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Thursday, 29 May, 2008
 | Gordon Brown |
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The papers have been full of speculation about Gordon Brown’s future as our Prime Minister after a series of disasters for the Labour Party culminating in the astonishing result in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. (Which I can’t help feeling that dear old Gwyneth Dunwoody must have been observing with a wry smile, since she disliked “New Labour” almost as much as we Tories do!) But whatever you may think of that by-election result (and I would always be the first to allow some “discounting” of mid-term elections in which the electorate often take a delight in giving the governing party a good kicking), there are a number of aspects of this Prime Ministerial speculation with which I am unhappy on principle.
First, it is not at all clear that its all Gordon Brown’s fault. There has been a series of ministerial bungles of substance and presentation for which the unfortunate Mr Brown surely should not take all of the blame. The Government as a whole seem to be “running on empty”, devoid after 11 years of ideas or drive or principle.
Second, this demand for Mr Brown’s scalp is another symptom of the unhealthy movement towards a quasi-Presidential style of government much fostered by Tony Blair. It’s as if Mr Brown was running the country single handed rather than the Labour Government as a whole. Surely the whole point of “Collective Responsibility” is that it’s a collegiate Cabinet system, the Prime Minister being no more than “First Among Equals,” as his title suggests.
Third, we’ve already had one Prime Minister departing and another elected by an obscure Labour Party electoral system, which resulted in him being returned unopposed in a way reminiscent of pre-Glasnost Russia! Surely it would be even more Stalinist for him to be removed in some kind of a Palace coup to be replaced by some young Turk who was becoming flavour of the month. (And anyhow who had heard of David Miliband until the day before yesterday?) How many more times could the elected leader of our country be removed and replaced with no reference at all to the Nation? The Tories did it disgracefully to Margaret Thatcher, and look what a disaster that turned out to be. If Gordon Brown finds it impossible to continue as Prime Minister, or cannot manage his own Party, then he has an obvious option – going to see the Queen and requesting a General Election in which his personal support amongst the electorate and that of his party would be tested at the polls. “ Bring it on,” I’d say in the immortal words of his leader in Scotland, and Cabinet Minister’s sister, Wendy Alexander.
Now, we all know that he will not call a General Election, for the very simple reason that if he did he would lose, and if Crewe and Nantwich is anything to judge by, lose big time. So given that that is the case, his duty under the Constitution must be to soldier on and hope that things will get better by the time he has to call an election – at the latest by June 2010. How he must wish that he had the power of his own convictions last Autumn and gone ahead with calling an Election then. That indecisive wobble will go down as one of the greatest “what ifs” of all history.
Thursday, 22 May, 2008
| Here I Stand |
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The House of Commons is at its best when we are dealing with “Free Vote” business – those matters which are deemed to be matters of conscience, on which an individual MP makes up his own mind based on his religious convictions, constituency pressure or intellectual rationalisation. Those are the occasions on which debate is at its best, on which true experts are listened to with care, and on which there is also the largest possibility of a defeat for the Government. Traditional “ free vote areas” would be, for example: the age of consent for homosexual sex, fox-hunting, abortion, smacking. There was one such occasion this week, although since my deadline for this Column is prior to them, I will not be able to tell you the outcome of the debates on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
I am instinctively “ethically Conservative” on these matters, I suppose as a result of my Scottish manse upbringing, and am fundamentally opposed to a number of things in the Bill. That is why I voted against its Second Reading last week, (although I was one of only 78 MPs who did, and was therefore heavily defeated.) In particular, I am opposed to the “saviour siblings” provisions of the bill – a procedure which is reserved under current law for only extremely rare circumstances, which, in my view is how it ought to remain. I am opposed to the provisions in the bill which allow for the need for a father to be removed in the case of a child which is the product of IVF treatment for lesbians, being replaced apparently on the birth certificate by “Mother and Parent”! And I will vote to reduce the time at which abortion is permitted to 20 weeks or less, at which stage there is good evidence that embryos are perfectly viable human beings. I am firmly against those things, and if any of them remain, then I will once again vote against the Bill at Third Reading.
I have however changed my stance on one aspect of the bill. I was instinctively opposed to “Human/Animal embryo research.” It sounded unnatural to me, a fundamental meddling with human life. And anyhow, I didn’t like the thought of research on unborn babies, which is what it sounds like. However, it has been pointed out to me that research on human embryos is already permitted, but that it requires the use of a woman’s egg, which, apart from anything else is a relatively rare commodity, whereas this will allow the use of cow’s egg, of which of course there are plenty. And its not a baby – it’s a tiny squiggle, which at all events is only allowed to live for some 14 days from its creation. Apart from all of that, as Chairman of the All Party Group for Multiple Sclerosis, it has been made plain to me that this kind of research just may help find a cure for MS and similar illnesses. If so, I for one am ready to compromise my finely tuned ethical quibbles with the bill in favour of a demonstrable overall good for the health and wellbeing of mankind as a whole.
