I’ve been invited to speak at events at the Labour, Libdem and Green party conferences. Should make for a busy September!
At the Libdem and Green party conferences, I’ve been invited to speak at their blogger events/discussions (am also a judge for the best Libdem blog). I’m also trying to organise a bloggers fringe at the Labour Party conference. If you’re going, get in touch.

For the Labour party conference I’ve been invited to speak at the main Fabian Society fringe event titled: ‘Can We Give The White Working Class What They Want?‘, on Saturday, 21st September at 12:45pm in Manchester Town Hall. I’ll be speaking alongside Hazel Blears MP, Secretary of State; Jon Cruddas MP; John Denham MP; and others.
So - since I’ve only got two minutes two make my opening remarks - what would you say in those two minutes? Or preferably, in 2 lines?

Boris Johnson’s favourite think tank (and the place where he gets most of his staff from) Policy Exchange have just released a report saying that residents of Northern Cities such as Sunderland should be encouraged to move to the more prosperous South East, and that this should go hand in hand with a massive programme of house building in these areas. Never mind that much of the South East is too crowded already, or that a massive house building programme would blight the landscape, or that it is none of the government’s business where people live. None of this really matters in a command and control economy:

Didn’t Alistair Campbell once say that if you’re in the news for 12 days straight [on one story] you’ll have to resign? Brown’s must be eyeing the calendar with some concern. Another day, another string of rumours about plots, letters and potential leaders in waiting:

David Miliband and Harriet Harman are preparing the ground for a leadership election, Times Online can reveal. Many in the Labour party now believe that a revolt against Gordon Brown is highly likely, with the probability that it will take place at the start of September.

A number of ministers are considering standing down in early autumn, possibly refusing to serve in a Brown reshuffle; it was reported by The Times today.

It is alleged that Ms Harman was spotted on Thursday night, watching the scale of Labour’s defeat in the Glasgow East by-election on the television, telling aides “this is my moment”. This comes despite public protestations of loyalty from Labour’s deputy leader, who is “minding the shop” in Downing Street this week while Mr Brown is on holiday.

Update: Is this the beginning of David Miliband’s leadership bid?

Anthony Browne, writing in the Daily Mail.

“If people don’t learn the difference between right and wrong, it is not just that they become anti-social. They don’t learn the fundamental lesson that there is only one person responsible for what they do — and that is themselves. Nothing is wrong, and nothing is anyone’s fault; it is always someone else’s. Don’t blame me for what I do; it’s society’s fault.
…
Obviously, there are always external factors which have a big influence. People from difficult backgrounds definitely have higher hurdles to jump over, and need help. But for all of us, whatever our background, what we do is ultimately up to us.

This Left-wing moral neutrality comes from the best of intentions — wanting to sympathise with victims and other vulnerable people. If they do something anti-social, it is because anti-social things have been done to them — they are not at fault. And if you can’t judge someone for their actions, there can’t really be a right or wrong thing to do.”

via Dave Hill, who quite rightly says: “I weep before this edifice of patronising, self-serving, intellectually dishonest, straw man-abusing, willfully sub-Gumby arrogance.”

Hmmm… I wonder what Nick Cohen has to say now about his newly found mate. Anyway, the thing is - the man Boris Johnson has recruited as his new Policy Director has always been a tosser when writing about social/cultural issues. Browne is worse than Rod Liddle and possibly even Jon Gaunt. And because he keeps saying the right things, people on the right keep promoting despite his obvious lack of intelligence or nuance.

But this development is great for political reasons. Boris Johnson was hated by a lot of people when running for Mayor because people thought he didn’t get this wonderfully cosmopolitan city. He didn’t, but pretended anyway. Now he’s hired a deranged loon as his policy director and its great, not only because it gives us added motivation for getting rid of Boris in four years time, but because this means the political divide (left v right) gets wider.

Frankly, all this political centrism is boring. It’s a bit perverse but I rather like some elements of American political culture - where the left-right divide is so wide that there is huge hatred and fury on both sides for the other. It makes for more interesting politics. I also want to see a bit more anger on the left. British politics lost a lot of that with Blair and frankly the left always did well when it was united against easily identifiable enemies. Anthony Browne and Boris Johnson are perfect for the job. Bring it on, I say.

This is taking place today.

The Government has set up a Taskforce, chaired by Baroness Uddin, the first Muslim woman in the House of Lords, to increase the number of women from black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) communities who are serving as councillors in local government. Local councillors play a vital role in their local communities and the Government wants to encourage and support more women from ethnic minority backgrounds to take part in public life.

