Nick Clegg is legitimising the Conservative Party

Alexis Rowell’s resignation letter:


Dear Nick,
I’m afraid I’ve decided to leave the Liberal Democrats. My principal reason for doing so is Chris Huhne’s support for nuclear power. Opposition to a new round of nuclear power stations has always seemed to me to be a key Liberal Democrat policy and a potent symbol of Lib Dem values. Before Fukishima I could think of many reasons why the Lib Dems were right to oppose nuclear power.With that tragedy still ongoing, and rivalled only by Chernobyl in terms of its adverse impact on nature and mankind, the list grows ever longer.
When I was interviewed as a potential Lib Dem councillor candidate in 2006 I said that the only thing I could foresee which would make me leave the party was if it decided to support nuclear power. The party hasn’t, but Chris Huhne and the Lib Dem coalition negotiators have.
As I think you know I’ve also been quite unimpressed with the coalition’s general record on environmental issues. The bar set by the previous government was low but so far, in the opinion of all too many environmentalists and commentators, you’ve sailed under it. I joined the party primarily because of its environmental policies, and I worked tirelessly in Camden in 2006-10 to promote sustainability with a Lib Dem face, so this feels like a personal betrayal.
However I’m also horrified by what the coalition’s policies are doing to the social fabric. I recognise that any government would have had to make difficult decisions, but I’m still shocked by the fact that you signed the foreword to the bill to privatise the NHS, by the draconian frontloaded cuts to local government, by the free schools policy, by the virtual abandonment of state-funded higher education, by the lack of any action on banker bonuses and exorbitant pay in general, by the decision to fully privatise the Royal Mail, and by a host of other free market or libertarian policies which I didn’t vote for and which I can’t support.
I hope one day you manage to find your voice in the coalition and that it ends up being the progressive voice of the Liberal Democrat Party that I joined when Tony Blair launched his illegal war in Iraq. However for the moment I can see no value in your being Deputy Prime Minister or in the Lib Dems being part of the government. Your participation is not only legitimising the Conservative Party’s confused and troubling agenda, it is also destroying the Liberal Democrat party and its progressive soul. I therefore feel that I have no choice but to leave.
Yours sincerely,
Alexis Rowell
Liberal Democrat Councillor, London Borough of Camden, 2006-10

Looters and thieves

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook: "These people have no morality. They sponge off the taxpayer, they are thieves, have little respect for the law or society, they steal, loot, run riot through the city, have no concern for other people. And now they're coming home from holiday to sort the riots out."

Other friends of mine have suggested bringing back national service while Theresa May is talking about bringing in the army to beat the rioters down. What she fails to understand in the cause of the problem and like so many she is concerned about treating the symptoms.

Young people have a natural angst and aggression. They need time to find their place and direction in society, to sort out where they are going with their lives. They need a heroes journey, a rite of passage, call it what you will, and some rites of passage are more damaging than others as we have seen these last few days. Destructive rites of passage are going to be more likley when you combine angst and aggression with a sense of despair, high unemployment, widening poverty gap and little hope of a better life.

So maybe my friends who are suggesting national service have got a point. Not that I would want to see people being made to serve in the forces, but there may be a case for other types of service that would provide a sense of achievement and pride for younger people, as well as some training and career skills.

So what about the other part of the cause, poverty, unemployment etc. These are much easier to fix unless yu have a government wedded to an ideology of cuts for the masses with bonuses for the rich. An ideology based on hard capitalism and hard knocks.

The great seer and prophet Nick Clegg predicted the riots before the election if the Tories got in to Downing St. Let us not forget who put them in power though:

Greenest gov't - I doubt it

The papers are full of the deal that Chris Huhne has done with Osbourn and Cable to agree carbon reductions and he should be congratulated for that. The Campaign against Climate Change have been quick to point out:

1. The Committee on Climate Change recommends an increase in the use of biofuels which will do more harm than good.
2. The Committee’s recommendations do not take into account the effective outsourcing of a large proportion of UK emissions to countries like China to feed our increased demand for consumer goods.
3. In the light of the latest science, the targets enshrined in the Climate Act are inadequate. This is what those at the sharp end of scientific research into climate change are saying, like Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre who says we need something more like 10% cuts a year, or James Hansen who heads the climate research effort at NASA who says that 2 degrees of warming is too dangerous.

