As well as it being a profoundly illiberal piece of legislation, Labour MPs should have voted against it because they were being extorted, and they should consider getting rid of the leadership for putting them in that position.

Mike:
It may be that our living standards can continue to rise, what is certain is that our resource consumption can’t. One strand of the left’s response to this must be to challenge the hegemony of consumption as the measure of the “good life” – I think the door is ajar. We need to push on it.

Also agreed. I think you should expand on this further. Did you see Aditya chakrabortty’s article on this recently on CIF?

Lee:
Ultimately if more stock was put in constituency level representation then papers could scream as much as they want about dissent and party break down

Are you saying people should put more stock into their MPs or the system should change? Because right now, people are still tghly tied to their parties.
Secondly, if you want to change the electoral system, like I do (as do orgs like Fabian Society) – how do you plan to change that?

The system must be wider than simply throwing support behind Labour though, which I have to be honest is all that this site seems to be promoting recently.

I’m happy to promote Labour, Libdems or the Greens. It just happens that online Labour have the most amount of supporters, and it is the party in govt so more commentary revolves around it.

I would love to hear how this can be changed from the inside, as it seems to me that without the public doing their duty and voting out the government they don’t like, they won’t learn.

How do you propose its changed from the outside?

For me as a Labour leftie, my own view is It is a way of advancing your politics. I have had no illusions in reclaiming the LP and it is not our job to reclaim the LP. The LP is the LP.

The problem is that NL is totally committed to neo-liberalism that includes ideological attacks on the poor. The language that speaks of the “workshy” and the whole issue of “culture of dependency”. The various green papers and the Welfare Reform Act doesn’t seek to advance or even improve the unemployed instead it is moralistic where it emphasises “rights and responsibilities” and yet again the onus is on the poor. What about improving the DDA? What about flexible working hours for lone parents? What about free childcare? What about, perish the thought, people going for jobs on their own terms as opposed to being coerced under the threat of benefit sanctions that will increase poverty?

There isn’t anything positive about these welfare reforms, there are no fine lines between supportive and hostility, it is blatant hostility along with contracting out the welfare benefits systems to private companies as it is all about profit and making a fast buck….Public money is being thrown at these companies and they all end up with this collective faces in the trough.

Yes, indeed, I do not want to see a Tory government cos Cameron is a Thatcherite. I think there is a fundamental ideological difference between the Tories and NL, and there’s a cigarette paper’s worth of difference between the two. NL seek to change things in a gradualistic manner while the Tories will be more turbo-charged. But both are competing about who can be more “right-wing” on welfare reform and it is the poor who are caught between a rock and a hard place. At the end of the day, both went to see the introduction of that hideous thing calles workfare (and we are beginning to see it now). Unfortunately, NL will continue to listen to their private equity buddies and the likes of David Freud.

It is also imperative that we support our institutions (NHS, Police etc) with constructive criticisms, rather than doing away with all criticism whatsoever.

Sunny@70

those are three false choices.

If you are inside the system it is because you are actively trying to change the system to a greater or lesser extent, and if you are outside the system you are still in it albeit in a wider context. Passivity and protest are both forms of participation too.

“setting up a binary… is sloppy thinking”

Are you trying to throw an accusation at me or are you acknowledging the point that absolutes don’t exist and conditions need to be applied? If it’s the former, then your words are devoid of meaning, analysis or insight. If it’s the latter, then you’re being sloppy by failing to apply that logic to your subsequent conclusion about how party leaders relate to the party they lead.

Such disconnects are rampant under our present regime as seen in the way Labour’s legislating zeal is tempered by it’s inability to create the necessary regulatory frameworks to make systems function without conflict. This is a consistent theme which runs through the Labour programme and can be identified in several of today’s headline stories.

Gary Glitter: proposals for additional passport restrictions on paedophiles are intended to control their ability to offend by reducing their freedom to travel beyond UK jurisdiction, but at the same time the fact that existing powers aren’t used highlight the waste of energy which goes into creating new legislation (the sex offenders register can’t keep up with changes of address and loses track of most even before they leave the country) – why make dangerous individuals report travel plans earlier when most don’t bother and only 5 have ever been stopped in the first place?

