Bidford Young Firefighters, Martin Turner, Cllrs Peter Barnes and Daren Pemberton during the campaign.

In the event, Conservative portfolio holder Richard Hobbs recommended what he termed ‘Option B’ – closure of Studley but a reprieve for Bidford. We had suspected all along that the original proposal was put forward in order to make the real proposal seem more palatable.

Although everyone in the Bidford campaign must be pleased with the assurance of a future for our fire station, Studley residents will be bitterly disappointed. Questions raised in the consultation were never answered, and it is hard to see to what extent the Conservative cabinet changed its view in response to constructive proposals by the campaigners.

Share/Save

Related posts

• Why Caroline Spelman deserves a fairer hearing (0)
• What? No tourist office? (0)
• Tory MP to step down (1)
• The last conceivable reason to vote Tory has just been eliminated (0)
• Responding to the BNP (0)

If this were replicated in an election (of course, it won’t be, but the illustration is still valid), it would result, according to the BBC website’s calculator, in 530 seats for the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons — a majority of 410 seats: a landslide beyond all conception and all precedent.

Liberal Democrats were, of course, looking for Clegg to make up ground tonight. Brown is generally considered to be undervalued and Cameron overvalued, a view not supported by tonight’s public response. Conventional wisdom suggested that Clegg needed to be up with the others, and it would do Lib Dems good because of the exposure. But the scale of the Nick Clegg result was absolutely devastating: an absolute majority of votes in one poll, an equal vote with the other two parties combined in the other.

Where did the debate landslide victory come from?

There were three factors, I think.

First, Nick Clegg made a point of answering the question. I followed the BBC comments page while watching the debate, and — leaving aside the obviously partisan comments — this was commented on again and again. He not only answered the question, but made a point of looking at and referring to the questioner to see if they thought he was answering the questions. Brown famously jibed at Cameron ‘this is answer time, not question time’, and, certainly, Cameron’s unwillingness to give an actual answer told against him. But Brown’s own attempts fell flat as well. My feeling is that Brown really was trying to answer the questions from time to time, but he was held up by his own opaque language: beginning a sentence with “Net inward immigration…” three times does not make for a good connection with viewers.

Second, the Lib Dem manifesto published this week was a clear winner in terms of the power it gave to Clegg over the other two. The manifesto sets out in detail exactly what the Lib Dems would spend and what they would save. Neither Labour nor the Tories — as Clegg pointed out — included figures in their manifestos. Cameron tried to have a bit of a go about the figures, but it is never easy to argue with a man on his own turf: Clegg knew his manifesto and his figures much better than Cameron did, and Brown made no attempt to overturn the Lib Dem figures at all.

Third, Nick Clegg positioned his two opponents very clearly in his own address as the ‘same old same old parties’. The bickering between Brown and Cameron which followed underlined that again and again. Clegg certainly benefited from the game that Brown and Cameron tried to play. They were almost deferential in their treatment of him, and when Cameron did attempt to question Clegg, it fell rather flat, especially on immigration, which should have been his strongest suit. Brown again and again tried to say that he and Clegg were agreeing. Unfortunately for him, Clegg refused to play along. This was all especially important because, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, the bulk of Tory/Labour jeers are often enough to drown out Clegg’s comments. In a studio, with a studio audience and clear rules, this extraneous factor was taken away.

What difference will all this make? That remains to be seen — over the next few days, as the pundits weave their theories, and as the spin-doctors from left and right attempt to demonstrate (as William Hague is already attempting) that, despite all the opinion polls, their candidate won after all.

There may be more polls tomorrow, and they may give a different result. But, for now, based on this debate only, and without any particular connection with other realities, the result is a clearer victory for Nick Clegg than any Liberal Democrat could have hoped for.

Related posts

• Tricky moment for the conscience party (0)
• Leadership Contenders battle it out. (0)
• Wrong answer too late. (0)
• Why Gordon Brown’s strategy is all wrong (0)
• Which David they choose will determine the campaign we fight (0)

On Labour and the Tories, she was less kind: “The Labour and Conservative manifestos are very different. Labour’s was big on words – and detailed promises and commitments which we had heard before. It put government at the centre. The Conservative version is longer, but lighter. About a third of its 118 pages actually contains written text – the rest is made up of pictures, fun facts, and (yes) blank pages to give readers a rest. Their focus is on the private sector – and on individuals.

