The Bewilderness

An unchecked and unbalanced Lord Chancellor

In olden days, the defence of liberty within the diverse halls of the British constitution was far simpler than today and one could marshal one's forces to defeat the powers of darkness. However, New Labour was defeated and its authoritarian madness has been partially implemented through subterfuge.

Now, the expansion of state power is undertaken through subtle alterations to laws that nobody reads; chipping away at the checks and balances which limit the power of civil servants or politicians to exercise their power. Administrative law becomes an arcane fiefdom that is not available to the man on the street who find themselves at the mercy of the informal British nomenklatura.

So, no surprise that the House of Lords Constitution Committee opens an inquiry into the powers of the Lord Chancellor after he gained powers, by parliamentary order, to limit judicial review if it is undertaken in the public interest. This power has been viewed as an encroachment upon the independence of the judiciary.

It is a measure of the disquiet felt by the peers that they have widened their review to take in the powers of the Lord Chancellor.  

All to play for in 2015

The Labour party have not maintained the lead in the polls that they commanded during the years of declining living standards. The parallels with the balance sheet recovery of 1992 are clear. During that election, Labour were also unable to persuade enough voters that they deserved their trust on matters of economic competence. As the recovery has accelerated and living standards have commenced an upward trend, the Conservative party enjoys a tepid recovery in the polls.

This polling trend is, in some ways, indifferent to the European election results or potential upsets in Newark. Since the underlying compass for voters is the economy, psephological upsets magnified by the Westminster bubble are far less influential that real asset bubbles elsewhere. For the Tories, their real risks lie offshore: in China, Europe and the United States. 

Yet, with the economy as ballast, a recovery hits the oddities of the British electoral system. Left-wing Liberal Democrats have tactically defected to Labour in part; anti-Tory distaste trumping devotion to the protest vote. And the protest vote has turned to UKIP: disillusioned with a party now in government. 

The range of outcomes is wide open and complicated by the potential results of the Scottish referendum. That, rather than the European elections, could prove the earthquake that cracks open English politics.

I want to make my mark on the BreXit ballot

The Liberal Democrats promised, once upon a time, in their manifesto that the British electorate should hold an In-Out referendum on EU membership. Soon after, they reneged on this promise. Their reasons for this change have never held water. Their unprincipled nature is clear. Every policy adopted is clothed in sanctimonious and hypocritical language though it is designed for naked advantage. This extends from House of Lords reform to the proportional representation vote.

It is an unedifying sight to watch unelected Lords, put their through the patronage of their parties, conspire to remove the right of the British public to vote on the most important relationship in this polity. Their actions show that they do not trust us and that is reflected straight back at these apparatchiks. 

For an issue of such importance, and as an opportunity which Labour and the Liberal Democrats loathe, the Tory government should use the Parliament Act to force through this democratic measure. We deserve no less. 

Help to buy your vote

I hate to find myself agreeing with the sentiments aired by Cable. However, his grasp of policy does place him on the same side as other cautious critics of the coalition's policies. Tinkering with access to credit could stimulate an artificial rise in property prices unreflective of actual demand in the economy. Not that Cable is averse to tinkering in his own way. 

Without interest rate policy, governments have to rely on other methods to pump up a boom in time for the election. It is an irony that Brown did abolish boom by fostering an eternal bust. Now Osborne has reinvented boom and bust: boomtime for your vote and bust a year later, or midterm as the scheme runs out in 2017.

Which wag will call this the 'Help to Buy Your Vote' scheme.

Cashing In

Douglas Carswell MP has noted the growing demands of the House of Commons in holding the executive to account. Supine arselickers are no longer sauce of the day on the green benches. Yet the government still remains contemptuous of such demands. 

Cameron's Euroscepticism is a tour de farce in execution: dragged licking and screaming into the ligh as the latest victim of Brussels syndrome. His persobal penchant for compromise with the EU is highlighted by his latest ambassador to the Union: Ivan Rogers who has worked for the Europhiles, Leon Brittan and Ken Clark. That will raise eyebrows in the drier elements of the Tory party.

Such a combination of parliemantary scrutiny and EU scepticism marry in Bill Cash, chairman of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Commitee. The Committee's wish to speak to Ivan Rogers was rebuffed by William Hague, Foreign Secretary, on the grounds that the appointee was a diplomat. With such powers, the Committee is more than a little disgruntled with such executive highhandedness. 

This is just not good enough....and further evidence that Cameron is not to be trusted on Europe.

Independence expectations north of the border

The vote for Scottish independence is a sleeping subject for the politicians at Westminster. With fourteen months till the referendum, there is little discussion of the vote or its implications in London. No doubt calculations are being made within circles gaming both the outcomes of "yes" and "no". Yet on this vote hinges the possibility of a majority Labour government.

Will Labour accede to inevitable demands that its Scottish MPs lose certain voting powers in the event of independence or further devolution? Can Miliband ignore the West Lothian question in the event of a No vote? There will be a huge clamour to raise the issue in 2014. It may even outdo Europe in the minds of recalcitrant Tories. The genuine and just outcome will be a form of federalisation.

