Why I am supporting Ed Balls

Although the media is reporting it as "hotting up" the Leadership election is now drawing to a close.

I have been able to have numerous conversations with colleagues in the Labour Party, UNISON and LGBT Labour about the relative merits of each candidate; I attended the UNISON hustings and watched the New Statesman hustings on TV; read articles by each candidate and read numerous tweets on twitter and perused each candidate's website and read their election literature.

Quite early on I have been following Ed Balls. I am impressed by his economic literatacy; his articulation of sound Keynesian principles which we need in our current time of a Government recklessly cuting the deficit in too short a time frame with the side effect of a slashing of much needed services relied on by those most at need.

He's been effective at opposing Gove's hapless and McGoo type of performance and generally gives you the impression he can take on the Tories and provide an effective opposition to the current Government.

But that isn't why I support him as Leader. As I watched his media performances and read the articles he's been writing it's clear he has good communication qualities - persistence, clarity, ordinary language. And I genuinely like to watch him and find him engaging and interesting.

My second preference goes to David Miliband. He has better presentational skills than Ed Miliband, more experience in government and more gravitas. Of the two Milibands I think he wouldbring us into Government quicker. I am a little worried by Ed Miliband's tendency to 'give up' too much policy areas too quickly, which though to many in the Party may find pleasing (and it generally is pleasing) has a tendency to be too apologetic.

I don't want to over exaggerate. All candidates reflect a breadth of political views which ar in the centrist social democratic tendency of things. I think that we have genuinely have learned the lessons of excessive party control and a willingness of the Party to learn, not have all the answers and listen and learn. All the candidates would be effective Leaders of the Opposition and PM if Labour won an election.

Once the eletion is over we will I think find it easy to get behind the new Leader and construct an effective Opposition.

But for me the quicker and surer way of getting there is with Ed Balls and David Miliband.

Marriage equality in the UK

10 countries in the world now have marriage equality (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Portugal and now Argentina) as well as in several US States - Massachussets, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington DC and the state of Mexico City.

A number of other countries are in the process of preparing legislation to introduce equal marriage (Luxembourg, Slovenia and Finland to date with the political left in France supporting equal marriage - Socialists, Communists and Greens).

The UK introduced Civil Partnerships for same sex partners in 2005 with parity to same sex couples in all areas and this was reinforced with the passing of the Goods and Services regulations in 2006 which covered equal access to adoption and more recenntly the removal of 'need for a father' for IVF treatments complete the provision of equality in partnership and family law.

But the journey to equality never reaches its end and equality always needs to advance. In several areas the current law creates difficulties. There is a ban on a religious ceremony where the partners wish for it and the religous body wants to offer it. There is a ban on entering a marriage for those who wish for it - whether from their faith psrspective or because that's what they want. Gay relationships become apostrophised - whereas opposite sex couples marry, same sex couples "marry"; a woman has a husband, a man has a "husband". The apostrophe indicates it isn't a real thing and the same sex relationship is pointed up as being an unreal thing and definitely not the same in worth and dignity of an opposite sex coupling.

The ban on marriage is a modern, less in your face, but real nonetheless version of section 28. Same sex couples are inferior and therefore not entitled to equality of treatment and regard with opposite sex couples.

There are other problems. Those who have entered into marriage in other countries are unable to bring their relationship effortlessly into the UK - something heterosexual marrieds never have to worry about; when someone seeks Gender Recognition and they are married they are forced to end their marriage even if they wish to stay married.

So I believe only equality will do. This is not about choices - you may not wish to marry (whether you are gay or straight); you may not even believe in marriage - that still does not justify treating one group of people as less equal than others.

The question is a live one at the present time because of the number of countries that have or are in the process of adopting equal laws for marriage and because the debate is now engaged within UK's political parties. The LGBT groups of the three main parties support equality; all 5 leadership candidates have supported equality and a resolution on thew matter is to be debated at the Lib Dem Conference.

