Politics Watch

I recently came across Liberal Democrat Voice, courtesy of a local Lib Dem activist who I occasionally enjoy a round of beer and curry with. It claims to be ‘the best read independent website for Lib Dems’ and is basically a blog consisting of a number of contributors, all of whom are Lib Dem members. Of course, it’s full of lefty liberal hand-wringing, “isn’t our leader, who no one outside the party has heard of, great” nonsense, but occasionally there is something worth reading, such as the following posts:

1. Five tech tips for the New Year
2. Fighting media bias – you can help us
3. Televised party leader debates: get your worms at the ready

There’s also an interesting best of the blogs feature if you want to extend your reading beyond the team of site contributors. Oh and it’s powered by WordPress, so it must be good.

Even if you’re not a Lib Dem, it’s always good to keep an eye on what the other side is up to…

As you may have heard from other sources, the leaders of the two main parties, plus the Liberal Democrats, have agreed, at least in principle, to take part in a US-style TV debate in the run up to the general election. Apparently, this will all be Jolly Exciting, so much so that the BBC, ITV and Sky are lining up to broadcast one debate a piece.

I’m not entirely sure who the intended audience is though. Who really wants to listen to an Old Etonian, the Most Boring Man in Britain, and a bloke who no one has ever heard of from a party with no hope of forming a government? At best it will be like an extended version of Prime Minister’s Questions—a cheap point-scoring match betwen three people, two of whom we know have next to no chance of winning the election anyway.

One also has to wonder what is in it for the party leaders in this whole charade. Cleggs’ motivation is obvious, it will put him on television to the extent where people might actually recognise his name the next time they hear it. If it is a face to face debate, Cameron will probably appear more polished than Brown, though he may come unstuck if members of the audience are allowed to ask questions. For Brown, it’s likely to be an utter disaster—he is simply in a different league when it comes to charisma, and not in a good way.

The Scottish National Party has already got into a tiff about the whole thing, because Alex Salmond, poor little lamb, hasn’t been invited to the debate. If the SNP mount a legal challenge and win, the debate will probably turn into a special edition of Question Time, which rarely elicits interesting answers from the politicians on the panel. No doubt the other parties will want a piece of the action too—though I’d be prepared to waive all my objections if the Monster Raving Loony Party are allowed to take part.

Personally, I think a series of football matches would sort out the men from the boys—and the women from the girls of course, lest I get Harriet Harman sobbing about sexism—better than a TV debate. It has the advantage of being entertaining, not involving politics and devoid of boring speeches Any party which can’t make a team of eleven players plus a coach, manager and three substitutes can be considered too insignificant to warrant taking part. Regardless of who wins it will be an excuse to drink beer and cheer on your favourite team, and if any of the politicians show real talent we can always put them in the next England squad. Excuse me whilst I go and write this up into a programme proposal for Channel 4…

Further reading

• Will TV debates change face of election? (Guardian)
• SNP signals debate legal threat (BBC News)

The reshuffle task – Gordon Brown faces Lord Sir Alan Sugar in the boardroom – If only!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist making the title a play on the popular Clash song. Whose head is on the chopping block today though? Not Gordon Brown for once, unless you are Polly Toynbee. No, it’s “Gorbals Mick”, otherwise known as Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons.

In amongst the MPs expenses scandal the Speaker has had something of a torrid week. As the chair of the House of Commons and the House of Commons Commission, he has received criticism for the initial decision not to publish full details of expenses, and then the growing public discontent as the Telegraph dripped out embarrassing stories about MPs of all parties.

Personally, I think it’s time for the current Speaker to go. I say this not because of the expenses scandal, destructive though that is to the faith people have in our political system, but because he just doesn’t seem to control the Commons. Every time his authority has been challenged he has either dressed down MPs in an uncustomary and authoritarian manner, or he has given a bumbling response. He certainly doesn’t inspire me with any confidence as a firm but flexible chair who can carefully oversee the myriad of debating topics in the Commons.

After commenting in This week in politics on Sunday about the focus on the expenses of Labour MPs—and particularly government ministers—to the exclusion of the other parties, it seems that all that was required was a short wait. Today the papers, lead by the Telegraph, have turned their attention to the expenses of Tory and Lib Dem MPs. It would seem that Cameron & Co., and indeed Clegg & Associates, are not as squeaky clean as they would like us to believe.

Let’s have a quick look at some of the expenses stories hitting the front page today. First in the firing line is Menzies Campbell, who appears to have spent ten thousand pounds overhauling his flat, though he claims this is justified due to how long he has lived there and the low cost of his rent. I’m amazed that the Daily Mail hasn’t demanded that he be stripped of his knighthood for such an extravagance, but perhaps they’re too occupied with boring cards depicting Her Majesty the Queen.

Next in the firing line is a whole swathe of Tory MPs, though strangely they have been scattered throughout articles detailing the response to the claims rather than the individual article treatment which most Labour MPs received. Media bias or just a preference amongst the reading public to see the government lampooned more than the opposition? Probably a bit of both in my opinion.

