Despite coming from opposing ends of the conventional political spectrum, it’s not that often that I find myself inclined to take issue with DK over one of posts, but every so often an exception arises as here with his comments on the spectacularly incompetent efforts of a would-be Christian suicide-bomber…

Now, many people have pointed out to me, in conversation, that there are Christians who are just as fanatical and dangerous as the Islamists that we encounter; this is not something that I subscribe to. Yes, there are fanatical Christians, but they are not as dangerous as the Muslims: why?

It is an interesting fact that the Muslim suicide bombers, who have so troubled the West, have tended to be well-educated and, other than their ludicrous belief in their invisible friend, intelligent men with a real dedication to their death wish.

Fanatical Christians, on the other hand, tend to be a little more like the man in this article; that is, they make two short planks look like fucking Einstein.

And…

Generally speaking, Christians are quite happy to protest and do stupid things as long as they aren’t put to too much trouble: there isn’t really a Christian plan to remake the world under their God, no matter what you think of the neo-cons. Sorry.

The Muslims, on the other hand…

More than anything, this last comment suggests that DK is as yet unacquainted with an unaccreditted educational establishment in Virginia by the name of Patrick Henry College, which exists specifically for the self-appointed purpose of training young men and women:

"who will lead our nation [America] and shape our culture with timeless biblical values"

Sorry DK, not only is there genuinely a Christian plan to remake the world under their god, and Patrick Henry College is part of it, but they’re actually going about it both in plain sight and in a fashion that’s a damn sight more intelligent and hell of a lot scarier than any number of bearded wingnuts wandering round the public transport system with rucksack bombs.

If you’re out to try and take over the world then, as approaches go, suicide bombing suffers from a rather fundamental flaw - it has this unfortunate tendancy to kill off your own followers as well as those you’ve decided are the enemies of your particular cause. Martyrdom’s all very well and good but it does tend to have a bit of negative effect on your corporeal membership - it’s actually quite hard to build a viable revolutionary mass movement if your most ardent followers are off shagging celestial virgins.

By comparison, the fundies behind Patrick Henry College have chosen to adopt a much more subtle and dangerous approach; the systematic infiltration of the governement and administration of what is currently the most powerful military and economic nation on the planet, as Andrew Buncombe pointed out in a 2003 article in the Independent, reprinted here by the New Zealand Herald:

What makes this recently established, right-wing Christian college unique are the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links it has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment. This northern spring, of the almost 100 interns working in the White House, seven are from Patrick Henry. Another intern works for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, while another works for President George Bush’s senior political adviser, Karl Rove. Yet another works for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad.

Over the past four years, 22 conservative members of Congress have employed one or more Patrick Henry interns. Janet Ashcroft, the wife of Bush’s Bible-thumping Attorney-General, is one of the college’s trustees.

And this is no coincidence. Rather, it is the point. Students at Patrick Henry are on a mission to change the world: indeed, to lead the world. When, after four years or so, they leave their neatly kept campus, they do so with a drive and commitment to reshape their new environments according to the vision of their college.

DK’s got a valid point in the sense that when it comes to religious fanatics, its the educated ones you need to be keeping a close eye on, but when it comes to posing a threat to yours truly, I tend to figure that the odds of me getting on bus in Birmingham city centre and encountering a bearded guy muttering religious incantations to his himself in Arabic with electrical wires sticking out of his puffer jacket as still slim enough to thought negligible, while the thought of his Christian counterparts infesting the White House and Capitol Hill like a bunch of clean cut cockroaches make me rather more nervous.

Sorry DK, but I’m really with Bill Hicks on this one…

That’s another good thing about Bush being gone, man, cos for the last 12 years with Reagan and Bush, we have had fundamentalist Christians in the White House. Fundamentalist Christians who believe the Bible is the exact word of God, including that wacky fire and brimstone Revelations ending, have had their finger on the fucking button for 12 years. [Eyes roll back in head] "Tell me when Lord, tell me when. Let me be your servant Lord."

…and I know which I find the more threatening prospect.

Of all George Orwell’s essays, the one to which political bloggers should pay most attention is his May 1945 essay, ‘Politics and the English Language’. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that it should be considered required reading for anyone with aspirations of writing on the subject of politics; which is why the Ministry of Truth now proudly sports a copy of the full text of the essay for its readers’ enjoyment and edification (even though I am as guilty of many of the faults Orwell outlines as anyone).

There are any number of good reasons why bloggers should take careful note of Orwell’s commentary on the decline of the English language, which remains as relevant today as it was when first published more than sixty years ago, but for the purposes of this article it is his remarks on the subject of ‘meaningless words’ that merits particular attention, specifically:

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different…

…Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

To the cthonian ranks of dissolute political language it seems we can now add the word ‘radical’, if Mike Ion’s quasi-orgasmic paeon to Tony Blair is anything to go by…

[Warning: Regular readers may wish to have a bucket, bowl or sick-bag handy before reading the next bit…]

Blair was and is a radical reformer and the outcomes of this radicalism are to be found in the ordinary, in the mundane daily miracles that are taking place in our schools, our hospitals and our local communities. It is a radicalism that Labour members can be proud of and it is a radicalism that is beginning, slowly, to change this country for the better. If we are to make the most of this then we need to secure a fourth term at least.

