Dave's random mumblings…

With the questions I have about the man it was inevitable that I was going to get Blair’s memoirs. It does make me feel a little better that my money is going to the British Legion rather than his Tonyness.

Unlike most post career memoirs this one was written by the subject. Blair says that he wrote every word in longhand “on hundreds of notepads” and as the deadline approached he even had his blackberry taken away. I can believe that, he’s an OK writer, but the book would have benefited from fewer clichés and a few more reflective moments.

Unquestionably he is one of the best communicators as a speaker or interviewee. The moments he talked off the cuff and threw away the speeches was when he was at his best, and his best was brilliant (Labour conference in ’95 or ’96 where he talked about his belief and vision for the UK was astounding). In those moments he showed a passion and created a connection that is sorely missing from the book.

One of the most interesting things in the book were his thoughts on Gordon Brown, it’s clear that their relationship in later years was at best, poor. He admits to never really dealing with Brown and his allies when they started to undermine his position; this led to what some commentators called the “Blair-Brown civil war”. Perhaps his most important admission is that he knew Brown would be a disaster a premier (which he was) but did nothing to change the succession agreement between the two rivalries.

He writing does lead to a sort of honesty that’s missing from many of his contemporaries efforts. Unquestionably one of his biggest triumphs was the peace agreement in Northern Ireland. Yet in his discussions of that time he admits to stretching the truth to “breaking point” when trying to put together a settlement in Northern Ireland. Few, if any politicians are honest enough to admit that they were willing to deceive to make the right things happen.

This same emotional honest is missing from his justification for Iraq. He’s direct and clear that he still believes that it was the right thing to do.

He sees him self as a man who tried to bring out the positives in other, and there is significant evidence that this is the case. This is the man who got Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley to work together for peace in Northern Ireland, no one else could have managed that.

He does admit his admiration for George Bush, he calls him a man of genuine integrity and an idealist. You rather get the impression that Blair felt rather bent over by Bush and the relationship does not always reflect well on Blair. Again there is an honesty that was somewhat unexpected, but at the same time the mistakes are not truly acknowledged.

The title comes from his transition over the course of his premiership.

He started his term as a populist leader that completed the Labour journey to government started by Neil Kinnock and John Smith. Ten years later he had matured into a statesman led by his beliefs, popular or not. Ultimately he had to compromise and reshape some of his beliefs to become Labours longest serving PM, he’s open about the compromises he made and accepts where the journey ended was not where he wanted it to.

It’s interesting, and as these books inevitably do, it’s promises more than it delivers. However My Journey comes far closer than many of his peers in delivering something substantial.

The people at the top of cricket have a tough choice to make in response to the alleged betting scam rolling around cricket right now. First is hand out life bans to anyone involved and talk about putting the house in order. Or they can work at the root cause of mess and try to stop the situation from happening again

The first way is easy; the right way is far tougher.

If you are not aware, the short version of events is that three or four members of the Pakistan team touring England are under investigation for taking money to do certain things during a game. No one is accused of throwing a game, but it’s not far off.

The England and Wales Cricket Board’s priority seems to be to ensure that the rest of the tour goes ahead, but minus the players at the center of the betting scandal. Initially this looked like the right thing to do, but after giving it a little more thought I’ve changed my mind. It puts money ahead of principal, which considering the allegations seems somewhat appropriate.

On the field it is clear after the test series that England are the stronger of the two teams, take away Pakistan’s two best bowlers, wicket keeper and captain and there seems little point in playing the ten planned 20/20 and 50-over games. England will take them apart and it’s not a competition anymore.

In the longer term there is the issue of corruption in cricket. History shows that it’s been a big, ongoing problem within the sport, even if spot-betting is seen by many as less insidious than Hansie Cronje’s match fixing

As it always is, the root cause of the current problem money, or lack of it. The infrastructure of Pakistani top level cricket has always been questionable. Over the last couple of years after the terrorist attack against Sri Lanka in Lahore, every game played on the road and this has weakened the already poor organization even further.

The touring party are paid far less then their English, Indian and Australian counterparts. In this series it’s been suggested that the Pakistan players will have been earning perhaps 10% the amount of their rivals. Now someone comes along and gives you thousands to bowl a no ball, this is something that which will have effect on the overall result, how difficult is it to say “yes”?

The long term challenge facing the International Cricket Council (ICC) is taking on the ongoing corruption in Pakistan cricket. This would be a long, tough road, but it’s either that or Pakistan stops playing at the highest level.

