ONE PERSON'S FREEDOM

The funeral of Margaret Thatcher will take place tomorrow.  In her lifetime, as Prime Minister, she managed to divide the country.  People with firm opinions and uncompromising stances usually do encourage strong views one way or the other.  Since she won three consecutive elections and is still Britain's longest serving Prime Minister for over 100 years, those divisions clearly did not split the country into two equal parts, but the minority that opposed her of course became the most vociferous and violent.

The same will no doubt be the case during her funeral tomorrow.  There are those who still hate her and will go out of their way to show it tomorrow. But those that make the loudest noise, as ever, will not necessarily be right.  Maybe they are incapable of rational argument or perhaps after all this time (Thatcher resigned in 1990) their ineffectual resentment has still not evaporated or maybe they are just hateful, but demonstrating at a funeral will not endear them to anyone, nor elicit support for their views.  Any violence will no doubt be condemned by all political parties.  So such protesters will simply be dismissed as outside normal society.

But a separate debate has arisen which is much more interesting, and important, than whether you still like or dislike Thatcher.  The police have said that, in policing the funeral, they are determined not to prevent freedom of speech.  In this country, I'm pleased to say, dissent is allowed, even in public.  But what is the limit of that dissent?  To what extent is freedom of speech, or freedom of expression, or freedom of movement, restricted by public order legislation?

I am quite firm that freedom of speech should be permitted unconditionally.  At any time, in any place.  If someone wishes to stand up in church and say that religion is poppycock, that's fine by me.  If they want to shout tomorrow that Thatcher was an evil woman, that's OK too.  But they can't expect that theirs will be the only view expressed.  And this is where demonstrations can run into legal difficulties.  Holding up a banner is fine.  Chanting what's on the banner is also fine.  But when have you seen two opposing groups of demonstrators simply standing together chanting their opposing views?  When one group seems to be chanting louder, insults will be bandied, jostling will begin and one group will no doubt soon physically attack the other.  So where does the public order offence begin - when the chanting starts?  When the chanting takes on an aggressive tone?  When physical contact occurs?  When the fighting starts?  And which group committed the public order offence?

We can easily accept that a public order offence may have occurred when we hear a Muslim cleric preaching against the West.  But what of a group dishonouring Margaret Thatcher and preaching against her?  At what stage does freedom of speech spill over into an illegal act?  A public order offence may well have occurred if a milk bottle is thrown at her coffin.  But what if just the milk is thrown?  Or what about holding up a placard covered in hate filled words and chanting hatred against her?  Is this incitement to violence?  Or maybe it's libel, legally punishable defamation?  But at what stage would you be inhibiting a person's freedom of speech - when you take away their placard or when you move them along or when you arrest them?

There have been attempts to quantify freedom of speech for the purposes of demonstrating tomorrow. As usual it all sounds silly.  It's a bit like a contract for behaviour on a date.  This is OK, but that isn't.  In the end, it will depend on the personal judgement of one police officer.  And I suspect it will not be placards or chanting or turning one's back or singing, 'Ding dong - the Queen is dead' or even throwing milk that leads to arrest.

I sincerely hope violence doesn't arise.  And, on the other hand, I hope too that the police will get it right.  If many are arrested, far from turning in her grave, I suspect  that Thatcher will be smiling.  She had no time for trouble makers then and would certainly not have now.

So, even in death she arouses strong views.  But, in the debate over freedoms in British society and the rights of the individual, I think I know where she would have drawn her uncompromising line. 

POLITICAL HITCH

There have been a number of events recently that puzzle me. That is not surprising these days; I am now constantly foxed by life, by parking meters, telephone answering machines, BOGOF offers at the supermarket, texts from Ms Sexylegs, etc.

But to deal with one of these events, you may have seen that on 5 February the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was approved by the House of Commons by 400–175. The legislation still has to pass the House of Lords, and who knows how they will vote, but the decisive Commons vote by more than 2 to 1 seems to be pretty representative of current public opinion. But the voting has split the Conservative Party. Bizarrely, more Conservatives voted against the bill than voted for. In fact, almost all the votes against were Conservative. Because of this, a number of questions have arisen.

Why has the Prime Minister pushed this legislation through? It wasn't in the Party manifesto and clearly wasn't supported within the Party. Passing legislation by enlisting Opposition support is not that unusual, but it's pretty odd for an issue of this kind, especially when you don't have your own party's backing at all. Moreover, although public opinion is onside, most people are actually fairly apathetic about the subject. They are much more likely to get excited about the tax on sausage rolls or a railway running through their garden.

Secondly, what has made half the Conservative Party vote against their leader's Bill? Surprisingly, their objections seem to be religious ones. 'Surprisingly' because no one else in Parliament seems to hold such strong religious views. I shan't go into the religious points here, you no doubt know, or can guess, what they are. Anyway, it will remain illegal to have a same-sex marriage in a CofE or RC church for some years I think, but some other religions have already accepted the principle, so church marriage will be possible when the law is passed.

