In this section
- Section Home

Archive
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006

Blog RSS feed

RSS Feeds

- News RSS
- Blog RSS
- Gallery RSS

Rambling

By the time you read this we will all know the identity of the new Speaker of the House of Commons.  I will be making no public comment on it, since I am clear that we all have to support the Referee whoever he may be.  We will all be hoping that whoever it is has the stature, the character and the cross-party support to sweep out the Augean Stables and start to re-establish the reputation of the House.

The ridiculously extreme deletions in last week’s expenses publications seem to me to have made the situation worse not better.  We must respect the privacy of, for example, our staff’s and our own bank account details and the like.  But beyond that I am perfectly happy to answer any detailed question any constituent may have, and I was glad to be formally advised on Sunday by the Conservative Party Scrutiny panel who have been minutely examining all of our files and receipts, that I have done absolutely nothing wrong, and have nothing to repay nor apologise for. (I really knew that all along, but it is good to have it officially re-confirmed!)

The new Speaker will be presiding over the Second Reading of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill on Tuesday.  I strongly support the marine conservation parts of the bill, which are long overdue.  But I have several reservations about the proposal to drive a path all the way round our coastline.  Two thirds of the coast is already open to walkers, and at least some of the balance is not suitable anyhow.  I am therefore not convinced that there is an overwhelming demand from ordinary people for even greater access.  None but the most dedicated would have an ambition to walk round the coast from Carlisle to Newcastle via Lands end!  Nor do I support the BHS’s demand that the path should be open to horse-riders.  It therefore makes it hard to justify the £50 million minimum it would cost, including a Coastal Access Monitor in each region.  Nice work if you can get it!  And anyhow, it seems to me a fundamental undermining of the Englishman’s home and property rights in general to legislate that a Government quango may at its whim drive a public footpath through your front garden, with no right of appeal, nor compensation.  It is true that Lords amendments have partially corrected that – parks and gardens are meanwhile exempt, and an appeal mechanism is being written in, although there is no mention of compensation for loss of business or privacy or amenity.

I am a strong supporter of walking, and much look forward to accepting the Chippenham Ramblers’ invitation to join them on a walk soon.  (My 15 Constituency engagements last weekend made their “Summer Solstice Walk” impossible, but I will find a chance over the Summer.)  I want people to get out and about in the countryside and seaside, and escape from those dreadful slave-drivers, their computers, on sunny afternoons.  But I am by no means convinced that £50 million pounds to supply a demand which is unclear to say the least, and which risks trampling over traditional home-owners rights can really be justified, and I shall be saying so.

Oyez, Oyez, Oyez

                                                Oyez, Oyez, Oyez

Parliament and the Constituency so often interweave.  I attended the hugely enjoyable and colourful Town Criers Competition in Wootton Bassett on Saturday.  Criers from all over England, and a few from the Continent  with a “Cry” about their home towns in the morning, and about “Wootton Bassett” in the afternoon, all brilliantly organised by our very own Town Crier, Owen Collier.

Now it would be easy to mock.  In amongst the clearly authentic and ancient uniforms were a few less so.  And in this digitally-driven age, when text messaging is the norm, what place is there for the town crier’s bell and “Oyez, Oyez, Oyez”?  The answer is simple – and the large crowds who turned out for the competition attest to it.  Colour, pageantry, ceremonies and history are the visible and ancient embodiments of something which is as important today as it was when William the Conqueror licensed the first town criers.  They are the visible symbols of citizenship, community, neighbourliness, civic pride, of our collective agreement to respect those elected to be in authority over us and to live together in a well-ordered society.  The mace and sword, the mayor in his robes, and 40 or 50 rosy faced people in medieval finery bawling their heads off down the High Street.  These are not things of the New Labour project.  They are not “modern” not “21^st century.”  But they are hugely important symbols of something which is very important to all of us who live in villages and towns like Wootton Bassett.

With all of those thoughts at the back of my mind, it was off to Parliament to set about the process of electing a new Speaker.  The Mace, medieval uniforms, people bawling their heads off as the Speaker goes by in his finery.  “Hats Off Strangers” as they cry.  Ring any bells?

This week will see us choosing a Speaker who will reverse the collapse in public support and esteem for Parliament.  He or she must put in place the rules which will correct what is wrong; strengthen Parliament to hold the Executive to account, uphold the powers of backbenchers; recreate the Parliament which has been held in such high regard for centuries.  Of course the new Speaker must do all of those things.  But I do not believe that he or she will achieve that by sweeping away so much that is so good. The good old ways of the good old days are not all bad.  In particular, the pomp and ceremony – the fripperies as you might think of them - the “men in tights,” the mace and the ceremony.  These things are important.  They are the visual representation of the authority of Parliament.  Without them Parliament would risk becoming a little listened to talking shop.

So I will be listening hard to all of the candidates for the Speakership with these thoughts – and with the Wootton Bassett Town Criers competition- at the back of my mind.  I will be tending towards supporting Sir George Young, not only because he is an old friend, and someone for whom I worked for three years in the ‘nineties, but also because he has the judgement, experience and broad support across the Chamber to make the necessary reforms.  I will report back to you all next week.  I will then hope that Owen Collier will announce the result down Wootton Bassett High Street.

Oyez, Oyez, Oyez.

