Author:  David Coombes Summary:  The 'democratic deficit' aside, the European parliament does a better job than the British one of scrutinising the executive

The decline of public confidence in Parliament owes as much to the impression that what happens in the chamber of the House of Commons is remote from people’s real needs and concerns, as it does to the scandal of MPs overcharging for their expenses. Most people are aware that almost all parliamentary debate is boringly predictable, following strict party lines, while legislative measures proposed by the executive are hardly ever rejected, or even substantially amended, by MPs.

In the Commons debate on Monday 22 February, Leader of the House Harriet Harman said that she would accept a new package of modest reforms recently proposed by backbenchers, and went so far as to admit that, to restore the credibility of parliamentary proceedings, it will be necessary to reduce the power of the leaders of the majority party to manage the business of the House, and set the agenda for parliamentary business.

Not all will agree with her, however, that what is now proposed is the most far-reaching set of reforms so far. From past experience, it is very unlikely that the outcome this time will get to the root of the problem any more than previously. How could a government in office, even when facing possible defeat in an imminent general election, be willing to end the entrenched supremacy of the executive in the Westminster model of representative government?

Neither the parliamentary reformers nor the British public probably realise it, but a very refreshing alternative model of parliamentary democracy can now be seen at work in the European Union. There the European Parliament (directly elected by proportional representation) has a quite different relationship with its own executive counterpart, the European Commission.

A good example (though not one likely to be copied in Britain) is how the European Parliament, during the first six weeks of this year, conducted the remarkably inquisitive and transparent process of confirming the appointment of members of the new European Commission. Each “commissioner-designate” (nominated by the member states) had to   undergo three hours of cross-examination by specialised committee corresponding to his or her sector of responsibility, and be assessed for administrative competence, personal integrity and suitability for office at European level.

In fact, many of the questions and answers during the committee hearings amounted to a public discussion of key policy issues in each of the sectors concerned. MEPs from all political groups certainly used the opportunity to voice their disappointment with the recent performance of the EU’s executive, and indicated that they will demand much better from the new team. Indeed, if sufficiently dissatisfied with the new Commission’s performance at any time during its five-year term, Parliament can pass a vote of censure to bring the Commission’s term to a premature end. In 1999 the mere threat of such action was enough to bring down a previous Commission led by Jacques Santer. 

An early demonstration of Parliament’s ability to use muscle was the way the commissioner initially proposed by the Bulgarian government was persuaded to withdraw, in the face of parliamentary pressure behind the scenes, to be replaced by much a better qualified candidate, already identified as available by MEPs themselves. A later one was the way that, before confirming the new members of the Commission for their five-year term, Parliament obtained the agreement of the Commission’s re-appointed president, José Manuel Barroso to introduce new working arrangements which will enhance the MEPs’ capacity to hold the Commission accountable.

Barroso may, nevertheless, be considered lucky to have obtained such a substantial majority for his new team in the final plenary vote in Strasbourg on 10 February (by 488 votes to 137, with 72 abstentions). On the left especially he has been seen as a mere puppet of the neo-liberals who currently wield power in most of the EU’s member states. The most outspoken critic in the final plenary debate was Daniel Cohn-Bendit, spokesman for the greens, and currently the most prominent among a minority of MEPs not dependent on a national party for his election. The greens were joined by French liberals and socialists to vote against Barroso II. Perhaps many of those who voted for simply realised that further delay in appointment of a new executive would be disastrous for the European Union in the midst of an enduring global economic crisis.

On the other hand, both the hearings and the final debate on appointment of a new Commission suggest that, armed with the additional legislative powers granted in the Lisbon Treaty, MEPs are going to make a significant impact on EU policy and administration in future. A cross-party coalition seems to be emerging, including even some members of the centre-right majority European People’s Party, that is willing to go much further than the national governments of the EU to stand up to global corporate power, and to the USA, when necessary to defend the rights of European consumers, citizens and workers. Later in the same week as the new Commission was approved, the Parliament annulled a draft agreement between the EU and USA, originally justified as an “anti-terrorist” measure, which would have allowed the Americans to monitor bank transfers by private citizens in Europe using the SWIFT facility.

Most encouraging for the future of parliamentary democracy is the visible impact of a new multi-national cohort of lively, very engaged, younger MEPs, more often than not women, keen to work across conventional party lines on real, often highly technical, issues of policy. A new style of parliamentary politics thus seems to be emerging at European level which  contrasts with what we have come to expect from adversarial politics on the Westminster model.

Indeed, many current British MEPs do not seem comfortable with this kind of well-informed, constructive and forward-looking public discourse (though ironically it is more often than not conducted in English as the preferred common language). Instead the UKIP and Conservative MEPs, increasingly indistinguishable from each other and their extremist east European allies, seem mainly obsessed, like Laurence Sterne’s Uncle Toby, with re-staging old wars.

Short of reform, the “Mother of Parliaments” increasingly seems to belong to the past. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of parliamentary democrats operating out of Brussels and Strasbourg, skilfully exploit the strength that comes from their own diversity of national experience to bring people’s real concerns back into politics.

oD-wide classification Country:  EU Topics:  Democracy and government International politics Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  John Jackson Summary:  In the first of two reviews of the former lord chief justice’s book on the rule of law, John Jackson discusses the issue of its compatibility with the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty

Tom Bingham, The Rule of Law, Allen Lane, £20.00 (available from Amazon.co.uk for £12)

In the first of two reviews of the former lord chief justice’s book on the rule of law, John Jackson discusses the issue of its compatibility with the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty. Coming soon: Keith Ewing will offer a more sceptical approach to a crusading judge.

In 2007 I wrote two pieces, one entitled Lord Bingham’s Remarkable Journey, the other We the Judges, about the developing views of Lord Bingham, then the Senior Law Lord, on the rule of law and its relationship to the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty, encapsulated in the phrase, ‘Parliament may do anything, except bind its successors’. In short, he seemed to be moving from strong adherence to the ‘rightness’ of Parliamentary Sovereignty as ‘fundamental’ to an acknowledgement of its possible incompatibility with the rule of law – equally fundamental. He was becoming concerned about the constitutional position of the judges if they were called on to interpret legislation, enacted by a sovereign parliament, which they might regard as contrary to the rule of law.

I described how he, Bingham, had remarked on the failure of Parliament in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to provide a definition of the rule of law whilst declaiming it as ‘an existing constitutional principle’. This failure he saw as presenting some difficulty to those (the judges) who might in future be required to say what this existing constitutional principle is. He postulated eight ‘sub rules’ underlying the main rule which might assist them. These sub rules he now describes as part of an attempt to identify what the rule of law really means to us, here and now. They are:

1. The need for the law to be accessible, intelligible, clear and predictable.
2. Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion.
3. The law should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation.
4. The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights.
5. Means must be provided for resolving without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve.
6. Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them reasonably, in good faith, for the purposes for which the powers were conferred and without exceeding the limits of such powers.
7. Adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair
8. The state should comply with its obligations in international law, whether deriving from treaty or international custom and practice.

I have remarked before (in Unlocking Democracy: 20 years of Charter 88) that, in my view, the inclusion of 4 and 8 presents considerable difficulty. That is not because there is anything wrong with them per se, quite the contrary. It is because it expands the interpretive role of the judges into the realms of political legitimacy, the relationship between the individual and the state and international relations – with all their uncertainties. That expansion would almost certainly result, sooner or later, in the constitutional problem that Bingham fears – a clash between the judges and Parliament. As has been demonstrated relatively recently (in the BAE/Saudi case), it is possible for judges to open themselves to the accusation of usurping the role of the legislature by being inventive in their search for legal principle necessary, as they see it, to protect the rule of law or, even, to assuage their own moral outrage.

Although we would be left with another problem, the incompatibility that worries Bingham disappears if Parliament is right in its declaration of the rule of law as an existing constitutional principle but wrong in the assertion of its own sovereignty. In his lucid and interesting book, Bingham, now (rather endearingly) emphasising that his service to us as a judge has ended by identifying himself as Tom Bingham, has, probably unintentionally, opened up this possibility.

The Sovereignty of Parliament has a strange history. This has been examined extensively by Professor Jeffrey Goldsworthy in a book, The Sovereignty of Parliament, admired greatly by Bingham. Goldsworthy describes how, in the fourteenth and  fifteenth centuries Parliament (deemed to represent the wisdom of the nation) emerged as the most authoritative institution, the highest court, in the realm, apart from the monarchy itself. It is understandable therefore that by the seventeenth century it was well established that the judges could not and should not overturn an act of Parliament. Their role, with due deference to the seniority of Parliament, was to interpret what Parliament enacted. What is less understandable was the leap from ‘Acts of Parliament are the law’ to ‘There is nothing that Parliament cannot do’. Goldsworthy gives a number of explanations: they all boil down, very broadly speaking, to an acceptance of the political philosophy that every community requires an ultimate decision maker whose word is final.

However no one, to my knowledge, has ever claimed that the Parliament which emerged triumphant in the seventeenth century (The King in Parliament) had greater power than the sovereign it replaced (The King, in Parliament). And Bingham demonstrates convincingly, in his discussion of historical milestones on the way to the rule of law, as we know it today, that absolute power had not been accepted in England as residing in the monarch since the thirteenth century. Despite all the misunderstanding of what it was, Magna Carta is extremely important in this context. Chapters 39 and 40, the latter reading in translation To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice, do not have the added words ‘unless the rest of you say we can’. This suggests strongly that there was an insistence already then that there are such things as ‘absolute’ rules (God, or custom, determined, perhaps) and that there are ‘proper’ limits to the sovereignty of anybody or any thing. Indeed, Bingham comes close to saying this himself when at the conclusion of a section in his book on the abolition of torture he says, ‘There are some things which even the supreme power in the state should not be allowed to do, ever.’

Of course, this leaves open the question of how, without the benefit of divine intervention, to deal with a sovereign that breaks an absolute rule. Suppose our Parliament passed a law both abolishing the right to apply to the courts for judicial review of executive action and declaring that the rule of law was, in that respect, not a constitutional principle - a clear denial of justice. Who deals with the problem? This is not a hypothetical question. In 2004 the Blair administration came close to creating the problem by making a proposal (later withdrawn) that any legal challenge to decisions of a statutory tribunal dealing with questions of asylum and immigration should be precluded.