[Don’t say I didn’t warn you…]

Political radicalism takes many forms such that no one branch of political thought can, today, lay claim to ownership, although radicalism has for the most part been more associated with the political left rather than the right, but if radicalism has a defining historical characteristic it is that it draws its impetus, it’s motive force if you like, from a deep seated desire to challenge and affect alterations in the prevailing social order. The terms ‘radical’ and ‘radicalism’ entered political discourse in the 18th Century and until the early part of the 20th Century were largely bound up in the various campaigns for electoral reform and extension of the franchise. The Chartists were radicials, as was the Women’s sufferage movement, while in France in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars the term ‘radical’ become synonymous with ‘republican’ during the period up until 1848 during which it was illegal to openly advocated republicanism.

By contrast, the 20th century saw the terms ‘radical’ and ‘radicalism’ debased and largely stripped of genuine meaning, becoming mere euphemisms for political extremism on both left and right and therefore hardly the right kind fo framework under which to assess Blair’s claim (by proxy) to have been a radical, which means that we must seek to return radicalism’s original meaning if we are to adequately consider such a claim on its merits.

To ask whether Blair could genuine be considered a radical is to ask, therefore, to what extent, if any, he has acted over the last ten years to challenge the prevailing social order and, in particular, the social order he inherited on taking office.

And there, my little droogies, we hit upon a problem.

For all that has been achieved over the last ten years, very little actually stands out as actually having challenged or changed the prevailing social order in British society.

As already noted, democracy and the extension of the franchise has historically been the iconic theme of political radicalism and, indeed, prior  to becoming Prime Minister in 1997, this was indeed a theme that Blair outwardly seemed keen to address. There was even talk at the time of giving serious consideration to the introduction of proportional representation in Westminster elections, although that failed to make the final cut of the 1997 election manifesto, which contented itself with a promise to put an end to right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, as follows:

The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute. This will be the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative. The legislative powers of the House of Lords will remain unaltered.

Ten years on, Blair succeeded only in reducing the number of hereditary peers down to a mere 92, although another stab at getting rid of the rest of them is in the offing, however on thr one occasion is which Blair had a clear opportunity to enact radical reform of the House of Lords by means of Robin Cook’s 2002/3 reform bill, Blair not only abstained on all options put to the House but that of a fully appointed second chamber (leaving his Prime Ministerial powers of patronage fully intact) but effectively spiked the whole reform process by revealing his personal voting intentions (it being a free vote) at Prime Minister’s Questions on the day preceeding the vote in response to a blatently planted ’softball’ question from a Labour back-bencher.

Given the choice between maintaining the status quo on appointments to the House of Lords or voting from radical reform, which would have meant either 60%, 80% or the full membership of the Lords being elected by the British people, Blair not only chose patronage over democracy but engineered a situation in which all possible reforms ended up be rejected.

So with Blair a total bust on the issue of the democratic reform of the Westminster parliament, what else could we look to for evidence to hanf his claim to radicalism.

Well, there are a couple of issues we could look at that do have talismanic status amongst Labour members; social mobility and the ‘wealth gap’ between rich and poor, ten years of ‘Blairism’ has produced only retrograde motion.

Social mobility is in not only in decline in the UK but in a considerably worse state than Canada, Germany and the Nordic countries, while his first six years in office saw the richest 1% in British society increase their share of national wealth from 20% to 23% which the poorest 50% saw their share decline from 7% to 5%. One these two indicators alone, Blair has markedly failed to challenge the social order he inherited from the Tories in 1997 and, in fact, has made matters worse be permitting inequalities to become even further entrenched on his watch.

If economic radicalism is not really Blair’s forte, what else can we point to as evidence for his radical credentials?

The Human Rights Act?

Not really. You see, although Blair can take some credit for having introduced HRA into UK law, thereby allowing to challenge the actions of the state in a British rather than a European court, the real credit for HRA, or rather for the European Convention on Human Rights, from which its derived, belongs to the British lawyers who led the formulation of ECHR during the late 1940s/early 1950s and to its leading political advocate, Winston Churchill, who drove its adoption through the then newly formed Council of Europe.

One also has to balance any claim to radicalism founded on HRA against the overwhleming weight of illiberal and reactionary legislation passed by the current government, particularly, since 2001; 37 criminal justice bills alone over the last 10 years with yet another one promised this week in his valedictory address to the party conference; idenity cards and the growing database state; anti-terrorism legislation now a permanant fixture on the statue books where even at the height of the ‘Troubles’ in Northerm Ireland it was always temporary and subject to annual renewal; ASBOs, dispersal orders; summary justice, the end of ‘double indemnity’, the extension of detention without charge… the list goes on and on and is anything but radical unless one wants to take in terms of a radical shift of power to the state and away from it’s citizens.

