Partners in Europe

Perhaps if David Miliband is so disgusted with the Conservatives being in the same political bloc as the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party, he should first consider his own partners in the European Socialists group which includes its own delightful splattering of racists, homophobes, ex-terrorists, conspiracy theorists and neo-Nazis.

Of course, that isn't how things work in Europe. Probably for the reasonably noble purpose of fostering at least some pan-European political feeling, there are massive benefits to being part of one of the European Parliament's political blocs. Being a diverse and interesting place, inevitably Europeans do elect a fairly large number of oddball politicians to the European Parliament - not to mention our latest additions - which creates a problem. We either work with them as best we can, or cast ourselves into European political obscurity.

Either way, it is a constitutional matter for the EU, not an issue of petty British political oneupsmanship.

A retort

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The Al Megrahi Position

Submitting to those dark conformist tendancies within the human soul, I feel obliged to provide at least an overview of my position on the Al Megrahi situation considering every other vaguely political blogger in Britain seems to have weighed-in.

Firstly, it is certainly an important decision with heavy repercussions internationally; it is also almost undoubtedly Kenny MacAskill's fifteen minutes of fame on the world stage. I can perhaps then forgive him for milking it with spectacular aplomb in his televised statement on the issue, and offer him sincere pity that the one truly important act in his life has brought him, and the Scottish Executive, so much unpopularity from so many corners. The Minister o' the Kirk pontificating (if that is not a contradiction in terms) was, however, cringeworthy in the extreme -

one half-expected every pause to be broken with a softly spoken 'let us pray'.

I will however commend the man if he has done as he claimed: considered the issue of compassion properly and without pressure from external influences. I am very much on the fence over the decision: I respect the quality of compassion, yet acknowledge what many seem to have lost sight of - that Al Megrahi was the worst criminal in Scottish history, murdering hundreds of people. I suppose I would most likely support compassion-lite, investigating possibilities short of full release. I certainly don't envy the Minister his position.

This leads me to my central complaint on the issue: is this not an inherently judicial decision? The idea of a minister and politician making such judgements does not sit easily with me, notwithstanding the fact that the powers Mr MacAskill are exercising were conferred by an Act of Parliament created under a Tory government. Whilst I could understand a Minister effectively signing off on recommendations, the idea of actively deliberating the issue crosses the line away from executive authority

Compassion is very often a difficult choice to make; politicians are very often not very good at making difficult choices, particularly when the benefits are so etherial and the potential for condemnation quite so pronounced.

The last refuge of a scoundrel

I cannot help but read anything other than desperation into the Health Secretary's attack on now-infamous Tory MEP Daniel Hannan today. To accuse a politician of being 'unpatriotic' for refusing to adhere to a certain political view point or defend certain politicised institutions must truly be seen as the very worst sort of mindless nationalism. How far, I wonder, does this government-sponsored appeal to ignore logic or opinion for the greater glory of the country go.

A Hannanite I am not, although I do identify as being broadly within the liberal wing of the Conservative Party. Whilst I cannot be as strident as Hannan in calling the NHS a 'sixty year mistake', I can certainly see significant flaws not only with delivery but the model on which the service is based that should be addressed. We do not have the best healthcare system in the world, and the presumption that it should not be improved for fear of upsetting the lieges is nothing short of arrogance. Whether you agree with them or not, Mr Hannan's views on health are far from half-baked: they are consistent, well thought-out and very adequately defended in his blog response to the media hoolah.

The nationalistic angle, however, is rather new - at least to London. In Scotland we have unfortunately been faced with a governing party who accuse others, including the UK Government, of being unpatriotic and even actively 'anti-Scottish' at the drop of a hat. Mike Weir MP tell us that raising the pension age is anti-Scottish because of the marginally lower life expectancy in Scotland; the same insult is trotted out for Ken Livingstone when he dares to suggest that London subsidises Scotland - before Mr Weir goes on to suggest Scottish oil subsidises the rest of the UK! Pete Wishart MP applies the same epithet to the Conservative immigration spokesman for suggesting Scotland is not the most attractive place in the UK for immigrants to settle, whilst Bill Kidd MSP takes it one step further calling the entire Conservative Party 'fundamentally anti-Scottish', with John Swinney capping it all off by stating that the same is true of all 'London-based parties'. Alex Salmond too wades in, applying it to the European Union for cutting UK fishing quotas, and restates Pete Wishart's attack on London's former mayor; although the impact is somewhat lessened by his accusation that the measures would also be 'anti-fish'. SNP's CND group calls trident anti-Scottish too; an SNP councillor uses the same accusation against a Scottish local authority for flying its own flag on most days of the year.

This sort of nonsense is completely unworthy of anyone with half a mind and should be dispensed with from British politics immediately.

The Demon Drink

It has been an interesting few years for the drinks industry in Scotland. An abundance of headlines and television reports make it seem that the raising of the wrist, that most ancient of sports, has slipped out of fashion as political parties vie to obliterate Britain's 'booze culture'. In reality, our relationship our private relationship with alcohol has changed little in the past decade, in spite of all levels of officialdom uniting to regulate its consumption beyond all recognition.

