On December 24th I wrote about LONDON BUSES AND FARE DODGERS. Those who would consider trying to get away without a valid Oyster or Travel card should be quite sure they know what awaits them in court if they are caught and literally hundreds of fare dodgers are before the courts every week whether in person, by post or in spirit only.

For those that do not reply to the court summons they will be out of pocket to around £300 in fines and costs. Even those coming to court, or replying, pleading guilty and signing that they are on Benefits will be paying off what they owe at £10 a week for a good couple of months.

Next time either through oversight or deliberately you take a bus with no intent to pay the fare don`t say you haven`t been warned.

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If ever there was a situation where accurate up to date information must be readily available it is on the desk of the Legal Adviser to a Bench of Magistrates. When papers are missing or inaccurate the consequences can vary from hilarious to horrendous. When a court is still sitting at 5.00pm which is not uncommon office staff have usually left and those in court must resolve any difficulties on the spot. Such a recent late sitting involved a woman arrested earlier in the day for breaching bail conditions in that she was seen entering the street where her lover lived although it appeared to be a condition of bail not to do so. It seemed on the surface clear enough. However the Police National Computer indicated that she was on conditional bail for two alleged assaults a month apart two trials having been set for March and April. One set of conditions forbade her from going to the complainant`s address and the other from entering the street where she lived. The Legal Adviser had papers in front of her only for one of the incidents. The Crown prosecuter had no papers for the first charge and defence lawyer had knowledge only of the other matter his client having another firm of solicitors for the first case. A sentence including the words brewery and organise came to mind. The defendant faced a night in the cells. With pragmatism borne from necessity the CPS was persuaded to drop the bail charge and the two sets of bail conditions were harmonised preventing entry to the complainant`s street. The defendant was given a very strict warning as to the restrictions on which she was released.

What would Rumpole of the Bailey have made of it? No doubt another tale of woe to be washed down with a bottle of Claret in his favourite Fleet Street watering hole.

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o Burnham denies planning £20,000 inheritance levy to fund social care
o Claims Labour cancer pledge would save 10,000 lives
o Launches anti-Tory internet campaign

8.58am: The Labour party is holding another campaign press conference this morning.

Douglas Alexander, the general election co-ordinator, and Andy Burnham, the health secretary, have invited journalists to their HQ at Victoria Street to hear them "outline Labour's campaign for the NHS and the threat posed by David Cameron and the Conservative party policy on the NHS".

I'm not sure how good it's going to be; Gordon Brown delivered a big speech on the NHS just yesterday. But if they don't have much new to say about the NHS, there are plenty of other topics to ask about. The press conference starts at 10am.

9.59am: I'm at Victoria Street now in the holding room, waiting for the press conference to begin. Coffee and biscuits are available.

Reading Gordon Brown's speech, I see that Labour's health policy has got more guarantees than a branch of Currys. There's a cancer guarantee, a waiting time guarantee, a GP access guarantee, a health check guarantee and a care guarantee.

10.07am: They've just handed out a news release. Burnham is launching a voteNHS.com website to support a key element of Labour's health manifesto. The release says:

The "target cancer" campaign aims to save up to 10,000 lives by backing a pledge to create a new NHS guarantee of cancer diagnosis within one week of GP referral, allowing patients to be tested and told their results in just seven days.

10.09am: Alexander and Burnham are here.

Burnham says he does not believe in over-claiming for the NHS. He's not complacent. There are many places where it could improve. But there have been real improvements over the last few years.

At the 2005 election Labour promised to bring down waiting times to a 18 week maximum and to half MRSA rates. People said it could not be done. But it was achieved, he says.

Today Labour is promising to ensure cancer patients get their results back within one week by 2015. Experts say this could save 10,000 lives.

Catching cancer early also saves on treatment cost further down the line, he says.

This will place cancer services in the UK "on a par with the best in the world".

Burnham says:

As we have seen in the past, the NHS can move mountains when it is given a very clear job to do.

Labour's national guarantees will be the "battleground" for the election.

The Tories would scrap the guarantees on day one of a David Cameron government, Burnham says.

Labour today puts its cards on the table.

10.14am: Alexander says voteNHS will build on the support of internet campaigns like Ed's Pledge and Back the Ban.

Labour is also launching a CameraON/CameraOFF campaign to highlight the difference between Tory rhetoric and Tory reality.

10.15am: We're onto questions.

Burnham says today's pledge is about creating new "testing capacity" within the NHS.

Q: How will the government achieve its plan to save £2.7bn by moving more care from hospital to home?

Burnham says the figures have been "carefully worked out" in the department of health. He can provide a full breakdown. (Cathy Newman from Channel 4 asked the question. On her FactCheck blog yesterday, she suggested yesterday that these figures are bogus.)

10.18am: Q: Haven't we heard about this seven-day target before? And aren't the Tories right about cancer outcomes being very poor in the UK?

Burnham says:

And I was sitting here thinking you did not have memories that long.

He admits Gordon Brown announced that one-week pledge before Labour's conference.

On survival rates, Burnham says the NHS has reduced cancer mortality rates among the under-75s by 19%.

10.21am: Q: When does the target get rolled out? And how much does it cost?

Burnham says he is "confident" it can be introduced by 2015.

Hospital trusts would strike deals with GP practices to deliver this.

It would cost £180m a year for the first three years. That's the cost of new equipment.

10.24am: Q: Is Labour planning a death tax on estates to pay for the national care service?

Burnham says there is a consensus that long-term care services need "fundamental reform".

The government published a green paper last year. It is consulting on options.

The story on this in the Guardian today is "inaccurate in a number of ways".

There is a "scurrilous campaign" being run by the Conservatives on this.

Q: Where is the Guardian story inaccurate?

Burnham says:

The Guardian story suggests a £20,000 flat levy. I'm not currently considering that as a lead option for reform.

He goes on:

The Conservatives have set their face against reform ... I believe the biggest mistake this country could be would be to step back from reform.

If the government abandoned reform, it would leave an "inadequate" and "unfair" system in place.

People are paying from their own pockets "in large amounts" to fund the cost of care.

10.29am: Q: What cancers will this target?

Burnham says it is particularly important to target lung cancer, bowel cancer and ovarian cancer.

Q: Where did the 10,000 lives saved figure come from? And won't faster diagnoses produce a bottleneck?

Burnham says GPs tell him they could do more tests more quickly if they have access to the right equipment.

Because patients aren't picked up quickly enough, they have to go into hospital for more invasive treatment.

By making this decisive shift towards a more preventative service, we can make better use of resources.

10.32am: Q: Where does the money come from? And will Labour have a pledge card?

Burnham says Alistair Darling has promised to protect frontline services for the next three years.

Alexander says health will be a central feature of the campaign.

We want there to be a very clear choice in relation to policy.

That's why he wants to ensure "adequate scrutiny" of the Conservative party.

Q: So will there be a pledge card?

Alexander says we will have to see whether there are five pledges, 10 pledges or more.

10.36am: Asked again about social care, Burnham says he set out three models in the green paper: a partnership model, a voluntary model and a compulsory model.

He says there is "no decision within government" as to which of those three models the government will promote.

The Tory proposal for people to pay an £8,000 insurance fee is "backward looking". It provides an incentive to put more older people in care.

10.38am: That's it. Here are the main points.

o Burnham denied being in favour a £20,000 levy on estates to pay for a national care programme. He said that the government was still considering its options. And he attacked the Conservative alternative as "backward-looking".

o He reaffirmed Labour's commitment to giving suspect cancer patients the right to diagnosis within a week. He claimed this would save 10,000 lives and he said it would cost over £500m.

o Alexander announced a new online campaign attacking Tory health policy.

The Conservatives' flagship education policy was last night dealt a blow by the man who runs Sweden's schools

The Tories' flagship education policy to create thousands of Swedish-style "free schools" will not improve standards, the man who runs Sweden's schools said last night.

Hundreds of parent groups have expressed interest in setting up the schools, which are funded by the state but are independent of town hall control and run by independent organisations.

But Per Thulberg, director general of the Swedish National Agency for Education, said the schools had "not led to better results" in Sweden.

Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, believes that by establishing up to 2,000 of these schools, parents would have more choice and existing schools would be forced to improve.

But Thulberg told BBC's Newsnight programme that where these schools had improved their results, it was because the pupils they took had "better backgrounds" than those who attended the institutions the free schools had replaced.

He said: "This competition between schools that was one of the reasons for introducing the new schools has not led to better results. The lesson is that it's not easy to find a way to continue school improvement. The students in the new schools have, in general, better standards, but it has to do with their parents and backgrounds. They come from well-educated families."

In Sweden, more than 1,000 free schools were opened to help children from deprived backgrounds.

