The Bewilderness

Great Britain: illiberal democracy?

The events surrounding the arrest of Damien Green have caused a political storm amongst parliamentarians. From the Labour government we have heard that Ministers had "no prior knowledge" of the arrests, though the permanent secretary of the Home Office instituted the leak investigation, and that the "operational independence" of the police should not be questioned or circumscribed. These lines were agreed quickly by the government's news management team have held for now.

The police raid was undertaken by twenty counter-terrorist officers on the specious common law grounds that would seem to give them carte blanche to target anyone and everyone. From this base, and with the Speaker's permission, they seized Damien Green's constituency material and disenfranchised his electorate. The timing of the raid, at a time when parliamentary privileges are at their weakest and coincidental with the resignation of Sir Ian Blair, speaks volumes.

Whoever know about the raid does not detract from a number of points.

1. There is no longer a clear distinction between the state and the Labour party after thirteen years in power. The government has extended its powers through legislation and no longer recognises distinct checks and balances, using bureaucratese to institutionalise an illiberal, authoritarian, secretive and arbitrary state. This is an aim of their civil service counterparts, and even if Jacqui Smith did not know, it is clear that she has no capability of combating the authoritarian objectives of the Home Office.
2. The police have obtained more powers over the last twelve years then in the previous twenty and can use them to harass individuals and political parties, though this depends upon the whims of the local Chief Constable. Traffic Taliban, anyone? Uncontrolled state institutions with wide and undefined powers can run riot as their own agendas spin out and away from their political masters. From the current events, the Metropolitan police requires close scrutiny, as a coterie of Blairite officers (in possible cahoots with the Labour party), may be gunning for the opposition. The anti-terror legislation needs to be repealed.

If the Sunday papers provides fresh evidence that the Labour government had prior knowledge of the arrest or that the police were politically motivated in undertaking this arrest, then the constitutional wreckage of Thrusday will be recast in a more sinister light. Then the probability that Gordon Brown will be willing to use the powers of the state on a wider scale to hobble and undermine the opposition is increased, up to using the enabling act. But we can ask if Britain is now an illiberal democracy.

On a positive note, the abuse of power widens the constituency opposed to the arbitrary and frightening tools of surveillance that have been pooled together by this government. What a shame that it takes the Daily Mail rather than the Guardian or the Independent to champion our liberties. Our politics are now so embittered and twisted that left-wing pundits prefer to piss on our liberties rather than forsake their party. They need to be cast out in the cold for more than a generation till they learn that it is my country not my party: right or wrong.  

Another brownie disabused

Brown's claims two weeks ago, at the G20 meeting, were that all participants had agreed a need for fiscal stimulus, a statement that did not agree with the final communique. Although this has been a fast-moving period, the eternal rush of crisis management is ebbing away, replaced by an increasing torrent of bankruptcies, job losses and negative news. The cycle has turned again.

Brown seems to have been acting as the political frontrunner for the European Commission which has called for a stimulus of 1.5% of European GDP, with prudent countries requested to provide more funds. This is accompanied by the creation of a new EU 'Treasury' to disburse this largesse and accrue greater kudos for Brussels. How has this request been received? Yes, like a floating turd: since the Commission, never subtle, does not have to deal with electorates. The value of solidarity, that the French coo every time they need other people's money, has been rejected by Germany.

The package is worth 1.5pc of GDP of Europe's GDP, exceeding the 1pc plan unveiled by Britain's Chancellor Alistair Darling this week. It includes €30bn of direct spending by the EU's own institutions, amounting to a significant step towards the creation of an "EU treasury".

Under the proposals - to be submitted to EU leaders next month - each country can choose its own mix of tax cuts and extra spending. Mr Barroso said those countries with budgets in good health - chiefly Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian states - will be expected to make a "much bigger offer" in terms of overall stimulus than they have provided so far. "Those that used the good times to achieve stable public finances have most room for manoeuvre," he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel poured cold water on the plans yesterday and insisted that Berlin would not follow Britain's lead in cutting VAT. "We should not get into a race for billions. Germany is very strong," she said.

Brown's boast that the G20 had signed up to his fiscal stimulus package was a deceit: political management designed to shore up his support. Clearly: our Prime Minister does not mind building his electoral campaign on taking gambles with the lives and economic pain of millions. All principles will be replaced by socialism if that is what it takes to secure another term.

If he can return to old Labour eighteen months before an election, how much further will he go?

