Get on with it.

It now seems pretty clear that the delay and confusion over the arrangements for leaving the EU have become damaging to all concerned - to the government, to parliament, to the Conservative Party and to the UK's standing in the world. It is not really a complicated issue and needs to be dealt with decisively. The points are : 1 Referendums are not legally binding. 2 Referendums are clearly politically binding 3 The result of the referendum, if it entails any changes to the law and the constitution, must be confirmed by parliament (not the government) because parliament is sovereign. 4 The independent judiciary has ruled this. 5 The House of Commons will clearly approve the referendum result. So what's the problem? 6 If the Lords does not confirm it, it will effectively abolish itself. In other words they wouldn't dare. So what's the problem? 7 The question of how much input parliament should have over any future trade arrangements etc. is a separate issue and can wait a little. 8 I agree with those who say parliament should not dictate policy on trade deals. 9 However, parliament should certainly have the right to approve any negotiated deals (as the US Congress has). This is not a constitutional requirement but is politically sensible. 10 It would be better if there were an early election and the government's general negotiating aims should be in the Conservative manifesto. It is not a secret, or certainly should not be a secret so no harm done. Incidentally it was pretty shocking, even by UKIP standards , to hear a spokeswoman say on today's Today programme on Radio 4, that the judges should be brought 'under democratic control'. Hello Mr Humphreys, why didn't you stop her there? We do need clarity and we need it NOW!

Parties as vehicles for change

Watching Jeremy Paxman’s investigation of the US election the other day set me to thinking, just as Paxman was asking, how things had descended to such a low level. He was certainly asking the right questions but not receiving many cogent answers. Still, it was enjoyable watching his facial expressions as they moved from amusement, to horror to incredulity. Only one of his interviewees attempted a definitive answer by saying that the problem was leadership, or rather the lack of it. Well, yes, we didn’t really need an expert to tell us that. There must be something deeper. A parallel thought was entering my head as I pondered this. It occurred to me that, in the UK at least, periods of important political, economic and social change happen in twenty year cycles. There was the forties, of course, with the development of the welfare state and the bringing into public ownership of many industries; this was followed by the sixties with economic re-structuring together with social and cultural reform; then the eightees and the Thatcher transformation; finally the New Labour wave arrived at the end of the last century. Four cycles separated by twenty years a piece. If you are ahead of me you will realise that the next cycle should arrive at the end of this decade. Certainly change is long overdue. Society is being de-stabilised by the large and growing proportion of the population who have been left behind by globalisation and the prosperity it has brought to the majority. Inequality is threatening the cohesion of society and public services are coming under increasing pressure as policy makers seek to bear down on the fiscal deficit. It is certainly not an original thought that the large vote for Scottish independence, the EU Leave vote and the rise of UKIP are al cries for help rather than genuine expressions of policy preferences. But why have they been needed? Paxman’s interlocutor who replied ‘Leadership’ when asked what the problem is was right, although the dissatisfied elements in society have found individuals to latch onto – Trump, Farage, Corbyn and Saunders are the obvious examples, but Europe is also littered with them. Yet these populist leaders are not realistic catalysts for change because none of them will ever win elections (I am writing ahead of the US election, so I am taking a chance of Trump losing – surely he must). No, the normal historical experience is that a political party will emerge with a programme of reform that can galvanise the nation and drive through reform. I am looking towards the horizon and there is no sign of such a party. There are only a few years to go before that cycle comes round. Can anyone imagine a party in the 2020 UK general election being ready to weep to power and save the country from further unhappiness? The awful thought has occurred to me that the days when parties were effective vehicles for change has passed. In their place there is a dangerous vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, the saying goes, so it will be filled for sure. By whom? Well, by the kind of populists we are now seeing on the political stage. It is not a pleasant thought.

