Let's vote for people, not parties

-and not too many of them at that.

I had originally headlined this item "Blatant troughing in the guise of improving government". It certainly looked like Labour and Plaid Cymru carving out more jobs for the favoured boys in their joint proposals for expanding the Welsh parliament. But let us be more forensic.

First, some history.  In 2004, the Richard Commission reported. It surveyed the governance of Wales and proposed further devolution. To cope with the increased responsibilities, they reckoned that more elected representatives would be required. They calculated that 80 was the right number. They would be elected by Single Transferable Vote (STV) the same system as has been used in the Republic of Ireland for around a century and in Scottish local elections for fifteen years. In the event, there was some further devolution but not to the extent proposed by the Commission, and there was to be no change in the composition of the Welsh Assembly (now Senedd). It should be emphasised that the Commission was truly cross-party, with some heavyweight Labour figures on it.

Now, with no increase in responsibilities, the Labour/Nationalist coalition is proposing to increase the Senedd by nearly twice that calculated by Richard. One presumes that they do not envisage a cut in the pay of Senedd members, nor in the size of support staff per member. Their reasoning is no doubt that it is simpler to take the Westminster-dictated future 32 parliamentary constituencies and multiply by 3 rather than conduct their own boundary review. 

Wales is about the same size as Slovenia, which is a fully independent nation. Slovenia's parliament has only 90 members, less than the 96 proposed for Wales. Before allowances etc., the basic salary of a Slovenian MP was 41,447 euro, an MS £64,000 (2016 figures). That is, in 2016, on basic salary alone, the Senedd's 60 MSs cost 4.6m euro while Slovenia totalled 3.7m euro. The Welsh government proposals would cost more than twice the Slovenian MPs' wage bill and for less responsibility. There is a case for cutting MS salaries even without the proposed expansion.

Then there is the method of election. One would have thought that, with experience of party lists used to provide some (but not enough) proportionality in topping up Senedd membership, leaders of the two parties would have abandoned this element. Instead, the desire for even tighter central control has moved them to opt for the party list as the sole means of election. There have already been instances of members of one party switching allegiance mid-term, confounding the intention of regional voters. There have been unfortunate situations when a party has been unable to fill a vacancy caused by a resignation.

More to the point, the system takes away the ability of the voter to decide between individuals. The parties say, these are the people we think should represent you. There is a variation, termed the "semi-open" list, which enables voters to move candidates up and down the basic list, but there is no indication that Labour favours this. They have also plumped for the d'Hondt method of allocating winners which - surprise, surprise! - favours large parties. (The major alternative is the Sainte-Laguë method - "Franklin method" in the US - which is fairer to small parties. There is more on the Electoral Reform web-site.) 

If the Labour/Nationalist coalition persists with this regressive and costly plan, I predict that the Westminster parliament will step in. There is even a risk that they will legislate to reverse devolution, a step which will find much support in Wales, and not just among Conservatives.

What other imperial measures will there be?

 The chess brain of Angela Eagle nailed Johnson's preposterous proposals precisely. They "weaponise nostalgia for a time few can remember and even fewer wish to return to". The prime minister clearly takes us for idiots. Because we were foolish enough to believe his promises about how an independent Britain would thrive, and could not remember the booms and busts of pre-common market days, he thinks we will swallow any draught of pre1960s wishful thinking. 

What next? Bring back the workhouses? Abolish the slavery Acts? Declare war on France? Hang people for stealing a loaf of bread?

A queer divine dissatisfaction

I am grateful to Elaine Fine for her recent post. Martha Graham's insight surely applies to all people who strive, not only artists.

In 1943, shortly after the extremely successful premiere of Oklahoma!, its choreographer Agnes de Mille met her friend Martha Graham in a Schrafft’s restaurant for a soda, and she wrote about part of their conversation:

I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be.

Martha said to me, very quietly: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. As for you, Agnes, you have so far used about one-third of your talent.”

“But,” I said, “when I see my work I take for granted what other people value in it. I see only its ineptitude, inorganic flaws, and crudities. I am not pleased or satisfied.”

“No artist is pleased.”

“But then there is no satisfaction?”

“No satisfaction whatever at any time,” she cried out passionately. “There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

Classical music relegated at BBC Radio?

 If Auntie announced the changes to the radio musical hierarchy, she did so quietly and only a few specialist print media picked them up. Thanks to Private Eye for the tip-off. The positioning of the controller of Radio 3 within a team directed by the former controller of pop looks like a weakening of the corporation's commitment to music as an art form. I hope I am wrong.

