Proud? I Wish!

Like most of you I guess an email headed “Proud” just popped into my inbox from Simon Hughes. I plucked up the courage to read said email and found myself closer and closer to the verge of vomiting. Sorry, but I’ve got to be honest and I wish I didn’t feel this way, if anyone can suggest a way to help me not to please email me asap. But somewhere along the line we have surely lost total touch with our declared values and aims? Yes, we have taken people out of tax, but no, they weren’t the poorest, the poorest weren’t paying tax in the first place and those who have had the additional cash will find it nowhere near compensates for the drop in living standards. Yes, the pupil premium is certainly a Lib Dem win, but frankly, if on the one hand we give the school (who may or may not choose to use the money to support disadvantaged children) money while on the other kicking the child’s family out of their home – what contributes most to their educational success? Yes, we are doing our best to help unemployed young people, but at the same time we are slashing the services that in the past helped them, Youth Service, Connexions – I don’t know about where you live but they are practically wiped out round here. 

Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander have virtually admitted that the Youth Contract isn’t working (see my CYP Now blog here) so we claim credit for getting 100,000 into work er no, work experience. Work experience?! Of course that may be an important step on the road to a job, but surely what we want is 1 million young people in work?

Having been involved with our last Manifesto process and as a candidate in the 2010 campaign, I was happy to campaign on our priorities. They were costed. They didn’t rely on taking money from the most vulnerable in order to deliver. They were “as well as” not “instead of”. Any Liberal Democrat would have been proud of that. But what we have now is as a result of massive cuts elsewhere. If we have the choice between Pupil Premium and homeless children - which would we choose? Raising the tax threshold - or cutting benefits to the most vulnerable? 

Of course there are some great initiatives; increased support for child care is wonderful. But I have to say my daughter has given up claiming it because it means equivalent cuts to her housing benefit. When I suggested we should resolve that anomaly in our party policy I was told it would be too expensive. So, yet again, the poorest in our communities miss out. 

I must applaud the increased investment in mental health talking therapies. Having lost my sister last year I am sure she would have benefited if those therapies had been around earlier. But…..you knew there was a but (!)…….the link between mental health and financial worries is well documented. We know that nearly half of unemployed young people have mental health conditions. More and more people are being pushed into debt, especially into the arms of unscrupulous lenders and loan sharks. Oh, and if you need support to get justice…..forget it, we just cut legal aid. So yet again, no evidence of joined up thinking, let’s try and stop people getting ill in the first place.

And of course, there are stand alone achievements that the party is rightly proud of, such as equal marriage and blocking some of the worst excesses of the Tories. But it reminds me of the ethics debates we used to have as students – at what point does what you get in return make  it OK to sell your soul to the devil?!

Dear Nick, The Lib Dems are more than the sum of their Front Bench

Overnight there have been two stories which have had some of us rather exercised. When an issue has me on the same page as Lord Bonkers, the party leadership really ought to be worried! I have never made any secret of my opposition to the coalition, Jonathan is a supporter, but now even he finds himself questioning the dismissal of Matthew Oakeshott. For me, I think the most disturbing part of this story is the quote Jonathan cites from a party spokesperson "Both Lord Oakeshott and the party leadership agreed he could not speak for the party when he did not support the party's policy"..............ah, so now we get the measure of what is happening, Lib Dem policy is being conflated with coalition policy. It's all a bit Animal Farmish for me, before we know it we will all have morphed into pigs, I mean Tories.........and any of us who won't will find ourselves off to the knackers yard with Boxer! Actually Matthew Oakeshott, did support party policy, like Vince Cable used to, like Danny Alexander used to. I have some sympathy for frontbenchers who can't really come out against their government, but Matthew was not a minister, if he can't speak out who can? As a member of FPC I sit on two of the "Parliamentary Policy" committees - my understanding of the rationale for those committees was that those committees in general and their co-chairs in particular, were there to ensure party policy remained distinctive within parliament and that they were the standard bearers for our policy. Last night's events should really put the wind up the lot of us.

And then there is the letter, headlining the news this morning, from the 91 leading Lib Dem councillors, raising legitimate concerns but then being warned by Andrew Stunnell to effectively put up or shut up. Sadly he demonstrates his disconnect from the party by arguing that these councillors should "stop fighting amongst themselves"...........er.................I DON'T think they are fighting among themselves, quite the opposite, they appear to be agreeing with each other! And therein lies my point......it is the FRONT BENCH who appear to have lost touch with the grassroots. It reminds me of my army days when pals got promoted and suddenly "went native" and forgot where they had come from. Or the brilliant colleagues I have known who got into management and suddenly saw their erstwhile co workers as the problem and started implementing the very policies they had argued against as practitioners. Andrew Stunnell would do well to listen to these front line councillors - an Egyptian "you can make bricks without straw" mentality is unfair and unwise and frankly counter-productive. One wonders for example whether in Norfolk the cost of getting rid of their youth service will end up costing them far more in the long run.

Yes coalition involves compromise but not subjugation - a lesson that our front bench would be well advised to learn, and learn quickly.

A Sizemic Shift in the Lib Dems goes Unnoticed?

Well, having had a week and a half (more later) I have scoured Lib Dem Blogs for any reporting of Tuesday's FPC.........the most exciting night of the year and it goes uncommented on??! Bring back Alex Wilcock - that's wot I say!

A couple of weeks ago I was en route to the member's dining room with a pal when I bumped into Steve Webb - he congratulated me on my re election to FPC and commented about how many "lefties" had been elected..........hmmmmmm. So, little miss big mouth is no longer in a minority in shouting the odds about Trident, Tax Cuts et al?

Tuesday evening was elections night. Elections were held for a number of FPC positions, most importantly vice-chairs to Nick Clegg. The MP vice chair, Danny Alexander, was elected unopposed, but there were 4 contenders for the 2 ordinary member positions, current v-c, fellow blogger and Looz Muze chaperone - Jeremy Hargreaves, ex head of Policy - Richard Grayson, former v-c Ruth Coleman and former chair of the Security Working Group, Julie Smith. The result was a clear win for Richard Grayson and a tie between Jeremy and Julie - leading to a run off. While we were awaiting the result of that contest, we held hustings for FPC rep to ELDR Council. Two candidates, myself and Julie Smith. Julie has been the incumbent for the past couple of years but I had decided to stand on the basis that we both offered something quite different. Julie is an expert in European Politics and clearly brings a knowledge and expertise to the table that I never could, however I felt my strength was in representing the progressive wing of our party, as well as bringing a desire to ensure we really begin to connect with people on European issues. So I was really pleased to win the nomination, although felt bad that Julie, who I had expected to get v-c, ended up with nothing. But, I think both Richard's and my elections demonstrate that shift in the composition of the FPC, a perspective confirmed when I was chatting to an MP this morning (who will remain nameless!) I asked if I had told him about my election, no I hadn't, but he had heard about it - someone else had commented on the fact that a "non establishment" candidate had won.

So we have an interesting year ahead on FPC. It will no longer be quite so easy to push through controversial policy. As my dear readers know, I am still a Cleggophile, but that doesn't mean I agree with all his policy priorities. I trust he will read the runes and consider how we as a party can arrive at more of a consensus on those issues that divide us, rather than it always boiling down to an adversarial battle of wills and manufactured challenge to the leadership.