In addition to CCC's issues, my concerns are firstly that the coalition are not going to be around long enough to accept responsibility for not achieving this (after this parliament they will be out of power for a generation), therefore they can make the type of hollow promises that we have come to expect of them, secondly, they don't really understand the nature of the threat and thirdly, even if Huhne wanted to deliver on the promises the whole Tory principle is geared towards growth without regard.

I do hope they can make the quick and sustained reductions that are essential for long term survival but I just don't believe they get it.

More bad news for the Lib Dems

UK Polling Report discusses that two polls out today in Scotland have the Greens ahead of the Lib Dems. This should deliver 8 Green MSPs which would be the highest ever - a fantastic result so fingers crossed.

The UK Polling Report also talks about local election predictions with calculations showing a fall from 24% to 17% for the Lib Dems. I suspect the level of variation for the LD slide will be huge and I think we can be assured of some interesting results.

Finally, I have to show this great piece by Obama on his birth certificate:

Kids in future will get a "Right Clegging"

Painful reading, this. Clegg complained about being a punchbag in the New Statesman and the Guardian give a perfect example of what happens with a political punchbag:

"You are a fence-sitter, a turncoat, a scapegoat, a liar, a pledge-breaker, a class traitor, probably a scumbag into the bargain. You are a stock-in-trade figure of fun and/or hate. Little old ladies quake at your name. When children won't go to bed and are threatened with a "right Clegging", they scream in terror."

Harsh words but then they have deceived their voters and supporters, so what do they expect? They have plummeted in the polls and are going to be the big losers on 5th May.

Kent Lib Dem backs the coalition

The Lib Dems and Tories seem to be growing closer together. The recent Oldham by-election showed the willingness of the parties to work together as the vote defied the polling data and was tactically switched from Tory to LD. Last week in the Independent, more news of the tactical voting plans were revealed:

One Tory Cabinet minister told The Independent yesterday: "One scenario is an informal pact in which the two Coalition partners would help each other where they could. Voters aren't stupid. They can work out who is best placed to win in their constituency – as they did in Oldham. It wouldn't have to be a formal, top-down pact, which would be very difficult to impose on local associations in any case." 

In Kent, Lib Den Cllr Trudy Dean has given her backing to the coalition "I would give the Coalition Government a seven or eight out of 10 so far". As she leads the opposition on the County Council, this is a strange position to take and highlights just how much support they will lose at this year's local elections.

Coalition politics are the right way to go but it has a lot of learning to do. Not just at the point of the coalition, but by the voters and by the parties in other tiers of government that are not in coalition. It works well in many countries, but fundementally parties must make sure they know who they are aligning themselves with.It came as no surprise to me that the Lib Dems saw themselves more right wing than left, but it may have come as a surprise to Lib Dem voters in Kent after year's of rhetoric trying to position the LDs as the opposition to the Tories.

Lib Dems Waning Here

Just as the Irish Greens look set to be wiped out in the General Election for their part in supporting Fianna Fail and considering saving any face they have left by running before they are pushed, the Lib Dem collapse has started in Britain.

While they survived being wiped out in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election by Tory voters voting tactically, they certainly won't be able to pull that stunt very often. They were only able to maintain support in Oldham as they had long pitched themselves as the alternative to Labour there. In the south they usually pitch themselves as the opposition to the Tories - a claim that no longer stands.

As by-election results roll in, the clear message is one of collapse of vote share, with some down by 21%. As more an more people realise what the Lib Dems don't stand we can expect the collapse to continue.

This bodes well for Maidstone, assuming that the Lib Dem decline is not mopped up by the Tories. In Fant Ward where the vote has been fairly evenly split between Green / LD / Tory for the past few years, I can't see the Lib Dems hanging on which would mean that the only way of stopping the Tories would be a Green vote.