The introduction of the Freedom of Information Act, another potentially radical reform, has been, likewise, denuded of it’s radical credentials by everything from the five year delay in its implementation to its twenty-three clauses (fully a quarter of the Act) dealing with exemptions from disclosure, some of which are so broadly frames, e.g commercial confidentiality and prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs, as to render it promise of a new era of open government near meaningless.

What of devolution, Blair’s other major bout of first-term radicalism? Well, yes we do now have a functioning Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly (and a distinctly non-functioning one in Northern Ireland), but has any of this genuinely changes or challenged the prevailing social order? Only in a marginal sense insofar as some powers have been devolved to democratically elected bodies that could be considered somewhat more representative than the Westminsiter parliament by virtue of having been elected by means of a system of proporional representation. But again on has to look at the question of political power in its fullest context and note the fact that the overriding trend over the last ten years has been both to centralised political power and authority on the Executive, and especially the office of Prime Minister, even to the extent eating away at the accountability of the executive to Parliament itself.

Of all the self-serving acts carried out by this government few stand as a greater indictment of its democratic and radical credentials than its response to the embarrassments caused by the Hutton Inquiry.

Less than two years after Hutton, the independent public inquiry was quietly put to its final rest by the Inquiries Act 2005, which was passed with little public notice and without a third reading vote in either the Commons or Lord just prior to the dissolution of parliament for the last general election on the back of a backroom deal with the opposition parties.

In case you missed it - and most people did - the Inquiries Act places the whole process of public inquiries under Ministerial control to the extent that a minister has the full authority to…

1. Decide whether there should be an inquiry.
2. Set its terms of reference.
3. Amend its terms of reference - at any time before or during its proceedings.
4. Appoint its members.
5. Restrict public access to inquiries - at any time before or even during its proceedings.
6. Prevent the publication of evidence placed before an inquiry
7. Prevent the publication of the inquiry’s report - all inquiry reports are now to be submitted to the Minister who then decides whether to submit it to Parliament. Previously inquiry reports were automatically submitted to Parliament, Minister had the right only to access in advance of any debate on the inquiry’s findings.
8. Suspend or terminate an inquiry.
9. Withhold the costs of any part of an inquiry which strays beyond the terms of reference set by the Minister.

Little wonder, then, that the government has steadfastly refused to accept calls for a full public inquiry into the events of July 7th last year, as with Hutton still fresh in people’s (and especially journalists’) minds any such inquiry would only serve to alert the public to the full extent to which one of the key planks of governmental accountability has been effectively emasculated to the point of worthlessness.

Is there, then, anything on which it could genuinely be said that Blair has actually lived up to a definition of radicalism predicated on the concept of challenging or changing the prevailing social order without there having been a later bout of reactionary backsliding?

Well, yes… sort of… almost…

To find a genuine, honest-to-goodness example of radical reforms that have changed the social order in Britian for the better, one has to look to Labour’s track record over the last ten years in its dealing with the gay community.

There, Labour has enacted a series of genuinely radical reforms; giving the gay community parity in terms the age of consent, the repeal of ‘clause 28′, the right to equal treatment when it comes to adoption and, most important of all, introducing civil partnerships .Its not a 100% perfect record as there is rather a blot on Blair’s record as a result of his surreptitious kowtowing to religious prejudice when introducing legislation outlawing discrimination in employment on grounds of sexual orientation (and it remains to be seen whether the current Single Equality Bill will be subjected to the same kind of careful filleting in order to pander to religious bigotry) but it is a track record that could genuinely be considered both radical and progressive and which has certainly effected significant positive changes to the social order in Britain.

It’s still not much to show for ten years at the top, though, is it?

Will history judge Blair a radical leader and reformer?

Only if Blair takes Churchill’s advice and writes it himself or we come to accept that the word ‘radical’ has joined ‘fascism’ and others identified by Orwell in 1945 amongst the ranks of the semantically feckless.

[Note: The title of this piece ‘The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today’ comes from Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary and is his definition of radicalism.]

I know that speeches to party conferences are traditionally long on rhetoric and short on detail but reading through some of the speeches published on the Labour website from this year’s conference I couldn’t help but notice this one, from Jack Straw, which stands as a genuine masterpiece of the art of speaking for ages and saying absolutely nothing of substance or consequence.

Am I, perhaps, being a little uncharitable here. Maybe, maybe not, but when I see a report of a ministerial speech which carries the headline "Straw sets out plans for reform of Lords and party funding" my expectation is that it will show some evidence that there are actually plans in place for those reforms…

…tell you what, just read the speech (and my own annotations) and decide for yourself whether I have a point here.

Straw sets out plans for reform of Lords and party funding

Conference, we were bottom of the G7 economic league in 1997 - now we are second; we have job creation rates which the likes of France and Germany would die for; record investment and record results in education and health; 800,000 children out of poverty, a fairer and more equal society through the minimum wage, new trade union rights, the Lawrence inquiry, race relations act, the Human Rights Act, and much more.

