Madoff gets 150 years
Now there's a criminal justice system that's directly accountable to the people.
Posted on 29 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Live from the Commons
17:05 - You know how we're actually governed by quangos, not those we vote for?
In the Commons chamber, I'm listening to Jack Straw unveil plans for another new quango to oversee Parliament. He says we need "external regulation".
I agree. But how about making our MPs properly accountable to the only external regulator that counts - the voters.
Posted on 29 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Washed-up and knackered: Gordo's plans to renew Britain
Brown's promise to give us citizens' rights over public services sounds like John Major's citizens charter. Look where that ended. Not inconsiderably. Oh, yes.
Gordo has spent his 30 career advocating centralised control over public services. Now he's got his nail-chewed paws on the levers, he's discovered they don't work. Too late do those in the Downing street bunker grasp that Gus O'Donnell's world of top down target setting bears no relation to the life of real voters.
But still Gordo can't bring himself to do an Alan Milburn did, and call for a genuine consumerist revolution. (Note Milburn just quit politics in despair.)
Instead of directly elected police chiefs, parental control of their share of the money, or real localism, we'll get months of corporatist dross. Drafted by Whitehall technocrats - fit for the bin.
There's only one party able to give us the consumerist revolution people crave. And only one plan.
Posted on 29 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Ban second jobs? You'll end up with a Parliament of puppets
"Ban second jobs!" goes the cry.
Okay. What about the dozens of MPs who have a second job as a government minister? Or as a select committee chairman? Or on the Speaker's panel of worthies?
These are all "second jobs". Indeed, some take up four or five days a week, meaning that the MP has to in effect delegate the task of being a constituency representative to staff.
Banning "outside interests" means that MPs will have only "inside" Westminster interests. It will mean that the executive and party whips have a total monopoly to determine an MP's career trajectory. That means less scope for the independent-minded and more power for the executive over those we elect to represent us.
If you can only work for the executive, you'll end up with MPs who only aspire to working for the executive. You'll have few MPs prepared to hold it to account -
a Parliament of patsies and puppets. Government whips would love it.
Westminster'
s secret isn't about MPs working for dodgy outside interests. It's about the number of low-grade ministers and MPs who privately know that they ought to have stood up to government. But they failed to because they were on its payroll.
Posted on 29 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Foreign Office lectures
According to the weekend FT, British diplomats are concerned that the scandal of MPs expenses make it difficult for them to lecture other countries about clean governance.
I'd have thought the Al Yamama deal our foreign policy establishment cooked up would have done that already. Few other countries can have so comprehensively built foreign policy around one commercial interest.
Perhaps our diplomats might like to give foreign governments lectures on democracy instead. None of those who live in the UK seem to have voted for much that our diplomats do in our name, so the FCO would have lots to say about how democracy can be circumvented.
Posted on 28 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Green-fingered in Frinton
As a proud member of the Frinton and District Horticultural Society, I've four entries in this year's summer show taking place this afternoon at the Triangle.
I've sweetpeas and a rose from the garden, plus some rather wonky-shaped broad beans and peas from the veggie patch.
Well done to Betty Burrow and the team for organising such a great event. It really does bring gardening folk together - from real pros to complete amateurs like me!
Posted on 27 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Did they abolish the Chancellor?
No, I don't mean Alistair Darling. What's happened to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster?
It used to be a Cabinet position, and I wanted to ask him a written question. That's what MPs are supposed to be able to do to ministers.
But I tried logging on to the Parliamentary e-tabling system - no such minister seems to exist.
I ask the Commons library (easier said than done on a Friday afternoon) and am advised that the said Chancellor is now in the Lords.
Ridiculous.
This little episode reveals what a farce Westminster has become. Ministers pretend to make decisions and MPs pretend to hold them to account.
Thanks to the 1975 Ministers of the Crown Act, the executive can decide what is and what is not a minister’s responsibility without reference to the legislature. The Commons will never be effective at holding government to account until the Ministers of the Crown Act is repealled.
Like the European Communities Act, or the reform of local government, it's another disastrous 70s law - the consequences of which are still with us.
Posted on 26 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Brown promises decentralisation. Pigs fly.
Popularity ebbs and flows with all politicians. But Gordon Brown isn't simply unpopular. He's despised. Why?
Because he keeps saying things that he knows are implausible. And which he knows that we know are implausible.
But like a lying school boy he persists with the fiction.
This week, Brown kept giving us a load of bull about government spending - despite the fact he must have known it was bull.
Now the week ends with an interview to the Times promising "power to the people". This from a man who's career has been dedicated to extending the power of central government into the nooks and crannies of our lives.
He speaks of decentralisation. Yet as Chancellor, Whitehall and local government became a Treasury fiefdom.
He talks of more personalised services for patients and parents. Yet he did all he could to prevent even the most tentative consumerist reforms under Blair.
He says he wants the police to be more locally accountable. Under him, ideas to have directly elected police authorities were specifically excluded from the recent criminal justice Bill.
The only reason Brown is saying any of this is in response to David Cameron's new Conservative agenda. Brown knows that's the only reason. And he knows that we know that's the only reason.
But like the low-grade student union politician that he is, he persists with the fiction.
Posted on 26 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Go FoI!
I wasn't in Parliament at the time, but I wish I'd been there to back this Freedom of Information thing. It's great.
