The price of a pint

I'm getting cross, and I don't like getting cross, especially at Christmas, and especially when it's a government that includes my own party that's making me cross.

It's this 'minimum alcohol pricing' thing. I thought as a party the Liberal Democrats had a grown-up, intelligent approach to substance abuse, as evidenced by its forward thinking on, for example, drugs policy. But it appears that every argument put forward in that area - that criminalisation doesn't help break addiction, that driving substances underground merely puts them and their users into the hands of the criminal fraternity, that prohibition doesn't stop use of substances but just makes illegal and dangerous versions of them more commonplace - seems to have been thrown out of the window when it comes to these daft proposals on alcohol pricing.

Has anyone conclusively shown that forcing up the price of alcoholic drink in supermarkets is a good and effective way of curing people of alcohol addiction? Has it been shown that making people pay more for beer, wines and spirits will reduce levels of consumption or make binge drinkers start drinking responsibly? No? I didn't think so. Then what is this government doing making this meaningless gesture?

As a liberal, I start from the basis that adults are grown-ups and should be treated as such; and that the state should butt out of people's private lives unless absolutely necessary. The stupid proposal to force up alcohol prices for no proven benefit, on the spurious grounds that people will then behave as the government wants them to, fails on both counts. It's nanny-statism of the first order, and I want none of it.

I don't like starting a new year in a grumpy mood with my own party, so will the sensible people on the Lib Dem benches - and I know you're there, I've met you! - please start doing something about it? Kthanxbai.

The censorship of Tim Minchin

Last night this song by Tim Minchin was axed by ITV from Jonathan Ross's Christmas show. If you're of a religious disposition and easily offended* you may of course not want to watch it - but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to if I wish. It's certainly a relief from the commercial pap we get from John-bloody-Rutter every December.

Now up until yesterday my knowledge of Tim Minchin's work has been close to zero, and I wouldn't stay up past my bedtime to watch Jonathan Ross, but I'm absolutely incensed by ITV's total spinelessness in censoring what is in fact a very clever and very funny song.

The official line from ITV is that

"It's not unusual for there to be changes to the show in the edit, as we shoot more than goes out, and we felt the tone wasn't quite right for the Christmas show."

This of course is complete and utter horsefeathers. The presence of a Tim Minchin song in the show was trailed in the TV schedules at least a week in advance, which would make it the last candidate to be cut in the final edit.

The gutlessness of ITV in censoring this song (and therefore denying Tim the chance to promote his DVD which was mentioned at the end of the song) is clearly down to the Achilles heel of all commercial television, fear of loss of advertising revenue. Someone with an eye on the financial bottom line obviously got an attack of the jitters at the thought of the likes of the Daily Mail and the Daily Express whipping up their readership into another moral frenzy and frightening off the advertisers. The association of Jonathan Ross with the story would have been an absolute dream to the red-tops, as they'd be able once again to drag up the whole sorry Jonathan Ross - Russell Brand - Andrew Sachs saga (in which, by the way, Ross behaved like a total prat) over a slow news week and get the juices of the right-wing 'moral majority' nicely basting along with the Christmas turkey.

This scenario is exactly why we need to retain public service broadcasting in Britain. The right-wing vision of an end to the BBC and the total domination of the airwaves by for-profit entertainment businesses would mean that artists like Tim Minchin would be at constant risk of censorship by profit-making broadcasting companies ruled by fear of the impact of populist right-wing newspapers on the advertisers who keep them in business.

I don't see why what I am allowed to watch on my television should be dictated by an accountant at ITV with one eye on the editor of the Daily Mail. Censorship is the enemy of a free society, and so is the tabloid press and the management of the commercial broadcasting businesses who pander to it.

*Not all religious people are narrow-minded and censorious, I know; and I firmly believe every child should be given a strong foundation in school in the basics of all the world's key religions and belief systems. In fact, I suspect the fuss in this instance is being made by people with little personal interest in religion at all. It's all about money, at the end of the day.

Introducing Beattie

Please meet Beattie, my first car. It's taken me to the age of 53, but earlier this month I finally passed my driving test.