In September 2008, Gove said: "We have seen the future in Sweden and it works. Standards have been driven up. If it can work there, it can work here."

Recent international studies show that England is ranked higher than Sweden for pupils' maths and science knowledge. In the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss), Sweden's ranking for science fell further than any other country's. The Swedes have carried out similar international comparative studies, as well as detailed national research, which confirmed a drop in standards.

Rachel Wolf, director of the New Schools Network, said that it was likely that Sweden's education standards had slipped because of its lack of school accountability and the fact that it had no externally-marked exams, rather than as a result of free schools. "If a school isn't doing well enough, there aren't the same measures to step in and improve it in Sweden," she said. "There are lots of other factors like this that may have meant standards have fallen. It is not about the free schools. Academic evidence shows that where there are more free schools in any area, the local authority does better."

The New Schools Network said that at least 200 parent groups and 100 groups of teachers had come forward to set up a school in anticipation of a Tory victory at the general election. Academy sponsors, education groups and private school proprietors have been approached to work with the parent groups.

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, accused the Tories of "trying to airbrush out of the picture all the evidence from Sweden about higher costs, falling standards and rising segregation".

Balls said: "Michael Gove needs to explain how he would pay for the £1.8bn of running costs for the new schools he has promised, without big cuts to existing schools. And he needs to explain why he is copying an experiment that has not worked and which politicians in Sweden are now rethinking."

Far from 'not doing God', every British prime minister since the 60s has been a self-professed, committed Christian

Given the ease with which political commentators have accepted Alastair Campbell's dictum regarding faith and the Blair government, it is perhaps unsurprising that God made few appearances in accounts of the former prime minister's appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq. This was a great missed opportunity. Campbell's edict - made in the fear that the British population can only associate religious faith with the crude stereotype of dogmatic, hand-clapping, rightwing evangelism of Bible-belt America - masks the fact that despite all claims of Britain being an increasingly secularised society, every British prime minster since the 60s (the decade which some historians claim secularisation set in with a vengeance) has claimed belief in God.

Two factors may explain why politicians in Britain have been historically so keen to proclaim their faith. The first is that despite declining religious attendance figures, politicians may feel the need to pay "lip-service" to religion. There is certainly mileage in this point, and it serves to explain why Nick Clegg was so quick to almost apologise for the revelation of his atheism. But this cannot explain everything. Political leaders are more likely to be religious believers than the population at large (if we believe the late Robin Cook, sometimes whole cabinets can have a "faith culture", as he said of Blair's). And sometimes, as in the case of Blair and Thatcher, it is the driving force in their lives.

Blair's faith has often been crudely simplified in a bid to present him as a religious zealot. But it has three broad dimensions. Firstly, Blair is a cross-denominational ecumenist, whose traits are most obviously illustrated by his Faith Foundation which focuses on helping the "Abrahamic faiths ... to discover what they share ... and stand up for peaceful co-existence".

Secondly, his religion is socially liberal (much like his wife's), highlighted in his interview with gay magazine Attitude where he suggested it was time for the pope to "rethink" his views on homosexuality. And thirdly, and perhaps most crucial to understanding Blair, his faith provides him with a black-and-white worldview. As John Burton, his political agent in his Sedgefield constituency for 24 years noted, Blair's foreign policy is an obvious manifestation of this: "He believed strongly at the time that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone - Iraq too - was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil."

Thatcher's faith, on the other hand, was of an Old Testament-Pauline doctrine that responsibility lay with individual, not the state, and this hugely characterised one of the key principles of her premiership - personal responsibility. Though it was little noted, she often discussed her faith - giving numerous sermons, dropping biblical quotations frequently into interviews, and telling the Today programme in 1987: "The fundamental reason of being put on this earth is to improve your character that you are fit for the next world". Indeed, as Bernard Ingham once told me, Denis Thatcher insisted one of the fundamental driving forces behind Thatcher was her "deep religious conviction".

Yet these giants of recent British political history are not alone in their faith. In his official biography, long after any need to pay "lip-service" to belief would seem necessary, Harold Macmillan claimed that: "I go to Communion as long as I can ... I reach for the Bible whenever I can." Wilson was brought up as a Baptist, at university joined the evangelical Oxford Group, and in 1963 declared: "I have religious beliefs and they very much affected my political views." According to Douglas-Home's biographer, his "Christianity was of the heart ... a matter of personal." Heath claimed in his autobiography that: "My Christian faith provided foundations for my political beliefs", and Callaghan was a former Sunday school teacher. Major appeared rather hesitant when discussing his faith on Radio 4, but still declared: "I do believe. I don't pretend to understand all the complex parts of Christian theology, but I simply accept it." The Calvinist/Presbyterian faith of Gordon Brown's upbringing in the Church of Scotland makes him just another in a line of believing prime ministers.

In failing to give sufficient attention to these claims of religious faith, we miss an important historical trend, and a vital factor in understanding the motivations and convictions of our political leaders. As Blair told the Holy Trinity Brompton church in 2009: "If you have religious faith in the end it's the most important thing in your life; it is not the adjunct, it is the core."

Former Met deputy commissioner Brian Paddick says charges dropped as politicians wary of offending black police body

Disciplinary charges against Ali Dizaei, the Scotland Yard commander convicted of falsely arresting and attempting to frame a man in a dispute over money, could have been proved in the past but were dropped because politicians were wary of offending the black police association, a former Met deputy commissioner said today.

Brian Paddick, who was the Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor in 2008, said Dizaei's reinstatement after being acquitted in 2003 of charges including misconduct in public office was "politically driven". The case had prompted a boycott by the Met of its own ethnic minority officers.

"He was given compensation, he was welcomed back to the Met, he was even allowed to write a book about the way he was mistreated by Metropolitan police. I think that may have been a settlement driven by politics, driven by the Home Office who wanted to keep the black police association on side," Paddick told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"All formal disciplinary procedures against him were dropped and my understanding is that it might have been the case that some of those disciplinary charges against him could have been proven. And I think all of that was politically driven."

Dizaei, 47, was an outspoken critic of the police on race, leader of the National Black Police Association, and a key figure in a race row that erupted at the top of Scotland Yard in the summer of 2008.

Paddick said that in the aftermath of Dizaei's conviction it was time for the Metropolitan Black Police Association (MBPA) to reform, with less "grandstanding in front of the microphone".

"I think the lesson to be learnt here for the black police association is this aggressive, confrontational approach that Ali Dizaei took and Tariq Ghaffur, the most senior Asian officer to serve in the police service [who claimed discrimination against the Met before dropping the claim after settling out of court] - that sort of approach is probably not the best way to achieve change," he said.

Dizaei's conviction had "damaged the black police association and therefore damaged police community relations". But Paddick said there was still a definite need for a black police association with "plenty of evidence to suggest that black officers face a difficult time in the Met".

"The black police association need to employ the facts, lose the emotion, concentrate on the facts and by doing that I think they will begin to move the police service," he said.

Alfred John, the chairman of the MBPA, agreed on the Today programme that the association had been damaged. But he insisted there was "without a doubt" still institutional racism in the force, as identified in the 1999 MacPherson report into the aftermath of the botched investigation into the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

"Black people [in the Met] are still disproportionately disciplined, are still disproportionately asked to resign and there's still a lack of progress for black people," he said.

John said the MBPA supported the process which allowed Dizaei to be prosecuted. But he added: "The case cost more than a murder case and, if you remember, one of the reasons for the boycott from the black police association was the disproportionate pursuit of black people."

Labour has got it wrong. Only the single transferable vote will remedy the unfairness of the present system

Gordon Brown is cutting it fine. The government's proposal for the alternative vote system of electing the Commons, subject to a referendum to be held by the autumn of 2011, is so late in this parliament that no one will put serious money on its chances of getting through. We have fewer than 90 days to the general election widely presumed to be held on 6 May, and only two-thirds of those days are available to pass legislation.

Yet the proposal is literally historic. Throughout the 19th century to early in the 20th, political reforms came thick and fast: the end of rotten boroughs, the gradual extension of the franchise, votes for all men, votes for older women and finally equal votes for men and women. And then we stopped. There has been less change in our electoral system for the Commons in the last 80 years than in any previous comparable period.

The alternative vote (AV) is a small step in the right direction, but is the most minimal change a Labour government could devise. AV will end "tactical" voting, whereby people vote for their second preference party to block the party they dislike most. It will allow everyone to vote for who they want, secure in the knowledge that if their preferred candidate has no chance and is eliminated in the count, their second and third preferences will be used for someone else. The process of elimination and counting goes on until someone has at last half of the votes in the constituency.

AV is therefore better because voters have more choice, and can honestly support who they want. Supporters of small parties know that their vote will no longer be wasted. It may have a role in helping to revitalise politics as a result.