Then there is the question of what do you do with the players involved? A life ban seems extreme, especially in the case of the 18 year old Mohammad Amir who’s only been playing at this level for a year or so. His 6 wicket haul at Lords was deserved and he has the potential to be one of the superstars of this game. To see him banned for life would be a travesty.

I think the first step is take the players away from the problem, because the security situation does not allow Pakistan to play any games at home the team spends months at a time on the road.

The ICC has to reach into their coffers and put the game in Pakistan right. Have the top players play outside Pakistan, let them play the domestic game in England, India, Australia and so on. Give the players a chance to share in the money generated by the game in these countries.

Also the Pakistani team needs to be given a home for a few years untill they can start hosting series in Pakistan again. Dubai or the UAE seems the obvious candidates, they are states who have started using high profile sports to raise their profile in the world. Cricket may just fit into that.

The ICC will have to work to make this happen along with rebuilding the game inside Pakistan. It will take quite a leap of faith by the ICC, not to mention significant resources, but it’s only by tacking the problem at its source can it be put right. The source of this problem is the failure of the Pakistan domestic and international game.

The ICC can either keep Pakistan in the cricketing wilderness, or do the hard work to bring them back into the fold and give the players the stability to make living from the game.

I’ve spent time around professional sportsmen in the past, and the unfortunate truth is people who make living out of sport don’t take the “spirit of the game” view of sport. They tend to be far more mercenary and are generally more interested in making money during what may be a short and very tough career.

It is the journalists and the fans that add the narrative and romance that make great sport so special and meaningful. I’m as guilty of that as anyone; I do love sport and what it can mean to people, but at the same time for professionals it really is work.

His Tonyness announced this week that he had donated the advance and royalties of his memoirs to the Royal British Legion. The money is to help fund a new center to help the rehabilitation of injured service men and women. Unquestionably this is a very important and worthwhile cause.

However Tony Blair must be wondering what the hell he has to do to get some good press out of this. Up front it’s about $8 million, and potentially substantially more. When his donation was announced the London Times ran a headline “”Guilty” Blair gives £5m book cash to troops”. While the Times has never actually endorsed Blair or Labour outright (the paper gave no endorsement in ’97 and a conditional backing of the Tories in 2001) and has been a vocal critic of Blair over the year, the “Guilty” part of the headline seemed to sum up the mood rather well.

Over the following days the deal was questioned – would they get the full advance (yes)? Film rights? Yes. Foreign sales? Yes. What if the book did not sell? No refund to Blair. Would it be named after Blair? No. And finally would Blair take the tax relief on the donation? No, the legion would get the benefits.

So the deal was real, the money was guaranteed and still there were headlines claiming this was blood money and Blair was just clearing his conscience with it.

Unquestionably the British are a land of cynics and Blair is a global figure with a global reputation to protect. In the US there was a “huh, really?” response to the rather hostile reaction by the British papers. The Washington Post did not understand what it called the “withering response” the announcement was greeted with in the UK.

It’s simple, Blair led the country to war on a false premise, and the country has not forgotten that.

His legacy as a Prime Minister was tied so closely to Iraq and it being seen, in hindsight as a justifiable war.

The so-called “Blair Doctrine” described what a “just war” looked like. In short he felt that using preemptive action to prevent humanitarian disasters, such as genocide was the right way forward, and there is much to commend that idea. It advocated intervention for the right reasons and motives rather than for military ambitions.

In a speech in 1999 Blair proposed that five questions that should be asked:

1. Are we sure of our case?
2. Have we exhausted all diplomatic options?
3. Are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake?
4. Are we prepared for the long term?
5. Do we have national interests involved?

Where the answer to all five questions is “yes” then there is a strong case for intervention.

The British generally see three conflicts in the last eleven years that this test has been applied to by the Labour government

Kosovo – probably the strongest argument for the Blair doctrine. Ethnic cleansing was halted, the Serbs removed and leaders tried for war crimes. While not totally stable today, it’s been left in better condition than in 1999. Not perfect, but it’s arguable it meets the case for intervention.

Afghanistan – The humanitarian side was a secondary consideration to the defensive war that justified regime change after 9/11. So far so good. The Taliban was routed, but al-Qaida was not eliminated. With a few exceptions the west has largely walked away. One thing the Afghanis and al-Qaida have is patience, they know the west will get tired and move away eventually. The way the British, Ottomans and Soviet Union have in the past.

Iraq – Tony Blair’s legacy in the eyes of many British people.