I hadn't expected ever to learn to drive, but when my husband left me in the summer I realised I had no choice, living as I do in a village six miles from the nearest town and with the Conservative county council slashing to ribbons even what little public transport we have.

Buying Beattie has left me in debt for the first time in my life. But on the other hand, she means I can get to places I couldn't otherwise reach, and go where I want when I want. I only got her on Monday, and already I've taken her to Cheveley, Lode, Ely and down the M11 to Harlow and Sawbridgeworth. I've manoeuvred her into and out of parking spaces in the seasonal shopper traffic at Waitrose and Tesco, and she's helped me bring my Christmas shopping home.

There's no greater Christmas present than having my liberty. A big thank you to my brilliant driving instructor Tony Lam who has achieved the impossible.

In memoriam Cllr Nick Macy

Nicholas (Nick) Macy joined my group of Liberal Democrat councillors in Harlow in 1999, following his election as councillor for what was then Mark Hall South ward. I'd known him for some years before that, however, and his son Jonathan's description of him at his funeral yesterday as 'unique' hit the nail firmly on the head.

Nick was a learned man; he was a company secretary by profession, but he had read history at Oxford, and one of his favourite 'party tricks' when collecting voters' numbers at the polling station was to read the voter's electoral number and list the historical events that had taken place in that year. He loved learning and finding out new things, and I remember his genuine pleasure when I introduced him to a new word, 'genizeh', which he hadn't previously known. What could be perceived as argumentativeness was just part of his real love for knowledge and desire to test and probe theories and assertions.

Nick was a member of the Liberal Party from the age of 14, and was a liberal to his core. He was deeply loyal to his political colleagues and absolutely committed to the values of his party. He was the first ever non-Labour chair of Harlow District Council, and didn't allow his speech impediment to prevent him from carrying out such a high-profile public role in his local community. And he kept the local party's printing society going, with many hours devoted not just to churning paper through the Risograph but also maintaining and submitting the society's accounts.

But what always impressed me most about Nick was his joy in his role as paterfamilias - husband to Caroline, father to Eleanor (also a councillor for some years) and Jonathan and Philip, and grandfather to Katie and Timothy. He was a real family man, and I know that they will all miss him enormously.

Only men allowed?

I don't normally get all 'wimmin' about things. And my interest in sport is almost, though not precisely, zero (I do watch some of the Wimbledon matches - tennis is the only sport whose rules I understand). But even I am truly and utterly shocked that the shortlist for the 2011 Sports Personality of the Year award is 100 per cent male. Is there really not one single female sports player whose presence in such a shortlist would be appropriate?

I understand that the process of drawing up this shortlist is left to a group of male sports journalists and, inexplicably, the editors of a couple of 'lads' mags'. It seems to me that, given the reputation of both genres, someone needs to find a better shortlisting method, and pronto.

Any Questions?

To Ely tonight, as I have a ticket for the recording of Radio 4's Any Questions which is being broadcast from the Hayward Theatre at The King's School. It's a pretty unbalanced panel, as sadly all too often from the BBC; right-wingers James Delingpole and Justine Greening versus socialists Richard Horton and Mary Creagh.

The questions are of course topical: the economic situation in Greece, the threatened Unison strikes, the Tobin tax - and the recent report about the difference between the Scottish and English diets. Justine Greening makes one or two reasonably telling points but is hardly a heavy hitter. James Delingpole lives up to everything I expect of him (unfounded nonsense, basically), and Richard Horton makes few friends trying to defend public sector pensions in a room full of people whose provision is nothing like as generous. Mary Creagh flannels on every question, and she gets a hard time from Jonathan Dimbleby who clearly isn't buying her.

It's a fun evening out, but if I were pushed to describe how it has contributed to the sum of human knowledge I'd be hard pressed.

County councillors' allowances: sign the petition!