 There are a number of possible answers. As Goldsworthy points out, one of them is political, ‘rebellion’. Can rebellion be lawful? Another is for the judges to assert the right to strike the legislation down. But to what effect? It is not clear how either of these tie in with the rule of law. And that may be one of the most powerful arguments for making the law itself sovereign by means of a written constitution. I hope Tom Bingham writes a further book for us in which he expands on and examines these questions.

I hope also that in such a further book he examines the relationship between the rule of law and justice. His eight sub rules do not say much about this. Justice is not simply a matter of access to the courts: it goes also to whether the law applied by the courts is itself ‘just’. Does the rule of law require justice in that sense? This raises the question of the right to disobey an unjust law. Professor Ronald Dworkin has argued that there are circumstances in which it can be right to draw attention to an unjust law by breaking it and submitting oneself immediately for trial and punishment by one’s peers. What does the rule of law say about that?

This question of justice is relevant to a topic discussed extensively by Bingham, the International Legal Order, and particularly what constitutes a just war. In his discussion he takes the opportunity to explain why he believes that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was unlawful and therefore, as I understand the expression, unjust. He sets out his reasoning with great clarity and is careful to disclose that Jack Straw and Lord Goldsmith strongly challenge his conclusions and that others may also do so. His first sub rule states that the law must, so far as possible, be intelligible, clear and predictable. It is, to say the least, disturbing that there should be any room for doubt as to what resolutions of the Security Council mean and that there has to be resort to what they ‘arguably’ mean. Justice and uncertainty are bad bed-fellows!

The theme of justice is relevant to further remarks by Bingham about the requirements of the rule of law in the international order. He says, ‘If the daunting challenges now facing the world are to be overcome, it must be in important part through the medium of rules, internationally agreed, internationally implemented and, if necessary, internationally enforced.’ I would add the rider that the implementation and enforcement must be even-handed and non-discriminatory. If one nation or community believes, rightly or wrongly, that the rest of the international community regards the murder of its citizens or challenges to its right to exist as less serious than similar tribulations of others, the whole system inevitably breaks down. There is no rule of law.

The danger of this is not that the world returns to the law of the jungle but in an attempt to secure some form of stability, to the law of talion. This ancient law, best and very incompletely known as ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’, was first described as applying in ancient Babylon to its nobility. That nobility came from a formerly nomadic desert tribe of Amorites that had conquered Babylon, a long established city with its own laws and customs. The Amorites valued talion: its harshness and immediacy promoted stability by inhibiting tribal feud. Based, as it was, on retaliation it saw nothing wrong in the punishment of the innocent. In Babylon if a negligent builder caused your house to collapse resulting in the death of your son, you were permitted to kill his son.

It may be that we can hear the echoes of talion already. I am uncomfortable with the reasoning that results in the shredding of civilians, men women and children, in the course of a so-called just war being described as ‘collateral damage’. And I am uncomfortable with the argument that a just cause pursued unjustly remains a just cause. Both seem to me to represent extremely slippery slopes. I think Tom Bingham would agree with me.

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Author:  Stuart Wilks-Heeg Dave Ellis Summary:  The latest poll on public attitudes to UK democracy shows a profound hunger for change, but no growth in support for particular reforms.

Ever since the expenses scandal first hit the headlines in May last year, political commentators have been desperate for some robust evidence which might provide clues about its likely impact on voting behaviour and wider forms of political engagement. Without detailed polling data, derived from questions which have been put to the British public over a number of years, there has been little scope to measure how public opinion has changed post-expenses. In the absence of such data, we have had to speculate about the likely impact, or draw tentative conclusions from whatever scraps of evidence we could unearth.

Perhaps understandably, some reformers – sensing that the expenses scandal offered a ‘once in a generation opportunity’ for change – jumped on any fragments of supportive data they could. One-off opinion polls asking people whether they favoured specific reforms were cited as evidence of widespread desire for reform. Even the results of the combined local and European elections of June 2009, when over 50 per cent of voters stayed at home, were proffered by some as proof of a popular mood for change.  As one of us has previously argued, these claims rarely stood up to closer scrutiny; if any messages could be discerned from opinion polls and the June elections, they seemed to consist of 1 part rage to 5 parts ambivalence.

Almost a year later, as we await the General Election which may (or may not) clarify the exact make-up of the public mood, we are predictably being flooded with data which enables us to make more meaningful and informed judgements about the impact of the expenses crisis. At the end of January, the 26th British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey was published, offering scope to assess shifts in responses to a number of longstanding BSA questions about politics and society. In early March, the Hansard Society will publish their 8th annual Audit of Political Engagement, which will provide us with further insight into how MPs’ expenses have impacted upon public attitudes towards politics. Sandwiched in-between these, published in mid-February, we have had the results of the latest Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (JRRT) ‘State of the Nation’ poll, which it has commissioned periodically since 1991. Evidently, longitudinal opinion polls are a bit like buses; you wait ages for one, and then three come along at once.

As was widely reported, the BSA poll  found that 18 per cent now feel ‘it’s not really worth voting’, compared to just 8 per cent in 1991, while the proportion regarding it as ‘everyone’s duty to vote’ has dropped from 68 per cent to 56 per cent over the same period. These findings have been widely seen as an indicator of likely low turnout in the 2010 General Election. The State of the Nation poll provides us with much more detailed insight into public attitudes towards the political parties and the political system more generally, yet has received virtually no media attention at all. This may be down to the funders releasing the raw data without commissioning anyone to undertake a detailed analysis of the 164 pages of statistical tables produced by ICM.

Yet, if print and broadcast media journalists have found it hard to identify the obvious ‘headlines’ in the ‘State of the Nation’ poll, the data does appear to tell a very clear story, particularly to anyone with a knowledge of the previous JRRT-funded polls. That story is as follows: the expenses crisis has, on average, made the public more indifferent to politics than they were earlier in the decade and prompted no discernable increase in support for constitutional reform. Perhaps the media are doing us reformers a favour; this is not the narrative which we would usually wish to shout from the roof-tops.

Let’s start, though, by noting that the 2010 poll does underscore that the public are unhappy with our political system. The survey confirms that there has been a rise in the proportion of people who think the UK’s system of government could be improved ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’: 74 per cent feel there is a need for improvement on this scale, compared to 63 per cent in 2004 and 64 per cent in 2000. Yet, when it comes to specific reforms, the 2010 poll suggests that public attitudes have changed very little and that, if anything, most reforms have slightly less popular support now than they did six years ago.

Among all the reform proposals put to them, the proposal to introduce a written constitution is most clearly endorsed by the public, with 74 per cent support - although this represents a clear fall from the 2004 figure of 80 per cent. There is a modest increase in support for a more proportional electoral system, the reform which also came top in the Power2010 public vote, which stands at 66 per cent, up from 63 in 2004, but a flat-lining in support for a fully elected House of Lords at 27 per cent (compared to 28 in 2004).  Support for state funding of political parties has fallen from 62 to 56 per cent over the same period.

If the public have become marginally less certain about which political reforms they would endorse, they are greatly less certain about how they feel about the political parties. Comparing the 2004 and 2010 findings, it is apparent that all parties have experienced a drop in both the proportion of people who say they might vote for them and in the proportion who say they would never vote for them (the only partial exception to this pattern is in attitudes towards the SNP). Instead, respondents have shifted overwhelming to opt for a third category on the questionnaire which allows them to hedge their bets by saying neither ‘might do’ or ‘never would’.

The change here is truly dramatic. Only 4-5 per cent expressed this ‘neither’ view towards the three main parties in 2004; yet in 2010 it varied between 25 and 29 per cent. Similar patterns are evident in relation to the BNP, the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and most dramatically in the case of the Greens where the proportion declaring that neither would they consider voting for them nor definitely not vote for them has risen from 3 to 34 per cent. All this is an unanticipated development in ‘voter de-alignment’ from the parties – rather than ‘floating voters’ we increasingly have  ‘indifferent voters’.

This evidence of growing ambivalence runs right through the results of the poll. The respondents were asked to say how much they like or dislike individual political parties on a 7-point scale. Measured against 2004, there is a clear fall in the proportion indicating that they ‘like’ any of the political parties - other that the Conservatives, whose ‘liking’ rating has risen from 24 per cent in 2004 to 29 per cent in 2010. So far, so predictable. Yet, the data also contains some real surprises. For one, there is no discernable increase in the extent to which the public express a dislike of individual parties. Indeed, all of the parties actually have a smaller proportion of the electorate expressing dislike towards them than they did in 2004, with the exception of Labour where ‘dislike’ is static at 42 per cent.

Again, the key shift is towards the category on the scale indicating ambivalence. For each party, with the exception of the BNP, between one-third and a half of those surveyed opted for the neutral point on the scale.  In each and every case, there is an increase compared to 2004, ranging from a 1 percentage point rise in people expressing a neutral view of the Conservatives (from 30 to 31 per cent) to a remarkable 25 percentage point increase in neutral attitudes towards Plaid Cymru (from 21 to 46 per cent).

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, the 2010 poll highlights what appears to be a growing doubt in the public’s view of who should exert most influence on government policy. While 87 per cent said that ordinary voters should have power over government policy, this represents a slight decline from the 90 per cent who thought so in 2004. Similarly, fewer people now think that Parliament should have such power over policy (82 per cent, compared to 89 in 2004). The same applies to the public view of media influence (28 per cent feel that should have the power to shape government decisions, compared to 31 per cent in 2004) and corporate influence (31 per cent, down from 35 per cent in 2004). In short, the experience of political and economic crisis in 2009 appears to have left voters less certain about who the agents of change should be in our democracy.    

Overall, the 2010 ‘State of the Nation’ poll suggests that the results of the 2009 combined European and local elections may be a fair predictor of what is in store at this year’s general election. The turnout is likely to be low. The Conservative vote is likely to be up, and the Conservatives will therefore make gains – but only enough for a majority if Labour voters prove more likely to stay at home. Smaller parties may make a limited impact at the margins, though this will be highly localised and will again crucially depend on what happens to the Labour vote.  The election results will undoubtedly provide fascinating data for psephologists to analyse; but they are highly unlikely to express a clear popular desire for constitutional reform. 

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Author:  Anthony Barnett

According to the ever useful Open Europe press summary Germany's constitutional court has ruled that its country's interpretation of EU rules on data retention breach its Constitution

The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled yesterday that the German law implementing the EU's Data Retention Directive breaches the German Constitution. However, the Court ruled against the implementation of the Directive, rather than the Directive itself. The Court ruled that the retention of information is permitted only under strict rules of Constitutional law, if someone's life or freedom were in danger, and therefore all data collected before yesterday's ruling under the Directive must be immediately erased.
 