But it is very similar to first-past-the-post in two key respects. Because it is based on single constituencies - a virtue for its proponents, who say they prize the constituency link - the parties continue to select one candidate each, and the voters only have one choice for each party.

That means that in the majority of parliamentary seats, the important decision about who should be the MP will continue to be taken in party caucuses rather than at the public ballot box. Although most MPs will have to reach beyond their tribal base to get the second preferences of other parties - an important discipline on unpleasant characters and behaviour - the choice for the voter remains very limited.

Compare AV in this respect with the Liberal Democrats' preferred option, the single transferable vote (STV), which is the system used in the Republic of Ireland, Scottish local government and in most Northern Irish elections. Each multi-member constituency has three to five members of parliament, so that each party has the incentive to put up two or more candidates. The voter therefore has the choice not only of party, but also of person.

Such a system is clearly the most liberal: it gives the maximum opportunity to the voter to express their preferences, and reserves the minimum power to the party machines. It is perfectly adapted for the world of the MPs' expenses scandal. Unlike AV, voters can stick with their party and vote for a "clean" MP or for an MP who shares their particular enthusiasms. With AV and first-past-the-post, voters have to change party to punish an individual MP.

In the Republic of Ireland, a third of all MPs who lose their seats in the Dail lose them to members of their own party, not partisan opponents. The system provides more discipline for MPs, and keeps them on their toes. MPs elected under STV have to provide a sterling service to their constituents, or they will find someone from their own party proving more attractive. The voter wrests power from the party.

Under AV, as under first-past-the-post, there would continue to be safe seats where the MP will effectively have a job for life. A third of all the constituencies in the country have not changed party since the second world war, and in those areas the MPs know that they can do pretty much anything without retribution. Research has shown that the worst expenses abuses occurred in safe seats where MPs face no threat of sacking by the electorate.

Conservative opposition to electoral reform gives the lie to David Cameron's pretence that he wants real change, and Labour's half-hearted commitment to the alternative vote is just a deathbed conversion from a party facing a historic defeat at the ballot box. Not only does AV fail to give voters the power they should have, but it also fails to remedy the unfairness of the present system.

Labour won 55% of the seats in the Commons with just 35% of the vote, and barely more than a fifth of the entire electorate. Yet AV can be even more disproportional when there are big swings from one side to the other such as in 1997 or 1979: under AV both Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher would have had bigger majorities. The electoral system would continue to be like an ill-fitting corset attempting to squeeze all the diverse strands of opinion in our society into an inappropriate and deeply uncomfortable shape.

Instead, we need a parliament that properly represents our country in all its argumentative glory. Only when the Commons becomes an honest reflection of our people - not a fairground distorting mirror - will we be able to resolve the tensions and conflicts in our society. That is why the Liberal Democrats will move its proposal for the single transferable vote tomorrow.

Every voter, whether in an Essex marginal or a Welsh safe seat, should have a vote that counts, and every radical should want a political system that is fair. As our forebears knew, and we seem to have forgotten, you cannot build a fair society on an unfair political system. It is time for a new Reform Act.

Andy Burnham MP, Labour's Health Secretary, and Douglas Alexander MP, Labour's General Election co-ordinator, have today launched voteNHS.com to outline Labour's health campaign.

The "Target Cancer" campaign aims to save up to 10,000 lives by backing a pledge to create a new NHS guarantee of cancer diagnosis within one week of GP referral, allowing patients to be tested and told their results in just seven days.

Andy Burnham also challenged the Conservatives to reverse their policy of scrapping all NHS targets and patient guarantees, and to match Labour's one-week cancer diagnosis guarantee.

Andy Burnham MP, Labour's Health Secretary said:

"Some things are too important to be left to chance, and cancer is one of them. It's no exaggeration to say that with this disease, every day counts and cancer diagnosis should not be left to a local lottery.

"That's why I am proud to say that with Labour, every NHS patient will have guaranteed access to diagnostic tests for cancer and crucially, their results, within just one week of seeing their doctor. If we do this, we know up to 10,000 lives a year could be saved.

"I am challenging Andrew Lansley and the Tories to drop their dogmatic opposition to our two-week cancer pledge, and admit that the quicker we can diagnose cancer, and ensure the same cancer guarantees for all NHS patients, the quicker we can treat it and the more lives we can save.

"And today I'm calling on everyone who agrees with me on this to sign up to my Target Cancer campaign at voteNHS.com."

Douglas Alexander MP, Labour's General Election co-ordinator said:

"VoteNHS.com will build on the success of campaigns like Ed's Pledge, which gathered support from tens of thousands of people pushing for action on climate change, and Back the Ban, which saw 14,000 sign up in a single day to keep the hunting ban in place.

"We are also launching an online campaign called "CameraON/ CameraOFF" to highlight the difference between the rhetoric and the reality of David Cameron's Conservatives. And today our message is on our cancer guarantees – David Cameron talks about how committed he is to NHS but what he doesn't want people to see are the consequence of his policies. Simply put scrapping targets would mean longer waiting lists.

"Again and again you hear from people that they believe David Cameron is very good at saying whatever he thinks you want to hear. But you hear nothing from the Conservatives about what they would actually do. They keep their policies concealed."

Labour MP for Southampton Test, Dr Alan Whitehead today congratulated 6 early-career research scientists who have been selected to present their work at the House of Commons as part of the Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Student Awards. SET for Britain aims to encourage, support and promote the careers of Britain's early-stage research scientists, engineers and technologists to help them become world-leaders in their fields.

Dorota Bartczak, Dr Kimberly Bruce, Charmain Demanuele and Dr Sergey Krysov from the University of Southampton have all been selected to present posters on their Biological or Biomedical research and Thao Nguyen and Richard Parker have been selected for the Physical Sciences (Chemistry) category. The exhibition of this work, which Dr Whitehead has been invited to attend, will take place on 8th March on the Terrace Marquee of the House of Commons.

Speaking from Westminster Dr Whitehead, himself a former Professor of Public Policy at the Southampton Institute, said:

"I am delighted that so many Southampton students have been selected for this highly prestigious and competitive honour. To have six students chosen from our city is a serious achievement considering the high demand for places at this exhibition. It shows that Southampton University is able to attract some of the top UK minds in the fields of Science and Technology and I believe it is important to do all we can to support and encourage these promising academics in their future careers. I will certainly be attending the exhibition next month and I congratulate all six Southampton students on this remarkable accomplishment."

Tony Benn's lament that politics should be about issues, not personalities, is one echoed even by many who would struggle to find any issues on which they agree with him.

But it's not a view I share. Why? Because the detailed policies of election manifestos or conference speeches frequently get swept aside in power by events. It's not just the unexpected new event, it's also the fallibility of forecasts which mean that decision making is often made from a very different perspective from that used to draw up pre-election policy promises.

Take the economy. It's hard enough to know whether or not it was growing or shrinking in the middle of this year, let alone what its size and growth rate will be in the middle of the next Parliament. So a party's general election manifesto should have sums that add up and give a sense of economic policy, the details on page 12 of exactly what is planned to be done will almost certainly be swept away by reality being far less predictable that required for that level of policy detail to really mean much beyond the first few months in power.

Immediate post-election budget plans certainly do matter - and any deserve criticism if they try to get through an election without say much on that score. But beyond that?

The details of what Alistair Darling, George Osborne or Vince Cable say they would do two years in to the next Parliament may sound good but it's principles that will be the surer guide to what ends up happening. Their principles and personalities are what will generate new policy as events unfurl and predictions turn into inaccuracies.

That is nothing new. It's related to a point, in fact, which Charles Kennedy often made. The issues on which he, William Hague and Tony Blair campaigned in 2001 turned out to have very little relation to the major issues that dominated politics in 2001-5. Tuition fees and Iraq most notably were major issues in the Parliament but almost completely absent from the preceding election.

Understanding Tony Blair's personality - and the moralistic sense of duty fuelled by his religious beliefs, as evidenced over Kosovo - would have been a far surer guide to Labour's subsequent foreign policy than the details which happened to be highlighted on page 39 of the 2001 Labour manifesto about Labour and the UN. ("We support a more modern and representative Security Council, with more effective peace-keeping" since you ask).

Tony Blair's religious beliefs take us in to uncomfortable political territory. Few criticised him (or Alistair Campbell) for so determinedly keeping his religious views out of political discussion - and indeed many preferred it that way. But understanding how he saw intervention in Kosovo and Iraq as being a moral imperative, regardless of how others say their morality leading to very different views, matters far more than the incidental detail of one policy paper or another.

Recognising the importance of personalities and beliefs shouldn't mean open season on anything a politician has done in the past - but understanding the person, their personality and the judgements it will produce, is a surer guide to whether or not you'll get the policies you want over the full Parliamentary cycle than the putative decisions laid out in a policy paper as if the future will be predictable and unsurprising.

