A word on Lula

Brazil's socialist President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, ubiquitously known as Lula, won a second term last Sunday, comfortably beating challenger Geraldo Alckmin, in a run-off.

The campaign was marred by corruption scandals, including alleged attempts by senior members of Lula's Workers' Party (PT) to purchase a dossier implicating a political rival in the illegal sale of ambulances. Political parties in Brazil are numerous (there are 14 in the national parliament following the recent election), and weak. Defections are commonplace. Hence presidents have difficulty forming majorities in the chamber of Deputies, with the illegal purchase of votes apparently endemic. Just such a scandal enveloped the PT, once again, only last year.

Yet, for all this, the coalition Lula assembled of the poor and public sector and unionised workers held firm. These groups benefitted from steady (if unspectacular) economic growth, new social spending and increases to the minimum wage. The number of Brazilians in poverty has fallen by 5% under Lula, a significant achievement for a such large country, and one so notoriously unequal.

Although problems remain - corruption, regional inequality and a dysfunctional education system among others, this is a respectable record, a qualified social democratic success story in one of the world's most populous nations.

Not the time to cut and run

Iraq is at a crucial point and is faced with difficult choices, but there are no quick fixes ... getting Iraq right is key to the rest of the Middle East ... this is not a battle to be lost ... this is a war of ideas … tyranny, dictatorship and terrorism or democracy.

Not the words of Tony Blair, though I’ve heard him express those views many times. The words of Barham Salih, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, speaking to Labour MPs during a recent visit to the UK. As a member of a party affiliated to the Socialist International, alongside the Labour Party, he is a well known figure amongst Labour MPs.

Hearing this articulate, Cardiff-educated Iraqi talk about the problems of Iraq turned upside down my usual perspective. It was the realisation that we spend our time discussing Iraq from a particular point of view – what it means to us, to our electoral popularity, what we could/should have done.

Whilst listening to him describe governing the country, it became clearer to me just how much Iraq is a country in transition, and that it continues to need our help and support. It was a dictatorship for 35 years, during which its political and social fabric was degraded completely. The current journey of transition cannot be anything but demanding and painful.

To those who call for the withdrawal of coalition forces, he says that this is not the time to cut and run. He wants more security to be handed over to Iraqis, but believes that the coalition needs to stay in support of government forces for a while longer. He added that by the end of the year over half the provinces will be under Iraqi security control.

For those who believe that democracy in the Middle East is nigh on impossible, he’ll tell you that they can do it, they did it. He was Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government from 2001 to mid-2004, governing part of the northern region of Iraq thanks to the Allied Coalition No Fly Zone.

Barham Salih holds no illusions about the difficult situation in Iraq – “it’s a tough neighbourhood”. The failure to establish a democratic Iraq will see the subjugation of the peoples of the region continue. It is precisely that subjugation that has led to the religious radicalisation that is behind so much of the terrorism we see today.

Some of his words echo those of democratic politicians all over the world. “The Government needs to deliver on the promises, we’ve achieved a great deal but not enough.” The demands of different religious and ethnic groupings and the issues of federalism are added to the mix. Salih stressed that all the politicians in the Iraqi government carry both the expectations from their own constituencies, but they are also engaged in building a country.

The MP sitting next to me said that he wouldn’t be a politician in Iraq now for all the tea in China. Barham Salih is a politician who for half an hour one Monday evening helped us to look at Iraq from his vantage point. No-one could have failed to admire his fortitude and determination – how many of us could or would carry on under that constant pressure and personal danger. All those fighting for a democratic Iraq deserve our support.

Stop the scare mongering!

Yesterday the National Union of Students hosted their National Demonstration against the new £3000 top-up as part of their Admission:Impossible campaign reports BBC Online. Thousands of students, trade unionists, parents and young children marched with banners and placards calling on the government to reverse the policy that has seen 13,000 less students go to university this year.

Bill Rammell MP, the Minister responsible, made himself prominent in the media accusing the NUS of ‘scare mongering’ on the issue of fees and debt citing the re-payment threshold and the small (sic) monthly contributions students will make.

This claim is a deeply unhelpful and loaded - attempting to remove political responsibility from the government’s door. NUS controversially joined with the Government in their information campaign about the new fee regime (see here) and has taken all statistics from UCAS – the most authoritative source in the sector. For NUS to fall silent at this time would be them cheating their 5.2 million members and remove necessary accountability to the government’s policy.

What Bill Rammell MP seems to have over looked is that he had they key to end all ‘scare mongering’ if he was to publicly commit that the government will not lift the current cap on the fees  (a move that has been called inevitable) and tell the likes of Imperial College London that they will not get their fee hike to £11,000.

The ‘wine and cheese’ Vice Chancellor lobby is the one scaring students and progressive people in British politics not the NUS standing up for its members.

Blogging the midterms: 3 Questions Answered

This  is the second post from Washington in an occasional series on the current US midterms next Tuesday. In the first i asked readers to leave in the comments the things they wanted answered, and so i thought it only polite to actually provide an answer to some of them. The same thing goes this time - if you see something in the news you don't buy or get, just mention it in the comments to this post, and I'll try to have a look at it. Go on. There must be something you want to know about?

I'll take 3 this time, on turn out, the senate, and the role of business in the election.

1. Why does Turnout matter so much?
David Brede gets straight to it: "You say that the Republicans are one cycle ahead in their turnout operations. As this will be a key issue in 2009 if not before in the UK, is this a sheer hard work issue or something other than that." Its something else. There was a long, very interesting piece in the Times over the weekend which everyone interested in this should read. Here Charles Schumer, who heads up the Dems senate campaign, claims the Dems have caught up. If you want to see the likelihood of this being true, read this very, very funny profile of his optimistic tendency in the Post recently, in which the journalist writes: "Some see the glass as half empty, others as half full. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) sees it as overflowing." Basically the GOP are better across the board on GOTV. They have better existing databases, or "voter files" as they are called over here. They have close-to-perfected the art of the 72-hour Prue-election day push. They are better at "micro-targetting", the new buzz in American politics. (It basically means that they can figure out from precinct level data the extent to which consumer and socio-demographic data reliably predict your voting preferences. If you drink latte and drive a volvo etc etc.) And they are a united GOTV group. The Dems still rely on a motley bunch of unions and campaigning groups - gathered under the umbrella of America Votes - to back up their official effort. My hunch is that all of this isn't going to be enough to save them this time. But the implications of their improved ability to turnout voters are strategically, and i use this word advisedly, profound. It completely overturns the Blair / Clinton pragmatic rationale for centrism if you can inflate your base. And that is the biggest takeaway from American politics at present for Progress people. I'll write more about this later.

2. Where matters in the Senate? Can the Dems win? 
Richard Phillips asked "can you give us a quick summary of the party's chances in the key battleground senatorial races?" Right you are. The long list of key races are, in order of importance, Virginia, Tennesse, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Montana, Rhodes Island, and Pennsyvania. The best way to keep in touch is the Real Clear Politics poll page. As it stands the Democrats need 6 of this 8 to win. And my hunch is they will win, at most, 5. Virginia and Tennessee have been unbelievable races. In Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford Jnr has run a brilliant campaign, but is currently being slimed by his opponent. Jim Webb in Virginia has not run a brilliant campaign, but his opponent George Allen has had a nightmare, as this excellent recent article in the Nation explains. But both VA and TN are very conservative states - most people still expect the GOP to win. This is especially true because the Republicans are very, very good at shifting the message when they need to. There was a tawdry brouhaha going on over the weekend around about whether Jim Webb and / or Lynn Cheney wrote sexually explicit passages in respective books. As Webb said  its "smear after smear - a desperate but politically extremely clever attempt to make the last weeks of this election about anything other than Iraq and the economy. Be it Penthouse models in Tennessee, gay marriage in Virginia or immigration rows in New Jersey - it all smacks of a coordinated campaign to pivot critical campaign messages away from the Democratic ground. Anyway, thats a longwinded way of saying that Democrats will definitely win in Pennsylvania (excellent news, as the incumbant Santorum is a weapons grade idiot.), Rhodes Island, and Ohio. They will probably win in Ohio and Montana. Conventional wisdom says, however, that without VA or TN, they will fall 1 or 2 seats short of a win.