BAA: the breakup of the airports monopoly has been criticised by some airline executives for its failure to address either consumer or competition issues. The arbitrariness of landing charge rises, for example, shows how the control of the airport management is beyond accountability. Meanwhile individual airport management boards will still operate internal and regional monopolies.

Business waste: the Lord’s Science and Technology committee report has pointed out how the government’s desire to reduce waste is undercut by the inflexible tax regime which provides a disincentive to companies to change their behaviour, but the government has defended their lack of action as a form of ‘inducement’. The report concluded “If our society was to implement the hierarchy effectively, a far smaller amount of waste would need to be disposed of after all the previous stages had been put into practice,”

This idea of responsibility is what is hurting the lack of progress in many areas, but while Labour strategy is to provide ever-increasing powers to act it is at the expense of clarifying the framework for action and who was to do what.

This was exemplified in the mortgage market when Northern Rock collapsed because although the tri-partite regulatory mechanism meant the BoE, the Treasury and the FSA each had the power to intervene at different stages to prevent the meltdown each had an institutional desire to cover up problems to minimise criticism rather than communicating them at the earliest opportunity to minimise damage – when the inevitable happened each exculpated themselves by pointing the finger.

Duplication of responsibility, overburdening of responsibility and overpowering responsibility may look on paper like a doubling or trebling of scrutiny and oversight, but in practise it provides an excuse for failure. Which is exactly what this government practices at every level: in it’s well-intentioned desire to prevent bad practise it has actually created the conditions where it can multiply.

This is in contrast to the previous Thatcherite regime famed for it’s well-intentioned deregulating zeal which opened the system to abuse by the powerful on all sides.

FWIW I don’t think any of the parties are the problem, it is the system itself which forces the appeasement of vested interests at the expense of dealing with the fundamental problems – so how can I use my vote to change the voting system by voting for either of the two-party binary?

If you oppose binary oppositions, it is imperative you oppose the forced choice represented by the lack of synthesising choice between the Labour and Conservative parties.

Ah, calling straw man, a step below shouting Nazi, but a step above actually debating.

“For example, if a large number of MPs constantly tried to ‘represent’ their constituents by dissenting, then the media would play it as a government in crisis, losing control and with little confidence from the people.”

But if the system was focused around people electing local representatives then what does it matter? I think it’s naive in itself to assume if the balance of power of representation shifted that the media would be able to continue with the way it currently portrays westminster. Ultimately if more stock was put in constituency level representation then papers could scream as much as they want about dissent and party break down…the people will be the ones looking at an MP that is much more engaged with them and spends more of their time ensuring that their views are heard over the party line. Look at people like Chris McCafferty (if you take Jennie’s example) and tell me that such a situation doesn’t already exist where it happens.

Ultimately I believe a person’s belief in a local MP as a local MP always trumps a person’s belief in a party, unless that party’s policies are particularly unsavoury.

“Obviously, I favour 1 or 3, depending on how bad things are. Right now, on balance I think things are bad enough for the health of the Labour party and this young liberal-left movement that it might be better for Labour to lose.”

The system must be wider than simply throwing support behind Labour though, which I have to be honest is all that this site seems to be promoting recently.

“But I do think that saying – well those MPs don’t represent me so the system is bollocks and I don’t want to engage with any party – is not a viable option. Especially if you want to affect politics.”

I’ve never said this, I’ve said that if MPs don’t represent their constituency adequately, then the system is bollocks, and people shouldn’t engage with those MPs. I would love to hear how this can be changed from the inside, as it seems to me that without the public doing their duty and voting out the government they don’t like, they won’t learn. But then aren’t the Tories an excellent example of how they haven’t learned to be better politicians as a potential government? Only better PR people? Why is it that I get this amazing feeling that after Labour lose in 2010 the stock excuse will be that Labour didn’t manage the situation well enough, but ultimately the global economy was to blame, not their complete inability to be representative and balanced politicians?