Of course there are alternatives to Johnson

 A few minutes consideration should convince even the most ordinary of voters that there must be a hundred or more members of higher intellectual calibre than Boris Johnson. Those interested voters who go a stage further and actually tune in to BBC Parliament from time to time know that, even in today's Tory party, there are also many with grleater integrity than the man who was foisted on the nation in 2019. This is of practical importance, because, with the state of the parties at Westminster and the date of the next election in the distant future, the office of PM is in the gift of the Conservative party. 

A leading contender must be Tom Tugendhat who, backed by his foreign affairs select committee, has exposed government failures. This morning, in response to an urgent question on the rushed evacuation from Afghanistan, Foreign Office (FCDO) minister James Cleverly had said:

In anticipation of the situation, the FCDO had reserved the Baron hotel, so the UK was the only country apart from the United States to have a dedicated emergency handling centre for receiving and processing people in Kabul International airport. RAF flights airlifted people to a dedicated terminal in Dubai, reserved in advance by the FCDO.

Mr Tugendhat responded:

the reason we reserved the hotel and others did not was that the French and Germans had pulled their people out months earlier, and they had done so because the Americans had signalled the withdrawal 18 months earlier—or, if you thought that Vice-President Biden would become President Biden, 14 years earlier. This was not a surprise. The lack of a plan was a surprise. The failure to be present was a surprise.

The failure of integrity when discussing matters with the Select Committee was a huge surprise. For us, as representatives of the British people, the real surprise—the real tragedy—is not just the hundreds of lives left behind in Afghanistan and the people abandoned in neighbouring countries but the undermining of the security of this country and the defence of our people, which has come about through an erosion of trust. Our enemies do not fear us and allies do not trust us. That has been tested in Ukraine, and we are all paying for it in every gas bill and every food shop. That is the price of the erosion of trust, and that is why we need a fundamental rethink not just of our foreign policy but of how our country engages with the world. Those who, like our most senior diplomat, are the voice of our country in the world, need to be voices that we can trust, but I am afraid that the Committee that I am privileged to chair does not.

It used to be a standard criticism of the UK civil service that its modus operandi was to do nothing until there was a crisis, then manage the crisis. It was to be expected of elected government that they would provide the initiative and decision making. It is a mark of the Johnson government that they do nothing, and when the crisis comes they panic. It was how they responded to Covid-19 and, as we saw this morning, how they responded to threats to our friends in Afghanistan.

Defenders of Johnson believe that "partygate" is a dead issue, that his misuse of privilege, his lager-lout behaviour and his consequent prevarication have been forgiven him. He should be allowed to get on with running the country. However, even if "partygate" was the only mark against him, it surely exposed a failure of character unfitting for a leader of government. And it is not the only black mark, though the media have helped people forget the catastrophic Brexit deal, the lies he told about this, the failure to respond to Covid-19 in time and the failures in Afghanistan.

There is a crisis looming over Northern Ireland. We have not yet reached it. Are his party colleagues genuinely convinced that he is the man to handle it?

The Gray report needs to be a killer

 If it is not, then the "partygate" campaign will rebound on its progenitors. Not only will Johnson survive as PM, but the whole New Tory ethos of hypocrisy and lies will be given a boost. Already the legend of Boris Johnson as Great Leader beset by pygmies is being promoted, for instance by David TC Davies on Radio Wales yesterday. Johnson saved the nation from Covid by promoting vaccination. Johnson leads the free world in its resistance to Russian domination. Never mind that the virus was allowed to take hold in the UK by two months of his government's inaction or that Russian money has his party in thrall, the legend will prevail.

One can understand the motivation behind the decision to mount the major attack on Johnson over the Downing Street parties It was felt that the details of the epidemic or of political corruption were either not understood or felt to be irrelevant by the ordinary voter. On the other hand, everybody understands law-breaking and hypocrisy, especially when ordinary people were prevented from visiting dying relatives while Westminster special advisers and civil servants were wheeling suitcases full of booze into their offices for less-than-socially-distanced celebrations. "Partygate" would stand for the whole of Johnson's transgressions.

The small number of fines levied on the key players already makes the offences seem comparatively trivial. Unless Sue Gray's report counteracts that impression, then surely the opposition to Johnson within his own party will dwindle and the whole reform campaign become ineffective.

Where is the history of people of colour?