3. What is happening with business? Are the corporations taking a pasting?
Mike Bennett asked how "what's happening with the Corporations and the Democrats." Very interesting. As i mentioned in a recent OpenDemocracy piece there is a very clear anti-corporate theme in the mid-terms. Across America politicians are slamming "big business," attacking their opponents for cravenly taking money from "big pharmaceuticals," and generally being in the pocket of corrupt corporations. Especially popular are attacks on "big oil," big oil profits, big gas prices, and big subsidies to oil giants. This is a different phenomneon from the 2002 / 2004 Enron bashing, where corrupt corruption was the issue. This time my hunch is there is more a feeling that companies are, as the Amercians would say, making out like bandits, while ordinary americans are not doing well. Median income under Bush is stagnant, while wages have declined. For more on the economic debate see these two memos on wages and the economy i drafted for my current employer.  All of this, in turn, is wrapped up in the fractious relationship America is currently having with economic globalisation, which is much, much more controversial than in the UK. The upshot is that in certain Senate races - especially Ohio - there is a strong  business-bashing theme.  This in turn is a function of where this election is being fought. If you find a map of America - like this one - most of the competitive races are in an an u-shape stretching from New York down through Virginia and up to Illinois. No surprise that these rust-belt races tend to be where the manufacturing economy is in the tank; decline breeds discontent.

Right. I have to go to work. Put more questions in the comments and I'll try to answer them best i can. Feel free to debate and challenge these points too, especially the first. As I say, the GOTV issue has big implications for Labour - strategically, and electorally - if we can master it. More anon. James

Tony Blair on Progressive Governance

Tony Blair sets out the progressive case for public service reform at the Social Democratic Futures pages of The Euston Manifesto. A forum has been created and the PM will respond to comments.

The Prime Minister makes the case for empowerment:

Our strategy for public services has been through three phases. The first phase was a zero tolerance approach to failure, with strong central direction and public targets, to ensure that under-investment could not be used as an excuse for endemic failure. This was then followed by a correction of the long period of under-investment. We are now into the third phase: progressive reform.

The driving idea behind reform is to transfer power from providers to citizens. To give power to the people- it is as traditional a left-of-centre slogan as there is.

Aneurin Bevan once said that the purpose of power is to be able to give it away. That idea is our guide too. We want to put citizens in charge because it is both right in itself and it is a way of ensuring that services are tailored to their needs and that services constantly change and innovate as required. So, power to the people is both the means by which the vision will be achieved and is a progressive end in itself. It is no coincidence that the least well-off, the people with least power, consistently tell the polls that they want choices the most.

If the citizen has a choice they have a power. The service is likely to be more responsive to their needs. Their voice is a lot more likely to be heard and acted on. The service has a stimulus to improve.

He also stakes out the terrain on which the Party can defeat the Tories at the next election: progressive governance versus 'let sunshine win the day':

The progressive left’s belief that government can be a force for good is a major advantage. David Cameron has understood that he needs to be seen as a centrist. He is doing his level best to sound reasonable, although his various policy reviews keep giving us an unfortunate glimpse of the contradictions he falls into whenever he is actually forced to confront tough questions rather than simply pose them.

This will be critical when he is finally forced to make decisions about policy. It is all very well to talk about some of the questions that government faces. But if you put yourself in a position where you can’t determine the solution, then sooner or later this will become clear to the British public. In the meantime, the serious reform, to match the profound changes to our country, goes on.

Read the whole thing.

The School of Saint Monday

The government has compromised over plans to force faith schools to take a 25% quota of non-faith students. It is not clear at this stage whether it was the power of effective lobbying or the power of prayer that has led to a voluntary agreement with the Catholic and Anglican churches.

Nonetheless, those of us who wish to see children educated in an environment infused with the values we hold most dear, can breathe a sigh of relief and give thanks to whichever sacred being we turn to at times of challenge.

So, with great pleasure, I am today announcing the establishment of the School of St Monday. St Monday was canonised during the industrial revolution by the new class of factory pieceworkers who, devout and god-fearing folk that they were, strictly observed this new Saint’s day as a religious holiday. Every week. Oddly, there was always a surge in new followers at around on Sunday nights in public houses up and down the country.

The start-the-week curriculum at the Monday will consist of strict non-attendance, with optional home study modules in daytime television, local cafe visiting, and MySpace.

While I will be prepared to offer a quarter of places to the children of St Friday worshippers, those from St Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday worshipping backgrounds will not be sympathetic enough to the school’s core faith. Nothing against them. Some of my best friends are midweekish. It’s just that I am sure they will be much happier undertaking education within their own communities.

Blogging the midterms: Is the conservative era over?

This is the first in an occasional series of posts I'll be doing on the Progress blog looking at the next few weeks in the US congressional elections. Before diving in, I'd like to make a plea. If anyone reading has something they would like to know about the contests, put them in the comments. I'd really like to know what Progress people are interested in, and am happy to give a view on whatever people reading the Progress Blog would like to know about.

Right! How to begin? Three things. First I'd like to give a quick update on where we are. Second, a brief word on the possible reasons for an upset. Third, I want to point you towards today's must read article in the Times by David Brooks.

Where are we at. It goes something like this. The democrats are significantly ahead in the generic ballot, meaning when Americans are asked "do you like Republicans or Democrats" people say Democrats by a 10-25% margin. Pace gerrymandering this would mean a big gain in both the House and Senate. As it is it means the Democrats are likely to take the 15 seats they need to take back the House of Representatives, and come 1-2 seats shorts of the 6 they need to take back the Senate. The important thing to realise is that under the British election system this would be a landslide - that is how unpopular the Republicans have become. The list of reasons why is long, but can be boiled down to (in order of importance) Iraq, the economy and Mark Foley. In a sense the Foley scandal was the most important because it produced the biggest swing the polls. But the deteriorating situation in Iraq is now, unbelievably, a winning issue for Democrats. The economy always was - despite strong growth the American public is seeing median declining wages and incomes, and is unhappy about its lot.

The only thing which can stop the Democrats taking back the House, as of now, is turnout. The Republicans are about 1 electoral cycle ahead of the Democrats in their turnout operation. We saw this in 2004 where the GOP matched the Democrats, and possibly bettered them, in getting their voters out. This time round everyone i speak to expects them to do so again. The scariest paragraph i read this week came tucked in the end of a Poll in Tuesday's Washington Post:

Both parties are making extraordinary efforts to turn out their voters in November. Twenty-nine percent of registered voters said they had been contacted by one party or the other for their votes, and three in 10 of those said they had been contacted by advocates for both parties. Republicans appear to be doing a better job of contacting independents. In the poll, 45 percent of those independents who said they had been contacted said they were urged to vote for Republicans, while 17 percent said they were urged to vote for Democrats. The rest said they were contacted by both sides.

With numbers like this suggesting a 3:1 advantage on GOTV, more in key states, this thing isn't over yet. If the Republicans come back Karl Rove and RNC Chair Ken Melman will officially become deities of the conservative movement.

Finally, if you can get a copy, you should really try to read David Brooks in today's New York Times. He put his finger on something very significant about these elections - namely that a generational shift is occurring in American politics. Since the late 1970s there has been one story in American politics - the rise of conservatism. It went like this:

Reagan won. Bush 41 adapted Reagan. Clinton reacted to Reagan/Bush, and won. Gingrich beat Clinton. Clinton reacted back. Americans rejected Gingrich. Bush 43 adapted to Gingrich, and won again.

That whole process is now over. These elections are historic because the American people are rejecting Republican governance in the same way that the British people did in 1997. The big difference is that in 1997 in the UK we had a Labour party ready to govern, with a formidable leadership team. The Democrats, as yet, have no such agenda or vision. Time will tell if they can use the next two years to come up with one. That's it for this time - let me know if there is anything I can tell you about the elections, the candidates, or anything else in the comments.

 

How do you solve a problem like the Lords?