Prior to this decision, internet providers and telecommunication companies were obliged by the Directive to store telephone numbers, emails and internet connections of all citizens for six months without needing a concrete reason. The judges ruled that the implementation of the Directive provided "neither adequate data security, nor sufficient boundaries on the application of data retention.
 See AP

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Author:  Keith Sutherland Summary:  Political representation and diversity

Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed on Sunday that it is time for “positive action” to end the predominance of “white, middle-class lawyers” in parliament. Speaking ahead of an online conference, Human Rights in the Post-Election UK, he called on the three main party leaders to ensure that the next generation of MPs more accurately reflects the social makeup of the population.

Phillips believes that efforts by all three parties to broaden the ethnic and gender diversity of MPs have failed to make parliament a genuine reflection of society, and that far too many MPs are former Oxbridge PPEs. In an article in the Sunday Times he claimed “We don’t want a veneer of diversity. We want real diversity. We want to open doors.”

Notwithstanding the recent emphasis on correcting gender and ethnicity imbalances, occupational diversity has declined sharply over the last two decades. Although recent occupants of the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons include a sheet-metal worker, a tailor and a Tiller Girl, the honourable members that they call to order are drawn almost entirely from the same pool of party-worker turned professional politician, possessing little of what Denis Healey referred to as ‘hinterland’.

Phillips’s observation that modern legislatures are nothing like the ‘portrait in miniature’ of the whole society imagined by the American founders is hardly a new one. Ernest Callenbach and Michael Philips argued some twenty years ago in A Citizen Legislature that a true ‘house of representatives’ should contain:

50% women; 12% Blacks; 6% Latinos; 25% blue-collar workers; 10% unemployed persons; two doctors or dentists; one school administrator; two accountants; one real estate agent; eight teachers; one scientist; four bookkeepers; nine food service workers; one childcare worker; three carpenters; four farm laborers; three auto mechanics; one fire fighter; one computer specialist; and a Buddhist.

No amount of ‘positive action’ over party shortlists could ever achieve this sort of diversity, the only way to achieve true representational diversity is via random sampling by lot. The problem is that the descriptive form of representation achieved by the lot would only fulfil one aspect of democratic politics – that legislators should, as far as possible, resemble the electorate from which they are drawn.

However, as Hannah Pitkin argued in The Concept of Representation, political representation is also an activity. It’s simply not possible to assume that a ‘portrait in miniature’ will automatically (or ‘spontaneously’, in the words of Barbara Goodwin’s Justice by Lottery) act in the interests of the populations that it descriptively represents.

The active aspect of political representation is the setting of the agenda for legislative deliberation. To Rousseau this was the natural prerogative of the ‘magistrate’ (government department), but we now view this as an essentially political matter, best decided by comparing manifestos of competing political parties during general elections. It’s hard to imagine a more impartial way than elections for setting the political agenda – by sharp contrast to advocates of ‘deliberative’ democracy who are content to let the agenda ‘emerge’ through the sheer power of discursive debate within the randomly-selected group.

The problem is that we currently expect our political representatives to combine both functions – to (descriptively) represent the electorate from which they are drawn and also to (actively) set the agenda for the debate and to argue its merits. Randomly-selected legislators are highly unlikely to have the necessary expertise and rhetorical skills, so the agenda is likely to be dominated by those few people in the legislature that happen to possess those skills. Hardly a passport to democratic equality.

It is now over 250 years since Montesquieu wrote his famous treatise on the separation of powers, so we have had plenty of time to acknowledge the logical and empirical impossibility of fusing two distinct constitutional prerogatives in one body. In every case the stronger party will trump the weaker. If the executive is drawn from the legislature (as in the UK), then the latter will inevitably become the poodle of the former. If legislators are elected on a party ticket then, unless the electorate can be adequately ‘described’ in terms of only a few binary characteristics (rich/poor, bosses/workers, male/female, black/white, liberal/conservative etc – and then the impossible task of aggregating these binaries) then the party ticket will inevitably trump descriptive representation. No amount of tinkering by Mr. Phillips’s quango can possibly correct that.

Why not then simply split the representative function into its two component elements? (descriptive and active). Select legislators by lot but allow political parties to offer their competing manifestos during an election campaign. The party/parties that win the biggest popular vote (or the advocates for the winning campaign issues) would then have the right to present their manifesto commitments before the descriptively representative (randomly-selected) legislature. The dominant party/parties would still need to win the argument in the randomly-selected legislature, so this should keep a) Trevor Phillips, b) policy wonks and c) deliberative democrats happy without the inevitable compromise of trying to embody logically-distinct functions in a single constitutional element.

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Author:  Anthony Barnett

THIS POST HAS TWO CORRECTIONS

I went to the Equality and Human Rights Commission discussion about Human Rights today in London. Not a lot was learnt. Dominic Grieve was interesting. It seems that he is planning a new "UK Human Rights Bill" (not "British" - thanks for spotting that Qudsi). They will disincorporate from the European Convention and then repeat the Convention word for word in the UK Bill - plus adding bonus points like trail by jury). At least Grieve addressed two points: that the public don't believe in human rights and they need to and he wants them to; that the HRA has not prevented obvious abuses to our liberties and we need to address this. David Howarth for the Lib Dems didn't want change and Jack Straw chatted amiably about written constitutions and how he was proud and it's not a "villain's charter". In a notorious and typical moment, of course, it was himself who told the Daily Mail "There is a sense that it's a villains' charter".

CORRECTION: Jack Straw's office has just emailed to say

Jack Straw has never described the HRA as a "villain's charter".

This is the relevant section from Daily Mail article from which you misquote.

""And he is 'frustrated' by some of the judgments which have encouraged voters to conclude that the act is a 'villains' charter' which favours the rights of criminals over those of victims."

His office continues:

It is certainly true that there are some who regard the HRA as a "villain's charter". Jack is not one of them.

However, in my defence, I linked to and quoted from the Mail's editorial of the same day which I did not misquote. It has the words I give in direct quote marks as being Straw's words:

As this paper has always argued, the Human Rights Act turns justice on its head by putting the rights of criminals above those of the law-abiding.

Now, at last, a minister has had the honesty to admit as much.

Not just any minister, either. As Tony Blair's first home secretary, Jack Straw was the man who piloted this disastrous Act on to the statute book ten years ago.

Today he confesses, in words that will resonate with millions of Britons: 'There is a sense that it's a villains' charter.'

Straw had a relaxed smile in place of his usual nervousness: he looked like a man who had got away with it and knew it. Is it possible that he's chosen to go to the Lords and not stand at the election?

ANSWER: Jack's office says "He Is not" standing down as an MP.

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Author:  Guy Aitchison Summary:  Labour want innocent people kept on the DNA database regardless of privacy, human rights and the integrity of our legal system.

I recently blogged how a shameless Labour party is making Tory plans to remove innocent people's DNA from police databases, in compliance with the European Court's ruling, one of their central lines of attack.

Now, via Joe Murphy, at the Evening Standard, we learn that Brown has taken this one step further accusing those who want a proportionate system of DNA retention, which respects the right of innocent people not to have their genetic material on criminal databases, of playing into the hands of rapists:

He cited the case of Jeremiah Sheridan who raped a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy sufferer in her home 19 years ago and was last year convicted thanks to DNA samples.

“Next time you hear somebody question the value of retaining DNA profiles from those arrested but not convicted, remember Jeremiah Sheridan,” he said. “Most of all remember the innocent woman he attacked.”

Speaking to police in Reading, he also accused the Tory leader over his use of crime statistics, saying: “You don't tackle the fear of crime by cultivating it, by ramping up a public sense of panic, by abusing the figures and claiming our society is broken.”

Note, again, the sinister use of language. Whilst Chris Sims, of ACPO, spoke of "unconvicted" people, Brown talks of "those arrested but not convicted". The word "innocent" doesn't feature in their vocabulary. Because some people who have been arrested and not convicted go onto commit a crime, we should act as though all of them will.

There's two possible claims that could support such an approach to DNA retention. Either he's arguing "there's no smoke without fire", in which case anyone who comes into contact with the criminal justice system is presumed guilty of something orother and should be treated as such. Or we are all suspects, whether or not we have come into contact with criminal justice, and keeping arrested people's DNA is simply the most straight-forward way of harvesting as much DNA as possible from the general population (in the absence of the courage to argue for blanket DNA collection and retention).

Neither of these propositions is attractive in my view and neither is compatible with a free society which maintains a proper legal distinction between guilt and innocence. Even if you maintain that handing over DNA to the state is no big deal, you have to worry about the corrosive effect Brown's arguments will have on our legal system as a whole. Law cannot be sealed and self-contained, its effects limited to the particular issues addressed in its provisions. It should instead be seen as an interlocking web, underpinned by values and principles that shape and guide the whole. Tug at one thread and the whole thing starts to unravel. Just look how the mentality behind these databases and surveillance techniques extends to the treatment of protesters and photographers, and countless other categories of people who must now prove themselves to the state.

In addition, am I the only one who finds Brown's references to the Sheridan case distasteful? As though the mere invocation of a horrific case such as this trumps any argument about privacy and human rights. We all know where those kind of arguments lead and it's not a road most of us would care to tread down. Consider also the rank hypocrisy of telling Cameron "you don't tackle the fear of crime by cultivating it" moments after raising the grisly Sheridan case. If someone can offer a better example of scare-mongering to deflect principled arguments, I'd be interested to see it.

And to distasteful and hypocritical, it seems, we can also add misleading. According to David Davis, Brown’s arguments on DNA show that "yet again he doesn't have the first idea" on the issue. He told Paul Waugh the Tories plan to retain a DNA database of "past cases" such as Sheridan's.

"That way all such matches can be picked up at the point of arrest, without the need for expensive cold case teams to plough through a whole database of innocent people. Were this the situation now, Sheridan would have been brought to justice three years earlier than he eventually was.

"There are a number of ways of improving the relatively ineffective and shoddy system which we now have which do not involve turning innocent people into suspects."

The Cabinet has apprently decided that DNA is the Tories’ achilles heel. They want to deflect serious arguments about liberty and the judgement of the European Court by invoking horrific cases. In doing so they are prepared to abandon the idea of innocence arguing for ideas and processes that endanger the whole fabric of our legal system. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

oD-wide classification Topics:  Democracy and government Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  Pam Giddy Summary:  The POWER2010 campaign has identified 5 reforming priorities for the next Parliament. Where next?