I've spent today in Ely, collecting signatures on a petition to try to overturn the recent incredibly ill-judged and ill-timed decision by Conservatives on Cambridgeshire County Council to award themselves a 25 per cent pay increase. Pictured* are Cllrs Neil Morrison, Jonathan Chatfield, and Kilian Bourke collecting signatures in Ely market square today - Cllrs Nigel Bell and Jeremy Friend-Smith also joined us, and we collected over 500 signatures in very short order. If you agree that county councillors shouldn't be awarding themselves massive pay increases while cutting jobs and services, you can sign the petition online.

*While taking this picture I cleverly managed to drop my uninsured BlackBerry Storm 2 on the pavement and smash the LCD screen to smithereens - less than four weeks after having renewed my contract with T-Mobile for another two years. An expensive butterfingers moment!

Polling day

I took advantage of being in Cambridge for two work meetings today to pop into the Senate House, accompanied by Harlow friends and fellow Cambridge graduates David Wright and Peter Mabey, to cast my vote for the Chancellorship of the University of Cambridge.

It's a long time - 1847, in fact - since there was an actively contested election to choose the Chancellor of the University; the winner on that occasion was Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert. This time, following the retirement of Prince Philip earlier this year, there are four candidates: the 'establishment' candidate Baron Sainsbury of Turville; local shopkeeper Abdul Arain; left-wing lawyer Michael Mansfield QC; and actor and national treasure Brian Blessed.

As someone who has taken their MA at the University (by the usual method of staying alive for three years after getting my BA, and paying a small consideration into university coffers), I'm entitled to vote in the election, and if I'm not going to get another chance until I'm 216 years old, I thought I'd better get in there while I could.

The whole event was impressively well organised by the University, from the stock of academic gowns available for us to wear (in line with university rules) while we voted, to the tea and cakes afterwards, and the desks where we could update our contact details, renew our CamCards (money off all sorts of things in Cambridge!), or pick up brochures for alumni holidays, lecture programmes and other delights.

I was very pleased to have the chance to chat with Dr Tilby, Director of Studies for modern languages at my old college (who once kindly sent me down a glass of wine at dinner for reading the Latin grace before the meal); and to bump into Cambridge's energetic MP Julian Huppert on the way out of the Senate House.

Voting takes place today and tomorrow, using the Liberal Democrats' preferred fair voting system (the Single Transferable Vote), and I'll be fascinated to see who wins.

Retaining DNA

An analysis of the retention of suspects' DNA has finally been released by the Home Office. The conclusion of the Straight Statistics web site is that

"Despite the limitations of the analysis, acknowledged by its authors, it does suggest that the retention periods allowed under the 2001 and 2003 acts were unduly long, as were those proposed in the 2010 bill. The present bill, which is broadly similar to the law in Scotland, gets the balance more nearly right. That makes it all the odder that the Home Office was so reluctant to let it see the light of day."

Good to see illiberal Labour legislation being rolled back by a Lib Dem-influenced government.

European Day of Languages

In a country that generally regards with deep suspicion the ability to speak more than one language, I feel inexpressibly proud to watch this and see a UK party leader who is able to communicate in their own language with people from such a range of European countries.

Benefit of law

The very excellent Bystander has just posted an entry on his blog including the following superb quote from one of my very favourite films, A Man For All Seasons:

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

It's part of an interchange between Thomas More and his idealistic hothead son-in-law William Roper, at a time when More is in increasing danger because of his refusal to consent to the divorce of Henry VIII from Katharine of Aragon and remarriage to Anne Boleyn.

Bystander quotes it in the context of lawyers being attacked for doing their job by defending unpopular clients. But it also occurs to me it's equally applicable to those who believe that we don't need human rights, and would like to sweep away all the legislation that protects us from abuse by governments and others.

As someone else has so rightly said, if you don't believe in human rights, please indicate which of these you want to give up.

If Eurovision used FPTP

I can't say I liked Azerbaijan's entry for the Eurovision song contest last night - but then none of entries were songs I'd actually go out and buy. But a bizarre comment on Twitter last night from one @georgeowers that "I notice that #eurovision uses First-Past-the-Post" (what?!) set me thinking: what would Eurovision be like if it actually did use First Past The Post instead of its present system (a version of the Borda count)?