The Guardian puffery on Alex Salmond written by an admiring Kevin McKenna focuses upon Salmond's capabilities of differentiating on the Left. The hero-worship of industrialism at the start, the demonisation of Toryism and the usual crap that Scottish national identity embodies the Grauniad's wihlist on social justice detracts from a single valid point. The independence referendum cannot single out grievances or oppression as a starter. Therefore, the campaign becomes akin to a general election campaign and will revolve, as Salmond notes, around expectations and opportunity.

I can only guffaw when I think about how an independent Scotland would dash the expectations of Guardianistas who expect a paradise of social justice that can become a beacon to the oppressed and beighted ignorant English. It would also dash the expectations of the Scottish themselves; and that will be a sadder story.

Scottish independence: a single issue country?

I dislike the acronym that could come into play if Scotland voted for independence; this, more than any other element of the charade, disturbs me. I do not wish to live in the Former UK.

When one hears Salmond and the Scottish National Party intone on these matters, there is a hint of complacency. They took a literal view of the Scottish electorate. If you are voting for a Scottish Nationalist party, then you are voting for a positive vote in the forthcoming referendum. The party could not shake its single issue mentality: focusing on independence at a time of economic upheaval and forfeiting trust in their governance. (An example of their complacency is lowering the voting age to 16 in the belief that teenagers are more inclined to support independence. An assumption not borne out by the polls). Parallels with the Tory focus on Europe at a distraction to the greater worries of the economy or health have surely preyed on the mind of the Scottish voter.

The SNP has difficulties in explaining why the risk of independence is worth taking. Instead of governance, questions now focus on how matters will be undertaken in a separate country. The Scottish administration states that everything will be fine and assumes that the rest of the UK will sign for their package withoutr preconditions. Hmmm....Fears of change are becoming entangled with everyday questions of performance. The Scottish voter: Why should we vote for you if you can't solve skoolzanhospitals because you are too busy dreaming of a future with more capability to boss us around

Can they square this circle? 

All politicians are scum

The record of the Coalition government and contemporary politics. A minority partner called the Liberal Democrats. They vote for illiberal measures and decided that non-equalised constituencies stand; a squalid organisation placing petty imagined slights above social justice. It is neither liberal nor democratic to retain an unequal system of representation.

A majority party called the Conservatives. The only conserve they have stuck to is the jammy bind we find ourselves in. They forget that Labour policies don't really work. So we seem to be at the Heath stage of the crisis here. And as for Labour: the party of the non-working classes; either public sector or benefits.

A whole swathe of mediocrity: spending our money and impoverishing us by majority rule. 

Stagnation

David Blanchflower, writing in The Independent on Sunday, adopts polemic as the tool of debate in his survey of Coalition economic policy. The thrust of the piece is quickly established with a description of George Osborne as "the most inept" in history. A selective reading then follows: comparing the growth of Darling (achieved through a huge level of government expenditure) with the flatlining economy of contemporary Britain.

What interests me is the incoherence of the piece. Blanchflower identifies stagnant wages, loss of confidence and continued uncertainty as strong headwinds to growth. He slams Tory politicians for confusing deficits and debts (a trick they learned from Labour). Yet none of this is controversial or non-consensual. The attacks on Tories, fellow economists and 'anyone who doesn't agree with Blanchflower' strike the neutral reader as overdone to a turn. One can preach to the converted but are any solutions proffered?

Blanchflower intimates that workers need a raise so that they can spend. But surely any raise will be squirrelled away and used to pay down debt: that unmentionable: deleveraging, which Blanchflower forgot to mention. And is it rational for people receiving pay rises to incur more debt after the biggest credit orgy in history.

There is a policy trap: low interest rates, higher inflation, genteel stagnation. Any rise in interest rates will raise the animal spirits following a period of creative destruction. Yet, without growth, the government is unequal to the task of reducing the deficit.

This dilemma would tax any Chancellor and proves a more difficult context than most have ever faced. I don't know the answer but I do know it isn't pay rises. That was a trite ending to a trite article.

Cameron faces up to the clerisy

The challenges that developments within the European Union's political framework pose to the coalition are now arriving more frequently. Despite favourable statements supporting a banking union and greater integration for the Eurozone, the Conservatives find that their unforgiving stance on the European budget acquires greater opprobrium. They face a concerted effort on the part of poorer countries to use development budgets as a tool of redistribution.

This firm stance (with an elaborate and symbolic utterance of veto, echoing Thatcher's handbag rhetoric) seems to combine domestic rhetoric with an aggressive demand for the repatriation of certain powers. The repatriation has focused upon areas of criminal justice and the repeal of the European Arrest Warrant. Yet, such rhetorical tactics are known to harden the resistance of other European politicians and rarely meet the expectations of the radical backbenches. So why do it? Why cause yourself so much pain?

Perhaps European negotiations are zero sum games: to win, one must trade some perks for others. To allow a European budget, perhaps Cameron is signalling that he wishes to obtain concessions in other areas. Yet repatriation is such a betrayal of ever closer union that Angela Merkel of Germany does not seem to be able to entertain the notion, preferring cancellation of the summit.

Could Cameron have overplayed his hand? He may not be dealing with rational players (also known as politicians), willing to horsetrade for their goals. His counterparts could be described to ideologues, determined to foster further integration and unable to countenance any deviation in that ideology. Cameron is no longer viewed as a trader but as a heretic and deviant, head of a schismatic sect. This latter view may help Brexit, since the troublesome critics are expelled.