I think that’s a false dichotomy – Fabianism for example was about regulation of the market. I agree that there were particular historical circumstances in the first 30 or so years after World War II which meant that markets were much weaker politically than they have since become, and the extent to which governments can regulate them under “global” capitalism is very much a live issue. But regulation, whether in terms of tariffs, immigration restrictions, or “crossovers” into the social sphere such as the minimum wage (enforcement of which I expect the Tories to abandon) or anti-discrimination legislation is still very much with us.

I would argue that most people judge economic systems pragmatically – “by their fruits ye shall know them” – and they are quite right to do so. It’s possible to get the impression, from reading political blogs, that people actually believe in economic systems of one sort or another – I doubt that more than a very small proportion of voters actually feel any emotional attachment to economic processes. They are means to an end and should be subjected to the simple test of “what works”.

Thus it’s not altogether surprising that healthy young men (not here, but on other blogs such as Smithson’s) denounce the NHS – which transfers money from the young to the old and from men to women. Hopefully we can all spot and discount self-interest when we see it.

There is a view that economic developments in the next twenty years will be considerably less benign for free marketeers than those of the last thirty. It may be that our living standards can continue to rise, what is certain is that our resource consumption can’t. One strand of the left’s response to this must be to challenge the hegemony of consumption as the measure of the “good life” – I think the door is ajar. We need to push on it.

I’m afraid I think this is rather naive. There are a whole bunch of reasons also playing here – most importantly the role of the media. For example, if a large number of MPs constantly tried to ‘represent’ their constituents by dissenting, then the media would play it as a government in crisis, losing control and with little confidence from the people.

Secondly, how are MPs to judge how they’re representing? I expect Labour MPs to largely stick to leftwing narratives but sometimes they may want to offer a sop to a constituency that doesn’t agree with your views. Unless you’re holding referendums every time – its impossible to say that an MP isn’t being representative.

You may not like what they’re doing – in which case the question then genuinely comes down to three choices:

1) Remain part of the system and try to change it from the inside
2) Disconnect yourself from the system and see that as the only viable protest
3) Try and actively change the system.

Obviously, I favour 1 or 3, depending on how bad things are. Right now, on balance I think things are bad enough for the health of the Labour party and this young liberal-left movement that it might be better for Labour to lose.

I’ll come back to the reasons to that at another time.

But I do think that saying – well those MPs don’t represent me so the system is bollocks and I don’t want to engage with any party – is not a viable option. Especially if you want to affect politics.

Rawr. Way to reduce me to incoherence.

* wanders off humming Sumer Is Icumen In *

Christopher Lee DANCES around your straw man, with big, mad eyes.

True, though under any system where MPs actually feared to be representative to their local constituents rather than trying to ride on the crest of their party’s popularity you may see that dilemma a little more balanced and therefore useful. At the minute there is little incentive to look at the dilemma in front of you (as an MP) and do anything other than go with the flow.

I think Lessons of History suggest that having some people adopt one strategy and some people adopt the other, and both to work together is the best approach. The way Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King worked together to get civil rights legislation passed in the USA, is an example of this at its best.

I’m not about to sit here and be an apologist for the way the current system works, because it’s bollocks. How many people honestly care if the way things work now is that “loyalty matters more” and that we should be working with that? Should we be sitting here on issues such as (roll back the years) homosexuality and say the way it works is that homosexuals are treated as second class citizens and we have to work within that framework?

Why is it that the argument of “that’s how it is in Westminster” is used so often on this site when Labour MPs are being criticised for not doing what 25-30 MPs seem consistently able to do, while remaining in their seat over long periods of time? They may not get ministerial jobs, but they do the job they’re actually elected to achieve.

Good question. My view is that on social issues this country is liberal and is increasingly becoming that way – and the Tories have had to move in that direction.

On economic issues no doubt the left has lost many of the arguments over the last few decades and I think its difficult to argue for dismantling the free market and putting in some sort of a socialist utopia.