Therefore the time is now ripe for the UK political class to take note and move forwards inthe direction of creating more equality.

Time out for the Coalition

OK so I found the whole 'losing the election' thing and the whole 'we're going to lose the election' thing pretty bad, pretty hard to deal with and pretty traumatising.

Hopefully I'm lifting out of my post (and pre....) election funk a little now. Adapting to opposition is a really hard thing to do but do it we must. Good governance needs governments that carry out their manifestoes (ah yes, those - maybe the two parties forming the current government have completely lost sight of what they said to the electorate prior to the election...) and effective oppositions to force the government to explainitself and show up the conradictions and shout out when their actions cause damage to real people.

Now is, more than ever the time for an effective opposition and as the libs have gone in with the tories it's either the Labour party or no-one.

It's time to stop licking our wounds and look at some of the outrageous things the con-dems are proposing - though there are so many where do you start?

Perhaps one place for us to begin is to expose the hollowness of the Coalition's show of being somehow 'progressive'. On many issues their promises are vague and meaningless and they are doing little more than taking over Labour's achievenments in government to make them look progressive so they can do all the cutting and privsatising they are planning to unleash on us - a kind of 'progressive' Thatcherism if you wil.

Meltdown

The European and local elections have proved as brutal and dangerous for the government as expected and the results aren't even in yet.

It is clear that Brown's former cabinet was collapsing about his ears so it's just as well he's having a reshuffle.

Why don't Brown's ministers have loyalty toward him? Yet again a failure of the political arts that stand between ..... well between what we have now and the successful maintenance of power that our system relies on.

We will see if Brown manages to produce a cabinet over the next few days and he may buy himself some respite.

But as I blogged earlier the whole point is missing. Brown isn't holding it together because there is no forward momentum for what are utterly extraordinary times.

In some ways there's nothing as weak as a dying government but in others there's nothing as potentially powerful, if it can but raise its vistas. No evidence of that yet but maybe this latest crisis will lead to a change of heart.

We'll see.

STILL TIME TO VOTE

Still time to cast your vote in the European elections.

Polls only close at 10pm. Your vote can help to keep out the BNP whichever party you vote for.

Let's use our votes to keep out the fascists

Why is Brown staying?

We know that he is (or at least intends to) but we don't quite know why.

The key to staying is to want to do something with the 12 months that are left. At the moment I have no sense of Brown having an ambition that is the measure of the situation. He tends to view minor tinkering as being crucial and vital reform.

Time to look to the bigger frame of history and actually do something brave with the next 12 months.

I am afraid that this does include a Bill of Rights, reform of the Lords and PR. Now or never.

Vote anti-BNP

Tomorrow is election day for all of the UK in the elections to the European Parliament.

It is crucial to prevent the BNP from taking a seat which will give them access to funding and a prominence they don't deserve.

You can stop the BNP by voting for any other party this is because the election is by PR, making it easier for them to take a seat but also easier for us to stop if enough people vote for other parties.

So a) please make sure you vote and b) tell your friends and family to do the same

AJ supports AV (plus)

Article by Alan Johnson in the Times a few days ago supporting a referendum on General Election Day over whether we introduce a form of top up of seats in order to produce a form of proportionality as well as maintaining the constituency link.

I think this is a once in a generation chance to put electoral reform before voters in a referendum. Doing so on the day of the next general election has the added advantage of not messing up the next period of government where such changes tend to be conveniently forgotten.

The point is this - why not give people the choice of systems - if first past the post wins in a referendum then it will have been backed by the people and will have renewed legitimacy. When people criticise its sometimes bizarre outcomes then we can reference it to a decision taken by the voters.

Bizarre outcomes under our current system include losing the election in votes but winning the most seats; coming second in votes but being a distant 3rd in seats; having a minority of the vote but a potentially huge majority in Parliament.

