Toque

Via The Talking Clock, my attention has been drawn to Jack Straw's uppity speech on constitutional reform, reported by the BBC here.

Jack Straw told the Hansard Society on Tuesday that the Conservative's plans to cut the number of MPs was a "dangerous, destructive and anti-democratic" piece of gerrymandering. The full speech is up on the Hansard Society website, here's the relevant section:

The apparently virtuous call to cut the cost of politics is actually camouflage for a dangerous, destructive and anti-democratic piece of gerrymandering. Their proposal is not about cutting the cost of politics; it is about advantaging the Conservative party. Boundaries drawn on the basis of registered electors, rather than the population as a whole, already distort the electoral map because registration rates are lowest among specific groups congregated in specific locations.

According to the Electoral Commission's recent estimate, most of the three million-plus people who are eligible to vote but who are not registered are to be found in our inner urban areas. Cutting 65-80 seats by crudely equalising registered voters would disproportionately reduce representation in urban areas and would also disadvantage Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And it would hit every island community. Orkney and Shetland would be amalgamated with a large part of the highlands. The Isle of Wight would be amalgamated with a large part of Hampshire.

In stark contrast to Labour’s agenda for moving towards a new politics on the basis of popular consent, the Conservatives aim to butcher scores of constituencies for sordid political ends. I don’t think that’s the right way to go about significant constitutional change, and I don’t think it’s any
way to build public confidence in Parliament and the political process.

In summary.

• The Conservative's policy is "dangerous, destructive and anti-democratic" because it reverses the Labour Party's inbuilt advantage and makes a Labour government less likely.
• Equalising constituency sizes would disproportionately reduce representation in urban Labour-voting areas.
• Equalising constituency sizes would disproportionately reduce representation in Labour-voting Scotland and Wales (where MSPs and AMs handle much of the constituency work previously handled by MPs).

My obvious disdain for Jack Straw should not be taken as an indication of support for the Conservative policy. Straw does have a point about island constituencies. It would be daft in my opinion to break up the Isle of Wight, the UK's largest constituency, or to amalgamate Orkney and Shetland into mainland constituencies (if that is indeed what the Tories advocate). And I see no particular reason why there should be a strict equalisation of constituency size according to population. But it is deeply hypocritical of Jack Straw to accuse the Tories of planning to gerrymander electoral boundaries that are at present so biased in favour of his own party.

It was Commonwealth Day on Monday, a fact that passed me by completely. It's not the done thing these days to celebrate Empire.

However, the Huddersfield Examiner's Emma Davidson marked the occasion with some commentary from Huddersfield's own Dr Andrew Mycock:

Mr Mycock said: "Some countries do celebrate the day, particularly in schools, but there isn't really a common framework and people associate different meanings with the Commonwealth so different countries celebrate in different ways.

"For example, some African countries see it as a celebration of their independence from Britain. They see the Commonwealth as something founded on equality, while the Empire was founded on hierarchy.

"For some the focus is on cultural diversity and democracy and shared values.

"But while the Queen will give a formal Commonwealth Day message, the rest of our country will just carry on.

"When Empire Day was first introduced it was better celebrated, it was seen as a confirmation of the superiority of the British.

"But the Commonwealth was never really marked in the same way, because it was associated with the end of Empire and people were more reluctant to celebrate something that was seen to have failed.

"The legacy of the Empire is also so contentious. It has positive connotations like modern industry and democracy, but then the negative connotations like exploitation and slavery and the less edifying moments of the British Empire, so people tend to avoid it."

He said there was awareness of the Commonwealth in schools, but he felt people in Kirklees were more likely to find days like St George's Day and its celebration of Britishness more relevant.

Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 8th March, 2010

I'm sorry. Dr Mycock specialises in Britishness, so surely he of all people knows that St George's Day is not a celebration of Britishness. If anything its growing popularity is a reaction to Britishness.

Or perhaps not?

Sympathy for the Dragon?: Englishness and St George’s Day

A study conducted by Dr Andrew Mycock and Professor Jim McAuley in April highlighted that opinion concerning St George’s Day remains divided, though a majority of respondents to a survey of staff and students at the University indicated they would like to, or were going to, celebrate it in 2009. The research suggests that not only is there a growing recognition of St George’s Day and a preparedness to celebrate it, but that a more diverse and sophisticated conception of Englishness is emerging as debates about identity and citizenship develop in the UK.

The English language and literature, food and drink, landscape, music and history were cited to express a distinct sense of Englishness, though binge-drinking, racism and bad weather were also identified. However, many respondents felt it difficult or were unable to distinguish between English and British national identity, with many of the cultural and political values associated with Englishness overlapping. Conceptions of Britishness were articulated by the Government and others. This suggests that for many there was pride in being English and British, but with the lack of a separate British national day, St George’s Day is viewed as an opportunity to celebrate both identities.

