Off at a blogging tangent

As you may have seen over at Lib Dem Voice, I’m one of the team to whom the editorial baton is being passed by LDV’s founder, Rob Fenwick, who has (to mix my metaphors) chosen to let the curtain fall on his time as editor, and leave the stage.

I’m going to take on the somewhat poncy soubriquet of ‘commissioning editor’, trying to ensure that LDV's content reflects the diversity of opinion within the party, and ensuring balanced coverage is maintained.

Rob made a fair point in the comments of his post announcing (prematurely, as it subsequently transpired) LDV’s demise:

A relatively small number of bloggers provide the majority of content in the Lib Dem blogosphere - I’m thinking of the likes of Nich Starling, James Graham, Stephen Tall, Paul Walter, Jonathan Calder, Peter Black and the ever fluffy Millennium Elephant [links to them all in my ‘Gold Top Blogs’ sidebar, right]. If they abandoned their own blogs and instead ran a collaborative effort, I believe they’d not only massively grow their own audiences, but also the audience for debating liberal politics online. Collectively, they could produce a fabulously compelling site.

Liberals are individuals and individualistic, and this is well reflected in the party ‘blogosphere’. But there is a danger that these talents can be fragmented, smaller than the sum of our parts. LDV has been a terrific corrective to this tendency, and I hope can continue as a must-read first-stop for Lib Dems and the liberal-inclined wherever in the world they are.

This site, my blog, will doubtless continue - though in what form and with what frequency we’ll see.

What would a Lib Dem reshuffle bring?

In less than a month, there will be a new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who will re-cast the Cabinet to reflect his ambitions. The posts of chancellor and of home secretary will, we know, become simultaneously vacant.

It seems likely, too, that the current incumbents at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (Margaret Beckett) and the new Ministry of Justice (Lord Falconer) will be leaving the stage. We are, as yet, in the dark about whether John Prescott’s hole as outgoing deputy PM will be filled.

In sum, it’s a major overhaul of a serving government unparalleled in modern political times. This poses challenges to the opposition parties, and we know (which is to say, I’ve read it in the papers) that David Cameron is currently preparing to re-shuffle the Tory shadow cabinet in readiness for a Brown Government.

What of Ming Campbell and the Lib Dem shadow cabinet?*

To date, speculation about the Lib Dems has centred on the party leader himself. But, despite a few mutterings, there seems little prospect of a forced exit, least of all from the members of the parliamentary party whose jobs are, ultimately, on the line. Most appear content that the much-vaunted-but-little-seen behind-the-scenes organisational changes Ming has instituted will begin to bear fruit - if we can avoid another destructive bout of public panicking.

So will Ming re-shuffle his team?

Or will he choose to leave things be?

After all, the Lib Dems’ problem is the opposite to that of the Government. The key difficulty Mr Brown needs to surmount is that Labour looks so dreadfully tired (as well as appallingly incompetent, but let’s leave that to one side). For us the third party, our key spokespeople are still too-little-known. Where familiarity has bred contempt for Labour, we rely on it breeding contentment for the Lib Dems.

Nor does Ming have much scope to re-shuffle. Vince Cable might make way for fresh blood in the form of Chris Huhne (or David Laws). But Vince has made huge strides in establishing some semblance of credibility for the Lib Dems’ economic policies - no mean job when the party hasn’t been in power for 80 years. Last year, I suggested he could be given a strategic policy co-ordination role, which would have suited both his considerable talents, and his second job as deputy party leader. But, with Steve Webb heading up the writing of the next manifesto, that role is now taken. So Vince, I guess, will be staying put.

Nick Clegg is a prolific shadow home secretary who is regularly sought by the media, while Michael Moore is still trying to get noticed as shadow foreign secretary (a tricky task given the media always makes a beeline for Ming the moment Iran, Korea or the Middle East hit the headlines).

In the chief public service departments - Health, Education, Transport and Environment - the party has yet to score big against Labour or the Tories. (Though at least in Chris Huhne’s environment portfolio this cannot be ascribed to either lack of industry, or the absence of a comprehensive policy agenda.)