Thirdly, what is the view of same-sex couples? Are they all as keen on the law change as their activist representatives? It is always the same with minority views, the activists are so vociferous, that one can hardly believe the whole world doesn't agree. But, as far as I am aware, there has been enormous support for the Civil Partnership, introduced at the end of 2005, a union which the Church accepts, but not much of a movement in preference for same-sex marriage. There remains a body of opinion within the LGBT community none the less that wants marriage on a par with heterosexual couples. But what exactly does 'on a par' mean here?

I confess my initial reaction was to bemoan the continual minority picking away at societal norms. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman and that's that. There's no reason of course why that can't change. Society is dynamic and views evolve. Changing the law is trickier and changing religious practice is something else. But the position can change and no doubt will, given the present momentum. Never the less, although LGBTs don't want to be different in marriage from everyone else, the fact remains that they are different.

Same-sex relationships tend to be based on the way one likes to have sex, whereas marriage is based on procreation for the survival of the species or the family line, depending on your view. Maybe those needs are less urgent these days, but this was the intention of the institution of marriage. Henry VIII would have had none of his problems if that was not the case. And, as you will have seen in the Tudors television series, sexual gratification was a separate matter. In some cultures, a marriage between members of different families and descent is still considered more important than love, certainly than sex.

However, in a ruling against marriage between transsexuals as long ago as 1967, Mr Justice Ormerod stated "Marriage is a relationship which depends on sex, not on gender". This rather defeats my initial conclusion. And anyway Henry VIII made some pretty radical changes to law and religion to accommodate marriage, so it it is clearly not impossible to do it again.

So how does civil partnership change the situation? I was rather irritated, to be honest, when, after all the fuss to get that legislation approved, gay activists continued to campaign for more. The recent case of Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson is also interesting, where their discrimination case (that not recognising their civil partnership as a marriage contravened their human rights) failed because "such discrimination has a legitimate aim, is reasonable and proportionate, and falls within the margin of appreciation accorded to Convention States." In other words, human rights legislation not only permits discrimination against same-sex marriage, but recognises that civil partnership confers all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. So, opening marriage to same-sex couples would confer no new legal rights on those already in a civil partnership, yet would require multiple legal changes and the definition of marriage would have to change for everyone. As I have said, that is no reason not to do it and it would certainly end discrimination.

So, the argument is between maintaining marriage and civil partnership, since there is no difference between them, or harmonising the two because there is no difference.

But, even accepting that, it is still a slightly odd debate. The trend to marriage has continually fallen (despite a slight recent rise, probably following the 2002 changes in the immigration laws). The fastest-growing type of family in the UK is of those living together without being married. The number of people who cohabit has quadrupled from 0.6% to 2.2% (5.9 million couples) since 1996. Over the last 10 years, the numbers of children born to cohabiting couples has also doubled, suggesting that the unmarried state is a genuine social choice over marriage. There is, moreover, no religious or society objection now generally to cohabitation or to children born out of wedlock, nor indeed to divorce. Since the Divorce Reform Act came into effect in 1971, the annual number of divorces has continued to rise. At the same time, although same-sex couples in civil partnerships appear to be less likely statistically to “divorce” than their heterosexual counterparts, dissolutions of such unions, particularly among females, are already occurring, despite only being made legal relatively recently, suggesting that legal union for homosexuals is no more binding than for heteros.

So we have a situation where growing numbers of couples live together, rather than marry, where indeed ambitions to marry have softened considerably in recent years, even where children are concerned, and where there is no inherent commitment to permanence in any legal union. Furthermore, of those that do marry, church is not now the first choice for marriage. Many still content themselves with a 'legal' marriage at the registry office and dispense with the ceremony altogether. Very many others choose mundane secular locations such as hotels or even beaches for their nuptials. This, coupled with the fact that divorce rates continue to increase, shows just how rapidly strict attitudes in society have relaxed in the last few years. It is not inconceivable, with presently proposed legislation supporting same-sex marriage and not especially encouraging heterosexual marriage (indeed for some couples cohabitation offers a preferential tax position), that at some stage only homosexuals will bother with marriage. That will provide an interesting divide.

Ultimately though this is a legal problem and, even without the public apathy, no one is much excited by a legal debate. The Bill may or may not drift through Parliament without much fanfare, except from a small minority whose euphoria will not be understood by the majority of us, from the quality newspapers who will call it a 'landmark', and from Zimbabwe which will call it an abomination. But my puzzlement at the Prime Minister risking his re-election on the strength of it remains. If we aren't much moved by same-sex marriage, we would surely prefer not to have to make this into an election issue. There are far more important things to worry about in this country. Personally, a manifesto offering cheap sausage rolls will get my vote every time.