Tariq Ahmed has been appointed Vvice chairman for Cities for the Conservative Party, taking over from Kulveer Ranger’s brief (who is now managing transport for Boris). Before Kulveer it was Sayeeda Warsi in that role. Is this like the Tory ‘ethnic seat’ or something? Anyway, well done to Tariq.
Update - more here.

Last week I said this media outrage over knife crime was really silly. And so it continues. Sadie Smith has a good post calling out media hypocrisy over a supposed government ‘u-turn’. And Paul Walter has a more incisive and measured blog post saying this is all getting rather silly.

As I said earlier, the stupidest thing a government can do is pretend that its taking action when the media collectively kick off some outrage. And I’m really astonished at how naive this government can be. Let me explain why.

The media narrative - ‘OMG, knife crime is going crazy and we’re all gonna dieeeee!‘ - is a trap. There is no quick fix solution for a start. And then, a Labour govt is traditionally seen as soft on crime anyway, so it is a debate that is had on right-wing territory. It was inevitable that David Cameron was going to announce that he would lock up everyone in sight and get plaudits from the Daily Mail. What else is he going to say, the guy doesn’t have an original bone in his body. So if you don’t challenge this media narrative to begin with then you’re fighting on their territory and you’re bound to lose. It’s a basic rule of war - never fight on your opponent’s territory.

And this is exactly what has happened. The home secretary Jacqui Smith announced a series of proposals in panic because the Labour govt must be seen to be doing something. As day surely follows night, those proposals were immediately attacked in every conceivable way. She’s been accused of a u-turn, been accused of coming out with half-baked proposals (no shit sherlock, what did you expect?) and been accused of nanny-statism (hello, I told you so!). Jesus. New Labour is supposed to be the party of spin but they don’t even see a media trap when its calling out to them.

Update: And now Neil Clark has written one of the most hilariously bad article on knife crime attacking me on my stance. Brilliant.

I’m amused to see that the excuses for London Mayor Boris Johnson have started already, and its only been two months! On Tuesday David Aaranovitch in the Times called it a ‘witch-hunt‘, saying politicians were being targetted for non-scandals. I usually like DA’s columns (incidentally, he quotes Sunder Katwala from this article on LC but doesn’t mention the website. It’s only courtesy, David?). But then you should have seen it coming when people were desperately trying to smear Ken Livingstone and his “cronies”… why should Boris be exempt? Poor Andrew Gilligan is still valiantly waiting for the promised land while muttering about “anti-Boris forces“. If that wasn’t bad enough, we had Iain Dale desperately blaming ‘Uncle Tom’ hating leftists (care to name any Iain?) and trying to protect his mate Nick Boles, who’s team were paid half a million for “transition” and yet failed to do any proper check. It’s all very comical.

In just two months Boris Johnson has clocked up a long list of controversies and gaffes (compiled by Mr Stop Boris). In fact, his latest gaffe could have been prevented if only Boris followed the rules he so hates.

Not that his latest plan to scrap the £25 charge and hand £400,000 of taxpayer’s money to Porsche is the final straw or anything…. but unlike Sian Berry, I’m happy to openly declare that I’m committed to getting rid of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London. I want to topple this adminstration in four years time, or maybe sooner. And you know what? It’s looking like I’m going to have more fun than Andrew Gilligan, who will sooner or later be muttering about dark “anti-Boris forces” in his sleep.

As both Liberal Conspiracy and OurKingdom report today, a new poll by ICM shows that the public does not actually support extending pre-charge detention to 42 days from 28 days (which I think is too high anyway).

I think this is important because the government and its supporters (The Sun newspaper especially) used pushed their plans by saying the public was behind them. But that was based on this poll that had very slanted questioning. This poll and an earlier one by Liberty show the opposite. That poll also said 54% of the public believed the government’s proposals were merely meant to look “tough on terror”. The govt might take us for fools, but I’m glad at least the public isn’t buying it.

Meanwhile, a top Tory peer, Lady Manningham-Buller, director general of MI5 for five years until her retirement last April, said: “On a matter of principle I cannot support the 42 days pre-charge detention in this bill. I don’t see on a practical basis, as well as a principled one, that these proposals are in any way workable … because of the need for the suspect to be given the right to a fair trial.”
Aw shucks, Gordon Brown is looking a bit isolated isn’t he?

