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Gender balance and liberalism

Feb 28

Posted by James in Gender, Holyrood, Parties, Westminster | Comments off

Screen Shot 2013-02-28 at 11.39.08Some are surprised that the Lib Dems (“of all people”) are having problems with gendered abuse of power and under-representation of women. But the signs were there.

They’re the only party other than the SNP never to have had female leadership in Scotland or UK-wide (and the SNP would almost certainly choose Nicola if a vacancy appeared just now). Between 2007 and 2011, the Lib Dems elected just two female MSPs from a group of sixteen, an even worse ratio than their current tally of one woman amongst the diminished group of five.

If you look at the betting for the next leader of the Lib Dems UK-wide, you have to go past eight men to find the first woman on the list – Jo Swinson, as it happens – then Lynne Featherstone is the next to feature, many places later. The bookies deem that a less likely outcome even than the return of Charles Kennedy.

But will they do anything about it? No, because it’s a top-down solution, they say. No, because, we’re told by as senior a figure as Paddy Ashdown, gender-balanced selection would be illiberal, although he did say it’d be worth doing if Rennard’s “leadership programme” didn’t succeed, which is one question that’s surely been answered.

The Scottish Greens had a similar problem, albeit on a smaller scale, during our first Holyrood heyday. We elected seven MSPs, much to our surprise: five men and two women. And as a result, we decided to introduce gender balanced selection principles. We, in this case, means the membership. Not the leadership. One member one vote at Conference – that’s where gender balance was won. There was nothing top-down about it whatsoever. It was the will of the party, and it would have been undemocratic not to move in that direction.

Given the number of Green incumbents in 2007, those principles were first tested nationally in 2011. Sure, it’s easy with two MSPs, you might say, and other factors come into play, but more or less however large a group we’d elected in 2011 it’d have been roughly gender balanced. And the effect has been clear, as discussed in 2009: more women are coming forward for selection, and that is definitely at least in part because they see other women being selected and winning.

Is it suspicious of me to think that the reasons the Lib Dems oppose this as “top-down” is because the party rank and file are either impotent to bring it into effect or because they couldn’t be trusted to vote for it? Either way, surely they have to change now.

It’d be wrong to sneer at proper programmes designed to support women candidates and prospective candidates, though, obviously provided such schemes are not run by unaccountable men for their own benefit. Those are something the Greens have only had limited capacity to establish, and there’s definitely more we could be doing here.

People have long snickered at the Lib Dems, and even now the phrase “Rennard wielded complete power” sounds absurd. He’s a Lib Dem, for goodness sake. But the boys’ club is in power now, or at least they put the Tories into power and themselves into office. The idea that women intrinsically make better or more progressive decisions is sexist bunk, but a party where women are just as able to progress would undoubtedly be one with a healthier political atmosphere.

Does the General Election hold an unexpected result?

Feb 27

Posted by Guest Blog in Elections, International, Westminster | 9 Comments

A wee Italy-via-Eastleigh guest today from Scotland’s super-punter Ross McCafferty, who’s got previous here with us. Thanks Ross! Oh, and the picture choice isn’t his fault. Apologies to anyone scrubbing their eyes.

Beppe and his laptopBritain is not Ireland. Nor is it Italy, but the respective hammerings of largely centrist Parties in austerity governments should terrify David Cameron. In the 2011 election to the Dail, Fianna Fail, who had dominated Irish politics since the inception of the Republic, were beaten into a distant third, going from over 40% of the vote to 17. In an onimous sign for Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems, the junior coalition partners, the Irish Green Party, saw their vote share halved and they lost all of their seats. In Italy, incumbent parties who saw themselves as the guarantors of belt tightening economic credibility fared little better. Technocrat Mario Monti’s austerity coalition was beaten into a distant 4th, to have little or no say in the future governance of the country.