THE BIG ENFRANCHISEMENT DEBATE

I fink it would be well awesome to vote.  All the TV cameras and lights and fings.  Showing some teef to the chicks as you slot that slip in the box.  We could go in togever, like Luis and Gay Tony, and kick some ass.

Nah.  They don’t have no cameras for everyone, dude.

Why’s that then?  Well, I’d get my homies to fill the place and work da crowds, like.  I ain’t doing it for nuffin, bro.  Just need a bit of respect, right.  When I vote, I want the whole world to see.  Me, right.  I’d get that jacket from Topshop.  And those trainers.  If my Mum gives me the money.  That’d show everyone.  Anyway, it’s my right to vote, innit.  Like, human rights and fings.

It’s just that bloody government, like, innit, wot says we’s too young to vote cos we’s ony 16.  Well, I just hate em.  Who wants a bloody government anyway?  Even old geezers who can’t even walk proper gets to vote.  That ain’t fair.  They just want NHS and fings.  They don’t care about us – always moaning when our ball goes over their fence and fings.  I’d vote for getting rid of them and getting rid of schools. 

And parents,

Yeah.  We should tell that Brussels thing about it.

Wot’s that then?

Dunno.  The EU thing.  Wot's always telling the government what's right an fings.  That government, it’s like, we’re the bosses, we don’t want them kids telling us what to do, right, innit, like.  If we’re old enough to steal a car, we’re damn sure old enough to vote, innit. 

Too right, bro.  I’d vote for that Louise Mensch, she’s well hot.

Don’t work like that, bro.  She ain’t on the ticket.  Anyway, she’s in New York now.

Don’t matter.  She’s fitter than that Cameron bloke.  And not so posh.

Yeah.  And that Adele, she’s not posh neither.  I’d vote for her.  An she said she don’t like that Cameron too.  I heard er say it on YouTube.  Just like that!  Way cool.

Adele?!  She’s fat.  You ain’t voting for no fatty. 

You’re fat.

Ooh, you callin fat?  

Well you ain’t fit exactly, like me an Leon an Gazza an Bo, innit.

You won’t be my BFF anymore.

I don’t care.  I didn’t want to be your BFF anyway.  I’ve gotta go home now anyway.  It’s teatime.

WHATEVER COMMON PEOPLE DO

There has been a bit of a debate here for some while about poshness.  The Prime Minister and Chancellor were both privately educated and both went to Oxford University.  They both have aristocratic backgrounds (if a little distant now) and come from wealthy families.  They both belonged to the notorious Bullingdon Club that you were only invited to join if you had pots of money.  They have been referred to pejoratively as ‘2 posh boys’; the criticism being that they were privileged, lived in a select strata of society and, by implication, had no idea what the lives of the rest of us are like or what affects us.  They were being tarred with the ‘let them eat cake’ brush.

This disparagement hasn’t really worked, though it is sometimes referred to in the socialist press or used in cartoons, mainly because Cameron speaks sensibly and Osborne is able to point to the mess the previous administration made of the economy.  The Coalition is not exactly popular, in poll terms, but nor, in general, is the alternative greatly desired either.

The epithet came up again recently, when a Minister was asked to dismount and wheel his bicycle through the pedestrian gate from Downing Street (where he lives incidentally).  Had he been in an official car, the policeman would have opened the main gate for him.  He swore profusely at the policeman and allegedly called him a pleb, a term which I have used oftimes, as a polite alternative to f*cking cretinous Jobsworth b*stard, but which was seized on as proof that he too is ‘posh’.  I am not in any way posh BTW, even sometimes drinking my tea from a mug whilst sitting on the settee watching television!  And I don’t like champagne.  And I get too hungry for dinner at eight, etc.

It is Party Conference season.  This week it is Labour’s turn and the Labour Opposition have now decided that this is the time to start their campaign to win the next election and have begun to state their policies.  Their initial shot across the bows is to emphasise that they are not posh.  With most of their money coming from the labour unions and thus the ‘working class’, this is an essential prerequisite anyway.  But there are a number of problems.

Firstly, poshness is an invented condition these days.  It used to refer to those who could afford to travel, of course then only the wealthy landed gentry, on the sunny side of ocean-going steamers (Port-Out Starboard-Home).  But the landed gentry are not the richest persons in Britain any more.  The only real aristo in the top ten is the Duke of Westminster (#7).  Even The Queen only comes in at 262 on the rich list, behind J K Rowling and a lot of celebs and filthy lucre industrialists.  In fact the richest woman in Britain is apparently a former Miss UK.  Is she, or Rowling, or let’s say Bernie Ecclestone, who is also richer than The Queen, but who worked in the gasworks after leaving school at 16, posher than The Queen?  Maybe not.  They might be snobs, but probably not posh.  