“But the two documents have one important thing in common: neither of them makes any further contribution to public understanding on how Britain’s £167bn budget deficit is going to be cut. And they both leave plenty out.”

The Lib Dem manifesto is about four key policies —

• Fair taxes that put money back in your pocket.
• A fair chance for every child.
• A fair future, creating jobs by making Britain greener.
• A fair deal for you from politicians.

In the words of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats: “We’ve had 65 years of Labour and the Conservatives: the same parties taking turns and making the same mistakes, letting you down. It is time for something different. It is time for something better.”

The manifesto itself is a pretty hefty document — strengthened, as Stephanie Flanders points out, by pages and pages of detailed costings. This is not pie in the sky, these are workable plans which — if the situation did transpire that we were in government with members of other parties willing to work with us — would form the blueprint for economic recovery. Sustainable economic recovery that is, because, despite the promises of the last four chancellors (Lawson, Clarke, Brown, Darling) the Labour/Conservative or Labservative economics has done nothing but cycle us through boom and bust.

If the full document is more than you want to read right now, here are the key points in a bit more detail:
fair taxes
that put money back in your pocket
• The first £10,000 you earn tax-free: a tax cut of £700 for most people
• 3.6 million low earners and pensioners freed from income tax completely
• Paid for in full by closing loopholes that unfairly benefit the wealthy and polluters

a fair chance
for every child
• Ensure children get the individual attention they need by cutting class sizes
• Made possible by investing £2.5 billion in schools targeted to help struggling pupils
• Give schools the freedom to make the right choices for their pupils

a fair future
creating jobs by making Britain greener
• Break up the banks and get them lending again to protect real businesses
• Honesty about the tough choices needed to cut the deficit • Green growth and jobs that last by investing in infrastructure

a fair deal
by cleaning up politics
• Put trust back into politics by giving you the right to sack corrupt MPs
• Restore and protect hard-won British civil liberties with a Freedom Bill
• Overhaul Westminster completely: fair votes, an elected House of Lords, all politicians to pay full British taxes

Related posts

• Which David they choose will determine the campaign we fight (0)
• Wrong answer too late. (0)
• Tricky moment for the conscience party (0)
• The politics of hate (0)
• Leadership Contenders battle it out. (0)

But the elephant in the room (this cliché has become very common recently) is the question of what MPs actually do. Cabinet ministers, of course, run government departments. Sort of. Actually, civil servants run government departments, and cabinet ministers (if they are wise) set policy or (if foolish) get involved in top-level executive decisions. Junior ministers, naturally, do what their senior colleagues do, but less so. The opposition is there to hold the government to account, and back-benchers of the government are… well… to provide the necessary support for the government to be a government.

If MPs are merely voting fodder or some kind of inspection agency, then their senior-management level salaries look a bit over-priced. Some MPs ask barely more than one or two parliamentary questions a year — not the sort of thing which holds anyone to much account. There are All Party Parliamentary Groups on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from human trafficking (a substantially overlooked topic) to beer, a subject which is seldom overlooked. However, these APPGs have no direct influence on the activity of government. There are also select committees, which form part of the process of law-making. But, again, quite a few MPs are not members of any select committees. These are typically the MPs who ask the fewest parliamentary questions.

Members of Parliament have, at least since the war in most areas, supplemented their parliamentary duties with constituency duties. These range from holding surgeries as semi-surrogate social workers, to an endless round of openings and parties. MPs also respond to constituents’ letters, and raise issues of importance with local government. But, again, they raise issues, but have no direct authority. Naturally, in a public sector organisation, a letter from an MP carries a certain weight. But only a certain weight. It is soft influence, not hard impact.

Ask a member of the public exactly what an MP does, and you may get a fairly vague answer. Ask an MP what MPs do, and the answer can be equally vague. To restore trust in politicians, we need job descriptions.