The Great Easter Debate

The current debate about whether the Christian festival or Easter should be fixed at the same time every year instead of wandering about over a period of weeks as it does now (something to do with the Spring equinox and full moons I think - does it matter?) falls into the same category as many other issues where there it is blindingly obvious that something should be done and the vast majority of people want something to be done, but nobody can actually bring it about. Just to dwell on Easter specifically for a moment, it is absurd that Christians should accept that Christmas falls on the same date every year but that Easter does not (yes, yes, I know the Easter Church has a different Christmas, but it is still on the same date every year), after all, both were specific events which, if they did indeed take place (let’s assume they did)took place at a specific time, and did not somehow wander about. Why is Easter different? An expert I heard recently has established that Good Friday occurred on April 5th, 34 AD, i.e. two days after Passover in that year. Passover, by the way, also wanders about for no apparent reason. That’ll do for me. Apparently the rules governing the date of Easter date back so some sort of convocation of clerics in the Middle Ages. I will leave what I think about that to your imagination. So there is a widespread support for fixing the date of Easter, it will help schools (some of which are no longer basing their Spring holiday on Easter but simply having Good Friday and Easter Monday as separate holidays, very sensible except that it causes problems with kids at different schools), it will help businesses and will also help all those involved in the celebration of Easter including vicars and priests. Above all it would be triumph of logic over superstition and inertia So what has this to do with anything? Well quite a bit actually. It falls into the same category as issues like reforming the House of Lords and abolishing Greenwich Meantime (or is it British Summer Time, whatever, changing the clocks, I mean?) and, stretching the point a little, adopting a more sensible voting system for Westminster. We all know it should be done, most want it done, the world would be improved if it were done, but it never gets done. Sometimes it is arguments over detail that create inertia, as in the case of Lords reform, but generally it is because of a lack of political will. In the end the people who could effect change simply can’t stir themselves to do it. They just can’t be bothered. This means that all the good that can flow from reform is lost. What’s the answer? Sometimes it is a crisis or key event of some kind. For example, had the UK elected a second hung parliament in a row in 2015 the calls for a change to the electoral system might have become unstoppable. Until such occurrences happen we have to listen to the voices that say ‘it ain’t broke so let’s not fix it,’ or ‘it has stood the test of time etc.’ The trouble is, very often it is ‘broke’ and it will not stand the test of time any longer, but still the voices of inertia drone on. In the end only two possibilities are left. One is people power and the other is the emergence of a charismatic figure who can lead us into the light. Sadly most of these issues just aren’t important enough so we will have to muddle along for another thousand years. The really sad thing is that the UK is, at least in name, a parliamentary democracy. Parliament has the power, MPs have little enough to do while they are in London, so it’s up to them to stand up and be counted, show a little chutzpah and get on with it. Otherwise what is the use of parliament if it refuses to do slightly difficult things?

The Jeremy Hunt conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory is doing the rounds, well at least the rounds of the North London chatterati, that Jeremy Hunt’s woeful performance as a minister is actually a subtle long term plan to privatise the NHS. Put simply, the idea is that he will prove that the current NHS arrangement is unworkable by stumbling from one crisis to the next, so that getting rid of it will seem like a blessing. My political memory goes back a long way but I cannot remember a senior minister who has so startlingly created such a poor record for themselves another. Worse still, in this case it all seems to be of his own making. There was the case of Labour education minister Estelle Minister who ‘outed’ herself in 2002 as ‘not up to the job,’ but she was not in post for very long and did not perpetrate any major single gaffes. Specifically her department missed its numeracy and literacy targets and she promised to resign if this happened. Well, if ministers resigned when their department missed its targets, the government benches would look pretty empty most of the time, not least George Osborne’s seat. If we go back to the sixties, Frank Cousins, a prominent trade union leader, was found a safe parliamentary seat for Labour and elevated into government (as technology minister - a strange appointment as trade union leaders were notorious at the time for obstructing technological advances on the grounds that they cost jobs). Cousins proved to be incompetent and lasted only twenty months. The Conservatives, too, have appointed a number of ‘business leaders’ who have failed as ministers. It is always difficult to know whether dismissed minister has lost his or her job because they have fallen out with the PM or they simply aren’t up to it, but there has undoubtedly been a cavalcade of poor tenures as long as the list of failed England football managers. Hunt, though, takes the biscuit. Since taking office in the last government he has consistently missed targets, the performance of several key aspects of the NHS has declined, he has failed to secure from the Treasury anything like the funds needed to maintain the service at its current levels, there are now chronic staff shortages, and, of course, he has succeeded in provoking a war with his own loyal employees. By any standards it is a dismal record. Hunt is, I suppose, unlucky in that he compares so badly to a number of ministers who have considerable experience and who have gained the respect of parts of the political community; I mean May, Osborne, Duncan Smith and the like. Beside them Jeremy Hunt increasingly looks like the hapless schoolboy who has forgotten to hand in his homework...again! Before you accuse me of being anti-Conservative, I should say that, when I look over at the Labour benches, I am not sure much better is available. Certainly Andy Burnham was not exactly a roaring success. So what is going on? Certainly Hunt’s survival seems to be largely about the fact that he is a close ally of the prime minister. Cameron needs allies at this difficult time and Hunt is as staunch as they come. But what about the conspiracy theory? I am not normally a fan of such phenomena. I do think that Kennedy was shot by one or two left wing fanatics and not the Mafia, I do believe that man landed on the moon in 1969 and that it was Islamic extremists who flew the planes into the World Trade Centre in 2001 and not the CIA. In this case, though, the Hunt Conspiracy that is, I have to say it seems to hold more water than most of the other theories.