I don’t think the majority of voters are small-c conservatives – I think one of the mistakes people on the left make precisely is that we’re too afraid of our own ideas and arguments and end up trying to triangulate (as Labour has been doing).

However, I’ll grant that in many cases the govt had change its image on a range of issues, from facing down the unions in some cases to being more business friendly in others. I think its initial response to terrorism was muddled and this is slowly getting much better. To that extent I prefer a Labour govt responding to terrorism than a Tory one.

So what do I mean? I’m saying that firstly I don’t expect a Labour govt to pass all legislation I agree with. I think the left is suffering from a post-Thatcher hangover so the disconnect between the leadership and party has been exacerbated. But at least its passed some legislation towards that goal – incorporating the HRA, minimum wage etc, banning Fox Hunting. I wouldn’t expect the tories to do that.

But there is a significant portion of independent small-c conservative voters that have voted Labour. They need to be retained on side while lefties are given a reason to carry on supporting the party. I don’t think the right balance has been struck, but a balance does need to be struck.

Lee Griffin:
an MP that uses his time in parliament to down play the obvious and factual as if it isn’t true to save a party rather than defend a policy is worthless to the public as a politician.

Well, I think its easy to say that from outside the party. But sometimes in politics, in fact more often than should be the case, loyalty matters more than what is right. You defend your own. I don’t think our political system allows dissenters much, otherwise we’d have more maverick Senators, US style. Its the way it is.

What rattles me about this thread is that nobody seems to be distinguishing between the actions of Labour governments and the integrity of Labour in parliament. The trouble is, under the FPTP system we don’t have a way of distinguishing between a vote for the executive and a vote for the legislative, and that’s a massive failure on the part of our electoral system. Angry with Brown? Vote him out, but don’t vote out the party.

Firstly, the FPTP electoral system isn’t the ‘problem’ here, it’s irrelevent to your point. We have a Parliamentary system, in which we elect MPs, they then support a Government, and the Cabinet is supposed to be able to command the support of a majority in Parliament.

Ireland has exactly the same system, but uses STV (my favoured electoral system). The point is that this isn’t a failure—it’s one of our systems principle strengths. Our MPs are supposed to represent a broad swathe of opinion, and their principle duty is to hold the Government to account. If Brown is failing, it’s the duty of MPs to remove him, as the Tories did with Thatcher. If they fail, they fail in their job. Or they believe he isn’t failing.

If an MP supports the Government, they’re a Government MP, otherwise they’re an Opposition MP. If the Government fails, then that is the fault of Government MPs, and that is why our system is better—the Executuve is always being held accountable, and can be removed at any point if it is failing, unlike in countries where the Executive is elected separately, where it is only accountable every election cycle, or through rarely used (and intentionally difficult) measures such as impeachment.

That Labour MPs are failing in their duty is a result of FPTP, but that they are supposed to hold the Govt to account is a strength of Parliamentary govt.

If those persistent rebels who do do their duty are to be rewarded, they should be supported electorally. If, for example, Chris McCafferty was standing for re-election next time instead of retiring, I, as a Lib Dem, would seriously consider voting for her (and thus campaigning in a different constituency). She’s, overall, done a fairly good job at attacking this Govts awful record.

That the majority of her colleagues have failed in this duty is specifically why they should be voted out.

What rattles me about this thread is that nobody seems to be distinguishing between the actions of Labour governments and the integrity of Labour in parliament. The trouble is, under the FPTP system we don’t have a way of distinguishing between a vote for the executive and a vote for the legislative, and that’s a massive failure on the part of our electoral system. Angry with Brown? Vote him out, but don’t vote out the party.

Your point about the electoral system seems somewhat irrelevant (that is not to say the system doesn’t have problems of its own).

I cannot see how you can reasonably draw such a distinction between the actions of the Government and those who consistently support it. A particular Government exists only because it can command the confidence of the Commons. In context this means a sufficient number of Labour MPs are satisfied that Gordon Brown and his team are the best (or the least worse, or the best / least worse compromise) for the job.

