Question Time

Rights were at the heart of Question Time last night.

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.

The Students are Revolting

The sale of Che Guevara t-shirts went through the roof yesterday as student radicalism came back in vogue for the first time since the 1980s. It follows on from last year's trend for Converse trainers and Hoxdenchester haircuts. The astonishing display of solidarity must be applauded as 50,000 students got out of bed before midday and managed to make it to the march on time. The event had been organised by the National Union of Students as part of their campaign against the Coalition's proposal to increase student fees to as much as £9000 a year.

Things really must be pretty awful to raise students out of their post-Thatcherite political lethargy although I note that the organisers, not wanting to over-burden their members, had left a very generous four hours to walk the one mile between Horseguards Parade and Millbank. Having attended universities during the 1980s, 90s and noughties, it struck me that student political apathy had increased relative to how well-groomed they were. The more hair products they used the less Marx they knew. Yet yesterday, much better dressed and smelling far sweeter than in the 80s, students had finally decided enough was enough.

Armed only with banners and vitriol - which many students from newer universities were astonished to discover was not a type of shampoo - the event began in a noisy but peaceful manner. Most of their anger was directed at Nick Clegg for breaking his election promise to scrap student fees altogether. In a moment of clarity on ITV1's Daybreak, Clegg commented, "I should have been more careful perhaps in signing that pledge." Yes Nick, 'perhaps' you should. Of course, telling the truth might have damaged your election chances so it was a tough call.

The students were angry but having walked around many universities I have never been conscious of their threatening atmosphere. They are not like tough housing estates or even a taxi queue in any provincial town on a Friday night. If you have got to grips with the language of 'Finnegan's Wake' your natural instinct is almost certainly not to attack policemen. That is one of the reasons wider society benefits from educating its young properly.

Yet the most unsurprising aspect of the whole event is that it turned into a scrum with the police. A Barbour deficit amongst anarchist groups may have deterred them from infiltrating the Countryside Alliance marches but it was clearly a danger on this demonstration. Interviewed by the BBC, former Flying Squad commander John O'Connor said, 'It's an absolute disgrace. It was naive of them not to anticipate the threat from anarchist groups.' He accused the Met of having 'no tactics and nowhere near enough people' at the scene.

Who benefits? Unfortunately for the students, attention has been directed away from the issues and instead we have a shell-shocked NUS President Aaron Porter having to apologise. I suspect the NUS's only real crime is being a little naive.

Let's give them an A+ for effort.

A Taxing Problem

Do you have something on your mind? A subject you would like to discuss? 

If it is suitable for public consumption, let me know and you too could write something for the blog!

...ok, perhaps the exclamation mark is overselling it. 

I hope this will be the first of many contributions from readers of the blog. 

Please welcome my first guest, Kitey:

Britain used to have a progressive tax system but those quaint ideas are a thing of the past. In modern Britain it seems that big business and our wealthiest 'citizens' are getting away with highway robbery.

An HMRC whistleblower was quoted on a recent Panorama programme that HMRC used to have a team dedicated to dealing with the top 40,000 earners in the country but this has recently been cut to the top 5,000. This means that the other 35,000, and some of the wealthiest people in the country will have the same checks on their tax returns as you
and me.

I would suspect that a significant proportion of the 40,000 employ very clever tax advisors to reduce their tax liability. It’s an unequal battle and HRMC are losing. Richard Murphy, a director of Tax Research UK, was recently commissioned by the TUC to write a study on tax loss. He estimates some £25bn is lost to the exchequer each year as a result of avoidance and planning, including £13bn attributed to individuals.

A good example of this is the man who the current government turned to in order to identify waste within Whitehall, Sir Philip Green. It has been widely reported that Green banked the biggest pay cheque in corporate history in 2005 when his Arcadia fashion business paid a £1.2bn dividend. The record-breaking sum was paid to his wife, Tina, who lives in Monaco and is the direct owner of Arcadia. As a result no UK income tax was due. Murphy estimates that Green saved £285m by paying the dividend to his wife. I may be doing Mrs Green a great disservice. After all she may have landed herself a Saturday job at Topshop
(Monaco branch).

In the last week you may have noticed that Vodafone shops have had some irregular opening hours. This might possibly have something to do with the angry mobs gathering outside to protest about their alleged avoidance of a £6 billion tax bill. Vodafone’s head of tax, John Connors, struck a deal between HMRC and Vodafone which meant they paid only £800 million in tax, with a further £450 million to pay over the next
five years.

Is it the case that there are two sets of rules at play here? Public services are cut whilst the dividends of big companies are effectively subsidised by the tax-payer?

Misrepresentation of the People Act

We should applaud the decision of two High Court judges to suspend Phil Woolas for three years under The Representation of the People Act. In a closely fought election for the Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency Mr Woolas defeated Lib Dem candidate, Elwyn Watkins, by 103 votes - but only after he was accused of stirring up racial tensions. Given the history of race politics in Oldham and the success of the local BNP in council elections, the whole affair leaves a particularly
nasty taste in the mouth.