We can, of course, blame the media for their disinterest in public policy compared with their febrile who’s-hot-or-not personality obsession. But, truthfully, who among us could give a quick (and accurate) summary of how the Lib Dems would transform for the better our hospitals, schools or railways?

This is not to pin the blame on those shadow spokespeople in those four hot seats. It comes back to that over-used touchstone, ‘narrative’, hotly debated in the Lib Dem blogosphere of late: how do we explain to people, simply and clearly, how the Lib Dems will help them, and improve society.

‘Free, fair and green’ is a good start (and, come to that, a pretty good slogan). But how many of our policies - across the board - actually fulfil those criteria? And if I as an engaged party member am asking that question, is it any wonder that the wider public is uncertain?

I suspect any changes Ming might make to the Lib Dem shadow cabinet in the next few weeks will be marginal. And that’s fine by me - unlike the Tories, we are not a party which looks to the bloke at the top of the party to explain what our long-cherished principles are this week.

But a reshuffle is as good an opportunity as any to ask how far we are translating our liberal principles into liberal policies. And how good a job our shadow cabinet is doing at explaining either or both to the electorate.

* If you’re a Tory about to complain the Lib Dems have no ‘right’ to call their front bench a shadow cabinet, please spare yourself the hassle. The Tories are, de jure, HM The Queen’s Official Opposition. That does not give them exclusive rights to the term ‘shadow cabinet’. Get over it.

Sun chance

And, as if to prove Murphy's Law, here's the bright view from my office the day after the Bank Holiday...

Rain stopped play

You can tell it’s a Bank Holiday… here’s the grim view from my flat today.

School vouchers revisited

An interesting idea courtesy Kenneth Baker in yesterday’s Torygraph:

We should introduce an education credit equivalent to the amount the state pays for a primary education place, £3,150, and a secondary school place, £4,070, to those parents whose children attend a school that is designated by the Department for Education and Skills as failing, and who are dissatisfied with the education provided for their children. The parents of pupils in such schools would have the cash to purchase better education for their children, either in a local state school or at an independent school. This would achieve greater social mobility than undermining the grammar schools. Education at independent schools costs more than this, but such a change would encourage the start-up of new schools, particularly at the primary level, geared to that level of funding.

I have argued before in favour of school vouchers; with some misgivings, as I’m not sure their introduction would usher in a problem-free panacea. Lord Baker’s proposal does at least side-step the usual first argument against vouchers: that they will simply subsidise those parents who already pay for their kids to have a private education. I suspect, though, that introducing such a partial scheme would simply shift the inequalities between different catchment areas within a locality.

However, it does at least attempt to grapple with the key educational problem facing us today: how to offer equality of opportunity to young people in a society which segregates according to who can afford to buy a house near a good school. Those who oppose school vouchers need to suggest a practical solution to remedy this very real problem.

PS: as an aside, are ‘staff inset training days’ still known as ‘Baker Days’, as they were way back in my day?

ConHome sticks boot in Conway

Tory MP Derek Conway has faced a barrage of criticism for employing his undergraduate son as his parliamentary assistant at a cost to the taxpayer of £981 a month. What surprised me most, though, was where this incident was prominently displayed - as the lead headline on the Conservative Home website.

Admittedly ConHome is fiercely independent of the official party, and is the self-styled voice of the grassroots - but why make this your main story, I wondered? Why not leave that kind of thing to your political opponents?

Then, I remembered that Derek Conway was the first MP to write to the Whips office to trigger a vote of no confidence in the then Tory leader, the hapless Iain Duncan Smith. The editor of ConHome is (the very nice) Tim Montgomerie, who was IDS’s ultra-loyal political secretary in his final two months - hence the site’s sometime nickname, ContinuityIDS.

I guess some enemies are easier to forgive than others…

14 not out

The Golden Dozen outpourings from the Lib Dem blogosphere are available for your reading delight over at Lib Dem Voice.

Lessons in liberalism (courtesy The West Wing)

Over at CommentCentral, Daniel Finkelstein invites folks to relax on a Friday evening with a classic West Wing clip courtesy of YouTube. It’s an excerpt from the electric Ritchie-Bartlett presidential debate where Jed shows he’s not going to do an Uncle Fluffy.