So it’s an alleged attitude that’s referred to here.  One which, perversely, The Queen doesn’t possess.  But it may be one that the Minister possesses.  His father was a Conservative Minister, he was privately educated and went to Cambridge, was an officer in the Army and is now a senior politician.  All that may have given him delusions of grandeur or made him an obnoxious, arrogant bully, but he is hardly posh.

Moreover, the ‘landed gentry’ these days, those that live in big houses with lots of land and people to look after them (used to be called ‘servants) are pop stars and actors.  So, are they posh?

There is also something curious about our response to these words.  If I was called ‘posh’, I’d either take it as a joke or protest mildly.  It never used to be pejorative, but clearly now is.  On the other hand, if I was called ‘a pleb’, I think I’d just accept it and perhaps try to be less common next time.  Yet the term was always derogatory. 

Secondly, the problem with Milliband taking up this anti-posh stance is that both he and his Shadow Chancellor were educated at Oxford, as was Balls’ wife Yvette Cooper, a sort of power behind the throne, and Balls was privately educated to boot.  All three also studied at Havard incidentally.  They earn more than I ever did and are much richer now.  And Milliband has a much more plummy voice than I.  So are they not posh?

It also doesn’t work to brand all Tories posh; Margaret Thatcher was the daughter of a grocer and John Major, her successor, was the son of a trapeze artist.  I can understand all Labour politicians wanting to have working class roots on the other hand.

Thirdly, we haven’t asked the obvious question about the Downing Street gate incident.  Why did the policeman behave the way he did?  And why did he threaten to arrest the Minister for swearing at him?  Maybe because he was in fact a Jobsworth and bore a chip on his shoulder about opening a gate for important people or towards important people generally?  This is a dangerous route to go down.  The whole ethos of the British policing system, since Peel invented the police, is that they are citizens like you and I.  That’s mostly why they are not armed and don’t strut about issuing orders to us plebs.  I imagine that grates with some of them, who must feel they deserve more respect than they get from a large minority of the population who see them as ‘authority’ and thus to be reviled.  I agree whole-heartedly that we should love our police for what they do far more than we do.  I wouldn’t be a policeman, but I have great admiration for those who would and are.  But I wouldn’t have any respect for one that tried to belittle another citizen.

Fourthly, and I think this is most important, what’s wrong with people who can afford a good education and who have enough money to spend on election campaigns, etc without having to work, becoming our leaders?  On the whole, I think I’d rather have someone who ought to have some idea what their talking about as my Prime Minister, than someone who was poor and uneducated.  If my next door neighbour announced he was running for Parliament and hoped to become PM, I don’t think I’d support him much, however sensible he might be.  But that’s just me.  However, if politicians are too much like us, we would find it hard to give them leadership over us.  The first among equals applies only to the leader of the Cabinet, not the leader of the country.  In other words, the ‘equals’ are the other Ministers, not the plebs.

Interestingly, at the moment, Labour is doing rather better in the polls than the Coalition, but most people asked prefer David Cameron as leader to any of the Labour aspirants.  Perhaps they’re seen as down-market or just too ordinary? 

A LOAD OF MERCHANT BANKERS

So now we have another banking scandal.  I'm not really surprised.  The activities of the banking community has been so uncontrolled, so egocentric, so full of selfish, careless bravura, that they have clearly thought themselves immune to the law, either that defined by Parliament or that moral one followed by most of the rest of us.  It was only a matter of time before the rot led to the collapse of the structure, like a flashy seaside pier beset by rust.  And too many people jumping on the roundabout.

Perhaps one more blatant crime is unimportant; no one has a good word to say about bankers at the moment anyway.  But once, in the not too distant past, if you wanted to get a reliable recommendation or a trustworthy signature, you asked your bank manager.  I don't suppose anyone would bother these days; it wouldn't give much of an impression anyway.  I even heard someone on the radio say that they were now on a par with estate agents!  Perhaps you can't trust anyone these days.  What a mess!

But I don't really care much if bankers get a bad reputation.  I haven't ever had much of a good experience in banks.  But what will be a much bigger problem for us is the impact on the reputation of the banking industry in general and London in particular.

There was a time when we let the bankers get away with near murder and allowed them to draw annual salaries approaching the GDP of a small country.  The reason we allowed this situation to go ahead was that we wanted the bankers to stay here.  'If we don't cowtow to bankers, they'll all move to Paris', was the mantra.  It's very difficult now to see why that would be a problem.  Keeping these people in Britain has made a major contribution to our economy.  But at what cost?

I don't really care about what sort of inquiry we now have into the banking industry.  The politicians will continue to argue about this for a while.  But what none of them seems really to be concerned about is that, whatever the inquiry discovers, the reputation of London will be damaged worldwide and will require more than the sticking plaster of an inquiry to heal.  We already know that Barclays have broken the law and that other banks are being investigated.  It'll take a major political and PR effort to overcome that.  Why don't we let Paris have them?

CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT

I was going to comment eruditely on the popular reaction to HM's Diamond Jubilee celebrations over the last 5 days.  But I think most of it has been said now.

I was constantly amazed.  Not because The Queen is unpopular particularly, but just simply at the gushing outpourings of affection and support.  There is, it must be acknowledged, an anti-monarchist, or Republican, or a purist democratic, movement in the UK, which I kept expecting to see or hear disrupting events.  But there was nothing anti.  Even the official, organised, pro-Republic demonstration could raise no more than 50-odd people chanting 'Down with Liz', as opposed to the millions cheering and singing in support.

We booked our spot on the river to watch the flotilla at 8am, even though The Queen didn't lead the boats past until 2.30 that day.  But there were people on The Mall who had camped overnight to make sure they saw The Queen glide by some 20 hours later.  And that was just a couple of carriages, not the 1,000 boats that we saw. 

After the Buckingham Palace concert, the band struck up the National Anthem and, remembering the chanting at football matches and the silence at other public events, I thought, 'oh no, they're going to dampen the concert euphoria or spoil the success of the event'.  But, no, the crowd sung with gusto and raised three cheers afterwards for The Queen.  They even chanted support for The Duke of Edinburgh who had been taken ill the night before.

With recent royal cock-ups and a succession of PR difficulties since Diana's death, despite a pretty successful Golden Jubilee 10 years ago, I felt that public enthusiasm for the Royal Family had waned in Britain (and in parts of the Commonwealth for that matter), particularly among the young.  But I appear to have been wrong.  It seems to have been impossible for interviewers to find a member of the public willing to say a downbeat word about The Queen.  Far from it - nearly every sentence spoken seemed to include great affection and, not to put too fine a point upon it, loyalty and devotion.
 
There were even frequent spontaneous chants of 'God Save The Queen!', as though we were fanatical subjects in North Korea, rather than democratic and irreverant Britons.  There were plenty of irreverant references too of course, not least the number of masks worn.  But even they showed affection; ridicule was far from anyone's mind.

Of course the story might have been different north of the border, for all I know.  And I'm not entirely sure how the Commonwealth felt.  But I noted that even the Australian Premier's message of congratulation and admiration was gracious in the extreme, when again it could have been more subdued, given her antipathy towards the Crown.

But what really struck me was the way the celebrations had united people.  I mentioned in my earlier post that The Monarchy works much better here than a putative Presidency might.  As was pointed out in one of the newspapers today, there isn't a President that hasn't proved divisive (or totally irrelevant) in their own country in some way.  Yet, apart from a residual minority view that maybe she shouldn't be there at all, there was no sign of any of the divisiveness that our political masters have managed to achieve. 

The second feature was that that unity was formalised under the Union Flag.  It may seem odd to some of you that I say this, but our flag, except maybe in times of war, isn't really held in the same reverence as many other national flags are by the populations of those nations.  We tend to like it as an emblem and, from the swinging sixties onwards, have decorated everything from cars to home accessories with it.  And indeed, this last weekend, most people in the crowds were wearing red, white and blue, if not Union Flag clothing from head to toe, painted faces or nails, etc.  I even saw a Union Flag scarf on a Muslim girl by the river.  This patriotic upsurge is unusual for us in the absence of outside attack or physical national achievement; seeing it to celebate simply the survival of one person, however important constitutionally, was heart-warming, but still a surprise.  If nothing else, this inclusive, non-religious, non-political coming together under the national flag has done more for Britain than any other achievement that might be found in the 60 years of her reign.  And yet it is an achievement purely of passive survival.  We are merely celebrating the fact that she hasn't died or abdicated.

Finally, the other notable point highlighted in the press was the number of children and young people celebrating in the crowds.  I'm not sure many of the very young will have understood exactly what was going on and in fact many of their parents were not that clear either - there were a good many comments such as, 'well, we won't ever see it again', which made me wonder if they were there for the spectacle alone or maybe for the party.  One reporter, trying to inject a modicum of seriousness, asked one lady whether she was there because she supported the Monarchy per se or whether it was simply to recognise The Queen's achievement, but she looked a bit puzzled and just mumbled something about 'once in a lifetime'.  But those kids will be monarchists for life.  I remember even now collecting my commemorative glass at school and watching the Coronation on our new TV.  That event shaped my enthusiasm for the royals for many years.  There is now a new generation of enthusiasts coming through.

So here's to the next 60 proud, patriotic years . . .

Tags: politics, britain, flags, patriotism, royals, jubilee

FASCIST REGIME?