(With thanks to today's Guardian).

The Tories were today forced to recall a consignment of hybrid policies following widespread complaints that their economic model failed when it encountered bumpy or slippery surfaces. The party is already facing criticism over the recent recall of many of its other policies, including marriage tax-breaks, which have been affected by the potentially dangerous acceleration towards an election.

The Tory leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne are due to give details of their latest recall today, and on most other days leading up to 6th May. "We've tried applying the brakes," they admitted, "but the end product was a disastrous U-turn.

The party is battling to save its economic reputation, where it faces mounting criticism of its handling of the crisis by the Tory grassroots and Daily Telegraph.

Analysts accused the Tories, which waited weeks to discuss the model's defect after the first complaints were reported in the media, of being in a state of denial. "The problem is," explained one, "that the party never road-tested its economic model. Cameron and Osborne just hoped nobody would ask any tough questions. The problems date back years, and no-one has seriously addressed them. They just hoped better marketing would con the public."

He added: "The real worry must be their loss of market share, especially with competitors like Nick Clegg and Vince Cable proving more robust and reliable, knowing when to brake and when to accelerate. Put it this way: who would you trust? The Tory party whose economic model isn't road-worthy and has to be recalled at the first sign of trouble. Or the Lib Dems whose steering has proved so accurate?"

contribution by Shaaz Mahboob of British Muslims for Secular Democracy

The case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui's involvement in terrorism and the alleged maltreatment at Bargam Airbase in Afghanistan has somewhat transformed into a cause célèbre amongst Muslim communities in particular British Muslims of Pakistani origin who share the same geographical and cultural origin with her.

Ironically, non-Pakistani Muslims, especially Arab Muslims do not appear to be much concerned about the alleged sole female Al Qaeda operative bearing in mind the roots of Al Qaeda run deep within Arab societies.

I too, was initially appalled at reading the plight of the short statured woman who was allegedly kept under illegal confinement in Afghanistan for over 5 years before finally being produced in a US court of law. To everyone's relief, she was finally put on trial in New York on terrorism related charges, including one involving an attempted shooting of a US Army guard by his own M16 rifle. She has since then been found guilty of this charge.

The illegal abduction by intelligence agencies, allegations of rape and torture during her detention and the ordeal her three young children were put through, all need further investigation and those responsible brought before the law for scrutiny and as a deterrent in future potential cases.

There is an increasing media hype accompanying the increasing blind public support steered and spearheaded by hardline Islamists, supported by human rights groups and followed by the token support lent by the secular leaning Pakistani government for Dr Siddiqui.

Unsurprisingly in Britain, unconditional support for her has also been extended by British figures such as Lord Nazir Ahmed, and many other Muslim groups.

However, looking beyond the hype a different and alarming story attempts to break through. The steadfast mental barriers of anti-US-imperialism and pro-Jihadi tendencies with a not-so-subtle dash of anti-Semitism is not allowing the Muslim communities to even consider any alternatives to her innocence when forming their judgments about Dr Siddiqui, who has appears to have attained the status of Mata Hari and Joan of Arc of this century.

Curiosity about this case led me to news articles and other stories about Dr Siddiqui which has presented a rather disturbing set of facts. Muslims across the world and in particular those who are campaigning for her release including Lord Nazir Ahmed and human rights groups must also bear in mind the following facts:

1. She was married to a person who bought night-vision goggles and body armour worth $10,000 allegedly for "big game hunting" in Pakistan. He himself subsequently narrates Aafia's violent personality, extremist views and concerns over her involvement in Jihadi activities.

2. Her second marriage a mere 6 months after her divorce, was to Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali who happens to be the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the 9/11 Conspirator) and a cousin of Ramzi Yousef who was convicted of the 1993 WTC Bombing. Al-Baluchi will be put on trail in New York for his involvement in mass terrorism.

3. During her stay in the US, the charities she was involved with were subsequently linked to the 1998 US Embassy bombings such as the Mercy International Relief Agency (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/24/aafia-siddiqui-al-qaida). She herself ran an Islamic Charity called Islamic Research and Teaching from her flat. These activities gained her access to criminals in local prisons (http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/whos_afraid_of_aafia_siddiqui/)

4. During the jury selection process Dr Siddiqui insisted on having all the jury members "DNA tested" to ensure that there were no Jews on the jury bench. Her similar statements in court are equally anti-Semitic.

So many coincidences do point towards an alarming and questionable trend associated with the Aafia's past and personality, which should not be easily ignored when lending her unconditional support.

Perhaps her zeal for religious piety prompted her to take ill-conceived steps in support of fellow Muslims across the world. Due course of law certainly do not appear to have been followed whilst apprehending and interrogating her.

Such flawed processes must immediately be rectified if moral high ground has to be retained by those who claim to uphold values such as democracy and freedom.

Nevertheless, the treatment she has received in the form of an open trial and access to lawyers is most certainly a thousand-fold more humane than that suffered by the victims of Al Qaeda and Taliban's actions, which results not only in loss of life, amputated limbs but also shattered personalities left scarred for life.

It's time for Muslims to review their loyalty towards anyone and everyone who takes the name of Islam and who appears to be a victim.

Normal service will resume shortly.

In association with Harvey Nicks:

Via Avon & Somerset Constabulary:

Police are appealing for witnesses after the theft of a horse drawn carriage in Templecombe near Wincanton.
The carriage was stolen sometime between Sunday 19th July and Sunday 2nd August 2009 from a field in Shaftesbury Road, Henstridge, Tenplecombe. [...]

The carriage is very distinctive and has a black metal chassis with black shaft, black rubber tyres, silver spoked wheels and a cherry red wooden frame.

It has no seat and a bucket carriage. The owners are keen to recover the carriage as it is handmade and unique.

(Alright, so Dick Turpin stole the possessions of the passengers, not the coaches, but I'm sure one of the many English Highwaymen must have made the intellectual leap from robbery to grand theft equine)

Related Links

• Original version: Adam & the Ants: Stand and Deliver 

[Update: The Army have decided it wasn't suspicious after all.]

Via BBC Bristol:

An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said an Army explosives team was called to examine the package which was "deemed to be safe and non suspicious".

[Original Post]

Via Avon & Somerset Constabulary:

Motorists are being advised to find alternative routes home after the discovery of a suspicious package on the A38 at Filton.

The package was discovered in Gypsy Patch Lane, Patchway, Bristol at around 3.46pm.

An army explosives team has been called in as a precaution and a number of buildings in the area have been evacuated.

The Highways Agency is currently managing traffic in the area.
Gloucester Road North is closed from the junction of Gypsy Patch Lane to Station Road.

Diversions are in place.

Although obviously both are a pleasant enough means to fritter away a bit of one's free time.

Via Twitter Status Blog:

We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly.

Update: the site is back up, but we are continuing to defend against and recover from this attack.

Via Wired:

Twitter was shut down for hours Thursday morning by what it described as an "ongoing" denial-of-service attack, silencing millions of Tweeters. It's the first major outage the service has suffered in months and possibly the first ever due to sabotage. The outage appeared to begin mid-morning, EST, and affected users around the world.

Via The Register:

Twitter was knocked offline on Thursday after the site became the victim of a denial of service attack.

Users of the micro-blogging service are used to seeing the fail whale, a graphic that appears when service is over capacity, but this time around the site was left completely unreachable from around 1500 on Thursday (UK time).

Via Euronews:

Devotees at a shrine in Harangal village of Parbhani in western India's Maharashtra observe a bizarre ritual of throwing their babies for good health from a considerable height onto a cloth sheet held below.

An addition to the list of things that I did not know existed until I saw them on You Tube:

The Academy of Historical Fencing has three clubs in the UK.  The clubs include two in Bristol (Bradley Stoke) and one in Newport (Caerleon Campus).  Visit the clubs page for more information.  The club is run by a group of like minded martial artists looking to develop their skills and knowledge in a safe and relaxed environment whilst also sharing knowledge with like minded people.  The club has over 100 members and instructors with a variety of skills, knowledge and expertise in different weapon forms, combat and research.

These guys look like they could give the colonists at Bristol Renaissance Fair a run for their money.

(Click here for a high resolution version, to see how the video was made)

Following on from yesterday's post, I've rung up Bristol council and established that four council representatives are in the delegation visiting Bristol's twin town Hannover to learn about being a host city for an international sporting event.

(Note - personally I don't subscribe to climate alarmism, but the Council do and they're the ones swanning around by plane)

Assuming they flew to Hannover from Bristol via Amsterdam, that's 252 kg (552 lb) of CO2 for the first leg, and 200kg (440 lb) for the second leg. Double up for the return flights and that gets you a total of 900 kg of scary CO2. Add in a bit extra for the hotel, restaurant, civic reception, canapés, corporate box at a football match, champagne and taxis, and you've got about half the maximum "safe" annual carbon emissions for one person.