Having staked their economic credibility to both the elimination of the deficit, the strength of the pound, and Britain’s international power, David Cameron’s Tories are in dire straits as we come to the halfway stage of this five year term. Indeed, as we get closer to the 2015 election than we are from the 2010 election, the “Last Labour government” line stops having any credence. Where Labour could move into landslide territory, for me, is two fold. 1) Sacking Ed Balls, a man with a reputation for being pure poison, not to mention being an unfortunate relic – despite his weepy conversion and revisionist approach to his own role in Blair/Brown conflicts – of a bygone era in Labour history. 2) Stepping up attacks on Tories. There was little between Labour and the Tories in macro economic terms in 97-2010. They should press Cameron on what money he wouldn’t have spent in the New Labour years he derides as being so profligate.

But, despite cruising in the polls, Ed’s appeal thus far has been limited. He came to Scotland plenty in 2011 to support Labour, and lent his voice  to the AV campaign, both of which were soundly beaten. He lost battles in formerly fertile Labour ground in Bradford and the London mayoral election.  His best hope in tomorrow’s Eastleigh by election is now a UKIP win, which would focus attention on the coalition parties, and divert comment and introspection away from his parties now seemingly  inevitable distant fourth.

My central question is: does the UK have a Beppe Grillo? The satirist and comedians anti political rallies saw him propelled from non existence to 3rd place and the position of kingmaker. Could we see this in the UK? On the face of it, it doesn’t appear so, our two and occasionally three, and if you believe Farage barely 4 party system is pretty deeply embedded. But I bet if you asked Mario Monti who his main danger was halfway through his term, a wild haired comedian convicted of manslaughter would not feature on the list. That’s not to say such an insurgent campaign would be the preserve of the left in Britain. A free speech, Englishman’s home is his castle, wheelie bin hating Jeremy Clarkson esque figure is  just as likely as a Charlie Booker (who has fictional form) or a David Mitchell.

Sadly, what might make this unlikely is that the British electorate have had their fingers burnt before. Before he was merely looking glum and slightly ill over David Cameron’s right hand shoulder, Nick Clegg was the new face of British Politics, reinvigorating the scene with his talk of breaking from the two main parties. Friends who used to roll their eyes when I mentioned politics declared they were voting for Clegg, someone who understood their disdain at the same old politics. Naturally, true to form, at the first sniff  he sold out his principles and went back on everything he had said. One thing is for sure, the 2015 General Election result isn’t guaranteed.

P.S. It wouldn’t be a guest post from me without some betting tips. You can get any other party to win most seats at 113/1 with Betfair. Ukip to win the election is 200/1 with Coral. And the Government to be ‘other’ is 8/1 with William Hill.

Should Ed turn his guns on UKIP?

Feb 26

Posted by James in Elections, Parties, Westminster | 6 Comments

farageflagPolitics is a strange game. It’s also definitely treated as a game by the participants, albeit a serious one, and the players’ moves regularly have hidden objectives and curious consequences. Right now one smart thing, in a cynical gamesmanship sense, that Labour could do at a UK level is to unleash their fire against UKIP.

As discussed here before, Bonnie Meguid has made a compelling argument about the impact of larger, established parties’ three main tactics when dealing with arriviste parties like the Greens, the hard right, and what she calls the “ethno-territorials” (nationalist or regionalist parties).

First, the big parties can choose to ignore the upstarts, which can help, she argues, if you want them to go away, because silence on “their” issue reduces the perceived salience of that issue in the public mind.

Second, the established parties can attempt to steal the newcomers’ political ideas, another move which can depress their support. This tactic was on grisly display when Nick Griffin went on Question Time and the representatives of the three largest Westminster parties queued up to spout disgraceful versions of “of course there’s a problem with immigration, but..”.

Third, broadsides can be unleashed. This what might be seen as counter-intuitive, but nothing boosts a new party like getting brickbats from the establishment, provided their response to it is relatively temperate.

Meguid’s key example here is from France, where the Socialists attacked Le Pen and simultaneously constructed situations to exaggerate the Front National’s victimhood. Their logic, which worked up to a point, was that the FN would take votes from both sides, sure, but they’d take disproportionately more from the established right, giving the Socialists an edge. Of course, the culmination of this folly was a Presidential runoff between Chirac and Le Pen in 2002, and the blame for this crisis was rarely laid at the correct door.