We have doubled our international aid programme and are leading the world in tackling climate change.

We are, on any measure, one of the most successful peacetime governments of the last 100 years.

Okay, so that the obligatory opening panegyric out of the way, now what’s Jack actually got to say for himself.

We’ve done all this - more, not less, than we promised - and yet the state of our party and the overall health of our democracy do not reflect these tangible achievements.  Indeed, the reverse is true.

Our membership is down, so is that of all parties; a halving in 25 years. Spending has trebled; and turnouts are dramatically down. 

*Cough* Errrm, Jack? Don’t you mean a halving in ten years when it comes to our own party?

I’m sure you know the figures - our could at least as Hazel for them - but just to remind you Labour Party membership stood at around 407.000 in 1997; our last reported official membership figure was 198,026, this being the figure reported to the Electoral Commission at the end of 2005 and looks to have fallen even further since, if the number of ballot papers issued for the recent NEC elections (178,889) is anything to go by.

There are many things we have to do to put all this right. We need fresh policies for sure; but politics is as much about heart as it is about the head. Decisions about which party to support are not made through irrational flights of fancy, but nor are they just a matter of arid calculus.

Okay, yes, I’ll give you that…

For too many, politics is a turnoff, something to look down upon, apparently not relevant to their lives.

That too…

But none of the things which have changed Britain in the last 100 years could have happened without the work of the political parties.

Hang on a second, Jack. We seem to be skipping on a bit here.

You’ve started out be identifying the problem - many people find politics a turn-off and fail to see how its relevant to their lives - which is fine. No problem with that. After all, if you’re going to tackle a problem you should at least have some idea of what the problem is before you start…

…but having identified the problem you’ve then pushed straight on to eulogising the work of political parties over the last 100 years without any sense of how this might be relevant to issue of declining political engagement amongst the wider population.

Sorry Jack, but the immediate impression you’re creating here is one of ‘ we know there’s a problem but we haven’t got the foggiest idea what to do about it?

Political parties are the very lifeblood of our democracy.

Well Jack would say that, wouldn’t he - after all his job depends on it, even though that’s really a rather arguable point.

Any number of things have been referred to over the years as the ‘lifeblood of democracy’. Lyndon Baines Johnson considered voting rights to be the lifeblood of democracy while Thomas Jefferson thought it was education. In Edward Kennedy’s opinion…

Integrity is the lifeblood of democracy. Deceit is a poison in its veins.

…while Rosa Luxemburg’s, amongst others, identified dissent and the freedom to voice dissenting opinions as occupying that role…

Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.

Elsewhere, one can find the epithet ‘the lifeblood of democracy’ applied variously to information, to freedom of expression (and particularly to freedom of the press), to justice, to competition for power, to dialogue, to participation and deliberation, to the processes and procedures of democracy. Even the Internet has been referred to in this fashion.

As far as anything being the ‘lifeblood of democracy’, the most one can say with any real certainty is that its whatever an individual wants it to be, according to their own particular preference, prejudices and personal/political agenda.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m starting to get the distinct impression here that whatever the actual problems are that are turning people off politics and participation and engagement in the democratic process, you view is that political parties are the answer, irrespective of whether their is any actual evidence to support such a view. And that, in turn, seems to suggest that far from genuinely seeking to address the questions raised by the decline in party membership across all the main political parties and, in particular, the overall fall in political /democratic engagement in the wider electorate, what’s actually emerging here is little more than an exercise in self-justification in order to preserve as much of the present status quo as possible.

All very conservative (small ‘c’) is seems and hardly in keeping with the party’s aspirations towards being ‘radical’ and ‘progressive’.

I know that political parties are often adversely compared to single issue pressure groups.

People are understandably drawn to such groups.

They are more accessible and their messages are so much simpler.

Well, quite… but what of it?

But it is only political parties which can make the essential choices between tax and spend, between security and liberty and between the market and the state.

Really? So, for instance, a hypothetical parliament consisting of 640 or so rational adults of independent mind and sound, rational judgement, would be incapable of debating issues such as the choice between tax and spend, security and liberty and the market and the state on the basis of a simple democratic vote?

Membership of political parties is not only essential to democracy, but noble, while giving money to those parties is not dodgy but honourable.

Now hang on a second there, Jack. When one comes to consider whether the giving of money to political parties is either ‘dodgy’ or ‘honourable’ one has to consider the motives of the giver and the circumstances in which the giving took place. If all one expects to receive in return for a donation to a political party is a little personal satisfaction from having contributed to a cause one believes in then, yes, one can happily consider that to be ‘honourable’. On the other hand, if one is making a contribution to party funds on the understanding that the quid pro quo will be a measure of influence over government policy, favourable treatment in tendering for government contracts or even a permanant seat in the upper house of the legislature then not only is that not honourable but its rather more than just ‘dodgy’ - in fact the word you’d be looking for is corrupt.