A number of people have commented on OurKingdom asking how the five reforms identified by the public vote will be taken forward by the campaign. There are a number of issues raised which I will try to address here, explaining the reasoning behind the decisions taken and what they mean.

Why do you only need to back a majority of the five reforms to sign the Pledge?

As the process developed, it became clear that saying that people do not need to agree with all five ideas to sign the Pledge was the only fair way to proceed. Dozens of organisations and tens of thousands of people have played a part in getting us to this point, so it would be wrong to now exclude those who have participated in our process and sincerely believe in political reform just because they can’t support one or two of the ideas in the Pledge.

From the start this has been an open campaign, with participation from left and right – something quite unprecedented. To keep the momentum going we have to create a space in which people can be challenged and engaged. Asking for majority support for the Pledge is the best way of releasing energy and kick-starting a debate. Demand “all or nothing” and the parties and candidates, and the members of the public who we are encouraging to lobby them, would soon retreat from the process and decide they can no longer take part.

Does this mean you are taking a “pick and mix” approach?

No. This does not mean as a campaign we are picking our favourites, ditching any particular reforms, or taking the “top three”. We will campaign vigorously for all five ideas - fighting to put all of them on the agenda at this election. They will all feature in our literature, on our website and in the organisation’s dealings with parties and candidates.

Will activists be taking just three reforms to their candidates, or all five?

When we start asking supporters to take the Pledge to their candidates, it is exactly that - the Pledge, all five parts - that we will ask them to take. We are asking for our supporters and volunteers to back at least three, but they will be presenting all five to candidates and explaining to them the process through which the ideas came about. 

Like anyone else, a candidate can sign if they back a majority of the ideas - hence the need for them to be presented with all 5. However, we also want to know exactly where the candidates stand on each of the issues and their responses will be tracked on our website so people can see which reforms on the Pledge they back.

Will overall support for the Pledge be used to lobby for particular reforms?

 
Several people have asked whether overall support for the Pledge will be used to lobby for particular reforms (potentially using people’s support for the Pledge to lobby for reforms they have explicitly opted out of). It won’t. We recognise that support for the Pledge doesn’t automatically translate to support for any single idea in it. If 50,000 people sign the Pledge we cannot say that this means 50,000 have signed up in support of a proportional voting system. That would be wrong and we will never do it. What we can point to is the number of people backing a majority of the ideas on the Pledge – and joining our call for a reforming Parliament. 
 
Thanks again for your comments - I hope that’s cleared a few things up. If there are any more queries and concerns, please post a comment and I’ll do my best to respond.

oD-wide classification Topics:  Democracy and government Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  Caspar Henderson

As anyone who has seen the film The End of the Line will know, one of the greatest failures of governance in the world today is in the management of marine resources and unsustainable fishing practices in particular. This month the United Kingdom may have an opportunity to make an important difference for the better. By quirk of history the U.K. still governs the Chagos archiplego , the largest system of coral atolls in the world and home to a stupendous abundance of life that remains relatively undamaged.

A public consultation on the future conservation status for the islands, now extended to 5 March (see FCO pdf ) lists the following options: a full no-take marine reserve for the whole of the territorial waters; a no-take marine reserve for the whole of the territorial waters with exceptions for pelagic fishery such as tuna; and a no-take marine reserve for the vulnerable reef systems only. Based on the consultation, and other factors, the Foreign Secretary and the Commissioner for what is still known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) will then make a decision.

Most conservation groups, unsurprisingly, favour the first of the three options (see Project Chagos). Some critics, however, charge that the process is a greenwash because it fails to address the claims of the Chagossian people, who were forcibly removed from Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, in the 1960s to make way for the giant U.S. air base. (see The Chagos archipelago - where conservation meets colonialism by Fred Pearce) . Others also have their eyes on Chagossian resources: the U.K. has promised to cede the archipelago to the Republic of Mauritius once it is no longer needed ‘for defence purposes’.

Justice for the Chagossians and their descendants, who number about 4,000 (and descend from labourers first brought to the previously uninhabited by the French and British in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), is a vital matter. And there is a strong case that the U.K. has failed to meet its responsibilities. But conservation groups continue to argue that this doesn’t have to be inconsistent with better protection for the natural environment right now. “The political issue needs a solution but it is largely a separate matter” Alistair Gammell, Chagos Campaign Manager for the Pew Environment Group says to ourKingdom; “The key thing is there is an opportunity now to improve protection of the area. If the Chagossians do return in future at least the resources will have been kept in a better state for them.”

Patrolling the islands to reduce illegal fishing currently costs the British authorities about £1.7 million a year. Under a strict no-take designation the authorities would lose about £700,000 currently generated from the issue of a few permits for legal fishing. At a time when government finances are under enormous pressure the temptation to continue or increase the number of permits may be considerable. On the other side is the opportunity to double the size of the world’s marine protected areas at a stroke, centering on the protection of coral reefs whose future is in doubt. Unexploited, Chagos can be of huge benefit for marine science and a part of the heritage of future human generations. Environmental economics, which (in contrast to the conventional economics that has got us into our current situation) seeks to tell the truth about prices, suggests that the economic benefits of coral reefs maintained in a healthy state can be between U.S. $100,000 - $600,000 per square km per year. Protection costs in BIOT are about $5 per sq km per year, suggesting a virtually risk free annual return on investment of between 20,000% to 120,000%. Not bad for a day's work.

As long as America seeks to remain a global power and that power relies on the deployment of aerial and naval ‘assets’ from Diego Garcia, so long is it unlikely that the islands will be returned to the Chagossians or indeed the government of Mauritius or other international actors. There may yet be time to protect Chagos and achieve justice for its people.

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Sign a petition asking the UK to protect the Chagos archipelago environment at the protectchagos.org website

oD-wide classification Topics:  Science Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  Stephen Plowden Summary:  While inconsistency with respect to climate change runs so deep in government policy, how can we expect people to behave differently?

“Major developed and developing countries have signed up to tackle the problem and to limit global warming to two degrees. As countries enter their emissions cuts in the formal register by January 31st, they can and should make good on this.” That was Ed Miliband’s comment on the Copenhagen conference. So it is surprising to learn that   Britain’s own plans for tackling climate change are based on an approach which is expected to result in an increase in global warming of at least two degrees.  

The government’s plans are derived from the report Building a low-carbon economy – the UK’s contribution to tackling climate change, published by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) in December 2008. In the CCC’s favoured scenario, global emissions of greenhouse gases peak by 2016. They then decline each year either by 4%, in which case the CCC calculates that there is a 56% probability that by 2100 the mean global temperature will be more than two degrees above its pre-industrial level, or only by 3%, in which case this probability rises to 63%. The CCC’s report treated these outcomes as acceptable and then considered what reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would be required to achieve them. Acknowledging that developed countries will have to reduce their emissions by more than developing ones, it recommended that Britain should set itself the target of reducing its emissions by at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The government accepted that recommendation.

Why was the CCC so relaxed about a likely increase of more than two degrees? Not because of doubts about how serious such an increase would be. The CCC shares the view of most climate scientists that the consequences would be very grave. But apparently it ruled out any action which would inhibit economic growth, and seems also to have concluded that a more demanding target would indeed have that effect. These views are not stated explicitly, but are implicit in the report, as, for example, in the following statement in the executive summary. “The good news is that reductions of that size [a cut in emissions of  at least 80% by 2050] are possible without sacrificing the benefits of economic growth and rising prosperity.”  Presumably the suggestion is that greater reductions would threaten economic growth and therefore cannot be contemplated.

We have a duty to future generations, and indeed to people now living, to leave them a world in which they can live and which would be worth living in. Obviously we should be prepared to make sacrifices in pursuit of this duty, just as earlier generations made heavy sacrifices to preserve our way of life. I doubt that the CCC’s distinguished members would dispute this moral obligation, but perhaps they feel that the British people would not accept it.

What sacrifices would be necessary? The report points out that many of the actions needed to combat global warming are ones that it would be desirable to take for other reasons.  That is clearly true. The urgent need to reduce our dependence on imports from countries with unstable and potentially hostile regimes is a good reason to reduce our consumption of oil and natural gas. Everyone should live in a well insulated home. Better road safety, reduced oil consumption, lower noise and stress, provide sufficient grounds for lowering speed limits and enforcing them properly. The economic growth on which the CCC, in common with the government and most political parties, lays so much emphasis is presumably growth in GDP, but GDP is a measure of activity, not welfare. Once a certain level of material prosperity has been reached, and the great majority of readers of this article will have reached it, although millions of our fellow citizens have not, further increases are of trivial importance compared with the quality of the social and physical environment.

When all that has been said, however, it is difficult to believe that reductions in the use of fossil fuels of the scale and speed required could be achieved without some painful adjustments to our way of life. We need the CCC to tell us what  adjustments we would have to make in order to achieve a 1%,5%, 10% . . . chance of the rise in the average global temperature exceeding two degrees.  Or, since several developing countries at Copenhagen asked, with good reason, for a commitment to limit the rise to 1.5 rather than two degrees, perhaps it would be better for the CCC to base its probability calculations on that limit. Once the CCC had provided that information, it would be up to the people and Parliament, not to the CCC as an unelected quango, to decide what path to choose.

Would people be willing to make the sacrifices required to safeguard the living conditions of posterity? Since public opinion surveys show that forty per cent of the population are sceptical about global warming, there must be some doubt about that. But why are people sceptical? Wishful thinking and some irresponsible journalism do not help. But surely the most important reason is that the government’s rhetoric about the importance of combating global warming is not matched by its deeds. Its actions over a wide range of topics suggest that this is not a high priority after all.

The government assigns a value to represent the importance it attaches to preventing the emission of a tonne of greenhouse gases. The figure is so low that the total value of all Britain’s emissions over a year comes to less than two per cent of GDP. The implication is that if someone could suggest a way of eliminating all our emissions, but the annual cost would amount to two per cent of GDP, the answer would be “no thanks, that’s too expensive.” If the allies had not been prepared to spend more than two per cent of GDP in fighting the Second World War, they would not have won. In every High Street there are shops that keep their doors wide open in the bitterest weather. When Brighton and Hove City Council refused to give a pub planning permission for a patio heater, on the grounds that patio heaters wasted energy, government inspector overturned the decision, saying   that these heaters were the most efficient form of outdoor heating and pubs had to attract and retain custom. The government largely failed to concentrate its efforts to stimulate the economy out of recession on “green” measures. It did not even insist that people who replaced their old cars by new ones under its scrappage scheme would be given a grant only if the car they bought was among the least polluting in its class. Its plans for the road programme, high-speed rail and the expansion of airports are based on the crudest business-as-usual, predict-and-provide assumptions.