Labour's greatest achievement? You bet.
Suddenly tax-payers get to see how their money's spent. That'll do more to curtail state largess than any legislature.
FoI has exposed largess within the legislature. But it's not only MPs expenses. As this glasnost dot com blows down Whitehall, FoI could save us serious money.
Today we learn that the "controller" (I think that means boss in quango-speak) of BBC Four is paid about £200,000. Put that in context; about the same number of people watch BBC Four as have a black and white television. And for that, someone gets paid more than the Prime Minister.
When do we get to see details of all those big government contracts with large corporations? It's only a matter of time.
Posted on 26 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
BBC double standards
Listening to Radio 4 news item on BBC executives' expenses.
They spivishly turn it into a feature on social attitudes to money. They've even got some moocher "expert" attacking Thatcherism. That's right; when in doubt over how you're spending the license fee, blame Maggie.
I imagine there a few MPs who'd like the BBC to have turned news of their expenses into a feature on attitudes to money and Thatcherism.
Posted on 25 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
We are the anti-politics party now
Ben Brogan has an interesting article in today's Telegraph.
He writes of "a tide of anti-politics building up that threatens to sweep away the established order." And of how Cameron has positioned himself "as the anti-politics candidate". Yep.
Put it another way; in the late 1970s, it became pretty obvious that the established economic order of centralised control was bust. The Conservatives became an anti-establishment party with a new agenda of economic decentralisation.
Today, it's clear that the established political order and centralised way of running public services is broken. New Conservatism is profoundly anti the existing order, and is developing a coherent agenda to devolve control over politics and public services.
Posted on 25 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The General makes sense
I like the sound of this new army chief, Gen David Richards. Not yet in the role, already he's saying things that have needed spelling out since the Berlin wall came down.
Too much defence spending goes on Cold War weapon systems. He's suggested a major rethink of procurement - and I don’t think he means tweaking process, either.
Might this be the beginning of the end for the Defence Industrial Strategy protectionist racket used to siphon off the defence budget? Is "off-the-shelf" about to go mainstream? Have the consequences of not having enough helicopters, thanks to the buy-one / get-none scam, become indefensible? Might the General, to coin a phrase, help us get more for less?
We'll find out in about 12 months, would be my guess.
Meanwhile be in no doubt; if the General is preparing to make the changes we need, powerful interests will line up against him. It's pretty clear what their agenda is.
All the more reason to listen to the General, and be prepared for some bold changes. Those who actually determine policy take his analysis seriously.
Posted on 25 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The fountain works!
Clacton has a working fountain! Three cheers!
Tendring council has at last got the town's fountain working. The old administration running the council spent £ tens of thousands on a fountain without ... um .... any water in it. A good metaphor for how they ran most things.
The new administration took over the town hall a few weeks ago - and now the fountain does what a fountain is supposed to do.
Highly symbolic, most people seem to think. It’s not just the fountain that the new administration seems to be sorting out.
Posted on 24 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The stupidity of the Human Rights Commission
The Equality and Human Rights Commission's threat to prosecute the BNP for its non-inclusive approach to membership is extraordinarily ill-judged.
To which specific complaint are the Commission responding?
In a civilized society access to a club or political party ought not to be about race or gender.
But are the equality Commissars also going to take action against the publicly-subsidised Black Police Officers Association? Daft question.
Will our ruling quangocracy also take action against main stream political parties who have exempted themselves from equality laws they themselves passed? How else do you think Labour is allowed deliberately all-female shortlists.
This remarkably foolish action by the Commission will do nothing whatsoever to help the representation of minorities in public life. It will do nothing to ensure those who represent us in politics are more representative of us.
It will instead strengthen support for national socialists. At the same time, it will further corrode public confidence in the bogus human rights establishment
.
Posted on 24 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Tom hasn't read The Plan - yet
Tom Harris blogs favourably about my role in unseating the previous Speaker and the fact I back his replacement because he was properly elected to the role.
Amusingly, in the same article Tom also brushes aside my book, The Plan, as being "12 bonkers ideas to non-existent problems".
If Tom had read The Plan, he'd see that step one was to remove the then incumbent Speaker, and then replace him with .... err ... a new, properly elected Speaker.
Posted on 23 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Conservatives quit the EPP
Hurrah! We've escaped from the dreadful European People's Party - and broken the monopoly of federalists. It was one of David Cameron's key promises - and he's delivered.
To the Eurocrats in Brussels and Foreign policy establishment in Whitehall, see which way the wind in blowing. And it's a hurricane of resentment against you and your 40 year project that's on the way.
Incidentally, for months now, one chap has been daily bombarding me with angry emails wanting to know "when will David Cameron make good on his promise" to quit the EPP.
Now that we have, I expected his daily email to be full of happy satisfaction. Alas, not. He was demanding to know why I voted for Bercow.
Read Daniel Hannan's amusing take on quiting the EPP here.
Posted on 23 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Speaker Bercow
So there it is. Speaker Bercow.
I voted for him in the final round in the certain knowledge that I'd get lots of emails beginning with "How dare you ..... blah blah".
So why did I vote as I did? My preferred candidate was knocked out in the first ballot.
I switched to Bercow simply because I think he'd be most effective at holding a future Conservative government to account. He's clearly his own man and not afraid to defy the tribe. Surely that's no bad thing in a Speaker?