But it’s not my favourite… Here’s Bruno Gianelli, the political strategist’s political strategist, demanding a bit of kick-ass liberalism. (Ironically, the actor who played Bruno, Ron Silver, switched from the Democrats to the Republicans in the wake of 9/11.)



And finally… here’s one of the best distillations of the conflicting (and often conflicted) philosophies between ‘big government’ Democrats and ‘small government’ Republicans. Take it away Ainsley Hayes and Sam Seaborn:

Henry Campbell-Bannerman - can you help?

An unusual request arrived today in my e-mail inbox:

Do you know where I can find (on-line) copies of photographs of this man's younger years and relatives? Thank you very much.

I'm stumped... If you can assist, please leave a comment, or mail me here.

Channel 4 - what a load of rubbish

This isn’t yet another post about fortnightly alternate weekly waste collections. Honest. However, I accidentally found myself tonight watching Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, ‘Bin Wars’, in which Oxford heavily featured.

Regardless of your views - whether you think 160+ councils have taken leave of their senses, or that increased recycling rates are well worth the extra effort - what struck me most (on today of all days) was the programme’s polemical style. I recall Dispatches being a programme which took an objective and balanced view of the issues it put under the microscope, dealing with them sensibly and soberly.

Not any more. This was shoddy, shoddy journalism - so bad it could almost have been on ITV.

C4 will doubtless defend the show’s balance on the grounds that both sides had their say. True, kind of. But what you in fact got was a handful of residents opposed to the scheme, counterpointed with a Council official (or councillor) putting their perspective.

The C4 agenda was clear: this was a programme about politicians versus the people.

And yet - as the local newspaper, the Oxford Mail, has discovered - knock on people’s doors in this city and the vast majority of residents are quite content with our 'recycling revolution'. But was their view represented by C4? No.

I’m very happy to go round my Headington ward with a Dispatches film crew and talk directly to my residents about the scheme, and let C4 hear it for themselves. But, then, as evidenced by Ofcom today, could I really trust C4 to edit the programme properly?

This once-proud not-for-profit's factual programming is rapidly becoming The Independent of television - fun to flick through, but would you really trust it to present the facts, rather than filter them?

Much more of this, and they’ll have me thinking the BBC poll tax licence fee is a good idea.

Ofcom: interfering busybodies or upholding standards?

Even before Big Brother 8 starts, its shallow spin-off Celebrity Big Brother is again hitting the headlines, following media regulator Ofcom’s decision to order Channel 4 to apologise three times for showing footage of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty being taunted by fellow contestants Jade Goody, Jack Tweedy and Jo O’Meara.

My first reaction was one of concern - why should a regulator force a channel to apologise for screening individuals showing themselves in their true (and unattractive) colours? Jade telling Shilpa to “Fuck off home” was racist and deeply unpleasant - but that Jade felt this was an acceptable insult to hurl provided an insight into her character and standards, which is surely the point of a reality show like Big Brother.

The public reaction - over-hyped by the media, who typically glorified in lambasting C4 while gleefully repeating the offensive remarks - demonstrated far better than any Ofcom ruling the contempt in which views such as Jade’s are widely regarded by substantial numbers of the liberal, tolerant viewing public.

However, I then read Ofcom’s ruling - and it shows that what they took umbrage with C4 for was not the channel’s decision to show some D-listers proving their tawdry ignorance, but that the show’s producers had not seen all the relevant footage when they made the decision to broadcast Jade & co’s remarks.

Specifically, this included untransmitted footage of the racist trio’s doubtless side-splitting attempts to work the word ‘Paki’ into a limerick. In Ofcom’s judgement, C4 needed to be aware of this wider context before broadcasting incidents such as Jade’s “Shilpa poppadom” comment, so that it could be placed in its full context. As Ofcom notes:

The audience’s understanding of the events in the House and, in particular, the alleged racist bullying, was changing as the series developed and therefore comments which may in other circumstances have been interpreted as “borderline” in terms of offence became much more offensive given what was happening in the House, as well as beyond the House, in the outside world.

Seen in this light, Ofcom’s ruling seems to me entirely sensible, even commendable. As viewers, we rely on C4 editing shows - whether entertainment reality like Big Brother, or serious documentaries like Dispatches - in a responsible, fair and balanced way. This requires producers and editors to be in possession of the full facts, so that the highlights package can be properly filtered and contextualised.