The Sunday Times revealed a leaked discussion paper which proposes one possible answer to this frequently asked question. The eighteen page document was presented by Common’s leader, Jack Straw, to the cross-party group on Lord’s reform, and is expected to form the basis of a white paper published next month. The blueprint proposes four main changes to the chamber at present; streamline it, elect half, appoint the rest, and give them a salary.

The chamber that Attlee likened to a glass of flat champagne, may finally have some fizz injected into it. If as expected a new House of Lords reflects the religious, racial, and gender balance of the UK, the chamber may finally be dragged into diverse 21^st century Britain. A free vote in the House of Commons on the issue may come as soon as early 2007, and if the supposed new-found consensus is maintained throughout the legislative process, we could witness the first elections and appointments to the reformed upper house taking place at the next general election. Following which, New Lords would finally be expected to work fulltime in exchange for a salary; almost 100 years after salaries were introduced for their Commons counterparts. This move would end the system of allowances that currently rewards Lords for their attendance, but could cost three times more than the present system, despite cutting the number of members down from 741 to approximately 450.

However, as exciting as this may seem, it will only be money well spent if the New Lords genuinely represent Britain. A geographical constituency provides a powerful and direct link between MPs and the British people, yet an emulation of this concept does not feature in the exposed blueprint for reform. When crossing the floor of the House, or resigning a party’s whip, Members of the Commons are able to carry their constituents with them; a clear reminder that they are primarily, ahead of any partisan affiliation, constituency representatives.

Although it is still under discussion, it is expected that the Lords Reform Group will favour a List system, and therefore a Lord elected in this way will be elected primarily on a partisan line. The fundamental difference that would arise from this situation is that the paid Commons member represents specific constituents and can seek redress of grievance on their behalf, whereas a paid Lords member has no specific body of people to represent, and may only speak and vote on a partisan basis. A youthful and diverse upper chamber would be more aesthetically-pleasing than the present white middle class men, but failure to emulate the Commons’ direct link between people and their parliamentarians may be a costly and ineffective next stage of Lords reform.

More mayors only good for Labour and local people

Today’s announcement by the Communities Secretary for less targets, more public accountability and better leadership for our local authorities should only be welcomed, especially by the left. They offer a new constitutional framework that will protect local government from a future “Thatcher” style centralising government and put services more truly in the hands of the people. It will give local Government the leaders to stand up to central government and focus on the local needs of their electorate.

Love him or hate him, the Mayor of London, has made London proud of its self and brought back the idea that who you vote for really does matter. Without Ken Livingstone there would be no mainstream leader would be sharing a stage with Hugo Chavez; without it being a Labour Mayor we would have not seen the support for record levels of investment into the public transport network, funding for LGBT Pride and the campaign for a living wage for Londoners. When Ken is involved you cant miss the MAYOR OF LONDON symbol on posters around London and the underground which makes clear where the accountability lies and where your taxes are going.

Mayors for the other great cities in the UK would do this as well and would in many places give people the Labour Leadership they voted for rather than the Tory/Liberal collusion we see in places like Birmingham. Decisiveness, leadership and accountability is what our cities deserve. We need to have direction and someone with the power, vision and structure to see it through. Directly elected mayors will make town halls more democratic, giving people real choice through their own form of PR – supplementary vote – and an option to elect the Executive and legislature separately.

Campaigns for a mayor for Liverpool supported by groups like the New Local Government Network are local people calling for change and better governance of the area. Under these Mayors, you will know who is responsible for any council tax rises, why strategic decisions have not been taken and have someone to hold to account!

This system will also make Labour better leaders locally, there will be rigorous accountability of the Mayor (if they are Labour), it will be a highly contested selection meeting unlike too many councillor seats and because a Mayor only needs a third of the council to see through proposals Labour Leaders will no longer be held to ransom by factions in the Labour Group intent on derailing the leaders agenda.

For more information on the White Paper see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6084998.stm or http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1002882&PressNoticeID=2271.

Prime minister Brown's vision for Europe

On policy toward Europe the Labour party faithful have no better example of an issue that offered such hope yet provided so little. The lack of an open debate on the Euro, EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, The EU Constitution, and now the retreat on the right to free movement of labour to name just a few. Yet for some within the Labour party, progress on the UK relationship with Europe could take an all the more depressing turn next year with the predicted ascension of Gordon Brown to number 10.

In a one-day conference at Chatham House, a foreign affairs think tank in London, foreign policy analysts, think tankers, politicians and journalists met to debate what a future Brown Prime Premiership might look like for Europe. Gordon Brown has never been seen as a Europhile in the same way as Tony Blair has. Yet a future Brown policy toward Europe seems to be more nuanced than many believe. Beginning the conference Philip Stephens, Deputy Editor at the FT, commented that Brown’s foreign policy thoughts are couched in an exceptionalist view of the UK. In other words Brown sees the UK as neither European nor Atlantatist but as neo-imperialist in its ability to act as a powerful, independent driver of change providing the world with direction. In relation to Europe this translates as Brown wanting to keep his distance from the EU in a perceived effort to avoid being co-opted by it. On the theme of control Stephens also spoke of his belief that Brown is highly deliberative and sees the EU as an organisation which threatens to take control of policy decisions out of his hands.

In contrast the Observer’s William Keegan, questioned the view that the Chancellor was broadly anti-European. In his view there is actually a growing conversion between Gordon Brown and the EU with Brown recognising the role the EU can play in forming progressive policy on issues such as migration and climate change. This is a point Philip Stephens broadly agreed with, arguing that whilst steering clear of wide-ranging political agreements a future Prime Minister Brown would treat negotiations with the EU on a case by case basis using Europe where it is in Britain’s interest. Something that both Stephens and Keegan also agreed on was the idea that Brown and his team see Europe as returning to be a key dividing line between Labour and the Tories at the probable 2009 election. Europe, Brown believes, is still the elephant in the corner for Cameron’s Tories. His inability to mollify the Euroscpertics in his party and the dithering over the positioning of Conservative MEP’s in the European Parliament all serve to underline the Brown team’s thinking.

So the key message to come out from the conference was that a Prime Minister Brown may look a lot different to a Chancellor Brown when it comes to the UK’s approach to Europe. This message was summed up by the final speaker Sunder Katwala, Chair of the Fabian Society. He noted the core fact that as Prime Minister, Brown would be freed of having to conceptualise policy negotiations with Europe through an economics prism. In a further call for a reassessment of Brown’s anti-Europea stance Katwala reminded the audience that two key Brownites namely Douglas Alexander and David Milliband are still happy to call themselves European Social Democrats and that at Labour’s recent conference Brown’s key economic advisor Ed Balls said at a Fabian Fringe Event that Europe would be one of the key future issues and that it would be framed as a ‘big-issue’ for Labour.

So while Gordon Brown may not view Europe as a grand political project as Tony Blair does, he is not necessarily as afraid of Europe as some political observers believe. As Sunder Katwala pointed out, ‘today you can’t govern’ if you are Eurosceptic. To govern affectively within the EU you must be willing to work affectively with it, something Brown and his allies surely know well. Of course nobody will really know how Brown will treat Europe until he finally settles into Number 10 and if he should be pipped to the Prime Ministerial post then the UK’s future within Europe will once again be up for debate.

It's not civil war, just a little local difficulty

Hilary Benn held his line on Iraq as well as anyone could on the Today Programme. Ever-growing violence, military mutterings and some powerful journalist from Basra meant it was always going to be tough but he remained largely as humane and intellectually honest as is his trademark. He did however, resort to an emerging theme amongst invasion apologists which, though it sounds respectable, is misleading. That is the statement that the violence in Iraq is limited to just a few parts of the country. So it is not a civil war, just a few violent areas.

On that basis, of course, there was no American Civil War, there was just a little local difficulty in Kansas, Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. There was no World War One, there was just some trouble in Belgium and Northern France. The argument is at least crass and could easily become callous. It should be discarded. When supporters of the Iraq war start propping themselves up with such casuistry, their picture of an emerging democracy starts to sounds as false as 1930's apologists' descriptions of Soviet social conditions.