Last night's results are here - and it's clear from this table that under First Past The Post, if each country had had only one vote, and had given that one vote to the country it gave 'douze points' to last night, the winner would have been Bosnia & Herzegovina, who actually came sixth last night. Bosnia & Herzegovina had only 11.6 per cent of countries' first preferences, but under a First Past The Post system that would have been enough to propel them to victory. First Past The Post does love a loser, it seems.

But the more interesting issue is what would happen in successive years. We all know that voting in the Eurovision song contest is about the politics not the music - heaven help us if it's about the music! So presumably in the years that followed Bosnia & Herzegovina's win, a 'stop Bosnia & Herzegovina' movement would build up among other countries, who would begin to coalesce around whichever country was most likely to achieve the support necessary to topple Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Fewer votes (under FPTP countries would have only one vote, remember) would go to other countries as more and more efforts were made to oust Bosnia & Herzegovina. Countries who would have achieved only one or two points in Year 1 would receive the dreaded 'nul points' year after year as votes concentrated around Bosnia & Herzegovina and its nearest opponent.

After four or five years of receiving 'nul points' it's hard not to imagine some of these countries dropping out altogether, to avoid the expense of what was clearly going to be an expensive and predictable annual humiliation. The pool of entrants would become smaller and smaller year on year, until the whole thing was reduced to a ritual and increasingly fierce scrap between half a dozen Balkan states, while viewers across the rest of Europe became totally disengaged and switched off in their droves.

I can't imagine for a minute why that reminds me of the current state of British parliamentary politics - no, I really can't.

(h/t to @stuartbonar)

Snakes and ladders

The fall of David Laws, and his resignation just 17 days into his role as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was surely one of the legendary moments of the coalition government. His appearance at the dispatch box on 27 May last year won praise from all sides, making the events of the following day all the more shocking. Since then, he has been waiting for the outcome of the inquiry into his expenses arrangements which, it seems to me, has taken far, far too long in reporting.

In the interim, Laws has been portrayed as a sort of 'king over the water', waiting for the moment when he can return in triumph and set the nation to rights again. He has acquired an almost demi-god status to which, should he ever return to the front bench, it will be impossible to live up (Vince Cable, anyone?).

I will confess that I've never particularly been a paid-up member of the David Laws fan club, although I was impressed by his performance that day last May, and acknowledge that he has a sharp mind. However, I thought he handled the events of a year ago with immense courage and dignity. Punishment of MPs over expenses has been extraordinarily random in its application, with some MPs paying back large amounts of money or even being imprisoned, while others who committed far greater abuses have somehow emerged scot-free. (Incidentally, I largely blame the Daily Telegraph, and its drip-drip-drip serialisation of the expenses story, for this, as it militated against a logical overview of the matter and in favour of an ooh-ah firework display). David Laws has been punished more severely than many who did much worse.

But I believe that the adulation in absentia of David Laws is a dangerous phenomenon, and one into which we who wish him well should not be drawn. The media thrive on movement as opposed to stasis - politics is a game of snakes and ladders to them, and politicians are either on the way up or on the way down. It's that movement that gives them their stories, and while for five minutes they would be quite happy to report the resurrection of Laws from his political ashes, they would be equally content the following day to kick the stool from under his feet and watch him twitch.

I wish David Laws well, and hope that he can soon find a way in which his undoubted talents can be put to use for the benefit of the party and the nation. But he's not Aslan coming to defeat the White Witch and melt the perpetual winter, and ultimately we do him a dangerous disservice if we allow others to suggest he is.

Another of those 'where did it all go wrong' blogposts

Across the country, bleary eyed progressives have sat down in front of their computers over the last 24 hours to share their analysis of what went so very wrong with the referendum on moving to a fairer voting system. It's possible, I suppose, that some good may come of the collected outpourings, informing future campaigns on other issues. But for many of us, I suspect it's just cathartic.

