The Bewilderness

Has Cameron Lit Out?

The exaggeration that the media enjoys has now turned towards the silly season. The polls have been up and down since Brown's accession to power, showing a 'bounce' that fades in and out. Now, the controversy over Tony Lit, has been used to represent Cameron as suffering a setback.

The polls remain volatile. Underlying problems have not vanished and the government will have real problems detaching their record from the very low growth and possible decline in disposable income. Headline grabbing announcements on contemporary problems by Brown face the corrosive acid of economic growth that is not reflected in our pockets.

All of the froth about Cameron is foolish compared to the damaging rises in interest rates. That is why an early election may be on the cards, though a sustained lead would be necessary to bolster Brown's invisible courage.

Gordon Brown the Sober Blairite

Every day in the newspapers, we hear stories of the duplicity and incompetence of our government. Why should we be surprised by this? Did we experience a higher standard of governance in former days, when administrations were undermined by their political trade unions, not by their own mediocrity.

Gordon Brown has undertaken the first of his U-turns, casting aside policies that proved unpopular and at variance with Labour's brand. Good-bye supercasino! This will still dog the  government for a while through legal challenges, but regeneration of local areas will not depend upon gambling. This was always a dubious import of the United States.

Brown prefers to set out his raft of policies, in a mini 'Queen's speech'. He promised a new target on affordable housing, promised to overturn the 28 day limit on holding terrorist suspects and review the use of intercept evidence.

Mr Cameron said the announcements repeated Labour goals and initiatives dating back a decade or more. "A long list of Bills, the same priorities and the same failures, and I have to say we've heard it all before," Mr Cameron said.

A Tory analysis of the Bills, claimed that only one, dealing with housing and regeneration, had not been announced or published in draft form. The proposal for 25-year mortgages was announced four years ago, and the aim of apprenticeships and universal education after 16 in 1996.

Whilst the only reform was the fact that it was announced early to Parliament, this stresses the possibility that we are only living through a period of 'sober Blairism'. The unkept promises are still mounting. These are either intrinsic to government in general: the pulping of ministerial papers on HIV to avoid evidence that could be used as a lawsuit and learning that the redlines negotiated by Blair have no legal force.

Margot Wallström, the European Commission Vice-President, insisted that the charter will apply to huge swathes of British law, the 75 per cent or more that is derived from EU legislation.

"Citizens will be able to claim before the courts the rights enshrined in the Charter," she said. "The Charter will be binding for the European institutions, and also for member states when they implement EU law, even if it does not apply to all of them."

Sensitive national legislation, such as Britain's opt-out on a Brussels directive that sets the length of the working week will, officials predict, be challenged in the EU courts because it implements European laws.

A referendum will allow the British people to decide on an 'amending treaty' without the obfuscation or duplicitous loyalties of our politicians. After all, they are hollowed out in the EU.

Brown's Bubble

We may not have heard of misery indices for many years, yet they could roar back to media attention in the United Kingdom. Gordon Brown will need to examine two trends if he wishes to win the next election: the cost of living and the price of housing. This is coming to the boil, as the debt laden economy merges with higher inflation. Individuals and companies with higher debt, taken up over years of low interest rates, have raced the bubble. Now that bubble may be about to burst.

The figures came as another report suggested that four interest rate rises in the past 12 months are starting to hit consumers' pockets.

The Nationwide Building Society said yesterday that consumer confidence fell for the first time in six months during June and that consumers were more gloomy about the economic outlook than they were a year ago.

A series of interest rate rises, coupled with higher taxes, have forced up people's household bills and dented their disposable income. Leading high street retailers have complained that they are starting to suffer.

Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide's chief economist, said: "The fall in confidence in June reflects some weakening sentiment about the economy and jobs, both now and in the future.

For Brown, the danger is that an economic downturn will be linked to his decade at the Treasury. Then, the continuities with Blair will become apparent: a political model based upon continued economic growth that has to adapt to recession and slow or declining tax revenues. The usual responses of denial and spin will prove too distant from the experiences of householders. Yet, recession does not invariably mean unpopularity, even if the bubble was prolonged by Brown's policies. This will only become a racing certainty if lower living standards are linked to higher taxes.

Brown's Marquis

When one views the construction of the cabinet of "all the talents", with the appointment of Sir Digby Jones, Mark Malloch Brown and Lord Stevens, we hear the same opening of the key political institutions to outsiders that Sarkozy has championed in France. Both Brown and Sarkozy wished to use outsider appointments as signals of their willingness to seek expertise and competence outside their political parties.