I imagine the Council will be purchasing Indulgences (Carbon Offsets) to cover these emissions, which means I can write another blog post ridiculing that.

All for information you can get off the internet. Play us out, Sir Cliff.

There's a bit of buzz around that the Amazon Kindle, a rather novel e-ink reading device with a built-in wireless (EV-DO) card, is coming to the United Kingdom. In the US market, Amazon is trying to do with the Kindle what Apple did with the iPod, namely to create a new approach to consuming and purchasing information.

With a Kindle you can buy and download electronic texts wirelessly for substantially less than purchasing paper copies. You can also read public domain texts such as the 30,000 published works at Project Gutenberg. The reader itself (see video above) only uses power when the screen content changes and the reading experience is more akin to that of real paper than using a backlit computer screen. Since the device contains a built in 3G interface, new content arrives very quickly and Amazon also provides free access to Wikipedia.

Now the downside, as seen recently, is that Amazon have proved they can instantly yank content off the devices, which is not a problem one faces with a traditional printed book. Amusingly (or scarily) the novel that was instantly removed from all Kindle devices in the USA recently was George Orwell's 1984. (Quick tip: In Australia, the works of authors who died before 1955 are public domain, so you can get Orwell's work via Gutenberg Oz.)

Some newspaper publishers think the Kindle might save their businesses, but the BBC got the killer quote from Gizmodo's Wilson Rothman:

I can't see how an industry that's haemorrhaging money can subsidise a new-fangled tech product in order to lure people back to subscribing for something they are forced to publish for free online anyway[.]

The personal investment decision to purchase a Kindle depends on how many books you read annually. If you could save four to six pounds per book purchased, on three or four books a month you would save between £144 and £288 pounds a year, which would cover the costs of the device in as little as one year.

Amazon is trying to offer the full package - both the reading device and the content (they are a book seller after all). But there are others in the market with different solutions such as Sony with their Reader hardware range, and several iPhone applications including eReader.

Technology pundits have been talking about paperless offices and electronic books since the development of the first computers without much predictive success (and Isaac Asimov never anticipated tobacco-free civilisation). I wonder if perhaps it will be the expiry of copyright on the bulk of the canon of literature in all languages that brings such a concept into being?

If one looks at the most popular authors at Project Gutenberg today, they represent the bulk of the contributors to the Western Canon from the last few centuries, and translations of all the western and eastern classics I could think to name. If I do get a Kindle, I don't think I'd need to spend any money on literature; the ones worth having available for free. (So more money to buy Skiffy I suppose.)

Top 10 Authors at Project Gutenberg (July 2009, monthly downloads):

1. Dickens, Charles (30,381)
2. Austen, Jane (28,827)
3. Twain, Mark (28,512)
4. Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir (26,178)
5. Shakespeare, William (21,456)
6. Verne, Jules (18,522)
7. Carroll, Lewis (17,980)
8. Baum, L. Frank (Lyman Frank) (13,317)
9. Burton, Richard Francis, Sir (13,185)
10. Wells, H. G. (Herbert George) (11,957)

Last night one of the top Tory PPC's – Joanne Cash – abruptly resigned from contesting her seat in Westminster North.

According to the Daily Mail she resigned after clashing with party chairman Eric Pickles.

Insiders say she quit following a showdown with Mr Pickles over the promotion of Amanda Sayers - chairman of Westminster North Conservatives - to the role of President last night.

Sources say the women apparently had an ongoing dispute and Joanne Cash objected strongly to her becoming president of the constituency she is fighting.

But there is also speculation that she was forced out by the Tory Taliban for becoming pregnant.

Last night the former political editor of the Observer Gaby Hinsliff remarked:

whaaat? @joanne_cash quit as PPC for westminster n (via @nextleft). really hope this is not because she's pregnant.

Political Scrapbook notes:

This blow to David Cameron's efforts to select more female candidates comes after Liz Truss, the Tories' candidate in South West Norfolk, survived a concerted deselection attempt after she failed to inform the local party that she (shock! horror!) had an affair a mere four years previously

The Jack of Kent blog lamented that Joanne Cash was one of the few genuinely liberal Tories who ‘got' libel reform.

ConservativeHome's coverage of the resignation was extremely and unusually short.

Joanne Cash herself tweeted two hours ago:

Lots of rumours flying around distracting from ... electing new govt! Go go go people!

...which has left a few scratching their heads.

That this House condemns certain user groups on Facebook who target, harass and mock vulnerable or grieving people; notes that the written and graphic content of these groups can be extremely offensive and damaging to individuals and to society generally; believes that Facebook has a duty to protect users from abuse and to prevent or remove extreme distasteful content; and calls on the Government urgently to review national policies on policing hateful material on the internet and press Facebook immediately to remove any content of this nature and if it refuses, to legislate to protect society from the irresponsible actions of Facebook.

(c) M H Johnson

Most people had thought that Labour's enthusiasm for electoral reform had been killed off in the late 1990s. Back then, Tony Blair offered a 'progressive century' underlined by devolution, directly elected mayors, a reformed House of Lords and a new electoral system for the House of Commons. There had even been talk of cooperation with the Liberal Democrats before 1997. But the landslide election victory of that year ended the chances of a coalition and with that the chances of electoral reform.

Unfortunately for Blair, 1997 was a landslide of parliamentary seats rather than votes. The party won 63% of seats in the Commons on just 43% of the vote. Although the new government set up a commission led by Roy Jenkins, its recommendations have never been implemented. Indeed, Labour's support for electoral reform progressively diminished after 1997.

Jenkins reported in September 1998 suggesting a system called the Alternative Vote top-up, or AV+. In a standard Alternative Vote (AV) system, electors list the candidates on the ballot paper by order of preference. The object is for the representative to have the support of a majority of their constituents, so any candidate with 50% +1 of the vote is elected. If, after the first preferences are counted, no candidate has 50% +1 of the vote, the voters of the last placed candidate have their second preferences distributed and the tally is recounted. This continues until a candidate has the support of a majority of those who vote.

Ultimately, Jenkins dismissed standard AV because it was no more representative than the current First Past The Post (FPTP) system. It would be highly unlikely to bring any new voices to the House of Commons and areas of electoral desert for parties would remain so. A Conservative voter in the Scottish Highlands, for instance, could only hope to affect the outcome of the election with their second preference.

A graver problem isolated by this commission was that, as the report states; "simulations of how the 1997 result might have come out under AV suggest that it would have significantly increased the size of the already swollen Labour majority." We cannot be certain how a new electoral system would precisely affect parliament, but it seems likely that standard AV would produce stronger governments with larger majorities and firmer grips on the legislative process.

This is why Jenkins suggested a modified version of AV. AV+ has regional as well as constituency representatives. The regional members would be elected proportionally and distributed to make up for disproportional representation from the constituency members.

So Gordon Brown's recent conversion to the Alternative Vote is something we should be wary about. Not only does the proposed system have deep flaws exposed by the Jenkins Commission but also is a system that, apparently, Brown was firmly opposed to in the past. Electoral reform is what pollsters call a 'low-salience issue'; jargon meaning that most people don't really care about it. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that this is a scheme cooked up to woo vital Liberal Democrat voters ahead of this years general election.

A further problem with AV, brought up by the Jenkins Commission member Lord Alexander, is that it treats a second, third or forth preference vote with the same weight as a first preference vote. Meaning that a candidate with the most first preferences could be beaten by the least unpopular candidate. An advantage of FPTP is that the candidate with the most positive support behind them will always win. There is a danger with AV that the candidate who most people think is the best on offer could lose to a compromise candidate.

For traditionalists, AV would at least preserve the link between voters and a single-member constituency. Indeed, it is probable that Jack Straw's opposition to multi-member systems of proportional representation is a major reason why the government's current proposals do not contain the 'top-up' element suggested by the Jenkins Commission. Indeed, as Secretary of State for Justice, Straw holds responsibility for government policy regarding the constitution.

Sadly, the current government proposal for reforming the electoral system for the House of Commons is typical of many programmes of constitutional reform that have been attempted over the last one hundred years, especially those since 1997. By this I mean that there have been great constitutional changes, but precious few of these appear to have made government or parliament either more democratic or more effective.

Similarly, it is not at all clear how adopting AV as our electoral system would make the House of Commons any more representative, open, responsive, liberal, democratic or effective as a legislator and scrutiniser of the government. On the contrary, introducing this system would likely bring the legislature further under the control of the executive branch of government. Furthermore, it seems probable that this legislation will be rammed through parliament with whipped votes as quickly as possible, leaving no time for a substantial public or parliamentary debate on the issue.