I believe that the British people would be prepared to make sacrifices, even heavy ones, for the sake of posterity if the need was clearly explained and the burden was fairly shared. A properly explained and fair programme could even unite and inspire the country. But we need greater honesty and leadership than has yet been shown.

Perhaps the Government’s most conspicuous failure of leadership is its policy on aviation. On current plans, aviation would account for some 25% of Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Although the Government’s target for the economy as a whole is to reduce emissions by at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, for aviation it asks only that emissions be kept to their 2005 level, even though travel by air doubled between 1990 and 2005, and it seems to believe that technical advances will allow emissions to be kept down even while journeys and flights increase very substantially. The common argument that growth in aviation is essential for the health of the economy does not hold water.  Recent advances in telecommunications enable a large proportion of business trips to be replaced by teleconferencing, and in any case business trips account for less than 30% of international journeys to and from British airports. This market is dominated by British residents travelling for leisure purposes. Global warming apart, there are other strong reasons for limiting air travel. Providing for people going abroad on holiday should not take priority over safeguarding the environment of people living near airports. Over-visiting is destroying the attractions which people go abroad to seek; over the last sixty years huge damage has been done to the  Mediterranean littoral, and now more distant holiday destinations are also under threat.

It makes no sense to say that global warming is the greatest challenge that humanity faces but is not as important as cheap foreign holidays, but that, in effect, is what Tony Blair did say at the 2005 General Election and what the government is still saying now. No doubt, restrictions on flying would be unpopular with many people; it is just for that reason that they are a critical test of environmental determination. It is not enough to drop plans to expand Heathrow, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats say they would do. The cuts in greenhouse gases required from aviation should be at least of the same proportions as those required from other sectors. If the more gloomy accounts of how global warming is developing are correct, then aviation should be cut more than other sectors. Most air travel is discretionary; keeping warm and producing and distributing food are not.

More stringent targets for aviation should not be used as an excuse for easing the targets now imposed on other sectors. Instead, the target for the overall reduction to be achieved by 2050 should be raised from 80% to 90% of the 1990 amount. That would show that Britain really is serious about the need to prevent the earth’s temperature rising by two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

At the election, environmentally minded people should ask all the parties whether they will make these commitments. If they won’t, then don’t vote for them.                                

oD-wide classification Topics:  Economics Science Section style:  openEconomy Sections to display in:  openEconomy OurKingdom

Author:  Peyvand Khorsandi

On Tuesday, Respect MP George Galloway will attend a public meeting in the House of Commons, organised by Stop the War Coalition, to protest against the deterrent sentences handed out to demonstrators at last year’s Gaza marches.

In the spirit of George Monbiot’s call to arrest Tony Blair in January, this is the perfect time to arrest Mr Galloway: a symbolic, mock-arrest, on if not legal then on strong moral grounds. 

Why? When Mr Blair appeared at the Chilcot Inquiry, Mr Galloway hit out at the former Prime Minister’s ‘perverse association’ with George Bush. Yet Mr Galloway retains his own ‘perverse association’ – with the Islamic Republic of Iran, through its London-based broadcaster Press TV, and is something of an apologist for Iran's ruling clerics. 

In the Daily Record, in June, Mr Galloway showed little sympathy for peaceful protestors in Iran disputing the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even though they were met by a ferocious crackdown.

He wrote: “There are grounds for being surprised at the result of the Iranian election. Even grounds for being disappointed. But there are absolutely no grounds for the cats’ chorus of criticism and allegations now emanating from some quarters after the cookie crumbled the wrong way.” 

Neda Agha-Soltan was part of that cat’s chorus. So are the countless others who have suffered violence at the behest of Ayatollah Khamenei. Iranian state violence includes men armed with Colts shooting at random, illegal detentions, beatings, rapes, killings, show trials, summary executions and the vilest form of deterrent sentencing – the death penalty – being handed out to the very people Iran depends on to pull out of its 31-year-Islamist hell: its young.

On Tuesday, Mr Galloway, who without compunction maintained his links with Press TV while again and again the Islamic Republic pounded the streets with its iron fist last year, will not be mentioning the harsh sentences meted out to demonstrators in Iran.

It’s worth asking whether by the same moral yardstick he applies to Messrs Bush and Blair, he is not complicit in the Islamic Republic’s crimes. And surely he should lay bare his connections: Has he ever come across footage of crimes in the Press TV’s offices that have been spliced out? Has he witnessed, passing by edit suites at Press TV, footage that the state itself has of the crimes committed against Iran’s ‘green’ protestors that he has decided to turn a blind eye to? Is it possible to work for such a broadcaster, adhere to its censorship, and to use Mr Galloway’s own terms, not have blood on your hands?

The tragedy is that Stop The War Coalition remains behind Mr Galloway and happily in bed with the Muslim Council Of Britain, an organisation which has no criticism to make of the Islamic Republic Of Iran. 

The killing of Muslims by mullahs is presumably acceptable in its eyes; perhaps it is only when Jews and Christians do it that it’s wrong. 

STWC has organized no demonstrations in support of Iran’s protesters despite issuing a wishy-washy statement supporting them in June. It said: “In expressing our solidarity with all the Iranian people striving for a democratic outcome to the crisis in their country, the Coalition will support demonstrations and initiatives which reflect these principles.”

This inaction – in contrast with the organization’s campaigning for the right to wear hejab in France – is explained thus: “It would be wrong for us to take any position on the disputed outcome of the Iranian presidential election.”

Disappointingly, Stop The War Coalition still bars Hands Off The People Of Iran – an organisation which opposes both Iran’s Islamists and US imperialism – from joining, preferring to stay on friendly terms with the Islamic Republic.

It is surely time for Tony Benn, STWC’s president, to speak out about the political Islam that infests the sensibilities of not only STWC but also the liberal press. What is political Islam?

Witness how the political editor of one left-leaning UK current magazine responded to my pitch for an article calling for the arrest of George Galloway: “How on earth do you equate working with the Iranian government, however bad it might be, with sending British troops to fight, kill, torture and die in an illegal, foreign war? On what grounds would you perform your “citizen’s arrest”? Are you out of your mind?”

My appeal to the editor to explain what he meant by ‘however bad it may be’, surely a get-out clause that exonerates Messrs Khamenei and Ahmadinejad from smashing dissent while the threat of war looms and in fact giving them carte blanche to do so, was met, aptly, with a deathly silence.

A leading left-leaning newspaper’s web editor was similarly unconvinced: “As I understand it, the accusation against Blair is because he took Britain into the Iraq war," he said. "That's rather different from working for PressTV, even though it's a mouthpiece of the Iranian regime.”

So George Galloway is sticking up for the rights of demonstrators as at Gaza march in the UK while turning his back if not two fingers up at demonstrators in Iran. In order to highlight Galloway’s links with a regime that beats, tortures and kills people it incarcerates illegally, in order to highlight Stop The War Coalition’s increasing kowtowing to Islamist sensibilities (criticism of Iran’s mullahs – no; sticking up for the hejab in France – yes) there are strong moral grounds for performing a citizen’s arrest.

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openDemocracy has covered developments in Iran over the last year extensively: recent articles are listed on its Iran page.

Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  Peter Facey Summary:  Peter Facey responds to Gareth Young and David Rickard

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Gareth Young > David Rickard > this post ]

I am surprised that my email to our supporters to vote for an elected second chamber in the Power2010 poll has caused such a stir. I can see the headline now - ‘Shock: Unlock Democracy supports an elected second chamber’. Seriously, the fact that one of our priorities is an elected second chamber should be no surprise given that the first thing Unlock Democracy's predecessors Charter88 and the New Politics Network did together in 2004 in the wake of the failed free votes in the House of Commons was to launch ‘Elect the Lords’ to campaign.

We have consistently prioritized Lords reform over the last six years and were influential in delivering the successful vote in the Commons in 2007 for a wholly elected second chamber.

Nor should the fact that we email our supporters to vote in the Power2010 poll be a surprise. We emailed our supporters at the beginning of the vote saying what issues the organisation supported and what our priorities were.

In particular, we urged our supporters to vote for the following:

• Introduce a proportional voting system
• A written constitution
• A fully elected second chamber
• Cap political donations
• Stronger local government

In this we are no different that numerous other organisations and I accept others will have different prioritises.

So why the email on Lords reform specifically? Simple, it was in 6th place, only a few hundred votes behind, and we had a chance to get it into the top five. It is important that it is there because though Lords reform will be in all the party manifestos we know from bitter experience that reform will only happen if pressure is kept up. If the parties are sent the message that this is not a priority even for reformers then it will damage the case for reform. 

For me the fact that our Parliament has people in it who are there due to patronage of the great and the good or because they were born into the hereditary elite is a disgrace and must be a priority for reform.

This was not an anti English Votes for English Laws email, simply a positive one for an issue we think needs to be in the top five.

Where I agree with Gareth is that our constitution needs to be discussed in the round, which is why we have led the campaign for a Constitutional Convention. But that idea, like an English Parliament, didn’t make it into Power’s public vote. As for Gareth’s concern that without EVoEL the top ten looks like a Charter88 manifesto – well, as its last Director and its successor's first, that is not a concern I share.

oD-wide classification Country:  UK Topics:  Democracy and government Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  Anthony Barnett Summary:  Strange times bring forth strange fruit, what will the wine-making be like.

Listened to Mark Thomas on BBC Radio 3 engaging with an audience on what they want in his People's Manifesto. The book has some hilarious suggestions you can get if from Amazon Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto . I distrust entertainers leading our politics, they reinforce the sense that it is all a game. But this is more democratic than most, gives form to popular anger and validates it and displays an English wit and inventiveness. Thomas has a genuine sense of anger, what in his case can justly be called 'edge'. Also he works hard and engages with the public. The proposals run from renationalising the railways (under private ownership the public subsidies are much higher), to 'none of the above' on ballot papers, to bombing tax havens. The most radical refers to a two-year old idea from the Ministry of Truth of making it an offence for any elected official to make or publish a statement they know to be false, misleading or deceptive. They made a TV film, you should have seen Jack Straw's face when the proposed legislation was put to him on camera! You can get the DVD and also vote to support (or oppose) the Abolition of Deception Bill, over 80,000 have dione so, here.