I read an article in yesterday’s newspaper (here) in which the journalist explained that he has belatedly become a Royalist.  This change of heart is interesting in itself, since the trend is probably the other way.  It is a bad moment to reflect on the Monarchy probably, with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations about to start in earnest and the whole country bedecked in bunting and patriotic flags and nothing available in the shops that doesn't carry a Union Flag or Royal cipher.

But what I found interesting in the article though was that what brought about the journo's conversion was not the value for money of the Monarchy, the relative low cost of the maintenance of all the buildings, the staff, the hangers-on, etc, nor the spectacular panoply that goes with ceremonial monarchical occasions, nor the high cost of the elections and all the razzmatazz of choosing a President instead of a Monarch, nor the disruption to life brought about by such elections every 4/5 years, nor the loss of stability and consistency and reliability and unity that comes with a different person running the country just as you get used to the previous one, nor the potential problem of our gaining an executive leader for the first time (since the Dark Ages), any of which would be argument enough not to change our present system.  No, it was the process that had unnerved him.

He had watched the rise of Baroness Ashton to the post of European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, making her the highest-paid female politician in the world, without actually having had a proper job before.  She had done so (in his words) through political patronage, upon having the correct views and knowing the right people.  The point is that Prime Ministers and bureaucrats under them have a strong interest in who is in charge of their country and won’t necessarily choose the person with the strongest personality or greatest competence in decision-making or indeed proven record in leading.  The important point is that they do what you want them to do.

I can understand that point.  If you are going to elect a boss, you want to make sure they are someone who thinks the same way as you or, worse, not someone who will disagree strongly with your views.  But his article made me wonder if Baroness Ashton’s case was actually relevant to the election of a President.  I conclude that it is.

Firstly, Prime Minister’s (and their parties)(and the Opposition for that matter) have very much an interest in keeping the present monarchical system, because it is they in fact who make all the decisions.  The Queen makes very nice policy speeches about what ‘Her Government’ is going to do, but these speeches are all written by the Government (in fact by a bunch of bureaucrats.  If the Government wishes to include a para about the situation in Afghanistan for example, to do with withdrawing troops say, someone in the Foreign Office will write the first draft). 

Secondly, following on from that, the Prime Minister currently makes the decisions and informs The Queen.  Of course, if a President makes a policy speech or a policy for that matter, some bureaucrat (?wonk) will draft it for him.  But the difference will be that it will be the President’s bureaucrats that do the writing, not the Prime Minister’s.  Having a Constitutional Head of State makes running a Government fairly straightforward; having a leader with executive or quasi-executive powers won’t suit British Governments at all and will make a real mess of their party manifestoes.

Thirdly, the situation that often, it seems, exists in the US for example, where the President’s policies cannot be implemented, because the Government (ie one or other House) will not agree the legislation, would leave our popularly-elected representatives effete.  Whereas having a toothless non-elected Monarch doesn’t seem so undemocratic.

Fourthly, and I think this is a separate point, it is difficult to imagine a situation where a President has little real power yet is so universally loved.  Would we all have street parties, and regattas on the Thames, and all wear silly hats and sunglasses, just because a President had been around a long time, and despite his not having done anything?

If I am right, there is not much chance of all this changing here any time soon, democratic process or not.

OK, I know the presidential system is a different kind of democracy, but, let’s face it, you don’t get to be President (anywhere I think) unless you have a fair amount of money already.  That means that Candidates will be of a certain section of society, maybe not as exclusive as our Monarch, but not very often a complete unknown under-privileged outsider either.  But what role does a Parliamentary Representative have then?  Do they have to support the President to ensure influence and/or money?  Or do they have to oppose the President to maintain their constituency?

I’d be interested to know how Americans feel about their system.  Do you feel represented in Government?  Do you feel you can influence decisions in Government?  Do you feel that voting for a President empowers you?  Can you still affect local policies or influence your administration locally?  How do you feel about having a President named after a baseball glove?

Tags: politics, monarchy

PEER PRESSURE

Reform of the House of Lords, our second parliamentary chamber, has been under discussion again recently.  It was, despite some reaction from politicians, included in The Queen’s speech, the traditional announcement of the forthcoming legislative programme.  The question on many people’s lips, or at least in their minds, is why is the government bothering about such almost arcane, certainly controversial, matters, when the economy is foundering, businesses are going bust and so many people are out of work?

I doubt any reforms will go as far as making any proportion of the chamber elected.  It looks unlikely that all-party agreement (which is essential to any parliamentary reform) will be forthcoming to such a radical change.  But all parties do now seem to agree that there are too many members in The Lords.  So I guess some limiting figure will be put on the ideal size of a second chamber.  But maybe nothing else will be done at the moment.  How important is this?