“Award winning journalist” Andrew Gilligan wrote this article for the Evening Standard yesterday, saying Boris should do everything to bring back the Routemaster. He says: “The reason I fell out with Ken Livingstone wasn’t his cronyism, waste, or arrogance. The reason I, and I think many other Londoners, parted company with Ken was that he got rid of the Routemaster.”

It wasn’t mentioned that Andrew Gilligan himself contributed to a Policy Exchange report published several years ago which specifically said the Routemaster should be used as a good wedge issue to drive out Ken Livingstone. Bizarre, since its quite central to the article. Last night I posted a comment saying this, underneath the article. Today, all the earlier comments have vanished and you can’t post comments underneath the article any more. The comments are back but mine didn’t get published. Awwwww, after Ray Lewis, poor Gilligan must be feeling a bit annoyed that his mate is getting so much stick already. Sorry - what was that Andrew? I should just get over Ken’s loss and accept it?? I wonder how long you’re going to keep repeating that old chum.

This was Keith Vaz a few months ago:

Keith Vaz questioned why 42 days was needed if the government now agreed to post-charge questioning. “If they agree the three points set out in the Home Affairs Committee report, I will support them. That would mean the vote is much closer. If the committee votes with the government it would bring about 20 waverers on-side. If not, they’re likely to lose.”

And now…

Labour MP Keith Vaz has dismissed suggestions he was offered incentives to vote for the controversial 42-day limit on pre-charge detention. It follows exchanges between Gordon Brown and David Cameron, over a letter suggesting Mr Vaz may be “appropriately rewarded” for his support.

ConservativeHome has published a list of pointers by people who have become MPs or climbed the greasy pole. The section titled ‘It’s not what you know but who you know‘ is enlightening… and rather obvious. And apparently the average cost of becoming a Tory MP was over £40,000. Oh and don’t forget to kiss ass all the way up.

And yet people are still claiming that politics is a meritocractic business? Is it any wonder women and working class people are excluded from this exclusive tribe?

This article by Andrew Gilligan yesterday was hilarious. Gilligan says: “Perhaps inevitably at this stage, Boris is still groping to formulate his narrative. That leaves a gap that the anti-Boris forces are energetically trying to fill.”

Yup, that we are and will do. The thing is, this was preceeded by: “One of the most important things we learned from Ken was how desperately an effective opposition to the Mayor is needed. We’re not getting it at the moment.”

Errm… so are there any effective anti-Boris forces or not? Gilligan is talking about blogs who are watching him but he doesn’t want to mention them lest he acknowledge that in four years time his paper, which he admits isn’t providing any opposition to the Mayor, won’t hope to have the same impact on the election. The poor guy is flailing around because Boris Johnson is already flailing around and is now reduced to warning about “anti-Boris forces”. It’s a great spectacle to watch.

Something to amuse yourself with this Friday afternoon:

After Labour’s disastrous showing in Henley, William Hill have re-calibrated their odds for when Brown will leave office and for who will succeed him. Miliband’s favourite to be the next party leader (at 3/1), but Tony Blair’s odds have suddenly been cut from 100/1 to 33/1, after a flurry of punter interest. Maybe it’s just one for the silly season, but I’m sure quite a few Labour MPs would be more than happy to have Brown’s predecessor back in No.10.

What a lovely 1st year anniversary present that is for Gordon Brown! (picture via John Menick)

At yesterday’s Liberal Conspiracy Blog Nation event there was a lot of disagreement on a whole range of issues. One relatively uncontroversial topic was the need for greater activism at a grassroots and local government level.

My proposal - primary elections to help choose Prospective Parliamentary Candidates.

Currently PPC’s are mainly selected by members of the local chapter of the political party. Occasionally the party leadership will decide to ‘parachute in’ a candidate they like to get them into parliament, but lets ignore that for the time being.

I could see the sense of local selection at a time when communities were more stable and rooted. However in modern Britain where the workforce is incredibly mobile and people don’t stay in one city let alone one borough for all their lives, it is anachronistic and more importantly undemocratic, that a small band of essentially unaccountable people wield so much power.

The Green’s have put up a candidate against David Davis in his upcoming by-election for freedom:

Green Party Principal Speaker Derek Wall has backed local education and environment activist Shan Oakes to contest the election. Shan has lived in East Riding since 1975, where she was an English teacher for many years and is one of the founders of Voice International, an organisation working to promote sustainability through education and is Chair of the Trustees of the Development Education Centre.

