Cassilis

On CiF last Monday Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial Relations at Hertfordshire University, took Polly Toynbee to task - not for her diagnosis of societal ills (which he praised) but for her suggested remedies"

"she is also one of the most frustrating commentators because, after correctly identifying the main agents of social injustice and inequality, she then appeals, illogically, to these selfsame people to change their wicked ways"

I'm guessing Polly didn't read Gregors article because she does the exact same thing today with a muddle-headed article on tax law. The thrust is an effort to shame big corporations and wealthy individuals who employ expensive tax lawyers to avoid paying their 'fair share' of tax:

"The Guardian's revelation of Tesco's Cayman Islands tax arrangements reminds the world that our tax lawyers are world-beating at "tax-efficiency". When such an emblematic company takes such steps, it speaks volumes about national tax avoidance culture. Check out the recent report The Missing Billions from tax expert Richard Murphy, for the TUC, who identified £25bn of tax lost from the exchequer. He lists major companies whose tax payments don't begin to reflect the size of business and profits they seem to command in Britain. Note the tiny tax paid by BSkyB, Hanson, and Legal & General. It may be legal but that's not the point: profitable companies shouldn't be able to shuffle assets to pay less tax. Where is the public shame at "socially responsible" companies avoiding the spirit of the law?"

The key phrase (although not for the reasons Polly would suspect) is the one underlined and in bold - the entire point here is that these are legal activities. But - and here's the bit open to misunderstanding - by stressing that this is legal tax avoidance I'm definitely not saying 'tough Polly, it's legal - you don't have a case' - I'm suggesting that should be the core of your case. Instead of an article largely built on trying to shame businesses and wealthy people into paying more tax than they legally have to (an absurd proposition - none of us do it) it should be an article shaming Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling into changing the law in the first place. There is some of that in the article of course but the balance is all wrong - the overall tone is one of berating big business and wealthy individuals for simply keeping to the letter (if not spirit) of the law. I guess that's a function of Polly letting her political allegiances get in the way of an otherwise good point she has to make and that's part of the criticisms Gregor Gall made earlier in the week.

I'm on Polly's right politically but I'd still support far more stringent tax laws too prevent these avoidance tactics - but while they’re legal let’s keep our criticisms for the government for letting them stand, not the people or companies for using them.

A common theme in most of the pieces rallying to Michael Martin’s defence is that there’s a snobbish element in the Tory party who’ve never been comfortable with his working class Scots background and broad Paisley accent. I’ve no idea if this is true but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was – any pressure on Martin rooted in such attitudes should be roundly resisted.

A thought occurs though – how many of those on the left who’ve cried foul over this agenda were happy to poke fun at David Cameron over that infamous Bullingdon photo, regularly call attention to his expensive education and remind people that he’s descended from William IV? More than a few I’m willing to bet.

Neither Martin nor Cameron’s social background should have the slightest impact on how we judge them – that should be on merit alone. I’m not sure those rallying to the Speakers defence have always stood by that line of thinking….

Since the news that Fidel Castro had formally stepped down I’ve been getting increasingly irritated by the wilfully blind tributes paid to him by some on the left. Granted there’s nothing new in political traditions being blind to the failings of their own dictators but that doesn’t excuse it – Harriet Harman’s idiotic comments are just the most recent and deplorable example.

I had been working up a post on this but I’m happy to defer to Danny Finkelstein in today’s Times – he’s making the same point I wanted to but with more aplomb and he’s worth quoting at length:

"Its been almost 60 years since my grandfather's arrest and 50 years since the Soviets invaded Hungary. The Prague Spring has come and gone, the Gdansk shipyard strike is history, the Berlin Wall has fallen. We've read Robert Conquest tell of Stalin's murderous deeds and Jung Chang tell of Mao's. We've watched films about the Stasi and recoiled in disgust at the opulent lives of the Ceausescus. We know that Alger Hiss was guilty and that there was, after all, a communist conspiracy in America. We've read Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky. We know.

Yet still the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, the Leader of the House of Commons, a member of the Cabinet, is in love with Fidel. When asked, earlier this week, in an interview: “Fidel Castro - authoritarian dictator or hero of the Left?” she answered unhesitatingly - “hero of the Left”.

Which brings me to this question - Why? Why does she think that? Why would she say that? Let's eliminate from our inquiries the idea that Fidel was somehow better than the rest of them, better than Honecker and so forth. Those cigars, those battle fatigues, that beard. Kinda cool, no? No. Death sentences for those who want to flee, prison sentences for dissidents, gags for the press, jail for homosexuals, ruinous central planning for the economy, his support for a nuclear first strike against America, his opposition to any kind of reform, his four-hour long speeches, his personality cult. Fidel Castro was just like the rest of them.