Lib Dems dropping like a stone

Friday's YouGov poll put the LibDems on just 7%, the lowest since 1990. It is clear that the LibDems sold out for a taste of power and have shown their economic allegances lie on the right. They are going to be punished at this year's local elections for their poor error of judgement and for showing where they really lie in the political spectrum.

Too much happening to blog about...

• Disgusted that they can call this green. Treating animals (and Nature in general) in this way is as far from green philosophy as you can get. Raising pigs in factories also has no place in a green society. Disgusting.
• Latest U-Turn by Clegg, this time on control orders. What happened to the liberal part of Liberal Democrat?
• Castro's medical mission marches on to the shame of the civilised West. This time Cuban medics are in force in Haiti. 1200 of them. How many have the US or UK sent I wonder?
• Maidstone's town centre manager is quoted as saying: "Recession, what recession?" after higher than normal sales in the post Christmas period. I'm sure he meant no offence but I doubt the public are in such a boyant mood, I suspect they were having one final splurge before hunkering down.
• It seems that the FT are worried about the burgeoning oil price and its threat to the recovery. Oil hit $95 last week and I think the $148 high was part of the reason for the last economic collapse. Peak oil happened in 2006 and White's Law says the economy needs energy.

Disgraceful policing and disgraceful Lib Dems

More disgraceful policing of protests shown below as a woman is bundled to the floor by police for no reason. This is clearly assualt.



On a better note, it was good to see Adam getting his face in the Daily Mail.

The Lib Dems have even cancelled their London conference because of the protests. They really are a shower and let's hope that the ones with guts have the honour to resign soon. Of course some will just want more police intervention such as Cllr Papworth.

Letter on student protests to Kent Messenger

Letter to the Kent Messenger on the Maidstone's sudent protesters and congrats to Kent Green, Aaron Keily for getting a mention!

Dear Sir,

Maidstone's students should be congratulated for doorstepping Helen Grant's office as part of the protests about the student fee rises. Once again the Tories are restricting education choices to the rich and excluding students from more modest families. Selection by wealth is a straightforward way to increase inequalities in our already unequal society.

Of course, we should expect little better from the Conservatives but the real scandal is the way that the Lib Dems have refused to stand by their pledges. Their U-Turn is an affront to democracy and they should be hanging their heads in shame.

Stuart Jeffery
Maidstone Green Party

Boris talking crap on student violence

Just watched this clip from the BBC which shows Boris being saddened by the violence yesterday yet being proud of London's history of allowing people to protest.

Three things spring to mind...

Firstly the students were probably protesting outside the wrong HQ. The Lib Dems are far more culpable than the Tories on student fees - they are the ones who are breaking their promises.

Secondly, how much violence was there? 36 arrested but far more have been arrested at completely peaceful protests, so I wonder just how small the numbers of trouble makers were. Probably similar to the number of students in the Bullingdon Club. Not that they would have had any involvement in the protest as the student fees won't hurt the rich but, I would guess this type of violence would have been right down the Bullingdon Club's tradition of violence, which makes Boris's comments all the more cynical.

Finally, Boris talks about London's tradition of allowing people to protest. I supect the right to protest goes a bit deeper than tradition!

£95bn of tax evasion and avoidance

"We are living in a country where the poor bail out the banks, while the rich keep their billions intact" - Monbiot
 
To the stunning levels of tax avoidance, £25bn need to be added the crazy levels of tax evasion, a further £70bn according the the PCS. You could almost be forgiven for thinking that this is the real economic crisis?

Meanwhile the government is shitting on poorer people.The Comprehensive Spending Review and cutting of government spending by one third primarily affects people on lower incomes and increases the gap between rich and poor.

My lack of blogging in recent weeks has been as a direct result of  the anger I'm feeling towards a cabinet made up of millionaires who have not had any experience of real life, no experience about what it means to not know how you are going to afford to eat, no experience of looking in the cupboard and finding little food in there, no experience of finding out how to cook an 8p meal and then quickly getting bored with eating the same thing for a month.