Bercow won a proper democratic contest - giving him a legitimacy no previous Speaker has had. We're not going to restore faith in our broken Westminster system with refusals to accept democratic results or with underhand briefings. Whatever criticisms I had to level against Bercow's predecessor, I never said privately what I wasn't prepared to say in the open.
The House of Commons is in a hole. With the election of a new Speaker, I hope we’ve stopped digging.
What matters is how we now lift politics out of the mess we’re in. So let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Let’s take Bercow’s reformist agenda, mesh it with the ideas Cameron unveiled in Milton Keynes, and make some real change.
As for the idea John Bercow is on probation, frankly, the tide of anti-politics is now coming in so fast, unless we deliver radical change, we're all on probation.
Posted on 23 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Speaker contest UPDATE
Richard Shepherd, easily the best candidate to get the Commons off its knees, got a mere 15 votes. More a reflection on the character of our MPs than of Richard's qualities.
Who to vote for in next round? I simply don't know ....
Posted on 22 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Speaker Shepherd - why I'm voting for Richard Shepherd to be next Speaker
Speaker Shepherd is the right man to clean up Parliament.
Firstly, his own expense claims have been very modest. Secondly, he campaigned for Freedom of Information law years before it became fashionable. Together that gives him the moral authority to force transparency on an unwilling tribe in SW1.
Better than anyone else I’ve met in four years in the Commons, Richard understands that sovereignty of Parliament is shorthand for sovereignty of the people.
Too many in Westminster see the Speaker’s contest through the prism of self-interest. They seem to want to elect a shop steward for politicians, rather than a Speaker able to restore public faith in the political process.
Richard grasps that change must also mean making those we elect effective at holding government to account. Parliament needs back its purpose. He’s ideas on how it is to be done.
Speaker Shepherd would be no apologist for indolent politicians blinded by a sense of entitlement – but he would make them answer properly to you.
Posted on 22 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Double booking
I turn down tomorrow's BBC breakfast TV because I'm already booked for Radio 4's Today. But then when I do Radio 4's Week in Westminster, Today cancels as I'd be "sequenced twice".
Time for BBC to invest in some basic booking software, methinks?
Posted on 21 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Twittering away
Welcome to Franceska O'Reilly, my 400th follower on Twitter (at least I think so, but I many have miscounted and deleted some others by mistake. Ooops).
I'm only following 3 people though. Does that make me anti-social?
Posted on 21 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Got my first ever Father's Day card today ....
... Does this mean I've now grown up?
Posted on 21 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Who would you like to be Speaker?
Rather than elected a new Speaker, on Monday I fear our House of Cards is about to elect a shop steward for politicians.
While certain of the sort of Speaker I want - reformist, instinctively democratic, party impartial, yet biased against the executive - I'm less certain which of the candidates fit that bill.
At the candidates' hustings, there was much lip-service to "reform". Yet my question on how to get the party leaders to go along with substantial change was ignored.
I hoped to hear a real discussion in Westminster about how the next Speaker ensure those we elect actually hold government to account. Instead, lots of MPs asked lots of questions about, err, themselves; length of their recess and holidays. Their room allocation and creches. What a good job they're doing. Blah. Blah.
Too many time-servers in the Westminster village view this contest through the prism of self-interest.
So. Who should I vote for on Monday? I'll read your comments and decide over the weekend....
UPDATE: So far, Ann Widdecombe and Richard Shepherd seem to be in the lead with ten and six nominations from you so far. (
Frank Field and Bethy Boothroyd don't count, as neither is sadly standing).
The rest all seem to get one or two votes each.
Still time to make up your - and my - mind.
Will declare for candidate I decide to back on Radio 4's Week in Westminster tonight.
Posted on 20 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Voice of revolution
Do revolutions in communication bring political upheaval? Or is it the other way round?
It certainly seems that revolutions in communication makes it easier for radical memes to spread.
The printing press paved the way for the Reformation. Ben Franklin and co began a revolution with their pamphlets. Red Russians consolidated their's via the rail network.
In the 1970s, the ayatollahs spread their radical message with cassette tapes. More recently, civil upheaval in Lebanon was coordinated by text.
Today, the memes run through twitter and facebook. Like the printing press - but unlike radio or television - the web communication revolution devolves power. I suspect big corporate politics, as well as big corporate media, will be casualties.
Posted on 19 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Clacton calling. And Frinton, Harwich, Walton, Jaywick...
I've been furiously busy in the constituency today. Surgeries, meetings, surgeries, more meetings.
Too busy to blog!
Posted on 19 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Controlled immigration?
In a reply to my Parliamentary question today, I discover that last year the government issued almost 200,000 visas for family visits from six countries alone. That's a massive hike on the 153,000 issued in 2004.
Put it another way; in the past five years, our government has dished out family visit visas to over a million people from Nigeria, Pakistan, India, China, Ghana and Iran alone.
Fair enough, you might think. But then ask how many of those million people who used family visas to enter the country remain in the UK?
The government hasn't got a clue.
Westminster has been as useless at fixing the immigration system as it has at running a credible expenses system.
Posted on 18 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Always a reason not to act
Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, no doubt thinks he's being frightfully clever by "not taking sides" over Iran's stolen election.
"Counter productive, old boy" warn his Foreign Office advisers. "Only help the regime”.