It matters more now because of the change in mood that is generating many initiatives. One of the earliest attempts to turn from, lets call it "profound unease with the whole system", to a coherent response was Douglas Carswell's The Plan. The right has been just as busy as the left. I see that Eamon Butler of the Adam Smith Institute has produced The Alternative Manifesto, described by a friendly reviewer on Amazon has so outside the box that he has thrown the box away.

And today, The Jury Team bounced back as a copy of their General Election Policy Document 'Working Together for The People Politicians Forgot' dropped through the letter box. It is the creation of Paul Judge, and it has turned from being a policyless venture apart from having independent candidates chosen by an open primary to a full scale list of policies based on market research. As Judge puts it in his introduction, "The distinguishing feature of an entrepreneur is that he or she does not just have a good idea but also expends effort and resources in actually implementing it". Sounds just like an agitator to me (that's a compliment).

At least he doesn't talk about being an "alternative" a dreadful conceit taken upo by many a hippy after the sixties.

Guy Aitchison and I have started to collect all the new initiatives in a spread sheet and we will publish the initial results soon. And suggestions welcome.

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oD-wide classification Country:  UK Topics:  Democracy and government Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  Andy White

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Stuart Weir > Andy White > Stuart Weir > this post]

In his last article, Stuart Weir fired another volley of abuse at the Electoral Reform Society over its support for a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV). It is a reflex response from someone who is unwilling to look contextually at the present debate.

Accusing us of dishonour and a lack of principle is both inaccurate and spiteful. The Society remains committed to working for the Single Transferable Vote (STV)—the system that would do most to change the nature of politics. Back in 1998, when Weir and others were enthusing over the compromise options put forward by the Jenkins Committee, the Society made it clear that it could only support Jenkins’ recommendations on the basis that they were a step towards something better.

Neither has the Vote for a Change campaign (which includes the Society, Unlock Democracy and others) colluded with Brown. Indeed, it has targeted Labour MPs in key marginal constituencies with a variety of stunts designed to keep voting reform on the agenda. Earlier this month, the Society put its name to a letter deeply critical of Brown’s efforts on constitutional reform.

The AV referendum instead represents a convergence of objectives. On one side, some see a prime minister seeking electoral gain—a point which I addressed in my previous article. On the other, reform campaigners have found an opportunity to further their own cause. Weir is right to question the control the governing party wields in framing the terms of the debate. But the fact that we have managed to involve ourselves in this process is hardly indicative of a conspiracy.

Weir praises the “new” politics of Power2010. It is an admirable project, and both the Society and Vote for a Change are working to promote it. Nonetheless, we don’t yet know if it will deliver any results. I am delighted that proportional representation sits at the top of their online poll, but how will that translate into political action? In the wake of the financial and expenses crises, and with the looming possibility of a hung parliament, the opportunity for widespread constitutional reform is sometimes overstated. It is true that the public is hungry for change, but the power to drive it still rests in the hands of the parties.

We have a situation where a prime minister with a track record of dithering cautiousness is set to be replaced by a Tory leader with no appetite for meaningful reform. The Labour and Conservative parliamentary parties still cling to single-party government and the constituency link. The best we can get is a promise of a referendum on AV. Remember 1931: then, the Commons voted for AV, but the Lords wanted STV. The Lords were right in their choice of system, but their refusal to compromise gave us 79 years of First Past the Post.

I dispute the accusation that we have praised the Alternative Vote at the expense of more proportional systems. We have made it clear that AV falls a long way behind the Single Transferable Vote in delivering representative government, voter choice, and accountability. As I argued in my previous article, though, it is an improvement upon First Past the Post.

A final point concerns the prospects for further reform after a successful AV referendum. A reader asked whether AV would gain popular legitimacy over other systems and become just as entrenched as the present model. The answer is simple: AV could only be legitimated in relation to First Past the Post. The campaign for improvements to the voting system would continue—either towards the Single Transferable Vote, where AV is combined with multi-member constituencies; or the Alternative Vote Plus, where a proportional top-up list is added.

Some view the theory behind our tactics as pure fantasy. But which group is really guilty of misplaced optimism: is it those who seek incremental change? Or is it those who are prepared to wait until their exact demands are met in a single seismic shift? A quick look at the history of suffrage in the United Kingdom suggests that ambitious reformers can succeed by making small and frequent gains.

oD-wide classification Country:  UK Topics:  Democracy and government Section style:  OurKingdom Sections to display in:  OurKingdom

Author:  David Bowden Summary:  In its final months, the British government secures its legacy of petty authoritarianism by announcing plans to extend the smoking ban

By their bans ye shall know them. It is interesting seeing New Labour struggling, in what are almost certain to be its last few months in power, to try to leave behind a legacy. With their thirteen years likely to be remembered for the War on Terror and the financial crisis, and leaving behind a political sphere demoralised by the expenses scandal, today’s political class are desperate to find their one defining impact on British politics. Somewhat inevitably the answer they’ve found lies in what has probably been their most cynical contribution to policy: the hyper-regulation of daily life.

Blanket bans and behaviour modification are not unique to the last decade or so, but the extent to which they have given the current governing party a sense of political purpose has been striking. From the introduction of ASBOs and CRB-checks to the use of equality legislation to end the racist membership policies of the BNP, there has been no social problem too big or too small to be solved by a deft piece of legislation.

This attitude can be seen most clearly in the public health campaign to stop people smoking. From the extraordinarily draconian scope of the smoking ban of 2007 to the shock-tactics of the adverts (which currently feature the creepy spectacle of children singing governmental policy at you), the mantra of making the UK ‘Smokefree’ has been a considerable source of pride for self-styled progressives. So it was not surprising to hear Health Secretary Andy Burnham’s plan to halve the number of smokers by 2020 by extending the ban further, with measures of ‘denormalisation’ such as stopping smokers huddling outside building entrances.

What was surprising was how little supporters of the plan hid behind the public health defence, and how quickly it slid into ‘Think of the children’ rhetoric. This was not about the shaky science around passive smoking: it was instead explicitly about ensuring today’s children did not grow up into adult smokers. Everything from the colourful packaging to parents having a crafty fag on the school run is to be clamped down on. Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, even wanted smoking to be banned entirely from British made TV programmes. “Only recently, Deidre Barlow is Coronation Street was seen smoking and lecturing another character,” he said, warning that this could make smoking “seem glamorous to young, impressionable people.”

If Deidre Barlow poses a risk to anyone, it is probably the clearly infatuated Professor Field’s better half. But generally the arguments around passive smoking have been eased in favour of protecting the children and ourselves from its potential harms. Last year New York’s health commissioner Thomas Farley admitted that plans to ban smoking in public parks had negligible health benefits to non-smokers but had a great role in helping to denormalise smoking in the eyes of the kids.

On their own, these measures reveal a rather dim view of adult responsibility. Smoking is of course an activity allowed only to adults – the legal age has been raised to 18 -  and, however much you may disapprove of it, is something which they now undertake knowing the risks. For all of the evil weed’s addictive power, it is also something which adults are regularly able to give up – with difficulty and sometimes requiring help, yes, but let’s not forget that people did so long before they were denormalised into it.

The implication of many of these arguments is that adult smokers themselves are little more than children who need protecting from their own bad habits: as if shiny packaging on fag packets or a sense of being ‘cool’ (or even just normal) by itself blinds you to the obvious health problems or even the potential nuisance to others. Worse, it encourages smokers and non-smokers alike to adopt a passive attitude to problems we face. If you find the groups of al fresco smokers distasteful, ask them not to blow smoke in your face. I don’t abandon all sense of social decorum just because I’m having a cigarette. But I do find my temper frayed when strangers tell me what lawful activities I should or shouldn’t be doing, particularly when they hide their personal objections behind other excuses. 

Sure enough, detecting a backlash to these new measures, Cancer Research UK were quick to put out a document last week warning of the dangers of third-hand smoke to children. Because it isn’t moralising if you have ‘the science’ behind you, apparently: it’s evidence-based policy. But, however strong the evidence – and ‘third-hand smoking’ is fairly shaky – how we respond to it is a moral and political argument which needs to be won on its own terms. Anyone can see that a public sphere where the first reaction is ban or regulate, rather than be encouraged to sort out social problems as reasonable adults, is not conducive to a free and open democracy.

As so often in contemporary politics the message to the electorate is the same: meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Farewell to New Labour’s petty authoritarianism – and hello to Tory nudging. The challenge for those seeking to reinvigorate a demoralised electorate is not in electoral reform or new methods of attracting young idealistic voters, but to argue for a political arena where we think, not of the children, but of the adults. 

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Author:  Elliot Bulmer Summary:  A proposal for a Model Constitution for the UK.

This post propoposes a Model Constitution  for the United Kingdom.  In the mid-nineties, when I first started to think seriously about constitutional questions, it was a subject for geeks and anoraks.  In Scotland the Constitutional Convention had adopted the Claim of Right, proclaimed the sovereignty of the people, and was on its way to working out the devolution settlement.  South of the border, however, despite the efforts of groups such as Charter 88 and the Electoral Reform Society, the issue of constitutional change had little traction.  How things have changed.  Now even the Prime Minister claims to be in favour of some sort of written Constitution - a circumstance which, if it can be believed, I never expected to see in my lifetime.  

Yet, as Anthony Barnett notes, Gordon Brown's ideas turn out to be rather worn and tame.  Brown hopes to put together a written constitution by 2015, based on the codification of "existing, piecemeal conventions".  In other words, this written Constitution is intended to prevent change, to shore up the old order, rather than to produce a new and more democratic constitutional settlement.  These existing, piecemeal conventions, admirably satirised by Stuart Wilks-Heeg and Stuart Weir in their "Unspoken Constitution", do not satisfy public demand for a new constitution.Yet the problem is that few of us have much experience of constitutional design.  Despite all the debate surrounding constitutional reform at the UK-level, there have  been few detailed "worked examples" of a draft Constitution.   The last published draft UK Constitution was produced in 1991 by the Institute for Public Policy Research – it was a bold and comprehensive document, but is much in need of updating to reflect the new realities of our post-devolution State.  Since then there has been nothing of note.  For many, then, a new Constitution can be concieved only in abstract terms, as principles and ideals, not as specific constitutional forms. 