The Iraq blame game

With less than two weeks to go, the US mid-term elections are, according to the latest calculations, going right down to the wire. Nonetheless, all the indications are that the Democrats now have a good shot at retaking control of the US senate and, quite possibly, the House of Representatives. And, as the Guardian's profile today of the race in the bellweather state of Ohio reveals, anger at President Bush's Republican party is being largely, if not totally, driven by the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

But Democrats - split themselves between those who originally supported and opposed the war and now unsure whether they should back immediate withdrawal or not - should beware if they think they can ride a tide of anti-war hostility to the White House in 2008. For, as Michael Lind notes in a challenging essay in this month's Prospect, the 'long-term beneficiaries of the Iraq war may be the Republicans who waged and lost it, rather than the Democrats who (mostly) opposed it'.

As Lind goes on to argue, countries who are victorious in war tend to be more relaxed about their security and more open to parties of the left. He cites Bill Clinton's victory in 1992 after the end of the cold war, as well as Labour's win here in Britain in 1945. By contrast, defeated countries tend to look to the right - take, for instance, France's embrace of DeGaulle after Algeria or the string of Republican presidential election victories which followed Vietnam.

Indeed, American history suggests that 'opposition even to failed or unpopular wars can be fatal to a political party'. The Federalists ceased to exist after the 1812 war, which most of its members opposed, while the Whig party collapsed after the Mexican war of 1846-48, of which they were highly critical. More recently, the Democrats can hardly be said to have prospered in the aftermath of their opposition to the Vietnam war, especially once conservatives developed the myth that the anti-war movement and liberals back home betrayed the troops on the ground, thus paving the way for defeat in south-east Asia.

Iraq may well sink a number of Republicans on November 7. But the Democrats should be prepared for a fierce counter-attack. If the right gets it way, it will be they, not Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, to whom any eventual blame from Iraq attaches.Iraq

Brown leads Cameron by 27 per cent among swing voters

For the last few months it has been hard to get through a newspaper without some article pontificating about David Cameron's allure to swing voters. His boyish, Blairish, pram-pushing, nappy-changing, mug-washing, blogtastic friendliness.

What those articles haven't mentioned is that out in the real world and away from the media village, swing voters are not actually warming to David Cameron. Contrary to the media narrative, focus groups I have conducted have increasingly shown ambivalence, and often hostility to a man who, as one participant put it, is beginning to come across as all mouth and no trousers.

So it came as no surprise to us when an opinion poll we conducted alongside Populus for our new think tank - the Opinion Leader Forum - found that it is Brown, not Cameron who swing voters prefer. When asked who they would prefer to be the next Prime Minister, 24% of swing voters picked David Cameron, while 51% picked Gordon Brown.

Looking behind these figures, it seems that one reason for Brown's lead is that that swing voters are more likely to trust him to set the country in a better direction as Prime Minister. While 41% of swing voters agreed that Cameron would set the country in a better direction, 48% agree that Brown would. And, because more people disagree that Cameron would than Brown would, Brown enjoys a 12% lead in the net scores (total proportion who agree minus proportion who disagree).

Swing voters also rate Gordon Brown's personality more highly than David Cameron's on several key measures. Brown has a 27% lead on the net proportion of swing voters who see him as 'strong', while Cameron is 22% behind on having 'substance'. The only crumb of comfort for Cameron is his modest 8% lead on listening to the public - a lead dwarfed by Brown's astonishing 92% lead on being experienced.

Of course it's still relatively early days for Cameron and there is plenty of work for Labour to do before the next election. But these numbers show that it is Cameron, not Brown with a mountain to climb amongst swing voters.

It is worth briefly thinking about why these swing voters matter. Our poll picked out two groups of swing voters: those currently intending to vote Labour but open to voting for another party, and the much larger group who are currently not voting Labour but are open to doing so. Ultimately it is these people in marginal seats who will decide the next election. If Labour holds on to the voters currently planning to vote Labour, then on current horse-race standings, the Tories will need to reach something like 44% to win an outright victory - a number they haven't reached since the 1970s. If Labour make inroads into the group of swing voters that are open to voting for them but not currently doing so, the Tory task becomes just about impossible.

In light of this poll, there are two interesting things to watch out for. Firstly, these numbers should lead to a change in the media's assumptions about how Cameron and Brown will shape up against each other. With Brown clearly leading amongst swing voters, and with the latest Mori poll showing Labour to have a two point lead, it will be interesting to see if Cameron's media bubble bursts.

Secondly, it will be interesting to watch Cameron's strategy. There are of course two ways to secure votes. You can attempt to appeal to the swing voters - as Cameron has so far- or you can focus on mobilising people who would vote for you if they were to vote, but are not currently likely to make it to the ballot box. This was the approach the Tories focussed on unsuccessfully in 01 and 05, and they are right to have knocked this strategy on its head this time. But if Cameron's efforts to enter the middle ground are seen to be failing, the pressure from the right of his party to jag back their way is likely to rise. This is exactly what happened to  Michael Howard, IDS and William Hague, who all started out by tacking to the centre, before being dragged back to the right when they lost the ability to control the right of the party. Will history repeat itself?

About the poll

This poll was carried out in the weekend of 13-15th October. 1018 people were interviewed at random, of whom 242 were swing voters. The margin of error is ±3%.

The questions used to pick out swing voters were:

Q1. If there was a general election tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

Q2. [for all non-Labour voters] Although you are not currently intending to vote Labour, what are the chances that you will decide to support them in the next general election in three years time? A fair chance, a small chance, a slight chance, or no chance at all?

Q3. [for all Labour voters] Although you are current intending to vote Labour, what are the chances that you will decide to support another party in the next general election in three years time? A fair chance, a small chance, a slight chance, or no chance at all?

Swing voters are defined as people who say 'fair chance' in Q2 or Q3.

Prince Charming

The bad news in the polls for David Cameron may not be sending shivers through Notting Hill after all. It’s only bad news if you assume that Cameron is running to be Prime Minister. This valet has been paying close attention to his pronouncements on the environment. I have also been following his snap statements on the cultural warp and woof of Britain, such as on chocolate oranges and clothing ranges for girls.

Close analysis reveals that he is not running to run the government. He is, it turns out, at least equally likely running to be Prince of Wales. The first time he uses the word ‘ghastly’ is when the cat is finally out of the bag. He need not worry about the polls.

The more the better

Jack Straw's ideas on House of Lords reform, leaked in yesterday's Sunday Times, show that the government is at last talking the language of democratic reform of the second chamber. This is a welcome, if overdue break with the quietism of previous government proposals for a fully or 80%-appointed Lords.

A 50%-elected element, an indepedent appointments commission, term limits (3 terms of around four years) and proper salaries for members are all a step in the right direction. But, as the Unlock Democracy campaign points out, most people, not unreasoably, want to elect all, not just some of their representatives.

Straw's concern that an all-elected Lords would be 'more political' is misplaced. At present, supposedly apolitical crossbenchers are both no such thing and, as Unlock Democracy point out, have very poor attendance records, voting in just 12% of divisions. And peers who do adopt party labels (the vast majority) are no more likely to defy the whips than MPs in any case.

MPs will again get to vote on what proportion of the upper house should be elected, probably just after Christmas. The hope must be that they will be in a similar - though more decisive - mood to when they fell just a few votes short of endorsing an 80%-elected chamber. In this sense, the formula must be: 'the more the better'.

David Miliband on Social Democracy 2025

David Miliband has an interesting post up at the Social Democratic Futures pages of The Euston Manifesto.

The Labour Conference in Manchester clarified two things for many people.

First, that we need to do a better job at understanding and explaining the changes that have taken place in Britain over the last 10 years.  Second, we need to engage positively and actively with the development of a new agenda for the future.

On the first count, the departure of the Prime Minister at some point in the next six to nine months, along with the 10 year anniversary of Labour's election in 1997, provides the basis for a sustained "reckoning" on the Blair years. (…)

The Reckoning is important; it provides the foundation for the second task, developing a new agenda for the future.  My starting point for that task is the belief that Britain has changed a lot in the last twenty years, but will change more in the next twenty.  That change can be reactionary or progressive.  Our job is to understand the new world better than the Right, and respond better.