So if we want to understand Ms Harman's response, it is not enough just to think about Cuba. We have to understand why parts of the Left, people who think of themselves as impeccably liberal, still think of communism as an heroic doctrine and communists as basically well meaning and a bit “alternative”. It's a pervasive attitude that goes well beyond politicians. Go to Tate Modern and you will find an exhibition of Soviet art - workers joyfully producing tractors or some such. In the bookshop you can buy a book of posters from the cultural revolution. Hitler memorabilia is not on sale. They wouldn't dream of having a room full of artfully designed Juden Raus! posters.

I struggle a little to understand the distinction being made here, but I think it is this. It's not that the liberals are unaware that millions died under Mao and under Stalin. It's just that they think it was different. Hitler had a killing machine; under Mao (“the greatest man of the 20th century”, according to Tony Benn) and Stalin many people just up and died.

Which leaves me with one final reason for the Left's attitude to communism - that anyone who defies the United States is somehow seen as a valiant progressive, whatever their crimes. I am sure that Castro's resistance to the US is a major reason for Harriet Harman's admiration.

From time to time, Left thinkers make an effort to reconcile liberals and America. From Tony Crosland in the Fifties to Jonathan Freedland's admirable and convincing book Bring Home the Revolution, the efforts have failed. Almost anyone - a homophobic, misogynist Islamist cleric for example - is given some credit if the US is their punchbag.

A few months ago the Tory candidate Nigel Hastilow had to resign for saying that Enoch Powell may have had a point. And it was right that he went. Calling Fidel Castro a hero is worse"

Welcome to week 4 on the Think Tank Roundup and we're back on the domestic front for most of this weeks selections. As ever, your feedback is welcome and if you spot something you think I should flag here let me know via email.

Compass

• Lest you think I ignored Neal Lawson's merry band at Compass last week for any ideological reasons, it's just their output is such that they could merit a weekly roundup on their own! Still, worth a look this week is a piece on 100+ leading figures from "centre-left, civil society and from all corners of the UK" rallying behind Livingstone's campaign for a 3rd term as London Mayor - "London is a fairer, more tolerant and sustainable city because of Ken Livingstone and all that is put in jeopardy unless we act".
• Also on Compass this week a paper on the 'democratisation of the workplace' - "People are becoming more autonomous, they want to self-manage their lives and are throwing off the shackles of deference. But power cannot be switched off when they clock on. People have a right to influence how their workplace is run"

Institute for Public Policy Research

• A couple of very interesting papers from IPPR on the wider implications of devolution for UK politics. The first, from Strathclyde Professor John Curtice, looks at the implications for the union of the 2007 Holyrood elections that installed Alex Salmond as First Minister. Curtice points out that "there is little support within England for ending the Union or for the creation of an English Parliament - which only 22 per cent support. But.. the English do want something done about the perceived inequities of devolution, such as the public spending disparities between England and Scotland and Scottish MPs voting on English matters." Curtice argues that this isn't a big political issue at the moment but has the potential to create real tension in the future.
• The second paper, by Michael Kenny, argues that the government have failed to properly "engage with the growing sense of English identity, and in particular needs to address the position of England within a post-devolved UK as part of its plans for future constitutional reform"
• IPPR also hosted the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne speaking on 'Managed Migration and Earned Citizenship' - the topic that caused such a row last week. There's an MP3 of Gordon's speech and the subsequent Q&A session.

The Heritage Foundation

• Quick one here giving you an American take on the Lisbon Treaty - Sally McNamara spells out why the US should be concerned about the treaty and it's implications for the 'special relationship' and EU-US relations in general - "If there was ever a time for the White House to become unnerved about further European integra­tion, this is it. The Lisbon Treaty is like no other. It spells out the central political goal of ever-closer union, which will ultimately distance London from Washington."

What does it actually mean to say Gordon Brown or David Cameron ‘won’ PMQs and is there any objective way of verifying that victory? I ask because as tomorrow’s contest looms bloggers are probably lining up for the usual tedious spats calling victory for their man and humiliation for their opponent. Last week Iain Dale called for Cameron on Sky News, much to the chagrin of Chris Paul, and Labour blogger Hopi Sen regularly ruins his otherwise interesting observations on PMQs by calling for Brown regardless of how either man actually performs (touchingly loyal I suppose). So is there an objective way to cut through this mire…?