Interesting Times

                                    Interesting Times

No-one can say that politics isn’t exciting these days. As I write, first thing on Monday morning, I have little idea what will have happened on the political roller-coaster by the time you read this when the Gazette comes out on Thursday.

Just think of what has happened in the last month or so (and for this exercise I am leaving aside for the moment such overwhelmingly important events as the Recession, banking crisis, unemployment, War in Afghanistan, the threat from terrorism, the tragic loss of the Air France jet, the noble 65^th D-Day Remembrance):-

The devastating and shaming revelations by the Daily Telegraph into the way that some MPs have been fiddling their expenses has led to at least 15 or so standing down from Parliament, one of them (why only one?) with immediate effect; it has meant half a dozen or so ministers losing their jobs; it has meant the Speaker of the House of Commons being ousted for the first time since the English Civil War, and politics and Parliament being brought to its lowest ever ebb in the long political history of our Nation.

All of the above led to the most astonishing Local and Euro election results last week. The Conservatives, of course did extremely well, painting Wiltshire blue, taking Somerset and Devon from the Lib-Dems, and their last four councils from Labour. Then in the Euros, the Tories increased their vote by 4/5%, UKIP very significantly coming second, demonstrating the overwhelmingly “Euro-realist” views of the bulk of the British electorate; Labour came a humiliating third at 15% of the vote - below the level achieved by any party of government ever in the history of elections. If repeated at a General Election, Labour and the Lib-Dems (who came behind them) would be all but obliterated from the political map. The Conservatives even came top in the Labour heart-lands of Wales. The Scottish Nationalists did worryingly well North of the Border, and we were all horrified to see that obnoxious apology for a political party, the BNP, winning two seats in the European Parliament. Electoral turmoil indeed.

As I write, Gordon Brown is desperately trying to salvage something of his reputation from the wreckage, stitching together some kind of an administration out of peers and has-beens (Glenys Kinnock, for heavens sake), and trying to ignore all the rats deserting his sinking ship. He faces the Parliamentary Labour Party tonight – a group of people whose political careers seem destined for oblivion unless they can change their leader. I’d put Mr Brown’s chances of survival at no more than 50/50. And if he goes, I cannot see how Labour can avoid having an early General Election.

Well, bring it on, I’d say. The mess we are currently in- which includes having no effective government whatsoever- can only be solved by a General Election. So let’s go to the polls. Let’s discuss these issues openly and cleanly, and by that means let us try to stabilise the ship of State, and start to address some of those real and pressing National and Global problems which, if we are not very careful, all of this mess risks relegating to the back-burner.

In the Name of God, Go!

St Mary’s Calne schoolgirl, Rebecca Rothwell gave one of the finest renditions I have ever heard of Faure’s Pie Jesu at the Royal British Legion Service in Calne on Sunday. “For all time may they rest in peace,” she sang, and what a wonderful moment of peace it was in one of the most turbulent times in Parliamentary and political history. The MPs’ expenses scandal rumbles on, and is unlikely to “go away” until this Rotten Parliament is swept away and a new system of Pay and Allowances which commands the support and respect of the electorate is brought in.

You will be going to the polls in the local and Euro elections today, and I very much hope that whatever your feelings about events in Westminster you will try to put them to one side, and cast your vote for the candidate who you believe will best work for your area in the new Wiltshire Council, and for the Party you would rather see represent you in the European Parliament. The time will come – I hope shortly – when you can register your protest over the way the country as a whole is being run. But for now, lets focus down on who is best to deliver our local services at a value-for-money Council Tax. By Saturday we will know who is to run Wiltshire Council, and on Sunday we will hear what sort of conclusion the Nation has come to with regard to the EU.

But the turbulence won’t end then. If – as is widely predicted in the polls – the Labour Party do very badly in the elections, then there is very likely to be an imminent Ministerial re-shuffle, and doubtless some Ministerial scalps to add to the 13 MPs’ ones already claimed in the Expenses debacle. Mr Brown seems determined to hang onto power at any cost, although I suspect that there will be increasing pressure from within the Labour Parliamentary Party for him to stand down in favour of – for example – Alan Johnson in the hope that they may save something from the wreckage in the General Election which must come within a year. They know they are going to lose it, but I suppose their tactical calculation must be to try to lose by as little as possible, so that they would have some hope of coming back in five years’ time.

There is talk of a “deal” between Labour and the Lib Dems presumably including some promise about having a look at the voting system with a view to fiddling it – as they have done, for example, in Scotland – so that a Lib/Lab coalition would be in power for all time. Well all I would say – and I suspect that Mr Clegg knows it well – is that the last time we had a Lib/Lab pact in Parliament was immediately before the 1979 election, which heralded in 18 years of Conservative Government. What goes around comes around, as they say.

With Britain facing its worst recession in decades, and a debt burden which will loom over us for generations, a war in Iraq based on a tissue of lies, and another in Afghanistan which will be hard to win, but unacceptable to lose, with unemployment on the rise and a Parliament and Government which has totally lost the respect of the people it is supposed to be serving, the only solution must be a General Election and a fresh start. As Cromwell said to the Rump Parliament in 1653, and as a backbencher repeated to Chamberlain in 1940: “You have sat here too long for any good you may be doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, Go!”

Next Page