I am looking forward to Troy Deeney's  documentary on Channel 4 tomorrow. In a preview in the current Radio Times, he bemoans the fact that: "in all my time [at school] I heard plenty about Tudors and Stuarts but can't remember being taught any history about people who looked like me." As a result of commissioning a YouGov survey of teachers at 1,000 UK schools, he learned that: "52 per cent of teachers believe the school system has a racial bias, while only 12 per cent feel empowered to teach diverse topics." As a result, he launched a petition calling for the mandatory teaching of BAME histories throughout the curriculum. He has met and continues to communicate with the English Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi. (But why not Scotland and Wales, nations to whom education is devolved? He would surely find a sympathetic ear in Jeremy Miles, the Welsh government's Minister for Education.)

I contend that his beef is part of a wider failing in English and Welsh education. We don't teach social history and we don't teach world history. It looked for the period after I left secondary education through the 1960s and 1970s that progress was being made on the first front. Then under Margaret Thatcher there was a reversion to kings and queens and princes, especially English ones. It is clear from the testimony of Deeney's Radio Times article that the Blair/Brown years saw no change.

If world history had been taught, we would have learned of the great empires that rose and fell in south Asia as well as that of China. We would also have learned that the pharaohs were not the only emperors on the continent of Africa. From Ife to Asante there were great kingdoms in the west. In southern Africa, the kingdom of Zimbabwe endured from the time of the Anglo-Saxons to just before the first great transatlantic voyages. (If the history of Europe of the 19th and early 20th centuries had been taught, we might not have had Brexit, but that's another story.)

It does not help the recognition of African achievements that the continent's tradition of history is an oral, rather than a written one, but that is a poor excuse for their neglect in a liberal education environment. 

If the history of ordinary people had been taught, Troy Deeney would have learned that there were many people who looked like him on the streets of London - and possibly of other cities - in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts. They aroused no comment, enmity or disparagement. There was no "colour problem". Indeed, the outstanding person of colour from the literature of the period, Othello, was a figure of respect. That respect became fear in the case of the Barbary pirates who were a menace to the south coast at that time, but the fear was probably as much of the violence of their attacks, their foreignness and of Islam as of the colour of their skins. 

So what changed? Colonialism and slavery. These two evils have prejudiced the way we majority Westerners look at people of colour. We are, in government, only just overcoming the psychological block of promoting descendants of the "subject races". In Troy Deeney's own domain of football, there are few black managers, and the ones who have been most successful have been foreigners, like Ruud Gullit, rather than people from our own colonial heritage. It will be a long time before our prejudices cease to rule our assessment of other people. One hopes that Troy Deeney's documentary will be a step along that path.

An alternative to prison

Several years ago, a former secretary of Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats and I started a campaign for a women's prison in South Wales. We had the best of motives. Convicted female offenders in Wales were being sent to gaols in England. Apart from the chances of being deposited in one of the poorer prisons, detention many miles from home bears more heavily on women than men. They are far more likely to have families dependent on them.

However, it was quickly made clear to us that the effect of opening new prisons for women in Wales would be to reduce the reluctance of magistrates and judges to pass custodial sentences on women. It would increase the prison population and reduce, rather than improve, the opportunities for rehabilitation.

Now it seems the Westminster government is trying a third way.

The 12-bed Residential Women’s Centre in Swansea will open its doors in 2024 for around 50 offenders a year who would have otherwise been handed a prison sentence of 12 months or less.

The £10 million centre is a key part of the government’s plan to minimise the number of women sent to prison in England and Wales.

There are signs that under cover of the red meat being thrown to hard-line Tory voters, progress is finally being made towards a more progressive penal system in England and Wales. May it continue.

The Great Gurkha Welfare Teddy Bear Auction

 

The GWT Teddy Bear Auction is live! Dear Frank The Gurkha Welfare Trust’s supporters have been hard at work dressing adorable teddy bears in a Gurkha or Nepali theme ready for our first ever Teddy Bear Auction. There are a variety of bears on offer, each meticulously decorated, from female bears in beautiful saris to bears in traditional Nepali dress with matching Topi hat. There is a Gurkha recruit bear carrying a Doko basket, bears in military uniform and others bearing the famous crossed kukris symbol. We are so grateful to our amazing supporters for their efforts in decorating these gorgeous bears.  The money they raise through the auction will be essential to support Gurkha veterans and their families in Nepal. There are 19 beautifully decorated bears up for sale. The auction is live now and runs for a week - plenty of time to make sure you get a winning bid! Auction ends Sunday 22 May at 10pm Below are just a few of the bears available - click here to see the full collection! Bid now Bear Gurung Bear Gurung is smartly dressed in the uniform of the Royal Gurkha Rifles complete with regimental cap badge Bid now Judda Bear Judda Bear features traditional Nepali costume with matching waistcoat and Topi hat with crossed kukri badge Bid now Shanoli Bear Shanoli is an adorable bear in the traditional costume worn by Gurkha women in the hills of Nepal Bid now Shamsher Bear Shamsher Bear is ready for action, with his cosy sweater, sturdy Doko basket and wooden kukri knife! Bid now Please note: Please note: Bears may contain small or removable parts and could pose a choking hazard. We do not recommend giving them to children.