The Labour Party have acted quickly to disown Woolas and shut the door on him. At least this is a change from the New Labour days when personal ties seemed to overwhelm any sense of public responsibility. Unfortunately, the affair does leave a question mark about Ed Miliband's judgement in making Woolas part of his team under these circumstances. It wasn't a matter of personal loyalty, Woolas supported his brother.

It also shows remarkable political incompetence to give the moral high ground to the Liberals at the moment. It has been particularly galling to hear Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrats Deputy Leader, pontificating about honesty and standards At least Nick 'O' Teen Clegg didn't lead the moral condemnation. 

Section 106 of The Representation of the People Act states that it is an offence to publish "any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate's personal character or conduct" to prevent them being elected. It is a shame that the Act doesn't protect the the voters against political parties dropping manifesto promises in order to get a seat in the cabinet. Given our current situation a Misrepresentation of the People Act would be very timely.

I would argue that what the Lib Dems have done is equally unacceptable. 51% of voters supported Labour and the Liberals in 2010 based on their manifesto promises. That is not a mandate to dismantle our public services. The country did not vote for Conservative policies, yet that is what we are getting thanks to Cable and Spineless' undemocratic u-turns. It's like invasion of the Body Snatchers. What has happened to Vince Cable? Where is the doyen of progressive politics we knew before election?

Given the nature of the cuts being implemented surely the only democratic action would have been to hold another election and let the Lib Dems campaign on their new policies or even under a new name, may I suggest The Conservative Party. 
 

Cheryl Cole's Hair is Inspiring

 

 
I don't need to tell you that politics is the expression of unobtainable utopian goals supported by an appropriate interpretation of history. Like a selection of biscuits brought out to impress the neighbours, the 'historical facts' are carefully selected to give an impression that this is how we always live. Political argument uses history but creates a mythology. Don't like immigration? 'We were all White Anglo-Saxon Protestants once, weren't we?' Don't like Europe? Pull out a picture of Churchill and a spitfire. The myths seduce and unite - or just as often make clear who are 'us' and who are 'the scroungers.' We love the myths. The trouble is that the myths are so powerful that our neighbours think we live on chocolate fancies when in truth there are some ageing Garibaldis in the cupboard.

“I would like to have hair like her.' No dissent. Just the sage hum of agreement. It was the defining moment of my trip to a history event in an all-girls school. The organisers had asked, “What is the point of teaching history?” and the debate had moved inevitably to the follicular aspirations of young girls in the early 21^st Century. It was not the first time this modern Eva Peron had been cited as the torchbearer for a generation but it was the moment I recognised her power as a unifying force. In a week that saw the emergence of the Tea-Party Movement as a populist force in American politics - Britain was experiencing its own paradigm shift. Her millions of followers know her simply as Cheryl.

"Controversially, Tara was given custody of Cheryl's hair"

 

Once upon a time a baby-girl was born. Her parents, ex-Newcastle City footballer Andy Cole and Tara Palmer Tompkinson-Cole and Sons, glamorous wallpaper hanger and I.T. girl, called her Cheryl Cole. Tragically for Cheryl and her hair the happiness was short-lived. The marriage ended soon after the birth with Andy gaining custody of Cheryl but controversially, Tara was given custody of Cheryl's already precocious hair. Proud of his Geordie roots, Andy raised Cheryl in the grimy terraces of St James' Park, home to many premiership footballers and their families. Poor but happy - she developed a loveable smile to help her father beg during the cricket season learning her authentic 'common-touch' was invaluable to making ends meet.

Meanwhile, Cheryl's hair was raised in bohemian south-east England. Gelling immediately with the fast set, it experimented with a series of styles that sent shockwaves through High Barnet society. (Ooh stop it!). Its life was changed forever when it discovered that bald but plucky Cheryl was living in the Newcastle slums. Determined to make amends the hair gave up the high life. It fell under the influence of Italian left-wing theorist Carlo Ancelloti and published her influential feminist tract, 'Girls Allowed'. With Cheryl on the brink of being voted off TV's 'Some Working Class People Can't Sing', the hair felt it was finally time to meet her body. The emotional reunion took place in front of millions of viewers and the rest is history.

Since that time Cheryl and her hair have become a formidable force - uniting a nation in a fight against tyranny. Who has not been inspired by Cheryl's message? 'With the right hair we can all be successful'. It has not gone unnoticed. Inevitably, where the UK leads - the USA follows. Influenced by Cheryl's message of hope, the Tea-Party movement has galvanised Republican support with its equally plausible articulation of the American Dream. 'We don't need taxes because everybody is born with an equal chance in life.' 'If the son of an oil millionaire, like George W. can become President, so can you.'

In 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance', Jimmy Stewart is told, 'when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.' People want to believe the legend. The mythology is more powerful than the truth. Progressive politics needs a new mythology and like millions of young girls I think that Cheryl's hair may have the answer.

Now, I'm off to buy a lottery ticket...