Yes, conference, there are a few professional politicians in every political party.

I’m one of them - but 99% of members of all parties are volunteers, unpaid, often involved in many other aspects of a community’s life, working all hours and in all weathers for no other reason than a belief in their cause.

And how I resent, on their behalf - on YOUR behalf - the denigration of parties’ ordinary members.

Well that’s very noble of you, Jack, but to be honest if I feel I’m being denegrated as party member then I’m well capable of sticking up for myself and, to be honest, I’ve never felt particularly denegrated when it comes to my own humble monthly contribution to party coffers.

We could not have survived as a party, still less have gained office, without the generosity of our members and supporters.

We should be profoundly grateful to the scores in each constituency party who give according to their means, and grateful to the so-called "high value" donors - people who have made some money, but instead of spending it all on themselves give some of it - often in large amounts - to our party.

They’ve done it to put something back, to fulfil their sense of their civic duty.

And for an encore, they’ll be getting together at the end of the conference for a rousing chorus of ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’…

And then, conference, there are the trade unions.

So you’ve remembered? Well done…

Now don’t be taken in by what the Tories tell you. For there’s a shocking secret about the trade unions and Labour’s funding.

The 17 trade unions affiliated to our party have not given us a penny; it’s their members who have - two and a half million of them, who voluntarily choose to pay the political levy.

We should thank them too, from the bottom of our hearts.

Well, yes. That would be a good idea for starters…

The trade union link means that the funding arrangements for the Labour Party are the most heavily regulated of any party and they always have been.

Yes, can’t fault you for accuracy there…

But conference, it is worth reflecting that when political parties first got going - in the nineteenth century, there were no rules about party funding.

Bribery and corruption were rife. No rules - and no Labour party.

Our party, the party for working people; the poor the dispossessed, had no chance until some fairness in funding was introduced.

Again, that’s fair comment… It doesn’t really advance your argument much but it is fair comment…

In modern times, Labour has been at the forefront of measures better to regulate political finance, most recently, with an Act in 2000.

That Act imposed much needed controls on national campaign spending.

But in the eight years since it was first drafted, the world has moved on.

…You’ve missed a bit out there, Jack… you know the bit about us getting caught bypassing the very rules on transparancy in party funding that we put in place.

The internet, customised mailings, and phone banks mean that the old distinction between national and local spending has gone.

Yes…

Campaigning no longer just takes place in the so-called election periods.

Sure, although I can’t think that this is anything particularly new in politics…

So we have to regulate national and local campaign spending at all times and end forever the "arms race" in spending between the parties.

Okay, fine with that as well, but how, exacty are you planning to do that? What is the actual plan?

I hope that the current inquiry under Sir Hayden Phillips is able to secure a consensus between the parties, as I did with the 2000 Act.

Ah, I see. so the plan is to cut a deal with the Lib Dems and the Tories which tries to keep everyone sweet and preserves a status quo that suits the established political parties…

But that consensus will require the Tories to lay off those two and a half million trade union members who pay the political levy.

Let the Tories instead stick to what they told the Standards Committee in 1998:

Quote: "The question of trade union funding of parties is not a matter of direct concern to the Conservative Party. We [the Conservatives] recognise the historic ties that bind the trade union movement with the Labour Party…."

The Standards Committee itself – backing the Tories in this regard – said:

“No change should be made in the law relating to trade unions and their political funds.”

And there’s absolutely no evidence since then of any need to change.

Ah yes - a bit of Tory bashing always goes down well at the party conference, but…

…Jack, you still haven’t actually put forward any concrete or substantive plans for reforming party funding.

As it turns out, the party has published its submission to the Hayden Inquiry, which you can download here (pdf) - just don’t expect it to be a rivetting read. I should also say, to be fair, that of the three main political parties, Labour is the only one (to date) to openly publish its submission to the inquiry, which it describes as being based on three basic principles…

Respect for the differing structures of political parties;

Ensuring parties are able to fund core activities in a level playing field; and

Maintaining public confidence and encouraging wider engagement

As for what it actually proposes over and above the obvious - closing the loophole on loans that both Labour and the Tories have exploited since full disclosure of donations was introduced in the 2000 Act and a cap on campaign spending at general elections - amounts primarly to asking the state to the pick up the tab for the costs of running the party machine in between general elections, although this all dressed up in proposals for a Foundation for Democracy and liberally salted with plenty of aspirational talk of increasing democratic participation.

As pitches, its quite cleverly put together, not least as a result of the party having realised that the taxpayer would seriously baulk at any suggestion of them couching up for the kind of hugely expensive campaign activities that are part and parcel of a modern day general election. Nevertheless, the one thing that runs most clearly through the whole submission - and I would expect to see the same from both the Tories and Liberal Democrats - is a clear intent to preserve the present status quo vis-a-vis the position of the three main political parties.

