The idea of having a directly elected Mayor sounds to some to be seductive. It implies more accountability and transparency. The reality is far different.
Let us ignore the mockery of the example of Hartlepool where the electorate voted for a man dressed as a monkey. We are bemused by an election based on a gimmick rather than a set of policies to achieve the best for the city. But we should not challenge the democratic legitimacy of someone who has been voted in by a majority.
Let us also ignore the fact that a directly elected Mayor would end a tradition in Salford of a ceremonial Mayor, impartially chairing the Council and, more importantly, acting as an ambassador for the city to the outside world and to the local community where the chains and robes of office command pride and respect. Radicals should not be afraid of change.
Instead, let us focus on the supposed benefits of those who prefer the American system of a directly elected Mayor. Under this system, the Mayor is transformed from being an impartial figurehead to party political leader.
Once elected, the Mayor can ignore the elected representatives of the people - except in the case of the budget and a set of prescribed policy documents. In the case of the budget and the policy documents, the elected councillors can have a say. But they can only amend or reject the proposals of the Mayor if they have a two-thirds majority. This does not seem to be very democratic.
The Mayor may delegate decisions to Cabinet members or a committee but few mayors have done this. The Cabinet becomes 'advisory' and all decisions are effectively made by one person. The directly-elected Mayor system is not more democratic. Democracy implies the diffusion of power. This system puts power exclusively into the hands of one person.
This is dangeous and divisive.
The current system allows for checks and balances. The Leader is elected by the Council and is accountable to the Council on a daily basis. A strong Cabinet with members who are more than advisory means that decisions are not taken in isolation but following robust debate. All that accountability would be swept away with a directly-elected Mayor. In the rush for strong leadership, we would sacrifice good leadership.
The current system requires the Leader to persuade the Cabinet and the Council. If a Leader is approached by outside interests - property developers, contractors and the like - he or she cannot do a deal with them. It must be subject to scrutiny and the test of whether it is in the interests of the citizens. A directly-elected Mayor can put the siren voices of outside interests above those of the citizens. It is well-known that in America and some continental cities, directly-elected Mayors have been involved in corruption.
The current system requires the Leader to have the confidence of the majority the Council. With a directly-elected Mayor, the confidence of the Council is irrelevant. In Doncaster, for example, the council has a directly-elected Mayor, an English Democrat. Yet the Council is overwhelmingly Labour. The Mayor rules without the support of the majority of the Council - who represent the majority of the people.
The term of an elected Mayor is fixed. If the people vote for different councillors because they don't like the way the city is being run, it makes no difference. The Mayor and all his powers reman intact. If the people of Salford elected a Labour Mayor and then subsequently elected a Tory majority on the Council, Labour would still be in control. So much for democracy!
The experiment of a directly-elected Mayor was carried out in Stoke. The citizens eventually backed a referendum to go back to the system of Leader and Cabinet with an impartial Mayor. We should learn from Stoke and not put on the council taxpayers the burden of a bureaucratic reorganisation - only to reverse it in a few years time.
The notion of directly-elected mayor is seductive. But it is deceitful. It is nothing more than an American-style party political city boss with an unhealthy concentration of power in the hands of one person. In the name of democracy and accountability, it should be rejected.
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Monday, 23 May 2011
Climate change: not just the planet
We are urged to combat climate change by cutting our carbon emissions and it was heartening to see even this Tory-led Government, after much shilly-shallying, endorse the recommendation of the climate change committee - the independent body established under Labour's breathtakingly progressive Climate Change Act.
The consensus of scientific opinion and the accumulation of evidence suggests that our climate is changing and will change. We must reduce the amount of carbon being poured into the atmosphere in order to save the planet. And this agenda has widespread support. After all, it makes economic sense.
Cutting carbon emissions involves reducing energy bills and it is hard to see why any finance director - in the public or private sector - should not be investing in energy efficiency measures. The payback time for the investment can be astonishingly short and long term savings show up in the bottom line.
Entrepreneurs, anxious to make a quick buck (but also often with a passion for the environment), should see the market opportunity to offer increasingly efficient solutions to saving energy. As energy prices increase, energy supply becomes more uncertain, and regulatory regimes prod energy consumers into demanding less, this will be a growing market.
Politicians should welcome the jobs and the increased proposperity that can come from businesses and the public sector reducing their costs and entrepreneurs' innovation of new energy efficient products. They will also welcome the social aspect: government schemes to improve the energy efficiency of some of our worst housing also addresses fuel poverty.