David McLetchie's latest offering is, however, wrong - and counterproductive. The Scottish Executive's proposals for minimum drinks pricing will not materially affect the Scotch whisky industry: whisky is simply not that cheap. What Conservatives, and anyone else with a remotely liberal mindset, should be attacking is the very substance of this proposal, and indeed the continuing Labour/SNP moral panic over alcohol.

Let us first dismiss the health argument against alcohol. Volenti non fit injuria - to he who consents, no harm is done - is a fundamental precept of human liberty. The government has no standing in a free society to justify force against a reasonable person 'for his own good'. The issue of crime, disorder and, to use the modern terminology, anti-social behaviour relating to alcohol is rather more complex, and a matter with which the public is legitimately concerned.

In its most literal sense, these proposals are prejudicial. Alcohol pricing does not significantly affect the wealthy, so the question must surely arise - why target the less well off in society? Why should a person's financial standing determine their standing to drink? Perhaps I am a bitter old idealist, but I consider alcohol an ordinary part of my weekly shopping budget. As a result, I am generally of the opinion that low prices are a positive thing. No doubt defenders of this policy will suggest it is aimed at young people, rather than bluntly suggesting that the poor are somehow unable to hold their wine. Putting aside the ridiculous fallacy, which causes a great deal of our country's social problems, that the youth of Britain are a bunch of potential hooligans, it simply fails to add up. This is the same group of people who the local, Scottish and UK governments have already gone to extremes to prevent having any access to an alcoholic drinks - local licensing boards insure that shops and bars are incredibly strict not only on selling to underagers, but selling to anyone who has the slightest chance of then passing alcohol to underagers.

Yet still, even the underage drinker is no great threat to anyone: I should imagine most cabinet ministers enjoyed a drink or two with their friends before reaching their majority. Arriving as I did at university aged a mere 17, I certainly did - and I, like the vast majority of today's young people, managed to consume without feeling the need to assault anyone or damage private property. Indeed, on balance I would say that drinking is a positive thing: of course, some people overdo it on occasion, but even the average binge-drinker (that most derided of creatures) ends his evening with buying a kebab, stumbling into a taxi without causing a riot and returning home to bed without committing some gross act of domestic violence en route. Guess what - they will probably have enjoyed themselves too, hangovers notwithstanding.

The truth that dare not speak its name is that the Scottish Executive, and the UK Government, don't much care for individual liberty. Since they have both failed miserably to make a dent on crime in this country, being seen to do something, anything, is the next best thing for their electoral prospects. Resorting to the age-old collectivist thinking that suggests people should be vilified for their lifestyle, age and income, and that the freedom of the many should be sacrificed to control the criminality of the few is to prejudge them, to penalise the innocent as an act of desperation because the truly guilty cannot be controlled.

But of course, they can be controlled. Violent criminals belong in prison, something

our society seems to have forgotten. 'Common' assault tends to earn an offender - who, of course, most often is not caught - a police caution or a fine of a lesser sum than that handed down to someone who failed to pay his TV licence. Violent offenders, particularly those who attack victims at random, are serious criminals and must be seriously dealt with. You can almost certainly wager that it is the same tiny minority of criminals who are committing these same offences every weekend, and who will continue to do so with increasing brutality until someone ends up seriously ill or dead unless the State intervenes.

My conclusion, therefore, is simple: punish criminals, don't criminalise the innocent.

Euro Toryism

There is quite a stooshie developing in the great European halls of power, and characteristically it is passing the British public by almost entirely. Much like local councils, the European Parliament lacks the oversight of Westminster or the devolved assemblies insofar as nobody really gives a damn how ridiculous the political wrangling within becomes.

Cards on the table time: I am a Europhile. No evasion is possible, I like the EU: I even have its starred field of azure on a cheap printed flag at the bottom of some cupboard somewhere - I will not be waving it at Glastonbury or T in the Park any time soon, but it is certainly nice to have. Any closet analogies will not be taken kindly. What I am not is a Federalist; but nor am I one of those Britons that sees a federalist agenda lurking behind every locked door in Belgium. I disagree politically with a great deal of what the EU does; keep in mind, however, that the self-same fact holds true for what the British Government does. Naturally, I disliked Cameron pulling out of the EPP-ED.

The resulting situation did, however, bring about some good. The Prague Declaration, stating the founding principles of the new European Conservatives and Reformists group was a very satisfying statement of enduring Conservative values. I would have liked to see more about social liberalism as well as economic, but it is a foundation to build up - and I suppose the omission is at least consistent with the mainstream Tory view on the 'social chapter'.

As for our dealings with 'dodgy' MEPs, I am not impressed at this point. Still, I am willing to wait and see how our new partners pan out. A round of 'I told you sos' would be premature at this stage, even if we have passed the other parties a stick with which to beat us and lost control of our own group to the least desirable party within it. Cameron's motives were decent enough, he simply made the mistake to assume that the grass was greener on the other side of the river: whilst the standing orders of the European Parliament make bloc-membership a virtual necessity, no party will ever be fully satisfied with the position it shoe-horns itself into. The European Conservatives sacrificed a group with an overwhelmingly centralist agenda for one that has only the whiff of scandal about it: I can see the appeal, at least for those Tories who are inclined against the Union.