This clearly didn’t happen in the case of the latest Celebrity Big Brother, and there was the potential for viewers to be misled - to view Jade’s racist remarks as isolated incidents erupting in the heat of the moment, rather than as exempla of the casual, careless but systematic bullying they in fact were.

Lucky, lucky Gordon?

Our current Prime Minister has long revelled in the soubriquet, ‘Lucky Tony’. The BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, today suggests that this mantle has now been passed to his successor, Gordon Brown.

His rationale is simple: this week’s latest shambolic performance by the Labour Government could have happened in seven weeks’ time, getting the new Premier’s tenure off to the shakiest of all possible starts.

Well, perhaps. I think Mr Robinson rather underestimates the incapacity of this Cabinet, and their potential for conjuring future folie des grandeurs.

For while it’s a tad tricky to feel sympathetic towards health secretary, Patricia Hewitt - who would happily climb a step-ladder on the peak of Everest all the better to talk down to us - the rather hapless Ruth Kelly is perhaps a little more deserving of pity. Handed the poisoned chalice of making Home Improvement Plans work, she is being forced to sup long and hard no matter the taste is bitter.

Meanwhile, the Government minister actually responsible for the HIPs fiasco, Yvette Cooper, is tipped for a big promotion in Mr Brown’s first cabinet, together with her husband, Ed Balls, a man who manages to make Ms Hewitt seem human.

Lucky Gordon? Really?

He is fortunate in one regard, however - Prime Minister Brown will have an unparalleled opportunity to re-mould his ministerial team as he wishes. Labour party leaders are usually hemmed in by two constraints when assembling their cabinet.

First, the need to reward political rivals in order to show their magnanimity and to unite the party. But Mr Brown has no rivals - enemies, you betcha, but not rivals.

And, secondly, Labour leaders have to construct their first cabinet from those elected by the Parliamentary Party to the shadow cabinet. Look at Team Tony c.1997 - how many of those would have been there from Mr Blair’s personal choice? However, this party rule, rather quaintly, applies only to the first cabinet. After that, the leader can do as she or he wishes.

So Mr Brown has a free hand, made even freer by the voluntary redundancies of those other two clunking fists, the Two Johns, Prescott and Reid.

Of course, this is itself a double-edged sword - his allies will expect their reward, but he cannot possibly avoid disappointing some of the 308 Labour MPs who coronated him.

And yet, as has become painfully obvious these last few months, there are precious few Labour MPs of real standing, who are also cabinet material. That Mr Brown is the sole leadership candidate after 10 years as Chancellor is a very real tribute to his talent and resilience. It is also a damning indictment of the paucity of quality within this Government. The lack of a viable alternative has assisted him in making it to the top of his party; conversely, it might not help him to stay there.

He’s going to need all the luck he can get.

A dose of sunshine for Lib Dems everywhere

It’s a sunny day, and I’m nicely rested after a few days’ holiday - so let’s celebrate some positive stories.

First up - Ming Campbell’s challenge to Prime Minister-select Gordon Brown to a televised debate was a cute way of (i) giving the Lib Dems a fresh angle on a stale story at a time when our bipolar media traditionally eschews giving the party any air-time; and (ii) highlighting just how little we know (or expect) of the Labour Party’s newly-minted leader’s views across the whole gamut of national and international issues he will be leading this country on.

It was also a real advance on Ming’s previous attempt to grab a headline, when he rather lamentably called for a snap general election, having apparently confused the UK’s parliamentary system with a presidential system - as noted by Lib Dem blogger Jonny Wright here.

Secondly, it’s good to see the Lib Dems taking a lead in the campaign to stop the Labour/Tory alliance in the House of Commons from watering down Freedom of Information legislation, with a new petition today launched to defend the public’s right to know what our Parliamentarians are up to. James Oates’s Cicero’s Songs blog has the full roll-call of dishonour of those 96 Labour and Tory MPs who are happy to create one law for our legislators and another for the rest of us.