My personal view is I would support AVplus (the system devised by Roy Jenkins whereby you vote for constituency MP's by preference vote - i.e. by 'alternative vote' (AV - also known as instant run-off and used successfully in Australia) - and a further vote for top up candidates on a PR 'top up' basis).

But in any case we should at least let the people decide.

The future of our politics

I was glad to see the Speaker reflected on things and decided to step aside so quicly but this can only be first step in reconnecting Parliament to the people.

I think politicians can some of the changes needed but ultimately the challenge is bigger - to move away from a chamber steeped in the charm and make believe of 19th century flummery that people can't connect with or take seriously towards a more business like, modern chamber.

The Guardian has a good collection of pieces on some of the changes needed, here. Notably one of the questions asked is whether our Parliament has too many members - here are some international comparisons:

United Kingdom

House of Commons 646
House of Lords 738


France

Assemblee Nationale 577
Senat 346

Germany

Bundestag 598
Bundesrat 69

Italy

Chamber of Deputies 630
Senate 315

Spain

Congress of Deputies 350
Senate 264

USA

House of Representatives 435
Senate 100

So I think a case can be made for a much smaller upper chamber and a somewhat reduced House of Commons.

Oh dear

I watched the Speaker live in on TV and the discussions that followed. It was not a pretty sight. Whilst the Speaker didn't fill in MP's claims and normally is not challenged, these are not normal times and it seems the Speaker has been active in gumming up the works - not his fault alone but his position is clearly untenable.

I think if he had reflected on his own role and stated he would stand down at the next election he would have shut the whole thing down. As it is the scenes from the Commons were surreal and painful.

The current crisis

If a blog isn't a good place to make a statement of the bleedin, albeit painfully obvious I don't know what is.

Suffice to say that the situation was dire before the expenses row. We are clearly in a legitimation crisis of profound proportions.

One could apportion blame - the inability of party leaders to get together and sort something out, collective denial, failings of the Speaker ......

The upshot is things are very bad for the country and our society - a profound breakdown of trust.

I think some of the rage over some of the claims is a little excessive and the degree of rage is doubtless a little overdone in some cases but instances of flipping and claiming for mortgages you're no longer paying are appalling and if I heart the phrase "unforgivable accounting error" again ......

My only thought is that the mainstream political parties are not and never will be perfect but they're our only chance of doing democratic politics without disenchantment and the extremes. They need therefore some time before the election to work out which candidates can no longer be put before the people in a General Election and reselect. I also think a new Speaker is required to oversee profound change.

Not taking these steps will have very severe consequences - the mess is simply too deep and affects too many MP's.

Yo Glenrothes!

Fantastic news of the Labour Party winning a by election (singular). Majority of 6,700!

This (alongside some council election gains) is phenomenal and denotes renewed confidence in the Labour government (as opposed to the dire abject despair).

We are going into a very deep recession and we desperately need the government to cushion the fall at a time when the unfettered free market has failed us.

Whatever the beauty contest of politics between the parties we need, desperately need, a government that supports the economy rather than plunge us head on into deep, deep wasting recession.

Never have wild unfettered get rich quick markets been so out of failure and the message of moderate social democrats (Keynes and all) been more needed. Only the Labour party can deliver.

Party Conferences

I didn't pick up much from the LibDems, though Vince Cable gave a great speech. I didn't rate Nick Clegg much though.

I was at the Labour Conference as delegate for LGBT Labour as an affiliated socialist society, mainly to move a rules debate to add gender identity to the rule book.

The mood of the Conference was best described as 'grisly'. I think that, with some remove, it did its job of stabilising the government (inspite of the bizarre story about Ruth Kelly leaving the government being 'released' at 3am after Gordon Brown's speech).

Brown is much safer in his job now. First because he gave a good and well received speech and also because David Miliband got photographed holding a banana. So things are much calmer - no doubt there'll be trouble ahead, but for now things are a bit more stable.

