However, that is a rather optimistic assessment of what Hughes actually said.  Indeed,  Hughes actually dampened expectations that gay marriage would be adopted as a matter of Lib Dem party policy, let alone coalition policy.

Hughes’ full answer on gay marriage can be seen here:

Notice that the only concrete step towards gay marriage mentioned by Hughes is a ‘consultation’ by the coalition government, which had anyway already been previously promised by Lynne Featherstone. 

Whether or not gay marriage ever sees the light of day depends, then, on how the consultation is handled by the coalition, and what its outcome is.  Hughes doesn’t venture a guess on that – indeed, he says that he doesn’t know what the outcome of discussions over gay marriage will be even within the Liberal Democrat party. 

So, whilst he has some warm words to say for gay marriage, and speculates that we ‘should’ be able to get it in this parliament, he is certainly not committing to anything beyond the consultation as yet.

Moreover, Hughes implies that he would rather gay marriage were not adopted as a matter of whipped, Lib Dem policy, but were instead put forward as a mere free conscience vote.  He says:

I think that every Liberal Democrat MP will be free to come to their own decision. I don’t think this will be a whipped vote matter, because there are matters of conscience around these issues, and I am keen that we don’t say every single item is a matter of party policy.

Now, at the beginning of this year, Nick Clegg announced that he was a supporter of full gay marriage.  So it was a matter of considerable disappointment when the issue was omitted from the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 manifesto. 

At the time, the explanation for this was that there had not been time to debate gay marriage at the Lib Dems’ Federal Conference.  Pink News was told that, eventually, gay marriage would be debated, and would be adopted as a policy commitment.

Hughes’ comments now suggest that he thinks a pro-position on gay marriage will not become a matter of Lib Dem policy at all.  To be sure, that does not mean it will not happen.  And gay marriage could still pass on a free vote, even if Lib Dem MPs were not whipped into supporting it.

Nonetheless, though, the Lib Dem position on gay marriage is a good deal more ambiguous than some reports suggest. 

There is certainly no call for LibDemVoice to run the details of Hughes’ interview beneath the headline: ‘Simon Hughes: Coalition Government will legislate to allow gay marriage’.

And then there is this:

Would you allow gays to be legally married, rather than just be registered as a civil partnership?

He hesitates. “I will listen to what people have to say on going further than that if there is a demand. No one has yet put that to me in the leadership election.” He said his feeling was that not enough people were asking for the policy.

The coalition has promised to ‘consult‘ on gay marriage (with whom?), and now Ed Miliband, bravely, says that he will also ‘listen’ to people about it.

He suggests that not enough people are asking for it. This implies that he is not now listening to the gay activists who are already campaigning on the issue, and also raises the intriguing question of how many people demanding gay marriage would, for Ed Miliband, seem like ‘enough’ to encourage him to get behind it.

It is difficult to understand why Ed Miliband thinks this issue is not clearcut. What possible good secular reason could one have to resist implementing full marriage equality? I am at a loss to think of one.

Civil partnership legislation was of course a hugely important step. But it was just that – a step, not the end goal.

The status quo gives us marriage apartheid, and will continue to be seen as implicitly endorsing the view that gay relationships are inferior until it is changed.

True enough, some gay people prefer civil partnerships, e.g. on grounds that they do not have connotations of ownership, as marriage is sometimes seen to do. But that just suggests, though, that civil partnerships should also be available, to gay and straight couples who want them. It’s important to note that there isn’t anything wrong with civil partnerships, just with the inequality.

It is a deep shame that, when presented with such an easy opportunity to support equality, Miliband flunked it. Not that his rivals have done any better to date, of course.

Labour is currently in the lamentable position of having nobody among the current crop of leadership candidates who openly and unequivocally supports gay marriage. If the candidates want to offer genuine change, they could start here.

On Twitter, @ConorPope, points me to this post, by Kerry McCarthy, in which she suggests that there may be practical roadblocks to implementing marriage equality. McCarthy writes:

Civil partnerships are not the same as marriage. And we won’t have true equality until they are. I’ve tried looking into this, and the explanation I got as to why the UK hasn’t gone down the path of other countries who have legalised gay marriage was that it’s more difficult in the UK because whereas in those countries you can only be married in a civil ceremony and can then choose to go on and have a religious service should you want one, in the UK you can be married in church without the civil element. Which I took to mean that you couldn’t have gay marriage in this country without persuading the Church of England, Catholic church, etc, to accept it.

