William Quill

The Iron Lady was not without some great moments, but it is disappointing that this film will probably mean that a figure as a monumental in British politics as Thatcher will not get the cinematic treatment she merits for some years to come again. Sure, it’s up to the director, Phyllidia Lloyd to portray her subject as she wishes, to choose the focus of her film, but it was certainly not the film I’d been hoping for.
Spoilers below

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Till early yesterday morning, I thought I felt generally indifferent to the prospect of the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland. I knew it was a good and necessary step in the relations between these two countries, but not something I found myself emotionally involved in one way or other, just as the recent royal wedding was just another new event.

But then as I was at home, I started watching, and properly felt why it mattered. That Eamon Gilmore was there to greet her at Baldonnel, as our Minister for Foreign Affairs would with any visiting head of state. Our governments have worked closely at various levels, certainly since the 1950s, when they jointly negotiated entry to the European Communities. Eventually from 1985 with the Anglo-Irish Agreement, they acknowledged the joint interest in Northern Ireland and have worked together up the present day, with the Downing Street Declaration in 1993, the Belfast Agreement in 1998 and the St Andrew’s Agreement in 2006.

So this should have been possible before now, but because of the nature of the monarchy and its hereditary link with centuries of the past, it was naturally more sensitive. It may be customary for a visiting head of state to acknowledge our history by visiting the Garden of Remembrance, but it is of a different order for the head of state of the country from whom we won independence to do so. For Elizabeth to lay a wreath there as she did today is one of further steps in the reconciliation between our countries, continued today with her visit to one of the most notorious sites of British military outrage on the people in this part of the country, when she visits the site of Bloody Sunday ninety years ago in Croke Park.

Her visit to Trinity College, while not explicitly alluded to, should remind us of how our countries are entwined in cultural as well as political history. While two of the constituent universities of the National University of Ireland, UCC and NUIG, were originally Queen’s Colleges, established under royal charter of Victoria in 1845, as a college which in its long title¹ still refers to its foundation by her namesake in 1592, Trinity was an obvious stop on her visit. Though English-speaking Irish culture is clearly distinct from that of Britain, the influences from one to the other are undeniably strong. True too of course of American culture, but proximity naturally affects the degree. And of course as with any country, we should be particularly proud of our native culture, we should promote the distinctiveness of Gaelic culture, and its continued vibrancy, without it being seen in competition with acknowledging our links across the Irish Sea. From a personal level, it was nice to see the Hist represented there as one the few student bodies within college.

We should also be mindful of this visit with an eye to the longer-term political project in this country. In the words of the amended Article 3, “It is the firm will of the Irish Nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions”. For the Unionist community, Elizabeth is their queen. That our president and government would welcome her can only serve to bring the people of this island closer. I hope that there will come a day when Northern Ireland will become part of this state. While that would mean that Unionists would lose the political connection with the British monarchy, it will be important that they would not feel that the cultural ties would thereby be lost. In this way, the visit is not just about how the two states themselves relate, but about all the people of Ireland.

Of course, the visit necessitated a major shutdown of activity in the capital. This will be a small temporary setback for those working there, and of course it would be better if Elizabeth weren’t presented with a ghost town. We won’t know how much of this was truly necessary, but from the scenes of the small numbers of violent protestors, some of whom who could find no more suitable attire than a British football jersey, there clearly had to be something measure of this. They constitute a miniscule proportion of the population, and cannot even claim to represent more than that, and in what little impact they have, in what small way they are ultimately counter-productive in achieving their stated aims, this will be overshadowed by the wider welcome she has received.

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¹ College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin

I had it in my mind from the middle of last week that my next entry would be on David Laws, but had thought to write little more than a few words on the praise he had been receiving from Tories. In Thursday’s FT, I read the comments of Edward Leigh, Conservative chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, who asked “Can I welcome the return to the Treasury of stern, unbending, Gladstonian liberalism?” and he he been described as an unreconstructed nineteenth century liberal. ConservativeHome reported on how Laws refused a potted plant in his office and cut the Treasury’s budget for potted plants. He also declined the use of the Treasury’s £100,000 limousine, which his predecessor Liam Byrne has used and which he was entitled to use, saying that with a London home, he wouldn’t need it.