Civil Service cuts

 The crude axe wielded by 'Rees-Mogg and Johnson will further demoralise what is left of what used to be a civil service admired throughout the world. One can understand the need to stand down those recruited to see Brexit through (though far better not to have created the need for them in the first place). However, the intention is to cut jobs across the board when there are some Departments which are clearly understaffed. Revenue & Customs and Companies House need more enforcement people, not fewer. One often hears stories of undue delays in social service Departments in processing claims. And would the pension payment errors which hit the headlines in the last decade or so have occurred in a fully-staffed Work and Pensions?

The danger is of creating the sort of corrupt bureaucracy one associates with Latin countries, where only a bribe will guarantee service.

I suggest that the first cuts should rather be of special advisers, whose salaries ranging from £40,500 to £145,000 a year must be well beyond those of the people who will be put on the street by Johnson and Rees-Mogg.  .

Is local democracy a contradiction in terms?

Mark Wallace (the Conservative blogger, not the former Glamorgan wicket-keeper and captain) had a piece in the i newspaper before the local elections claiming that councils are neither local nor democratic.  He draws attention to the way in which the opposition nationally projects the aggregate of local votes as a judgement on the Westminster government, the government mounts a defence and the centrally-based media commentators lazily amplify the effect. It's likely, Wallace says:

on Thursday a large chunk of voters will act with the national political picture in mind. The Labour Party is encouraging people to do so. Their election broadcast features the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Chancellor – neither of whom are up for election this week – and focuses on the cost of living and energy policy, neither of which will be influenced by the result. Obviously, they’re doing this because they think that capitalising on frustration with the Government will work – and it’s a legitimate tactic. In various parts of the country, Conservative candidates are standing under the banner “Local Conservatives” in an effort to neutralise the attack. 

This is a perennial issue, delivering unfair punishment and undue victory in equal measure. Councillors of all parties often suffer defeat through no fault of their own, while “safe” Parliamentary seats often also have one-party dominance in their town hall.

My initial  reaction was that the effect was less outside England. Local issues loom larger the further one gets from London. Moreover, between Whitehall and town hall in Scotland and Wales sit governments of different stripe to the one at Westminster. However, I should have remembered (it was painful enough) the Clegg effect. Hundreds of good, hard-working Liberal Democrat councillors were swept away in council elections following Nick Clegg's failure to stand up to the rejection in 2011 by Cameron and Osborne of the original coalition prospectus and the reversion to the Tory austerity programme. We are only just beginning to climb away from that disaster.

Now it is the Conservatives' turn.  My successful colleagues in local council elections tell me that normally Conservative-voting citizens actually volunteered on the doorstep that they would be switching to Lib Dems because of the way prime minister Johnson has dragged down the reputation of the Conservative party nationally. It seems that throughout Wales decent Conservative candidates along with the rest have been relegated to the bottom of their respective polls as a result. 

More generally, sitting councillors are liable to take the blame for decisions taken at Westminster. As a former civil servant, a former unitary councillor and a current town councillor I have seen something of both sides of government. There is a tendency for Westminster to pass laws whose administration they then off-load to local authorities, not always funding that. 

Wallace proposes two ideas which he says are controversial.

The first is variation – often characterised as a “postcode lottery” but actually the opposite, not a game of chance but a recognition that it’s OK for different areas, with different problems, and different potential, to choose to govern themselves in different ways, so long as it truly is their choice.

The second is that the freedom to succeed also requires the freedom to fail. If a local electorate democratically chooses a council leadership that promises the moon on a stick – for example that quadrupling business rates will see the money roll in without negative consequences for employment or the high street – then it should be free to do so. If it works, that area should be allowed to reap the benefits. But if it fails, then those making the choice must bear a share of the consequences.

I would add one of my own: that there should be no party political broadcasts on radio or TV,  or posts by national parties on social media during the period of campaigning for principal authorities. This would give local media (local Facebook pages as well as print media) the chance to highlight the real issues and actual personalities in each council area.