I don’t understand what the difficulty is supposed to be here. In this country, heterosexual couples can already choose between a civil and religious marriage. the former being conducted in a registry office.

Gay marriage would, in the first instance, extend the availability of civil marriage to gay couples. Religious marriage could also be allowed in churches that agree to conduct them.

You would not have to win over or secure the consent of religious denominations opposed to gay marriage for any of this. Those that oppose gay marriage needn’t perform them.

* A longer version is at Soho Politico’s blog.

Today, on Left Foot Forward, Will Straw publishes striking new evidence of Tomasevski’s homophobia:

David Cameron’s Lithuanian partner has revealed his homophobic views in an email to Left Foot Forward. Valdemar Tomasevski MEP – leader of the ‘Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania’ and a member of David Cameron’s alliance of far right Europeans – describes homosexuality as an “evil” from which children should be protected and says “we cannot allow these people to claim … that homosexuality is normal.”

Tomasevski’s anti-gay beliefs were set out in an email to Straw after Left Foot Forward requested an English translation of a Lithuanian interview appearing on the MEP’s website.  The email, which also describes Tomasevski’s opposition to almost all abortions, says:

“I accept existence of homosexuals – we are tolerant state. But homosexuality is also a very good example of the wrong understanding of tolerance. We have to respect every human being, including those who experience sexual attraction to the same-sex.

But we cannot allow these people to claim and explain even to children at kindergarten that homosexuality is normal and encourage people to become homosexuals. Those who talk about tolerance should understand that and respect the constitutional right to protecting children from evil.”

The so-called ‘Law on the Protection of Minors’ supported by Tomasevski does far more than merely prohibit teachers from giving information about homosexuality to  kindergarten-age children; it bans discussion of homosexuality in any media that could be accessed by minors. According to Amnesty International this law ‘deprives young people of their right to freedom of expression and access to information and risks isolating children who are already amongst the most at risk of violence at school or within the family.’

In September, the European Parliament passed a resolution criticising the law, and pointing out its incompatibility with European Convention on Human Rights; one that -as I have previously noted – Conservative MEPs refused to support.

Straw’s new findings certainly reinforce the need to ensure that the Conservatives are pressed for answers to these questions, which I asked on LibCon earlier this week:

* Why did Conservative MEPs, unlike their Labour and Lib Dem counterparts, refuse to support a European Parliamentary resolution, in September of this year, criticising Lithuania for its passing of a law that has been condemned by human rights watchdogs as an abuse of LGBT and young people’s human rights?

* What assurances can the Conservatives provide that their decision not to support the resolution criticising Lithuania was not in any way influenced by their alliance with Lithuanian MEP Valdemar Tomasevski, who is a supporter of the law in question?

* What assurances can the Conservatives give that their positions on homosexuality, and a raft of other human rights issues arising at the European level, will not in future be decided, in whole or in part, by considerations of loyalty to their socially illiberal  new  allies in the European Conservatives and Reformists group?

Now, MacShane’s attacks on the Tories’ European alliance have not, in my view, been at all effective, and the emailed list of questions is also fundamentally wrong-headed.  The questions are intemperate, and each take a ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ type format, for instance:

4. Does he [Hague] support kaminski’s homophobic language?

6. Will hague be joining his new friends in Latvia when they commemorate the Waffen SS?

10. Does he agree with the Economist that he has created a “shoddy, shameful alliance” with Kaminski and Vile?

This type of non-serious questioning is counter-productive: it only aids the Tory counter-claim that Kaminski and others are the victims of a baseless smear campaign. If interest in the details of the Conservatives’ Euro alliance dies a premature death, or the public and media swing decisively behind the Tories’ narrative, it will be because of misjudged attacks like this.

And that would be an unforgivable failure on Labour’s part, because there are far more important questions that should be put before the Conservatives – questions that they will also find considerably more difficult to field.

For instance, Sunder Katwala has carefully exposed how Michal Kaminski has repeatedly contradicted himself when describing the details of his political history, and made numerous claims that  simply do not cohere with the evidence. 

E.g., Kaminski told the Observer he ‘never opposed’ a Polish apology for the Jewadbne massacre, but now admits that he did campaign publicly against it, in the face of TV footage showing that he did so.  Likewise, he has changed his story over his wearing of a fascist symbol, the Chobry Sword.

