The Bewilderness

Give the Lords back their veto

Part of the journey of conservatism is to maintain or restore the natural balances within the Constitution. One of the greatest of these was a bicameral system, whereby a second chamber could overrule the first, if deemed appropriate. Bicameralism was abandoned during the constitutional crisis of 1910 to 1912 when peers threatened to veto the budget, overruling the elected government of the day. At the dawn of mass politics, this diehard reaction was viewed as the spasm of a landed class opposed to redsitributive taxation.

Yet, a second chamber that merely advises or delays is a hundred years old. The Parliament Act served as a statute to enshrine unicameral supremacy within Britain by augmenting the Commons. Such overweening power was last taken upon themselves by the revolutionaries in 1649. 

The Diehards, as the peers who wished to retain their veto were called, offered a model of a second chamber in 1910. The peers would elect 100 members, the Prime Minister would appoint 100 members and a final tranch of 100 would be directly elected. The retention of the veto was directly linked to the democratisation of the chamber. 

With the reforms proposed, democratisation would be achieved in a diluted and anodyne measure. Lords would be elected with little power, and only the most mediocre of party apparatchiks would desire to end their career in those halls. Public service as a motivation would be overshadowed by placemen, sinecures and cronies; we have seen enough of this pollution under New Labour.

To overcome the power of patronage and appointment, the triumph of the party machine and weak part-timers flattened by the Commons juggernaut, we should look at Lords reform afresh. A balance of tradition, appointment and democracy, infused with the power of veto, would spell deadlock or balance. Best that representation holds the edge over the other two elements, but overturn this dangerous innovation that has lasted a century and return to the bicameral system that fully expresses the genius of our antient constitution.

Stagnationalism: UK in the age of austerity

The coalition is entering a phase of division of backbiting, where the differences between leaders and parties are becoming much clearer to the public. The Liberal Democrats have moved towards a pernicious narrative of public sector protection: promoting the smallest reforms necessary to curb the public sector borrowing requirement and preening themselves as guardians of the vulnerable. Whether it be health, education or social rights, they attempt to outflank Labour at the expense of Liberalism.

The Liberal Democrats are divided between Left and Right. A predictable Tribune article notes that the strategy of differentiation has silenced the Orange Book wing and upplayed the profiles of Huhne and Cable. Yet frustration must be mounting within the Tory party. To continue postponing the necessary reforms on the supply side, reducing the cost of jobs and regulation, because Vince Cable is a thorn in the side of the economy, must be galling (And the Liberal Democrats are old Labour for the public sector professionals). To find that our policy on Europe is subjected to policy paralysis because do-nothing is better than undermining the coalition breeds anger on the right.

Will the coalition find a better configuration, easing pressures through shared policies in other areas? Both parties have an incentive to play up differences in order to appeal to their base. Yet, the pro-market liberalism identified in the early days of the coalition has certainly been submerged. Is this a reaction to the political needs of each party and the polling evidence, as Tory dominance in numbers begins to count? Was the classical liberalism wish-fulfillment on the part of the media? Or does this disappearance herald dissent amongst the Liberal democrats, who find that they share more common ground with socially liberal Tories than they realised?

The stresses in the coalition may ebb and flow: but the real calamity for this government is that Liberal Democrats footdragging on reform may have reduced the flexibility needed to deregulate. We are in the worst of all possible worlds: facing the necessity of austerity with an economy hobbled by the legacy of New Labour's regulation, defended by the ultimate insiders of the producer interests. Stagnation beckons...

Less labour may mean more work

One of the key planks of Gordon Brown's clientelage strategy was stuffing the mouths of the middle class with their own gold. A perverse short-term strategy that defied economic gravity and ensured the long-term bankruptcy of the state. That plank is about to be knocked away, not!

In order to fund the universal credit system proposed by Iain Duncan Smith, some universal benefits may be tightened, when they should be abolished. The luncy of helping everyone whilst helping the poor will be continued. Just to make his poverty of ambition plain:

Seeking to soothe voters' fears over the coming spending cuts, Cameron stressed his plans would not take government spending back to the levels of the 1980s, but to a level last seen in 2006. He said: "Let's put these savings in perspective. Many businesses have had to make far greater reductions than us in one year."

A good plan would be if you wished to take state expenditure back to the 1880s. Prior to the expansion of the state, we had less law and more liberty.

Still, from a policy perspective, a single credit system eases some of the inefficiencies and confusion of Labour's legacy:

Duncan Smith said there is "something fundamentally wrong" with a system that pays 5 million people not to work while immigrants come in to do jobs those on benefit reject: "You're just replacing one group of unwilling workers with another group of willing workers. That doesn't make a lot of sense."

But will your reforms remove dependency? Hardly.....

Defence ducked

Was the leak of Liam Fox's letter a mere contrivance? Strange that the public receives muddied waters on expenditure cuts with benefits and defence the two zones of conflict. Did the papers report rearguard actions from civil service Taliban setting off improvided explosive leaks (IELs) to save their budgets, and not coincidentally, their positions.

Yet, when David Cameron spins that he is now in the driving seat on defence, we sit up and await his decisiveness. Renewal of Trident, perhaps? Two new aircraft carriers confirmed? No, the "wide ranging" interview of strong decisions fades away very rapidly:

disclosed that more Chinook helicopters would be made available for British troops in Afghanistan.

he pledged that Britain’s Armed Forces would be given “everything that they need” to fight the Taliban.

This is what Brown used to say. Are we facing a convergence in rhetoric? One government starved the armed forces out of neglect,the other by necessity. All both can fall back on is tired mantras about troop protection. 

The real issues on defence, strategic thought and withdrawal from Afghanistan remain unresolved.