In 2004 Tony said of Iraq under Saddam – “Containment will not work… The terrorists have no intention of being contained. Emphatically I am not saying that every situation leads to military action. But we surely have a right to prevent the threat materialising; and we surely have a responsibility to act when a nation’s people are subjected to a regime such as Saddam’s.”

This speech represents a huge shift from the five questions that he used to lay out the Blair Doctrine. In this speech he gave sanction for the removal, by force of a dictator such as Saddam Hussein. This was a war fought based on poor intelligence and designed to stop potential future terrorist attacks. The link to the humanitarian principle is remote at best.

Blair lost a great deal of his credibility in Britain during the final years of his time in Downing Street. First by going to war with Iraq despite it not fitting his own doctrine, despite the intelligence saying that WMDs were present being questionable at best. And secondly refusing to apologize for what he did.

Since leaving office he has had no issue with using his profile and name to amass a significant personal fortune though business interests, meetings and speeches. This donation to the British Legion is seen by many as an attempt to improve his legacy with the British electorate.

The question is was this really a cynical attempt to wipe the slate clean, or is he honestly trying to makes amends? As someone who voted Labour in ’97 and ’01 I hope it’s the latter.

Finally, to answer the earlier question about what Blair has to do to catch a break from the British electorate. Saying you were wrong to start this war would be a good place to start.

Today’s big news is that Gordon Brown is stepping down from leading Labour in the hope it will make it easier for Labour and the Lib Dems continue talking. For Clegg personally it does a couple of things, first he is not seen as propping up Brown’s premiership. Secondly perhaps the biggest stumbling block between Labour and Lib Dems was the uncomfortable relationship between Brown and Clegg

But perhaps most importantly it’s put pressure on the Conservatives to come up with a deal that involves a promise on proportional or alternative representation. So far the conservatives have made vague noises that they will set up committees to look at AR, but nothing Cameron can be nailed down on so far.

After the very public opening of negotiations with Labour I suspect Cameron’s position will change rather quickly. This may be his only chance to become PM, after so many years in opposition I suspect the party will not give him a lot of time to get this sorted.

A vast majority of Lib Dems feel that a promise on AR is essential to any coalition deal no matter who the bedfellows are. A LibDemVoice survey claims close to 80% of the membership feel that a promise on PR is essential to any alliance or coalition.

Now that negotiations with Labour are publically going on and Brown is stepping aside, the Conservatives have to give a little more or potentially loose power to a Labour-Lib Dem-Nationalist-Alliance-Green coalition. This rather sketchy grouping will provide a wafer thin majority in the House of Commons (assuming Sinn Fein don’t take their five seats as usual).

Not exactly a super stable platform, but it’s enough go to the Queen with, and keep Labour in Number 10 for now and give the Lib Dems what they want (a say, a referendum on PR and a couple of cabinet seats) and time have the Labour leadership election.

A significant number of commentators seem to think a coalition government will only be lasting maybe a year or 18 months, probably not enough time for the Lib Dems to get their PR referendum completed. I don’t think the parties have the energy or finances to run another election campaign before then, while this is not American politics with high profile fundraisers, the party still needs millions to run the campaigns.

An interesting side note, the three parties are rumoured to have spent around 30 million pounds during the campaign. That gets spent in a single state here for the senate races and is maybe 10-15% of what a single party spends for the presidential election.

The initial exit polls have been published just as the polls closed. They show the Torys on somehting well over 300, Labour on 255 and the Lib Dems getting somewhere in the mid-60′s

If the Tories were much above 300 seats in the House of Commons they could pretty much get business done with the help of the Ulster Unionists and perhaps a few other deals.

If they end up with a figure closer to 300 the Lib Dems and Labour might fell they are in a position to say “Hold on, you’ve no mandate”

Starting at 22:00 British Summer Time the BBC is streaming their election coverage online. Additional live coverage on BBC Radio 4.

BBC One – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/liveevent/

Radio 4 – http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Any general election day is something of a celebration of democracy: this one feels a little different, for only the second time in the last thirty years we may see a change of government. As I wrote a few weeks ago, this feel different from 1997, the mood is a lot darker and there is not the feeling of better days to come that was had when Tony Blair and New Labour swept the Conservatives from power so comprehensively.

The electorate once again has the chance to remind those who end up in Westminster just who their ultimate boss is. It’s not the whips or the party grandees, it’s the electorate they have been courting so determinedly for the last few weeks.

I think we all understand the country is in trouble. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have actually seen the books and if it’s as bad as we’ve been led to believe it may be the country is faced with the biggest peace time deficit ever.