But I sometimes wonder if addressing fuel poverty were the only benefit, whether society would be as enthusiastic for the low carbon economy? The low carbon economy is an attempt to mitigate climate change - to reduce the chance of future climate change. But we hear little about adaptation - the other response to climate change which seeks to limit the impacts that are likely to befall us. And maybe that is because adaptation does not hold the same prospect for jobs and profits.
Climate change will leave us with more extreme weather conditions such as the gales that have become an increasing feature of our weather patterns in recent years. Rising temperatures wll see the extraordinary hot summer of 2003 become the norm in the next 30 years or so. We are already experiencing increased risks of flooding.
They key feature about all these impacts is that addressing them does not really help to 'save the planet': addressing them saves people instead. We know only too well the devastation and loss of life that floods can bring. During the 2003 heatwave, thousands of vulnerable people - mainly the elderly - died as a result of the conditions. Indeed, it is the weakest in society who are most likely to suffer from the impacts of climate change. Apart from our individual safety, extreme weather threatens our collective security. Whether it is gales or heavy snowfall, the vital life support systems of our cities, towns and villages can be disrupted.
And the other key feature is that all these things cost money. While climate change mitigation through energy efficiency cuts costs and creates wealth, climate change adaptation imposes costs on society - for example, flood defences, and trees and water features to soften heatwaves. These costs help to pay for our long-term collective security. They are costs that short-term individualism cannot countenance. And they are costs necessary to remedy environmental injustices.
That is why Labour must be the party that addresses climate change, not just the party of the low carbon economy. That is why Labour should seek to remedy injustices to the powerless, not just boost the profits of powerful. That is why Labour must be out to save people, not just the planet.
The consensus of scientific opinion and the accumulation of evidence suggests that our climate is changing and will change. We must reduce the amount of carbon being poured into the atmosphere in order to save the planet. And this agenda has widespread support. After all, it makes economic sense.
Cutting carbon emissions involves reducing energy bills and it is hard to see why any finance director - in the public or private sector - should not be investing in energy efficiency measures. The payback time for the investment can be astonishingly short and long term savings show up in the bottom line.
Entrepreneurs, anxious to make a quick buck (but also often with a passion for the environment), should see the market opportunity to offer increasingly efficient solutions to saving energy. As energy prices increase, energy supply becomes more uncertain, and regulatory regimes prod energy consumers into demanding less, this will be a growing market.
Politicians should welcome the jobs and the increased proposperity that can come from businesses and the public sector reducing their costs and entrepreneurs' innovation of new energy efficient products. They will also welcome the social aspect: government schemes to improve the energy efficiency of some of our worst housing also addresses fuel poverty.
But I sometimes wonder if addressing fuel poverty were the only benefit, whether society would be as enthusiastic for the low carbon economy? The low carbon economy is an attempt to mitigate climate change - to reduce the chance of future climate change. But we hear little about adaptation - the other response to climate change which seeks to limit the impacts that are likely to befall us. And maybe that is because adaptation does not hold the same prospect for jobs and profits.
Climate change will leave us with more extreme weather conditions such as the gales that have become an increasing feature of our weather patterns in recent years. Rising temperatures wll see the extraordinary hot summer of 2003 become the norm in the next 30 years or so. We are already experiencing increased risks of flooding.
They key feature about all these impacts is that addressing them does not really help to 'save the planet': addressing them saves people instead. We know only too well the devastation and loss of life that floods can bring. During the 2003 heatwave, thousands of vulnerable people - mainly the elderly - died as a result of the conditions. Indeed, it is the weakest in society who are most likely to suffer from the impacts of climate change. Apart from our individual safety, extreme weather threatens our collective security. Whether it is gales or heavy snowfall, the vital life support systems of our cities, towns and villages can be disrupted.
And the other key feature is that all these things cost money. While climate change mitigation through energy efficiency cuts costs and creates wealth, climate change adaptation imposes costs on society - for example, flood defences, and trees and water features to soften heatwaves. These costs help to pay for our long-term collective security. They are costs that short-term individualism cannot countenance. And they are costs necessary to remedy environmental injustices.
That is why Labour must be the party that addresses climate change, not just the party of the low carbon economy. That is why Labour should seek to remedy injustices to the powerless, not just boost the profits of powerful. That is why Labour must be out to save people, not just the planet.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
The mask slips...