Leading Greens will be joining the Shan on the campaign trial in the next few weeks, including Dr. Wall, human rights spokesperson Peter Tatchell, target Parliamentary candidates Darren Johnson AM and Cllr. Adrian Ramsay, and prospective MEP candidates Peter Cranie and Cllr. Rupert Read.

Derek Hall has come up with a fairly campaign friendly line of attack too:

“This by-election was supposed to be about civil liberties. But it’s been called by a man - David Davis - who thinks it’s okay for the government to lock you up for four weeks without even telling you what you’re supposed to have done.

“David Davis also believes that you should have no right to criticise the government within a mile of Parliament. He believes that if a child is being bullied for being gay, his school should not have a policy to protect him. And he believes that a judge should be allowed to kill you if he thinks you’ve committed a serious crime.

“So the Green Party had to stand. Someone had to stand up for civil liberties.”

Shan’s campaign blog is here, there’s also a Facebook group here.

It will be interesting to see what support she gets outside the party. Will those Left/Liberals who don’t see the wisdom in supporting David Davis support her candidacy? And will the New Statesman throw it’s weight behind her?

From the Pandora column:

Dorries in blogosphere battle
Having recently faced defeat over her controversial abortion bill, Nadine Dorries is embroiled in another row – over her website.

The Tory member’s blog – which, of course, Pandora reads regularly – has attracted criticism for its personal attacks on opponents. One recent post included a picture of comely housing minister Caroline Flint alongside drawings of the considerably-less-comely Pinocchio. “Don’t call me a liar, minister,” reads the entry. “It will come back to bite you.”

Sunny Hundal, editor of the Liberal Conspiracy blog, complained to the Parliamentary Standards Commission, voicing concerns that Dorries may fund the site with taxpayers’ money. “We noticed it a few weeks ago,” Hundal tells me. “We’ve got a letter saying the complaint is to be taken seriously.” Dorries denies using public money. The Commissioner has written urging Dorries to make her funding arrangements known.

Muahahaha!

A few weeks ago we submitted a complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commission about the Tory MP Nadine Dorries and her using her blog to attack MPs of other parties. Its against the rules dontcha know?
Local newspapers have started to pick up the story…

BorisWatch and Tory Troll covered this recently… it has finally made the press. Telegraph reports:

Boris Johnson has admitted that he had not read a key document setting out how the 2012 Olympic Games will be funded and insisted “I doubt it exists” - even though it is publicly available on the Culture Department’s website.

In the continuing saga of David Davis’ courageous fight for freedom there will be electoral casualties, there will be the politically wounded, there will be lectures telling you you’re Just Plain Wrong Because You Don’t Get What’s At Stake and there will serious happenings like the following:

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti is threatening to sue a Cabinet minister she says “set out to smear” her dealings with ex-Tory MP David Davis. Ms Chakrabarti said that she would sue Culture Secretary Andy Burnham if “you continue down the path of innuendo and attempted character assassination.”

There are smarter ways to make your views known about this emerging coalition of liberals, bloggers and David Davis. Mr Burnham’s way isn’t one of them.

Update: David T over at the much lamented Harry’s Place thinks Shami should ‘Fuck off’…

Here’s his view on David Davis:

The question is, what should us liberal-minded folk do? We didn’t pick this fight or choose Davis to be our champion, but can we really afford to sit back and watch? I’ve lost count of the number of blog posts and facebook groups I’ve skimmed past denouncing Davis for being a hypocrite on the issue of civil liberties. That may be so, but what is more hypocritical? A hang ‘em, flog ‘em politician standing up for fundamental civil liberties or a smart arse who claims to care about the drip-drip erosion of our rights while sitting on the fence because the one person taking a stand doesn’t pass a “purity” test.

I’m very attracted to this view. But I think in order to bring over the lefties in general, something else will be required James. Though, I do share your concern too.

What a hilarious response to my earlier post. Let me clarify a few points:

1) I am firmly on the political left and have always been, unashamedly so. Voting Tory or asking people to vote Tory is not something I advocate regularly. I might have done so haphazardly last night but there is a serious point to be made here, that not many engaged with.

2) I’m not claiming to speak on behalf of brown people. I don’t know how anyone came to that conclusion. There’s no newspaper that I spoke to saying: “This is how all brown people think, and I know that because I represent them”.

3) Any idiot (Morgoth et al) who says just using the word “brown people” is racist is too stupid to engage with. They don’t understand the meaning of the word racist.