All the time we have people who have not directly experienced real life and who are only interested in their own economic growth, we won't have justice.

Human Trafficking: why don't Tories and Lib Dems want to crack down?

It is an appalling indictment of the coalition that they are content to see the UK become the trafficking capital of Europe. Do they want a return to 18th century levels of human rights? If not why are they opting out of the EU directive?

Please sign the 38 degrees petition.

This is from last Sunday's Independent:


William Wilberforce said future generations of Britons would see slavery as "a disgrace and dishonour to this country", yet, more than 200 years since its abolition, the shaming trade and exploitation of human beings still thrives.

Lib Dem fail to support people power

A couple of days ago I blogged about the disgraceful and gutless voting by the Lib Dems on Caroline Lucas's amendment to the referendum bill which would give a choice of changing the voting system to a variety of options: AV, STV and AMS. By voting against the amendment the Lib Dems voted against their own policy of STV and voted against giving people the choice about how they elect MPs.

Read the full debate here but I particularly like the comment from Austin Mitchell: "Does my hon. Friend agree that what we are doing is repairing the damage done by the gutlessness of the Liberal Democrats? They did not have the guts or the integrity to include in the referendum a question on a system of proportional representation, which they always purported to believe in. We are allowing the people to speak out."

Be under no illusion though. 55 Lib Dems voted against the amendment and no Lib Dem voted for it. This is disgraceful. Is your MP in the list of the 55 Lib Dems below, if so write to them and tell them what you think!

Danny Alexander	Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
Norman Baker	Lewes
Alan Beith	Berwick-upon-Tweed
Gordon Birtwistle	Burnley
Tom Brake	Carshalton and Wallington
Annette Brooke	Mid Dorset and North Poole
Jeremy Browne	Taunton Deane
Malcolm Bruce	Gordon
Paul Burstow	Sutton and Cheam
Lorely Burt	Solihull
Vincent Cable	Twickenham
Menzies Campbell	North East Fife
Alistair Carmichael	Orkney and Shetland
Nicholas Clegg	Sheffield, Hallam
Michael Crockart	Edinburgh West
Edward Davey	Kingston and Surbiton
Tim Farron	Westmorland and Lonsdale
Lynne Featherstone	Hornsey and Wood Green
Don Foster	Bath
Andrew George	St Ives
Stephen Gilbert	St Austell and Newquay
Duncan Hames	Chippenham
Mike Hancock	Portsmouth South
Nick Harvey	North Devon
David Heath	Somerton and Frome
John Hemming	Birmingham, Yardley
Martin Horwood	Cheltenham
Simon Hughes	Bermondsey and Old Southwark
Mark Hunter	Cheadle
Julian Huppert	Cambridge
Charles Kennedy	Ross, Skye and Lochaber
Norman Lamb	North Norfolk
David Laws	Yeovil
John Leech	Manchester, Withington
Stephen Lloyd	Eastbourne
Michael Moore	Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Greg Mulholland	Leeds North West
John Pugh	Southport
Alan Reid	Argyll and Bute
Dan Rogerson	North Cornwall
Bob Russell	Colchester
Adrian Sanders	Torbay
Robert Smith	West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine
Andrew Stunell	Hazel Grove
Ian Swales	Redcar
Jo Swinson	East Dunbartonshire
Sarah Teather	Brent Central
John Thurso	Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
David Ward	Bradford East
Steve Webb	Thornbury and Yate
Mark Williams	Ceredigion
Roger Williams	Brecon and Radnorshire
Stephen Williams	Bristol West
Jennifer Willott	Cardiff Central
Simon Wright	Norwich South

Maidstone Lib Dem opposes wind turbine

Yet another example of anti-green voting by a LibDem. Maidstone Lib Dem Brian Mortimer is in this week's Kent Messenger voicing his opposition to a community owned wind turbine in East Farleigh.