Over the last few years the nature of the hard right in British politics, or at least the right-of-the-Tories, has changed. Support for the BNP curved high enough to give them a mini electoral hey-day, starting in 2002, the year they picked up their first three councillors, through to 2009 when Griffin and Brons were elected to the European Parliament and 57 BNP councillors were returned.

From that point onwards, perhaps as a result of the fallout between those two MEPs (amusing YouTube here), it was downhill all the way, with just three BNP councillors remaining after the 2012 locals, plus Griffin in Europe – Brons having left the party that year.

Pulling the French Socialists’ trick with the BNP would have been hard for Labour to do, and besides, the BNP primarily took votes from white working-class ex-Labour voters.

But UKIP are a different matter altogether, despite the shared obsession with immigration and a range of other hard-right policy crossovers with the BNP. UKIP are largely seen as more respectable, not least because they definitely attract a different class of voter, and now they’re regularly polling in third place above the Lib Dems.

If Miliband were to focus a bit of fire on them, to use Labour’s current pro-European credentials as a base from which to bash Farage and his party, the rewards could be substantial. Cameron’s delayed referendum (and declaration that he wants a settlement with the EU that he can campaign in favour for) will never go far enough for UKIP, the Tory headbangers, or indeed most of the voters who swither between the two.

It’s win-win for Labour, strategically. Either the Tories move further right on the issue and cede the centre ground, or they don’t and UKIP keep chipping away at their right flank. It’s cynical, of course, and if conducted with enough vigour it would probably consolidate UKIP in third place across England. But it would be defensible, given it would look like a defence of internationalism and solidarity. The fact that Farage would be seen to sport an ever-broader Pooterish grin would hardly be laid at Miliband’s door.

And imagine a situation where UKIP get into any pre-2015 leaders’ debates. If the polls hold, a case could be made for it. Labour could even argue for that, high-risk though it would be in terms of future precedent, and in doing so they could hope to be seen to be on the side of democratic values rather than opportunism.

It’d still be unlikely to happen, not least because it’d be grossly unfair on those parties who already have MPs but who would still be excluded, but the media love a process argument, and the debate about the debates will certainly make quite a splash next time whatever happens.

If UKIP were to take even half the vote share they currently score in the national polls, a Labour victory would be almost guaranteed, and, ironically, Britain’s (or the rUK’s) place in Europe protected for another cycle.

Walk The Solidarity Talk

Feb 21

Posted by Natalie in Constitution, Democracy, Equality, Europe, Governance, Holyrood, Westminster | 5 Comments

boots

At Glasgow City Council Full Council today one of the issues debated- and finding a rare moment of relative harmony between bitter Labour and SNP factions – was that of the Bedroom Tax;  with the Labour Party and the SNP agreeing to an amendment asking Nicola Sturgeon to consider using Scottish Government powers to offset the worst effects of it.

All admirable sentiments, and worthwhile doing – after all it is the role of the Scottish Government to act in the best interests of the Scottish people – but can the Scottish Government always be expected to legislate to mitigate the worst effects of policy decisions taken at Westminster?

Evidently I am absolutely in favour of the Scottish Government intervening to protect the most vulnerable in Scottish society, and in fact I have some suggestions based on a huge amount of research I have been taking on the Bedroom Tax in my employed capacity. There are actions that the Scottish Government can take, and I am sure that all SNP MSPs and councillors will be pressing them to explore any and all suggested options.

In the first instance, Govan Law Centre has made suggestions about the reclassification of housing debt as a civil debt and treated as such in the same manner as any other civil debt; like council tax arrears, or utilities debt meaning that courts will not be forced to evict for non-payment as a first option. There are a number of problems with this suggestion; indeed as there are with many others, not least the fact that the most vulnerable in society will still be accumulating unmanageable debts, and that Housing Associations, and Councils as Social Landlords will be subject to huge gaps in funding and revenue stream. It is simply unacceptable to pass the problem on to Housing Associations and Councils without trying too to mitigate their funding gaps too.

That said, it is a mitigation which requires due consideration. Perhaps there are ways in which to make it workable with agreement between the Scottish Government, Councils and Housing Associations. It is only one of a few suggested options.