Consider that much in assessing his character. He was not someone who went into politics for the money or the perks. He found himself tripped up by a form of words, not fully confident in himself that he could describe his relationship as that between cohabiting partners. They had been in a committed relationship since 2001, but did not outwardly live as a couple. When he first started to claim his rental allowance, it would seem fair that he would not have to detail his budding romance. At what point in the intervening nine years would they then have become partners as defined by the rules? My instinct would be some time before they moved house together, but considering how private they were, that even their family and many friends did not know, let alone his stated justification of separate bank accounts, I can understand how he felt they didn’t fit the description.

Yes, as a millionaire he did not need the money, but all MPs from outside London are as entitled to a housing allowance as their salary. And it should be said that had he acknowledged their relationship, he could have claimed even more from the exchequer through an allowance for mortgage repayments. He is not someone who set out to defraud the state.

That he was in the closet helps understand a lot of small things about his political career. He was offered a front bench position in the Conservatives by George Osborne, and could well have found himself as Chancellor of the Exchequer, but Laws likes to tell of how he told Osborne that “I am not a Tory”. A profile of Laws last week, before the controversy, gave Conservative support of Section 28 as his reason for not joining, a provision banning promotion of homosexuality and the “acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship” in schools, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1988 and supported by the Tories including David Cameron until its repeal in 2003. Of course, there are prominent openly gay Conservative MPs, such as Alan Duncan and Nick Herbert, both now junior ministers, but I’d imagine it was far more comfortable for him to be a closeted gay man in a liberal party than it would have been in a conservative party.

It also might have played a part in his ruling himself out of the 2007 leadership election, following the resignation of Sir Ming Campbell. After the leadership election of the previous year, in which the supposedly happily married Mark Oaten had withdrawn after controversy with a rent boy, and a second candidate Simon Hughes admitted that while he was not gay, he had had relationships with both men and women, Laws would have spurned such public scrutiny. I remember wondering during that contest in early 2006, whether I might find myself in some such situation later in life. Thankfully, I think I have now set aside that possibility.

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Before the election, Liberal Democrat Voice, a blog site of LibDem supporters, compiled a ranking all members of the last Parliament by how libertarian they were based on their votes on a variety of votes relating to freedom of speech, trial without jury, ID cards, a national DNA database, and other similar civil liberties issues. The most authoritarian on these issues were ranked 100, those most libertarian ranked 0. It is by no means a precise rank, because of the difficulty in scoring votes missed by MPs, but with IDS ranked most authoritarian of the new cabinet, Huhne ranked most libertarian, it seems to be a reasonable guide. Particularly welcome are the low scores from Home Secretary Theresa May and from Attorney-General Dominic Grieve, in the most relevant positions to civil liberties.

This was a disappointing election for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. As David Schneider tweeted, “Was the whole LibDem thing something I dreamed in the shower?”. With 63 MPs at the dissolution of the Commons on 6 May, they returned with only 57.  These included a few high-profile losses, such as Lembit Öpik in Montgomeryshire, one of the safest seats for Whigs and Liberals since the 17th century, and Dr Evan Harris in Oxford West and Abingdon, who was possibly my favourite MP, a strong voice for a clear scientific understanding of policy, a defender of free speech, and a clear advocate for of gay rights, beaten by Nicola Blackwood, a Tory who apparently has creationist beliefs.

But they also have a great opportunity, as no government can be formed without their support. They have a choice now between supporting a government led by David Cameron, or one led by a probably David Miliband, also supported by the SDLP, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and Sylvia Hermon. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that as someone who has in political allegiances has gone between the Progressive Democrats and Fine Gael that I would favour the former option. I see this as their best chance of affecting change in both policy and in the dynamics of party politics, as long as they ensure a place in cabinet rather than simply supporting the Conservatives in a confidence and supply arrangement.

The Conservatives are reluctant to move much at all on the question of electoral reform. This would be the best reason the Lib Dems would have to collapse negotiations, if they cannot secure a firm commitment on this. However, they should consider two things. The first is that a referendum proposed by a rag-tag slump coalition of Labour, the Lib Dems and a selection of regionalist parties would not be guaranteed to win. The second is that a successful and stable coalition agreement would seriously impair the Tories’ argument against proportional representation, whereas they could point to a Lab/LD/SNP/SDLP/Hermon coalition as exactly the kind of thing that would occur frequently under PR.