To understand how the status quo will be preserved one has to dig through the section on financial transparency where one finds this statement…

There is an important decision to be made about how any new framework of donation caps and extended state support should be applied. We believe that the public would not support a general extension of state support to all political parties, which would raise the possibility of parties being created solely in order to obtain these resources from the state. We therefore argue that extended state support should be available only to those political parties which meet a certain threshold based on the number of seats contested at a general election. Such thresholds are common in systems of party funding overseas. In return, to ensure fairness parties which do not meet this threshold should not be subject to the donation or expenditure caps, although they would of course still be subject to all the other rules on reporting.

Although Labour submission does - rather as an afterthought - go on to recognise that the Hayden Inquiry needs to take into account matters such as devolved government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (if it ever gets back up and running) and the existance of parties which operate only  in specific area - i.e. the SNP, Plaid Cymru and, of course, the unique nature of the political system in Northern Ireland, the implication of this passage is clear; state funding is to remain, as much as possibly, locked firmly into the established framework of mainstream political parties such that access is controlled by a simple, yet extremely effective method - the election deposit.

I must admit that I do appreciate the deft manner in which the party has neatly sidestepped the issue of extremist parties tapping into state funding by couching their support for access restrictions based on seats contested in terms of the ‘possibility’ of parties being created solely to obtain funds from the state, nevertheless one cannot help but feel a little uneasy about a situation in which access to a key part of the democratic process; i.e. the capacity to run for office, is quite so obviously and readily controlled by a mechanism as crude as the use of deposits to effectively price potential opponents out of the ‘marketplace’ for votes.

It’s well worth contrasting this situation with the commentary in chapter six of the Power Inquiry report, which looks specifically at political parties and which addresses the causes and implications of both the decline in party membership and the growing democratic deficit in British society to a depth that appears entirely absent from the thinking of the Labour Party and, one would certainly suspect, that of at least the Conservative Party if not also the Liberal Democrats, given that the proposed framework for a Foundation for Democracy in Labour submission looks suspiciously like something on which concensus amongst the three main parties will be easily reached.

As a Labour Party member, I ‘m aware that I’m thinking heretical thoughts here, but in skirting the issue of extremist parties gaining access to state funding, which for all its explicit absence I would think is far more of an influence on Labour’s submission that any suspicion that parties may be contrived purely to gain access to state support, the party has, perhaps inadvertantly, raise an altogether more fundamental set of questions.

If the state (i.e. the taxpayer) is to be expected to finance the day-to-day operation of political parties then why should should that financial support be restricted only to a very limited range of existing mainstream political parties? Just under 39% of the total electorate did not vote at the last general election, so why should they be expected to contribute (via taxation) to the maintenance of political system and framework of political parties which does not appear to engage or represent their interests sufficiently to motivate them to take a short walk to the local polling station once every four or five year?

Why should state funding of political parties be structured in such a way to benefit almost exclusively the three main political parties, whose combined membership now totals less than 600,000, which is around 1.3-1.4% of the total electorate, and more to the point, if the state is to provide substantive funding to political parties, why should it not provide some funding to support both existing and new political parties that offer alternatives to the current big three, especially when the single largest voting ‘bloc’ at the last general election was ‘none of the above’?

The argument that Labour puts forward is simply that ‘the public’ would not support a general extension of state support to all political parties, an argument that is put forward without evidence to substantiate such an assertion and what little evidence there appears to be on the subject of public funding of political parties seems completely inconclusive when to comes to the question of providing state funding to small political parties.

What I have been able to find, in terms of opinion polls, also appears to rather contradictory. The Taxpayers Alliance, in its own submission to the Hayden Inquiry point out the following:

Polls have shown that the public are opposed to taxpayer-funded parties. An ICM poll in April 2006 showed that by 77-20 percent people think that public money should not be used to finance political parties. A poll by Populus, also in April 2006, found that even when the question was loaded heavily in favour of taxpayer-funded parties, the public remain significantly opposed. By 53-43 percent the public disagree with the statement “Political parties should be funded by the state out of taxpayers’ money to eliminate the risk of corruption” (our
italics).

However a different ICM poll, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation offers up a rather different picture of public opinion, one in which there would appear to considerable public disquiet over the influence that high value donors (including trade unions) can exert over political parties, a fairly even split on the question of state funding (41% in favour, 37% against on an obviously loaded question - "Political parties with significant public support should be provided with public funds to reduce their dependency on donations from wealthy individuals, trade unions and businesses") and strong support (60%+) from both capping the size of voluntary donations and for state funding (if it is expanded upon) to be targeted toward local rather than national party activity.

Nowhere, in any of the polls cited above, is the question of state funding for minority parties explicitly addressed - it could well be the case that the public would more readily support the provision for state funding for alternatives to the the three main parties than it would for Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems - we don’t appear to know as that question doesn’t appear to have been asked.