Hmmm...Does it really suggest that, I wonder?

In the Telegraph Nigel Farndale calls on patriotic Englanders to rally in support of our ailing national church:

Is there a true Englishman alive who has not taken that word “kingdom” to mean, in a poetic sense at least, England? As well as worshipping Jesus, the Church of England also worships England. That is why its churches are so often adorned with regimental colours and roll calls of the Glorious Dead.

And here’s the rub. I feel an almost patriotic duty to defend the Church of England against its enemies. I hate to see it on its knees, not in prayer but in cowering submission to political correctness. I feel a deep emotional attachment to it. Affection is not too strong a word. Yet I am an atheist.

I wouldn't go as far to call myself an atheist, but I am agnostic; yet still, there's nothing that lifts my heart as much as the sight of an English parish church with a Cross of St George fluttering above it. Unfortunately the flying of England's national flag is about as close as the Church of England gets to being a national church. Rather than argue for a national parliament for England (as the Church of Scotland's leaders argued for a Scottish national parliament) bishops of the Church of England argued for England's balkanisation, many of them playing leading roles in England's dismemberment with the regional constitutional conventions and the Campaign for the English Regions.

Others, like Lord Carey, whose thoughts prompted Nigel Farndale's article, seem more interested in bolstering British identity than English identity:

Does it matter if we consign Britain to the detritus of history, concluding that it has served its useful purpose?

Indeed, some would argue, we should ditch it because it no longer has any relevance left. Once you have affirmed your identity as English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, extra identities are unnecessary. I find this argument unconvincing. We are all used to multiple identities. I could say for myself, having been born in London, that I will always remain in some part a Londoner, an Englishmen, a Briton and a European. My wife, with Scottish blood flowing through her veins, will proudly affirm her Scottish identity which always becomes more visible when we go north of the border on holiday, as we did this summer, or when Scotland is playing England at any sport. She too, I am confident, would not see British and Scottish identities as either meaningless or in competition. Linda Colley shows in her book that Great Britain in 1707 was not at all a trinity of three self contained and self-conscious nations but more like a patchwork in which all three were cut through by strong regional attachments with porous boundaries. So it is today. This would not be affected if devolution proposals were to give England greater independence. It is possibly the case that anger and frustration at the present state of devolution has led some, but certainly not the majority, to prefer their English identity over British. What, however, would be the consequences if Scotland were to revert to a pre-1707 situation in which complete independence were the prize? We should all be the poorer, perhaps in more ways that we realise- culturally, economically, historically and socially.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, of which the Church of England is the Mother Church, and due to his constitutional role the Archbishop of Canturbury is very much part of the British Establishment. The Church of England, like Parliament itself, extends its influence beyond England, often to the detriment of England, or to England's exclusion as a nation in its own right. The Church of England is England's national church to about the same degree that the Houses of Parliament can be called England's national parliament.

Nigel Farndale unwittingly sums this up near the beginning of his article:

To be British is to be one of Her Majesty’s subjects. It is also to be a member of the Church of England by proxy - unless you want to be awkward about it and opt for one of the other religions, or declare yourself an atheist.

And at its end:

I may no longer believe in God, but I still feel I belong to the Church of England. It’s called being British. One of Her Majesty’s subjects.

The Church of England is an Imperial Church in the same way that Westminster is an Imperial Parliament; Church and Parliament bound together through the Imperial Crown, under which we are British subjects (British Nationality Act 1948 notwithstanding).

When the Church of England starts acting like a national church, I will rally to it, but not before then.

Tony McNulty, exepenses fiddler extraordinaire, is the first MP to be held up to public ridicule by Power2010's Wanted campaign. Considering that the freak has Gordon Brown's backing it's a good choice.

It was Tony McNulty who, responding to a story that up to 570,000 illegal immigrants were living in the UK (not including the 700,000 asylum seekers whose applications were being processed), described the figures as a 'useful contribution to the debate' on ID cards:

“It is a useful contribution to the debate and it underlines the need for a robust ID card scheme which will, among other benefits, help tackle illegal working and immigration.”

If you know of an MP who has committed crimes against democracy, please visit the Power2010 website and nominate them as a target.

Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff on vacuity:

The Cameron position isn’t about just consensus but about something more mystical, allowing everybody to hear what they want. Having systematically removed most of the overt points of contention—immigration, Iraq, Europe—the Cameron Conservatives then replaced them with a series of almost totemic notions of agreement.