To someone who has lived without one, a job description may seem threatening. MPs have muttered about the unfairness of being told what to do, and how to live. The phrase ‘living on rations’ has cropped up.

But the truth is, the entirely unregulated life of an MP can be as bad for them as it is for the people they serve. A friend of mine was told by his doctor that if he did not stand down as MP for a seat he had famously won a few years before, then he would be dead in five years. Endlessly late nights, a culture which emphasises alcohol consumption, and a demanding programme which is effectively a 40 hour week in Westminster supplemented by a 40 hour week in the constituency, is not good for the MP, nor is it good for the decisions they should be making on our behalf. There is a reason why good companies do not let their senior managers overwork — overworked managers gain progressively fewer results the longer they extend their hours.

The other benefit of a really clear job description is that, if an MP fails in it, he or she could actually be removed. The ability for the electorate to remove failing MPs is part of Liberal Democrat national policy. An MP who seldom turns up at the House of Commons, is rarely in the constituency, and whose letters are written by a team of poorly paid researchers working from a fairly elementary rule-book, is not earning the money we pay them. Worse, he or she is preventing a more diligent, hard-working person from representing the voters.

It is no surprise that all of the worst excesses of the expenses scandal were in ‘safe’ seats. An MP with no accountability framework, no means of removal, and no likelihood of even having to campaign hard when the General Election is called can casually disregard his or her duty. And, it seems, some, or even many, did.

Job descriptions, then. A simple summary of hours to be worked, outputs to be measured, methods of accountability, common standards and disciplinary procedures. Businesses discovered them decades ago. It’s time for the elected-sector to make its way into the late 20th century. Perhaps as a step (heaven help them) into the 21st.

Related posts

• Restoring trust – how? (0)
• Wrong answer too late. (0)
• Which David they choose will determine the campaign we fight (0)
• The politics of hate (0)
• The guilty should go, and this includes any Lib-Dems. The innocent should not (0)

I look forward to a clean campaign, fought on the local issues which we all care about. I also want to echo Digby Jones’s comments of this week, as he urged us all to put the people of Stratford on Avon first. Digby is (as so often) right: more at this time than ever before, it is for us politicians to earn the trust of the people we will represent, not to impose a central party will on them.

Related posts

• More questions than answers (0)
• In the nation’s interests (1)
• After the fire… (0)
• “Stupid” goes to ethics committee (0)
• Wrong answer too late. (0)

It’s difficult to pin down exactly what the Policy Exchange is saying because, although they have given away copies to the BBC and to the Guardian, they have yet to publish their own report on their own website.

But, based on what we know now, this is the old right-wing (Policy Exchange actually calls itself ‘centre-right’, but you don’t need to read very far before you realise that ‘centre’ is a euphemism) animosity to the BBC. While the Labour party has long decried the ‘Tory Press’, Conservatives get equally frustrated with the ‘liberal BBC’. Of course, at the moment they are able to build on popular opposition to large salaries, such as the one Jonathan Ross is giving up, but the truth is, they want to take away from the BBC many of the things we most love about it.

Following the Policy Exchange’s prescription, we would lose sport and popular entertainment. So, no more Eastenders, no more Doctor Who, no more football, athletics, Wimbledon, the Olympics, and definitely no return for the cricket. Based on current schedules, the new look BBC might be something like this on a Saturday evening:

7pm – nothing – replaces ‘So you think you can dance’
7.45 – National Lottery draw, probably extended edition
9pm – nothing – replaces “Casualty”
10pm – nothing – replaces “Live at the Apollo”
10.45pm – News – extended edition
11.00 pm – nothing – replaces football

Of course, they wouldn’t really leave all those nothings in. But what would they fill them up with? Not re-runs of old classics, as that would be popular entertainment. Certainly not cutting edge wildlife shows — they cost as much as popular entertainment to make. Ditto Horizon, Panorama, Shakespeare productions, Grand Opera, Jane Austen. Policy Exchange’s prescription would be about taking the money away from the BBC which currently goes on those shows.

There is, of course, a channel which already does what the BBC would be like if Policy Exchange had its way: it’s BBC News 24. The same news, over and over again, all day and night long. It doesn’t cost much to make. But, equally, it doesn’t have many people watching it for long.