First up – how to determine victory. The one definite thing you can say here is that victory can’t be ascribed with reference to the policy or the substance of the arguments, certainly not in any objective way. In the 30min slot we regularly get everything from grand foreign policy pronouncements to local litter schemes so it’s naïve to expect any worthwhile detail to emerge from it. Besides, neither party views the encounter as an opportunity to make their case or deliver fatal blows to their opponents. The ‘theatre’ tag may be a cliché but it’s apt – this is about performance alone.

What about reaction in the house? Again, difficult to get any sort of objectivity here since both sides are whipped to within an inch of their lives to whoop and holler at their man’s lines and scornfully dismiss the comebacks. It’s not hard to spot when this reaction isn’t entirely genuine though and depending on the political context in the run up you can normally anticipate how animated the supporting cast will be. Failing to appear suitably impressed with your leaders performance might raise some eyebrows but being too openly appreciative of the witty one-liners coming from the opposite benches will definitely catch the attention of the sketch writers (and, no doubt, the whips).

As for reaction beyond the house, this is probably as close as we get to a reliable way to call victory for either party. Not that it’s that close – or that reliable - but the media reaction is how most of the disinterested apolitical masses ‘decide’ who got the upper hand at PMQs. A killer line or a clearly flustered response will usually draw a unanimous response from the sketch & leader writers and if it’s a slow enough news day (or there’s a big political story) then the main news bulletins can be expected to run with it that evening. Ironically the best recent example came not from one of the main parties but from the acting leader of the Lib Dems when Vince Cable forever saddled Gordon Brown with the ‘Mr Bean’ tag. People will have their own views on where Boulton & Robinson loyalties lie or whether Hoggart & Letts are letting their politics cloud their judgement but on the rare occasions when all these players agree on an outcome you can be pretty certain it’s a fair judgement.

So, if there is a clear victor is it important or in any way relevant to the wider political context? The lesson of history has to be no – although again, context is important. Conventional wisdom had William Hague wiping the floor with Tony Blair every week and if I recall the sketch-writers broadly agreed – that clearly had no long-term political impact, largely because in all other respects the Tories were a complete mess and Blair was still bathed in the glow of victory. Likewise when Michael Howard faced Blair, their encounters were entertaining and probably evenly matched over the course even although the polls never followed suit. The key thing to note about the current encounters is that the context has changed markedly – even among hostile commentators the Tories are now considered serious contenders and that colours their call on who wins. In short, where Blair could afford to ‘lose’ every other PMQ (if not more), Brown can’t and the media know it. And while ‘victories’ for Hague or Howard yielded little political traction, for Cameron they could prove very valuable.

So, in short, the best shot we have at independent arbiters are the main sketch-writers and political editors and at the end of the day their call won’t have a tremendous impact on political fortunes anyway. Makes me wonder why I’ve I just spent 700 words on this if I’m honest…

There are few things as unappealing in a politician as an obvious sense of entitlement and if you're looking for the one thing that probably did for Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Presidency that's it. It's not over yet of course and she may still secure the nomination but if she does then her arrogance and haughty demeanour will be the biggest hurdle she clears in doing so.

As far back as last summer, long before Illinois Senator Barack Obama provided such an inspirational alternative, lots of people who were desperate to see the back of George W. Bush still had an uneasy feeling about the woman most likely, at that time, to replace him. She's routinely described as a divisive figure and there's no shortage of 'hatchet job' pieces going back to her time as First Lady. Even the nominally positive profiles usually contain standard political euphemisms - for 'fiercely loyal' read 'challenge her and you're finished', for 'determined' read 'utterly ruthless' etc. When anyone draws attention to this the Clinton campaign dismisses it as misogyny and moves on but the similarity and sheer volume of these character sketches can't be ignored.

Last November she told CBS's Katie Couric that the nomination was all but hers:

• Formidable intellect and an impressive grasp of detail and policy.
• Perceived lack of warmth and an inability to smile with any sincerity.
• High-minded approach to politics and a dismissive attitude towards opponents.
• Brooks no dissent.
• Long-time association with a previous administration.

You'll have noticed I'm introducing a few new regular slots on the blog - the mid-week Think Tank Roundups and my Head-to-Head pieces being the recent examples. I still plan to post regular content as and when stories take my interest but I guess these are just my efforts to counter the fact that I have a day job and so can't sit and react to stories that break or every little bit of gossip that emerges elsewhere.

Since I love art I'm going to try and do a short daily 'Gallery' post - few, if any, words and just a painting or piece of art that has some resonance or link to contemporary events. To kick of today 'The Camden Town Murder' by Walter Sickert, linked for a variety of reasons to the 'Jack the Ripper' case and brought to mind by two horrible stories over the last few days.....