The change to the Tories

This leads onto the change they could affect in the party system. As referred to by Declan Harmon, Fianna Fáil eventually abandoned their core principle of opposition to coalitions. In 1989 the Progressive Democrats had had a poor election, falling from 14 to 6 seats. Its members were mostly composed of those who had a deep antipathy to the politics of Charles Haughey, who they were now supporting as Taoiseach. By doing so, they altered the presumptions everyone had about election outcomes and the formation of governments. The Tories know the importance of a stable government as a signal for the markets, and would likely not seek to collapse the arrangement over any frivolous matter. After a year of coalition, they would henceforth slowly begin to think less adamantly in favour of single-party government only.

I was talking to a friend this morning about the coalition who reminded me that they’re Tories, not conservatives. Of course there’s a difference, and there are many issues that I couldn’t trust Tory instincts on, be it Northern Ireland, their approach to families, or their commitment to gay rights (whatever about the optimism of Nick Herbert for his party and his likelihood of being a cabinet minister, there have been too many Lewises, Lardners and Strouds over the course of the election for my liking). But these tendencies would be less of a concern in coalition, and without them, the Tories would be in danger of regressing towards their

In government with the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats could ensure that they follow through with their claimed commitments to civil liberties. They could force them to confront more quickly questions like biometric ID cards, the national database, and the level of CCTV coverage in Britain. On immigration, they would propose the amnesty for long-standing residents proposed by the Lib Dems, but neither they pass the stringent caps proposed by the Tories. The Tories would continue for opt-outs on social provisions of the European Union, while not being as obstinate in practice as they might otherwise be. The social conservative wing of the Tories are pushing for a cabinet position for Iain Duncan Smith in return for agreeing to any deal with the Lib Dems. Fine, so long as in the next year or so he is whipped to go through the lobbies voting in favour of some measure on gay rights.

So yes, the Liberal Democrats will suffer some initial drop in support in they enter coalition with the Tories, just as the Green Party did here after 2007, both because of their government partner and the inevitable cuts to government spending. But in the long-term, because of the change they would make to British political culture, both by normalizing c0alition politics and making electoral reform easier to pass, and putting pressure on the civil-liberties-focused wing of the Tories, I think it would be the right thing for them to do.

On the BBC’s results page, they list a summary of the result, which has a figure of 19 Others. This includes all Northern Ireland parties, despite the fact that they give figures for the Scottish Nationalist Party, with less seats than the DUP, and Plaid Cyrmu, with less seats than Sinn Féin and as many as the SDLP. This is a reminder of how little Britain really cares about Northern Ireland, but as parties represented in Westminster, they really should be listed. They won’t act as a unit, and particularly after an election with no clear result, it would informative for them to be considered separately, to consider traditional allegiances with the main British parties. The SDLP, for example, could be trusted to support the Labour Party in most circumstances, as could Sylvia Hermon, who voted more consistently with the government than some Labour backbenchers. The Alliance have had institutional links with the Liberal Democrats so it should fairly much be taken for granted that Naomi Long will support whichever prime minister Nick Clegg decides to support. Sinn Féin’s abstention changes the number required for a majority in the Commons, as the total number taking their seats would be 645 rather than 650. And that would leave anyone looking at the figures able to quickly see the DUP’s eight seats and wonder how they’d act.

And it’s not just about Northern Ireland. Grouping small parties as Others masks at first glance the breakthrough of small parties, such as the Green Party at this election. I wouldn’t really mind either if they listed the change for Respect, down from one to no seats, so we could all have the pleasure of being reminded of George Galloway’s defeat, one of the small comforts of this election.

Great news from East Belfast, where the Alliance Party’s Naomi Long has taken out First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson. Great to see an Alliance Party MP elected after 40 years, and 36 years after Stratton Mills, who had left after being elected from the Ulster Unionist Party, retired in 1974.

The Alliance are avowedly non-sectarian, though it has been difficult for them at times for them to maintain their identity. I look forward to seeing how they can shape themselves now on the Westminster stage. It is also a gain for the Liberal Democrats, with whom the Alliance are aligned.

Peter Robinson won his seat here in 1979, in a close three-way contest against the Ulster Unionist Party’s William Craig and the Alliance Party’s Oliver Napier, with less than a thousand votes separating the three candidates, and till tonight, it was considered a solidly safe seat for the DUP. As a hung parliament is likely, and the DUP will need someone to be able negotiate any arrangements, his leadership may well be on the line quite soon.

Well, ding dong, the witch is dead.