The original system provided for a chamber of hereditary Lords and Royals, the aristocracy in other words, the landed gentry, and Bishops.  It worked.  It was a group of people, admittedly a group designated entirely by privilege, but a group who had no particular tie to a political party (you could argue that there were a disproportionate number of Tory sympathisers, given their vested interest in land, money and capitalism, but there were also Socialist landowners), and who could be relied upon to be sensible, learned in many cases, and even-handed.  They provided a reasonable check to the unfettered politicking and power-broking of the Lower House, where nominally constituents were supposed to be the prime consideration, but where (as often now too) personal interests and lack of interest in the common good were rife.  Despite its many flaws, I think it was a rather good system.

More recently, Life Peers, those made Lords by The Queen at the behest of the Prime Minister, have multiplied to outnumber the Hereditary Peers.  I don’t think Royals are now listed as Members, so presumably only those that are also hereditary peers with their own land are on the list.  Anyway, it has now become the norm for Prime Ministers, particularly after being newly elected, to nominate a number of new peers, in order to ‘right the balance’ of the political parties represented in The Lords.  There are 25 Bishops and 90 Hereditary Peers, which would once have been the total size of the Second Chamber.  But there are now also 231 Labour, 166 Conservative and 86 Liberal Democrat Life Peers.  This is clearly ridiculous.  There are only 650 MPs, but currently, there are 818 members of the House of Lords.  So, far from being a mini-version of the House of Commons, which is what it might be with just a few ennobled members from each party, it has in fact grown cumbersome and almost meaningless as an impartial reviewing body. 

You will probably gather from the above figures that The Lords contains members of other political parties (30) and some 154 non-party members.  Wouldn’t it be a great second house if there were no party affiliated members and only the 270-odd unaffiliated Peers, Hereditary Peers and Bishops.  I think that could work too.

But, needless to say, people still think of the Lords as a privileged anachronism and call for an elected body.  I can see the simplistic thinking here.  Elections to a second chamber would remove those who are only there by right and not by dint of competence.  But the trouble is, we would still have to find a means of selecting the candidates.  What would they offer?  What would they promise?  Would they have a political agenda and just replace the current crop of political cronies?  Or would they have an independent agenda?  Could there be such a thing without a Party?  Perhaps they would be prominent or wealthy members of society and just replace the Hereditary Peers as a sort of nouveau riche peerage.  They could then use their wealth to campaign on the basis of their achievements and capabilities.  Or perhaps they would have unofficial constituencies and promise action in their local areas.  But would they, without some form of affiliation, be able to deliver on any promise?  And the fact remains, that all this would just add to the annual political diary.  Do we really want yet more politicking and electioneering and more political expenditure on top of the local elections and General Election?  I wouldn’t want to see it anyway.

But there are alternatives.  I quite like, as I have made clear, the appointment of an unelected chamber by virtue of competence or apparent fair-mindedness.  Why don’t we replace the political Peers with groups of such proved ability?  A few successful company directors, say, or surgeons, or dentists, or magistrates, or academics of certain disciplines, such as law, or others (can’t think of any more for the moment, except estate agents or bankers, which most people would probably find unacceptable) who have achieved on the basis of expertise or widely-accepted talents.  This would certainly bring The Lords up to date and ought to give us a chamber capable of serving the intended purpose.

But we come back to the question – why is the Prime Minster worrying about this now?  It is not I suspect because he is concerned about any lack of competence in the House, but much more about its composition.  He would normally be thinking now about Tory party members who might be elevated to The Lords; his party members are after all outnumbered by Labour members by about 20 (if you include hereditary peer party members).  But this is not a Conservative Government, it is a Coalition, which means that there would also be Liberal Democrat nominations, who, once the Coalition comes to an end, would become opposition to the Conservatives.  Cameron would have to appoint over 100 new Conservative peers to ensure he maintained some sort of superiority over opposition parties.  And that’s not including the 200 odd independents and minor parties.  Yes, this seems like a good time to stop this nonsense, to put a cap on the numbers and to try to maintain some sort of position of power, the existing balane at least, within the second chamber.

But reactions to the proposed legislation so far have been pretty muted, if not apathetic.  Clearly my idea of a chamber of dentists and estate agents should be included in the discussion to elicit more animated debate.

GAGS OFF

I shall try not to say, ‘PC gone mad’.  Oh, I just said it.  Anyway the fact is that PC is mad, so technically it can only go madder (though not in fact possible) or saner.  Can the latter at last be happening?  Is there finally a non-PC backlash?

I did wonder this the other day when there was the outcry about Frankie Boyle who likes to attack taboos with his humour.  Personally, I don’t find much of this stuff funny and so it does come across as tasteless and gratuitous.  It’s outrageous and insulting to specific persons, but not, I think, wit.  Maybe it’s also rather lazy, puerile writing.  It reminds me of when I was at school and we used to tell jokes like, ‘why did the leper lose at poker?’*  I’m not even always sure about Michael McIntyre who occasionally raises a laugh by slating someone/thing just for effect (rather than for real humour).  But I accept that many people like this.  It is in any case often the way stand-up is.  And I have always appreciated comedians like Joan Rivers or Ruby Wax who rarely take prisoners (but who I think are consistently funny too). 