So whilst I fundamentally agree and urge the Scottish Government to do all it can, and further, I am not averse to utilising some existing but unused powers to do so, I have my concerns about the expectation that the Scottish Government is the line of last defence when the UK Government takes decisions which we deem unpopular, socially unjust or morally reprehensible.

That the Welfare Reform Act fits all of the above descriptions, and more, does not offset the fact that the Westminster Government is a democratically elected beast. We can quibble about the Tories going in to coalition with the Liberal Democrats not being the settled will of the United Kingdom voters until the cows come home, but, in my opinion, that is wholly disingenuous. Allow me the right to despise the Liberal Democrats the choice to enter a coalition which contravenes so many values which Liberal Democrats should hold dear whilst respecting their right to do so.

I support a reform of the First Past the Post system, and by dint, support a form of proportional representation. By their very definition, PR elections create the need for parties to negotiate coalitions.  This means compromise; and yes, if chosen, some parties will sell their souls to do so.  The Liberal Democrats did in the first Scottish Parliament where they abandoned their principles on free tuition fees – sound familiar? – To enter coalition with the Labour Party. However, many of those same voices clamouring for the same electoral change that I desire are prepared to criticise a coalition formed to govern because they dislike the hue of the parties who entered it. That, to me, is hypocrisy at best.  We either support coalition government as a compromise which is more inclusive of societal views, or we don’t. Perhaps I over simplify, but there it is.  This is a blog post, not a thesis.

The UK government has taken on the mantle of welfare reform which began under the previous Labour administration and is taking the decision to implement changes which, again in my opinion, undermine enshrined ECHR Article 8 on right to family life. Clearly by implementing the Bedroom Tax, the state is interfering with this right by preventing respite for carers, overnight access for parents with shared custody rights etc. But The United Kingdom electorate gave them the power to do so.

I have been to a number of the University of Glasgow Independence debates, and I obviously pay attention to social media and messaging which is coming from the “Better Together” camp and its partners in the Labour Party. A now constant refrain seems to be that asserting the right to independence is a betrayal of solidarity with fellow Brits in Salford, or Brixton, or Bradford who are also suffering from austerity measures. Indeed, as I sit here typing at the last of the University of Glasgow independence debates, I am listening to Willie Bain attempt to articulate the same point – very confusedly, as it happens.

It is beyond me that a constitutional settlement means that we cannot share solidarity with fellow human beings across the United Kingdom as we do those fellow world citizens across the globe. A point was made by a member of the audience last night that solidarity respects no borders. Choosing independence is asserting the right to self-determination; it is not an abandonment of humanity.

Another argument seems to be predicated on the basis that by choosing independence we consign England and Wales to eternal Conservative domination. This is as ridiculous as certain factions of the Yes campaign who believe that voting Yes means no more Tories.  It could be argued that a small c conservative party would have a small renaissance in an independent country, and that is not necessarily a bad thing, as the state, and the Left, needs to have checks and balance.

These shouldn’t be arguments which are made by either side. They are lazy and crass and entirely without empirical evidence. Blair’s landslide Labour Governments would have been elected regardless of the Scottish block voting. It England wants to vote Labour, it can and will. If England wants to vote Conservative, it can and will and we do not have the right to usurp their will. Staying in a union to subvert the voting will of the English people is entirely nonsensical and presumptuous and fundamentally undemocratic.

That the Labour party is simultaneously using the issue of solidarity with fellow Brits as a reason to vote no in the referendum whilst urging the Scottish Government to act in mitigation of the choices of the United Kingdom Government to offset a degree of the worst effects for the Scottish people only, smacks of double standards. That the powers retained by the United Kingdom include all legislative powers over Welfare should not be forgotten, and whilst the Calman Commission was an opportunity for the pro-Union parties to make suggestions about this, they failed to make any substantive points which would change the impact of Welfare Reform.  That they also failed to advocate a second question on the ballot paper with powers over welfare is again indicative of their inability to practice what they preach.