I believe successful countries in 2025 will be egalitarian in their ethos and structure, pluralistic in their systems of power, and globally linked at the level of the individual and the community (think cities) as well as the nation. I have called these 'empowered societies'. Those of us concerned with the success of this country need to engage with the demands of these requirements - demands that will require us to go far beyond the agenda set in 1997 and followed since then. (…)

Read the whole thing. Join the debate (send responses to Alanjohnsonsdf@aol.com). What is your vision of social democracy 2025?

Progressive politics and the need to reconcile religious belief and democracy

Is the Left making a mistake when, as it so often does, its fails to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives? Is it time for those who espouse the ‘progressive’ agenda to debate just how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy?

We are not alone in struggling with this issue. In the United States the up and coming Democratic Senator, Barack Obama, has recently argued that his own party has been reluctant to engage in serious debate about the issue of religion and politics. Speaking back in June of this year he said:

At best, we (Democrats) may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands.

The reality of political engagement is that we have to meet people where they are – even if we do not agree with where they are. If, as a progressive movement, we are to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to the lives of others we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

In his speech Obama argued that secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into public debate. Indeed he makes the case that the majority of great reformers in American history – he cites Lincoln, Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.

Therefore if progressives are more willing to engage with people of faith they might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of modern Britain.

Post-dated

How strange to find myself reminding the Telegraph of this, but, here goes: tax money belongs to the people. That means that spending it must be rigorously judged and prioritised against the national interest, it means that public institutions must not squander money and it means that taxation should be kept to the lowest possible level.

The Telegraph is usually anti-dirigist to fault. And yet yesterday we find it supporting the case for state intervention up and down the shires of England.

Over the years several things have happened to undermine the viability of village post offices. The government, banks, the BBC and others have moved to electronic payments and deductions. To reverse that would be to create an additional cost that would be passed on to tax-payers and customers. The other is that people are voted with their Volvos and headed away from the village store and into the hypermarket for their stamps and their milk. Now the taxpayer is being asked to cough up to fill the gap.

Given that we have moved away from state subsidy for shipbuilding, mining and the rest of industry, it seems strange to make solitary exception for village shops. What next, the pubs?

The government is already subsidising the network to the tune of some £150m a year, according to Alistair Darling on the Today programme. Stop! I can’t believe I am saying this, but stop with the government subsidies!

It is wrong to subsides the unsustainable. Propping up the unproppable leads to an ever-growing bill, followed by an even greater wrench for those involved when, inevitably, reality catches up. I’d urge the government to spend the same money, and more if necessary, on helping rural small businesses gauge the niche markets of the future and transform to reach them.

Can Cameron do a Sweden on Labour's employment record?

Is David Cameron taking a leaf from the book of Fredrik Reinfeldt, the charismatic Conservative leader who brought the New Moderates to power in the Swedish general election in September, by attacking Gordon Brown on his employment record?

Reinfeldt, you will recall, led his party to a narrow victory over the incumbent Swedish Social Democrats, who had been in power for the previous 12 years. Although a number of factors have been attributed to his success, most commentators agree that of central importance was his questioning of the Social Democrat's employment record during the campaign.

In the run up to the election, the Social Democrats, led by Goran Persson, boasted an official unemployment rate of just 6 per cent, and an economic growth rate of 5.6 per cent. However, Reinfeldt successfully exploited popular anxieties over the global competitiveness of the so-called ‘Swedish model’ by suggesting that the true unemployment figure was much closer to 20 per cent, if you counted those on youth training schemes, early retirement or on long-term sick pay who might otherwise have been in work. The message stuck, and was enough to secure Reinfeldt's New Moderates a seven seat majority over their Social Democratic rivals.

Meanwhile, yesterday Cameron attacked Gordon Brown for disguising the level of unemployment in the UK. In a speech on disability in Edinburgh he said it was 'morally wrong and economically stupid' that five million people were left 'on the scrap heap' while firms dealt with the resulting labour shortage by employing migrants. Cameron was immediately accused by Labour of wildly inflating the unemployment figures, and berated for implying that even the seriously ill and disabled should be forced back into the job market. But could Cameron be attempting a re-run of the Reinfeldt strategy by questioning the accuracy of Labour's employment statistics? If so, what are his chances of convincing the electorate?

On the surface, a contest with Gordon Brown over Labour’s employment record looks like a highly risky strategy for Cameron to pursue. As chancellor, Brown has presided over a record decline in the unemployment rate - the current figure, according to the ONS, stands at just 1.7 million, or 5.5 per cent of the UK workforce (although, more worryingly, the rate has risen by 280,000 over the past year to its highest point since 2000). Cameron will also be aware of his party’s own abysmal record in this regard. Under Margaret Thatcher, the number of people on the dole queue in Britain in 1986 hit 3.1 million, 10.6 per cent of the UK work force.

However, in raising the issue yesterday Cameron will no doubt be mindful of the 2.7 million on the government’s books currently claiming incapacity benefit (all of whom are included in Cameron’s 5 million figure as being ‘on the scrap heap’ and therefore potentially able to work). In his speech, Cameron attacked the government’s record in this area by suggesting that more should be done to incentivise the disabled back in to work, and that the current range of employment-related benefits should be consolidated into a single benefit and assessment.

Labour is aware of its potential vulnerability on this issue. Unlike the unemployment rate, the number claiming incapacity benefit has risen since Labour came to power, from 2,370,500 in May 1997 to 2.7 million today (although we shouldn’t forget that the biggest rise in those claiming the benefit occurred in the 1980s, under the Conservative’s watch). Earlier this year, the pensions secretary John Hutton committed the government to shaving 1 million off the 2.7 million figure within 10 years by replacing incapacity benefit with a work-incentivising employment allowance, and providing more support to get the disabled back to work.

Some studies, however, have questioned whether this target is achievable under the government’s current proposals. If this proves to be the case, and the government fails to make significant in roads into the number claiming incapacity benefit by the time of the next election, then a Swedish-style dispute over Gordon Brown's 'true' unemployment figures could well be on the cards.

Mr. Blair’s ‘strategy of openness’ – not Mr. Cameron’s new realism – is the real foreign policy of progressives

Writing about the recent remarks on British foreign policy by both the Prime Minister and David Cameron, Ian Kearns, the Deputy Director of ippr, claims that it is the Tory leader who ‘points the way ahead for progressives.’ He says that Mr. Cameron is right to call for more ‘multilateralism’ and for the need to ‘re-balance our relationship’ with the United States.

Maybe Mr. Cameron is right, but involvement in the debates on both the special relationship and multilateralism is to become enmeshed in populist issues that are, in reality, little more than sideshows in the bigger scheme of things. What really matters is the direction of British grand strategy. But first, let us be clear: Mr. Cameron is no progressive regarding foreign policy, which is reflected by those he has chosen to advise him on world affairs, like Douglas Hurd. Far from being a progressive, the Tory leader’s recent speech seems to suggest that we move back to a foreign policy based on Realism – best represented by the amoral foreign policy of John Major’s administration in the 1990s. While Mr. Cameron made several statements elsewhere in his speech calling for the promotion of human rights, he also said:

We must also use our considerable historic, cultural and trading links with Islamic governments that seek cooperation rather than confrontation, to strengthen their position domestically and within the Islamic world…from Malaysia, to Egypt, to Jordan, to the Maghreb, there are governments with whom we work closely already, and with whom we could do more. This does not mean uncritical acceptance of all their views or actions. But it does mean persistent engagement at all levels, and it means basing our actions on real sensitivity and understanding of their domestic circumstances.