So I know that it’s a controversial stance to take- and one which may well be electorally unpopular, since I have received a huge post bag against these provisions. But despite all that, and despite my own instincts, I have decided to vote in favour of human/animal hybrid research. After all, the whole reason for “free vote” business of this kind is to give the MP the opportunity –and the duty - to make up his own mind on what is by definition an extremely difficult area of the law. I have listened carefully to a wide variety of views, and will do what I believe to be for the best, even if a large number of my constituents disagree with me. In Martin Luther’s words: “Here I Stand; I can do none other.”
Thursday, 15 May, 2008
| To Serve |
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I felt genuinely rather sorry for the Prime Minister at PMQs last week. Never can a PM’s authority and popularity have so evaporated as have his. His Party is deserting him in droves, Wendy Alexander in Scotland in open defiance, catastrophic results in the polls, a potential bloody nose at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, apparently everyone hating him. What a miserable job it must be. I was last on the Order Paper last Wednesday, and was more or less reconciled to not being called when I heard Michael Martin’s stentorian tones “ James Gray.” So I simply asked, more out of sorrow than anger, “Does the Prime Minister EVER regret having taken the job in the first place?” And who would blame him if he did.
By Thursday I was at the Wootton Basset Mayor-Making marking the end of an outstanding year for Audrey Wannell and welcoming Michael Leighfield. Amongst other things, the words from the Reverend Thomas Woodhouse included “ Let Wootton Bassett Flourish” as he enjoined the newly elected Mayor to be ready “ to shed his blood in defence of the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Wootton Bassett” and reminding the incoming Mayor that he was “ not the Governor, but the Custodian of the customs and traditions of the town,” and that his role was to “serve and not to be served.” Thomas’s words would have applied just as well to Gordon Brown.
Friday saw me meeting representatives from the Prospect Hospice – what fine work they do for people at the end of their lives - then visiting the outstandingly good Springfields School in Calne at the invitation of my friend Luke Dicker – one of the most self-aware and competent autism and asperger’s sufferers I have known. It’s a brilliant school, and the often hard-pressed staff do a great job with what can be very demanding students. Then it was off to support protesting driving instructors who rightly fear that the closure of the Trowbridge Learners Centre will mean chaos in Chippenham, then to join the Princess Royal for the opening of the History Centre for Wiltshire and Swindon. What noble work the Royal family do, day in day out, very often no doubt carrying out duties they would much rather not, but with unerring charm and interest. Then a meeting with a young soldier to help with his Staff College studies. All he wanted to do was escape from his desk and get back to front line duties.
All of these people – hospice workers, staff in the special school, driving instructors, the dedicated people who have brought the dream of a proper history centre for the county to reality; the Royal family, our armed services – in very different ways all of them were carrying out Thomas Woodhouse’s injunction to “serve and not to be served.” “Service before Self” as the Rotary Club have it.
Enoch Powell once famously opined that “ all political careers end in failure.” Gordon Brown must be fearing that that is his fate. But maybe if in Rev Thomas’s words, we all tried to remember that we are here to serve, then that alone ought to be enough to satisfy us. Despite his other great achievements and honours, my late father always saw himself as a Parish Minister first and foremost, and I follow in his footsteps by preferring my constituency work over anything else I do. Maybe the glittering political prizes will not be mine. Maybe I am relieved that they are not. Doing my best to serve the people of North Wiltshire just may be the highest accolade I could seek.
Thursday, 08 May, 2008
| Political Triumphalism |
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Nothing is less attractive than triumphalism; political egotism worse than most. But who could deny we Conservatives just a moment or two of quiet self-satisfaction at last Thursday’s Local Government Election Results? 44% of the popular vote, some 20% ahead of the third place Labour Party, the Liberals nonetheless languishing at 1% below where they were when they dumped Ming Campbell as an “Electoral Liability.” “Come Back, Ming, all is forgiven,” they may well be saying. 260 net gains of seats, 13 new councils, including some in places which are very far from being Tory heartlands; more Tory councillors now than the other two parties put together.
And then, of course, there’s Boris. If we didn’t have him, who could invent him? But what a brilliant result. Few people predicted a Tory majority in Labour-dominated London, no-one predicted the size of it. He’ll bring a bit of colour back to a slightly drab political scene. And despite his eccentric appearance he’s no sluggard. A brilliant author and journalist, he has already pulled a group of highly talented individuals from the private sector around him to run London. Watch this space is all I would say.