There was wonderfully revealing moment on BBC 1's Question Time last Thursday when Vince Cable's mask - or rather his thin veil - slipped. The Lib Dem Business Secretary was taunted about the way his party had ditched the ideas of the greatest modern economist, the Liberal John Maynard Keynes. Mr Cable fulminated - I do not recall his words exactly but I am confident I have them broadly right: "I was taught by disciples of Keynes. Keynes said 'When the facts change, I change my mind'. He did not experience the near complete collapse of the banking system that we have had to deal with."
Why is this revealing? Well, it does say something about the tension in the minds of Liberal Democrats. Keynesian economics is fundamentally predicated on the collapse of the banking system that Keynes saw first hand in the 1920s. It was then that Governments sought to cut public expenditure in response and the consequence was the downward spiral of decline which led to the Depression. It is very simple: increasing taxes and slashing public spending takes money out of people's pockets. When people spend less, businesses can't sell as much, they therefore reduce production, and thus must cut back on wage bills. Cutting wages and jobs takes money from people's pockets and the vicious spiral continues. Keynes said that during such periods Government should put more money into the economy.
That was why Governments worldwide - learning from Keynes and the failure of free market prescriptions - pumped so much money into the global economy. And it succeeded. Unemployment and misery on the scale of the Depression, a very real threat, was avoided. It was a costly exercise but the alternative would have been costlier. The money must be paid back. But paying back too much too soon will risk the recovery. The economic data published this week showing growth in France and Germany while the UK economy bumps along suggests that the Government is cutting too much too soon.
My point is that Mr Cable used to think so too, as he wrote in The Independent before the general election: "Now, the issue is whether the priority is to embark on large-scale, long- term, roof repairs or to rescue the inhabitants from a flood. The former, clearly, has to happen, but it is perverse [of Tories] to treat it as the most urgent task. The perversity undoubtedly has some deep ideological roots: a suspicion of the Keynesian legacy which is to champion the use of fiscal deficits to counter economic slump.". He used to think so; and his emotive reaction to the suggestion that he had abandoned Keynesianism suggests he still does. But he cannot say so.
Mr Cable's more significant revelation was the way he laid the blame for the economic crisis on the banking system.This was in stark contrast to his Conservative counterpart whose insistence, on the same television programme, that it was all Labour's fault drew howls of derision from the audience. One of the most unattractive aspects of the Lib Dem MPs has been the way they have ceased o speak for themselves and recited instead Tory slogans.
Mr Cable's slip was that he forgot to refer to 'Labour's mess' and he instead put the blame on the 'bankers' mess'. He knows the truth. The paltry turnout of 350 pro-cuts demonstrators was dwarfed by the million or so anti-cuts protestors. The public know the truth too.
Why is this revealing? Well, it does say something about the tension in the minds of Liberal Democrats. Keynesian economics is fundamentally predicated on the collapse of the banking system that Keynes saw first hand in the 1920s. It was then that Governments sought to cut public expenditure in response and the consequence was the downward spiral of decline which led to the Depression. It is very simple: increasing taxes and slashing public spending takes money out of people's pockets. When people spend less, businesses can't sell as much, they therefore reduce production, and thus must cut back on wage bills. Cutting wages and jobs takes money from people's pockets and the vicious spiral continues. Keynes said that during such periods Government should put more money into the economy.
That was why Governments worldwide - learning from Keynes and the failure of free market prescriptions - pumped so much money into the global economy. And it succeeded. Unemployment and misery on the scale of the Depression, a very real threat, was avoided. It was a costly exercise but the alternative would have been costlier. The money must be paid back. But paying back too much too soon will risk the recovery. The economic data published this week showing growth in France and Germany while the UK economy bumps along suggests that the Government is cutting too much too soon.
My point is that Mr Cable used to think so too, as he wrote in The Independent before the general election: "Now, the issue is whether the priority is to embark on large-scale, long- term, roof repairs or to rescue the inhabitants from a flood. The former, clearly, has to happen, but it is perverse [of Tories] to treat it as the most urgent task. The perversity undoubtedly has some deep ideological roots: a suspicion of the Keynesian legacy which is to champion the use of fiscal deficits to counter economic slump.". He used to think so; and his emotive reaction to the suggestion that he had abandoned Keynesianism suggests he still does. But he cannot say so.
Mr Cable's more significant revelation was the way he laid the blame for the economic crisis on the banking system.This was in stark contrast to his Conservative counterpart whose insistence, on the same television programme, that it was all Labour's fault drew howls of derision from the audience. One of the most unattractive aspects of the Lib Dem MPs has been the way they have ceased o speak for themselves and recited instead Tory slogans.