Here, his attachment to the key tenets of Realism is quite clear, contradicting any idealist rhetoric elsewhere. Foreign policy Realists are natural pessimists, and in the words of Mr. Cameron, they are ‘sceptical of grand schemes to remake the world.’ Realism argues that nations should only pursue their narrowly defined national interests, and should not intervene in the affairs of other countries, unless those countries become a clear and pressing threat to national security. This approach sees oppression, human rights abuses, ethnic cleansings, and even genocides as unfortunate occurrences in which it is not our business to intervene: state sovereignty is held as sacrosanct, and no distinction is made between autocracies and democracies. In any case, in Neville Chamberlain’s words, such countries are, for Realists, often ‘far off land[s] of which we know nothing’, so the events in those lands, they say, are of secondary importance. Realists assert that we should merely try to manage global affairs, working with and even reinforcing, if necessary, dictators who are our ‘friends’, while showing greater sensitivity and understanding towards, as Mr. Cameron puts it, the ‘domestic circumstances’ of oppressive regimes. In other words, a foreign tyrant ‘may be a son-of-a-bitch, but at least he’s our son-of-a-bitch’.

During the Cold War, the West’s application of a Realist foreign policy may have been necessary. Dictators were courted by Britain to prevent the Soviets’ tentacles from expanding into other countries, the consequences of which would threaten Western security. In the Realist tradition, what happened to the people held captive by tyrants was neither here nor there. Further, Western nations actively supported autocracies in many cases, providing weaponry and aid, causing a string of brutal tyrants to came and go in many developing countries, who caused death, bloodshed and radicalisation in their wake.

But the whirlwind that we today now suffer was in many ways sown by the Realism of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. Whereas the costs of autocratic oppression used to be by and large contained within national borders, in today’s world, where space and time are compressed by cheap transportation, email and the internet, those consequences now harm the West, and also destabilise other regions still further. We stood by while millions were slaughtered in Rwanda and Bosnia, and when societies collapsed in Afghanistan and Somalia, all of which later became nodes of chaos. It was only in the latter half of the 1990s when Labour came to power that Britain took more concrete action: the operations in Kosovo and Sierra Leone being good examples. Western leaders began to realise that the internal affairs of other countries – far from being of little concern – were increasingly important. Extremist websites can be seen by anyone with a computer and mouse, radicals can move easily between countries to spread their venom, and the ‘blowback’ from failed states – international crime, slavery, political and religious extremism, weapons proliferation, migration, and illegal drugs – corrupts the social fabric of our societies like never before. Unless we rise to the challenge, these threats will only get worse.

Radicalisation and extremism have become particularly acute in the broader Middle East. Tony Blair’s ‘arc of extremism’ is no figment of the imagination. It is both very real and very dangerous. Stretching from central Africa to central Asia, it includes some of the most abhorrent regimes yet known, where human rights abuses are endemic, where women are oppressed and where hardship, poverty and brutalisation are a way of life. Found also within this ‘arc’ are ‘frontier zones’, like Afghanistan, Somalia and Congo, where lawlessness is the norm, and where central government is either weak or non-existent. Such places are incubators of further extremism and terror, as radicals seek to draw off the impoverished masses and covert individuals to certain abhorrent causes, such as to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, or to piracy in Somalia.

Henry Kissinger was America’s arch-strategist of the ‘he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch’ foreign policy approach of Realism. His nemesis, Henry Jackson, an American Democrat senator - after whom The Henry Jackson Society is named – strongly objected to this strategy. Jackson believed that good relations and concessions towards autocrats strengthened, rather than weakened, their rule, especially that of the Soviet empire. Accordingly, he fiercely resisted Kissinger’s desire for Détente, believing, above all, that the promotion of human rights was not only a moral objective, but also a strategic imperative. Looking at the foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Jackson concluded that the way governments treated their own people mirrored the way they treated the outside world. He understood that the promotion of democracy was more important than the maintenance of a supposed ‘stability’ – which merely disguised dictators’ domestic oppression. Instead of Détente, Jackson urged the West to maintain a ‘forward strategy’ to confront and destabilise the Soviet empire in every way possible. He believed that the more democracies in the world, the more secure the world would be. And then, like now, many argued that a confrontational and transformational approach to oppressive regimes would lead to ruin. But ultimately, Henry Jackson was right.

The idea, therefore, that Britain’s current foreign policy in Iraq or Afghanistan is the cause of Islamist extremism is a lot of nonsense. Indeed, while current British foreign policy in the broader Middle East may be ammunition – or an excuse – used by fanatics to convert more to their cause, Islamist extremism long predates Anglo-American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. After all, not that it needs to be emphasised, but 11th September 2001 happened before either. Instead, the rise of Islamism has been intensified by almost half a century of failed Western strategy in the broader Middle East and the pursuit of ‘stability’ under the guise of Realism. In reality, though, a dictatorial regime can never produce ‘stability’, because it is very much like a wooden house riddled with termites. It may seem hard and stable from the outside, but closer inspection reveals the rot. The termite-infested house will eventually collapse, with consequences all round.

What is needed, then, is not ‘friendly’ relations with brutal regimes, or the propping-up of various warlords in failed states, but rather, their gradual removal and their replacement with democratic government. And democracy is more than just free elections. It is also an open political system with freedom and rights for all. It includes protection for minorities and a dynamic civil society, as well as social solidarity and the strict adherence to the rule of law. Here, when Tony Blair says that the universal values of the West are a cure for the brutalisation and corruption of foreign lands, he is spot on. When Gordon Brown declares that democracy is not just for us, but for all, he is utterly right. And when liberal interventionists and neoconservatives in both the United Kingdom and the United States seek to transform the broader Middle East and other regions racked with autocracy, they understand just how much our world has changed.

The most successful, and long-term, method of spreading democracy is to allow the West’s values to shine brightly as a beacon to the rest of the world. Here, Western states must not be seen to reduce domestic civil liberties, and internment camps like Guantanamo Bay have no place. But the threats from mounting radicalisation and extremism overseas call for more proactive techniques: a robust foreign policy must be sustained, and a ‘forward strategy’ continued to force open closed societies and spread democracy all over the world. First, autocratic rulers must be destabilised and democrats and moderate dissidents supported and promoted. Second, failing states must be prevented from collapsing into chaos, and failed states must be reordered. And let us not beat around the bush: this will require both military intervention and even prolonged occupation. As such, Britain’s armed forces must be bolstered, its defence spending increased and its military technology enhanced. Thirdly, as with the elimination of Saddam’s regime in Iraq, the leading democracies must not rule out the forceful removal of unpalatable regimes. Autocrats obstructing democratic change may have to be flushed out.

The United Kingdom – a global power with truly worldwide interests – must recognise, as John Reid recently stated, ‘that we not only have rights to defend in the world, but we also have responsibilities to discharge; we are in a sense our brother’s keeper globally. Sometimes it requires us to say: “yes, we will make the ultimate sacrifice”.’ Under Labour, Britain has once again been catapulted to the forefront of global affairs. Instead of Realism or a naïve Idealism (like that of ‘the peace at any price’ brigade), the Prime Minister has sought to marry principles with power under what might be described as a ‘Strategy of Openness’. The results have been spectacular: the world is being opened and changed. Oppression is in retreat, and democracy is on the march. Kosovoars no longer live under Milosevic’s lash; the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone has been crushed; Saddam Hussein is effectively in gaol; and the remnants of the Taleban are gradually being mopped up. Both Afghanistan and Iraq may not have improved as rapidly as was first hoped, and we have made many tactical errors, but there is at least now a real chance for positive change; and it is our duty to help the Afghans and Iraqis realise this goal.

So, there must be no return to Mr. Cameron’s new brand of Realism, where ‘friendly’ dictators are to be supported abroad, and where the international status quo is to be timorously accepted. It was this approach that contributed to 11th September 2001 in the first place – and allowed Saddam Hussein to go on misgoverning in Iraq. Labour’s foreign policy must not change radically from its current course. We are the progressives and we must persist in forging a principled foreign policy, using British power to serve democracy’s advance. Labour’s must be a missionary foreign policy, which is the only way in the twenty-first century of protecting British security and building a better world.

Tackling carousel fraud

Today's news of the arrest in Bermuda of the Dutch banker, John Deuss, will be welcomed with relief by the Treasury. Investigators suspect Deuss's bank, based in Curacao in the Dutch Antilles, is implicated in the VAT or 'carousel'  fraud that has escalated to the point where it will cost the Exchquer up to £10 billion this year alone.