The Football Association and Trident

So what on earth is the link between the English Football Association (or perhaps FIFA) and Trident? The answer is simple....well not that simple. The issue about Trident renewal often boils down to the apparently contradictory principle that Trident is a weapon that can never be used but which nevertheless is believed to be a deterrent. ..and some of its supporters actually state that they would never use it. How can this be? Perhaps a way of solving this apparent conundrum is to consider the case of the Football Association (FA) and the practice of many top footballers of removing their shirts when they score a goal. Some wave them about, some throw them into the crowd and some just put them on again when they have emerged from the heap of players who fall on top of them. Why do they do this? They never used to ‘in the old days’ after all. I suspect it is because they are anxious to show off their impressive torsos in search of a lucrative underwear modelling contract. It cannot be to attract women as their humungously large salaries should do that for them...but I digress. I have not gone mad – there is a link with the Trident issue. The FA do not approve of the practice of shirt removal and want it stopped ( can’t imagine why, it seems rather harmless, but that’s the FA for you – killjoys). To demonstrate their disapproval referees are instructed to issue a yellow card when it happens. Sadly this has not proved a deterrent (ah a glimmer of light). Players do not especially fear yellow cards unless they get two in a match in which case they will be sent off (one player once did remove his shirt twice in a game and was thus dismissed – his manager was less than pleased to say the least). Now, if the FA are serious about stopping shirt removals they can do so at a stroke. Simply instruct referees to issue a red card if a player takes off his shirt after scoring ( a goal, that is, not with his WAG). The practice will immediately stop. No player would risk the ire of his manager and team mates by getting himself sent off for something so trivial. So the red card would be an effective deterrent just as the yellow is not. Thing is, the red card sounds very harsh, but IT WOULD NEVER BE USED. However, the red card will have to continue as a threat or the shirts will start coming off again. I can leave you to figure the rest. I rest my case.

Is the EU more democratic than the UK?

It is almost a pronouncement of faith that the EU is less democratic than, for example, the UK, but does this common assertion stand up to scrutiny? Not necessarily so and the current round of talks on reform instituted by the British government informs us a great deal on this issue. To begin with the criticism that the EU’s policy and decision making bodies, the Commission and the Council, are unelected and unaccountable. This is undeniably true, though the ministers are accountable to their own parliaments and ultimately their people. In the UK the executive operates with a large army of unelected civil servants and advisers while the government itself was elected by only a little over 20% of the qualified electorate (taking into account a turnout of little over 65%). It will not be accountable to the electorate until 2020 and Parliament is showing itself remarkably ineffective in this regard. While on the subject of elections, half the UK Parliament is not elected at all. If we look at regional politics, in the UK the Conservative government can hardly be said to represent the national and sub central regions. The government has no seats in Northern Ireland, one in Scotland and a handful in Wales. Similarly it is in a minority in London seats and has about a third of the seats north of Birmingham. By contrast the EU has mechanisms in place – majority or unanimous voting – that ensure that all the nations of Europe can have their say and can influence final decisions. The current deal being negotiated will require the unanimous approval of all member states. Unlike Scotland, no member country will be forced to accept a change it does not like. In a few months Scotland and Wales might be forced to leave the EU against their will. How democratic is that? Turning to the two parliaments, the EU parliament (Increasingly influential incidentally) lacks a majority for the electorate. Different political groupings can influence in the Parliament by joining alliances with others on specific issues. The European executive cannot bulldoze measures through the parliament by using a secure majority. No such thing exists. The result is that consensus politics rules in the EU Parliament. In the UK, by contrast, as long as government has a Commons majority (based on a popular minority) it can almost guarantee that all its legislation will pass virtually unhindered. So the assumption that, if all the UK’s powers are repatriated we will enjoy greater democracy, cannot be sustained. EU democracy remains highly imperfect, but set against the UK’s democratic deficit, it looks rather more attractive.