Mr Cable's slip was that he forgot to refer to 'Labour's mess' and he instead put the blame on the 'bankers' mess'. He knows the truth. The paltry turnout of 350 pro-cuts demonstrators was dwarfed by the million or so anti-cuts protestors. The public know the truth too.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Ask not (only) what your councillor has done for you...
On the day following last week's local elections, BBC Radio Manchester ran a talk show which asked the question 'What has your councillor ever done for you?' And, like the Monty Python sketch, it turns out they did quite a lot. People had been helped with housing issues, crime problems, neighbour nuisance, social care cases.Through this the BBC provided an admirable public service of demonstrating the range of social affairs that local authorities deal with. It also promoted an important positive image of the councillor as someone to turn to to help cut through red tape and get something done.
And yet... I have a nagging concern that such a representation of the councillor plays into the 'me me me' perspective on local democracy. How many of us have knocked on doors and been confronted with the question 'What has the Council ever done for me?'
The person who asks this question leaves their home - which the local authority may have built or even still own - and walks past the dustbins emptied by the Council, then along the pavement, swept clean by the Council. Illuminated by the municipal streelamps, they will drive along the road, maintained by the council, and drop their children off at the local council-funded school. If they do not work for the Council, they will work for a company which may supply goods and services to the Council.
At lunchtime they may have their sandwiches in the municipal park or work off the energy with a swim at the local recreation centre. After picking up the kids on the way home, they stop off at the municipal library. After tea the children may go to a youth club or sports class at the local Council-funded community centre while the parents nip to the care home to visit elderly relatives being cared for at the Council's expense.
We have also come across the person who suggest they can opt out of civic society. I am always bemused by the number of people who tell me that since they have no children and do not go to school themselves, they see no reason why they should pay for the education of others. There is a failure of the imagination: such people cannot see that they too benefited from schooling at someone else's expense and that the payback is that they do the same for others. There is a failure of perception: they cannot see that they benefit from the education of others, that having doctors, engineers and all the others with skills to help us is actually a good thing.
In every aspect of daily life, the Council is present. Yet many people do not make the connection. And this is reinforced when the main engagement with the Council seen to be the councillor in the role of adviser and advocate: securing personal benefits for the individual citizen. Don't get me wrong - this is an important role and the councillor should be there to ensure tat individual wrongs are remedied and individual citizens benefits form the services to which they are entitled. But those responsiblities of the councillor can sometimes obscure the role of determining the public good.
Councillors and political parties need to judged on their stewardship of the pubic good rather than the just the satisfaction of individual needs. And it is this idea of the public good which is oft times missing from political debates. We focus on parochial and personal issues rather than the whether what we do for the city as whole. We should ask not only what our councillors have done for us but what they have done for our city.
And yet... I have a nagging concern that such a representation of the councillor plays into the 'me me me' perspective on local democracy. How many of us have knocked on doors and been confronted with the question 'What has the Council ever done for me?'
The person who asks this question leaves their home - which the local authority may have built or even still own - and walks past the dustbins emptied by the Council, then along the pavement, swept clean by the Council. Illuminated by the municipal streelamps, they will drive along the road, maintained by the council, and drop their children off at the local council-funded school. If they do not work for the Council, they will work for a company which may supply goods and services to the Council.
At lunchtime they may have their sandwiches in the municipal park or work off the energy with a swim at the local recreation centre. After picking up the kids on the way home, they stop off at the municipal library. After tea the children may go to a youth club or sports class at the local Council-funded community centre while the parents nip to the care home to visit elderly relatives being cared for at the Council's expense.
We have also come across the person who suggest they can opt out of civic society. I am always bemused by the number of people who tell me that since they have no children and do not go to school themselves, they see no reason why they should pay for the education of others. There is a failure of the imagination: such people cannot see that they too benefited from schooling at someone else's expense and that the payback is that they do the same for others. There is a failure of perception: they cannot see that they benefit from the education of others, that having doctors, engineers and all the others with skills to help us is actually a good thing.
In every aspect of daily life, the Council is present. Yet many people do not make the connection. And this is reinforced when the main engagement with the Council seen to be the councillor in the role of adviser and advocate: securing personal benefits for the individual citizen. Don't get me wrong - this is an important role and the councillor should be there to ensure tat individual wrongs are remedied and individual citizens benefits form the services to which they are entitled. But those responsiblities of the councillor can sometimes obscure the role of determining the public good.