The Times/Ladbrokes seat predictor currently put the Conservatives six seats short of a majority. Suppose this prediction is accurate. It ignores a few details about Northern Ireland. They predict a seat for Sir Reg Empey, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, standing in alliance with the Conservative Party, which really puts the those elected as Conservatives at 321. South Antrim should really have been coloured as blue as any Conservative predictions in Britain. They also predict a seat for Rodney Connor in Fermanagh–South Tyrone, who has pledged to take the Tory whip under a loose arrangement. Add to that then the four predicted Sinn Féin seats. By their abstention, they bring the figure required for a majority to 324, rather than the standard figure given of 326.

The Conservatives would then be only two seats short of a majority, and could very reasonably expect to form a government. But to be secure, to sure of not losing any confidence motion, especially if the predictions are a little high for the party, they could turn then to the eight predicted seats of the Democratic Unionist Party. They would most likely guarantee some measure of relief from the expected public sector cuts to Northern Ireland. It would be a major turn around in Peter Robinson’s fortunes, whose position was in doubt only a few months ago. It would also consolidate the Conservative government’s Unionist stance on issues of disagreement in Northern Ireland, which could potentially have repercussions for any further negotiations.

The URL for this blog references the predecessors of the Liberal Democrats, but I am not supporting them on the basis that they are the political heirs of William Russell and John Locke, of Edmund Burke and Charles Grey. I do naturally find sympathy with those who espouse the liberal tradition, but such support should not be unquestioned.

That I would feel culturally closer to the Liberal Democrats than to either the trade unionist tradition of Labour or the socially conservative tradition of the Conservatives does matter to me. But it is simplistic to still reduce the contest to these terms, given the change both larger parties have undergone. Meanwhile, the most pressing issue facing the United Kingdom in the coming years is its budget deficit, and that cannot be ignored.

There are a few Lib Dem policy stances I disagree with. While I would favour tax decreases, I would not favour the approach in increasing the tax credit to £10,000. This would take some workers out of the tax net completely; cuts should rather be in the standard rate, so that as many workers as possible make some contribution. I also oppose taxpayers paying for third-level tuition fees, just as I oppose it in Ireland, but quite honestly, as the party has scaled back on its deadline for implementing such a policy, I don’t believe it would be a priority for them in government.

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Here, copied from LabourList, is a summary of the endorsements Britain’s daily newspapers have given before each of the post-war elections.

Which party they’ll each case will not in most cases be a big surprise, though it will interest which endorsements the Lib Dems will manage to get. The Independent seems likely to endorse them, The Guardian may withhold that honour given Clegg’s recent talk of a post-election arrangement with the Tories, however ridiculous it would be to prop Labour up under such circumstances.

For those interested, here are the endorsements The Economist gave:

In 1992, The Economist endorsed John Major’s Conservative Party on the grounds that, “Mr Ashdown’s best long-term hope for a Liberal revival lies in overturning the past 92 years, so that the Labour Party and the Liberals rejoin each other. For that to happen, Labour must lose this election, and the bigger its loss the better. And that, given the depressing state of British politics, is the best reason for wanting the Conservatives to win next week.” I’m curious what extent the best long-term hopes for a Liberal revival will play in the endorsement they’ll offer in Friday’s issue.

The Liberal Democrats, and before them the Liberal Party, have long found themselves coming up against the difficulty of Britain’s highly disproportional first-past-the-post electoral system. The Tories have also suffered, because of the various spreads of the three parties across different constituencies. In 2005, the Tories won more votes than Labour in England, but less seats.

This time around, there is a serious prospect of Labour coming third in vote terms, but far ahead of the Lib Dems in seats. Electoral Calculus currently predict that Labour will be marginally behind in vote share, but will get 133 more seats than the Lib Dems. This will prove for the Lib Dems the best case for electoral reform. The best they are likely to get is the alternative vote, STV in single-member districts. This would still be far from proportional, but there is a strong affinity for many of having a single MP who they can call their own.

A Lib-Dem-leaning voter in a Conservative-Labour constituency would often have voted for whichever of the larger parties was their reluctant second choice. This year, there is a strong case for them to vote Lib Dem, as the greater the level of disproportionality, the stronger the case of the leadership of the party will be in any government negotiations for a more strongly proportional electoral system, which Chris Huhne is today raising against David Cameron.

Here’s John Cleese in 1997, on how voters’ perception of the Lib Dems’ chances is really their biggest obstacle.