Whenever the next Prime Minister is will have to face the debt that’s been run up and make a large number of tough decisions. As a country we have tried to mitigate the recession by spending money the country did not have. This money has to be paid back.

In Greece we can see what happens when a government and people live so far beyond their means. There has been a nationwide social breakdown followed by strikes, arson, rioting and today deaths. While I don’ believe that Britain could head down the same path as Greece, but if the government does not reduce it’s spending to match it’s income then massive social problems await.

Blair and Labour were elected in ’97 with a mandate to fix public services and that took money. This increase in public spending was affordable as long as the economy kept growing at a pace that supported it.

When it stopped growing a couple of years ago swift, and potentially unpopular action was required. To be frank, I think Brown bottled it, with worried too much about being reelected rather than doing the right thing for the country

This election is unlike any other. In 1979 the country was feeling the pain, we were in the aftermath of the winter of discontent and inflation was rampant. It was obvious to all that the economy needed to be sorted and it turns out Thatcher was willing to risk her popularity and was the person to do it.

War and a Labour party that was all but unelectable aided her subsequent election wins, but the wins in the 80’ were based upon an economy made possible by the difficult choices and occasionally painful policies her government followed when they first came to power.

I also believe the same policies divided the country in a way never seem before. There were those who made fortunes off her policies, and a huge subclass that were left behind. Her government squandered billions of North Sea oil money and billions more raised by selling publicly owned companies.

The problems with the economy today are less immediate to most people, the power is there and rubbish does not lay uncollected in the street. The tough decisions were put off by Gordon Brown, but they are still there to be made.

The Australian government did the right thing, they made unpopular decisions and decided to live with the results. It hurt, and is still hurting, but the country will come out of the recession in better shape because of it. Whoever is living in Number 10 next week will have to make hard, painful and unpopular decisions. I hope they do the right thing for the country, not the right things for the polls.

One thing I don’t understand is that if Labour has identified 6 Billion in efficiency savings, why have they waited until now to implement them. They have seen the state of borrowing and if they truly waited until the election to roll out these savings it’s truly criminal to waste billions in taxpayers money.

Labour has had something of a deathbed conversion to a principal of Proportional Representation. An idea that the Lib Dems have held dear for many elections.

This election has become more than who leads, but also something of a referendum on PR and its merits. The Lib Dems have waged a very intense and successful campaign over the last month; a significant amount of credit for this must go to Nick Clegg.

I think the Liberal Democrats and their growth as a true contender over the last month reflect an overwhelming national mood for real change. Business as usual for has left a country full of disenfranchised voters who are tired of the old politics and the professional politicians who see an election as a career more rather than the opportunity to better the world for the people they represent.

Proportional representation will not fix that, but it will give the UK something important: a parliament that is a true reflection of one of the most vibrant and diverse countries on earth. I think this election has shown that the two-party system is unrepresentative of the country and perhaps it’s time is done.

David Cameron promises a different version of Conservative Government than offered in the past. I think he deserves credit for moving to the political center ground and going some distance to making the Tory’s electable, a feat so many other leaders have failed to do. He has forced the party to become accept diversity; reject the Thatcherism that the party grandees embrace so surely. These are the people who have kept the Conservatives on the opposition benches for the last 134 years.

However his message that it’s going to be different has not been conveyed very well. There are contradictions and very little detail, the manifesto and promises sit there with little information to convey what it really means. He is message on people taking more responsibility for their lives and choices is an interesting argument against “big government”, but high among his policies is getting rid of the Human Rights Act. The one thing the people have to protect themselves.

In another contradiction the Cameron talks of “united and equal” taxation, while advocating inheritance tax cuts for the wealthy. At the same time the party plans to continue the recovery with both austerity and spending pledges at the same time.

In a two party world the other choice would be embracing five more years of Labour government under Gordon Brown. There is no question that Labour have achieved much in the last three terms, the saving of the NHS, investment in education and a minimum wage are huge items of agenda the party delivered.

Hand in hand with revitalizing these services, we were promised reform. The inefficiency still exists and has grown in the last few years with all sorts of Quangos and legions of managers in the NHS. If Brown says they can find 6 Billion in savings this year, why have they not done it already? Politicians the world over forget whose money it is they are spending.

In this campaign Brown has failed to inspire me with a vision for the future or provided an argument for giving Labour another chance.

For many the second biggest issue on the table is the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was maybe the most important foreign policy call of the past sixty years. Labour lied, the Tories backed them and both were catastrophically wrong.