Councillors and political parties need to judged on their stewardship of the pubic good rather than the just the satisfaction of individual needs. And it is this idea of the public good which is oft times missing from political debates. We focus on parochial and personal issues rather than the whether what we do for the city as whole. We should ask not only what our councillors have done for us but what they have done for our city.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Labour's instincts: freedom and equality
In recent weeks the mask of decency, adopted by David Cameron to woo fair-minded voters, has begun to slip. Whether it is his mean-minded efforts to sabotage Gordon Brown's prospects of taking up a role as international statesman, his childish exclusion of Blair and Brown from the Royal Wedding or his patronising 'calm down, dear' taunt - all these reveal an upper-crust haughtiness which sees no value in those who oppose him.
He has even extended this profound disrespect to his Lib Dem partners over the referendum on electoral reform. If your instincts are for freedom and equality, then you recognise the right of others to participate in society without using your power to undermine their contribution. If you don't like their contribution, you argue against it rather than try to silence it.
It is this essential illiberalism on the part of Tories that makes them unusual bedfellows for the Lib Dems. Perhaps the hope was that Lib Dem participation in the Coalition would soften the meaner instincts of the Tories? But it is hard to see where this has been accomplished.
Even Lib Dem priorities like removing the detention procedure in the anti-terroism legislation has merely been given a new name and trimmed round the edges. Detention remains. In power, they are faced with the same issues as the Labour ministers they criticised and, unsurprisingly, coming up with the same solutions.
That is sad. Some of the excesses of the last Labour Government were a knee-jerk over-reaction to the moral panic about terrorism that engulfed western societies in the wake of 9/11. The time has come for a more confident reassertion of individual liberty against the precautionary security-oriented policy of the last decae.
But in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, Cameron commended the post-1997 Labour Governments on making Britain a more tolerant society. It was, indeed, Labour who promoted gay rights and repealed the Tories' repressive Clause 28. It was Labour who instituted the Lawrence inquiry and acted to tackle hate crime. It was Labour who brought in the Freedom of Information Act which has been responsible for exposing corruption. And it was Labour who brought in the Human Rights Act - the most progressive piece of civil rights legislation ever. And it is this Act that the Tories have vowed to remove, setting up a joint committee with the Lib Dems to decide how to water down the existing rights.
There is no doubt that in the Coalition the Lib Dems are reduced to having say on how far they water down civil liberties and how they can 'spin' inaction as some radical change. Had there been a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, I suspect the debate would have been about the extent to which civil liberties were extended. Even now, it is Ed Milliband alongside Vince Cable who is making the case for AV much more effectively than Nick Clegg.
The only way fair-minded voters with an instinct for freedom and democracy can shake the LIb Dems out of their complacent complicity with Tory illiberalism is to vote for Labour candidates in the coming elections.
He has even extended this profound disrespect to his Lib Dem partners over the referendum on electoral reform. If your instincts are for freedom and equality, then you recognise the right of others to participate in society without using your power to undermine their contribution. If you don't like their contribution, you argue against it rather than try to silence it.
It is this essential illiberalism on the part of Tories that makes them unusual bedfellows for the Lib Dems. Perhaps the hope was that Lib Dem participation in the Coalition would soften the meaner instincts of the Tories? But it is hard to see where this has been accomplished.
Even Lib Dem priorities like removing the detention procedure in the anti-terroism legislation has merely been given a new name and trimmed round the edges. Detention remains. In power, they are faced with the same issues as the Labour ministers they criticised and, unsurprisingly, coming up with the same solutions.
That is sad. Some of the excesses of the last Labour Government were a knee-jerk over-reaction to the moral panic about terrorism that engulfed western societies in the wake of 9/11. The time has come for a more confident reassertion of individual liberty against the precautionary security-oriented policy of the last decae.
But in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, Cameron commended the post-1997 Labour Governments on making Britain a more tolerant society. It was, indeed, Labour who promoted gay rights and repealed the Tories' repressive Clause 28. It was Labour who instituted the Lawrence inquiry and acted to tackle hate crime. It was Labour who brought in the Freedom of Information Act which has been responsible for exposing corruption. And it was Labour who brought in the Human Rights Act - the most progressive piece of civil rights legislation ever. And it is this Act that the Tories have vowed to remove, setting up a joint committee with the Lib Dems to decide how to water down the existing rights.
There is no doubt that in the Coalition the Lib Dems are reduced to having say on how far they water down civil liberties and how they can 'spin' inaction as some radical change. Had there been a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, I suspect the debate would have been about the extent to which civil liberties were extended. Even now, it is Ed Milliband alongside Vince Cable who is making the case for AV much more effectively than Nick Clegg.
