Panel:
Theresa May - Home Secretary,
Caroline Flint - Shadow Secretary of State for Communities,
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles - Former PM Special Envoy to Afghanistan,
Clive James - Author and Broadcaster
Douglas Murray - Director of Centre for Social Inclusion
1) Is yesterday's riot the beginning of the public fightback against the Coalition cuts?
Theresa May backed the students' right to march, was saddened by the small number who distracted attention from the issues but then addressed the riot and not the issues. The Tories must be rubbing their hands with glee as the riot has become the story and any political flak has pretty much been aimed at the Lib Dems. May backed the inquiry into the surprising lack of police numbers on the march and defended an 'operational space between politicians and the police'. Of course, that 'operational space' would be more plausible has Boris Johnson not sacked Met Commisioner Ian Blair for overtly political reasons.
2) Are Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms attacking welfare dependency or are they necessary steps to reduce the culture of worklessness?
There was general agreement about the need to reform our benefit system. In principle I agree entirely with the idea of a 'universal benefit' and the aim to always make it financially beneficial to work whatever benefits you receive. Even Labour's, Caroline Flint approved the aims of Ian Duncan-Smith's reforms. Flint, also pointed out, however, that the country is facing up to 1.6 million job losses thanks to the cuts in government spending. Is this the right time to put people's welfare in jeopardy?
Given the size of the cuts, May's argument that the unemployed would be benefit from individual assistance and training to enable them to take up new jobs seemed a trifle hollow. 'Is making people work for work sake a good thing?' asked Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles and suggested that the work should be worthwhile, not a punishment for being unemployed.
My main problem with the reforms is that the individual circumstances of claimants seems to be getting overlooked. The Conservatives are talking about cutting benefits by 10% after a year and eventually all of the benefits for up to three years. Limiting the level of housing benefit and total benefits is also on the agenda. This blanket approach feels extremely arbitrary and unjust.
The government is very fond of talking about what is 'fair', but, while in some cases, the stopping of benefits could be a just response to an individual's circumstances, The nub of the problem is that if you address claimants as individuals there is a huge range of need that makes it very difficult to be 'fair' with an system based on these types of rules. Hence, we have an incredibly complex system of benefits. The fact that the new benefit will be overseen by a new, giant HMRC computer system was generally seen by the panel of proof that the reforms will be a failure. In January this year, the BBC ran a story suggesting that the last government wasted £26bn on failed IT projects.
3) Is George Bush right that information extracted from terrorist suspects by waterboarding saved British lives. Do the ends justify the means?
'I don't believe what the president said. Torture is always wrong and doesn't work'. I think Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, senior British diplomat said it all.
4) In the light of the reported mutiny against the Labour leadership, are the Labour MPs right to support Phil Woolas?
It was generally agreed that the Labour leadership had acted correctly in suspending Phil Woolas from the party. Caroline Flint supported the action although she is friend of Woolas. As I said in my blog a couple of days ago, the situation in Oldham is particularly volatile and the literature demonstrated that Woolas put his own and party interests before the needs of his constituents. The fact that the incendiary literature was untrue merely compounds the irresponsibility of his campaign.
5) Has the PM been spineless in putting profits before human rights in a visit to China?
An audience member neatly summed up the arguments by pointing out that Cameron has been elected to represent British interest and so it is right that he puts our economy above human rights. That is absolutely true. Talking about human rights is all very well but how much poorer are the British public prepared to be in supporting these issues? Ironically our own desire for economic growth is fuelling the expansion of Chinese power. Douglas Murray's one salient point of the evening was that if we are unhappy with US power wait until we have Chinese world domination. Perhaps economic interest and human rights are connected after all.
Once again Cowper-Coles was very interesting in talking about the damage our politicians we can do as a 'second tier power', by grandstanding on these issues for an audience back home. He was particularly damning about Chris Pattern in Hong Kong.
If you saw the programme or have a view on any of the topics, why not send us a comment.
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