If you take away the things that people like on the BBC, you will not assuage their opposition (if there is any) to the license fee. You will increase it. They will be paying the same amount of money (Policy Exchange wants to beef up Channel 4), but getting nothing they like.

How long before the BBC is abolished?

On that basis, not long at all.

But have a care. Policy Exchange is publishing a new report every three or four days. They are setting out the programme for a Tory government — the things that David Cameron dare not put in his manifesto. Britain after Cameron might well be a place with marginally less debt, if he can somehow get his sums right. But it will be a joyless, grey place, where only sure-fire hits are played on commercial TV (in other words, US shows six months after they were shown on Sky), and where home-grown television has as much interest and creative flair as a 1970s Czechoslovakian cartoon.

Share/Save

Related posts

• In the nation’s interests (1)
• Cameron promises every kind of change except actual change… (0)
• The phoney war begins (0)
• The last conceivable reason to vote Tory has just been eliminated (0)
• MP Conway has not “done the right thing” (0)

Why is this?

First, I don’t want to encourage the approach to politics which says that everything is really very simple, and if only MPs would realise that it all boils down to a simple pledge, the world will be a better place.
Second, I know from experience that many — even the majority — of these pledge campaigns are very carefully worded so that no sensible person could disagree with them, and then used to support something which is really very, very different. It’s like the (now banned) adverts which say things like “9 out of 10 mothers said it was the same or better than product x”, when the actual survey showed that one of the 10 mothers they asked liked it, one didn’t like it, and the other eight couldn’t tell the difference either way.

Does this mean I’m not interested in your campaign? No — I am interested. Send me your literature, and I’ll read it. In some cases — Help for Heroes, Jubilee Debt, Anti-slavery international, for example — I will actively back your campaign. But, if I’m not convinced enough to sign up to your mailing list and get your newsletter, then I won’t sign your pledge.

I’ve had some really good stuff sent to me. My old boss from West Midlands Arts, Sally Luton (it’s now Arts Council West Midlands) wrote to me to tell me about all the art in Stratford on Avon. Fair enough. The police have written to me to tell me about what police really need. The Federation of Small Businesses have sent me useful information.

If you want to persuade me, inform me. I won’t necessarily agree with everything you tell me, but you’ll have my ear, and I won’t forget it.

The very worst kind of pledge campaigns are the ones which are essentially a veiled threat: 75% of people believe this, sign up to our pledge and we’ll publish it. If you don’t sign up to our pledge, then we’ll publish that, and 75% of people won’t vote for you. Some of them really are as blunt as that. Others are slightly more sophisticated, and, in so being, even more ridiculous. I had one today, for example, from the Albion Alliance. I had to read it twice to check that it wasn’t from a football team. The Albion Alliance offered me two very stark choices, and demanded that I sign up to one or the other, because they were ‘mutually exclusive’. It’s true they were mutually exclusive, in the same way that fascism and communism were mutually exclusive. But there was lots of territory in between where reasonable people live. What made it worse was that they had the gall to demand a simple ‘yes/no answer’ without what they termed ‘obfuscation’. Interestingly, they didn’t actually include their pledge in the email, so I had to go to their website to check it out. I saw that the few candidates who had bothered to reply were treated very shabbily — failure to sign up to the exact words of their pledge resulted in an accusation of ‘obfuscation’.

Needless to say, I will not be replying to the Albion Campaign. However, if you are from the Albion Campaign and are reading this, my message to you would be: if you want an honest answer, then ask an honest question, and if you want a sensible answer, then ask a sensible question.

Finally, though, if you as a private citizen — or as an honest representative of a pressure group — want to email me with ordinary questions, I will certainly reply personally. Just don’t ask me to sign up to a particular form of words which you’ve already drafted. I will give you my own words, and then you can be certain that I really do mean what I say.

Share/Save

Related posts

• End is begin (1)
• Delighted to be selected for Stratford upon Avon (0)
• Why Caroline Spelman deserves a fairer hearing (0)
• What? No tourist office? (0)
• What is an unreliable narrator? (0)

If you’re interested and you want to wade through all the policies, you can make your own mind up. Here’s a link to last summer’s policy guide. Actually, the guide is not very long, and is in (for politicians) relatively clear and unambiguous English.