At a time of belt-tightening across government, this is a pretty substantial sum, enough to build two dozen new hospitals. Deuss's arrest, and the raids which preceded it in London, South Wales and the Netherlands, is certainly a coup for the authorities. British Revenue and Customs reckon that due to their disruption of the fraudsters' networks, illegal trading of this kind had dropped to £1.6bn, down from £4bn in the previous months.

HMRC cites the arrests, its doubling of the number of staff working on carousel fraud to 1,000, and its likely gaining of permission from the EU to introduce new VAT rules for certain products, as evidence that it is getting on top of the problem. But HMRC has already cut 7,000 staff in light of the 2004 Gershon review on government efficiency, and aims to cut spending by 20% over five years.

The suspicion is that the current high profile of VAT fraud may have prompted the government to leave gaps elsewhere. Added to the fact that carousel fraudsters are already moving into products not affected by the new VAT rules, and government as a whole could have a major, long-term problem on its hands, with big implications for public spending and British trade.

Reflections on the UN

I was lucky enough this summer, to be invited on to a young diplomat’s programme run by an NGO. As a part of this programme, I was taken to New York to visit the United Nations, and attend the General Assembly. I will now recount some of my impressions of the conference.

There were eight main areas of debate and concern at this years UNGA meeting: the Security Council, The New Secretary General, Sudan (Darfur), Iran, Continuing Reform, The convention on counter terrorism, Iraq, and Israel.

For those counties not on the Security Council (SC), life at the UN can be intensely frustrating. A state can find itself banned from discussing matters held by the SC, and without a large scale alliance, prevented from having a serious impact on major UN decisions. Therefore those nations unhappy with the scope, power or make up of the SC pushed for its reform, and discussed the need for autonomy of the General Assembly (GA). Reform could see five additional members added to the existing five permanent members of the SC, so candidates Germany and Brazil quietly worked to be included, whilst others continued to lobby publicly for greater reform.

The secretariat is (unofficially) rotated regionally, at the beginning of the most recent race to become Secretary General it was believed Asia would take the seat. The Security council favored an Asian candidate (China has a veto), but yet there were candidates nominated from India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Thailand, Lativa and Jordan. All candidates were profiling, and in some cases directly appealing for votes in their speeches, since the conference Latvian premiere Vaira Vike-Freiberga has left the race leaving the obvious winner Ban Ki-Moon the sole candidate. The Latvian premiere was one of a number of powerful female world leaders campaigning for a woman to lead the UN, a campaign that will hopefully have a successful outcome in the next election. As for Ki-Moon, he is a quiet man, who will have to prove his independence in order to avoid being labeled the American Secretary General.

The issue of Sudan, and in particular genocide in Darfur was consistently mentioned from the podium by a majority of world leaders. George Bush announced a special US envoy to the region and most premieres welcomed the development of the diplomatic efforts to ensure the troops in the region remained and were expanded to protect civilians. Darfur is on the agenda, but progress all too slow. How embarrassing that a movement that as Kofi Anan said ‘emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust’ has failed to tackle in any meaningful way, a genocide that has raged for years.

No one could ignore Iran at this years UNGA. Ahmedinejad used his time in New York for a tour of self publicity. Whilst American TV pundits condemned him and the mayor of New York refused to welcome him the statements from the platform were absent. Iran’s president was politely clapped to the stage, and from it having come as close as he could to denying the Holocaust and questioning Israel’s existence. Only a few Western states succeeded in putting Iran on the GA’s agenda, but the keyword was diplomacy, with violence all over the Middle East, nations were keen not to escalate the Iranian situation. That said, the lack of moral fortitude in the face of Ahmedinejad’s appalling comments was embarrassing.

Kofi Anan started a process of reform at the UN culminating in the discussions at the 2005 conference. The hangover from that conference was still evident this year, generally in discussions of the powers of the president and more specifically with questions or concerns over the Human Rights Council, its structure function and how it should report back.

Having adopted the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy on the 8th September, there was wide reaching discussion on the resolution, subsequent implementation and practical outcomes.

Iraq, although exhausted as a subject and mentioned in many speeches as an afterthought was still on the agenda at this years GA. The OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Conference) seemed keen to ensure delegates were reminded of what was happening there.

Of course,Israel was mentioned in almost every speech, most times with some bias but not too disparagingly. Kofi anan in his opening speech referred to the conflict saying: “It is not just one conflict among many, its special, fuelled by religion, passion. The Pro Israelis say it is harshly judged by standards no applied to its enemies; this is true even in some UN bodies, but there is Israel, and its Occupation, disproportion, taking Arab lands. Until the UN Security Council can act, our authority will decline. Our unbias will be in question and our ability to deal with others (conflicts) will be questioned.” This I feel was quite a big step from him (I believe) attacking the UN Human Rights Committee, but equally, his speech opened the door to many more negative comments. Israel - especially after the Lebanon war - came in for harsh criticism, but is respected (by all perhaps, but Iran) as a member state and leads with experts on a number of UN committees focussing on issues of Science and Technology.

An Overview: the UN can be fun, watching smaller countries have their photos taken with other delegations on the floor of the UNGA is amusing, or hearing the Brazilian president speaking first in a long UN tradition, however the UN can also be upsetting, the grand scale of diplomacy is mirrored by bureaucracy. Furthermore, it can be, and often is a platform from which leaders boast their countries achievements rather than urging action on critical global concerns. The UN can however be used as a forum to share ideas and a Platform to make some face liberal values even if they do not hold or adopt those values themselves. And is that then not the challenge for our leaders in the UK, to enact progressive policies based on progressive values and hold them up as a mirror to the world, to encourage others to reflect on and mirror the good we can do.

Cameron throws down foreign policy challenge

Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have delivered speeches heavy in foreign policy significance in recent weeks. The Prime Minister’s speech to the Labour Party Conference went beyond terrorism and the need to maintain support for the United States to highlight energy security and mass migration as new issues on the national security agenda. David Cameron, speaking ten days earlier to the British America Project, talked of the need for a new multilateralism and of the need to re-balance our relationship with the United States. Of the two speeches, it is Cameron’s that points the way ahead for progressives.

This is true for two distinct but related reasons. First, Cameron is right to say that the foreign and security problems we face today can only be met through multilateral solutions. No state acting unilaterally, not even the United States, can manage the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, of climate change, or of transnational terrorism and organised crime. The international community’s response to the North Korean nuclear test will be informative in this regard, since there is little the US itself can do in response. Meaningful sanctions, if they come at all, will come from China and South Korea. Cameron’s speech may have been motivated by political opportunism, and he himself may be politically incapable of seeing the EU as a pivotal part of the multilateralism now needed, but this should not distract us from the wider truth his speech identified: Security requires multilateralism.   

Second, the Labour government’s claim that there is no inconsistency between full public support for the current US administration on the one hand, and our stated desire to build effective multilateral institutions and regimes on the other, is no longer tenable. The neo-conservative view that the national security mission should determine the necessary coalition, rather than the coalition of states determining the mission, is fundamentally at odds with the approach required to foster the multilateralism we now need. It is one thing, against this backdrop, to say that effective multilateralism cannot exist without US participation and that we should seek to influence US policy in our direction. It is another thing entirely too publicly support US policies that undermine the more effective multilateralism needed to keep us safe. 

Given this, and given the domestic political price already paid by progressives for the government’s support for President Bush, a change in our approach to relations with the United States is now urgent. To be successful, this needs to include not only a subtle shift in policy but also some fresh analysis and a more mature understanding of how our relationship with the United States works.

First, we need to assert politically that it is possible to be serious minded on security without agreeing with everything the American administration does. In this regard, Cameron’s speech was extremely helpful.  It exposed as flawed the Prime Minister’s view that only two security policy choices are on offer, namely close support for the Bush administration on the one hand or the hopeless idealism of the far left on the other. There is a viable policy space in between these extremes and Cameron’s speech has made it politically easy for us to occupy it without being seen as soft on security.