This Model Constitution (pdf) was intended to make the abstract concrete, and to give form and substance to our principles and ideals.  By proposing a specific Constitution in chapter and verse, rather than a wishlist of inventive but vague ideals, we aim to undo the most potent (and yet the most ridiculous weapon) in the hands of conservative apologists, namely that “constitutions are too impractical” and “too complex”, and that “it cannot be done” because “people won’t agree about what to put in”. 

The Model Constitution represents a serious attempt to apply the established principles of liberal constitutionalism and the best practices of European parliamentary democracy to the United Kingdom’s rather unique circumstances.  It does not attempt to be definitive – hopefully it will spark debate, and from that debate further improvement will result.  However, it does attempt to be specific: it sets out to offer to the public a complete and workable Constitution, which, if desired, could be adopted exactly as it stands. 

This project was inspired by a similar project with which I am involved in my capacity as Research Director of the Constitutional Commission, an Edinburgh-based non-partisan constitutional think-tank.  Here in Scotland, even the continued existence of the British State is a matter of controversy, with a substantial minority eagerly pursuing independence.  The Constitutional Commission does not take sides between nationalists and unionists, but does attempt to ensure that Scotland's constitutional future, whether inside or outside the Union, is a democratic one.  

We seek to build on the progress made by the devolved Scottish Parliament towards a more consensual, rational, deliberative and accountable form of democracy, which better serves the common good.  In this respect, Scotland is already far ahead of England: proportional representation, fixed term Parliaments, and the election of the executive by Parliament, are not radical ideas in Scotland: they are our present reality. One of the founding aims of the Constitutional Commission is to draft a Model Constitution for Scotland in the event of independence: the text of which can be found on our website. 

The process of drafting a Model Constitution, we have found, helps to clarify the various constitutional options and to focus attention on the specific details of constitutional design.  It requires one to go beyond vague ideals or mere statements of intent, and to move the debate along by producing some workable and concrete proposals.  In the interests of balance, we decided that it would be useful to apply the same process to the design of a Constitution for the United Kingdom - a Constitution which, amongst other advantages, offers Scotland secure autonomy with a federalised UK. 

The Model Constitution is radical, in as much as it attacks problems at their root and is not afraid to cut away at the historical deadwood to get there; but it is not revolutionary nor utopian.  It builds on all that is good in the British liberal-democratic tradition whilst fearlessly replacing all that is rotten or decayed. Nothing in the proposed Constitution is untried or untested.  The mechanism for constructive votes of no-confidence is borrowed from Spain, Germany and Hungary.  The narrowly specified constitutional role of the head of State, shorn not only of the practical reality but also of the theoretical shadow of governing power, is modelled on Spain and Sweden. 

The Mixed Member Proportional electoral system for the House of Commons and the balance of power between the two Houses are based on German precedents, whilst the indirect election of the Senate by Regional Assemblies draws on the example of Austria. The system of autonomous regional governments is inspired by that of Spain.  Indeed, the 1978 Constitution of Spain, although it has not been slavishly followed in every detail, has been the authors’ constant inspiration: like this proposed Constitution for the United Kingdom, the Spanish Constitution is “quasi-republican” and “quasi-federal”, achieving the practical benefits of transforming the country into a liberal-democratic and parliamentary federal republic, without enraging long-lingering conservative and monarchist sentiments. 

This wide borrowing of constitutional mechanisms from other countries does not mean that the resulting Constitution is a hotchpotch of incompatibilities.  Rather, these tried and tested elements have been carefully blended into a unified and workable whole, which is firmly grounded in the mainstream of contemporary European liberal-democracy.

A new Constitution is not a panacea for Britain's social, cultural and economic ills, but it has become abundantly clear to many that a new constitutional settlement is a prerequisite of meaningful improvement.  Britain’s failure to have a good house-clearing revolution in 1789, 1848 or 1918 – and arguably our failure to get liberated by America in 1945 – has left us with cobwebbed gothic institutions, strained to breaking point by a consumer-populist style of politics, instead of a modern European culture of equality, democracy and human rights. 

A new Constitution can, at least in part, redress this historical failing.  If this modest proposal can convince the reader of the practicality of reform, and can show how our governing institutions could be improved, based on the best of the British and the European liberal traditions, then the authors shall be content. 

You can read the full text of the Scottish Constitutional Commission's Model Constitution here (pdf).

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Author:  Stephen Taylor Summary:  OK in depth: Stephen Taylor describes the 'Transformational Government' agenda and the National Identity Register, which would survive the cancelling of ID cards, and should be of concern to us all

I used to have an annoying habit when people at parties asked my star sign: I’d say ‘Orion’. (Can you name all twelve signs?)

My prank had a point. Instead of saying “Ah, Gemini!” – yes, know all about them – you would say, “Orion? Don’t know that one.” And perhaps get to know me from observation.

Is astrology rubbish? I stopped you making false assumptions about me. Is it true? I kept important information to myself. (And my sun sign isn’t Gemini, so there.)

Small children share information without regard for consequences. They are not reckless, they are innocent; that is, ignorant. When young, we have no idea what consequences might follow. Growing up, we learn whom to trust. Who should know where I live? My bank PIN? Whom I fancy? An adult who shared this information with no thought for consequences would not be innocent, he would be wildly reckless. (And very likely sectioned.)

I didn’t do badly deflecting amateur astrologers. I’m not doing so well with Whitehall. And nor are you.

The Civil Service has a programme well out of the public gaze, known as “Transformational Government”. “Transformation” (to its initiates) aims to make administration more efficient by joining up official databases. Transformation of government, of society and of government’s role in it. The keystone of this project is the National Identity Register. The Register is to link Whitehall’s systems.

If this were my bank, I’d be cheering. I’d expect better service. And my bank is pretty good, as a bank has to be, at protecting its records.

But Whitehall is not a bank. Whitehall repeatedly demonstrates it cannot secure what it records about us. So the Commons select committee on Home Affairs recommended “a principle of data minimisation”, with records destroyed as soon as possible.

Fat chance. Transformation ignores all this. Our National Identity Scheme is unlike any other country’s. The Register starts with 50 categories of information. Just one is “the number of any designated document issued to you”. A ‘designated document’ can be any document issued by any government body. We’ll return to this.

Being on the Register gives you limited rights to read what it says about you, but obliges you to keep it up to date in every category. Repeated thousand-pound fines are specified for those who fail. The Home Office can add categories at any time. There is no procedure for getting off the Register.

The much better-known National ID Card aims to replace the passport as the “gold standard” of identification. Convenient and efficient! A single plastic card, eventually to replace your library card, bank card, Nectar card, office security pass, visitors pass in any public building, hotel room key, credit card, Oyster card… all those weaker forms of identification driven out by the “single source of truth” of the ID Card.

But imagine the consequences of a problem with it. The single key to everything in your life, controlled by civil servants. Imagine losing it. Or finding its use restricted.

The Register logs whenever your card is checked, and by whom. As the ID Card becomes the master key to your life, so the Register becomes your “life-log”, recording where you go and what you do; a surveillance record in detail never seen before. Not on suspects during a police investigation under judicial warrant, but on you, as routine, every day of your life.

Worse, it will be easy to link to the other logs you’re appearing in now, to which Whitehall is securing reader’s rights. When your car passes a camera. When you use your Oyster card. Or visit a web site. Or call or get called on your phone. Or send or receive email. Facial-recognition software may even find your appearances on street CCTV.

Servants have always spied on their masters; never before with such audacity.

Or at such eye-watering expense. Transformation probably doesn’t have a budget of its own. Though the picture is obscured by secrecy and creative accounting, including the pretence that the cost is a necessary part of “upgrading passports” or immigration controls, the creation of the ID scheme alone is to exceed £5 billion. (Or £15 billion, according to a more sceptical LSE study.) And that is without the cost of actually using it for anything.

We are funding our dossiers in high style.

At the Convention on Modern Liberty last year Sir David Varney, a chief architect of Transformation, gave a spirited defence of the project’s ambition to improve official “service delivery”. When pressed as to why so much information is held, he confessed himself at a loss. He claimed four facts would suffice for efficiency; the rest he thought was wanted for “security”.

Ministers have declared various problems for which Transformation is vital. They have had to retreat from each one. Fighting terrorism fell when former MI5 head Stella Rimington said ID Cards wouldn’t help. Illegal immigration, benefit and identity fraud: all fell on examination.

The suggestion that the Register will reduce identity fraud is especially vicious. Industry experts have shown the information on the cards is easy to read and edit. They have warned the Register is a honeypot for fraud, sacrificing our security to official convenience.

Why is it happening? The mundane truth is probably only that the technology is available, that IT companies drink at the trough, and Civil Service knighthoods are made from such projects.

Transformation is already law. A few pieces went missing in Parliament, having revealed more than MPs could stomach. A Rowntree Trust’s report last year surveyed core official databases and concluded most already operate illegally. Section 152 of last year’s Coroners and Justice Bill would have fixed that with exemption from the Data Protection Act, allowing Whitehall to pass or sell information to anyone, anywhere. It failed. But you can see how Transformation values official convenience over our privacy.

But the opposition promises to cancel ID Cards!

The devil is always in the details. An interview in Computer Weekly last April with the heads of the Identity and Passport Service made it clear ‘cancelling ID Cards’ would have little effect. Most of the infrastructure has been combined with that for passports. “It will be retained whether ID cards are cancelled or not. So if the Tories cancel ID cards, the scheme can be re-instated without too much trouble. … it is going to be increasingly difficult to separate the costs of producing passports and ID cards.” Passport prices have risen from £28 in 1999 to £72-£114 today. £200 next?

The National Identity Scheme is funded in hidden ways and designed to survive a government elected to kill it. If this is not a conspiracy, what is?

You’re still relaxed. Registering would be reckless, but ministers swear it will be voluntary.

Get real. Building the Register without getting everyone on it would be insane. It has to be comprehensive to be useful. By law Whitehall will ‘designate’ documents you won’t get without registration. Top of the list is your next passport. Ready to stop travelling?

If Whitehall also gets councils to require registration for access to services, then being on the Register will be exactly as voluntary as having somewhere to live. Councils such as Islington have declared they will not require registration unless compelled by Parliament. Camden has yet to take this stand.