Not the least of my worries was to work out the procedural rules of moving a rule change. This was not as straightforward as one might think if you're not a Party Conference afficianado. Anyway the rule change was all but unanimously passed, making Labour the only one of the three main political parties to explicitly include gender identity.

In addition the National Policy Forum Report contained several important areas of commitment to LGBT equality (health, education, international issues) and commitment to progress the Equality Bill.

The Tories' Conference is now well underway. I cannot believe how insubstantial and shallow Conservative responses to the current dificutlies that is making Gordon Brown look competent and effective by comparison - though I am biased.

Glasgow East

Keeping quiet about it at the moment. Surely by election losses are (even with big swings) not uniformly indicative of the outcome of the next General Election.

Tories abandon belief in the market

In their current proposals for a fuel price stabiliser the Tories are stating that the government has a duty to fix the price of petrol so that people can plan ahead..... sound familiar anyone?

Maybe this can be extended to bread, milk, shoes and so on and we can have a fully socialist command economy.

Of course the implication of the Tories proposal is potentially very expensive, if the price of petrol goes up and people buy less of it it implies a big loss to the exchequer. For all that I am not against a 'modified stabiliser' which includes a fuel tax escalator where the price of fuel does not rise with inflation.

Having fuel duty go down makes, quite frankly, for chaos both for the exchequer (i.e. resources for public spending on vital services) and for the 'price mechanism' (which is supposed to have a role in giving feedback on relative scarcity).

The Big Labour Party Train Wreck

Coming 5th behind the BNP has really got to be some kind of historic low point which causes us to reflect on how bad things are at the moment.

Whilst it is clear we have a number of exogenous problems (those not of our own making) - notably the price of oil and commodities and the credit crunch, we are in a position where the Party is kind of punch drunk and resigned to defeat at the next election.

This is not good and as a Party we have to ask if this is the best we can offer to the British people.

As blogged previously there is a need for a new government, by which I mean a drastic reshuffle (i.e. more than just shuffling the cards around) with a leading team that can infuse confidence in the Party with a bit of fight in it. It is the political arts that are in demand at this time.

David Davis throws himself out of the shadow cabinet in protest against the Govenment.......

Words quite frankly fail me as he commits £75,000 of public money to stand against the Raving Looney Party (should be an interesting contrast) to make way for Dominic Grieve (a much more balanced and dependable politician and less of a liability to his leader).

Davis' record is of supporting section 28, hanging .....

News just in - Govt wins 42 days by 9 votes

After a number of concessions the Government staves off defeat and wins on 42 days.

The concessions though are quite extensive and produce a rather strange legal apparatus to deal with situations where a longer period than 28 days is required, though the alternative would be to rush through legislation on the hoof in 1 day which, on balance, means the 42 days might be the least worst solution.

Very good coverage on the Guardian blogging on developments throughout the day.

Brown plants his standard on 42 days

"I'm determined to stick to our principles."

BBC report.

I'm confused

We used to be very worried about rising house prices and new buyers not being able to afford to buy a home - now house prices are falling (albeit moderately).

We used to be very concerned both about global warming and on our dependence on oil - now the price of oil has gone up (though faster than had been planned by governments).

Food prices are of course different and genuinely worrying as to their global impact as well as their impact on inflation

For an alternative to the 'up and down' of capitalism there is always the option of Central Planning (though it is far from clear that planned economies escape from the business cycle, certainly from inflation). Planned economy has not proved popular in Western Europe and didn't work well in the Soviet Union when it was tried over a long period and China's mix of communism and capitalism is prone to overheating and therefore also recession.

Capitalist economies have always over and undershot in a cycle, with severe downturns frequent. 'Business cycle' in Wikipedia.


The only thing we can ask of our politicians is to dampen (rather than feed the excesses of the 'market economy' as the Tories often did) and Gordon Brown has been quite good at that over the past decade.

The capitalist economy has rarely been anything other than turbulent. That's not likely to change now.