The only way fair-minded voters with an instinct for freedom and democracy can shake the LIb Dems out of their complacent complicity with Tory illiberalism is to vote for Labour candidates in the coming elections.
Monday, 25 April 2011
AV - a surprising choice
I long agonised over the merits of voting yes or no in the referendum to decide whether we move to new voting system. I surprised myself by coming out with a firm 'yes'. But it was easy to get confused by the arguments rather than clearly thinking through the pros and cons.
I have heard 'no' campaigners suggest we should oppose AV because people are too stupid to understand it. I have heard 'yes' campaigners argue that we should back AV because it will make MPs less corrupt and claim fewer expenses. Neither arguement is persuasive nor are they based on anything other than rather offensive assumptions about the quality of the electorate and the overwhelming majority of decent, hard-working MPs of whatever party.
I have heard one attractive reason: if David Cameron is against AV, then all progressive and rational democrats should be in favour. It is a reason reinforced by Cameron's Conservatives attitude to representation in general. What other party would advocate the removal of 100 MPs from Parliament as a cost-saving measure and appoint 117 new members of the House of Lords at a cost of £18 million? We are right to distrust any Tory stance on democratic representation. But distrusting Cameron is not in itself a reason to vote 'yes' in the referendum.
There have been fine calculations about which party would benefit from a change in the voting system but this is unpredictable and, in my view, likely to be marginal. And it was this judgement that firstly steered me to the 'no' camp. If a new system did not change the outcome, then why invest energy in changing the system? What persuaded me was my reflections on what changes might occur to British political culture.
Firstly, there is a culture of cynicism against Governments of whatever hue. Scepticism - wanting to be convinced and continuously questioning - is healthy in a democracy. Cynicism - the belief that MPs are all wrong all the time and nothing will convince you otherwise - is bad for democracy. It engenders the belief that nothing can change. And it is a belief that is reinforced by the current electoral system which (usually) sees a party in Government which is not not supported by 60 to 70% of the people.
In the first-past-the-post system, many MPs are elected with just a minority of the votes. We thus have Government by the largest minority. AV would not necessarily change who was in Government, but it gives people a choice: if the their preferred party is not elected, who would be their next choice? It would, therefore, give the public a greater stake in that Government because it would be elected by more than 50% of the electorate.
Secondly, parties would no longer need to focus solely on that very narrow band of the electorate, the so-called swing-voters. How many progressive policies have been ditched, how many thorny issues swept under the carpet in order not to antagonise the small group of voters whose votes determine who is largest minority? Under AV, parties could be (paradoxically) truer to their principles.
They would still need to appeal to a broader electorate but based not on changing their principles to attract swing voters, but on a clear set of principles shared by a wider society. Instead of promoting division, the need to attract second preference votes would encourage parties to emphasise their similarities.
The first-past-the-post system tends to fragment the progressive vote. AV would allow it to come together to combat the forces of reaction. That is why the Conservatives oppose it. That is why decent, rational progressives should support it.
I have heard 'no' campaigners suggest we should oppose AV because people are too stupid to understand it. I have heard 'yes' campaigners argue that we should back AV because it will make MPs less corrupt and claim fewer expenses. Neither arguement is persuasive nor are they based on anything other than rather offensive assumptions about the quality of the electorate and the overwhelming majority of decent, hard-working MPs of whatever party.
I have heard one attractive reason: if David Cameron is against AV, then all progressive and rational democrats should be in favour. It is a reason reinforced by Cameron's Conservatives attitude to representation in general. What other party would advocate the removal of 100 MPs from Parliament as a cost-saving measure and appoint 117 new members of the House of Lords at a cost of £18 million? We are right to distrust any Tory stance on democratic representation. But distrusting Cameron is not in itself a reason to vote 'yes' in the referendum.
There have been fine calculations about which party would benefit from a change in the voting system but this is unpredictable and, in my view, likely to be marginal. And it was this judgement that firstly steered me to the 'no' camp. If a new system did not change the outcome, then why invest energy in changing the system? What persuaded me was my reflections on what changes might occur to British political culture.
Firstly, there is a culture of cynicism against Governments of whatever hue. Scepticism - wanting to be convinced and continuously questioning - is healthy in a democracy. Cynicism - the belief that MPs are all wrong all the time and nothing will convince you otherwise - is bad for democracy. It engenders the belief that nothing can change. And it is a belief that is reinforced by the current electoral system which (usually) sees a party in Government which is not not supported by 60 to 70% of the people.