These appointments can usefully help the representation of the incumbent government. Sarkozy has used the appointments of women, ethnic minorities and Bernard Kouchner, founder of Medicins sans frontieres, to undermine the right wing image that he cultivated as a hammer of the banlieues. This is less important for Brown, although Unionist defence is a factor in his thinking.

Brown also wished to emulate and undermine David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party. He did this, in one way, by fishing in the same pool of talking heads that had acquired a public reputation for straight talking and practical advice in their respective specialisms. The best example of this is Lord Stevens:

Gordon Brown has appointed Lord Stevens, the head of a Conservative party policing taskforce, to be his adviser on international security issues.

The new prime minister's decision to invite the former Metropolitan police chief to join the Labour administration - just weeks after the Conservatives announced the crossbench peer had agreed to head their taskforce on UK border policing - is likely to be seen as provocative by the Tory leader, David Cameron.

The danger of publicising such outside appointments and drawing them into the political tent is that they can backfire. When Blair appointed Frank Field as a signal of radical welfare reform, the sacking of the MP was taken as the closure of that government's willingness to contemplate unprecedented reform. Cameron, by retaining outsiders in policy groups rather than within the party, benefits from their association, without risking political fallout within the party.

If these appointments do not work out, they may signal the time when Brown is perceived as failing to deal with international security or trade, if Stevens or Jones were to resign.

Brown's Referendum

Peter Riddell describes the treaty as a "messy series of compromises" which proves less contentious than earlier treaties. This is understandable when most powers have already been ceded to the EU, and the outcome is a legal entity in all but name. The de facto trappings of nationhood can be added later, since symbolism will emerge from the substance.

The problem for Brown is that Blair may have defused a problem or passed a timebomb. The promise of a referendum on a Constitution is deflected by the argument that this is an amending treaty. Yet, the spun four red lines are now wispy figleaves, autumnal droppings from the withering of British sovereignty. Moreover, the Parliamentary debates will expose the whole treaty to continued reminders of promises betrayed and the impotence of Parliament.

Brown's line of change and honesty will fall at the first hurdle if he maintains the Blairite charge of reneging on a promise given. There may be charges of opportunism and hypocrisy laid against the conservatives, yet this will not be spun as a Eurosceptic move. Giving the people a say is holding the government to the promise that they kept and arguments against the referendum now are bunkum designed to avoid an unpromising outcome. Europhiles do not have the courage to take their arguments to the people.

This gives the Liberal Democrats a key role. Their choice of a referendum or parliamentary vote will potentially swing political influence in favour of the poll. We may see Brown woo the Liberal Democrats further with various forms of co-operation in order to try and sideline the Tories, with the price of acquiescence on this explosive of issues. Europe can sink all parties.

The coronation of a cabinet-maker

The Labour party had an election that was too close to call. The result, announced at the same time as the coronation, was a triumph for Harriet Harman. Whilst Hilary Benn and Alan Johnson hogged the headlines, the Minister for Justice, acquired the necessary preferences.

This was not the outcome that Gordon Brown preferred. His speech, upon taking the role of Labour leader, was to call upon the handpicked multitudes to prepare for a general election.

Mr Brown said that he wanted to ensure that "we are ready not just to fight but to win a general election".

Now, the new leader is facing some positive press coverage, as if the wooing of the Liberal Democrats in a "cabinet of all the talents" was some ploy to dispossess the third party. As if by mentioning the general election, and hearing of Cameron's minor woes, Brown sets sail for victory.

If this is a honeymoon period, then it will not last long. The continuities with Blair, the problems of Labour's governance and the dilemma posed by the demands for a referendum will overshadow the trite acceptance of the new. We have to wait till Wednesday for announcements from the cabinet-maker.

Rushdie: The Self-Interest of Certain Ummah Declarations

The political reaction to Sir Salman Rushdie's knighthood in certain portions of the Islamic world was rather predictable. Iran was certain to oppose the gong as honouring an apostate, whose complex novels presented a Muslim world out of touch with their reformation.

Hardliners in Iran revived calls for his murder yesterday. Mehdi Kuchakzadeh, a Tehran MP, declared: “Rushdie died the moment the late Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] issued the fatwa.”

The other country that has reacted against the honour is Pakistan. The national assembly passed a resolution condemning the knighthood and politically motivated demonstrations burnt effigies of the Queen and Rushdie, shouting "Death to...[latest transgressor]." Here is another example of how Islamic sensitivities are stoked and inflamed by political constituencies, as particular politicians invoke the name of the wider ummah to justify extremism and violence.

Ijaz-ul-Haq, the Religious Affairs Minister, told the assembly in Islamabad that the award of the knighthood excused suicide bombing. “If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet then it is justified,” he said.