Labels: gallery

On CiF today Polly Toynbee urges Labour MP's & ministers to be bold and put their weight behind Andrew Miller's private member's bill to give agency workers the same pay and conditions as everyone else. She levels the common accusation that senior Labour figures are so terrified of continued association with 'old Labour' themes that on some areas they're actually to the right of Cameron. But what is the Tory position on this bill?

All this bill does is insist that temporary or agency workers get the same pay & conditions as permanent workers - it doesn't force anything else on employers and certainly would prevent the hiring of temporary staff. CBI suggestions that this would cost 250,000 jobs have to be nonsense because these are service jobs that need to be done. So why is there such a a resounding silence from bloggers and commentators from the right on this issue? Cameron has spoken passionately about work / life balance and the need to support families and there are few things that speak to this as strongly as supporting temporary workers, many of whom are mothers trying to make a few extra bob. I always struggle with the fact that Conservative commentators never seem to engage with these issues and it explains (and partly justifies) why the Conservatives still attract a 'nasty' tag.

So come on Tory bloggers - let's either get behind Andrew's bill or hear a reasoned argument against paying temporary workers the same as their permanent counterparts (and no obtuse or generalised arguments about state interference or flexibility please). And I'm aware that any lingering respect Tory readers have for me will probably be demolished by this post - I'm already so 'wet' as to risk drowning but hey, I am what I am.

.One of the least attractive traits on the political right is the tendency to demonise any state involvement in business & enterprise and romanticise the private sector beyond all proportion. In his thoughtful and intelligent response to the Northern Rock story Will Hutton in the FT demolishes this nicely:

"....there is an ongoing symbiotic relationship between the state and enterprise, of which nationalisation is the ultimate example. There are few companies in the FTSE 100 that have not in some way had their franchise today shaped, supported and helped by government action. Companies are embedded in the society in which they trade. They use its transport system and public buildings; their staff are educated and trained by public institutions; their consumers live in the same territorial jurisdiction; their ideas, values and processes are borrowed from the society around them. They are shaped by public law, custom and practice and foreign policy. The free-market fundamentalist proposition that the market is the spontaneous natural condition and any form of public interaction is therefore unnatural – which feeds Northern Rock shareholders’ extraordinary sense of entitlement – is to misdescribe reality. Claims that the public’s embrace is an automatic palsy on enterprise are just ideological. Both sectors are indispensable and interdependent"

Quite. And of course, with only slight alterations in tone and focus that paragraph would serve equally well in demolishing the all too common belief on the left that private enterprise is inherently unethical or selfish and provides few soft benefits for society.

Hutton's grasp of what this relationship is really like shames both main parties - Labour because its desire to demonstrate its rejection of socialism means it can't bring itself to be tough on business when it needs to be and the Tories because of their continued belief that any state interference is somehow inimical to successful enterprise.

Welcome to week 3 on the roundup and a distinctly international flavour to this weeks selections.

The Henry Jackson Society

• I referenced this article by Robert Simcox late last week anyway but worth including here again. HJS identify, and welcome, the continuity between Blair's famous Chicago speech on liberal interventionism and David Miliband's speech at Oxford last week. Whether Miliband would appreciate the suggestion that his speech was 'Reagan-esque' is another matter.
• HJS also have a interesting & succinct response to Kosovo's declaration of independence. They suggest the episode symbolises many of the challenges that Europe faces today and also point out that US and NATO assets were key to the resolution both of the 1999 Kosovo crisis and the subsequent battle for independence - in the view of HJS their continued involvement in European affairs should be welcomed and encouraged.

Royal United Services Institute

• I don't have the stomach to find and link to the Daily Mail's take on this article again but if you want to cut through their despicable agenda and actually read the article it's worthwhile. Still not good reading for the government, Professor Gwyn Prins and Lord Salisbury suggest that 'flabby and bogus strategic thinking' is a fundamental source of danger to the security of the United Kingdom. Their article expresses the consensus of an influential group of former military chiefs, diplomats, analysts and academics.

The Heritage Foundation

• A few interesting selections from the respected US think tank - starting with a white paper from Stuart Butler on the fiscal problems facing the US Social Insurance program.
• A lecture from William Voegeli on why the case for limited government is such a difficult one for US conservatives to make.
• A background piece on what Obama \ Clinton \ McCain will need to do to prepare the US military for the next 10 years.
• And finally today a bit of fun (in a sad, nerdy sense) from Edwin Feulner on landmark dates in Conservative history - you may want to challenge his selection or broaden it to include landmark dates in political history as a whole...?

That's it for this week - briefer than before but hope there's something of interest anyway. I've made it to week 3 so this seems to be worthwhile but, as ever, your feedback on this is welcome and if you spot something you think I should flag here let me know.