I imagine the same voices made the same nuanced points when the Soviets suppressed the dissidents - and our foreign policy establishment did ... um ... nothing.
Inertia is always full of self-justification - nowhere more than in King Charles Street.
Posted on 18 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Mark Reckons - new blog link
As well as adding a link to Labour MP Tom Harris' blog, I've now linked to Liberal site, Mark Reckons.
Mark spotted something that few else seemed to see. He saw an apparent correlation between "safe seats" and the propensity for MPs to abuse the expense system. As they say in the US, go figure ....
While I don't agree with everything Mark (or Tom) writes, I do enjoy reading them both. I suspect that blogs will make all politicians more accountable and more used to justifying themselves. Tom and Mark certainly do - and I hope as visitors to this site you find the links useful.
Posted on 17 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Scrapping Trident - all is not quite what it seems
Nick Clegg thinks we should scrap Trident. Or rather, he thinks we should spend our finite defence resources on other weapons systems.
Some will see this as evidence of the Lib Dem leader being frightfully progressive and upright and good. Nonsense. He's playing straight into the hands of the big defence contractors.
Right now a massive behind the scenes lobbying exercise is underway to try to get Trident scrapped. It's not hippies or peace-niks behind it, but the defence contractor lobby.
Why? With a shrinking defence budget likely, they're desperate to get their hands on a larger slice of a smaller pie. Without Trident, there'll be lots of money to slosh around on all those projects they prefer, with their big margins and missed delivery dates.
It's sobering to think that the defence contractor lobby might manage to achieve our unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Posted on 17 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Bye bye BBC license fee?
The BBC is to lose it's monopoly over license fee revenue. Good.
Our state broadcaster uses £billions from this TV poll tax to promote an obnoxious, politically-correct, Big State, leftist, multicultural agenda that most of us find objectionable.
But being an unaccountable quango our objections are ignored.
Did the BBC expose the Damian McBride-ism rotting the heart of our politics? Nope. BBC reporters collaborated with it. It was left to a lone blogger to expose the truth.
Has our forcible purchase of comedy via the BBC been good value? Horne and Corden. You decide.
Across every genre, in the age of broadband, it's increasingly difficult to justify state-funded media content. Want public service broadcasting? Fine. Buy a slot on Sky or Guido's blog.
Listening to BBC chief technocrat, Sir Michael Lyons, using plenty of airtime to defend the status quo, I wondered if sharing the revenue might simply pro-long the existence of this illegitimate tax*. More vested interests clinging to the teat of publicly subsidised broadcasting.
Sooner or later the internet is going to bring together an orchestrated non-payment campaign. As the web allows taxpayers to mobilise the way organised labour once did, one of the first casualties is going to be the BBC.
Now that's what I call progressive.
* - I use the word illegitimate deliberately. The BBC license fee has zero democratic legitmacy. Having tried to ask questions about this taxation as an elected MP, I've been barred from doing so. We're forced to pay it, but no one we elect is able to oversee how it is spent.
Posted on 17 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Iran needs a revolution
She's not prepared to live under the baton anymore
Are we seeing a second Iranian revolution? Hopefully.
Just as Russians rose up against the Soviets, today Iranians show every sign of wanting to revolt against the tyrants in Tehran.
But we must do more than merely wish it. We need to encourage it actively. More powerful than any guns or money supplied to dissidents is the moral backing we can give to patriotic Iranians willing to facedown the regime.
Never forget, it was Ronald Reagan's description of Moscow's "evil empire" that mobilised those who brought down the Soviets. As Natan Sharansky has recalled, it was news of those two words, dramatically smuggled into his Soviet prison cell, that prove so critical. Knowing that they were not alone against their regime galvanised them.
Across Iran today will be many thousands of Sharanskys. Without saying anything that could be misinterpreted as anti-Iranian, our leaders need to find the right words to show those in Iran who have had enough, that they are not alone.
We in the West need the humility to recognise that love of freedom is not distinctively Western – it is a universal passion. Sick and tired of living their lives by other peoples’ decrees, ordinary folk in Iran are starting to realise that things do not have to be as they are.
Never again the sick-making sight of a British Foreign Secretary sucking up to tyrants.
Posted on 16 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Speakers hustings UPDATE
How depressing. It sounds like they're looking to elect a shop steward, not a Speaker.
MPs ask about the recess and holidays. There's a subtext begging for sympathy. Its all about perks and pay. Induction for new MPs. A creche for our convenience.
Don't these people get it?
Posted on 15 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Off to the Speaker hustings ....
I expect lots of talk about change. Making government answer to those we elect etc.
But the question is how?
Posted on 15 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Conservatives to scrap those SATS
Good to see official Conservative policy of scrapping SATS tests.
I recommended precisely such a policy in this minority report (from page 98) of the Schools select committee inquiry into testing last May.
When the committee divided, I lost the vote four to one.
I'm especially pleased my recommendation that secondary schools have the role of examining has been taken up. Why? Because as I put it in the minority report, for exams to retain their meaning, "the gatekeeper" - secondary school, college, university or profession - has to be in charge of the examining.
Put it another way; downstream institiutions have a vested interest gauging what's been happening upstream.
Sound principle. Good policy.
Posted on 15 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Direct Democracy for a quid
Ever since David Cameron embraced direct democracy and radical localism in his Milton Keynes speech, I keep being emailed by people asking if they can get a copy of "that other book you wrote before The Plan".