Ten years to save the Labour Party

Labour would do well to accept that it will be out of power for at least the next ten years. This may prove to be a blessing in disguise if it handles this reality properly. The upcoming May series of elections may help the party to understand its predicament (predicament is a kind word). It seems to me it must now take a number of steps to survive in the long term: 1. The party will have to split. The new left, ’Corbynite’ grouping must be uncoupled from mainstream centre-left Labour. 2. The new centre-left party (probably called Social Democrats, leaving the title ‘Labour’ for the left wing rump of the party) must amalgamate with the Liberal Democrats. It would be ridiculous to have two parties with an almost identical ideological stance competing against one another. 3. This new Social (Liberal) Democrat party will have to make common cause with the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SNP, stopping short of amalgamation, as these other three parties need to retain their identity. This would prevent them allying with the old Labour left. 4. The new party will have to identify early those people who are potential future leaders. The discredited ‘not so old guard’ of the likes of Burnham, Cooper, Watson etc. must be marginalised in favour of a new cohort, perhaps the likes of Jarvis and Kinnock. 5. The new party would have to accept all the errors made by Labour under Blair and Brown and simply state it will not repeat them. 6. It should concentrate on a few absolutely key issues for the electorate. Among them should be : • Saving the NHS – its principles and its funding. • Increasing spending on education, especially to improve opportunities for school leavers. • Tackling effectively the inequalities in the tax system, especially the affairs of large companies and wealthy individuals. • Reducing taxes, local and national, on small and medium sized businesses. • Introduce the ‘citizens’ income’ now being trialled in Finland • Guaranteeing a generous living wage for all. • Outlawing most zero hours contracts. • Investing in infrastructure, especially outside the South-East, using quantitative easing. • Locking itself into fiscal restraints • Guaranteeing more effective controls over non-EU immigration, while accepting a fair share of asylum seekers and genuine refugees. • Taking steps to disengage the UK from the affairs of the Middle East and North Africa. • Restore spending on policing to pre 2010 levels. • Preserve the BBC as a high quality public service broadcaster • Dedicate more resources to care of the elderly That’s fourteen policies that conform to Labour’s traditional ideology and which can be supported by the vast majority of the people of the UK. There are trickier issues on constitutional reform, defence and welfare, for example, but a clear message on these core key issues would restore much confidence in the party that should occupy the centre ground of politics in the UK. The Beckett approach – keep on with the old policies but present them more effectively - will not do. Nor will burying the party’s head in the sand over its past errors. Whatever one’s own political preferences, it is vital that the UK returns to having an effective second party both to ensure government is accountable and to provide a realistic alternative.

My Country Right Or Left revisited.

Jeremy Corbyn would do well to have a look at George Orwell’s celebrated essay, My Country Right Or Left. Orwell argued in all his works that socialism was and should be a visceral sentiment. In this work, written in 1940 just as world war two threatened to overwhelm the country, he also asserted that without a sense of passion, socialists will simply not have the guts to carry through their ideas into practice. More controversially he argued that patriotism is a vital emotion even for socialists. If one does not have pride in one’s own country, how can one have sufficient motivation to establish socialism in it? This is how he puts it : ....but I would sooner have that kind of upbringing [with patriotic ideals] than be like left wing intellectuals who are so ‘enlightened’ that they cannot understand the most ordinary emotions. It is exactly the people whose hearts have never leapt at the sight of a union jack who will flinch from revolution. Orwell is careful to point out that patriotism is not the same as conservatism, though the two are often hand maidens. The desire to preserve those things that make us feel ‘British’ (Orwell preferred the term, ‘English’) is not necessarily reactionary, it can simply be the product of our upbringing or a desire to improve the lot of our fellow citizens. Even international socialists (and Orwell was one of these too) can justify patriotic feelings, provided, of course they involve pride in values that we would wish to see adopted throughout the world, values such as social justice, tolerance and a love of liberty. Though these may not be associated with Britain’s colonial history, they have certainly become part of our post colonial identity. In his many warnings about the dangers of totalitarianism, Orwell has also reminded us that, without patriotic feeling, love of one’s country becomes love of the state and that road leads to the dystopia he describes in Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Jeremy Corbyn and his cohort may well be falling into the trap of failing to distinguish between country and state.

Labour talking to itself - again

I was interested to read the summary of Margaret Beckett’s recent analysis of why Labour lost the last election. Before commenting on it I think it worth noting that the errors made by the opinion polls were almost certainly a contributory factor in the surprise result, with people fearing a hung parliament and a Labour-SNP alliance, so something needs to be done about the polls to ensure they are carried out more accurately. I could introduce the idea of a conspiracy here because all the polling organisations seem to have made the same basic error – strange that, but, like most conspiracy theories, it is probably wrong. Moving on: The causes of Labour’s defeat are predictable enough – Miliband’s performance and image, perceptions of Labour’s economic competence, fear of an SNP coalition etc. – but that is not really the point, I think. The point is that Beckett’s report is making a classic error. It is an example of politicians talking to each other rather that to the country. Above all the report seems to say that it was perceptions of Labour that were wrong and there was no real substance to them. This implies that the fault for Labour’s defeat lay with the voters’ misconceptions, rather than Labour’s own failings. Take Miliband’s leadership. There is a suggestion here that Miliband actually did well and would have been a good prime minister but that the voters didn’t realise this. Now, most of us who are neutral and can take an objective view , would agree that Miliband did not do well and showed every sign of being a weak prime minister. If we had any doubts, his support for the idea of the ‘tombstone’ of Labour policies proved his poor judgment. I think it was Berthold Brecht, commenting on the East German communist regime, who suggested that the regime would have liked to change the people before it would allow any form of popular democracy and, being unable to do that, it could not allow the people to have any influence. In a mild form, the Beckett; reform suggests the only way Labour could win is if the people themselves were reformed and could ‘see the light.’ The world is not like that. The people are the people, the media are the media and politicians have to live with them. It will not do simply to bleat that ’nobody understands us’