Cameron is basing his campaign and, too, his idea of the Third Way—this further chapter in Clintonian and Blair-ite politics—on his being the bulwark against disagreeable and ugly people and other nameless terrible things. And he is counting on the fact that fewer and fewer voters will ask those old-fashioned questions about identity and provenance, which, after all, in the modern world are, for so many people, ever changing and fluid.

It can be surprising how fast perceived strengths can turn into visible weaknesses. The good ship Cameron is entering choppy waters so Cameron had better keep a good hold on the tiller.

Recently on John Redwood's Diary we've been treated to some of those 'cast iron' pledges that politicians like to come out with:

The Conservatives are – amongst other things – pledged to abolish ID cards, centralised computer projects, and English regional Assemblies and RDAs.
John Redwood's Diary, 7th March 2010

Good news – Conseravtives still want to abolish RDAs. RDAs have failed to narrow the gap between richer and poorer regions, have often got in the way of private sector led growth and development, have failed to deliver good transport systems and have been very bureaucratic. I look forward to their abolition, and hope we will save some money on all the bureaucracy.
John Redwood's Diary, 5th March 2010

Now we learn that the Conservatives have performed a u-turn on Regional Development Agencies:

THE Conservatives have admitted they will not scrap regional development agencies as they seek to end policy confusion just weeks before the General Election.

Two members of David Cameron's senior team, including former Chancellor Ken Clarke, were forced to send a memo to all Tory MPs in the hope of finally clarifying their proposals.

So having made a u-turn on English Votes on English Laws they've now done the same with Regional Development Agencies. Whatever next, "Tories propose elected regional assemblies"?

Why won't the bastard Labour or Conservative parties ask the people of England how we want to be governed; why are they so afraid of democracy?

The Scotsman:

EDINBURGH North and Leith MP Mark Lazarowicz has become the latest politician to sign a pledge to Edinburgh students that he will vote against any increase in tuition fees in England.

Mr Lazarowicz signed the pledge at Edinburgh University Students' Association as part of a campaign to stop an increase in tuition fees in England.

Fees in England are currently under review and many believe this will result in an increase, widening the gap between Scottish and English universities.

Is this the same Mark Lazarowicz who voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees in England, even though he was not elected in England and his own party had voted against student top-up fees for Scotland? By Jove, it is.

And now he's made a public pledge to interfere in English matters again to prevent Scottish universities falling behind in the market place. What an opportunistic, unprincipled, Scottish Labour cunt.

In a leaked email Tory activist Peter Bingle has damned Cameron's campaign:

The Tory Party's one hope remains the PM. I cannot believe that English voters will give him their support when they have to vote in the privacy of the voting booth. At the moment he is the only compelling reason to vote for David Cameron. I feel let down by a party I have supported since I was sixteen years of age.

In other words, he hopes that the English won't vote for a Scot.

Lord Adonis:

Speaking exclusively to The Herald, [Adonis] predicted a steady erosion in the more than 100 weekday flights that currently exist between London and Scotland over the next decade in the event of a Conservative election victory.

“If the Tories were to win and Heathrow did not expand, then this would seriously disadvantage Scotland,” he said.

“It would create more pressure on landing slots at Heathrow and there is a real danger that airlines would divert those slots to larger, long-distance planes that give them greater revenue.”

By strange coincidence it was Scottish MPs who helped win the third runway vote for Gordon Brown. English MPs voted against it (see: Heathrow third runway: Flying in the face of English democracy & Heathrow Third Runway: How they voted).

Shouldn't we be aiming to reduce internal flights anyway?

John Osmond at the Institute of Welsh Affairs relates that the Speaker’s Conference of 1920 was able to agree on the areas in which devolved legislatures should be established:

On this last point the crucial agreement was that the principle of nationality should be fundamental and so the Conference decided that England should not be divided. In short, therefore, the Conference opted for a British federation , made up of England, Scotland, Ulster and Wales.

It seems that Speaker Lowther himself favoured what is today UKIP's solution: Dual Mandate MPs.

...another explanation why the Speaker’s Conference led nowhere, was that it failed to agree on whether the devolved legislatures should be directly elected. Suggesting that the territories should be represented by Grand Committees of their MPs meeting in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, and London Speaker Lowther explained:

“The more I considered the proposal of one supreme and four independent legislatures, the less I liked it. The confusions that might arise, the multiplicity of elections, the novelty of five prime Ministers and Cabinets of probably divergent views, the enormous expense of building four new sets of Parliamentary buildings and Government offices and providing all the paraphernalia of administrations, frightened by economical soul.”

It's the dual mandate MP solution to the West Lothian Question that these days gets certain Tories the sack. The Conservative Party being smart enough to understand what UKIP cannot: There is no going back; the Scots will not abolish their MSPs.

Read on and comment here.