That'd be Direct Democracy: an agenda for a new model party, I reckon. The clue is in the subtitle.
I've had boring technical issues making it available, but you can now download it here for £1
.
Posted on 15 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
How do we make MPs more independent?
Now everyone's into Parliamentary reform, even the BBC has been digging up its collection of neolithic "experts" to tell us how it's to be done.
"More free votes", says Prof Predictable. "Less power for the whips", nods Sir MeAgain. "Change Bill committees", bleathers a third.
All blah blah.
There's one simple reason whips have so much power; they determine an MP's career trajectory. And no amount of tinkering with free-votes-Bill-committee-nonsense will change that.
If we're serious about making MPs more independent from party whips, we need to make them less critical to an MPs prospects - and ordinary voters more decisive.
What if our politicians owed it to local people as to whether they were in Parliament, and not party machines? Who knows, we might even respect them a little more?
Only by establishing real open primary contests for Parliamentary candidates - including sitting MPs in safe seats - will we see change. Don't and we won't.
Posted on 15 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Is gardening in our genes?
Out sowing a new line of lettuce and French climbing beans in my allotment at 7 o'clock this morning, it struck me; might there be such a thing as a "gardening gene"?
As we hit thirty-something, are some of us pre-programmed to start pottering about the veggie patch?
Until a few years back, I can safely say I'd absolutely zero interest in matters horticultural.
Then wham!
Suddenly I'm obsessed with making things grow. I've even caught myself listening to Gardener's Question Time.
Perhaps, I pondered, it goes back to our Stone Age past. Once past the first flush of youth, our ancestors found it a little tough hunting down passing mammoths, or chasing gazelle across the plain.
Those of them who showed an interest in growing things made it. Those that didn’t didn't.
Thank goodness I don't have to survive on what's in my vegetable patch, I thought, as I went back for some breakfast.
Posted on 14 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
That showed me
The other day I remarked how surprisingly low-brow and bereft of new ideas the New Statesman seems to be. Browsing through it this week, I read an article by some bloke called Kevin Maguire - writes for the Mirror apparently.
He attacks me for a flawed analysis of Parliament's shortcomings ... um .... looking like Herman Munster.
Gosh. That showed me. Put me in my place, that did.
When one of the leading cheerleaders for a washed up government ends-up making play ground taunts, you have to laugh. When your opponents propagandists, can't even do propaganda properly (Iraqi Information Minister?), it's game over.
Especially when you reckon that more folk read Herman's blog last week than paid to read Kevin in the New Statesman.
Posted on 13 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
John Major's ideas on reviving the Commons in today's Times
Good to know that the man responsible for the Maastricht Treaty now has ideas on how to make those who govern us answerable to those we elect.
All aboard the reformist band wagon now, eh.
I don't remember Major being a champion of greater democratic oversight of the executive when in a position to do something about it. Must have missed it.
Posted on 13 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Save your indignation, Sir Humphrey
The Foreign Office is furious with Bermuda for allowing in settlers from Guantanamo.
Presumably, our mandarins are indignant since they feel it's Britain's role to accept former terror suspects for settlement.
After all, with all that human rights legislation, supranational obligations and activists judges, that the FCO worked so hard to put in place, no one does terror suspect resettlement quite like we do.
Posted on 12 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Clamp-down on home-education; Ed Balls spiteful move targeted at Essex mums and dads
A few week's ago, Essex council made a historic decision. Unable to provide parents in my constituency with a school of their choice, the council awarded them a home-education grant.
The implications of this are profound. It establishes a precedent of parental-control over their child's pot of money.
I believe that it's specifically in response to this Essex blow for freedom that today's government clamp down on home-education is targeted.
Ed Balls, whose chief qualification for the job of Education minister is that he's Gordon's little lackey, is deeply hostile to what Essex has done. Why?
Balls thinks he knows best. The man responsible for the SATS test cock-up is terrified that other parents might start to demand the freedoms some now have in Essex. He's appalled that some mums and dads migh even then spend their grant on purchasing education independently.
If Ed Balls ran supermarkets, there'd be catchment areas for breakfast cereal and waiting-lists for bananas. So why do we let this appalling man run our children's schooling?
Posted on 12 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The Left is going bust
Why is it that the most interesting new ideas in British politics are coming almost exclusively from the centre right?
Ten minutes looking at the latest edition of New Statesman provides a pretty good clue. Take, for example, the flagship article by someone called Ted Vallance. He writes of how the Conservatives "vision for rejuvenating local democracy extends little beyond creating elected mayoralties".
Now I appreciate that leftie academics writing for leftie journals aren't supposed to say good things about Tories. But if Ted and co want to be taken seriously they can't simply ignore inconvenient fact.
Perhaps Ted simply doesn't know about proposals for locally elected police chiefs? Maybe he's missed all that stuff about open primaries and recall? Has he chosen to overlook all that stuff about devolved decision-making over housing and planning?
How odd that the Left should presume that it is the party of English radicalism and of the Levellers. What conceit. Perhaps they've not read The Plan? Maybe its allusions to our forebearers were too subtle?
Today's Left is firmly alligned with the quango state establishment. It is the party of human rights judges and pro-Euro lobbyists and Foreign Office mandarins.
If the Left cannot be honest in its assessment of its opponents, it is doomed. Keep on ranting.