David Cameron’s response to embarrassing Tory expense claims has been particularly interesting. Unlike Gordon Brown, who seems to have taken no action, Cameron has practically ordered senior party members to pay back some of the more extravagant claims. The Lib Dem response has been a bit wetter, as one might expect, asking their MPs to make a commitment to pass any profits from the future sales of second homes to the taxpayer. Let’s hope that commitment is slightly stronger than the ones made in a manifesto.

Now that all of the main parties have been implicated in embarrassing expenses claims to some extent, one wonders how this will affect the public perception of them. Doubtless confidence in politicians across the spectrum will be damaged by the revelations, and no party will emerge unscathed, but the repercussions are unlikely to be evenly spread. The Lib Dems will probably get away with less flak than the other parties, apart from anything else not that many people care about what they do and with a much smaller number of MPs there is a corresponding smaller number of scandals—if one assumes that a certain percentage of MPs have been making unjustified claims. For Labour, this has been another body blow to Gordon Brown, and another (the final?) nail in the coffin of victory at the next general election.

However, out of the three main parties, I suspect the Tories will come out of this on top relative to the other parties, for two reasons. First of all, the sheer scale of the expenses filed by Labour MPs, and the coverage they have had in the media, have overshadowed any embarrassing claims by Tory MPs. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Cameron has actually stood up and taken quick and decisive action, whereas Brown and Clegg have dithered somewhat. Although the public will no doubt see this as yet another political sleeze scandal, there is the possibility for Cameron to turn this to his advantage if he can demonstrate a real commitment to sorting out the problem, and it also gives him another stick to hit Brown with.

Of course, as with most political stories, the MP expenses scandal will probably run out of steam by the end of the week, unless the Telegraph has any more tricks up its sleeve. It will be interesting to see if the story has any effect on the European elections though, which are just around the corner…

What a hair-raising week it has been. Starting on Friday, we had the front page revelations by the Telegraph of Cabinet Ministers’ expenses—a story which completely dominates their UK politics section. Over the course of the weekend, the story has been picked up by all the other big UK news outlets, although only the Guardian has given it the same level of coverage as the Telegraph.

What has surprised me about the whole expenses row is that all the papers appear to have focused on senior figures within the Labour Party. I know that government sleeze stories always make a good headline, but I was expecting some dirt to be thrown in the direction of the Conservatives and possibly even the Lib Dems. Admittedly the story was broken by the Telegraph, which was probably looking to smear Labour more than politicians in general, but even the Guardian only managed a blog post about the uneven level of sleeze allegations. Greg Barker got a ticking off for his flat purchase, but as shadow minister for climate change he’s hardly a bit hitter. Does this mean that Cameron & Co. are a bunch of saints, or that there are more damaging revelations to come—possibly when expenses are published in full later this year?

The tide of public anger over this issue now seems unstoppable, with even former Archbishops, who usually stay out of politics, getting involved. Interestingly, both the police and HMRC are now taking an interest, which could make life even more difficult for politicians in two ways. Firstly, the fact than an investigation is ongoing could mean that they are unable to comment on the matter, which might be interpreted by many people as simply dodging the issue. Secondly, the simple fact that HMRC are involved, even if they find no wrongdoing, leads people to believe that there is something fishy going on.

The mounting embarrassments, not to mention the Commons defeats suffered recently, have led to suggestions that Labour could be wiped out at the local elections this year. I’m not sure if this only applies to Labour though, as the damaging revelations will probably turn people off politicians in general, particularly if expenses claims from Tory MPs are released before the elections. I suspect two possibilities are more likely: either turnout will crumble even further or people will conclude that they are sick and tired of the existing political elite and decide to vote for minority parties instead. The latter possibility could play into the hands of UKIP and the BNP in the European and local elections respectively.

All in all, a rather turbulent week in politics, and the worse week for Gordon Brown and Labour since… last week.

Further reading

• MPs’ expenses: your questions answered
• Q&A: The MP expenses row

How different would the Cabinet look if it was staffed by cartoon characters? Not very, says The Times.

I particularly like Peter Mandelson as Dick Dastardly.

There is an amusing petition currently doing the rounds which is calling on the Prime Minister to resign. Ironically, the petition is hosted on the Number 10 Petitions site—built by the smart chaps at mySociety—and is currently the petition with the highest number of signatures.

I don’t think it will get as many votes as the road tax petition, which garnered 1.8 million signatures, and it’s unlikely to lead to a leadership challenge in itself, but it is yet another embarrassing episode for Brown to deal with.

I noticed recently that the site has been quiet for most of the year, primarily due to me having to spend most evenings and weekends writing my thesis and concentrate on my full time job during the day. However, I’ve just given the blog a new theme and will be integrating it back into the main Politics Watch site at some point in the coming weeks. I’ll also be aiming to post one thoughtful article a week, and a round-up of the week’s political news every Friday from now on.

Labour have produced a rather amusing shadow cabinet reshuffle send up, based on an imaginary (one assumes!) instant messaging conversation between David Cameron, William Hague, George Osborne and Ken Clarke. As Labour comedy goes, it’s actually quite funny.