In reality it would be, and is, extremely easy to stir up public sentiment against state funding for minority parties either in the manner that Labour has adopted in raising the spectre of ‘undeserving’ parties being created as an artifice for obtaining public money without an honest ambitions towards playing a part in the overall democratic process, or by the rather more obvious of tactic of throwing the usual political bogeymen in the ring - the far right, far left and, in today’s febrile climate, the possibility of openly communalist parties emerging out of minority ethnic communities. However that misses a rather more fundamental point - if state funding is deemed necessary to support and sustain a healthy democracy in the UK then it must surely follow that the manner in which those funds are allocated to political parties must be democratic, equitable and must not confer an undue advantage on any individal political party or indeed, group of political parties.

Or, more simply, money should not be a barrier to active participation in the democratic process, because that is, well, undemocratic.

With that I’ll move on, having said plenty on the subject of party funding for the time being - after all the headling also promised us Jack’s thoughts on reform of the House of Lords, which is precisely where we’ll picvk up his speech…

Conference, tackling the health of our democracy also means reform of Parliament.

Well, yes, that would be part of it…

Thanks to my predecessors as Leader of the House, not least Robin Cook, we’ve been making many improvements in the way parliament connects with our citizens.

I’m continuing that work.

Good. I’m glad to hear that you’re doing your job as Leader of the House?

A new Visitors Reception Centre will open this Autumn, to make Parliament far more welcoming.

Once you get past the concrete barriers and armed guards… Is it just me or does it seems a touch incongruous for a member of a government that’s slapped a statutory exclusion zone around Parliament to be boasting about making the place more welcoming by putting in a new visitors centre?

There’s a big investment in education in citizenship to make parliament more comprehensible.

An interpreter for Boris wouldn’t go amiss while your on, Jack…

And we’re changing the way Parliament works to make it more effective.

Why do I get the horrible feeling that that’s a rather oblique and disingenuous reference to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill?

One part of that is modernising the House of Commons and the other is reforming the House of Lords.

Ah, finally we get to the bit about reforming the House of Lords…

Our 2005 manifesto says that we will end the right of hereditary peers to sit in the Lords, and we will do just that.

Didn’t we also say that in 1997 and 2001? You’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath…

And then there is the question of exactly what a reformed House of Lords should look like.

Yes…

Elected, appointed or a mixture of both?

Yes…

Conference, there is a myriad of opinions in the party on the composition of a reformed second chamber.

Yes…

So I simply say this:

Please, let us not again make the best the enemy of the good.

What the fuck are you on about, Jack???

Deadlock again will be easy, but reform will require compromise on all sides.

We should not throw away this golden opportunity to make a reform for which the original members of the PLP were fighting 100 years ago.

So what you’re basically saying is that you haven’t actually got a plan at all…

Conference, those early Labour MPs were the pioneers of a movement which has changed Britain for the better.

And that’s it?

They took their seats on the green benches of the House of Commons to fight for workers rights, and above all against grinding poverty and unemployment.

Yep, looks like it. We’re into the valedictory by the looks of things…

They, and all the millions of unknown heroes who have worked so hard for our movement down the decades, through dark days and often without reward, would be so proud today to see their party in its 10th year of successful government.

Oh fuck me, he’ll singing ‘Jerusalem’ in a minute…

Conference, we owe it to them as well as to the British people not to throw these achievements away. 

Ah, I see what you’re doing - you’ve changed the subject because you’ve nothing you can actually point to as an achievement as Leader of the House…

We must inject fresh energy and fresh momentum into our policies and our mission.

An actual honest to goodness idea or two might be nice as well…

Labour is the only party which can continue to change Britain for the better.

Yeah, and Daz is the only washing powder that gets clothes whiter than white - or is that Ariel? Persil? Surf?

Look, I know this the kind of thing you’re expected to say at a party conference, its just that it all rings a bit hollow at the end of speech that’s completely devoid of any meaningful content.

Labour is the party which has to lead the renewal of faith in politics.

Sorry to be a bit picky here, Jack, but how are you going to do that?

Labour is the party whose values are enduring and whose job is far from done.

And we’ll be getting on with it just as soon as we’ve managed to work out exactly what the fuck it is we’re actually going to do.

So to summarise, Jack’s ‘plans’ for reform of party funding and the House of Lords amount to cutting a deal with the Tories and Lib Dems to screw a big enough cash out of the state to pay for the party in between elections and cutting a deal with the Tories and the Lib Dems on reform of the House of Lords, although he has got the foggiest idea what that deal might actually be.

Or more simply, two matters of considerable constitutional importance will be nicely stitched-up by a cosy little political cartel in Westminster and fuck what the public think because they aren’t getting a say in matters - or rather not one that actually matters - and that’s British democracy at work for you…

…and they wonder why nearly eighteen million people can’t be arsed to vote for any of them…

Right, I’m back after my summer recess and I’m going to kick things off with a bit of a question…

Having watched Bloggerheads and others doing a very nice job of outing David Taylor, a part time researcher to Leighton Andrews AM, as the ‘ringer’ behind the Blairite ‘Keeping the Faith‘ brown-nose fest - you can catch up on the action here, here, here and here - I couldn’t help but notice the announcement on Bloggers4Labour that Jonathan Roberts of Thirsk and Malton blog has been chosen as the ‘up and coming’ Labour Blogger who’ll be given ‘given access to all the key speeches and events at Conference and will be blogging from the floor about their experiences.’