Labels: Think Tank Roundups

Just finished Alan Bennett's excellent novella 'The Uncommon Reader' - a (presumably!) fictional account of what follows when the Queen develops an all-consuming passion for reading, books and authors. Funny, a little subversive and well worth a read, particularly for the wonderful slights Bennett puts in the Queen's mouth for politicians of all stripes. Highly recommended.

Even if they appear so in retrospect, the events that define political death rarely stand out as such at the time. Neither do the politicians that eventually 'take the hit' for those events always deserve what they get. In that sense the Northern Rock episode probably won't have an immediate impact on the polls and it's clearly nonsense to lay the blame for the whole thing at Alastair Darling's door - but none of that means this won't have very serious political consequences for the government.

I doubt many voters really understand what happened with Northern Rock and fewer still are inclined to better that understanding. They know there was a run on a bank, the government had to step in to find a buyer and, having failed to do so the bank was nationalised - that's about it. If pressed they'd probably acknowledge that this was a markets thing, something global and beyond our control and, as I suggested above probably wouldn't draw any immediate political conclusions from it. But these things have a habit of lingering in the public consciousness, becoming character-defining events that somehow typify the politicians in office when they occurred. This happens even when the events are actually pretty tangential to government policy. Popularity operates on an exponential curve and by the time they are kicked from office governments end up taking the hit for ridiculous things they had nothing to do with (as well as many they did of course). It's why a disproportionate number of successful campaigns are built on the 'change' theme - it taps into general unease and gives people an opportunity to vent by kicking someone powerful where it hurts and hoping this change will trickle down into inconsequential little areas in their lives that politics never touched in the first place.

In this sense Northern Rock is a disaster for the government, however valid most of the claims that there was little different they could've done. The seasoned strategists in Brown's circle will know this and it'll be interesting to see how it's played. And finally, if you want proof of how serious this is for the government look at this leader in the Guardian today:

Via the Foreign Policy blog, 25 year old Brazilian artist Icaro Doria and his 'Meet the World' project. Clever & thoughtful - a couple of favourites below and more here...

Each week, from all the comment pieces in the regular media I'm going to try and pull out an issue where writers have effectively gone 'head-to-head' and taken directly contrary views on something. The idea being to make a call on which case is the most robust, irrespective of where my personal sympathies might lie. This week Simon Heffer and Joan Bakewell on Government plans to introduce five hours of high-quality cultural activities to schools each week.

In the Telegraph Heffer is appalled by what he sees as 'Stalinist' interference by New Labour, dismissing them en masse as "half-educated, boorish acolytes". He's doubtful that the government's definition of 'high-quality culture' is one that everyone would agree on but at root his objection is more fundamental than that: the idea that the state should provide this culture at all.

"If parents wish their children to be more cultured, there is much they can do about it for little or no outlay, if only they have the will or the imagination. They can switch on the wireless. They can take them to a library. They can take them to a gallery or a museum. If they can't be bothered to do this - and I can see that watching football on television of a weekend, accompanied by six-packs of lager and cancer-sticks, may be a superior priority - then their schools should do it for them. Why does this require the state to order these five hours?"

He then reminds us that most of our cultural greats seemed to have reached the heights they did without the help of the state:

"How was it that we had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton or Wordsworth without their having the inestimable benefit of Arts Council poetry workshops? Where did Constable, Turner, Landseer or Leighton come from without their first being community artists, on state bursaries? And how on earth did we get Jane Austen, George Eliot, Dickens or Graham Greene without their coming through the bruising testing-ground of a taxpayer-cushioned writership in residence at an ex-polytechnic?"

Heffer's piece is typically rumbustious and we should remember the man makes his living by provoking a reaction. He even jokes at the outset that he's filled with such 'profound' and 'sulphurous' rage that this might even make him vote for Cameron. Cutting through all this though I think he makes his case reasonably well.

In the Independent Bakewell kicks off by dismissing criticism coming from the likes of Heffer as nothing but "cultural snobs who assert that 'there are just some people who will never be interested in culture'". She explains that children's natural inclination for creativity can be stifled by "pressures of formal education, with its targets and SATs" and that real life can "limit a child's scope for spontaneity and self-expression". In her view:

"Children's natural creativity, their spontaneity and pleasure don't deserve to be crushed out of them. The government now appreciates this, and is doing something momentous about it. It would be tragic if a sullen reluctance by teachers and schools to bring this about were to spoil a genuine attempt to make coming generations more fulfilled."