Second, and to reinforce the credibility of this shift in policy, we need to conduct a strategic threat assessment to ensure our policy frameworks, alliances, and institutional architectures are designed to meet the challenges of the early twenty-first century rather than those of the last century. This threat assessment must consider issues such as the worrying amount of WMD related material and know-how going missing from sites in the former Soviet Union and Pakistan. It must consider the security implications of growing international pressure on natural resources such as oil and water and the possible re-emergence of multipolar competition among the US, China and a resurgent Russia. Finally, it must consider the long-term security implications of climate change, and the degraded power of formal state authorities to keep control of transnational terrorist and organised crime networks. Strategic assessment of these threats should underpin development and publication of a national security strategy for the United Kingdom, spelling out our interests and vulnerabilities, as well as the rationale for any policies intended to keep us secure.   

Third and last, we should develop some much needed maturity in our domestic debate on the relationship with the United States. It simply lacks credibility, for example, to claim that any public disagreement with a US administration on a national or international security issue would destroy the relationship. This has not been the experience of history, nor the experience of other European allies when they have failed to agree with US foreign policy positions. And if the claim were true, this would be a stunning assertion that our entire national security strategy is based upon the most fickle and unreliable of relationships.

It is equally unhelpful to claim that all disagreements with the US are motivated by anti-Americanism. As Andrew Gamble, the leading academic and author of Between Europe and America has pointed out, there is an identifiable Anglo-American presence in world politics. Ideological debates take place between Anglo-America and other entities internationally but also within the Anglo-American sphere itself. These latter debates are transnational in nature, dividing opinion within the US and UK in more important ways than they divide opinion between the US and UK. The neo-conservative view currently prevalent in Washington, therefore, is not the sum total of American opinion. Many credible foreign and security policy analysts in Washington disagree profoundly with the policies of the Bush administration. And when disagreement is allowed to be branded as disloyalty, either within the United States, or between allies across the Atlantic, we concede important ground to those who seek political advantage in constructing the debate in this way.

Moreover, if we treat, the views of the current US administration as a permanent feature of the landscape, we fail to acknowledge the obvious point that American politics is dynamic and cyclical. Neo-conservative foreign policies often struggle to show results abroad, and can suffer serious loss of popular political support at home. American administrations, in this context, use the support of allies abroad as important sources of political capital in the ongoing noise of domestic disagreement and debate. We will never know how a British government refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq would have played on the American political scene but we should not underestimate how valuable our support can be to any American president about to undertake serious and risky military action overseas. 

There is then, more room for disagreement and influence in this relationship than many would have us believe. We share core values with the United States, including a commitment to an open international economy, good governance and universal human rights. More often than not, we will be standing shoulder to shoulder with the US in promoting a global order based on these values. But in a mature relationship there will sometimes be open disagreement. The challenge, of course, is to limit the disagreements and to know when to disagree, and why. The decision should be based on the contents of a well thought through national security strategy, not fear or unconditional loyalty.   

Conservatives to vote against WW1 pardons?

The following is from a letter from David Cameron's office to a campaigner on the issue:

We are making no commitment about how we would vote on the forthcoming amendment to the Armed Forces Bill regarding the pardons.

Does this mean that Tory MPs might vote against  a possible group pardon?

I personally welcome the news that government's move to pardon more than 300 soldiers who were shot for military offences during World War I has been backed by the House of Lords. Although these incidents happened 90 years ago the stigma and strength of feeling attached to these executions is still strong amongst the relatives of those that were executed. There is also a wider sense of empathy for these soldiers. Many of these men endured tortuous conditions in the trenches which most of us cannot even begin to comprehend. Soldiers at the time were suffering from what these days we would diagnose as post traumatic stress disorder, but during the war, more often than not, they would have been ordered back to the front-line.

The men that were executed for refusing to rejoin the front-line were victims of this terrible war. Although the officers were doing their best to apply the rules and standards of the time, it is right that we acknowledge that in some instances injustices were done

The non-appliance of science

Just before I took my physics GCSE, the teacher (one of the best I ever had) Mr Knott, informed us that the national average in the previous year had been grade E. He then wondered out loud how it was possible to avoid getting killed if your grasp of the basic forces that control existence was so lacking.

So I wondered quietly to myself this morning what he would be making of the new “Twenty-First Century Science GCSE” which has come under criticism from leading scientists for not being scientific enough. Under the new curriculum, boring and unnecessary elements (such as facts and experiments) have been made secondary to crucial topical discussions on matters such as GM crops and bird flu.

The first thing that strikes you is: why can’t schools manage to do both? I happily remember burning something to a crisp with a bunsen burner in the chemistry block before skipping off to a Personal & Social Education lesson - satchel swinging jauntily at my side and a-polishing an apple for teacher - to thrash out the issues of the day with fellow pupils and the trendy English-class assistant. But fair enough, life moves on and so must teaching methods. Let’s call it progress.

But where’s the progress in undermining how science is taught? Already in decline, science in the classroom does not need further weakening. Maybe the Twenty-First Century GCSE was envisaged to address this by popularising science. If so, it’s going about it the wrong way round. Sound understanding and practice should inform debate. Deciding what goes up on the whiteboard based on that week’s newspaper headlines misses the point of what science is.

Sadly, it seems that science in schools is falling victim to the same threats as science in society: abused to promote particular interests or wishful thinking; discredited through specious yet well-promoted reasoning; or Ludditely derided as the source of humankind’s problems.

(Two great antidotes to all this, by the way, are Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and Francis Wheen’s How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World).

It is society itself that suffers from all this. Originally, scientific advance was dependent on a progressive society. The Enlightenment and commercial freedoms opened the way for new inventions and ideas. But very swiftly, the position reversed. Today, more than ever, progressive society is dependent on scientific advance: whether it’s the emancipating and demystifying effects of the internet, the equalising of health and life expectancy through medical “miracles”, or the new technologies delivering ever more efficient and cleaner power.

And whether you’re Isaac Newton or an air-conditioning engineer, the application of science begins at your school desk. So a progressive education policy needs urgently to address the degrading of physics, chemistry and biology teaching. Preferably before Mr Knott’s vision of a lot more teenagers falling over, electrocuting themselves or trying to fly comes true.

Tories? They all look the same...

Bit of a slip by Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, in the Commons on Wednesday. As the Tory opened an Opposition day debate on the NHS, Tooting's Labour MP Sadiq Khan intervened to ask: 'Can the Honourable Gentleman confirm that, despite all the cuts that he claims will be made, staff will be safe and no jobs will be lost under a Conservative Government?' Preparing to slap down the interjection, Lansley began: 'I am interested in what the Honourable Gentleman says. He will forgive me if I am wrong, but I think that his local hospital is part of the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. Is that right?' Amid cries of' 'Tooting', the Tory frontbencher was forced to correct himself. But what was he thinking of? Surely he hadn't mistaken Khan for fellow Labour MP Shahid Malik, whose Dewsbury seat is indeed in Mid Yorks? (When he got around to answering Khan's question, Lansley admitted: 'I cannot, of course, make that promise.') 

Don't quota me on that

Today's suggestion by Sandy Bruce Lockhart, the Tory head of the Local Government Association, that state schools should introduce ethnic quotas to try and break down segregation has brought a wary response from the government.

Indeed, this is not the first time Sir Sandy has ventured the need for the more accurate counting in matters of race. In a widely publicised letter to the home secretary John Reid in August he blustered that the goverment was failing to keep proper figures on the number of working immigrants in the country. 'Working migrants have become an invisible population,' he warned ominously. Council tax, he went on, might have to 'rise disproportionately' in the future to cope with the additional burden on public services, thus neatly linking middle England anxieties over tax and immigration.

But Lockhart's stance against segregation is perhaps a little more surprising given his past record on minority issues in education. As leader of Kent County Council in 2000 he notoriously defied the government's repeal of section 28 by introducing his own local version of the hated law, ensuring that the council did not 'publish, purchase or distribute material with the intention of promoting homosexuality'. It remained on the council statute books until January 2005, shortly after which he stepped down as leader to become full-time chair of the LGA. How wonderful, therefore, to see Lockhart using his position to continue to spread the message of tolerance and integration in schools.