Dishonourable honours

I am far from alone in thinking this years’ honours list a disgrace but let’s start with a quiz. Look at the following honours available and work out what they letters stand for. Having done that, place the honours in order of merit, starting at the bottom. Before you start it is worth noting that the actual lowest form of honour is an invitation to the Queen’s garden party. There you would get a cup of tea, some sort of cake and sandwiches and you are unlikely to meet the Queen herself, though you will have a chat with one of her servants. Sadly you pay your own fare to London. A relative of mine has received this honour this year. She is a Work and Pensions civil servant in Leeds and for over thirty years she has been a major organiser (voluntarily – no pay) to the sporting and recreational life of the offices up there. This involves her in many hours of selfless work week after week so how delighted she must be to be offered a cup of tea and a sandwich and a possible distant glimpse of the Queen in recognition. Now for the honours. See how many you can get : CH, OM, Kt,DCB,KCB,CB,DBE,CBE,OBE,MBE,BEM. A clue is that if you take the official order then turn it upside down you will probably have an accurate rank order of how much the recipients deserve their honours. As a tiebreaker question, what does the E stand for and can you explain where the E is? If there is still a tie explain why bubbly Carry On actress Barbara Windsor has been made a dame for services to acting (sic.) and charity (she does a bit), whereas Benedict Cumberbatch, who works tirelessly for charities and is arguably Britain’s greatest current actor in a strong field, is not granted a knighthood. The eye watering absurdity of it all is plain to see even without thinking about Lynton Crosby and the head of HMRC and serial failure, Lin Margaret. And we haven’t yet considered peerages. Their waters are even murkier. So what can we put in place of the honours system? There are two answers. One is do away with them all. The other is to introduce a single honour like France’s Legion d’Honneur which is reserved only for services to the community outside of a persons’ normal occupation. Sorry A.P McCoy, Denis Law (Denis Law????) and the lady who does Taekwondo but they are your normal occupations so you’d be out. Fortunately there is no money in it (apart from peerages) so anyone who has ‘bought’ their honour, more fool them. By definition, if your vanity is so highly inflated that you want to spend money on it then you don’t deserve it anyway, the honour is hollow and you know it, a bit like playing golf alone and cheating. Does it matter? Probably not but it is REALLY annoying isn’t it? And I am not saying that because I didn’t get one yet again. Go on honours committee – give me one just to prove me wrong. I’ll take an OBE.

Parliament - A new golden age?

The period between the first and second reform acts in the nineteenth century is often described as the golden age of parliament. This was because both houses were characterised by shifting parties and factions, with many other radical MPs thrown in so that every vote was hard fought over. Party discipline was weak and no administration could feel itself secure in securing its legislation. Furthermore it was an age of great orators, men who were capable of influencing a vote through the sheer force of their argument and the quality of their rhetoric. The result was that governments were forced to seek a consensus over each individual issue. This model of parliamentary politics can also be frequently seen in the USA, though it often results there in deadlock rather than consensus. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suggest we are now entering a new golden era. It may, of course, turn out to be short lived, little more than a mini-era, , but we can hopefully enjoy it while the going is good. Two examples illustrate this. The first was the Lords’ rejection of the reduction in working tax credits, a decision that was confirmed in Osborne’s latest spending review. By the way, on that subject, the normally sure footed Osborne missed a trick, I think, by not accepting that he had been persuaded by the force of argument rather than claiming that he had accidentally discovered more money he didn’t know he had. It would have been more politically astute, I feel. The second was, of course, the Commons debate on intervention in Syria. Maybe we have become too cynical about the behaviour of MPs (with good cause in many cases). To hear some of the excellent speeches, Benn’s in particular, and, to see members visibly moved by the debate and the issue, was indeed striking and heart warming. We live in an age of a perfect parliamentary storm, I suppose. A government with a fragile majority, leading a party that is in garrulous mood with splits over foreign policy, Europe and austerity, a fragmented opposition and a completely hung House of Lords which is in the mood to defy the government if it feels like it – witness the recent amendment to allow 16 and 17 years olds to vote on the EU referendum, against government policy. The cabinet may have the devil of a job to overturn the amendment in the Commons, even if it is in the mood to try. Consensus building is an art form and it looks like the government is going to have to learn it fast. They did, however, make a very good start over the Syrian issue.