Mumbai mujahideen

The Indian atrocities have entered a hostage situation this morning with a number of civilians held by the 'Deccan Mujahideen' in the Taj Mahal hotel. The Indian Times is reporting that the terrorists probably came by sea from Pakistan and that there are still 100 hostages. The demand, so often heard before, is that other terrorists should be released in exchange for the life of the hostages. So far, there are 101 confirmed dead and this will no doubt rise.

According to the BBC they may be Islamist, though this is not considered in doubt by any other news agency:

Eyewitness reports suggest the attackers singled out British and American passport holders staying at the hotels.

If the reports are true, our security correspondent Frank Gardner says it implies an Islamist motive - attacks inspired or co-ordinated by al-Qaeda.

A claim of responsibility has been made by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen. Our correspondent says it could be a hoax or assumed name for another group.

Another group like Al-Qaeda, perhaps?

How to spin a poll

The Guardian highlights the Yougov poll published in the Telegraph today. It is not clear whether the poll was undertaken before, during or after the pre-budget report and the figures should be treated sceptically. The Guardian does not take this line: highlighting the poll as a response to the PBR and emphasising questions that reflect greater trust in Gordon Brown.

In his analysis for the Telegraph Anthony King says that, although the headline figures look good for Gordon Brown, other findings suggest voters are sceptical about whether the PBR will do much good....

But I would point to two other findings that may be more relevant, because they probably help to explain why Labour's ratings are going up.

Which of the two main parties would you trust to get Britain out of the present crisis?

Labour 36 (up 4 from October)
Conservatives 29 (down 2)

Which of the two main parties would you trust more to look after the interests of ordinary people during the recession?

Labour 40 (up 7 from October)
Conservatives 26 (down 2)

It will take a fortnight to confirm if this poll rating is reinforced by the PBR or whether Labour's recovery has been adversely affected by the admission of future tax rises.

Indian attacks bode ill for us

The terrorist attacks in India tonight are reported to have been carried out by the Deccan Mujahideen, a splinter group linked to al-Qaeda and possibly trained by Kashmiri elements. The reports from hostages who have ecaped the co-ordinated attack on nine sites is that the terrorists were targeting westerners, specifically British and Americans. By striking in Mumbai, the terrorists wished to show that they had the capability of exploiting vulnerabilities in India's commercial capital.

There is no final news on the number of dead, wounded or taken as hostages. The number of dead has reached 80. Condemnation aside, this attack was achieved with cheap products: guns and grenades. This follows a pattern of earlier attacks in Mumbai, but the hostage-taking is a new phenomenon. No doubt this is designed to achieve maximum publicity: could we witness similar victimisation to that displayed in Iraq.

This signifies an internationalisation of Indian terrorism, as Al-Qaeda inspired terrorism overrides domestic aims. As I pass away from this subject, the Indian Times is reporting 900 injured: a figure that the terrorists will view as a success. The current confusion does not aid understanding but there are reports that the terrorists may have infiltrated Mumbai by sea and targeted counter-terrorist experts. This looks like a well-planned attack and will reverberate for a long time to come.

The fiscal drag queens

It did not take long for Brown to unravel. Why does he think that a tax-raising budget in the middle of a recession will be popular? Was a quck stab at the politics of envy a smokescreen to cover up another tax grab? Now, his tax rises are shown to have been planned before any stimulus. At least this ridiculous 'saviour storyline' will die a deserved death.

Mr Darling and Gordon Brown had claimed that the extra future taxes would come almost exclusively from higher earners, and have insisted that only workers earning above £40,000 would be adversely affected.

They pitched the pre-Budget report as a redistributive plan to target the wealthiest, introducing a new 45 per cent tax rate for those earning above £150,000 - the first increase in the highest income tax band since 1974.

Of course, the number of people who enter the 40% tax bracket will increase through fiscal drag, their beloved lever.

Saintsational: support your local cheerleader

The Telegraph has an interview (lucky journalist!) with the cheerleading team who have accompanied the New Orleans NFL team to play over here. The unsurprising aspect of this interview is that the cheerleaders view their activity (a mixture of dance and gymnastics) as a form of calling. They are also highly motivated individuals whose success is replicated in their choice of careers:

All dancers from as young as five, the girls see it as a higher calling, a literal spreading of happiness like ENSA during the war. Only these girls are busy pursuing different careers in the meantime. Dianne is a medical student, Amanda S is studying marketing and accounting, Bethany T is a biology student, while Amanda T, the rookie of the bunch who has not yet been with the Saintsations a year, is a Film and TV graduate.

Far from being human Barbies, or, as one critic described them, "pole-dancers without the tips", these girls are all high-achievers, something they are known for in the US but which has been lost in typecasting overseas.