Policy has not changed very much since then, except for the introduction of the pledge on a ‘mansion tax’ for homes worth £2million or more, which, currently, benefit disproportionately from the highest council tax band being band H. Lib-Dems are still committed to abolishing council tax altogether, so this is an interim measure only.

Share/Save

Related posts

• In the nation’s interests (1)
• General Election Fever, and a good start to the season (0)
• Enough of the talk, time for some action (0)
• Wrong answer too late. (0)
• We should reform now, but we cannot transform until we agree what politics is for (0)

The three key issues which the online world raises are:

1 Citizen journalists
Ten years ago, there were online magazines, campaign or issue sites, and bulletin boards. This site began as one of them. Five years ago these were all converging sharply into the world of blogging. Blogging isn’t so much about the technology, as being about citizen-journalist created content, published on the web. Some blogs are anonymous, others are very clearly the property of the writers. Already a number of people have very publicly lost their jobs because their blogs (allegedly) broke the terms and conditions of their employment. More worryingly, a number of people have lost their jobs because their anonymous blogs or online aliases were tracked down, and their employers took exception. Kimberly Swann was sacked for moaning on her Facebook page about her ‘totally boring job’, even though this was essentially a private section of the web which only a few people could see.
Are bloggers citizen journalists, or are they just bored people making trouble online? What protections should they receive against snooping by their employers if they have taken the trouble to keep their thoughts anonymous? Equally, what recourse should there be for people who have been misrepresented on a blog, short of taking the blogger to court — if they can find them?

These questions are inextricably linked with the next issue.

2 Intrusion on privacy
Traditional news is governed by the Press Complaints Commission Code. The code is sometimes considered very one-sided, giving journalists and editors the right to say almost whatever they want about you as long as they call it opinion, and giving you no more recourse than a tiny retraction on page 16 if the PCC rules in your favour. On the other hand, it is infinitely preferable to taking a newspaper to court which does little more than blazon whatever they have printed about you across the front page of every newspaper and magazine, assuming you are a celebrity. Newspapers accept the strictures of the PCC because they also recognise it as hugely preferable than the alternative — primary legislation limiting what they can write.
But there is also an implicit assumption in traditional print which is based on the commercial considerations of how much it costs to produce the newspaper: private citizens do not generally get pursued, or, if they do, not for long. On the internet, if someone decides to have a go at you, unless you really are willing to take them to court, they can pursue you for as long as they want. We might assume that the rantings of a single blogger without backing will not do you much harm, and that a lash from the Daily Mail (for example) will sting much more. But the way the global internet community works is based not on status but on interest. An internet activist who can write interesting text — and vituperation can be especially interesting to many people — can get linked by all and sundry, and, as a story in itself, their campaign can make its way into mainstream media. A Robin Hood figure attacking the rich and powerful may well gain our sympathy, and we may wish to assure their protection. But what about someone who runs a vicious (but highly entertaining) online campaign against a local shop-keeper, whose business eventually fails as a result?

3 Making a profit
Newspapers will argue that their content is much more expensive to produce than blogs. They are almost certainly right. A number of my friends who are photographers or journalists have lost their jobs over the last two years as a result of the downsizing of the industry. This began long before the recession. Newspapers are finding it hard to compete, as their advertising revenues are going online, and the ‘pence per click’ is just as likely to go to a popular blogger as to their own authoritative and expensive pages. The Newspaper Licensing Agency — not, despite the name, an official body — is now trying to charge for the right to link content, on the rather specious ground that this is a breach of copyright. But the NLA was created by the newspaper industry initially to maximise the profits, but increasingly to shore up the losses, of the content they generate by collecting revenues on copyright materials.

If we abandon newspapers to market forces, then we will head rapidly towards a world in which unreferenced and poorly sourced gossip is our one alternative to publicly funded news such as the BBC. I’m a big fan of the BBC website, and want it to continue. I regard it as more or less the best site on the internet. But we place ourselves in a parlous position if the only source of news which can pay its way is owned by the government, even at arms-length, through the license-fee payer.

