral principles, social justice and democratic accountability of power in meeting individual and social needs. A capitalist society is one where the economy is driven by unfettered market forces and power is amassed through the accumulation of capital. In the West, the political struggle largely centres round exactly where the line is drawn between these opposing tensions in the regulation of both economies and societies.
May 11, 2006
We need to change our policies as well as our leader
Where does the Labour Party go from here? At the PLP meeting on Monday the Prime Minister made two main points. One was that Members should trust him and leave the timetable for his departure to himself. The other was his claim that the Labour Government would not get a fourth term unless it stuck to his strategy. Yet all the evidence over the last year suggests the opposite: that we will not win a fourth term if we stick to his strategy.
Continue reading "We need to change our policies as well as our leader" »
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