Bakewell's piece is a far more measured affair and she includes an uplifting story about her eight-year-old granddaughter and a visit to the National Gallery as part of a school project. Joan seems to have first hand experience of the sort of good community arts projects can deliver and she's clearly a passionate advocate of the importance of arts & culture in children's lives.

So how do the two stack up? Although Bakewell didn't specifically lay the charge of cultural snobbery at Heffer's door she would, I suspect, have had some justification for doing so. Heffer's references to "watching football on television" and "six-packs of lager and cancer-sticks" strain at the boundary between light-hearted provocation and outright class snobbery. That his checklist of cultural greats should include Milton, Constable & Dickens but not Pound, Freud or Amis suggests his tastes are on the conservative side - perhaps Bakewell's charge that these criticisms often emanate from people uncomfortable with modern culture carries some weight. For her sins Bakewell seems to have ignored the central concern most people have expressed about this initiative - that it's the state that are doing it. She's a very eloquent advocate of the importance of art & culture to kids lives and almost everything she has to say in that respect is spot on. Indeed I'm sure Simon would concur with every word. But she doesn't engage with that central issue - there's a wealth of cultural opportunities already open to parents of any means so the issue isn't availability but will.

Although I often disagree with him vehemently I'd have to say Heffer makes the stronger case here and not just because I happen to agree with him. In fact, it's worth pointing out that since the 'five hours of culture' story broke I haven't read a single decent defence of it anywhere. Still, the idea with this feature is to see who makes the stronger case so perhaps next week it'll be someone I happen to disagree with anyway.

As with the Think Tank Roundup I'm not sure if the content or topics are there to allow me to do this every week but I'll give it a go. I use Newsgator to keep my eyes on lots of sources but if you spot a couple of articles that you think might merit this treatment let me know - any other feedback gratefully received also.

David Miliband is quietly impressing an interesting range of people. Last spring partisan opponents talked up his stock out of mischief because he was seen as a possible challenger for the leadership. When Brown gave him the Foreign Office this was variously dismissed as a quid-pro-quo for not standing, an attempt to keep his nose away from domestic policy or Brown’s way of keeping him inside the tent as it were. I don’t recall much speculation about how he might perform in the role other than the general observations that he could hardly do worse than his predecessor Margaret Beckett.

But in a cabinet stuffed with mediocre types like Browne, Darling and Balls it’s hardly surprising that Miliband is starting to shine. Off the back of his ‘Democratic Imperative’ speech at Oxford on Tuesday night Iain Martin on Three Line Whip offers some faint praise (even if he can’t then resist a dig over the Lisbon Treaty) and Robin Simcox at the Henry Jackson Society does likewise referring to a “quite brilliant” and “heartening” speech. Don’t expect compliments from the likes of the Telegraph or the vaguely neocon ‘Scoop’ Jackson Society to endear Miliband to Labour traditionalists - see Bob Piper earlier this week for a good example of that reaction. But there’s little doubt in my mind that Miliband has shorn any vestiges of the youthful upstart lacking in substance.

Rifle through the belongings of any senior staffer on Hillary or Obama’s campaign you’ll probably find a well-thumbed copy of George Lakoff’s ‘Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know your Values and Frame the Debate’. Published almost a couple of years ago now it quickly acquired ‘must read’ status and became the closest thing the Democrats had to a campaign Bible. It’s main theme is the importance of framing in political debate and how winning any argument depends at least partly on understanding how frames work and using them properly. The current debate around Government plans for extending pre-trial detention illustrates this quite well.

Listen to any government Minister thrust forward to defend these plans and they essentially use the same frame every time – ‘The threat is increasingly complex – only these measures will protect the public’. Accept that frame and it becomes all but impossible oppose the plans without leaving yourself vulnerable to the charge that you’re ‘soft on terror’ or negligent with public safety. The debate is marooned on hypotheticals – anecdotal examples of suspects or investigations that might fall flat if the police don’t have enough time to question people. It’s all but impossible to win any ground here because the focus is so nebulous. Whether the government have consciously constructed this frame to help advance their case hardly matters – the point is it works.

And let’s be honest – it works because on one level the government do have a point. If we give the police longer to investigate terrorist suspects then logic tells you that in some cases or at some point this will let them prosecute someone who would otherwise go free to commit atrocities. The key then is to destroy that frame and explain that the root of most peoples objections to these plans isn’t their efficacy but the fact that they disrupt the balance between liberty and security to an unacceptable degree. A national curfew at 2100 for all adults would undoubtedly see a dramatic reduction in street crime but that’s not the point – most people are want a sense of balance in these things and will happily live with the nominally increased risk in exchange for the commensurate freedoms. The same thing applies with regard to pre-trial detention – yes, it may well be the case at some point with a particular suspect we let them go on day 28 and they go on to commit some terrible crime but that’s a risk most of us understand and are happy to take. Set the threshold at 42 days and you don’t solve that problem – you just change the parameters and perhaps catch a few more of those already rare cases and the succeed / fail boundary just sits at 42/43 days instead.