Furthermore, if the Government was not confident that it could not persuade a majority about specific legislation, it would usually be a waste of time to introduce it – they have lots more attacks on civil liberties to get through Parliament and there is only so much time!

Looking at divisions over specific legislation, let’s take the 42 day detention without charge vote as an example, not least because it’s something that everyone here seems to agree is wrong so we won’t get sidetracked by an argument on the merits.

301 Labour MPs voted for it (96 of whom were Ministers), 25 voted against it. From this point of view a distinction between the actions of the 205 pro-42 days MPs outside of the Government seem unreasonable, too: after all, they voted for the legislation.

This majority of Labour MPs do have integrity – they consistently vote with the Government no matter what.

(As an aside some Labour MPs did view this particular vote as a vote of confidence.)

On the other hand, the 20-30 Labour MPs who demonstrate respect for the things I’ve been talking about also have integrity – they consistently consider proposals on their merits*. I think they have a better form of integrity.

If elections were purely about civil liberties there are roughly 300 Labour MPs who shouldn’t be voted for at the next election. That is not the fault of our electoral system – that is their fault for supporting attacks on our liberties.

* I will give you an example: David Winnick. You may not agree with everything he says – I don’t – but when he speaks he demonstrates that he has at least attempted to understand the legislation and its possible consequences.

I think you should unpick that one. Are you saying that a majority of voters are small-c conservatives of one sort or another? Do you mean in terms of their economic views, their position on social questions such as equalities issues or both?

Whether or not this is true really drives at the heart of the question. The only hard evidence I can see for it is in terms of the newspapers people buy, but against that

(i) a smaller proportion of voters buy newspapers at all they they used to, and there are no grounds for extrapolating from them to non-buters;

(ii) you also have to assume that a paper’s politics constitute a marketing asset. I’ve yet to hear an editor – of a tabloid, anyway – make this claim, and I suspect their marketing people would put it way down the list.

You may, of course, have other evidence. I suspect I’m not the only reader of LC who would like to see it.

If it’s true then it begs the question of whether we should be seeking to contract syphilis rather than AIDS and I see no way of reconciling the different views which have been expressed on here. What I would argue is that so long as most people define the “good life” in terms of increasing material prosperity and a generally individualist outlook on life, then, yes, the “left” will be on the back foot. But is that a given – or is it possible that we could organise around a commitment to change that mind-set?

Brrrr.
That was the shiver that just slalomed down my spine.
Liberal conservatives?! Uh??
Guess we really are living in very , VERY strange times.
About this post….I believe the point is/was VOTE LABOUR the save the nations civil rights/integrity/moral high ground.

Kind of hard to discern that when all this post seems to have kicked up is a massive dust storm of garbled finger pointing and elitism.
As someone who does not work in politics (thank God!), this just seems like the same old usual tosh, quite frankly.

What would make a difference?
MP’s not voting for an increase in their wage packet.
The government of the day asking the electorate (those that ALL mp’s are supposed to serve, remember us?) what policies they should initiate, and, gasp, actually doing it.
surprising as it may seem, people may actually give a fuck then.

“But I repeat, going on the last eleven years, given the choice between the two parties on these grounds, I would choose Tory, and I think you’d be mad to choose Labour…”

There is a difference?
Here is a fine JS Mill quote that counters that kind of flag waving.

“He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.”

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

Still, this post has given me something to chuckle at on this drizzly august Tuesday.
Continue with the self important power postering guys!

“I will never be a Labour party member, but I know which bastards I’d rather see running my country. The bastards with a clue; the bastards who can point to old red firebrands and socialist young bloods peppered here and there in their ranks. The ones who are willing to revolt against their own government, not once, but continually. The ones who don’t hate the poor, women, ethnic minorities, and everyone who doesn’t look and think just like them. The ones with just one knarled red toe on the party line.”

And, Laurie, kind of sad that our choices are not really choices at all, isn’t it?!
Rock and a hard place.
I’d prefer to swim.