Hence, inter alia, Hague should be asked:

* What explains the contradictions between the various versions of Michal Kaminski’s political history that he has given to the British press?

* What action has been taken by the Conservative Party to determine which of the versions of his political history submitted by Michal Kaminski to the British press is the correct one?

* Has Michal Kaminski contradicted, in any of his media interviews and appearances since becoming leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, information that he gave to the Conservative Party as part of their vetting of him, prior to his assuming the leadership?

* Does the Conservative Party believe it is compatible with Kaminski’s remaining on as leader of the ECR that he has been found not to have told the truth about his past?  If so, why?

Leaving Kaminski to one side now, and following my own investigations into another Conservative ally – anti-gay Lithuanian MEP Valdemar Tomasevski – here are some further questions for Hague and the Tories:

* Why did Conservative MEPs, unlike their Labour and Lib Dem counterparts, refuse to support a European Parliamentary resolution, in September of this year, to criticise Lithuania for its passing of a law banning public discussion of homosexuality that has been condemned by Amnesty and other human rights watchdogs as an abuse of LGBT and young people’s human rights?

* What assurances can the Conservatives provide that their decision not to support the resolution criticising Lithuania was not in any way influenced by their alliance with Lithuanian MEP Valdemar Tomesevski, who is a supporter of the law in question, personally voted for it in his national parliament before becoming a MEP, and is on record as having described homosexuality as a ‘perversion’?

* What assurances can the Conservatives give that their positions on homosexuality, and a raft of other human rights issues arising at the European level, will not in future be decided, in whole or in part, by considerations of loyalty to their socially illiberal  new  allies in the ECR?

These are just some of the questions to which the Conservatives must be pressed for answers.

It would be an injustice if they are allowed to evade them because of ineffectual blustering from Denis MacShane and others.

Dale rightly complained to the PCC on that occasion, and I later followed his appeal for others to add their voices, by complaining to Paul Dacre and the writer of the offending column, Peter McKay (it hardly needs saying that, to date, I have had no reply).

But whilst Dale is happy to condemn a newspaper that has a history of targeting him personally, he singularly refuses to criticise anti-gay prejudice closer to home. Indeed, he has not merely failed to speak up against homophobia among Conservatives and their allies.

To take one example: as regular readers will know, recently I uncovered how Valdemar Tomasevski, a Lithuanian MEP who is part of the Tories’ coalition in the European Parliament, personally voted for a severely repressive and homophobic law that has been condemned by human rights watchdogs, including Amnesty.

Thanks to the considerable help of Sunny, that news spread fairly widely around the leftie blogosphere, was picked up by The Observer, and commented on by Lib Dem Shadow Foreign Secretary Ed Davey.

Yet Dale refused to be drawn on the subject, even when, on a visit to my blog, he was directly challenged to explain his inconsistent stance on homophobia by another commenter. Instead, he gave a brief, obscuscating answer, and disappeared.

On other occasions, Dale has alligned himself with the anti-gay views of others – for instance in this month’s interview with the leader of the Conservatives’ Euro alliance, Michal Kaminski. There, astonishingly, Dale sides with Kaminski in attacking both marriage equality and gay adoption.

First, Dale says that, whilst he favours civil partnerships, he objects to gay marriage:

ID: No I understand what you are saying and I agree with you on marriage – I’ve always thought that marriage is a word that symbolises something religious, and in this country you can’t contract civil partnerships in a church, you have to do it in a licensed premises.

Dale has made this nonsensical argument before – it was then, and is now, plainly wrong. Marriage is a state-regulated institution, whether or not it is also, for some, a sacrament. It is the state that decides who may marry, at what age, to how many spouses, and so forth – religion has neither the first nor last word. Dale is playing with fire in allowing opponents of equality to appeal to religion. For how can he now coherently argue against those who say that the legal regulation of sexual conduct is generally an innately religious matter, and therefore that homosexuality ought to be banned outright?

Likewise, Dale’s claims about gay adoption do a great disservice to LGBT parents. When Kaminski says that gay couples ought not to be able to adopt, Dale says:

ID: But let’s look at this – I agree with you by the way, I think ideally a child should be raised by a man and a woman – but there are lots of kids nowadays who for whatever reason aren’t able to be raised by a man and a woman. And given the choice between putting a child in a children’s home for his or her entire childhood, or put in a stable home, regardless of whether the parents are of the same sex, surely it’s more important for the child to have a stable loving home?