The whole thing is about balance and there’s absolutely no evidence that that balance needs to be altered in the favour of the police

Worth flagging a developing angle on the Rowan Williams story that Matt Wardman is pushing. Peter Rippon, Editor of R4's World at One, has posted on the BBC Editors blog about the strength of reaction to Rowans speech but as Matt sets out at length the guts of the hysterical public response to the story can be attributed to the shockingly alarmist way the BBC initially trailed then reported their interview ahead of the speech. Others including Sunny Hundal over at liberalconspiracy.org have picked up on the same theme.

Dizzy gets himself in a tizz this morning about Australian PM Kevin Rudd’s apology for past wrongs inflicted on the indigenous Aboriginal population. Although Brendan Nelson’s Liberal party have welcomed the apology Dizzy sees this as part of a particular vogue among politicians on the left to apologise for “things they had bugger all to do with” and firmly rejects the idea that we should bear any guilt for past wrongs. I share his contempt for some people’s readiness to lay every problem at the door of the ‘British Empire’ but can we simply ignore these things because we weren’t around?

My understanding is that these are apologies on behalf of the nation state - a sort of proxy apology for the crimes of our ancestors who obviously aren’t in a position to do so themselves. The whole thing is complicated of course by the clash of historical context and contemporary values but since we recognise some sort of continuity of state we recognise the shared responsibility for these things. Dizzy’s argument rests on the premise that that continuity of state doesn’t exists – no-one alive today had responsibility for the slave trade so why should anyone apologise. But if you reject that continuity you have to do so for everything – not just the nasty things. Our claim to half the paintings, sculptures and artefacts in our museum immediately becomes doubtful – we can’t invoke the old heritage arguments any more. How would territorial claims be impacted? – why should the Falkland Islands remain British if you can’t invoke any sort of historical context at all?

Like I say, I have as little time as Dizzy for the sort of uber-liberal brow-beating that sees everything in the world as our fault – but if my country was up to it’s neck in something as despicable as the slave trade I don’t really have any issue with saying sorry about it….

A slightly religious flavour to this weeks roundup for obvious reasons. When it comes for formal reports & publications etc. think-tanks usually operate on longer news cycle but if the story's big enough then even if it's just a press release to throw their tuppence worth in they'll have something to add. My thanks to Matt Wardman who was kind enough to flag this new roundup feature the other day, even if he did slander it with the tag 'intellectual' and suggest I need a better name - feels like a superficial, New Labour-esque branding exercise to me since there's a directness to 'Think Tank Roundup' that's hard to trump. Still, if you think you can let me know in the comments.

Theos

• A feature more than a particular topic but the Public Theology think tank Theos run a Media monitoring page tracking stories with a religious theme or comments pieces in the national press relating to religion. Always a useful feature and slightly busier than normal over the last week or so!

Ekklesia

• Ekklesia use the current row as an excuse to renew their call for the disestablishment of the Church of England. Jonathan Bartley, co-director of Ekklesia, says: "The Archbishop has provided the clearest evidence yet that he realises that the special privileges and exemptions that the Church has enjoyed historically are no longer tenable.. [he] now seems to be wishing to explore whether special protection and exceptions might be extended to other religions too..[l]etting go of privilege is a far better witness to the Christian message than either clinging on to it, seeking to preserve it on a wider basis, or speaking for others rather than engaging them as equals"

Compass

• With tiresome regularity Neal Lawson (once a full-on Blairite) lays into what he sees as the failing of the entire New Labour project and this weeks attack is online at Compass now. I'm sure he'd vigoroulsy deny the charge and throw me some line about social democracy but why the man doesn't just go an join the Socialist workers or something is beyond me...
• Also on Compass a thoughtful piece by Josh Ryan-Collins on "the gap between the political rhetoric and the frontline reality of public service delivery". Josh suggests we need a broader understanding of the term 'public benefit' than the hard cash version Whitehall seems intent on using when it comes to improving public services.

Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)

• Interesting paper by Ian Kearns paper looking at how National security policy should be framed with reference to more than just the terrorist threat. Climate change, energy security and national infrastructure all have a critical part to play in a debate that tends to be dominated by terrorism at the expense of all else.
• Also on IPPR Julia Margo wants to extend the Government's Sure Start programme to "support at-risk children and families and stop them turning to crime and anti-social behaviour."