The Pickles Terror

The Audit Commission became a politicised, bloated parody of itself. After thirteen years of Labour rule, and marinated in the arrogance of the mission, they decided to employ lobbyists to combat the Pickles Terror.

If you are part of the problem, you are part of the dissolution.

This 'rotten' Parliament ends in gerrymandering

The government and the palace are preparing for a hung Parliament: just in case. For this rotten Parliament and this 'rotten election' is defined by three gerrymandering parties, two of whose policies have some residual merit.

The Liberal Democrats favour a proportional system that would provide them with more seats and perhaps a 'kingmaker' role. The Tories aim for a reduction of seats within a first past the post system, redressing the imbalance that favours the Labour Party.

The prize for rotten behaviour is handed to Brown and the Labour Party. Masquerading as reformer, they adopt the only electoral system that will extend their predominance in Parliament by accentuating their voting strength.

A hung Parliament may be the worse outcome, offering the opportunity to perpetuate this political class, all of whom deserve to be turfed out. The scum wish to alter the keys in favour of incumbency.

A more libertarian Britain?

Looked at through the prism of politics and the headline that the British are more conservative could just about hold water. The new British Social Attitudes Survey has found that the British are less inclined to support redistribution or other forms of economic collectivism and are more tolerant of lifestyles considered deviant a generation ago.

Only two in five want more spending on public services such as health and education, the lowest level since 1984. The same proportion want greater redistribution of income from rich to poor compared with more than half of the public in 1994.

The survey, conducted by the National Centre for Social Research, found that sympathy towards the unemployed and other welfare claimants has also diminished. More people believe that benefits prevent people “standing on their own two feet”, with only one in four disagreeing. That compares with half the population disagreeing in the 1980s. There has also been an increase in those who feel that many on welfare do not deserve payments.

In terms that we understand the British have shifted towards a more liberal or libertarian mindset. Presented with the evidence of the New Labour years, they are far more sceptical of governmental action and far less forgiving of tax rises. There is no distinction between the orientation of their economic and social values except that imposed by political journalists.

The Tories will feel aggrieved that their socially liberal outlook, developing from the libertarian struggles of the 1980s, is not recognised; but optimistic that they are more 'in tune' with general attitudes.

No party seals the deal in 2009

The Times today reports that the Tory high command are unsure how to deal with the narrowing of their lead in the polls. The narrative (and how accurate is that?) tells us that Labour is focusing on their core vote, whilst the Tories have not 'sealed the deal'. But is it clear that a lack of confidence in the Tories is turning voters away from them? Do we know that Labour is just appealing to its core voters?

The dip in the Tory lead commenced when they dropped their promise of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. Whilst the Eurosceptic wing within the party was disciplined and remained quiet, wider commentary portrayed this decision as a betrayal of trust. The advantage that the Tories had over Labour was one of honesty; whether that was true of not is immaterial, that was the perception. Cameron squandered that advantage with his 'realist' withdrawal from the pledge.

The belief that they are all the same is corroded further with the accusations over Lord Ashcroft and Coulson's reheating of policy announcements:

Andy Coulson, the party’s director of communications, has asked Shadow Cabinet ministers to “find new angles” on existing policies to generate media coverage, according to insiders.

How does this differ from Labour? Tory handicaps aside, the leading party may face another hurdle. Whilst the leaders of the Liberal democrats may entertain a coalition with the Tories, their activists lean leftwards and dislike this trend. Rightwards at the top may be countered by activist co-operation with Labour at the bottom: Liberal Democrat support countering Labour's collapse in membership.

There is no deal to seal: there is only fractious squabbling as political parties battle over the crumbs. The election that will set the seal on Britain in the first half of the twentieth century is still some years away.

Labour and Tories converge on populism

When a government debates the measures needed to solve a 'problem' exacerbated by its own possibilities, my ears prick up. The 'problem' that Labour bangs the drum on is social inequality, though this was never promoted when they were in “kiss the rich” mode. They have switched to “eat the rich” by debating radical reforms of the tax system that they distorted for their political benefit.

The debate around social justice and tacking inequality is taken at face value in the Grauniad article. Yet the answers given pile an oppressive burden on Labour's poll ratings: more council tax, capital gains tax on houses, a wealth tax. This is electoral suicide, raising taxes at a time of economic depression and penalising the swing voters on which your small chance of recovery rests.

The article hints that the measures undertaken are designed to outflank the Tories by depending upon the 'politics of envy'. This will require some high thresholds on the measures given. Otherwise, the middle class will be affected. This has been a staple of Labour's strategy over the last year.

Another has been catching up with the populist measures of Osborne. Now that he has stated no salaries above the Prime Minister's will be allowed without Treasury approval (his contribution to the localist agenda), Harman is considering more transparency and control. The policies may differ but both Conservatives and Labour are tying down high public sector salaries.

As this government peters out, the withdrawal of Cameron from his radical agenda is highlighting some convergence in both parties as they seek to draw support from disaffected former voters. Why do they deserve a vote?

Vote for madam cameron

The Tory conference was designed to bring home to the public the notion of truth and responsibility. Some would say that the release of such headlines as raising the retirement age, freezing public sector pay and “telling it as it as” are a democratic version of spanking. The toffs transposing their public school predilections on the masses.

Yet, the very basis of this approach is paternalist. The public must be schooled and directed towards the appropriate outcome. For the Tories, the outcome is fiscal sustainability, the only time that word appears truthfully in their canon.

However, the majority in democracy have an incentive to socialise their irresponsibility, allying with government to inflate their debt away or maintain redistribution. Such a system is inherently unstable in the long term. After all, under Labour, welfarism has moved onto secondaries. An interesting experiment is under way. Do turkeys vote for Christmas? Short-term slaughter and, possibly, long-term satisfaction.