Unlike Kaminski, Dale does not rule out gay adoption under all circumstances. But nonetheless, by his logic, gay couples ought always to be at the back of the adoption queue, so that they are never given a child if there is a suitable straight couple to hand. Instead, he implies, they should be a last resort, if the child would otherwise be placed in an institution. And yet we are invited to accept that this is not an anti-gay view.

The Kaminski interview is not the first occasion on which Dale has felt compelled to express solidarity with opponents of equality. In August he stood up in support of Roger Helmer, the Tory MEP who, you will remember, drew criticism for claiming that homophobia is just a conspiracy dreamed up by the left, to silence those with ‘conventional’ views. Dale disputed that claim, but nonetheless decided to entitle his post ‘What Unites Roger Helmer & Me’, and to write:

The thing about political parties is that they are broad churches or they are nothing. Political parties which seek to become narrow, moralistic sects will inevitably die or lose elections. The Left find it difficult to understand how Roger Helmer and I can be in the same party. I suspect we would both say that there is far more that unites us than divides us.

This response indefensibly trivialises Helmer’s statement. When he was the victim of homophobia from the Mail, Dale suggested, persuasively, that an acid test to see if a statement is anti-gay is to see how it would strike us if made about, for instance, Jews.

Well, if Helmer had suggested that anti-semitism does not exist, but is instead a leftist conspiracy designed to silence those with conventional views, he would have been drummed out of the Conservative Party. And Dale would not not professed unity with him – he would have disowned him. So why did he fail to do so when Helmer lauched an attack on gays?

Iain Dale helps limit the damage done by stories that challenge the Conservatives record on LGBT issues. He has repeatedly signalled that such stories do not trouble him, either by keeping silent when he could have voiced concerns, or, as with Helmer and Kaminski, by actively extending his support. To many, that message will be powerful: after all, if prominent gay party activist Iain Dale is not bothered, these stories must all be a storm in a teacup, right?

Iain Dale has decided where his loyalties lie, and sadly they are not on the side of combatting prejudice or promoting LGBT equality.

—————-
First posted on Soho Politico

In part one I exposed how the Lithuanian member of David Cameron’s new European grouping had voted to support some very homophobic legislation.

To reiterate, the ‘Law on the Protection of Minors from the Detrimental Effects of Public Information’, which has been described as a harsher and more wide-reaching version of Britain’s old Section 28, bans discussion of homosexuality not only in schools but in any public places and media that could be accessed by young people.

It has been condemned by Amnesty Intl, the European Union itself and activists in the UK.

Valdemar Tomaševski, the Lithuanian MEP in question, is also on record as having branded homosexuality a “perversion”. Yet the Tories apparently did not view that as a reason not to welcome him into their European alliance.

On the 21st June Tomaševski left his Seimas seat to join the European Parliament, five days after voting (see Row 10) to pass the homophobic law.

On 22nd June he asked to be admitted to the European Reformists and Conservatives group, and was accepted by the Tories the following day.

And incredibly, only eight days later, at a Tory fundraising event linked to Gay Pride, David Cameron made a speech emphasising how much the Conservatives had changed on gay rights. That was also the day of his widely-publicised apology on behalf of the Conservatives for Section 28.

Since accepting Tomaševski into their European coalition, the Tories have shown solidarity with him as he prosecutes his anti-gay agenda.

Last week, on 17th September, the European Parliament agreed on a resolution pointing out that the Lithuanian hate law is in breach of EU and international treaties, and anti-discrimination texts.

Conservatives in the European Parliament initially backed Tomaševski to the hilt, siding with him to vote against motions for a resolution condemning Lithuania.  In the final vote, whilst their Eastern European comrades voted against the resolution, the Tories in the chamber meekly abstained.  To the last they refused to condemn their close ally.

Valdemar Tomaševski is leader of the small Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania party, and noted for his “quest for more Christianity in politics.”

These developments clearly raise questions about the sincerity of Cameron’s apology and the depth of the party’s commitment to eradicating prejudice against LGBTs.

——————
cross-posted to the Soho Politico blog.