The Liberal Democrats have become a significant factor in this election and when this is all said and done there is every chance they become that party that makes, or breaks a minority government through a formal pact.

The party has traditional appealed to the working middle classes. Labours record on defeating poverty and being a spokesman for the working class remains unmatched, but for me they, and in particular Gordon Brown has not done enough. The Lib Dems are philosophically closer to Labour than Cameron and the Tories, but could they work with a Labour party led by Brown?

After decades of being on the outside of the two-party political system and not being heard, Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem center message has been heard very clearly in a way I’ve not seem in my lifetime. Today both Labour and the Conservatives must be second guessing the decision to invite Nick Clegg to the debates.

“What I’m interested in is the big poll on 6 May, when people really have to choose five more years of Gordon Brown – the uncertainty, the bickering, the haggling of a hung parliament – or a decisive clean break with the Conservatives.”  David Cameroon

Is it really as simple as that? Perhaps it is, but a hung parliament could potentially force debate and compromise. With a huge Labour majority these are things that have been missing for the last 13 years.

After the Labour landslide victories in the ’97 (179 seat majority) and ’01 (167 seat majority) general elections there was no requirement for Labour to worry what the opposition had to say. The last election in 2005 was not quite as overwhelming a victory, giving Labour a still substantial 66 seat majority.

For the last 13 years Labour had a very comfortable working majority, with the loyalty to the party rather than the electorate it’s meant unpopular legislation can still be railroaded through in comfort with the minimum of debate. There have been once or twice that the party whips have had to do a little work, but the MP’s understand where their loyalty lay.

The opposition is relegated to a rather noisy, but ultimately inconsequential role.

There is no check and balance to the government and they are allowed to operate with relative impunity.

Looking back to 2001 and 2002, having a 167 seat majority when some very controversial laws and motions were being revised (extended detention without charge, ID cards and the war in Iraq) meant that the wants and desires of the electorate were not necessarily considered.

Looking at it in a rather simplistic way I do think that a functional pack made up of a couple of the current parties could be a good thing for government and would certainly add a check to the system that has been missing since the tine Conservative majority of the mid 90’s. A Labour-Lib Dem pact (anti-Conservative more than anything else) seems the obvious alignment. The Lib Dems are philosophically a lot closer to Labour than the Cameron and the Conservatives. To give some additional credit to Nick Clegg, he’s done a rather good job in differentiating the party from the big two during the last year and taking a lot of the ground in the political center Under the leadership of Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy the party seemed a little further to the left than today.

It’s been an interesting week in the UK, Lib Dem Nick Clegg clearly won the first debate.

For me this was because he used straightforward language and stayed away from the forced sloganeering that permeates politics. He did not have anything really new to say, but was consistent and it was not exactly the venue for spontaneous announcements. However Gordon Brown may have given Nick Clegg his new slogan: “I agree with Nick”. The PM used this seven times during the first debate.

A poll published today put the Lib Dems in the lead with 33 per cent, one point ahead of the Conservatives and with Labour trailing on 26 per cent. This polling suggests that a hung Parliament is increasingly likely and that the role of the Lib Dems would be to make a pact with one of the major parties to form government.

Philosophically Labour seems like the natural partners and it’s very possible that Labour is actively working towards that end.

Clegg seems to have found some additional confidence and has made some strong statements. He’s plenty of time to get this wrong, but so far I’m impressed.

“The general election campaign is starting to come to life for the simple reason that a growing number of people are starting – and it is only a start – to believe, starting to hope, that we can do something different this time,”

“That the old tired choices that they have been given by the old parties of the past no longer need to govern the way in which we run politics in the future. I think that is tremendously exciting.”

The system

I was asked about the difference between the British and US systems, they are both “first-past-the-post” with a couple of important differences. In the UK, it’s one winner – one seat. The party with the most seats in the House of Commons forms government.

In America the winner of each state usually wins all of that state’s electoral votes, but those votes are distributed in proportion to the population (yes a couple of states divide the electoral votes, but lets ignore that). There is proportionality built into the system that’s missing from the House of Commons.

However, the biggest difference between the British and American election systems is that in the U.S., people vote for a leader. In the U.K. people vote for parties. The party then appoints their leader and the electorate has no say in that. If the party has the largest number of seats then their leader becomes the Prime Minister.

This is why Tony Blair was replaced by Gordon Brown with no election taking place. Blair stood down as party leader and was replaced by Brown. The electorate was not consulted (nor was it required) as it was an internal party appointment.