I personally feel time is running out all too fast, but to answer don’s question (not that I ever voted Labour, I never really felt hard done-by that they were in power over the Tories)…Labour quite simply need to put their money where their mouth is. It will require a change of leadership because certain recent legislation would need to be dropped or rescinded, but essentially corner stones of Labour’s recent past such as ID cards and the big surveillance push need to be dropped, real reform needs to happen in conjunction with business to give poorer people a better deal, and electoral reform MUST be put on the table.

You’re twisting the debate. I’ve never argued that MPs should be following our every whim, but Laurie *did* allude to MPs outside the front bench being supposedly brimming with integrity when put aside their opposition. As I said, I don’t care about the right’s and wrongs of the arguments, an MP that uses his time in parliament to down play the obvious and factual as if it isn’t true to save a party rather than defend a policy is worthless to the public as a politician.

To take three examples, Lee mentioned poverty – the Tory plans on welfare reform will absolutely hammer a lot of people on low incomes in a way that even Thatcher never dared (Laurie wrote an excellent post about this); ukliberty wrote that under Michael Howard their immigration policy was nasty – it’s still pretty much the same with some small tweaks and better PR; in foreign policy Cameron appears to be angling for a more belligerent approach than Labour.

When we get closer to the election, I hope that the discussion will be more about comparing different options. But there’ll be time for that – for the moment, would be interested to hear, particularly from former Labour voters who are now planning to vote for someone else or not bother, being realistic about the constraints, what do you think Labour should do differently?

I don’t think Laurie is doing that at all. She’s merely articulating the problem with many on the liberal-left, albeit not as stridently, that they want all the power but none of the responsibility.

In other words – the choice is exactly between AIDS and Syphilis, as Jennie put it above. We are forced to choose between a basket of policies not have a party that will follow our every whim.

Furthermore, a party will have to appeal to independent conservative voters too, to stay in power. I don’t like it – but that’s the way it goes. For a start we have to recognise that. We also have to recognise that in most cases its better Labour remain in power than the Tories come in.

Is that still the case? I’m not convinced yet. I actually think it may be better for Labour to spend a term out of power and prepare for power 6 years from now.

On civil liberties – granted the Labour record is terrible. I’m not defending it. I just think that under the circumstances, the Tories will be a lot worse. David Cameron’s favourite think-tank is run by Dean Godson. Just do a search on LC for his surname and you’ll realise what a nasty man he is. these people will be running the country in 2 years time.

Then you have the new car tax, with Labour MPs spending the best part of an hour arguing how a retrospective measure of taxation isn’t retrospective.

And of course the many MPs on the Labour side that did their darnedest to prove that a promise for a referendum on the EU constitution doesn’t mean they have to have a referendum on the Treaty.

I don’t really care about the right’s and wrongs of all these arguments, but they are prime examples of MPs using debate time purely to argue the counter-point to their opposition, in some cases to specifically try and limit the PR damage of the things their government are doing. Even in the darkest legislation, Labour MPs still managed to find enough bribes…uh…I mean…knowledge no-one else is privy to, to support the government so that they didn’t lose face. This is a pretty bizarre definition of integrity by anyone’s book, no?

What integrity? Others in this thread have proven more than adequately how the Labour party in parliament is no more to be trusted than the Tories, you only have to go back to 42 days to get that situation rung clear. You seem to put Labour MPs on a pedestal as being purer and better than their opponents, with some notable examples this is simply not the case. Government and party, they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet, and it sounds awful.

What rattles me about this thread is that nobody seems to be distinguishing between the actions of Labour governments and the integrity of Labour in parliament. The trouble is, under the FPTP system we don’t have a way of distinguishing between a vote for the executive and a vote for the legislative, and that’s a massive failure on the part of our electoral system. Angry with Brown? Vote him out, but don’t vote out the party.

And why did noone in their right mind want Ken to be mayor again? He made mistakes. He’s pompous and sometimes conniving. But he made London better, and fairer, and cleaner, and safer. Boris won’t.