Despite the persistent criticism that it has allied itself with extremists, David Cameron’s Conservative Party now sits in the European Parliament with the European Reformists and Conservatives group (ECR), led by Poland’s Michal Kaminski – a man allegedly with a racist and homophobic past.

But so far it has gone unreported that another ally of the Conservatives in Europe has a much more serious and recent record of homophobia.

Valdemar Tomaševski, MEP from Lithuania, and member of the Tories’ Euro coalition, is on record as having branded homosexuality a “perversion”.

Not only that, I can now reveal for the first time that he also personally voted for a Lithuanian law that has been described as a harsher, more wide-reaching version of Britain’s Section 28.

The Lithuanian law was widely condemned by human rights watchdogs. The draconian “Law on the Protection of Minors from the Detrimental Effects of Public Information” bans discussion of homosexuality not only in schools but in any public places and media that could be accessed by young people.

Amnesty pointed out that if adopted, the proposals would also permit the prosecution of an extremely wide variety of activities, including campaigning on human rights issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, providing sexual health information to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) people or the organization of gay film festivals, or Pride events.

Tomaševski voted for the law on 16th June, shortly before vacating his seat in the Seimas, Lithuania’s national parliament, to become a MEP (see his voting record [in Lithuanian] here – Row 10) Update: here is an English translation.

Amnesty International has strongly condemned the Lithuanian hate law, saying it “deprives young people of their right to freedom of expression and access to information and risks isolating children who are already amongst the most at risk of violence at school or within the family.”

It’s UK LGBT Campaigner Kim Manning-Cooper said:

This is a very bad day for LGBT rights in Lithuania. By adopting this deeply homophobic legislation, the Lithuanian authorities have taken a huge step backwards. This law is a clear infringement of freedom of expression and non-discrimination rights and should be repealed immediately.

A raft of other human rights groups and campaigners have also added their criticisms of Lithuania, among them Peter Tatchell, who said in June:

This legislation is homophobic discrimination. As such, it clearly violates the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. It also violates the equality and anti-discrimination clauses of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Lithuania has signed up to these international humanitarian declarations but it is now defying them. It wants the rights of EU and UN membership, but not the responsibilities.

A mere week after voting to pass the homophobic law, Tomaševski was welcomed with open arms into the Tories’ ECR group.

———–
(with many thanks to the kind people at the Lithuanian Gay League for responding to my request for information about Tomaševski’s voting record in the Lithuanian parliament)

Cross-posted to the Soho Politico blog too.

On Friday, ConservativeHome links from its front page to yesterday’s Guardian story about Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s outrageous political meddling in the BBC’s hiring practices. Hunt had argued that the corporation ought to be actively seeking more Tories to be part of its news team, in order to counteract supposed liberal bias.

Directly below its link to the story, ConservativeHome alerts readers to a shocking discovery about the BBC that it had made on a previous occasion:

ConservativeHome discovered two years ago that there were eleven times as many liberals at the BBC as conservatives.

Er, actually, what they found was that, among BBC employers who were members of Facebook, eleven times as many recorded themselves as having ‘liberal’ political views as self-identified as ‘conservative’.

And not only is the sampling technique they employed a joke: there’s no attempt to analyse what parts of the corporation these liberal covert operatives were working in, or how senior they were, or what was the likelihood that they could influence BBC output. Just another voodoo survey then…

Responding to the Cameron article, the Lib Dems took the only path realistically open to them: angry denial.  Sunny Hundal says that “Nick Clegg… to his credit, is not touching Cameron with a bargepole.”

But it’s not really a reason to praise Clegg that he rebuffed Cameron – he couldn’t have done anything else.  Despite the pretense that he was offering genuine rapprochement, Cameron’s claim that, on many issues, there’s no difference between the two parties was really just code for: ‘Look Lib Dem voters, these days we cater to your pet issues too. So how about you find out what it feels like to be part of the winning side for a change, eh?’.  That message was seen by the Lib Dems for what it was: profoundly threatening. Hence the vehement rebuttal.

The Lib Dems, though, would idiots if they didn’t see this threat brewing.

Because Nick Clegg has been aping David Cameron’s approach to doing politics so brazenly that it was only a matter of time before Cameron came out with the suggestion that, honestly, there simply isn’t any need to have both of them. 