When disappointed - and that's a mild word for knowing that I will now never cast a vote in a fair UK election - it's easy to lash out at others. And, my God, isn't there a queue of others to lash out at. The No campaign, of course, for its daily torrent of what Nick Clegg memorably and accurately described as 'ludicrous bilge'. Cameron, for fronting such a duplicitous campaign. Labour, for failing to back something which was in its own manifesto only twelve months ago. Ed Miliband, for appearing to support the Yes campaignwhile sticking the boot into its main supporters and allowing more than half his MPs to run riot on the issue.

But there were fatal flaws in the Yes campaign, and it would be only a partial tale simply to blame the enemies of reform.

The AV referendum asked voters not merely to accept change, but positively to choose it. Yet the Yes campaign appeared to have little interest in explaining why change was needed, what the proposed change was, or what it would achieve. It left all the actual explanation to the Electoral Commission, whose output it could not control, and whose booklet on the referendum was so appallingly badly presented it might as well have been written by the No campaign.

The message the Yes campaign put forward managed to be both simplistic and unclear: that somehow changing the voting system would mean MPs working harder, when there was no obvious connection. The early television advertisements, showing caricatures of troughing MPs being doorstepped by newly empowered voters, were both ghastly and irrelevant. The war the Yes campaign was fighting was last year's battle on MPs' expenses, and there appeared to be no effort to explain why this was affected by writing 1, 2, 3 on your ballot paper instead of putting a cross.

The bevy of middle-class white luvvies lined up to front the campaign didn't help either. I enjoy Richard Wilson in One Foot in the Grave as much as the next man, and Eddie Izzard's stand-up comedy is always fun, but I'm not sure what qualifies them to advise on electoral systems. They embodied all that was wrong with the Yes campaign - the assumption that the rightness of their cause was so self-evident that it didn't need explaining, and that everyone would automatically share their view. There seemed no attempt to understand what was needed to reach out to people who didn't live in Hampstead or follow Stephen Fry on Twitter, or that it was important to do so.

When I was a councillor, I attended a brilliant presentation by Richard Olivier, son of the great Laurence Olivier. It was intended for council chief executives, but I begged, blagged and wriggled my way in to the overcrowded event because I knew it would be worth it (and it was). Olivier uses Shakespeare's plays to train managers, and on this occasion he was using The Tempest to talk about managing change. He said something very memorable to begin with: that when you want people to accept change you need to start with three things - discontent with the present, a vision of the future, and an acceptable first step. The Yes campaign offered none of these things - indeed, it didn't even seem to understand why it should.

The general level of information about what was at stake was woeful. A polling clerk was telling me about how she'd been at a polling station on the day of the referendum, and a couple had come in to vote. She'd handed them their ballot papers, and the wife had looked at the referendum ballot paper and said "What's this?" It was explained that it was about changing the voting system. She asked what this change was to be, and her husband said he wasn't sure, but he thought it was about being allowed to vote on the internet. "Oh," said the wife, "but I like coming to the polling station. Oh, no." Such is the basis on which millions of people have been denied a meaningful say in our democracy for a generation.

I honestly don't know how we move forward from here. A hundred years ago, the suffragettes didn't give up on votes for women; two hundred years ago, Wilberforce didn't give up on abolition of the slave trade. There have always been No campaigns, blocking progress in the interests of those who benefit from the status quo. I suspect it will take a long, long time now. But we can't go on like this, with governments elected by smaller and smaller percentages of the population, with less and less of a mandate, and a political system that alienates more and more people. One day. One day.

Dan Snow explains AV

Simples.

Guest post on Lib Dem Voice

I was thrilled to be invited recently to write my first ever guest post for Lib Dem Voice. You can read it here.

Cambridgeshire guided busway

A Cambridgeshire County Councillor has just sent me a superb comment from the Cambridge News web site, by a reader (CleverRichard) summing up the latest twist in the infamous Cambridgeshire guided busway saga. It's so brilliant it just has to be preserved for posterity - perhaps on the plaque to be unveiled if and when the accursed thing ever opens.