Incidentally, more folk read this blog last week than paid to read the New Statesman.
Posted on 11 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Speaker Beckett?
Apparently Margaret Beckett wants to be Speaker of the House of Commons. Seriously.
UPDATE: "Carswell, you clown!" emails a reader "You just like posting Simpson characters on your blog".
Okay. I admit it. I do. But there's more wisdom in an episode of the Simpsons than in many a Commons debate.
And Homer always ends up trying to do the right thing and redeem himself.
Posted on 10 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
All reformers now - don't let Gordo ruin it
Today our clunking chump of a Prime Minister will set out his ideas to reform the way we do politics - according to the press.
That's right. He's trailed his proposals to restore purpose to Parliament via media briefing.
How is the man who hired Damian McBride going to suggest we restore faith in politics? What proposals for "democratic renewal" from a man too frit to subject himself to electoral contests?
Brown risks ruining the case for change.
To be clear, we do urgently need two broad categories of reform;
1) Make government answer to Parliament - today it's the other way round.
This means things like power to select committees, changing the way Parliament votes through expenditure, and democratising executive appointments etc. (See The Plan for details).
2) Allow people a real say over who sits in Parliament, and what they do when they get there.
This means direct democracy with things like real primaries, recall powers and popular initiative. (See The Plan for details).
In other words, specific, targeted reforms to deal with actual problems.
However, as a convert to the case for electoral reform, I fear that talk of PR is missing the point. Done badly, it'll be a sledge hammer to miss a nut. Indeed, the kind of system Brown is rumoured to favour would actually strengthen party machines - and give people in places like Salford less say over who represents them.
A last minute rush to change the voting system, rather than renew faith in politics, could make us all look like spivs - MPs bickering over their electoral advantage, as the economy tanks.
If Gordo really wants to use the next year to bring about change, he should implement the 30 steps outlined in The Plan. Like the subtitle says, it’s a 12 month programme to renew Britain.
Posted on 10 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Archbishop Cranmer
I've added a link to one of my favourite blogs, Archbishop Cranmer. As well as saying very kind things about me, His Grace provides an original and amusing take on the topics of the day.
If you've not read him yourself, I recommend him.
Posted on 9 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Thought for the day
As posed by the great Mark Steyn:
"Do legislators now require unlimited operating expenses because government has become so huge and complex?
Or has government become so huge and complex because legislators have unlimited operating expenses?".
Posted on 9 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Sir Michael speaketh
You really must read this article by Sir Michael White of the Guardian. It's advice on where Labour shoudl go next, and it's actually quite funny.
"Unite the party and stop fighting" (No kidding?)
"Put some more energy back into constitutional reform" (Any proposal Gordon Brown touches will be like the Midas touch in reverse)
It's the kind of grandee advice people used to give John Major's deadend government, too.
Posted on 9 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Rise of the Am-Pro
Should government run the professions? That was the not-so-subtle subject of yesterday's Schools select committee in the Commons.
To the panel of "experts" giving evidence, state meddling was the answer. The purpose of the research was to fit around that. Action, we were told, was needed to open up access to elitist professions.
But then one "expert" made a point that was such obvious nonsense, their whole line of reasoning began to unravel; the "research evidence", insisted Mr Expert, shows that journalism is the most elitist, inaccessible profession of them all.
Umm.... I pondered for a second; what utter balls. Had Mr Expert never heard of Guido Fawkes or of blogging, I asked?
Surely journalism has never been more open and accessible to everyone? You don't even need to be a well-paid hack on the Mirror to do it well.
Thanks to the web, there are no longer any restrictions on entry into the profession. It's not who you know, but what you write. There's nothing - no Oxbridge conspiracy, no nepotism, no closed-shop restrictions - to hold you back any more. All that matters is your verve and ability.
Guido is a brilliant example of what Chris Andersen calls the Am-Pro. An amateur who is a good as - perhaps better - than the old-school, closed-shop professionals.
But it's not only journalism that is being opened up to all - professional or not. Specialised knowledge, once the preserve of a few professionals, is available to all. Anyone with the energy and inclination can become an Am-Pro in many areas - including we'll soon see, in politics.
Unfortunately, leftist experts giving evidence to MPs designed to justify more government aren't interested in any of that.
How desperately out of date they all seem to me.
Posted on 9 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The coming conflict in Whitehall
"British ambassadors in EU capitals are openly expressing concern about a Tory government" writes ex-Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, in the Evening Standard.
Indeed. I'm sure they are - and that's why we're going to need to turn the Foreign Office on its head.
Denis unwittingly reveals that the biggest obstacle to the Eurosceptic majority getting a Eurosceptic policy is our professional diplomatic corp.
Much as Denis might wish it, we can't really change the people. So we need to change our diplomats.
Parliamentary confirmation for diplomatic postings, anyone? Me thinks it'll start to seem attractive a few months into a new Government and after inevitable stalling from King Charles Street.
Posted on 8 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The Labour man with a Plan?
A sight - and site - to warm the cockles of my heart; Labour MP, Tom Harris' blog is today promoting our best-seller, The Plan.
Mind you, Labour could do a lot worse than champion the radical new agenda for British politics that it sets out.
Cameron's Milton Keynes speech shows that he's beaten them to it. The new centre right stands to diffuse control over the our centralised system of politics and public services the way it dispersed control of the commanding heights of the economy a generation ago.