For those of you who are told by Lib Dems that they are green please think again and see how they act. They have also support airport expansion, major road building etc.

Clegg and Cable on Tuition Fees

What a mess! Pledge one thing, do another... Can someone tell me what the point of Lib Dems? Ah yes, I remember they are the progressive anti-Tory party that has vowed not to make Thatcherite cuts in the first year, vowed not to increase tuition fees, and wanted proportional representation.

Great piccy of Clegg pledging not to increase tuition fees from Left Foot Forward.

From the Guardian: "The business secretary's admission, in an email to party members on the eve of the publication of the most significant review of university funding in decades, confirms that he has accepted the case for higher tuition fees. Cable – like all Lib Dem MPs – signed a pledge at the recent Lib Dem conference to oppose any increase in fees."

If you thought the ConDems weren't interested in climate change...

There have been rumblings over the past few months about the lack of emphasis that the Tories and Lib Dems are putting on climate change. For example:

• Support for coal
• DECC under threat of closure
• Deep water drilling in the UK
• Timber and renewables pledges dropped

While this is hardly suprising given that Lib Dems have only ever been interested in winning elections and saying anything that appears popular, and the Tories - well are Tories... Anyway they have been too busy slashing and burning government (despite the UK having a lower national debt than France and Germany) to worry about a burning world. Sadly, it seems that Labour are following in their footsteps.

Personally, I thought Ed Miliband was OK as climate change secretary, but now as leader of the Labour Party he has appointed Meg Hillier as his Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary. Jim @ The Daily (Maybe) has suggested that we take a look at her voting record which you can see at Public Whip which I've summarised this below.

Her record is pretty damning, you'll need to scroll down for her climate change record as I've left in other interesting records. If you want action on climate change, you won't find it in any of the big three.

65%	Abortion, Embryology and Euthanasia- Against
100%	American imperialist hegemony: welcome (provisional)
100%	Asylum seekers: no rights (provisional)
58%	Asylum System - More strict (provisional)
17%	Big Business - against (provisional)
0%	British Humanist (provisional)
83%	Cambridge Liberal Conservative (provisional)
0%	Civil aviation pollution - For limiting
47%	Common Sense Party (provisional)
97%	Control Orders
100%	Crossrail - In favour
0%	Current Attitudes towards Climate Change (provisional)
0%	Faith schools: abolish (provisional)
99%	Fast-track planning (provisional)
0%	Identity cards - Against introduction (provisional)
100%	Identity cards - For introduction
100%	Identity Cards - In favour (provisional)
3%	Iraq Investigation - Necessary
25%	Jury trials: sacrosanct (provisional)
50%	Legalise all adult consensual sex (provisional)
100%	Mental health- easier detention + forced treatment (provisional)
100%	Military expansion - Favour (provisional)
85%	Ministers Can Intervene in Coroners' Inquests
0%	No to ID Cards (provisional)
100%	Nuclear power - For
70%	Parliamentary scrutiny - Reduce
21%	Parliamentary scrutiny - Strengthen (provisional)
100%	Post office - in favour of Government policy
0%	Post office closures - against
100%	Prisons and probation services: Privatise (provisional)
100%	Pro American Pro War and Anti-Euro Party (provisional)
14%	Pro Science and technology (provisional)
9%	Pro-human rights, pro-democracy (provisional)
5%	Pro-Liberty (provisional)
25%	Proportional Representation (provisional)
1%	Referendum on Alternative Vote for MP Elections (provisional)
0%	Referendum on Equal Constituency Sizes (provisional)
0%	Referendum on Europe (provisional)
100%	Remove Hereditary Peers from the House of Lords
11%	Renationalisation of public services (provisional)
0%	Right to strike (provisional)
23%	Schools - Greater Autonomy
0%	Selective schools: abolish (provisional)
38%	Stop climate change
78%	Supports Government Budgets (provisional)
29%	Taxation - For Progressive Taxation (provisional)
33%	Taxes - Favour decreases (provisional)
25%	Taxes - Favour increases (provisional)
50%	Temporary and agency workers: Equal rights (provisional)
94%	Termination of pregnancy - against
0%	Terrorism laws - Against (provisional)
100%	Terrorism laws - For
0%	The UK should not ratify the Lisbon Treaty
50%	Transparency of Parliament
83%	Trident replacement - In favour
92%	Trust schools: For (provisional)
47%	Vote 'aye' on every division in October 2007 (provisional)
50%	Voting age - Reduce to 16
0%	War - Parliamentary authority not necessary