Many commentators have suggested that, under David Cameron's regime, the Conservatives have papered over the cracks within the party when it comes to matters continental. This is perhaps true - but I predict events may well conspire to create a situation where consensus can be built. Assuming Lisbon is implemented, the disagreements over Europe will become considerably less pronounced; put succinctly, there will be less to disagree on. The everyday thrust and parry of Brussels politics are not constitutional: agreement can be sought and can have broad appeal.

I only hope the noises Cameron makes about working closely with the devolved bodies within the UK will translate into his developing understanding of Europe. I do not doubt that this is the mature and sensible way of advancing our interests. With the revival of the right in this year's European Parliamentary elections, hopefully the Union too can become more palatable to British Conservatives and even put Euroscepticism on the back-burner for a few years to come.

A Tory split? Don't bank on it!

The Trendy Vicar

I have just finished reading Alex Massie's recent article in The Spectator amusingly entitled 'John Bercow: Garden Gnome or Trendy Vicar? Or Both?'. To give a quick summary, he dismisses the Speaker's suggestion for removing the proper forms of address for MPs as demonstrating a juvenile understanding of how to reconnect Parliament with the people.

One of the online commenters, rather perceptively, highlights the trendy vicar comparison - pointing out the failure of 'modernisers' in the Church of England (I had a friend at university who bemoaned the same in the Roman Catholic church, condemning everything since Vatican II as 'watered-down silliness') and remarking that 'of course, all the polling shows that the public aren't bothered about dodgy, badly thought through "approachability" reforms.'

Well, give that man a coconut! A nail has been hit on the head.

The trendy vicars (trendy ministers and rectors in Scotland, of course) that have plagued the church since the 1960s have continually failed to connect with their parishes. The same fate awaits the Speaker if he insists on continuing down this path. Whilst not wanting to delve into the realms of discussing religion, I feel church attendance is a fairly good analogy for politics: in both cases a public interest still remains, they are simply not being engaged.

The public want reforms to be meaningful, rather than surface changes to how MPs are addressed, or whether the Speaker chooses to wear in the morning. The British public is, frankly, not that foolish. Those so-called modernists who remain within our once-noble institutions are looking increasingly tired and old fashioned, trying to justify their outdated dogma by applying it to any event that comes along.

When people criticise harmless tradition, it is not often the tradition which they are attacking, but the pomposity, or indeed hypocrisy, of a poorly performing institution glorifying itself. When these same institutions succeed, their pomp is earned. To posit a controversial idea, how about a little more tradition? Could we not gain from reviving the tradition of the town and village hall at the centre of a community? Imagine: MPs' surgeries connecting with the public rather than remaining the preserve of those constituents with a lost cause, or a completely barmy one, who shuffle along with little hope of accomplishing anything. Or how about MPs addressing public meetings of their constituents? Rotten vegetables may well be thrown, but it's a damn sight better than our parliamentarians of old who were 'peeble[d]... wi' stanes when they werena gude bairns'.

If the Commons want to learn from the Scottish Parliament, hailed as an example of where members are addressed by name only, it should not examine surface differences, but rather seek out ones of significance.

In defence of the Calman remit

The Calman Commission is one of those fairly good ideas that politicians seem inexplicably terrible at defending. Devolution is the settled will of the Scottish Parliament and, more importantly in legal terms, the Parliament of the United Kingdom; save for some cataclysmic political event, that is a constant. The idea of pro-Union parties voting for an independence referendum has been dismissed, the debate has moved on. Since our parliamentary processes both in Holyrood and Westminster have opted for devolution, it is perfectly sensible to gain expert evidence on how it should best function.

Those who demand a debate on the wider constitutional future of Scotland, including independence (and presumably, although far lessconsidered, abolition of the Scottish Parliament!) would not be satisified by the report of an independent commission, instead demanding a vote of the people. If Calman had the sort of remit they suggest, and produced a similar report, would the SNP back it? Of course not.

Where I will diverge from the cosy consensus is in terms of Jim Murphy's remarks that the Calman Report cannot be 'cherry picked' and must be implemented as a whole. How many independent reports has a government ever fully implemented without question? Few, I suspect. By making this statement, our Secretary of State has raised Calman and his commissioners' status to that of de facto legislators with their report, rather than the duly constituted representatives of the people and the state, having the final word on the constitution. That is improper. Moreover, it sets up a convenient cop-out for our elected representatives - it is easy to imagine them distancing themselves from any failures incidental to the proposals. Luckily I believe blaming Sir Kenneth will not satisfy the electorate should that eventuality arise.

But who is to take that responsibility? With a Labour government very much on the way out, will the Conservatives be expected to implement the report? Will David Cameron be criticised by Labour, the SNP and possibly even the Lib Dems should they decide that they will indeed 'cherry pick'? Will this form a pseudo-patriotic battle ground for Scottish Labour and an incoming Tory government? A potential minefield awaits...

UPDATE: And so it begins... more commentary to follow, after I overcome the shame of being behind on the news. Blame the good weather.