Edmund Burke dot com has never been possible before. It's about to redefine the way we are governed.
How odd this must seem for Labour. It was once the proudest boast of the British left that they once stood for greater democracy against unaccountable concentrations of power. Yet today they have somehow ended up on the
side of unelected Euro Commissioners and unaccountable judges against the people.
They are the party of the status quo in SW1, rather than leading the way on greater Parliamentary accountability. And it's ironic today they've a Cabinet propped up by unelected Peers.
No one who reads The Plan, or has listened to the ideas that permeated Cameron's Milton Keynes speech, can be in any doubt as to who are the new progressives now.
Posted on 8 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Another reason we need an early election ...
As Daniel Hannan has been the first to point out, a UK General Election before the Irish referendum this autumn is something that the Euro elite will be desperately keen to avoid. It'd most likely kill off the Lisbon Treaty Euro constitution.
Indeed, I imagine that the Whitehall establishment, with its smarmy army of Permanent Secretaries will, for that reason alone, be keen to help Brown‘s administration limp on for a few more months yet.
Those of us who want to restore effective democracy to our country need to realised that it's decision time; either we stand to make the political class more accountable to the people they're supposed to serve, or we support the illegitimate Lisbon Treaty.
Either you're for democratic renewal, or you're a Europhile.
I know what side of that fault line I’m on.
Posted on 7 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
So. You thought it looked easy, eh, Gordon?
Remember your neighbour's endless tantrums.
The nastiness of his boot boys' anonymous briefings.
The constant back-stabbing. Then the "curry house" coup that forced you out?
Do you now giggle quietly about it with Cherie? Or do you both laugh uproariously at the clunking clump on the telly?
And then there's the etiquette. Do you keep him on the Christmas card list? On social occasions, do you ask him how things are going straight-faced?
And what if he hints that he might be up for a bit of work on the international lecture circuit sometime soon? Or if he asks you if you've any contacts ("on the recruitment side - because I know all the others obviously") at the G20 or the IMF?
Posted on 6 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gordon v Maggie; it's no contest
Today's Times invites us to compare Gordon Brown's "We fight on" comment with Margaret Thatcher's "I fight on. I fight to win".
Only one slight problem with such a comparison; Brown is no Maggie.
1. Mrs T restored her country's finances and helped our economy make a historic revival.
Brown has squandered that, in a sea of debt, while burdening the UK with high tax and ineffective regulation.
2. Thatcher was a principled politician - prepared to be unpopular if it meant doing what was right.
Although it’s taken 30 years to work it out, some people might say that Brown is in fact a bit of a ... well ... charlatan. There's no nice way to say it, but all that talk about “the Manse” and a “Presbyterian conscience”. Yet who hired Damian McBride? According to Caroline Flint, his boot boys and their briefings were being employed against his own people again this week. Where's that “moral compass”?
3. Margaret Thatcher won three General Elections - and was never rejected by the British people.
Brown has never faced a serious democratic contest in his life. He "took frit" - as the great Lady might have said - from a General Election. And the only national poll Labour's faced with him as leader is their worst result since the 1920s.
4. Mrs Thatcher was the first woman PM - though she made light of it.
Brown, in the words of one of his own ex-Ministers, uses women in the Cabinet as "window dressing".
Would you care to make any comparisons between Mrs T and Mr B? The comment thread is yours ....
Posted on 6 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Peter Hain being taken apart on Newsnight
Sounds like a spiv (if one's allowed to say that)
Posted on 5 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Career advice from Alan Sugar
I vaguely knew someone who joined Enron as a graduate trainee three months before ... um ... you-know-what.
Today we learn Sir Alan has joined Gordon Brown's government as an "enterprise czar".
What a relief! That's the economy's saved, then, eh?
Posted on 5 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Reasons to be cheerful ....
1. Sales of The Plan last month were the highest for any month since publication (the miracle of print-on-demand).
2. As Fraser Nelson notes in this week's Spectator, The Plan's "
proposals are being actively considered (and, increasingly, adopted) by Mr Cameron
".
3. The Conservatives got their best county result in my constituency in a generation.
Oh, and this blog is closing the gap with Hannan's - although he's still managed to rig things to stay a whisker ahead on Wikio's ratings for now.
Posted on 5 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Clean sweep for Conservatives in this part of Essex
Big gains for local Tories. We've won 8 out of 8 county seats in Tendring - quite an improvement on the 3 we held before.
Two seats - one in Clacton and one in Harwich - haven't apparently returned Conservatives to county since in mid 1980s.
Interestingly, a local "anti-politics" party made up mainly of failed district councillors totally flopped. Indeed, the "anti-politics" vote seems to have gone to the local Conservatives. Copy of The Plan, anyone?
Posted on 5 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Paul Goodman quits
Paul Goodman's decision to quit Parliament is about the most depressing news I've heard since I entered the Commons.
There'll be those who will assume he's stepping down because he's guilty of something. But he's not. The Telegraph have already pointed out his claims have been modest.
The fact so many will assume he's going because he's guilty of some such, rather vindicates his point about the fallen status of the Commons.
We need to decide if we want to be governed by a pygmy class of professional politicians. If, on the other hand, we'd rather have citizen law-makers, what changes must we now be prepared to make?