And humour has fashions, like anything else.  Maybe there is no place these days for the comedians of yore (although I though the Christmas Ronnie programme was pretty popular.) (Perhaps that was only amongst the older population?).  But maybe attitudes have fashion too?  Has the PC approach had its day?

A propos my last post, I imagine for example that the BBC will be careful to find good reasons in future why it is appointing certain persons as presenters.  It won’t necessarily flood our screens with old people.  That case rather goes against the trend, except that in their final judgement, the tribunal also criticised the BBC for being obsessed with recruiting ethnic minorities.  Maybe that misguided policy will change too?  But hopefully with selection of the best candidates, rather than some extension of the present positive discrimination.

Anyway I was much encouraged by former Home Secretary Jack Straw’s comments on Pakistani gangs.  I have always thought quite a lot of him and his willingness to say ‘Pakistani’ earned him much respect from me (since that’s what they are).  You can read the position of the police here.  This reticence was understandable, if palpable nonsense.

I wondered too if the present government was detecting a mood for greater incorrectness, or whether it just wished to start a movement to break down the sillier aspects of correctness, when it stated in the Education White Paper last month that it wished to increase teacher authority in schools.  I think even parents have had enough of this ludicrous situation where teachers have to put up with abuse because they can’t punish pupils without breaking some over-hyped code.

Next, it would be nice to see a few more infringement of rights cases thrown out by the courts.  Especially those brought by women who never seem arsed to do any work, but winge loudly on their mobiles about how badly done by they are as they go down the shops to buy fags, diet Coke and undersized underwear and then fall over steps they can't see under their bellies.  Oh, am I allowed to say all that?

*  because he threw in his hand.

BRAIN TEASERS

There was an interesting debate on the radio this morning about the discovery of a political gene.  At least, researchers have found, using MRI scans, that the more right wing you are the more likely you are to have a larger amygdala, and the more left wing, a larger anterior cingulate cortex.  I’ve no idea what these parts of the brain are, but in practice this means that we have no control over our political views.  Or, put another way, we are what we vote. 

Do you realise what this means?  We each fall into one part of a divided circle, rather like those wheels they produce in management training courses to show who was going to be a leader and who a follower.  So one semi-circle (presumably the right) is for those with Conservative cerebral construction; and the other is for Socialists. 

But there is more to it than that.  Since we know that gays for example exhibit genetic differences from straights, we can sub-divide the semi-circles into gay Conservatives, gay Labour, straight Conservative and straight Labour.  I’m not sure where the Lib Dems fit into this spectrum, but presumably we can add in all other views in the same way that the European Parliament is divided up – Lib-Dems in a slightly right of middle orange segment; Greens here; Independents in a pink bit up there; Nazis in one extreme segment of the right-hand semi-circle, Communists to the left; and so on.

There are probably further cerebral/genetic subdivisions - burglars, muggers, ladies who like red dresses, men who like football, curry and real ale, etc.  Clearly at some stage we can then stop ‘coming out’, since we will each have our genetic/cerebral make-up and can do nothing about the way we are.  Every time there is a revelation about a Minister of famous personality, they can just say, ‘yes, I know, been trying to avoid that for years, but it’s my genetic make-up you know.’  Maybe we can all simply carry a card saying ‘gay Labour footballer’ or ‘Christian wine-drinking non-voting straight lady supporting Gillingham Football Club and collecting china frogs’.

It’s not clear whether we are born with these traits or whether they are acquired features.  But, whether it be through indoctrination or not, the worrying thing is that governments will be able to manipulate the size of these divisions through policies designed to encourage those with certain favourable political traits to have children together.  You will remember there has already been a Tory debate about policies which seemed to encourage ‘the poor to breed’ (thus risking increases in future numbers of Labour supporters).  And of course we open the way to genetic modification or embryo selection or brain surgery to add or remove qualities in order to guarantee a surplus of political supporters for the next few years. 

However, the good thing is that there is no need now for me to come out about my thing with handbags in wardrobes; it’s all in my anterior cingulate cortex.  In fact, all my friends in the Wardrobe Handbag (Southern Counties) Society will be pleased too, since this can only prevent further discrimination and harassment when we meet down the Purse and Pocket every month.  Actually, I can see this heralding the end to all discrimination, perceived slights and inclusivity issues, since it is now clear that we are all different and society’s present labels are far too simplistic.  It will be impossible to insult someone by calling them a fat Tory bastard or a left-leaning shirt-lifter; the only insults now will be ‘you’ve got such a small amygdala’ or ‘hey, you fat anterior cingulate cortex with the green allele’.  I look forward to enjoying such exchanges without the spectre of litigation or compensation.