He later retracted his statement, explaining that he had intended to say that knighting Rushdie will foster extremism. “If someone blows himself up, he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West? We demand an apology by the British government. Their action has hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims."

Rushdie's knighthood becomes the latest symbol for certain regimes to cloak their justifications in Islamism and draw the sting fromnational opposition.

Brown: Neo-Monogamous Media Marriage

Brown, in a widely reported speech, yesterday pressed many Blair buttons, and removed all doubt that the TBGBs were nothing more than media froth. In the hustings at Oxford, Brown told the Labour Party that activists needed to engage with local communities and draw people in to debates on health, education and other issues.

Highlighting the stark fall in the membership levels of political parties over the past 50 years, Mr Brown said local Labour parties needed to "forge connections" with their communities. He urged them to use mechanisms such as "citizens' forums" to increase the public's political engagement and sense of involvement in policy making.

Labour needed to increase its campaigning role to increase public support for its policies, Mr Brown suggested. He called for the party to be "at the centre of every major campaign, persuading people of the importance of what we do", warning that Labour was "nothing unless we are a campaigning party".

Brown's contribution to the debate could be viewed as a vital contribution to localism or a party that desperately wishes to renew itself by hijacking populism. Yet, as their presence in local government has atrophied, one wonders if there is a quid pro quo: Labour councillors for full government services.

The second part of his promise will also result in increased powers for the Left. No base is more moderate than the leadership, who require a wider constituency to get elected:

He promised to give party members a greater say in policymaking, without specifying the extent of that future influence or how it would be achieved. While offering more consultation, he made no commitment that the outcome of that consultation would have a direct bearing on policies.

This would have to be meaningful consultation or Brown will drive the decline of his party.

Political parties should be like religion: a vague feeling that they are necessary without having to engage with them except at calendrical intervals: every five years, usually. However, as they do an awful lot of harm, we have to keep tabs. Brown's imperatives of local contact and campaigning could be construed as an order to activists: get your paws on all local campaigns to increase your profile, even if they are against Labour party policy. Look at Labour Ministers shamelessly defending local hospitals against their own policies on closure.

Never a headline they didn't covet.

Brown's Counter-Terror Begins with Continuity Spins

Brown was unable to resist claiming credit for new counter-terrorist measures that the Home Secretary, John Reid, prepared to place before Parliament on Thursday. The news was splashed across the Sunday papers as Brown's contribution to the debate. However, the carefully crafted proposal: an extension of the twenty-eight days detention period in return for allowing intercept evidence in court may now be in jeopardy.

But the chancellor was warned he risked losing cross-party support for any of the measures after trailing the details in the Sunday newspapers for maximum political effect.

Mr Reid was planning to unveil the measures to parliament on Thursday but was annoyed to see them on the front pages with the chancellor’s name attached. However, the outgoing home secretary is said to be keen to avoid a row with Mr Brown during the final weeks of his ministerial career.

The Conservatives accused Mr Brown of “grandstanding” by releasing details of the anti-terror package in advance.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “It is extraordinary that the chancellor has chosen to publicise these proposals five days before the home secretary announces his counter-terrorism plans in parliament.

“It does not augur well for cross-party attempts to build a consensus for counter- terrorism measures which the whole country needs to get behind.”

Brown hopes to wield a consensus through using the Privy Council (thought that was abolished?) to establish a policy for intercept evidence and forging greater judicial and parliamentary accountability over the intelligence services. These changes are welcome. Yet Brown used classic spin tactics to circumvent Parliament and lead from the front for headlines.

We can already see that the continuities of spin will bridge the Brown Blair divide.

The Scottish Electoral Review

The fiasco of spoilt ballot papers during the Scottish elections looks like cock-up over conspiracy. In their enthusiasm  to conjure higher turn-out figures,  local and parliamentary elections were held on the same day, using a complicated system to record voter preferences. As all parties had endorsed this approach, with the backing of the Scottish Office and the Electoral Commission, an independent inquiry is welcome.

The Electoral Commission has hired an international expert to investigate the chaotic events which marred the Scottish parliamentary elections earlier this month, in an attempt to head off concerns about its role in the affair.

The commission appointed Ron Gould, a former assistant chief electoral officer for Canada, to head an "independent and impartial" review of the fiasco of spoilt ballots, missing postal votes and failures of ballot counting machines that hit the May 3 election.

This review will properly include the role of the Electoral Commission. All politicians south of the border should take note of the review's findings, and of the French elections. If you wish to increase turnout, hold a debate, offer clear policies and show that you are not a clone of your opponent.