The Heritage Foundation

• An alarming piece by Ariel Cohen on a renewed enthusiasm for the Red Square military parades in Putin's Russia - "The world should take notice of Russia's increasing militarism. The parade is designed to generate nostalgia among the Russian people and to signal to the U.S., NATO, and Russia's neighbours that Russia's power is back. Most importantly, it illustrates President Vladimir Putin's emphasis on the military and security services at the expense of modern, democratic institutions"

The Council on Foreign Relation

• A couple of final interesting things on the Presidential race from this US think tank. The first is a very useful and comprehensive guide to all the foreign policy issues facing both parties and all the remaining candidates in the race.
• The second is an interesting debate about post-conflict resolution and how, given the obvious failings in that field in Iraq & Afghanistan there might be merit in looking again at whether these efforts are military or civilian led.

That's it for this week - hope there's something of interest there and as ever, if you spot something you think I should flag here let me know.

Labels: Think Tank Roundups

I sometimes wonder if Tony Blair’s alleged interest in the Presidency of Europe is really just an attempt to tweak the nose of his many critics – judging by the reaction it’s certainly working. Pro-Europeans are appalled at the prospect because in their eyes Blair isn’t sufficiently enthusiastic and the anti’s are equally appalled for the simple reason that they loathe both the man and the institution. I’m slightly puzzled why the anti lot don’t see the two as fit for each other but I guess it’s the prospect of Tony holding any kind of power over them that drives them into the ‘God no!’ camp. He is, I suspect, loving it.

As a cautious pro-European it’s the reasoning from some on this side of the fence I find slightly troubling and it lends weight to some of the common criticisms levelled at the EU. Writing in the Times last week Édouard Balladur, former Prime Minister of France, suggested two important conditions for the role:

“the EU's president must fulfil two conditions in order to carry out the role properly and to be accepted by everyone: first, to come from a country that is completely in step with the EU's forward march and that participates in all its different forms of co-operation; and, secondly, to be determined to build the independence of Europe, notably in the diplomatic and military fields”

Look at that first condition (bold) again – ‘come from a country that is completely in step with the EU's forward march’. I’m no swivel-eyed Eurosceptic but doesn’t that kind of get things the wrong way round? Shouldn’t it be the case that whoever holds that post plays a large part in setting the direction (and speed) of the institution’s progress rather than just falling in behind some pre-determined path? The charge often levelled at the EU is that it’s a bureaucrat’s dream – a massive conspiracy perpetrated by the EU’s political elite on the peoples of Europe, something with the air of inevitability about it and that can’t be stopped by anything as crude as democratic opposition. That charge is usually overblown but Balladur’s comments hint at precisely that mindset.

Labels: Politics

So Rowan Williams has suggested that the law shouldn't be indifferent to people's religious convictions. In so doing he feels the wrath of, among others, ConservativeHome, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.

Just over a year ago he voiced similar concerns about the Sexual Orientation legislation and supported calls for Catholic adoption agencies to have the right to refuse to enage with homosexual couples. Presumably those steadfast supporters of a religion-free legal system were equally outraged back then.

Eh... no actually. From the Telegraph on 24th January last year...

"The Sexual Orientation Regulations are a bad piece of law-making.... Huge numbers of objections met the draft proposals, but only now, over adoption, has resistance grown so strong that the Prime Minister is said to be seeking a way through "that respects the sensitivities of both sides". The "side" opposing the regulations includes the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, who wrote to Tony Blair stating that Catholic adoption agencies, which provide a third of voluntary placements, would have to close if requirements outlawed teachings "about the foundations of family life" - teachings "shared not only by other Christian Churches, but also other faiths". The Archbishops of Canterbury and York then raised their voices against "the rights of conscience" being crushed by regulations."

...or the Daily Mail....

"All the cardinal is doing - backed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York - is spelling out the teaching of his Church, stretching back 2,000 years and shared by many other faiths. Nor is he trying, like the gay rights lobby, to impose his own morality on the rest of the country. Indeed, Catholic agencies are happy to direct gay couples to other agencies. The cardinal is only asking that Catholics should be allowed to continue to conduct their own lives according to the teaching of their Church. Is that so very unreasonable?"

...and good old ConservativeHome on 20 March last year...

"David Cameron's decision to support the Government against the Catholic Church on this issue is one of the most depressing acts of his young leadership. He is denying faith-based charities the freedom of association and belief that is necessary for his 'big idea' of social responsibility to really flourish. Catholic and other churchleaders are not asking to ban gay adoption - merely that they do not themselves have toplace children with gay couples. It shouldn't have been too much to ask in a country that purports to value religious freedom."