What’s more if you were to extrapolate these results into a General Election – and I shall come back in a moment to the wisdom or lack of it of doing so – then David Cameron’s Conservatives would form a Government with a similar landslide to that enjoyed by Tony Blair in 1997. So allow us a moment or two of self-congratulation.
But it must be no more than that. You don’t have to be a brilliant psephologist (expert on voting patterns I am reliably informed) to know that governments always tend to take a mid-term battering. Ask John Major about that. Voters can have some fun punishing their party, but they return to the fold when there are important decisions to be made about who’s to form the next government. So the Tories are not cocky; no-one’s suggesting that if we just sit back we can coast in with a decent majority. Far from it. The British electorate are amongst the most sophisticated in the world. They hate the current Government with good reason, but they will be wary of shifting to us unless we can demonstrate both the competence and the correctness of policy which they are looking for. David Cameron’s Policy Groups have been hard at work for the best part of two years now, some of the best brains in the land tussling over what we need to be able to run Britain better than the present lot, as well as how to package it up in a way which will appeal to ordinary voters. But now we need to be ready to come out and explain it better to them. Lay our cards and proposals on the table, and just expect Labour to indulge in that sincerest form of flattery – copying what we say and do.
It looks as if the General Election will not be until 2010 now – May 4th is my prediction, but it can be as late as June, with Gordon Brown holding on to the last minute in the hope that he can pull a rabbit out of a hat. An awful lot can happen in that time. But if we just keep steady, if we start to look increasingly like a “Government in Waiting” and if Labour can’t drag themselves out of the q uagmire, then we could be heading towards a Conservative government for the first time in some 13 years. We have four Conservative MPs in the County of Wilts (although two Labour ones in Swindon.) I suspect therefore that at least a majority of the Wiltshire voting public are longing for that day…….
Thursday, 01 May, 2008
| Gypsies and Travellers |
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Everyone needs and deserves somewhere decent to live. That’s why I am always glad to try to help with the many hundreds of housing needs cases which come my way, despite the fact that they really should be a matter for the homelessness officer at the District Council or for Westlea who do an outstandingly good job in finding appropriate accommodation for all who need it. That applies to all in housing need, whatever their race or status, including gypsies and travellers of all sorts.
So I do not accept the view which is being handed down to us by this Labour Government that travelling people have rights and privileges which the rest of us do not enjoy. It is in my view quite wrong that a group of caravans has been allowed to remain on some fields in Minety for some years now in blatant contravention of every planning law ever invented. If I parked my caravan on your front lawn, I would feel the heavy hand of the law on my collar in no time. Well if I can’t do it, then why should a group of people be allowed to do it simply on the grounds that they have a different lifestyle to me?
Similarly I do not accept the Labour dictat that each local authority should have to carry out some kind of survey of the need for more gypsy sites. How are we to know? There are tens of thousands of gypsies in Southern Ireland and Romania just waiting to come to these shores. How many, if any, of them must we house in Wiltshire? By definition they are migratory people, so how can any authority have anything other than an entirely random stab at estimating how many gypsy sites they should by law provide? The fact is that the more sites there are, the more gypsies appear to fill them. Nor do I believe that the planning inspector looking into the Minety site was right to stipulate that the gypsies can only be removed from the site if the District Council provide another site for them. How can you condone, even encourage law breaking in that way? And anyhow who is to say that the Minety gypsies would move from there to Calne, or wherever a new site is provided for them?
It’s a controversial view, but I am of the opinion that local authorities should not have any kind of duty to provide gypsy sites, any more than they should have a duty to provide special accommodation for red-headed Scotsmen. The duty to provide housing should be universal, and travellers of all kinds should be treated in precisely the same way as everyone else. That is why it was that the last Conservative Government in 1995 repealed the act requiring local authorities to provide gypsy sites, only to have it reinstated by this Labour Government.
North Wiltshire District Council find themselves in the unfortunate position of being required by the Government to provide more gypsy encampments, and have stirred up a hornets nest of protest by coming up with seven sites, none of which are likely to be acceptable to those who live close by. My own view is that they should resist this central Government dictat to provide more sites but I realise that they can’t due to the pernicious nature of this Government’s instructions and the penalties that the people of North Wiltshire might have to pay if they do. Wiltshire is one of the best provided Counties in England already. The Minety gypsies should be encouraged to move to the vacant pitches at Thingly Junction, despite the fact that apparently as Romanies they dislike the Irish gypsies currently resident there. And then we should send out a strong message to travellers of all kinds across the land that we in Wiltshire will treat gypsies in precisely the same way as we treat all citizens. We will be fair, but we will be firm; and they cannot expect some kind of soft option here.
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