This rather squalid episode has cast a revealing light on the mindsets of those MPs who clearly feel they have something to hide, and that their affairs exist on a higher plane than everyone else’s. It’s times like this we can, and should, feel proud to be members of our party, the only one which truly understands how destructive sectional interests - whether of class, wealth, ethnicity or nationality - are to society.

Finally, last week saw a bit of negative publicity among some sections of the media about Ming Campbell’s leadership of the Lib Dems. Clearly now Gordon Brown has been acclaimed leader by his own party, the media is anxious to have another personality-fuelled tussle to fixate on - anything to avoid actually having to report the dull daily grind of politics. Sorry, but it bores me: it’s Heat-style journalism for Guardian readers.

But I did see some poll figures which did intrigue me. They were by Communicate Research for Newsnight - and clearly they did not fit the programme’s agenda at the time, or else were too complicated for them to feel able to report.

What they show is that the Lib Dems have become a much more credible political force in the eyes of the public since 2002 in virtually every regard. In particular, it is fascinating to see the Lib Dems are apparently the party most people see as being trustworthy on immigration. Which suggests there is a liberal vote out there into which the Lib Dems need to tap more loudly than we have in the past. It’s only fair to note that the party’s rises are paralleled by the Tories’ recovery - but forgive me for sticking to the good news for the Lib Dems on this blog.

What is also interesting is that the Labour Party’s figures, while dipping, have not collapsed. This appears to back up what has been found in the last few years’ local elections - each time a rout has been predicted for Labour, each time they have (just about) avoided imploding. Their support has proved - in the circumstances - to be pretty resilient.

So, there you have it - a dose of optimism for a Tuesday afternoon.

Mea culpa

An occasional series of blog entries in which my dad takes me to task for what I’ve written. Here, verbatim, is his latest missive to me, subject heading 'Timetable priorities':

Mon 21 May Stephen Tall returns to Britain from Spain.
9.27pm Stephen Tall posts his latest blog saying he's returned to Britain.
10.55pm Stephen Tall phones his parents to let them know he's returned.

12 midnight one of Stephen Tall's parents emails Stephen Tall to say, "Oh, well, it's good to know we figure somewhere on our son's list of things to do on returning."

Mea maxima culpa.

Yawn.

I go away for a few days, return to Blighty, only to discover it’s the same old, same old…

1. Tony Blair is still Prime Minister, despite having announced his resignation three times (and counting… ooh, I can’t wait for the tear-wrenching speech he’s got lined up for us on the 27th June), while Gordon Brown broods testily in the wings having clocked up 13 years as a bitter understudy.
2. Two of my former Lib Dem city council colleagues in Oxford have, finally - as predicted here, here, here, here and here - decided to place their talents at the disposal of the Tory Party, following their brief sojourns as Independents. Defections are sometimes hailed as signifying political watersheds, even at the parochial level of local government. More usually, they are about clashing personalities and over-hyped egos. As a party member whose time and money has helped give them the platform to become yesterday’s proverbial fish ‘n’ chip wrappers (though I assume H&S legislation nowadays disqualifies the Oxford Mail’s pages from actually being bespoiled in this way), I have scant time for their to-be-short-lived grand-standing. Still, I’m sure they’ll have fun defending the views of the party they have joined to the Oxford residents who rejected those views at the ballot box when last they had the chance.
   
3. An unholy alliance of 96 Labour and Tory MPs has ganged up - again - to force anti-Freedom of Information Act legislation through the House of Commons, exempting Parliamentarians from its reach. The words ‘self-serving’ and ‘hypocrites’ spring to mind.

Still - good to be back…

Me off the telly

If you would like to watch me on internet telly station 18 Doughty Street’s BloggerTV discussing, inter alia:

• why journalists blog
• how independent political blogs can be
• the Blair legacy
• the Labour leadership race, and
• breast-feeding in public
• (oh, and me becoming Oxford’s deputy Lord Mayor),

then please click here.

My fellow guests were: Charlie Beckett of POLIS, Helen Szamuely from the EU Referendum Blog, and Paul Burgin of the Mars Hill Blog. Iain Dale was, of course, the host.

The dozenth Dozen

The twelfth 'Best of the Blogs' round-up of the past week in the Lib Dem blogosphere is now available for your vieing pleasure over at Lib Dem Voice here.