Posted on 5 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Tony Blair laughing himself silly
Purnell down. Blears gone. Smith kaput.
At this rate Gordo might have to ask Dennis Skinner to join his cabinet.
Harman on Radio 4 saying all is fine and dandy - which can only means it's over.
Posted on 4 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Campaigning too much to blog
Knocking on doors. Shaking hands. Getting out our vote.
Today has been spent in a whirlwind of campaigning n the constituency. Not much time for blogging alas.
Hopefully, if Brown loses badly enough, we'll have to have a General Election. I've yet to meet a constituent who disagrees!
Posted on 4 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
No vision. No plan. End of the road for Brown
Gordon Brown wants to establish a "National Democratic Renewal Council". Chaired by him, this quango will, he assures us, "restore trust in politics".
A clunking chump to the last, Brown simply doesn't get it. The centre cannot fix a body politic damaged by over centralisation. You can't decentralise by quango - only by letting go.
Brown's proposal is to do to our politics what his FSA did to banking.
Posted on 3 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
I predict .... .
I predict Gordo will be gone within a month. Alan Johnson will take over.
He'll talk big about reform and cleaning up Westminster. And then an autumn election, perhaps with a referendum on PR tagged on.
I could be wrong. But that's my hunch. I think. Maybe. But then again ....
Posted on 3 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The Telegraph calls
Gulp, I thought yesterday. Why does the Telegraph want to speak to me?
Having trawled through my expense claims for the past four years, today they seem to have found me guilty. Of being an MP. Who needs a base in London and his constituency. And isn't rich enough to do it all without some recourse to public allowances.
Uncomfortable with the idea of using public money for a private mortgage, I've always rented. And being an unfurnished property, I bought a sofa, armchair, chairs and a few bits of crockery.
Oh, and I switched home designations because ... Um ... Well ... I met my future wife and started spending more time with her.
Every time I've ever claimed for anything, I asked not just "is this within the rules", but "would I be happy explaining this to my local constituents?". The answer is "yes".
On reflection, however, I might have chosen an armchair that wasn't called a "love seat".
Posted on 3 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
What is the point in a Home Secretary?
The umpteenth Home Secretary becomes another ex-minister. So what? Will it make any difference to immigration or crime or social cohesion? Of course not.
The stark fact is that the Home Office is run by the standing apparat - the David Normington’s of this world. And they will carry on with the same utterly ineffectual management of our country's affairs, regardless of which clown of an MP is pretending to be Minister.
Real change is not about swapping ministers. It is about giving those we vote to office the power to approve or veto senior civil service appointments.
If the Commons select committee, under a chairman elected by secret ballot, and free from whips, had the power to ratify or veto the Home Office budget, we might actually start to see those we elect making a difference on things like immigration and crime - and not simply apologising for the Home Office's perennial failings.
People ask me who I want to be Speaker. Easy. The person who embraces this sort of change.
Posted on 2 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Is Obama a neo con?
The very question will strike many as absurd. Of course nice Mr Obama isn't a neo con, you gasp. He's nice. No strutting cowboy about it.
But listen to his BBC interview yesterday. He stated his belief that the Western values of democracy and freedom were not Western values at all, but "universal values".
I seem to remember Francis Fukuyma's End of History and the Last Man argue much the same. So too did Natan Sharansky, intellectual guru to Bush the younger, in The Case for Democracy.
And didn't Tony Blair's 1999 Chicago speech presume such values to be universal, too?
Ultimately there are two ways of looking at it; you believe that democracy and freedom are distinct products of a Western historical experience or you believe that they are universal values, which some Western countries happened to arrive at first.
Neo cons believed it was the later. So too, we now know, does Mr Obama.
What he then does with that belief may be very different to what his predecessor did with it. But I suspect that the 44th President will turn out to have more in common with the 43rd than it is fashionable to assume.
Thank goodness the man in the White House - Republican or Democrat - doesn't think democracy and freedom are exclusively Western or American values. If that were ever the case, Britain would be much less safe and the world more threatening
.
Posted on 2 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Essex artichokes
After spending most of last week knocking on doors ahead of the elections, I took an afternoon off at the weekend.
I introduced my eight week old to gardening and to my allotment.
Here are some of our artichokes that we admired together.
Posted on 1 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Why I'm joining calls for a constitutional convention
I'm helping launch a campaign for a citizen's convention this afternoon in Parliament.
Why? Well, I've come to the view that if government answered to Parliament and Parliament was accountable to the people, we'd all be better governed. In fact, I thought that was how it was supposed to work.
Instead our Parliament is in the pocket of government whips - and many MPs seem to think they've a job for life. Instead of serving the voters, it appears some MPs have been serving themselves. Instead of real action over the real issues that affect our lives - punitive tax rates, unmanaged immigration, welfare reform - we've had .... umm ... initiatives and ... er ... lots of spin and PR.
In The Plan; 12-months to renew Britain, Dan Hannan and I outline 30 key changes I believe we need to see in order to refresh our democracy. However, it shouldn't be left to politicians to decide the way forward.
That's why I want us to have a formal mechanism to allow citizens to propose changes - not bogus, top-down "consultation". We must not leave it to those in SW1 alone to fix this mess.
If we leave reform to Gordon Brown, he'll give us FSA-style regulation for MPs. And remember what the FSA did to our banking system.
Posted on 1 June 2009 by Douglas Carswell