"Most cheerleaders work hard at school and because lots of us aspire to have a career in human relations, we see it as an activity which will help our future careers," says Dianne, who has the PR patter down to a fine art. "The rewards are not just on the field - they're about being role models for young girls in the community. We aspire to making a positive impact." "We're great role models because we're such well-rounded individuals," adds wide-eyed Amanda T, "and we take care of our bodies so in terms of feminism we're cheerleaders for that as well."

This is characterised as an American enterprise though the underlying connection is clear: competition, exercise and schooling. Does this not echo, in a renewed form, the 'muscular christianity' of Charles Kingsley? From my own experience, these values are held by former cheerleaders as well.

We should encourage this in our state schools just to get the usual left lackwits frothing at the mouth. After all, would this not be the wrong form of exercise?

The lure of lenin and Chavez's bolivarian alternative

The question mark that hangs over illiberal forms of democracy is how far will authorities act to undermine or maintain their structures, without adopting the formal apparatus of one party modern dictatorships. This affects some of the more troublesome rogue states that plague international relations: Pakistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Such polities are characterised by organised dissent and coercive state structures that are unwilling to show the ruthlessness or political will of twentieth century regimes where revolutions liquidated rather than tolerated their opponents. Why this decline in ruthlessness?

Nevertheless, far left semi-democratic states like Venezuela are unstable, in so far as they depend upon popular tools such as referenda and state mobilisation of resources for their legitimacy. This is achieved by the sequestration of assets or the use of natural resources. With the fall in the oil price and the rise of economic instability, Chavez is no longer able to rely upon democratic tools to institutionalise his regime: the loss of last year's referendum was a key landmark in his rolling Bolivarian revolution.

Now Chavez has used the government controlled judiciary to ban popular opponents who could have obtained public posts such as the Mayoralty of Caracas. It is predicted that he will lose provinces and, with a declining power-base, will be unable to effect the constitutional reforms through the means that he established.

This will be an important point for Venezuela: preserving democratic legitimacy with the eventual hope of returning liberalism or a lurch towards Cuba with the proscription of all non-Bolivarian alternatives. Will Chavez resist the lure of Lenin?

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Recession extraordinaire

Are we due another crisis? We know that the banks fell apart during October but we have not seen a full accounting of their bad debts or whether they have set aside sufficient reserves to meet these requirements.

The process of deleveraging has hit the real economies hard. Now, the United Kingdom is passing through the first stages of the recession where the onlooker does not know how hard, how fast or how long the downturn will take. Every week we hear another phase of terror wander the garden of punditry: Japanese style lost deflation, a longer lasting recession than any other advanced industrial country, the potential sterling crisis and so on.

Let us be clear: no one knows if this downturn can be described in orthodox terms or compared with previous recessions. Gordon Brown is arrogant enough to believe that he can affect this tsunami through a splurge of borrowing but, if I stick my finger in the air, this money will have no effect at all in the long run, and will do nothing to cozen the pain. What desperate measures will Brown turn to then?   

Brown brownies remain warmed over

Others will opine on the importance of the G20 replacing the G8 as the fulcrum of international economic organisation. The major outcome of the meeting was a vague commitment to restart and conclude the Doha round of trade talks, a more constructive stance to the Smoot-Hawley tariffs that disfigured the 1930s. Yet, the United States remains a key player and they have not participated in this sideshow. Without a firm commitment, this  photo-opportunity is used for political grandstanding and the 'paradigm of action' that obscures the 'phoney recession', that period before the crash.

The only newspaper to run with Brown's otiose claim that the G20 meeting endorsed his new position as unofficial world leader was the Independent, with quotes from Dominique Strauss-Khan of the IMF demanding a fiscal stimulus.

Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship at MIT and a former chief economist at the IMF, warned that specific plans for individual countries to simultaneously lock down on risky banking practices, though it may be vital in the long run to prevent a repeat of the credit crisis, could be damaging in the short term, when economies need all the boost they can get.

"None of the principles are really new and it could all have been arranged by finance ministers, probably over the telephone," he said. "But as well as disappointed, I am also a bit worried about the contradiction between the principles and the specifics. What officials have to deliver on, by the end of March, is substantive progress with regards to tougher and tighter regulation of credit. There is a real danger that this action plan – within such a short time frame – can actually make the global downturn dramatically worse."

That would sum up Brown's potential contribution to the downturn: lots of vague principles and few or no deliverables. By next March, the landscape will be very different and Brown may be more desperate.