In the first-past-the-post system, many MPs are elected with just a minority of the votes. We thus have Government by the largest minority. AV would not necessarily change who was in Government, but it gives people a choice: if the their preferred party is not elected, who would be their next choice? It would, therefore, give the public a greater stake in that Government because it would be elected by more than 50% of the electorate.
Secondly, parties would no longer need to focus solely on that very narrow band of the electorate, the so-called swing-voters. How many progressive policies have been ditched, how many thorny issues swept under the carpet in order not to antagonise the small group of voters whose votes determine who is largest minority? Under AV, parties could be (paradoxically) truer to their principles.
They would still need to appeal to a broader electorate but based not on changing their principles to attract swing voters, but on a clear set of principles shared by a wider society. Instead of promoting division, the need to attract second preference votes would encourage parties to emphasise their similarities.
The first-past-the-post system tends to fragment the progressive vote. AV would allow it to come together to combat the forces of reaction. That is why the Conservatives oppose it. That is why decent, rational progressives should support it.
Monday, 18 April 2011
Effective representation - or plain deception?
It is inevitable that during an election campaign political parties seek to represent themselves in the best possible light - and their opponents in the worst. This is perfectly proper because the electorate has to make a choice and parties must clarify that choice by emphasising the differences between them. Anyone who believes in democracy must support the efforts of political parties to make their case effectively. There are two enemies of democracy which rear their heads at this time of the year.
Thr first is the person who poses as one who abhors partisan statements. I have recently been upbraided by such a person who accused me of 'blatant electioneering' for putting forward the Labour Party view in a press release. What are political parties supposed to do in an election campaign - not electioneer? Or not to be blatant about it? This type of person is deadly for democracy. Democracy thrives on debate about what is the right or wrong thing to do for our society. They would kill that debate and substitute for it the non-partisan, bland, 'common sense' approach - which just happens to encapsulate their own opinion. Those who dislike electioneering purvey nothing more than the totalitarianism of the small-minded. They have neither the imaginative competence nor the generosity of spirit which allows for others holding a genuinely-held opinion different from their own.
The second is the politician who oversteps the mark between effective representation and plain deceit. A case in point is that of Iain Lindley, the Tory candidate in Walkden South in Salford, who has issued leaflets throughout his area warning of 'the Labour council's plan for incinerators' there. This was deceit on a grand scale which could only be perpetrated by one who, by his own admission, devours books on how to employ political spin - taking words to the edge of their meaning.
Let us examine his deceit in detail. Firstly, it was the 'Labour council' that was doing something. True, he was referring to a policy of Salford City Council and the city council is Labour-controlled. But the implication of those words was that it was a distinctive Labour policy. What he fails to mention is that the policy commanded all-party support and an identical policy has been adopted by all councils in Greater Manchester irrespective of political control. Only he and one Tory colleague voted against it out of a membership of 60 councillors.
Secondly, Iain Lindley refers to a 'plan'. Now the word 'plan' can mean different things in different contexts. It could be taken to mean a proposal to do something. In this case, I am sure, many would assume there was a proposal to site incinerators on two industrial estates in Walkden. But this was totally untrue. The 'plan' was in fact the Greater Manchester Waste Development Plan Document which contains a set of policies whose purpose is to ensure that there are adequate planning controls in place. This is so that when proposals do come forward from waste disposal companies the local planning authority has the power to make sure they are sited in the appropropiate place. Since such facilities are usually sited on industrial estates (not in residential areas or on greenfield sites) the Waste Plan also sought to increase the protection by specifying what kind of uses would be acceptable in specific locations. It stated categorically that incineration ('conventional thermal treatment') would not be allowed but it would be appropriate for mechanical heat treatment. .
So how did Iain Lindley arrive at his 'incinerator' claim? Well, apart from the half-truth and ambiguity he relied on in the phrase 'the Labour council's plan', he used the technique of stretching a word to its limit by describing 'mechanical heat treatment' as incineration. And it was here he came unstuck through his own ignorance - feigned or otherwise. Mechanical heat treatment is a relatively new 'green' technology which, in layperson's language, involves the baking of waste to destroy bacteria. There is no burning. It reduces the amount of waste that goes to landfill. Incineration does involve burning. It is perplexing that Iain Lindley, as a member of the Fire Authority, does not understand the difference between baking and burning.
This type of deception is the enemy of democracy. Firstly, it breeds cynicism. It seeks to persuade people that politicians don't simply have an alternative view of what is right, but that those we differ from want to inflict deliberate harm on the people. Secondly, it breeds disillusion because if there is one certain thing about this example, had the council been Conservative or Lib Dem controlled, the same policy would have been adopted. And thirdly it destroys trust. How are people expected to believe what politicians say when such transparent deceit is employed?