The visible ID Cards are likely to be noisily ‘cancelled’ after the next election, a lightning rod for discontent. Without persistent public pressure, Transformation will survive in the passport systems, like the ground elder in my lawn. It is not enough to trim what is visible; it has to be rooted out and burned.

Even with its scope generally unknown, Transformation has been delayed by public unease. But not stopped. As matters stand, in the next decade you will, despite your reservations, put yourself on the Register. Apologists repeat the Gestapo line: The innocent have nothing to fear. But we are adults. Letting Whitehall keep a fat, insecure dossier on us is not innocent, it is wildly reckless.

This article was originally published in the Hampstead & Highgate Express

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Author:  Thomas Ash

Towards the end of January, I quoted from a Guardian report on police plans to use aerial drones - more famous as flying assassins for the US military - to monitor the British population. As I commented at the time, "sometimes it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the powers that be are just trying to see how many elements of the repressive dystopias of recent science fiction they can imitate without anyone complaining". A story in today's Guardian suggests the complaints are likely to come sooner rather than later:

For Merseyside police, the "eye in the sky" arrest was a landmark moment in policing history. The force had managed to track down and apprehend a teenager who had fled from a presumed stolen Renault Clio, senior officers revealed, by using a remote-controlled flying robot equipped with thermal imaging cameras.

But the attempt to claim credit for the UK's first arrest using a surveillance drone backfired tonight after it emerged the force itself could face prosecution because officers flew the surveillance aircraft without permission – a criminal offence.

The paper tipped off the Civil Aviation Authority, which is apparently looking into the matter, as it announced at the start of this year that it would control the licensing of all unmanned aerial vehicles (persumably not including the remote-controlled miniature helicopters that have proved so popular over the last few Christmases). The drone in question does not looking too intimidating if Merseyside Police's photo is anything to go by:

The UAVs used in war zones, from the Reaper in Afghanistan to Israel's Hermes and Heron, are far more threatening. Israel's use of drones goes back to the 1982 conflict with Syria; it has become a leader in the technology, selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the vehicles to countries such as Turkey ($185m) and Brazil ($350m). They were used in Kosovo in the nineties and Lebanon and Gaza in the noughties. Drones accounted for the deaths of over eighty civilians in Operation Cast Lead. A controversial Human Rights Watch report, 'Precisely Wrong: Gaza Civilians Killed by Israeli Drone-Launched Missiles' painted a damning picture of these actions.

The little police drone pictured above is nothing like such weaponry. But perhaps its ancestry should give us pause.

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Author:  Thomas Ash

OurKingdom readers may recall the 'climategate' scandal that erupted last November after a hacker broke into servers at the University of East Anglia and leaked e-mails and data from its influential Climate Research Unit. We commisioned articles on the story from Brian Davey and Rupert Read - both defended climate science from its newly confident critics, but acknowledged that serious wrongdoing on the part of CRU scientists had been exposed too. The worst example of this, in my opinion, was their deletion of messages and data to thwart requests made under the Freedom of Information Act by retired engineer and climate change sceptic David Holland.

The Information Commissioner's Office recently announced that though this was a breach of the law, the statutory timeframe for a prosecution has now passed. This is only the most recent example of an important weakness of the Freedom of Information Act: in relegating such prosecutions to magistrate's courts alongside those for parking fines it required that they be prosecuted within six months or not at all. That may make sense when it comes to prosecuting parking fines, but, as the Campaign for Freedom of Information reported in July 2009, it is not sufficient time to deal with complaints made to the ICO, as this takes on average eight months to begin an investigation. What is more, it allows authorities to evade FOI requests through a variety of delaying tactics, such as prolonging their internal reviews in response to requests, which must be completed before complaints can even be lodged with the ICO. It doesn't take a lawyer to spot the loopholes in our freedom of information regime.

This pessimistic picture may appear to be belied by Ministry of Justice's rosy statistics on the speed with which FOI requests are dealt. However, as the Campaign for Freedom of Information pointed out in response to a request for comment from the UK Statistics Authority, these statistics are achieved by sleight of hand. They lump all lengthy public interest extensions and internal reviews into the broad categories of 'over 40 days' and 'over 60 days' respectively, comprising around twenty per cent of all cases. As I have described, many such cases involve far longer delays which allow FOI requests to be evaded. An internal review by the National Offender Management Service, for example, took over two years.

Worst of all, the most recently published statistics cover requests made during 2008 whose outcome was known by February 2009, excluded some of the most heavily delayed cases, the outcomes of which were not even known by then. Potentially these include requests made in January 2008 and still not answered by February 2009. As Maurice Frankel of the Campaign for Freedom of Information tellingly observes, "a bizarre consequence is that an apparent improvement in the statistics could be achieved by increasing the number of cases that are so badly delayed that they are not included in the statistics at all."

The lesson here is that though our freedom of information regime is a real improvement on what came before, and has often been put to good use, it is not complete, and some authorities are finding ways around it even as it becomes better established. Complete and pure freedom of information may indeed be an impossible goal, and the frustration evident in some of the hacked CRU e-mails at what was perceived as harassment-by-FOI-request is to some extent understandable (although this is of course no excuse for the crime of destroying the relevant data). However, no one could convincingly claim that we currently have too much disclosure, and the work of the Campaign for Freedom of Information and others in defending and expanding our FOI rights is invaluable.

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Author:  David Rickard

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Gareth Young > this post > Peter Facey ]

Readers may be sadly familiar with the TV ad for Country Life butter, in which former punk rocker John Lydon – aka Johnny Rotten – struts around a rolling, green, English hill farm extolling the benefits of the product, concluding with the words: “it’s not about Great Britain, it’s about great butter!”

The advert uses the classic advertising technique of appearing to deny or ironise what is in fact the key selling point: Country Life’s ‘Britishness’. Maybe the advertising agency felt they needed to make a joke of it because the recent re-branding of Country Life from an ‘English butter’ to its present incarnation as a ‘British butter’, complete with Union Jack symbol on the packet replacing the former Cross of St. George, didn’t in fact go down well with customers. The ad is an appeal to those former loyal customers to return to the brand, whose Britishness is both sent up and celebrated by the symbol of 70’s working-class English ‘anarchy’ aping the aristocratic demeanour of a British imperialist: ‘we don’t have to make a fuss about the superiority of products “made in England”, do we now; we’re British, after all’.

Well, I don’t buy it. Indeed I do all I can to avoid buying English produce on whose packaging the supermarkets seem to go to such trouble to stick great big Union Flag signs and stickers: apples from Kent (‘British’); pork from East Anglia (‘British’); cheese from the West Country (‘British’) while somehow, the Welsh cheddar or the Scottish salmon seem to escape the British branding, and are clearly identified – flags and all – as Welsh and Scottish.

All of this might seem petty – it’s not about Great Britain, it’s about great food, isn’t it? – but I keep up my embargo because I object to the re-branding of England itself as Britain, sanctioned by and aped from the British establishment, of which food labelling is an apparently trivial but nonetheless ubiquitous manifestation. Our peculiar Euro-American establishment would have us English plebs need to rise above petty preoccupations with ‘national’ interest and symbolism. But below this is a fear that Englishness will become a generous, multi-racial expression of genuine national identity that pulls the rug under their global pretensions, from Afghanistan and Trident (no two-party politics on either of these) to the UN and the City.

But there are three issues we should wake up to, all of which have a big impact on our democracy and which we can do a little thing about thanks to the excellent Power 2010 initiative. They are issues of policy, of principle and voice.

Policy: Top-up university tuition fees (for English students only); foundation hospitals (England only); the maintenance of the Barnett differentials (to England’s detriment); Heathrow’s third runway; 42 days detention without trial; these are all measures that went through parliament despite the fact that a majority of English MPs voted against them.

Principle: But over and above these particular issues, there is a very important universal democratic issue at stake: no representative should pass laws affecting areas other than those that (s)he was elected to represent. What’s wrong about Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs voting on English legislation is that the people those laws affect can’t vote them out of office. That’s just plain undemocratic.

Voice: We all know that there is a void opening up in our so-called democracy between the public who do not feel represented and our political class. The heart of this problem is in England, and it is exacerbated by the Welsh and the Scottish gaining their own governments. There has to be some kind of way for the English to be represented.

That’s why I’m very concerned that the proposal for English Votes on English Laws (EVoEL) has now dropped out of the top-five ideas in the Power 2010 poll, meaning that it may not be one of the reform suggestions that candidates at the election will be asked to support. It was overtaken yesterday by the proposal for an elected second chamber, after an organised campaign from Unlock Democracy which seems, ironically, to have been motivated by a fear of democracy.

I have no problem with the idea of an elected second chamber. I voted for PR, rolling back the database state and fixed-term parliaments. I also think that EVoEL is a messy compromise ‘solution’ to the English Question: stopping short of democratic parity for England and beset with problems about how to implement it. But, to mix metaphors, it puts the elephant in the room on the agenda. If we want democracy in the United Kingdom we have to take the debate about the national question to the people.

All the other suggestions in the Power 2010 poll concern how to improve British democracy. But without at the same time addressing the English Question, the ideas of introducing PR, an elected second chamber or even a written (British) constitution are like putting the cart before the horse. What use is there in improving the electoral system and the functioning of British-parliamentary democracy if representatives not elected – under any voting system or for either house of parliament – by the English can still decide laws for the English which do not apply to them as they are not English?

Indeed, an elected second chamber would potentially make the disenfranchisement of English voters even worse, as Gareth Young states in his post on Our Kingdom earlier today. What chance is there of English votes prevailing in exclusively English matters if both the Commons and the second house have British majorities and mandates, and refuse to recognise any distinctly ‘English’ aspect to British governance?

This is why it is so important to vote for EVoEL in the Power 2010 poll, if you haven’t done so already. You can’t fix Britain’s broken politics if the system remains fixed against England. The democratic rights of the majority cannot be overridden indefinitely; and the longer they are, the greater will be the erosion in people’s faith in British democratic institutions and the further the cancer of unaccountable power will spread throughout the British body politic, possibly leading to its demise.

So we’re talking about something far more serious than bread and butter here. We must act now and not let Britain as a whole become a latter-day Rotten borough, with its democratic system – however improved – manipulated to engineer a permanent Union veto on democratic English governance.

And this ‘English matter’ should matter to you whether you are, or consider yourself to be, English or not – because, ultimately, it’s not just about England but about the future of British democracy too. That’s why however unsatisfactory it sounds, it is essential to put the issue on the wider public agenda as Power 2010 offers: vote for EVoEL.

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