My Dream Manifesto
On last weekend’s Sunday Morning on BBC ONE, a senior member of each of the three main British political parties was interviewed in turn by Sophie Rayworth, and they all avoided mention of what are actually the most important issues of the day. It seems that it is only ordinary people like me who remain free to refer to a whole list of unmentionable Elephants in the Room
So I have compiled the following manifesto for my ‘Dream’ political party:
> Implement Proportional Representation
> Give the Climate Emergency the pre-eminence it demands in every aspect of policy.
> Halt coal, oil and gas extraction (in that order) and stop using public money and tax loopholes to subsidise the fossil fuel industry.
> Penalise (rather than reward) irresponsible extravagances such as frequent flying, private jetting, super-yachting and joy-riding into ‘space’.
> Ban fossil fuel lobbyists from Westminster and future climate conferences.
> Re-join the Single Market (in accordance with repeated promises by Vote Leave prior to the Brexit referendum).
> Acknowledge the democratic invalidity of the Brexit referendum result and work to re-join the EU
> Reaffirm the supremacy of the Law, both national and international.
> Aspire to Honesty and Integrity in public life
> Outlaw ‘Cash for Influence’ and other contemporary corruptions of democracy.
> Investigate and if appropriate punish corrupt procurement during the Covid pandemic and £37 thousand million (twice the cost of Crossrail) wasted on Track & Trace.
> Publish the report on Russian influence in the Brexit referendum
> Reform Taxation so that it no longer favours the rich and the comfortable (from the obscenely rich down to the comfortably-retired like myself.)
> Review and where appropriate remove privileges for second home owners.
> Rebuild public planning authorities to establish key national infrastructure, starting with an efficient, unified vehicle-charging network.
> Return the NHS to public ownership and work towards abolishing the internal market.
> Restore professional autonomy to individual front-line teachers, doctors, probation officers and those in similar roles.
> Roll back Managerialism in public authorities.
> Enshrine the BBC’s editorial freedom from future government interference
> Ensure the future of Channel 4
Who would like to join me? And has anyone got a name for my dream party? How about ‘The Unmentionables’?
Why I am not ‘moving on’ from the Cummings affair
This is based on a letter I sent yesterday to my MP, who is a Conservative back-bencher and former Minister.
I cannot express how profoundly worried I am by the fact that Dominic Cummings is not only still in post, but still wielding extraordinary power in Westminster. I want to know what on earth this means. And I want to know what hold this deeply-sinister man had over the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the Minister of Health, and even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that led them to trash their moral authority, and in the case of the Attorney General her clear duty under the Separation of Powers, by making public statements on the record in defence of what was so obviously indefensible behaviour.
They tried to take us all for fools, but it did not work because we are not fools. The resulting loss of the government’s moral authority, and its abject failure to punish Cummings’ gross irresponsibility, has been the cause, not only of further national humiliation in the eyes of the world, but of an unknowable number, possibly in the tens of thousands, of coronavirus deaths which could otherwise have been avoided.
I know the Prime Minister wants us to ‘move on’. I know he has declared the Cummings affair ‘closed’. But that is the trouble with throwing away your moral authority – you lose the right to respect for such appeals. If it had been me that had behaved as Johnson and the others have behaved, I would in addition have lost the right to something even more precious, something beyond price, my self-respect.
But in my small life, and in the small lives of my father, and of my closest friends, that reputation for honour, for integrity, has not been thrown away. And nor has that self-respect. And that is why we do not ‘move on’. And that is why the Cummings affair is not ‘closed’.
It simply beggars belief that with our proud history of scientific, medical and governmental excellence, the UK’s, and specifically England’s, response to the coronavirus pandemic has been one of the worst, or even by some measures the worst, in the entire world.
Mr Johnson has shown himself incapable of the slightest shame or apology for his dreadful performance. But as an intensely patriotic citizen, I personally feel a deep sense of humiliation for my country. While Johnson obviously thinks apology is a sign of weakness, people worthy of admiration see it as a strength. This government has brought shame on us all and all I could say to my own MP, who had been Minister of Education under Mrs May but escaped reappointment by opposing Johnson, was to congratulate him on his good fortune in not being part of it. The current attempt to shift blame onto senior civil servants just underlines the sub-Trumpian rottenness of these third-rate people, whose only qualification for office was their unswerving commitment to the imbecile cause of Brexit.
Which brings me to my explanation for the extraordinary immunity of Cummings. There is only one issue which is sufficiently massive to explain the bizarre dominion of this ‘unelected bureaucrat’ (to use one of the Brexiters’ favourite phrases). Having been the Director of the Vote Leave campaign, he has chapter and verse on aspects of the 2016 referendum which render its result invalid and he has threatened to spill the beans if he is sacked. That would cut the ground from under the government’s sole uniting cause and place them in a wholly untenable position. Avoiding that is more important to them than anything else. Even the health of the nation and its international reputation.