One parade, one flag, one video

I have somehow contrived never to attend the Lord Mayor’s Parade through Oxford during my time on the City Council. This year’s seemed a good one for which to make an exception… at least while it was sunny.

A gaggle of councillors were ferried a couple of hundred yards on an open-top bus into historic Broad Street, where we alighted to process through the central streets in order to bemuse tourists and residents, who had simply popped into town to do a bit of shopping. Inevitably it rained. I was able to carry an umbrella - the instrument-laden Oxford and District Brass Band Association, marching behind, was less fortunate.

Here’s a 3-minute video of the parade to give you a flavour. I clutched onto an EU flag to show my support for Oxfordshire’s European Movement, who were part of the Parade’s platoon of floats. You can also see me very self-consciously greeting the public (shades of a triumphant Hugh Grant entering Downing Street in Love Actually: “I really must work on my wave.”)

On becoming dignified

My year in charge of Oxford’s finances is now officially over. A new role beckons: Deputy Lord Mayor for 2007-08. A fair few people have expressed some surprise that I should wish to swap a place on the decision-making executive for a ceremonial post.

Which is understandable - I have confined my attendance of civic events as a councillor to those which have a personal meaning to me, such as Remembrance Sunday, or 2005’s commemoration of the 60th anniversary of VE Day. I have always refused to wear a councillor’s robe, the only point of which (I think) is to separate councillors from the public, and elevate us above those whom we have been elected to serve.

I do not think it is the role of councillors to indulge in pomp and circumstance: we have been elected to do, not to show. But I have mellowed a little since I was first elected seven years ago. In my callow (more radical?) youth, I suspect I would have cheerfully voted for the abolition of the city’s civic posts. I would have been wrong to do so.

The three civic post-holders in Oxford do have a function and utility which could not easily be replaced by (say) the Leader of the Council, whose job it is to exercise political control. There are a range of events - from visits to schools and hospitals, to charity events, to businesses and voluntary organisations - where it is right the City should be represented, to show the importance we attach to what happens within our boundaries, and beyond.

So, for one year only, I shall don the robes of civic life, and allow a chain of office to be draped round my neck, and see a side of Oxford’s and the Council’s life which, until now, I have pretty much side-stepped.

Political life - like all other working life - should be about kaleidoscopic experiences. After three years scrutinising the City Council’s finances, I feel ready for something new, different and interesting.

One aspect, though, does intrigue me - the effect wearing a chain round your neck exerts on others. For the past year, I have held a responsible job, democratically accountable for Oxford City Council’s £220m budget as Executive Member for Better Finances. Few of my family, friends or colleagues from ‘civilian’ life have much cared. I’ve become Deputy Lord Mayor, and they’re all thrilled for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the attention, and I fully intend to do the best job I possibly can in the coming municipal year. But I can’t help feeling the British love of pageant, panem et circenses, can be more than a little overdone.

A legacy of regret

This, famously, is what Tony Blair said to Paddy Ashdown, back in 1999:

“Going is the most difficult thing to do in politics. Too many people stay for too long. I would rather stop when people said, ‘Why is he going?’ than when they said, ‘Why isn’t he going?’ Or, even worse, ‘When is he going?’”

(Tony Blair quoted in The Ashdown Diaries, V.II (1997-99), p.385)

Tony Blair’s promise of a surprise departure turned out to be yet one more expectation he disappointed. His last 12 months in government has been torture to watch, and doubtless excruciating to witness. A Labour leader who helped re-build his party has, almost single-handed and quite contentedly, let it go to wrack and ruin because of a misplaced sense of his own indispensability.

A politician with any honour would have resigned four years ago, when it became clear that he had committed his nation to the most disastrous foreign policy in living memory. He took this nation to war on a false prospectus, and with contemptible sophistry. That he has clung on to power regardless is to his shame, and that of his party.

A man blessed with extraordinary powers, he has achieved lamentably little of his potential, and has tossed away a generational opportunity to transform this country’s public policy and political institutions. Such waste is scandalous. It is also to be pitied. He has a long retirement ahead to reflect on the barrenness of his legacy.