Yet by labelling this deeply illiberal and cynical measure 'constitutional reform', Brown tries to label himself as a democratising reformer. By doing so, he hopes to cast the opponents of these proposals as non-democratic, ultra-conservatives. Yet to oppose systemic change is not to oppose change full stop and to oppose a specific constitutional reform has no bearing on whether or not one is a democrat.

Instead of adopting a new electoral system in the hope that this will solve all of the problems UK democracy currently faces we need to work within the current system to make it more democratic. That means widening the use of open primaries so that MPs with safe seats can genuinely be held to account. There is also a need to introduce recall powers so that bad MPs can face a public vote of confidence.

Vital here is the important, though chronically boring, issue of parliamentary procedure. There must be an end to government domination of the parliamentary timetable, while select committees and their chairmen must be elected by the House of Commons rather than appointed by the whips. It is probably also time to look at the Royal Prerogative, perhaps allowing the House of Commons to determine the date of elections itself; forcing the normally secretive decision out into the open.

Instead of being deceived that the government's proposal to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote is anything more than a dangerous, headline-grabbing stunt calculated to win over Liberal Democrat voters we have to work towards introducing proper democratic reforms. There are no quick fixes, and the UK constitution is a perpetual work-in-progress. But if the House of Commons were ever to be elected by AV, democracy would have been dealt a terrible blow.

Related posts:

1. Don't let politics hijack the debate: reform is important
2. Is the House of Lords our best constitutional check?
3. Are the Lib Dems a real alternative?

Cranmer [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

There are many flaws in the First-Past-The-Post system of voting. But at least you only get one vote to expend upon one candidate, and you can be sure that the winning candidate received more votes than any other candidate; that is to say, the winning candidate is sure to be the most popular of all the candidates.

Yet today MPs vote on an amendment to the Constitutional Reform Bill on whether or not to scrap this tried-and-tested, trusted, straightforward, clearly-understood method in favour of the Alternative-Vote system. Under that, you have to rank candidates in order of preference and if on the first round no candidate wins a majority, the candidate who comes last is eliminated and their second-preference votes are apportioned accordingly. That is to say, the winning candidate is sure to be the least unpopular of all the candidates.

It is a bizarre system which permits the most popular candidate to be beaten by the least unpopular candidate. And John Redwood explains a further inherent unfairness:

'If you vote for one of the two most popular parties you only get to vote once. If you vote for a party that cannot win you effectively vote twice, as your second preference then helps decide which of the front runners has won. Why is this fair?

'If I go to a horse or car race, I expect the car or horse that comes first to be the winner. I do not expect the judges to say that as the first and second were close they will ask the losers who they would like to win. Nor do we say that as it was close the first and second place have to run it again without the others to see if one is faster without the others getting in the way.'

The intercession of the Prime Minister for the AV system is a cynical death-bed conversion in an attempt to attain political salvation by fooling the electoral gods.

The people are not so stupid as to fall for such a ploy.

But the Liberal Democrats?

It is likely that they will support the Prime Minister and bequeath to him a Commons majority in favour of holding a referendum on this reform. It is not quite the Proportional Representation of their long-desired Single-Transferable-Vote system, but they will view it as a stepping-stone to that utopian end. The nationalists are also likely to support it as anything which weakens the centuries-old electoral mechanisms inherently favours their 'modernisation' agenda. The move will also appeal to liberal-minded voters of all persuasions who want to 'break with the past' for no rational reason other than to feel the sensation of progress: it will certainly attract the Liberal Democrats into power-sharing with the Labour Party in the event of a hung parliament.

Of course, there is insufficient time to put it on the statute book before the General Election, and so the Prime Minister's strategy is evidently to portray the Conservative Party as the dinosaurs of the status quo, intractably opposed to much-needed electoral reform.

There is not doubt that First-Past-The-Post produces strong and stable governments. And Tim Montgomerie is of the opinion that 'AV penalises the independent-minded and boosts the dullards, the mediocrities, the lobby fodder'.

And yet it is the system which gave us Boris Johnson as Mayor of London.

And it is also the system by which David Cameron was elected to lead the Conservative Party.

Tweetminster Livestream [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

JayneInnes: Rumours circulating Warwickshire Tories might be about to pull catastrophic Fire Cuts... Will keep you posted : )

Juderobinson: Obesity epidemic hits hedgehogs. Just had to share. http://bit.ly/93YxkK

lfeatherstone: New blog: Whittington A&E threatened closure - Protest March http://bit.ly/bpWqgR

iaindale: And so is Tory Business spokesman @mark_prisk . He'll love you forever if you follow him.

channel4news: Head of #FSA Hector Sants is to step down in the summer. Details here: http://bit.ly/9TE2rT #hectorsants

JayneInnes: There are rumours we might have news on Warwickshire Fire Service today...

iaindale: @timloughton Tory MP & star of Tower Block of Commons is on Twitter. Follow him!

iburrell: Guardian cuts historic link with Manchester http://bit.ly/aiq36K

timloughton: @iaindale Thanks Iain - wait until you see the cage fighting and rap song recording next week! Tim

MailOnline: The storm chaser who risks his life in the pursuit of the perfect shot of lightning http://bit.ly/a6oBAI

UKLabour: A new #NHS guarantee that will save up to 10,000 lives a year. Sign up to Target Cancer. Please RT! http://bit.ly/VoteNHS

reuters_co_uk: Ringo Starr gets his Hollywood star at low-wattage ceremony http://link.reuters.com/zyf58h

john_mackay: About to be cheered up by She & Him playing on the @laverneshow on 6 Music.Girl/boy music that melts even my cold Calvinist heart.

UKLabour: New #NHS campaign just launched - Target Cancer. Anyone thought to have cancer will get tests, & results, in a week - http://bit.ly/VoteNHS

danielbyles: RT: @RossIGrant Good blog post by John Redwood on why AV isn't fair http://bit.ly/cjVAi5

andrewlomas: Vernon you prat. That's all I have to say.

reuters_co_uk: "Unrecognised" ice fault caused BA airport crash http://bit.ly/cKybhw

bbcpolitics: Health Secretary Andy Burnham denies planning a £20,000 compulsory inheritance levy to help pay for social .. http://bit.ly/9Jysvt

politicshomeuk: Labour MP Jeff Ennis to stand down at general election http://tinyurl.com/yzglb9d

reuters_co_uk: Trinity Mirror buys Guardian's regional papers http://bit.ly/clwkkT

Lynne Featherstone's Parliament and Haringey diary [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

Managed to get to the meeting of the Defend the Whittington Coalition last night. The key issues being decided were the route of the march, the speakers, the publicity, banners, placards and so on. Credit to the organisers - as it is a lot of work to get this together.

We all need to take part in this protest. Given that the 'options' for the future of A&E at the Whittington currently (in their draft form) contain four options out of seven that end 24/7 A&E - we need to demonstrate just how much anger there is amongst local people.

So - demonstrate we will. I will post final times, dates and locations for the various stages of the march and rally as soon as I have them.

BBC News | Politics | UK Edition [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

People's Republic of South Devon [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

If you're just twiddling your thumbs this half-term, why not try tapping your toes? The Lighthouse on Paignton's seafront has a whole host of activities and events going on during half term. There's an Art Pit, radio days, drum workshops and more while away the wet afternoons. Take a look at the schedule...

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VOTE FOR YOUR DEVON SPORTING STAR!:
Visit the Active Devon site website to nominate your dedicated volunteers, officials and coaches in the Devon Sports Awards. Closing date, Sunday February 28.

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Not-for-profit media from News and Media Republic: People's Republic of South Devon o the Devon Week o Arts+Culture o D+CFilm

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© People's Republic of South Devon, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us

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Ladbrokes has published its odds for the Devon seats in the General Election. But what do all the numbers mean? Take a gander and offer us some advice, please. Comments below.

Devon Central
Conservatives 1/7
Liberal Democrats 4/1
UKIP 50/1
Labour 100/1

Devon East
Conservatives 1/500
Liberal Democrats 20/1
Labour 100/1

Devon North
Liberal Democrats 4/6
Conservatives 11/10
Labour 100/1
UKIP 100/1
English Democrats 100/1
Green 100/1

Devon South West
Conservatives 1/500
Liberal Democrats 20/1
UKIP 66/1
Labour 100/1

Devon West and Torridge
Cons 1/20
Lib Dems 7/1
Lab 100/1
UKIP 100/1

Exeter
Labour 5/6
Conservatives evens
Liberal Democrats 16/1
UKIP 50/1
Greens 100/1

Newton Abbot
Liberal Democrats 4/6
Conservatives 11/10
Labour 100/1
UKIP 100/1

Plymouth Moorview
Labour 4/9
Conservatives 13/8
Liberal Democrats 50/1
UKIP 50/1

Plymouth Sutton and Devonport
Conservatives 2/5
Labour 15/8
Liberal Democrats 25/1
UKIP 66/1

Torbay
Conservatives 2/5
Liberal Democrats 7/4
UKIP 50/1
Labour 100/1

Totnes
Conservatives 4/11
Liberal Democrats 2/1
UKIP 50/1
Labour 100/1

Keep an eye on the changing predictions at Ladbrokes.