The asymmetry of the Brexit debate
The trouble with what is now almost certainly the pro-EU majority in Britain is not that they are ‘moaners’. They don’t moan enough. Too many are ‘bored’ with the whole chaotic saga and have switched off. They don’t talk about it, and they dare not think about it. Still less do they try to influence the outcome.
It is not that those who wish to remain in Europe are undemocratic. Exactly the reverse, a great many believe, however despairingly, in the democratic legitimacy of the 2016 referendum. Otherwise the cries of protest would be overwhelming. That is why it is so important to point out, as I have been doing from the start, that the way the 2016 referendum was a conducted was a travesty of democracy. Read more…
Brexit: We are all more susceptible to persuasion than we like to think.
I was a young doctor. I had it in my power to help this guy. So I did.
He was a drug rep. Sitting opposite me in my consulting room. Half a century – most of a lifetime – ago. He had been waiting outside for much of my morning surgery, as reps used to in those days, hoping I would see him before I started on my paperwork and visits. As usual it had worked – me being too soft-hearted to say no and send away a fellow human being with a wasted morning. ‘There but for the grace of God’, and so on… Read more…
Not the ‘will of the people’
48% or 52% of an apple?
To Damian Hinds, MP for E Hampshire and Secretary of State for Education
9 April 2018
Dear Damian
You may remember that I never accepted the validity of the 2016 referendum. I gave my reasons in a letter to the (Alton) Herald immediately after the result and last November I added a further ten reasons in a blog post which I shared with you. Only one voice disagreed with me. This was on Twitter and when I asked the anonymous author to specify which parts of my piece they disagreed with, they said ‘all of it’, because I was a ‘remoaner’. At the other end of the intellectual spectrum the people who agreed with me included a professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton, which is where Einstein and Gödel worked. I sent you his comment as well. Read more…
Further evidence that Brexit is going ahead on a false premise
This new report of massive alien (Russian) interference in the 2016 EU Referendum has excited far less comment in Britain than reports of similar interference in American democracy have excited over there. ‘New analysis by 89up.org confirms the scale of Russian Media influence during Brexit vote dwarfed the main Vote Leave and Leave.EU campaigns, driving anti-EU propaganda, disinformation and fake news to influence voters’
This is yet another reason why the ‘Brexit’ vote cannot be said to represent the democratic ‘will of the people’ to add to those given in the post immediately below this one.
Meanwhile, among the many messages of agreement that I have received since that November post, I quote here a particularly powerful comment, quoting Edmund Burke, from a friend who happens to be a very distinguished American academic:
“I am so glad to see you pursuing the truth and logic of this lamentable situation. There is one overarching principle that is completely misconstrued by many members of parliament. It is so evident that you do not bother to state it (taking it as a tacit given).
“Greek democracy involved the ability of a broad swath of citizens (not slaves or women) to directly vote on laws and regulations. This rapidly became untenable as populations grew and issues to be decided became almost hopelessly complex. The modern world—the UK included—has entirely replaced the direct democracy of the Greeks by representative democracy, in which a small set of legislators is deputized by an election process to make laws and decisions for the country. The technical inability of the average citizen to understand the detailed consequences of most laws, foreign relation treaties, business regulations, defense policies, … makes direct democracy an impossible form of government today.
“So instead, the UK has representative democracy. The duty of a representative was well stated by Edmund Burke:
“It ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
“Forget for the moment the fact that popular referendum is an utterly inappropriate way to make a decision on so complex an issue; forget the fact that the voters were lied to and were lamentably ignorant of the likely consequences of an ‘exit’. Burke eloquently points out that the fundamental duty of a member of Commons is to decide the issue on the analysis of the likely consequences of Brexit for her/his constituents. The members of parliament who bleat ‘we must carry out the will of the people as expressed in the referendum vote and exit the EU’ and use this as the basis for their vote in Commons on Brexit are failing at a fundamental level in their moral obligation to the voters. Their voting should be determined by a rational analysis of consequences to the people they represent, regardless of how it might influence the likelihood of their being reelected, and regardless of the ‘expressed wishes’ of an uninformed electorate.”
Britain’s exit from the EU is going ahead on a false premise – 10 more reasons why what is happening now is not, and never was, ‘the will of the people’
3 November 2017
Theresa May says the reason she is continuing to lead Britain out of the European Union is that she is “delivering on the will of the people “. This is in spite of her previous convictions, eloquently expressed two years ago, and very probably in spite of her better judgement today. The same can be said of the many MPs—including my own, Damian Hinds—who previously made up the parliamentary majority for Remain but who now claim this same justification for their altered course. Even pro-EU newspapers, the Observer for example, have declined to question the validity of the June 2016 vote as a democratic expression of the will of the people.