The “Better Together” Campaign has made no concrete suggestions which would entrust power of welfare to the Scottish Parliament, yet they want and expect the Scottish Government to mitigate any decisions made under that retained power when they disagree with them. Surely the UK under their premise, which retains the power, should make UK wide welfare decisions, or they shouldn’t. The only way they shouldn’t or couldn’t is if welfare is devolved. And whilst the pro-Union parties hid from any concrete proposals for a second question on the Independence Referendum ballot paper, there is only one option on the table whereby Scottish voters have the opportunity to help build a welfare system that they believe in and shares their values of fairness. And that isn’t the status quo.

So, yes, the Scottish Government should take any and all actions it can to help the Scottish people it serves, but we should remember, by choosing to remain in the UK, we choose to retain UK wide welfare reform, and long-term, it is not feasible, practical or affordable for a parliament which survives on a set, and shrinking, block grant to continue to play the role of mitigator. And consequently ,Scottish tax payers taking on the burden of reduced public expenditure on other vital public services to correct the folly of the coalition.

 

 

 

At what point should the SNP settle for Devo Max?

Feb 21

Posted by Jeff in Holyrood | 21 Comments

The polls have been consistent for years and it’s reasonable to conclude that the people have spoken. Yes, Devo Max is Scotland’s constitutional setup of choice.
 
The only problem is, the independence referendum does not provide for this option. We instead are faced with two extremes at either margin of our primary preference – full independence and the status quo.
 
So, in short, we know what we want, we just have to wait for our politicians to deliver it.
 
The perceived wisdom is that we must hang on for the seemingly inevitable No result in Autumn 2014 before hoping that David Cameron or Ed Miliband deign to reward us with further powers during the 2015 to 2020 Westminster term. This is to ignore a much quicker and democratic solution that is already within Scotland’s grasp. 
 
By dint of its majority victory in the 2011 Holyrood elections, the SNP ‘owns’ the referendum process and, by extension, owns how independence will come to be defined. This will be set out in the Scottish Parliament white paper later this year but, if the polls continue to show little sign of shifting, some serious thought must surely be given to making ‘independence’ as close to the popular Devo Max option in this white paper as possible.
 
The decision for Salmond, Sturgeon and Robertson is this –  gamble on, say, a 20% chance of winning full independence or effectively bank an 80% chance of gaining significantly more powers.
 
The difference between the two options may not even be so stark. As many unionist politicians are pointing out these days, there is no such thing as a truly independent country any more. Free trade agreements, defence treaties, the European Union, the United Nations…. Scotland will only ever be independent in an interdependent world. In the aftermath of a Yes victory, agreements would need to be signed with rUK on a vast range of issues. Why not reflect a UK interdependency within the parameters of what independence will mean in a referendum context, particularly if it significantly boosts the chances of winning?
 
This would probably mean UK passports, a shared defence force and safeguarding a shared currency. However, it could also mean full tax raising powers, full control of social security, offloading of nuclear weapons from Scottish soil and, who knows, maybe even some form of separate representation at the EU and UN. Would fundamentalist Nationalists be as passionate about voting Yes? Probably not, but the vast majority would still do so, and that would be alongside a crucial 30% of Scots who are currently undecided or intend to vote No.
 
The SNP would initially take pelters for such a u-turn, from the opposition and the media alike, and there is admittedly an argument as to whether they have a mandate to move decisively away from putting full independence to the people, as per their manifesto. However, having the electorate on your side is a powerful advantage and, once the dust had settled from the immediate furore, an intense pressure would be placed on the unionist parties to vote Yes or state clearly why they intended to vote No, given their past rhetoric. The Yes Scotland alliance, by contrast, could bask in the relative glory of healthy poll figures and fawning newspaper editorials.
 
Had Devo Max made it onto the ballot slip as a second question, it would have provided a guarantee for Yes Scotland that movement towards full independence was effectively assured. Without that guarantee, that Plan B, there is a strong possibility (many would say a likelihood) that Nationalists will come through this hard-fought and well-won referendum process empty handed and thoroughly dispirited. Perhaps bumping Plan B up to Plan A and watering independence down to Devo Max is the best bet for Salmond, and, for now, the best scenario for Scotland as a whole.