There are some very easy answers to all of these questions, and they’ve been around for some time. The trouble is, that all of the very easy answers, in their implementation, create much more complex situations and many unintended consequences. However, these matters will not wait long. To leave the questions unanswered is to provide an answer, of a sort. But it is unlikely to be an answer with consequences which we will like.

The work of the next parliament must absolutely address these issues, albeit quietly, and without trumpets and drums.

Related posts

• Opposites detract: Iran and the Netherlands in conflict over Qu’ran film (0)
• Why Gordon Brown’s strategy is all wrong (0)
• Why Gordon Brown should watch Doctor Who (0)
• Who now can claim that the Daily Telegraph helped democracy? (0)
• What is the Archbishop of Canterbury on about? (0)

But not all businesses are like this. There is always an undercurrent — and sometimes it is powerful and drags in whole communities — of businesses which make their money by tricking the customer, by preying on fear, on misinformation, on unethical selling tactics, or simply on the poor life chances of their victims. The Office of Fair Trading regularly shuts businesses of this kind down, but they persist, and, in some cases, gain the protection of the law, even when what they are doing is blatantly unjust.

In a deprived community, all of the following are probably acting:

unsecured, high interest loan companies
companies processing money transactions for a high fee for those without a bank account
employers who repeatedly hire staff for six months and then fire them, in order never to have to make redundancy payments
quasi-legal firms urging people towards unnecessary litigation
‘bait and switch’ online traders
landlords offering below-basic accommodation for prices designed to gain the maximum housing allowance
companies providing cash machines where there are no bank-supported ATMs, with a transaction cost sometimes 20% of the money drawn

Over the twelve and a bit years I lived in Stechford, one of the UK’s most deprived communities, I saw all of these, some quite regularly. By contrast with dodgy second-hand car salesmen, unhygienic restaurants, people selling contraband cigarettes and garages offering MOT certificates for dangerous vehicles, all of the above trade within the law. And yet they suck the life out of the communities least able to afford them, and least able to resist them.

This is legally sanctioned injustice. It engenders anger, and despair. I saw the anger boil over into rioting in the 1980s. In the 2000s, I more frequently saw a cold resignation. “They’ll always rip you, but you can’t do much,” is a phrase I heard all too often.

Should a nanny-state prevent people from spending their money however they like, even if it means they get perhaps just 70p in the pound in terms of value received? Or should predatory traders be allowed to get away with anything they like, so long as they stay within the letter of the law?

In the seminal book The Spirit Level, public health doctors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett examine the life expectancy, crime rates and other key metrics from the twenty most prosperous nations, and show, fairly convincingly, a strong correlation between larger gaps between rich and poor and poor overall life expectancy and societal good for the community as a whole. The UK, Portugal, and USA have the widest gaps in the Western World, and perform worst on almost all the metrics. Correlation, of course, does not demonstrate causation. However, it is fairly elementary to show that endemic injustice begets both violence and despair.

Government should be working on global warming, on the economy, and on rebuilding Britain’s damaged democracy, because these are big things which only governments are big enough to tackle. But government must also have a care for the little things. The answer is not additional legislation. Indeed, many of these companies prosper in the tangled world of badly drafted legislation which allow them to invoke clauses or style themselves as other kinds of businesses than they are. But we do need some of the collective intelligence of Whitehall and Westminster to be directed at these issues.

There is no armageddon waiting round the corner if we do not tackle these things. The British National Party may well elect its first MP at the General Election, as might UKIP, trading on false blame for the causes of deprivation. But it is almost inconceivable that they will ever have enough seats on anything, even the Parish Council, to actually set or influence policy. But we should tackle these issues because it is our duty to do so. Those who are elected are elected to serve the whole population, and to make decisions which benefit all.

Related posts

• Poor Gordon’s perfect storm — and heeding the lesson of history (0)
• Restoring trust – how? (0)
• Are single issue parties the answer? Not exactly… (0)
• Why tinkering with justice should alarm us all (0)
• Who now can claim that the Daily Telegraph helped democracy? (0)