But I question it. I questioned it immediately after the referendum, writing a letter to our local paper pointing out that the Leave camp had secured its result
- “by telling lies,
- by deliberately inciting hatred and xenophobia,
- by allowing its media to give an exclusively partisan account of the issues,
- and by shamelessly urging voters to discount the wisdom of ‘experts’“.
For these and other reasons I said that calling the result ‘the will of the people’, would be “to say the least, disingenuous” and it would be irresponsible not to question its validity. My letter was given prominence in the Alton Herald and a great many people, not just in the town, went out of their way to thank me for it and tell me how strongly they agreed with me.
Since then nothing has happened to raise the slightest doubt in my mind about the points that I made. On the contrary, some have been strongly reinforced. To give one example, deep in a long Spectator article describing how the referendum was won, the director of Vote Leave, Dominic Cummings, asked himself the question “Would we have won without £350m/NHS?” and replied ” All our research and the close result strongly suggests No“.
Read more…
Entente Cordiale never more important
How to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our twinning with the town of Pertuis, Provence, way down there in the glorious south of France? And return the compliment of their having named a major roundabout
(circle in American, Rond-Point in French) after us, showing the genuine warmth of their appreciation of the link with Alton.
Well, by a sheer stroke of serendipity, there was a second bird, as one might say, just waiting to be killed with this stone. Because, by a curious historical anomaly, Alton has for some years rejoiced in the possession of two parallel roads both called Whitedown Lane. That’s more Whitedown Lanes, you must agree, than any town strictly needs.
And, by a further happy chance, one of these two Whitedown Lanes was completely devoid of houses, so that nobody would have to change their postal address were it to be renamed – obviously a no no if it had been otherwise.
So, the responsible authorities swiftly agreed the proposal, new road signs were ordered and erected, Google (if not as yet the OS) updated their map,
and the unveiling of the new road sign was arranged for the Saturday morning of the Anniversary visit by two dozen of our friends from Provence – the 22nd October. Just over a week ago.
First thing that morning I loaded the car with potted greenery and set off to join Don in decorating the sign, leaving Lesley to finish breakfast with our two French house guests
and then take them to the Mayor’s reception in the Town Hall.
It is an amusing thought that Altonians will have as much difficulty pronouncing Pertuis Avenue as Pertuisians presumably have with Rond-Point d’Alton.
But less amusingly, while I was bending to plant the flags you see on the left of this picture, a bag of rubbish thrown from a passing car bounced off my shoulder. Which interested me, because the marksman either showed astonishingly quick reactions coming round the corner, or, much more probably, took the trouble to get his driver to turn round and come past again for the sole purpose of expressing his (I assume his) xenophobic venom. Which suggests a level of calculated malice sufficient to raise an appreciative editorial eyebrow at the Dailies Mail or Express. Indeed, should either of these publications wish to award a prize, the till receipt from the Petersfield MacDonalds which the lobber thoughtfully enclosed in his grubby bundle might help them in tracking him down. (Funny that – Petersfield says more ‘Telegraph’ to me, but ‘Daily’, just the same.)
I had these thoughts during the hour I spent guarding (yes, in these Brexit times it did seem to be necessary) the site,
while Don, in his capacity as Twinning Association Chairman, joined the meeting in the Town Hall.
Passers-by, hearing why I was grumpy, fell over themselves to cheer me up – “Here – let me take the rubbish so that you can forget about it” “That sounds wonderful, I was just setting off for Dartmoor but I love France and I’ll stay for the ceremony” (She did, plus her dog) “Can I get you a cup of tea?” To which – “How very kind of you, but there isn’t a loo…”
The happy Ceremony
That afternoon, in the town, was endlessly heart-warming. Everyone seemed to know about the Anniversary visit. Walking with our guests around King’s Pond, we introduced them at random to a lady with two children feeding the ducks near us and found that she was an enthusiast for twinning, and that her son was corresponding, through school, with a contact in Pertuis. And the little son who was with her, probably no more than five, had learned a few words of French and exchanged them, in an utterly charming scene, with our visitors.
Happy faces at the dinner at the end of the weekend
On the way back from leaving Simon and Raymond at their coach on Monday morning, I stopped to photograph the three flags flying on the Alton War Memorial flag poles, a symbol of our better selves, and of hope for the future.
Tomorrow’s EU referendum- the need to listen to the experts
Does the panel agree with Michael Gove that we’ve had enough of experts?
That was the question I submitted in advance for the EU referendum debate in Alton Assembly Rooms this Monday evening. Unfortunately it was left to the very end – in fact five minutes after the very end (timed for the England/Slovenia match) – and the panel were asked to give it a one-word answer.
I had been hoping for more than that.
I had chosen my question, after much thought, specifically to Read more…
Generally Speaking 