Know your candidates, check out our Devon Candidates and Constituencies page

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VOTE FOR YOUR DEVON SPORTING STAR!:
Visit the Active Devon site website to nominate your dedicated volunteers, officials and coaches in the Devon Sports Awards. Closing date, Sunday February 28.

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Not-for-profit media from News and Media Republic: People's Republic of South Devon o the Devon Week o Arts+Culture o D+CFilm

(check out our text ads on Addiply or other ways to advertise and collaborate)

© People's Republic of South Devon, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Peter Black AM [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

Coverage of Norman Tebbit's remarks on immigration in yesterday's media was slightly misleading in that the headlines said he wanted a zero immigration policy when in fact he was calling for a zero net immigration policy.

Nevertheless that distinction does not make his proposal any more acceptable or achieveable in the real world. I understand that as a right wing Tory he may want to restore a way of life that has not existed in this country before the second world war, but how can he, as a free marketeer justify the restrictions in trade and the movement of labour that his proposals would entail?

According to the Office for National Statistics the number of people leaving the UK for 12 months or more reached a record high in 2008, with an estimated 427,000 people emigrating. This was up from 341,000 in 2007 and 398,000 in 2006.

Compare this to the immigration figures which show that an estimated 590,000 people arrived to live in the UK in 2008, the second highest figure on record after 596,000 in 2006. Of all immigrants 505,000 (86 per cent) were non-British citizens in 2008. Net migration, the difference between immigration and emigration, decreased from 233,000 in 2007 to 163,000 as a result of increased emigration.

What these figures show is a healthy movement of labour into and out of Britain, in which Britons go abroad to work, whilst others come here to take up jobs that in many instances cannot be filled by British nationals. Without that sort of movement our economy would grind to a halt.

Furthermore I would argue that if we start imposing limits on those who can come into our country, then others will do the same to us, limiting opportunities for British citizens to work abroad. Does Lord Tebbit really want that to happen or does he want a return to our imperial past as well, when we pretty well did what we wanted no matter what other countries said?

It is right that we clamp down on illegal immigration and take a tough line with those who commit crimes whilst they are here but we should not damage our own economy by adopting wrong-headed and unsustainable stances, nor should we abandon our long tradition of helping those in trouble from other countries, providing that we manage that effectively as well.

Clearly there are issues about housing, benefits and medical treatment that need to be addressed but let us not fall for the lies and distortions that are bandied about in the tabloid press on this. We need a rational debate but one that takes account of the benefits of immigration as well as its downside.

Cicero's Songs [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

Viktor Yanukovich - the likely victor in the Ukrainian Presidential election- is not a Jeffersonian Democrat. He carries with him the air of the youthful hoodlum he once was- he served time in gaol as a young man. However Yulia Timoshenko- the defeated candidate is hardly a model democrat herself. It would be quite easy to throw up ones hands and say that Ukraine was a lost cause and that it has not escaped its terrible past.

Easy but wrong.

For one thing, the Presidential election has been given a clean bill of health by election observers. A clean election anywhere in the former Soviet Union is sufficiently rare to be celebrated. Neither is Ukraine likely to fall under the control of Russia, despite fears that it may do so. The fact is that the division of Ukraine has proven to be its saviour. No one party, region, or faction -still less a single individual- is able to control the country. All things must be negotiated, all things are political. On the one hand it creates a slow moving, quite badly governed state, with low level corruption endemic, on the other Ukraine is classified as free by Freedom House.

So Mr. Yanukovich, even if he wanted to deliver Ukraine to the Kremlin could not do so. He must govern by way of deal making and compromise, and for every die-hard pro-Putinista in Ukraine, there are probably three pro Europeans. The economy is now oriented to its prosperous Western neighbours, not its inefficient and truculent Eastern. However much Russia tries to project its will in K'yev, it finds that it must, like everyone else, cut a deal and negotiate, and in fact it has few things that are attractive to Ukrainians. Even the energy weapon is a two edged sword for Russia, for blackmailing Ukraine reminds the West of the importance of diversity of energy supply and diminishes Russia's reputation as a reliable supplier of energy.

Neither can Mr. Yanukovich, even if he wanted to, create a more authoritarian constitution and bend the Ukrainian people to his will. The local regions are powerful, and whether Russian or Ukrainian speaking, they will not easily cede power back to the centre. On top of that, creating a more centralised state could deliver Mr. Yanukovich into the hands of his political opponents, since the Orange Revolution, for all its disappointments, has shown that a President who oversteps the mark can be removed by the popular will.

So, in the end it is likely that it will be economics that is Ukraine's destiny: and that means a continued Western trajectory- whether or not the Kremlin or indeed Mr. Yanukovich want to stop this or not. In fact, there is some evidence that Mr. Yanukovich has learned plenty of lessons from the Orange revolution- which Ms. Timoshenko may not. One of the most obvious is to try to construct coalitions, which Mr. Yanukovich has already done to a degree with the outgoing President, Mr. Yushchenko. The second is the increasing use that Mr. Yanukovich makes of the Ukrainian rather than the Russian language. Like Ms. Timoshenko, Mr. Yanukovich learned Ukrainian as a second language, unlike her, he still stumbles over the language, but nevertheless, he increasingly uses Ukrainian in public. Although he has stated that he would like to see restrictions against Russian lifted, which would please the Kremlin, this is simply to put the issue on the agenda, not to actually enact change. Even in such relatively minor changes, Mr. Yanukovich will need to negotiate and not to decree.

So the mood music in Ukraine will change. Mr. Yanukovich is not a cultured nor notably intelligent figure. His thuggish demeanour and past will tell against him. However the Ukrainian people have freely elected him as their President. he may not be Thomas Jefferson, but in the end he doesn't need to be. The Ukrainians are asking for better governance, and that Mr. Yanukovich may yet be able to give.

The Western trajectory of Ukraine is secure. The rest is details. Even an undemocratic and unfree Russia can only negotiate for influence in a democratic and free Ukraine, it may not force the Ukrainians to act against their will. In the end, that is the final and the greatest triumph of the orange revolution.

Vowles the Green in Knowle [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

Time to press the panic button? (Jonathon Porritt)

Samizdata.net [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

A View from Middle England by Arden Forester [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

Last night I watched Panorama. A rather depressing report about the new Vetting and Barring Scheme. Those behind the new quango seem totally unfazed by the monster they are creating. In fact one of the board members, Donald Findlater, said that people need regulating. This is a common theme of those signed up to do the handiwork of the New Labour Fright Regime. Far from keeping children safe from paedophiles, it will only serve to produce a multi-million pound quango raking in cash from those compelled to register. All the nine million people on the register, me included, will be up for all manner of potential problems.

One man has had a load of vile comments stuffed onto his CRB form. All this about raping children, etc, gets to be shoved around the system for all and sundry to see. In his case it was a load of unsubstantiated allegations. Now that's where this new quango comes into its own. Not just relying on facts from the courts they will include tittle-tattle and innuendo as so-called "soft evidence". It is this Chinese whisper style of policing the state that I find so objectionable. The head of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority, Sir Roger Singleton, seemed to find the prospect of data going astray on a train rather amusing. He claimed he had procedures in place and his staff were well trained. I'll remember that one. He is unwilling to consider that false information can be devastating to lives. Mostly this is about safeguarding those in authority from lawsuits and unnecessary inquiries.

I have a suggestion for Sir Roger. If he is so keen to rid society of paedophilia perhaps he can turn his attention to that radar thing. The one police officers keep going on about each time a conviction is brought against an offender. All the recent convictions would not have come about by anything Sir Roger and his team gets up to.

We live in a society where sleazy activity is carried on in the highest quarters. There is sleaze in parliament, in the boardrooms and in the sporting arena. Debauchery is carried out in most English towns and cities at the weekend. It's called binge drinking. A lot of people care little for behaving well. Added to this sexual gratification is now on a sliding scale of what is permissable or not. The scale has tilted in the direction of debauchery. Is it any wonder some grow up to be abusers, seeing as they have been abused themselves. What makes a young woman want to show her knickers to policemen whilst in a drunken state or a young man drop his trousers for a cheap thrill? It's hardly nature. It's got to be society's nurture.

So Sir Roger could start by addressing the slack approach taken by social services and others to inappropriate behaviour. But I somehow guess he won't. Not his department, is it? Far better to make a mint from nine million people and claim the paedophiles are out of the loop.