Helping A level Government and Politics students

Casa asked me about helping students studying government and politics independently, i.e. with no tuition etc. The best advice is to look at the Philip Allan publisher site a they have a wide range of materials, some of which can be used independently, for example a Workbook I wrote a couple of years ago. I also have my own materials. Contact neil_mcnaughton@hotmail.com and I can send some free. Hope this helps.

Corbyn and emotional intelligence

I have been concerned about Jeremy Corbyn's poor educational record from the start but now wonder about his social and emotional intelligence. I refer to his responses to Paris. This is not a time for deep analysis of geopolitics, nor is it a time to rake over past errors by Western powers. Political leaders need to show some nous at times like this. Empathy is needed more than lectures. On the shoot to kill issue (call it summary execution if you will), I also think he has misjudged things. When confronted with people who are prepared to lose their own life and take others with them, who have suicide belts on and are heavily armed, the idea of clapping them on the shoulder and saying,' come on now sonny, are you going to come quietly?'simply won't do. It is also a moot point whether this kingd of terrorism counts as warfare so the rule of law has to be suspended. Whatever the view, this is no time for such philosophising, it is a time for sorrow as well as vigilance. IS (please let's find another name - how about Stone Age fascism?) are beyond the pale however much we have messed up in the Middle East. That has to be stated firmly. Having said all that British politics may be better off with Corbyn. Apart from his healthier approach to discourse, he may well shift Labour away from its obsession with the centre ground and help it to become a real opposition of the centre-left. He won't survive, I'm sure, but theatre he leaves may have a new heart.

What is the House of Lords for?

First off let's cut through some woolly thinking and explanations by commentators over whar happened in the Lords last Monday. Leaving aside the issue of what the Lords can and cannot do with statutory instruments, there are two limitations on the Lords that are relevant here. One is the Parliament Act of 1911 which forbids the Lords from blocking money matters undertaken by the Government. The other is the Salisbury Doctrine dating from the 1940s. This is an unwritten convention that forbids the Lords from obstructing any measure that was contained in the governing party's last election manifesto. Now the most dramatic interpretation of what happened is that the Lords offended both these constitutional restrictions. A different view says they offended neither. Supporters of the former view argue that the proposed tax credit cuts are a money matter and that the Conservatives' manifesto commitment to reduce the budget deficit is being challenged here. Those who take the latter view suggest this was a welfare, not a money matter and that the Tories did not include tax credit cuts specifically in their 2015 manifesto. In other words the measure was fair game. The problem here is that there is no one to adjudicate. Both interpretations are compelling and could be supported. So we need a person or committee, along the lines of the US Rules Committee, that can say whether something is subject to the Parliament Act or the Salisbury Doctrine ( which should be enacted to clarify it). Not difficult really. More seriously, we need to ask questions about the role of the Lords. It comes down to this simple question. If the Lords does not have the power to delay a decision and ask the Commons and the Government to re-consider, what is it for? Osborne joked it might be abolished, but it should be if it is to have no meaningful powers. OK some peers do excellent work improving legislation at Report Stage, but it does not need over 800 of them to do this. It is incontrovertible to say that we cannot have key decisions like this made by people who are completely unaccountable, however well intentioned they may be.

China comes to town

Two things strike me as interesting or thought provoking in the visit of President Shi this week. The first is that I notice that Jeremy Corbyn agreed to dress up in a frock coat suit for the banquet. I am glad to see this. he does need to stop fighting small battles and concentrate on major issues. China is a major issue, including our relations with them. Absenting himself would have been pointless. he does need to take part in political exchanges like this in order to gain the authority to speak about them. So, good for him. he can now speak his mind. The second question is whether we should be dealing with the Chinese leadership at all. I think the answer is yes. I take as my lesson the situation with Russia currently. By being understandably antagonistic we have forced the disreputable Putin into a defensive corner. Authoritarian regimes, when backed into a corner do not tend to make concessions, they simply become more defensive, paranoid and brutal. It may be painful to deal with the Chinese but I believe the best hope for any liberalisation of their regime is if we have dealings with them and they become exposed to a different way of doing things. Surely the Chinese should be impressed by the fact that Britain can, at the same time, appear militaristic, aristocratic and shrouded in our own history, and yet allow reporters such as the BBC's to ask provocative questions of visitors. Surely they see that the decision to allow investment in our nuclear industry is being made subject to democratic scrutiny. We don't have a perfect democracy but we it is a democracy and it does not threaten the integrity of the state. Making enemies of the Chinese will do no good to either country. We can become a critical friend and that is what we should be. I don't expect Jeremy Corbyn to concur, but I happy that he is taking part in the game and not just shouting abuse from the touchline.