Lucas on Lib Dems: “on a whole range of issues they’ve sold out”

As Clegg goes on defensive over cuts at Lib Dem conference, Greens reiterate the alternative – finding the cash to avoid the cuts and invest in job-creation

As Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg prepared to defend the coalition’s cuts in his keynote speech to the Liverpool conference today, the Green Party reiterated its alternative policy (1) – investment in job-creation funded partly through higher taxes on higher incomes, partly through scrapping projects like Trident, through cracking down on tax evasion and tax avoidance (2), and though a “Robin Hood Tax” on financial transactions (3).

The Greens say they “believe this is a policy package most Lib Dem voters would be likely to prefer to a programme of savage spending cuts.”

And Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP accused the Lib Dem leadership of “selling out on a whole range of issues” – not least the “horrendous, brutal, savage cuts” which she said evidence showed “will hurt the poor ten times harder than the richest.”

“People will be shocked” by Lib Dem leadership’s behaviour, says Lucas

The Green Party leader and Brighton Pavilion MP’s criticisms came in a new video published today by the Green Party (4).

In the film, Caroline Lucas says:

“I think people will be so shocked to see the gap between what the Lib Dems said in their election campaign and what they’re delivering now.”

She makes it clear that she doesn’t criticise Mr Clegg for entering into coalition: “I think coalition government can often be very good, and often it’s the outcome of proportional representation.”

But she asserts that “on a whole range of issues they’ve sold out.” She speaks of Mr Clegg’s compromises over Trident, nuclear power and electoral reform.

In the video, Caroline Lucas says:

“...what I do criticise Nick Clegg for absolutely is the terms of the deal that he has struck with David Cameron, because that has required him to give up so many long-held principles of the Lib Dems. And I think many people who voted Lib Dem are going to be absolutely horrified – are already horrified – to see what they’ve actually voted in.”

Notes

1.      The Green Party’s 2010 general election manifesto presented a full-costed alternative budget to tackle the deficit while finding £44bn for an investment package intended to rapidly create more than a million jobs and training places. See http://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Manifesto_web_file.pdf.

2.      See Cuts: the callous con trick by Caroline Lucas et al: press release at http://www.carolinelucas.com/News/2010-06-19-callous-cuts-report.html, full report at http://www.financeforthefuture.com/TaxBriefing.pdf.

3.      See http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/. The Green Party had long had a policy for a financial transactions tax, and formally signed up to the Robin Hood Tax campaign at its spring conference in February 2010.

4.      The video “The truth about the Lib Dems” can be viewed on the Green Party’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvIZFconPIE.

Lib Dems give up on social justice

Shocking news that the Lib Dems no longer want a more equal society, have given up on social justice and just want to be little rich kids like their Tory cousins, except that Simon Hughes says they never wanted it: "the loyalty and values of Liberal Democrat party members had not changed since the coalition with the Conservatives was formed".

While I never for one moment had them as a party of the left, they have always positioned themselves as the antidote to the Tories in Maidstone. And while some of the old fashioned left / right thinking has moved on, many of the principles of the left remain - social justice, equality, workers' right etc., etc.

It is not just these prinicples that people will be thinking about when they go to the ballot box in future years. In Maidstone people will vote tactically against the Tories (as proportional representation - i.e. modern democracy - remains a pipe dream) and they have often looked to the Lib Dems. Now that the Lib Dems have come out as Tory Lite, voters are going to be thinking twice about their claims to be anything but Tories.

I suspect that the local Lib Dem councillors will be thinking similar thoughts... next year's council elections will be interesting!