Here's his problem. He gets all nine million signed up and starts counting his takings. Then an outrage occurs and a police officer stands before the cameras saying, "This one was below our radar!". What does Sir Roger say next?

Public Servant Daily - Latest News from the Public Sector [ 9-Feb-10 11:46am ] [ T ]

Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk [ 9-Feb-10 11:17am ] [ T ]

Minute-by-minute coverage as Labour's general election coordinator, Douglas Alexander, and Andy Burnham, the health secretary, outline the party's plans for the NHS

10.38am: That's it. Here are the main points.

o Burnham denied being in favour a £20,000 levy on estates to pay for a national care programme. He said that the government was still considering its options. And he attacked the Conservative alternative as "backward-looking".

o He reaffirmed Labour's commitment to giving suspect cancer patients the right to diagnosis within a week. He claimed this would save 10,000 lives and he said it would cost over £500m.

o Alexander announced a new online campaign attacking Tory health policy.

10.36am: Asked again about social care, Burnham says he set out three models in the green paper: a partnership model, a voluntary model and a compulsory model.

He says there is "no decision within government" as to which of those three models the government will promote.

The Tory proposal for people to pay an £8,000 insurance fee is "backward looking". It provides an incentive to put more older people in care.

10.32am: Q: Where does the money come from? And will Labour have a pledge card?

Burnham says Alistair Darling has promised to protect frontline services for the next three years.

Alexander says health will be a central feature of the campaign.

We want there to be a very clear choice in relation to policy.

That's why he wants to ensure "adequate scrutiny" of the Conservative party.

Q: So will there be a pledge card?

Alexander says we will have to see whether there are five pledges, 10 pledges or more.

10.29am: Q: What cancers will this target?

Burnham says it is particularly important to target lung cancer, bowel cancer and ovarian cancer.

Q: Where did the 10,000 lives saved figure come from? And won't faster diagnoses produce a bottleneck?

Burnham says GPs tell him they could do more tests more quickly if they have access to the right equipment.

Because patients aren't picked up quickly enough, they have to go into hospital for more invasive treatment.

By making this decisive shift towards a more preventative service, we can make better use of resources.

10.24am: Q: Is Labour planning a death tax on estates to pay for the national care service?

Burnham says there is a consensus that long-term care services need "fundamental reform".

The government published a green paper last year. It is consulting on options.

The story on this in the Guardian today is "inaccurate in a number of ways".

There is a "scurrilous campaign" being run by the Conservatives on this.

Q: Where is the Guardian story inaccurate?

Burnham says it talks about a £20,000 flat levy. Burnham says a flat levy of that kind is not his preferred option.

The Conservatives have set their face against reform ... I believe the biggest mistake this country could be would be to step back from reform.

If the government abandoned reform, it would leave an "inadequate" and "unfair" system in place.

People are paying from their own pockets "in large amounts" to fund the cost of care.

10.21am: Q: When does the target get rolled out? And how much does it cost?

Burnham says he is "confident" it can be introduced by 2015.

Hospital trusts would strike deals with GP practices to deliver this.

It would cost £180m a year for the first three years. That's the cost of new equipment.

10.18am: Q: Haven't we heard about this seven-day target before? And aren't the Tories right about cancer outcomes being very poor in the UK?

Burnham says:

And I was sitting here thinking you did not have memories that long.

He admits Gordon Brown announced that one-week pledge before Labour's conference.

On survival rates, Burnham says the NHS has reduced cancer mortality rates by 19%.

10.15am: We're onto questions.

Burnham says today's pledge is about creating new "testing capacity" within the NHS.

Q: How will the government achieve its plan to save £2.7bn by moving more care from hospital to home?

Burnham says the figures have been "carefully worked out" in the department of health. He can provide a full breakdown. (Cathy Newman from Channel 4 asked the question. On her factcheck blog, she suggested yesterday that these figures are bogus.)

10.14am: Alexander says voteNHS will build on the support of internet campaigns like Ed's Pledge and Back the Ban.

Labour is also launching a CameraON/CameraOFF campaign to highlight the difference between Tory rhetoric and Tory reality.

10.09am: Alexander and Burnham are here.

Burnham says he does not believe in over-claiming for the NHS. He's not complacent. There are many places where it could improve. But there have been real improvements over the last few years.

At the 2005 election Labour promised to bring down waiting times to a 18 week maximum and to half MRSA rates. People said it could not be done. But it was achieved, he says.

Today Labour is promising to ensure cancer patients get their results back within one week by 2015. Experts say this could save 10,000 lives.

Catching cancer early also saves on treatment cost further down the line, he says.

This will place cancer services in the UK "on a par with the best in the world".

Burnham says:

As we have seen in the past, the NHS can move mountains when it is given a very clear job to do.

Labour's national guarantees will be the "battleground" for the election.

The Tories would scrap the guarantees on day one of a David Cameron government, Burnham says.

Labour today puts its cards on the table.

10.07am: They've just handed out a news release. Burnham is launching a voteNHS.com website to support a key element of Labour's health manifesto. The release says:

The "target cancer" campaign aims to save up to 10,000 lives by backing a pledge to create a new NHS guarantee of cancer diagnosis within one week of GP referral, allowing patients to be tested and told their results in just seven days.

9.59am: I'm at Victoria Street now in the holding room, waiting for the press conference to begin. Coffee and biscuits are available.

Reading Gordon Brown's speech, I see that Labour's health policy has got more guarantees than a branch of Currys. There's a cancer guarantee, a waiting time guarantee, a GP access guarantee, a health check guarantee and a care guarantee.

8.58am: The Labour party is holding another campaign press conference this morning.

Douglas Alexander, the general election co-ordinator, and Andy Burnham, the health secretary, have invited journalists to their HQ at Victoria Street to hear them "outline Labour's campaign for the NHS and the threat posed by David Cameron and the Conservative party policy on the NHS".

I'm not sure how good it's going to be; Gordon Brown delivered a big speech on the NHS just yesterday. But if they don't have much new to say about the NHS, there are plenty of other topics to ask about. The press conference starts at 10am.

• Health policy
• Labour
• NHS
• Health

Andrew Sparrow

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o City regulator thrown into chaos as chief executive resigns
o Move casts doubt over future of the FSA

The City regulator was thrown into chaos this morning as chief executive Hector Sants resigned.

Sants, a former banker, is stepping down from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the summer. He has decided to tender his resignation ahead of the election, which has cast uncertainty over the future of the FSA because the Conservatives have a policy to disband the regulator.

Concerns will now be mounting about the willingness of chairman Lord Turner to remain in his post during a radical overhaul of financial regulation following the taxpayer bailout of the banking system.

While Sants had told friends that he intended to stay as chief executive for only three years, the timing of his departure so close to the election will raise speculation that he decided to announce his departure now because of the uncertainty facing the FSA.

The Conservatives have announced plans to disband the FSA and hand its powers for supervising banks to the Bank of England, effectively tearing up the system of regulation introduced by Labour when it was swept to power in 1997. The opposition has blamed the current tripartite system - involving the FSA, the Bank of England and the Treasury - for the current financial crisis.

Sants said: "When I was appointed I told the board that I planned to serve as chief executive for three years, and I intend to stick to that timetable. Of course, those three years have encompassed the most extraordinary circumstances for a financial regulator, and I am very proud of the manner in which the FSA rose to the challenge of dealing with such unprecedented turbulence across global financial markets.

"Moreover, I believe the FSA candidly examined the failings in financial regulation that contributed to the onset of the crisis, learned the lessons and has gone on to reform itself into a much stronger and better equipped organisation.

"I believe the FSA has made great strides in ensuring that such individuals are in place in the UK and I am sure that after I leave they will continue to do invaluable work to ensure financial stability and protect the interests of consumers."

He joined the regulator in May 2004 as the managing director responsible for wholesale and institutional markets which allowed him to avoid direct criticism of the supervision of Northern Rock, the first bank to endure a crisis of confidence in living memory.

The banking crisis erupted just as he became chief executive in July 2007, from which point he was embroiled in overseeing the nationalisation of Northern Rock and the bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS.

Turner tried to present a picture of business as usual at the FSA and paid tribute to Sants. "Hector has given outstanding service and leadership through the turbulent last three years and has played a pivotal role in reforming the FSA into a truly effective organisation. He will leave behind an organisation with strong purpose and a clear strategy," said Turner.

"We will be immensely sorry to lose him, but understand his decision to move on in the summer and wish him well in whatever he chooses to do after his departure. In the meantime, we will continue to work together to deliver the FSA's reformed and intensive supervisory approach and drive forward the global regulatory reform agenda.".

• Financial Services Authority (FSA)
• Banking
• Conservatives

Jill Treanor

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