An explanation of the results of the 2020 general election

Since my last post giving the results of the 2020 general election events have moved on a little, but not much. I said that I thought UKIP would lose its only seat because Britain would vote to stay in the EU and so the party would have nowhere to go. Well, I still think they will have no seats after 2020 but for a different reason. Farage this week has hinted that the party will effectively dissolve itself if Britain votes to leave the EU. It may re-appear in another form, some kind of populist, anti-vested interest party, but UK Independence would look a little strange. Perhaps it will start campaigning against devolution and immigration alone. The migrant crisis, which looks set to run on for many years, has changed the context of the EU referendum and certainly strengthens the UKIP case for leaving and regaining control over our borders. Britain is already largely sealed off from the situation and leaving the EU would give an extra safeguard which would, I think, be widely popular. The Greens will change Natalie Bennett I expect but may hang on to their Brighton seat because Caroline Lucas is a one-off and very popular. They will be unlikely to make gains and might fall back in terms of votes if there is a Corbynite socialist (Old Labour) party contesting the election. Now to the nub of it. I cannot see any way forward for Labour other than to split. The party is now divided three ways, between the old centrist guard, the members plus supporters and the voters. An Old Labour Party could win some seats in the North (taking votes from UKIP) and maybe Scotland, but not so many, hence the low number. ‘New Labour’ would hang on to a substantial number of its traditional seats in Wales, the North West, Midlands and London but lose even more to the Conservatives than it did in 2015. Jarvis looks best placed to lead this group, though Kinnock junior has a shot. I think the Liberal Democrats can expect a partial recovery under Farron who appeals to a certain type of liberal (young idealists). The party is adding members and may find a niche, as Farron suggests, tucked between New Labour and Old Labour. But all this is overshadowed by the strong likelihood that the Conservatives will win the next election by an old style country mile. The referendum will paper over the cracks in the party; probably George Osborne will be the new leader with a good track record as Chancellor behind him (shades of Brown before the financial crisis swept him away) and still enjoying the proverbial honeymoon period, and the electoral system will work hugely in their favour, given the increasingly fragmented nature of the centre-left. I think my estimate of the majority might be conservative (no pun intended).

The Result of the 2010 General Election

Here is the result of the 2020 General Election (assuming there are still 650 seats – adjust accordingly if the number is reduced). Conservative 398. Led by George Osborne New Labour 120. Led by Dan Jarvis Old Labour 36. Led by Jeremy Corbyn Liberal Democrat 26. Led by Tim Farron SNP 45. Led by Nicola Sturgeon Plaid Cymru 5. Led by Leanne Wood Green 2. Led by Jenny Jones Northern Ireland Seats 18. Led by various UKIP 0. Led by Nigel Farage Others 0. Conservative Majority: 146 Next time I shall try to explain these results. They are based, incidentally, on the assumption that the UK will vote to remain a member of the EU. All bets are off if we don’t.

Post Corbyn scenarios

Whatever happens in the labour leadership election, the party will probably never be the same again. There, though, are a number of scenarios that spring to mind. Let’s start by assuming Corbyn wins – not a given especially in view of the recent poor performance of opinion polls, but it looks increasingly likely. What will happen? Here are the possible outcomes: 1. If there are extensive legal challenges to the result. These will drag on for ages and destroy the party making it totally unelectable for a generation. It is really an unthinkable scenario, but it could happen. 2. If the result is accepted there remains the question, how will the Labour MPs react? It seems likely that many of them will simply not follow Corbyn and will not accept him as the parliamentary leader. We then have two Labour Party groups in Parliament. The non-Corbyn group will have to choose a leader and this will be either Burnham or Cooper. 3. If this split continues it might become formalised and we have two main opposition parties. 4. A strong possibility in this circumstance could be negotiations between the non Corbyn Party and the Liberal Democrats. This effectively mirrors the circumstances of the mid 1980s when the Liberal Democrat Party was formed from an alliance between the Liberals and the breakaway Social Democrats. 5. Fast forward to the 2020 election and we have a possibility of two Labour Party’s fighting each other for seats. If they have any sense (not much has been shown so far) they will engage in electoral pacts to avoid them standing against each other in winnable seats. The Corbynites would contest seats in Scotland, the North of England, parts of London and the Midlands, while the non Corbyinites, now joined with the Liberal Democrats would contest the rest of England and Wales on a centrist/centre left ticket. 6. The Conservatives would win such an election, of course (barring strange events in the meantime) but the left of centre would at least have re-aligned itself on rational lines. If Corbyn does not win Labour looks set to drift on towards inevitable defeat in 2020, with a mass of defections among the grass roots membership. What OUGHT to happen if Corbyn does not win, is the party should consider carefully why he has proved to be so popular, in other words undertake a sensible debate about why the Corbyn message chimes with so many people and act on it. I suppose the real problem is that neither the Corbyn plan or the Burnham/Cooper position can win an election. The best Labour can hope for is to shore up its existing support, so the question is which position is most likely to do this. The answer is that, in some places – Scotland and deprived areas of England and Wales – the Corbyn plan would win seats, while in others parts of the North, Midlands and London, it is the centrist position that can win. This suggests two different parties which may well be what happens. Happily for Conservatives and sadly for Labour even this partnership does not add up to more than three hundred seats. The key may lie with the Liberal Democrats. Let’s not write them off yet.