Nick Clegg rightly said this morning that it would be preposterous if Labour were to lead the next government if it were the third party in share of votes. What hasn’t been given due focus is that mightn’t even have that theoretical option if the numbers from these polls hold out. To command a majority, a prime minister needs the support of 326 of the 650 MPs in the Commons. Electoral Calculus currently put the Conservatives at 297, Labour at 227 and the Liberal Democrats at 94, whereas Times/Ladbrokes give the Conservatives 315, Labour 224 and the Liberal Democrats 78. They differ significantly in how they predict seats to be shared between the Tories and Lib Dems, but both show that even with Lib Dem support, Labour would not pass 326. Unless they also added the various nationalists, but that really would be pushing it, and the Liberal Democrats would not be so foolish.

The only real question left is whether the Tories will manage to govern alone or whether they will be compelled to rely on Lib Dem support. Labour are as good as irrelevant on those figures.

David Cameron has proposed a law that would force a general election within six months of the party of the prime minister changing its leader. This isn’t really how parliamentary democracy works. Margaret Thatcher was quoted recently giving her reason for not having a prime ministerial debate, “We are not choosing a president, we are electing a government”. The election on 6 May is not an electoral college system with 650 constituencies voting for Brown, Cameron or Clegg. In Britain, the prime minister is chosen as whoever can command a majority of members of the House of Commons. For it to be defined otherwise would be a major departure, and out of step with traditions across Europe. Gordon Brown held his mandate subject to the MPs, as did Tony Blair and every prime minister before them. As the list of prime ministers shows, there have been several occasions over the centuries where a retiring prime minister, from the three parties, was succeeded by his successor as party leader without any general expectation of an impending general election.

Here in Ireland, Éamon de Valera was succeeded by Seán Lemass in 1959, Lemass by Jack Lynch in 1966, Lynch by Charles Haughey in 1979, Haughey by Albert Reynolds in 1992 and Bertie Ahern by Brian Cowen in 2008, on each occasion as part of the succession of the party leader. We would find similar patterns in parliamentary democracies across Europe.

As a Conservative, David Cameron should have a solid reason for proposing a departure from this constitutional convention, rather than merely sniping at Gordon Brown’s cowardice (and ultimately poor judgment) in not calling an election in the autumn of 2007 as he had strongly considered.

I had to laugh when I listened this morning to this week’s episode of The Bugle, recorded on Friday, where Andy and John had jokingly anticipated the reactionary end of the British tabloid press attacking Nick Clegg after his success at Thursday’s leaders’ debate for his international ties and family, in a similar fashion to some of the worst parts of the American press with Barack Obama. Well, right on form, The Sunday Mail today accused Nick Clegg of playing down his international background, “Revealed: The United Nations that make up Nick Clegg”, with a series of references to his family and those he has worked with, as if it were a case of MS that he had a duty to inform the British public of.

Mrs Clegg, 41, also described her husband as a ‘true internationalist’ – despite his repeated references during the leaders’ TV debate last week to the concerns of his constituents in Sheffield.

‘Nick has many international influences in his family and he has also worked in Hungary and Brussels, and he lived in the US,’ she said.

Indeed, Mr Clegg’s exotic lineage and cosmopolitan lifestyle is a world away from his gritty Yorkshire constituency.

The multilingual Lib Dem leader was born to a Dutch mother and a half-Russian father, and employs a German spin doctor. …

Mr Clegg, 43, plays down his international background. When it was pointed out that he was only a quarter English, he said: ‘Well, biologically…yeah. But I was born here, brought up here, went to school here, and I feel very proud to be British. I have been very fortunate to have different bits to my identity. That’s enriched me.’

Never disappoint, that crowd, do they? How long before they ask to see his birth cert?

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David Cameron has proposed incentives of £150 annually for married couples and civil partners earning less than £44,000. He spins this as part of claiming that under the Conservatives, Britain would be one of the most family-friendly countries in Europe. There are though, reasons to be sceptical about what impact this will have.

It is undeniable that there are benefits to society at large to couples getting married (or entering civil partnerships, while that distinction remains). The commitment of marriage provides a stable environment for any children the couple may have. The effect from young men settling down, tends to lead, if I may speak against my own demographic, to lower rates of crime and drink-driving. And for the couples themselves, being in a long-standing relationship leads to better health, both mentally and physically, particularly later in life. This is aside, of course, from the romantic benefits for the couple themselves, but by relieving strain on social and health services, there is a wider positive externality.

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