4) And here is my main point. I feel like I’m explaining politics 101. People in different groups, according to different identities, will vote depending on the incentives they are offered. Richer people vote Tory because its in their material interests to do so, and the same reason poorer people support Labour. Ethnic minorities have generally supported Labour in this country due to their pro-immigration policy and relatively less racist rhetoric.

But why shouldn’t that change given the anti-terrorism laws? Uncomfortable Fact 1: most anti-terrorism legislation may apply to everyone but will disproportionately be used to harass or lock up brown people (primarily Muslims, but I’ve had plenty of non-Muslim brown friends “randomly” harassed).

Uncomfortable Fact 2: The new Conservative home office minister Dominic Grieve has said that 28 days detention for terrorist suspects as “much longer than I would like to see” and says the Tories will consider “an opportunity to reduce it”. Think about that for a second. Labour wanted to increase it to 90 days. Then settled on 28. Then tried 56 days, then settled on 42 days. And all because of some posturing.

I know some hardcore Labour supporters will be uncomfortable with this, but I find it more patronising to assume that ethnic minorities in Britain should automatically support a Labour govt which is daily passing legislation that is designed to make their life harder. Why should they? Brown people should consider making Labour MPs in Asian areas sweat heavily for siding with the government. Get rid of Keith Vaz. Get rid of Virendra Sharma. Get rid of Jack Straw. Target Labour MPs in Birmingham.

If I was in the United States I’d already have set up a Political Action Committee and started actively fundraising and lobbying against Labour MPs that have significant ethnic minority constituents. Why shouldn’t British Asians worry about the impact of anti-terrorism legislation on their communities and organise themselves politically in response? Because it makes some people uncomfortable when brown people represent a political force? Hah!

Word from the street (ok, the Compass annual conference then) is that ethnic short-lists are not entirely dead, contradicting an earlier newspaper report.

To recap: the Labour party has been considering allowing only candidates from non-white backgrounds to stand for specific parliamentary seats. They’re doing this because New Labour is still very racially monolithic. It comes on the back of the success of all-women shortlists, which the party had to sneak through internally because of the intense opposition it was expecting.

The word is that while they’re not entirely dead, they won’t be exclusively non-white but mixed with women shortlists. In other words a white woman and a black man could both stand under these new hybrid shortlists. Harriet Harman, who is pushing this, said quite sensibly (shocker, I know) that she didn’t want to create competition between race and sex discrimination. Given the routing Labour will probably get at the next election though I doubt this will be pushed through; it’ll be every middle-class white man for himself, the women and ethnics be damned. Heh.

Saying that… given that New Labour wants to extend anti-terrorism legislation until every brown person in the country is locked up until proven innocent (or once the police can be bothered to let you out), it makes more sense for brown and black people, who will overwhelmingly face the brunt of this police-state legislation, to vote Conservative. At least the Tories have finally found some balls regarding the erosion of our civil liberties. And yes, I felt slightly sordid saying that. But its worth thinking about - if you’re brown, then its not worth voting Labour for the sake of your own security.

Update: a follow-up to this post is here.

From BBC News:

A Conservative councillor has apologised for her “ill-advised comments” after she accused immigrants of causing a litter problem.

In an e-mail, Hammersmith and Fulham councillor Lucy Ivimy said rubbish thrown from Woodford Court in Shepherds Bush, west London, must stop. She wrote that it is common in India to throw rubbish out of windows and that immigrants need to learn UK rules.

Maybe some Indians could take the initiative and dump some rubbish in front of her house in order to demonstrate their manners.

In the wake of David Davis’ honourable resignation, many commentators are suggesting that this will somehow hurt the Conservative party, as it takes away attention from the decline of Gordon Brown and the good showing of the Conservatives in the opinion polls. It is likely to do the opposite in fact. The Conservatives, despite leading in the polls, have looked shaky recently. Their utter lack of policies on most issues is becoming an increasing embarrassment, while their refusal to make any concrete promises on the 10p tax band or fuel duty has just confirmed that they don’t really have any ideas, or at least ones which they are willing to share with us. The financial scandals surrounding Caroline Spellman and the MEPs have reinforced the public view that politicians are all as bad as each other. David Cameron comes across as a smooth-taking PR executive.

Enter David Davis. A former SAS reservist, he not only resigned on a matter of principle, but went against the opinion polls, which suggested public support for the 42 day limit. Thus in one stroke the Conservatives can point to a principled Tory grandee, who also has concrete proposals on this issue. David Cameron should be thanking his lucky stars.