The Corbyn Effect

If nothing else happens in the Labour leadership contest Jeremy Corbyn’s intervention has already had its effect. This is revealed in Andy Burnham’s ‘manifesto’, recently unveiled. We have to believe that such measures as rail nationalisation (albeit gradually), a bigger rise in the minimum wage than even Osborne proposes and the replacement of tuition fees with a graduate tax would not have been on Burnham’s horizon had Corbyn not found such traction with his extreme left agenda. Burnham now looks set to win the contest on second preferences, always assuming that Corbyn can’t make 50% or near on first ballot. The real point is that there is a large constituency which feels unrepresented by the main parties in the UK. That Labour will not win the next election, barring unforeseen disasters for the Government, is not in much doubt, but at least there will at least be a powerful voice in parliament speaking up for the low paid and the young with limited horizons and mountains of debt. In other words Corbyn and now Burnham have learned the SNP lesson.

Why are we surprised by Corbyn's popularity?

It is interesting to see the huge convulsion that Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘charge’ has caused both inside politics and in the media. There seem to be four explanations for the phenomenon. First, The right wing press assume that it is the ‘true’ heart of Labour being revealed after many years of Blairism. In other words, since the early 1990s Labour has only been pretending to be a centrist party. The left, lurking in the unions, in dark corners of urban local government and at the universities, has used the opportunity of Labour’s defeat to reveal itself. This chimes with their obsession with ‘entryism’. Second, the more thoughtful elements in the media, such as Andrew Rawnsley in his excellent article in today’s (August2) Observer, point out that Labour has always been a divided party, between the Blairite centre and the left. The Blairites are perceived to have lost and so party members want the left to have a go. The same happens with the Conservatives. Whenever they lose an election, their right wing gains the ascendancy (look at Howard’s brief leadership). There is a third explanation which comes from the left itself. This suggests that a large proportion of the country is effectively unrepresented when Labour takes up a centrist position. These are union members in traditional industries, people on low paid jobs who have to rely on benefits and the young who see their opportunities to be limited. The prospect of massive postgraduate debt, poor job opportunities and unaffordable housing, inevitable drives this last group into the arms of the left. This group must have been dismayed to hear Labour’s leaders accepting welfare benefit caps, high tuition fees, lukewarm policies on jobs for the young and very modest house building ambitions. In Scotland they had somewhere to go – the SNP - but no such luck in England. Small wonder they are flocking (sorry to use an animal based verb, I hear they are no longer pc) to the Corbyn camp. A fourth explanation comes from all quarters and is that Corbyn is authentic, is principled and says what he believes, while other politicians say what they think the centre ground of the electorate want to hear. Of course Labour used to have such a candidate, but he has, for whatever reason, ruled himself out. That is Alan Johnson. The doom mongers on the left are probably right. Labour cannot win another election for some time to come but it won’t be Corbyn’s fault, it will be caused by the absurd electoral system we use and the paucity of suitable, dominant and charismatic figures from the centre of the party. Even if David Miliband does ride over the horizon to try to pick up the pieces in two or three years time, the damage done to Labour may well be unrepairable. The centre left in British politics is fragmented and the centre right is not. There is no getting away from that. For those who take up a centrist position on politics, there is one crumb of comfort. Now that the Conservatives look set for a long period in power, they are showing every signs of avoiding a lurch to the right, so whether we have a Cameron/Osborne government in the years to come (which now looks a certainty), or a Cooper/Burnham one (which looks very unlikely), most people will not be able to tell the difference. It is the Corbyn constituency that needs to worry.