To give Iain Lindley some credit he has now retreated from the claim that there will be incinerators in Walkden. He now says he just doesn't want waste lorries travelling through Walkden. It is a completely different argument and one that a reasonable person might, without having reflected on the issues, put forward. We are left to wonder how he would deal with waste processing if not on an industrial estate.
Lindley's deception was not exposed by the media nor as the result of some Damascene conversion. It arose from Labour's 'blatant electioneering'. Partisan debate can steer even deceitful Tories away from blatant untruths.
Thr first is the person who poses as one who abhors partisan statements. I have recently been upbraided by such a person who accused me of 'blatant electioneering' for putting forward the Labour Party view in a press release. What are political parties supposed to do in an election campaign - not electioneer? Or not to be blatant about it? This type of person is deadly for democracy. Democracy thrives on debate about what is the right or wrong thing to do for our society. They would kill that debate and substitute for it the non-partisan, bland, 'common sense' approach - which just happens to encapsulate their own opinion. Those who dislike electioneering purvey nothing more than the totalitarianism of the small-minded. They have neither the imaginative competence nor the generosity of spirit which allows for others holding a genuinely-held opinion different from their own.
The second is the politician who oversteps the mark between effective representation and plain deceit. A case in point is that of Iain Lindley, the Tory candidate in Walkden South in Salford, who has issued leaflets throughout his area warning of 'the Labour council's plan for incinerators' there. This was deceit on a grand scale which could only be perpetrated by one who, by his own admission, devours books on how to employ political spin - taking words to the edge of their meaning.
Let us examine his deceit in detail. Firstly, it was the 'Labour council' that was doing something. True, he was referring to a policy of Salford City Council and the city council is Labour-controlled. But the implication of those words was that it was a distinctive Labour policy. What he fails to mention is that the policy commanded all-party support and an identical policy has been adopted by all councils in Greater Manchester irrespective of political control. Only he and one Tory colleague voted against it out of a membership of 60 councillors.
Secondly, Iain Lindley refers to a 'plan'. Now the word 'plan' can mean different things in different contexts. It could be taken to mean a proposal to do something. In this case, I am sure, many would assume there was a proposal to site incinerators on two industrial estates in Walkden. But this was totally untrue. The 'plan' was in fact the Greater Manchester Waste Development Plan Document which contains a set of policies whose purpose is to ensure that there are adequate planning controls in place. This is so that when proposals do come forward from waste disposal companies the local planning authority has the power to make sure they are sited in the appropropiate place. Since such facilities are usually sited on industrial estates (not in residential areas or on greenfield sites) the Waste Plan also sought to increase the protection by specifying what kind of uses would be acceptable in specific locations. It stated categorically that incineration ('conventional thermal treatment') would not be allowed but it would be appropriate for mechanical heat treatment. .
So how did Iain Lindley arrive at his 'incinerator' claim? Well, apart from the half-truth and ambiguity he relied on in the phrase 'the Labour council's plan', he used the technique of stretching a word to its limit by describing 'mechanical heat treatment' as incineration. And it was here he came unstuck through his own ignorance - feigned or otherwise. Mechanical heat treatment is a relatively new 'green' technology which, in layperson's language, involves the baking of waste to destroy bacteria. There is no burning. It reduces the amount of waste that goes to landfill. Incineration does involve burning. It is perplexing that Iain Lindley, as a member of the Fire Authority, does not understand the difference between baking and burning.
This type of deception is the enemy of democracy. Firstly, it breeds cynicism. It seeks to persuade people that politicians don't simply have an alternative view of what is right, but that those we differ from want to inflict deliberate harm on the people. Secondly, it breeds disillusion because if there is one certain thing about this example, had the council been Conservative or Lib Dem controlled, the same policy would have been adopted. And thirdly it destroys trust. How are people expected to believe what politicians say when such transparent deceit is employed?
To give Iain Lindley some credit he has now retreated from the claim that there will be incinerators in Walkden. He now says he just doesn't want waste lorries travelling through Walkden. It is a completely different argument and one that a reasonable person might, without having reflected on the issues, put forward. We are left to wonder how he would deal with waste processing if not on an industrial estate.
Lindley's deception was not exposed by the media nor as the result of some Damascene conversion. It arose from Labour's 'blatant electioneering'. Partisan debate can steer even deceitful Tories away from blatant untruths.
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