Blogger4Labour, who covered this competition when it was launched also noted that:

The "best, the most innovative and the freshest" entry will be chosen.

Before going to express the view that they’d

strongly discourage all references to "Official Labour Blogger", not least because it (a) isn’t what’s on offer, (b) implies a hierarchy of bloggers, which doesn’t (or rather, shouldn’t) exist, and (c) undermines the credibility and independence of the participant.

Bearing all that in mind, its a bit disappointing to have to ask publicly whether Jonathan Roberts, our erstwhile ‘up and coming’ Labour ‘blogger’ is the same Jonathan Roberts who is currently listed as a National Officer for the Labour Movement for Europe and a member of LME’s national executive or even the same Jonathan Roberts who was a parlaimentary assistant to Bruce George MP in 1990-91, in addition to being deputy editor of Jane’s Nato Handbook during the same period, and co-author of ‘The British Labour Party and Defense‘, with Bruce George.

Of course Jonathan Roberts is not that unusual a name as offer any certainty that the blogger, the LME exec member and the parliamentary assistant are all the very same individual, however as circumstantial evidence I would enter this missive to the Yorkshire Post, which would seem to support the notion that at the very least our Jonathan Roberts is, indeed, both the blogger and LME national officer…

From: Jonathan Roberts, Saxty Way, Thirsk.
JIM Bray (Yorkshire Post, August 16) makes a valid assessment of war, and the need for countries to "settle their differences in a civilised manner".
I am sure he is aware that this is exactly what happens within the European Union. Elected representatives and governments of different European countries meeting to resolve their differences and decide upon mutually beneficial measures.
David Quarrie (also August 16), however, rants that no good has come from the EU, nor New Labour.
Well, I suspect that the millions of people currently in work and training, who wouldn’t have been under the Tories, or the millions of employees who have increased workers’ rights, or the millions of people better off under minimum wage and tax credit systems, might disagree.
I am not arguing that everything is perfect in our country; there’s a lot to be done and a lot to be improved – but it is unfair and highly inaccurate to argue that nothing has been improved at all.

Now what was that about avoiding the term ‘official Labour blogger’ again?

UPDATE - Thanks to B4L for pointing out a post, today, from Jonathan that would put his age at around 24 and rule out his being Bruce George’s former assistant.

Meanwhile, getting back to David Taylor, who if you’ve followed all the links above you’ll find has been busily registering any ‘johnson4leader’ domain he can get his hands on has also taken the time to list ‘Tony’s Blair’s Achievements‘ on his Keeping the Faith website…

Of course, the more observant amongst you might notice that a few of these achievements appear to rely rather heavilty on the support and involvement of HM Treasury, and therefore, Gordon Brown - so at best you’re looking at achievements that could rightly be credited to both of them… although, again, if like you me you’re rather more collectively inclined and not into stroking egos and political idolatory you might prefer to consider these achievements to belong collectively to the Labour Party.

Did I just say a few of these achievements? What I meant was a lot… well a bit a more than a lot, try the majority of them as in 33 out of the 50 listed - these ones, in fact…

1. Lowest inflation since the 60s
2. Low interest rates
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage
4. Record police numbers in England and Wales
8. Funding for every pupil in England to double (since 1997) by 2007-08
9. Lowest unemployment for 29 years
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries
11. 78,700 more nurses
12. 27,400 more doctors
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice at any time
18. New Deal - helped over a million people into work
19. Local government funding has increased by a third in real terms
21. Free entry to all national museums and galleries
22. Overseas aid budget more than doubled
24. Child benefit up 25 per cent since 1997
25. Created Sure Start to help children from low income households
27. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & extra £100 for over-80s
28. The biggest rolling stock replacement programme ever seen on our railways
30. Over 30,000 more teachers in England schools
32. All workers now have a right to 4 weeks’ paid holiday
33. Record rises in the state pension
34. 700,000 children lifted out of relative poverty
35. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents
37. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent
38. Free nursery places for three and four-year-olds in England, Scotland and Wales
39. Free fruit for all four to six-year-olds at school
40. Free school milk for five, six and seven-year-olds in Wales
41. Record police numbers in Scotland
44. Free TV licences for over-75s
46. Halved maximum waiting times for NHS operations
47. Free local bus travel for over-60s
48. Record number of students in higher education
50. Five, six and seven-year-olds in class sizes of 30 or less

Every one of the above would not have been possible without the Treasury to put up the money to make them happen, and in many cases the support of the PLP in carrying through legislation, so they’re hardly Blair’s achievements but achievements brought about by the Labour Party and the Labour movement as a whole…

  …or at least that’s how I see things, and I’m pretty sure that my party membership cards still says ‘Labour Party’ and not ‘Cult of Blair’ - or at least it did last time I looked at it.