"The cost of the guided busway (£180 million) now exceeds the amount of money spent making the film Inception ($160 million). However let's look on the bright side, years from now – long after the film is forgotten – Cambridge’s guided busway will be providing us with endless entertainment. It is a safe bet no week will pass without a CEN story about the trolley-folly to brighten our lives during an otherwise dull week. If the clay beneath the busway starts to shift we might even see Cambridgeshire's own version of a Parisian street folding over on itself. Even so it is worth pointing out that there is an important difference between Christopher Nolan's Inception and the Cambridgeshire County Council/BAM Nuttall project. One is a bizarre story about a group of people desperately trying to escape from a dream world of their own making and the other is a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio."

The latest story and assorted reader comments, including the above, are here.

Yes2AV Referendum Broadcast

About that referendum

The About My Vote web site has published a useful video guide to the forthcoming referendum on moving to a fairer voting system. Enjoy.

April Fool

I think April Fool began three days early for me this year. At least, I believe that's what one of the world's most famous courier companies has been doing to me all this week.

I'm expecting a time-critical package from overseas that should have been with me by Tuesday at the latest. On Monday, I'm out walking the dogs and, as luck would have it, when I get back I find a card on the mat to say that said courier company has tried to deliver but I was out.

On Tuesday morning, I email them, using the address provided on their 'sorry you were out' card, and ask them to implement one of the options they offer on their card - to redirect the package to a different address. In my naivety, I think that if I ask for the package to be sent to my husband's place of work instead, with a reception desk and all, it will be certain to be delivered in time. More April fool me.

Still no news by Thursday morning, so I ring my husband at work. No package. Oh no, wait a minute - yes there is, he says. But it doesn't look like what you were expecting. Should I open it to be certain? Yes, I say. So he does. It's not my package, it's some computer peripherals for someone I don't know in Norfolk. Well done!

So, after scrabbling around on their website for ten minutes to try to find a telephone number that isn't an automated system, I ring the courier company. An 0844 number - kerching! What's happened to my package? Oh, they said, it's sitting here on hold in our depot; maybe we didn't receive your email about the redirection. May I beg to differ on that, I ask, bearing in mind that your computers generated an automatic 'read receipt' message when they opened my email, and I have that message here in front of me? Having settled that between ourselves, we agree that the package will be sent to the redirect address (my husband's place of work) to arrive on Friday (today). It's not exactly Tuesday, but by this point that's becoming a little bit academic.

Being of a suspicious nature, this morning I sign on to the courier company's website to track progress. My package is being delivered as arranged, it tells me. Super! But just to be sure, I ring the courier company to confirm where it's going. It's that 0844 number again - kerching kerching! So my package is going to my husband's place of work as discussed yesterday, is it? Oh, no, I'm told; if it were going there today it wouldn't be starting from here. So they tell me they'll deliver it to my home address as originally planned, and I junk all my arrangements for the morning to stay at home to receive it. Wonderful!

Having, I hope, sorted out that part of the problem, it's time to ring the poor gentleman in Norfolk and tell him that his package is safe with me. He's very grateful, though rather puzzled to hear from a complete stranger.

Whoopee! The bell rings mid-morning and it's the package I've been waiting for. I'm not allowed to open it to check it's the correct consignment until I've signed for it - there are rules about that sort of thing, you know - but once I've autographed the deliverer's little docket book, I open the package to check, and sure enough it's fine.

Now, I tell the driver, I have this little matter of this package here for the gentleman in Norfolk - if I give it to you, you can take it back to your depot and send it on from there, can't you? It would appear that the answer to that is no; life isn't that simple. We're not allowed to collect items without a booking, you see, and you haven't made a booking with our office. Look, here's the number, ring them. Oh look, it's another 0844 number - kerching kerching kerching!

A quarter of an hour on the phone to the new 0844 number. The worn and illegible reference number on the package doesn't correspond to any reference number on their system. Whole logistics system thrown into chaos. We'll have to ring you back.

So here am I, sitting waiting for a phone call from a courier company to confirm that they are prepared to collect a package that doesn't belong to me, which through no fault of my own (and every fault of theirs) has ended up here, and which I've had to virtually beg them to come and take away. Splendid!