That Clegg takes his cues on how to do politics from Cameron is indicated, first, by his chosen stylistic flourishes.  Look at Saturday’s conference speech: no tie, no notes, no podium, just Clegg, speaking extemporaneously, whilst pacing the stage.  That is pure Cameron.  (Actually, it is pre-recession Cameron.  In 2009 it was a bad idea: it looked outdated, too frivolous, not in keeping with the austerity of the times.  I will be astonished if Cameron revisits this shtick when he makes his own party conference speech.)

Much more importantly, Clegg is also mimicking Cameron’s approach to political one-upmanship.  Unforgivably, he has decided to participate in the Tory games that have been so poisonous to the quality of the political debate over economic recovery.   First, he has entered into a pissing contest over who can pledge to cut down the size of government the most.  This despite the fact that everyone on the left understands that Cameron’s earlier promise in this area was just a cheap exercise in sucking up to an electorate that latterly hates politicians more than ever, whilst avoiding the question of where the real, substantial cuts he has promised will have to fall.  Clegg’s unwelcome contribution  includes the insane suggestion that 10 government departments, and nearly 150 MPs, ought to be scrapped.  FFS, who is writing this stuff for him – Guido Fawkes?

In general, Clegg has signed on far too enthusiastically to Tory rhetoric about the need for swingeing cuts in public spending.  He has refused to back off on his claim that cuts will have to be “savage”, despite the outrage of his party, telling the Today programme this morning that “You can of course use softer, more emollient language, but that won’t make the problem go away.”  That is just the Cameron strategy reheated: feed the destructive and deceitful narrative that massive cuts are needed immediately, and call it the courage to give the people hard truths.  Coming from Clegg, this is a pretty galling betrayal of the liberal left.  

It is also idiotic political strategy.  Clegg might think that he has identified what works by looking at Cameron.  But the Cameron gambits will only work for Cameron.  If the public really are sold on the idea that “savage” cuts are needed, they will not turn to Clegg for them.  In general, playing this game only makes Clegg look like a hanger-on.

For the sake of minimising the damage an incoming Tory administration can do, it is obviously important that the Lib Dems retain their vote share at the next election.  Frankly, though, Clegg himself deserves everything he gets.

It’s worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I’ve proposed tonight. But its impact shouldn’t be exaggerated – by the left, the right, or the media. It is only one part of my plan, and should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles.

Obama failed to give unequivocal support for the public option. In fact, he signaled that he is not really committed to it at all, and invites proposals to replace the public option. Those who want to scrap it will be emboldened.

This is just the latest maneuver by Obama to have disappointed the left. There is, also, e.g., his failure to stand up for a decent stimulus. And his heart-breaking capitulation on LGBT rights.

Liberals assumed, when Obama entered the White House, that he would be a transformational president, able to reorient America’s politics leftwards. That hasn’t happened.

And this is because Obama’s political strategising has been all wrong.

Prior to his election, Obama frequently promised to govern in a spirit of bipartisanship. And he’s remained obsessed with bipartisanship (or, less kindly, ‘triangulation’) in office, despite the size of his mandate, and despite the fact that Republicans just aren’t interested. Obama-style bipartisanship involves two mistakes:
(1) premature capitulation to the right;
(2) failure to redraw the centre-ground leftwards.

From yesterday’s speech:

I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both these approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the healthcare most people currently have… I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch.

This is a bad attempt at triangulation by Obama. It shows he pitched his tent too close to the right from the start. If Obama had been serious the public option, he would have started by demanding (something like) the single-payer system, knowing he wouldn’t get it, and then presented the public option as the compromise.

Instead, the public option was his opening bid. Now he is facing pressure to compromise on that too, and is wilting.

Obama presents the single-payer scheme as the extremist left option, when it is anything but. This redraws the centre-ground rightwards: in casting the single-payer scheme as extremist, he makes the public option also look more left-wing, by implication.

The British left risks making similar mistakes. As I said yesterday, people like Jon Cruddas, who are now proposing policies to revitalise Labour, have to be more careful about where they place them on the political spectrum. It’s no use proposing policies, and billing them as a sharp leftward turn.

At this stage, people will think that a leftward turn is evidence not of a Labour renewal but of desperation. Labour has to keep defining the centre. There is nothing in the Cruddas proposals that cannot be billed as moderate, centre-left, third way. So why claim that they’re more left-wing than you have to?

Upon Obama’s election, it was routinely said that the British left had a lot to learn from him. They can start by learning from his mistakes.