Under-representation in Welsh politics

 The IWA's Auriol Miller is the latest public figure to point out the disparity between male and female representation on local councils, not to mention the under-representation of minorities.

The latter is by far the trickier area. Does one build in reserved places for ethnic minorities, people with disabilities or those of a particular sexual orientation on local councils? Would those be sufficient categories? Would voter prejudice against minorities be replaced by resentment at otherwise well-qualified people being excluded?

In my experience, the under-representation of women is on its way to being corrected. It now needs the two conservative parties in Wales to set a better example. The Conservatives in England have had two female leaders, but no female MS has even approached the throne of the Welsh Conservatives. Labour has had more prominent and able female MSs, but as yet has failed to follow the example of the Welsh Lib Dems in electing the first woman party leader here (Kirsty Williams) followed by another in Jane Dodds, or of Plaid Cymru. Where the national parliament leads, surely local government will follow. 

What can happen when the ball rolls unstoppably is evidenced by the Lib Dems in Westminster where women represent nearly 70% of their MPs and by Labour's just over 50%. The last two by-election wins (Sarah Green in Chesham & Amersham and Helen Morgan in North Shropshire)  have merely exaggerated a trend that was already there. I look forward with interest to the results in Wakefield and Tiverton when these by-elections are eventually called.

Respected journalist shot dead while covering Israeli armed police action

Veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American who was among the network's most prominent figures, was shot dead Wednesday as she covered an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank.

The Qatar-based TV channel said Israeli forces shot Abu Akleh, 51, deliberately and "in cold blood" while she was covering unrest in the Jenin refugee camp. 

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett initially said it was "likely" that Palestinian gunfire killed her. 

However, later Wednesday, Israel's military chief backed away from claims that Palestinian militants might have been responsible for Abu Akleh's killing. 

“At this stage we cannot determine by whose fire she was harmed and we regret her death," said Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, adding that the investigation was ongoing. 

The Al Jazeera claim is credible, since the Israeli armed forces have form. In 1967, during the 6-Day War, the USS Liberty was attacked, suffering casualties, and put out of action allegedly because it was picking up Israeli signals intelligence. The TV network also suffered during the Iraq military adventure of 2003 when US planes bombed its Baghdad bureau.

Europe Day 2022

 

Brazil sets new forest-razing record; Aussies to the rescue?

 Only days after an Australian start-up company announced a machine that could fight deforestation came news that Bolsonaro's Brazil has excelled itself in reducing the Amazon rain forest.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has surged to a new record for the month of April, official data showed, as environmental rights advocates continue to slam President Jair Bolsonaro’s policies for accelerating the crisis.

Amazon deforestation totalled 1,012.5sq km (390sq miles) from April 1 to 29, according to data from the national space research agency INPE released on Friay. The agency will report data for the final day of the month next week.

In a technical fix which seems too good to be true,

Using a fleet of highly advanced 'octocopters', AirSeed Technology is fighting deforestation by combining artificial intelligence with specially designed seed pods which can be fired into the ground from high in the sky.

"Each of our drones can plant over 40,000 seed pods per day and they fly autonomously," says Andrew Walker, CEO and co-founder of AirSeed Technologies.

"In comparison to traditional methodologies, that's 25 times faster, but also 80 per cent cheaper."

Help the ecological movement

 

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Polling Day

 Good luck to all candidates of whatever persuasion. I know that the majority of you go into politics, local or national, with the best of intentions.

To those of you have not already cast a thoughtful ballot by post, I say: please get out and vote. You do not need a polling card. Use your vote to influence your local council, which is to blame, not Boris Johnson, if your refuse is not collected, potholes in the road not filled or Nain not supported in her old age.

New approach to vehicle security needed

The local party blog entry about the vehicle theft epidemic refers.

The Liberal Democrat analysis of outcomes recorded for theft of a motor vehicle and bicycle theft offences, by police force for each of the last 5 years (2017-2021), is available here.

 

The Liberal Democrats are urging a return to community policing, with a three-point plan to crack down on crime and anti-social behaviour and reverse years of Conservative neglect:

 

• Restore proper community policing, where officers are more visible, trusted and known personally to local people.

• Reverse Conservative cuts to youth services by investing an extra £500 million a year via a ring-fenced fund to Local Authorities

• Scrap Police and Crime Commissioners and use the £50 million savings to invest in frontline policing and solving crimes.

To all of which Welsh Liberal Democrats would add that we could surely do better here if policing were devolved

A move against pollution

 It is fitting that on World Asthma Day news should come through that Wales's worst air-polluted terrace has finally been demolished.