Any minute now, I'm expecting a hidden camera to swing into view, and the late Jeremy Beadle to pop out from behind it and tell me I've been framed. Well done, *** courier company, you're ace at what you do. And happy April Fool's day, everyone.

Postscript: I almost forgot to say. About half an hour after I'd logged on to the courier company's website on Thursday, I received an email purporting to be from the said company, telling me that my item would be sent to my home address and would be with me in three business days: please see the attached file for details of the order and tracking number. The 'attached file', when I investigated, was a .exe - an executable file no doubt containing some virus, trojan or other nasty. So not only are they incapable of following basic instructions or delivering the right goods to the right customers, but their website's been hacked as well. Marvellous!

1.1 million low-paid out of tax

As The Sun Politics on Twitter said today:

"No wonder Nick Clegg's smiling. Lifting 1.1 million low-paid out of tax in a massive Lib Dem win."

Yes to AV

The secret prisoners

In a post that should chill the marrow of every reader, political blogger Anna Raccoon has reported on Thursday's parliamentary debate in Westminster Hall.

The debate, secured by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, was on Articles 9 and 13 of the Bill of Rights; you can read a full transcript here.

To spend time discussing two clauses of a Bill passed in 1689 under William and Mary may seem an abstruse use of a Thursday afternoon. But Thursday's debate was a step on a lonely but important path that John has, to his credit, been beating for a long time: the dreadful stories of people who have lost their rights, property or even their liberty in secret courts, in some cases prevented by court order from even speaking to their Member of Parliament lest their children be taken away from them - not in Libya or some other far-flung foreign dictatorship, but today, here and now in the United Kingdom.

John Hemming has used parliamentary privilege to tell some of these stories which can now be publicly reported. The full transcript is a long read, but the real life misery described in the cases John describes should give everyone pause for thought, and John should be congratulated for the sterling work he is doing as an MP in shining light into some of the darkest corners of our judicial system.

News of an old adversary

Word reaches me from the Twitterverse that an erstwhile adversary from my Harlow days, Robert Halfon MP, is under threat of legal action for defamation from Liverpool John Moores University over views he has expressed about links between Libya and British universities - information here and here.

Clearly, having stood against him in two General Elections (2001 and 2005) I'm not a particular supporter of Robert's. But Liverpool John Moores' actions in this case seem to me quite illiberal, and I'm therefore pleased that Robert is being represented in this case by the estimable David Allen Green, prominent legal blogger, Twitterer and campaigner for libel law reform.

I'm looking forward to the Government's forthcoming review of the libel laws, and hope that the draft Bill will be further improved as it passes through Parliament to address the concerns that remain.

And in the meantime, Robert, I wish you well on this one.

Another day, another Gove initiative

Heaven help us, it's another education initiative from Michael Gove. This time he wants schools to open ten hours a day and on Saturday mornings. I can't see how that's going to produce anything other than exhausted pupils, exhausted teachers, an end to after-school activities, and a further erosion of family life.

Why is it that politicians think that if something fails, we have to keep doing the same thing only harder?

A lot of children, particularly from poorer backgrounds, are ill served by the present education system. But it seems to me that the most significant changes that would improve the educational chances of our children are smaller class sizes and really inspirational teachers.

I hope the Liberal Democrats' insistence on the pupil premium, paid to schools with children from lower income families, will start to help with the first, though more resources would clearly be needed to bring class sizes down to the levels of our private fee-paying schools. But I can't imagine many teachers being inspirational at five o'clock in the afternoon after having been chained to their desks since half past seven in the morning by Mr Gove.

March North

The result in the Cambridgeshire County Council by-election in March North yesterday was:

• Con 616


• Lab 282


• Lib Dem 277

The Lib Dem share of the vote was well above the national average, the Conservative vote share was down, and the increase in the Labour vote was very much smaller than elsewhere recently.

Clearly it's not an easy time to be contesting local by-elections. The last Labour government made a mess of the economy, and whoever helps clear it up is going to be unpopular for a little while.

But it was a real pleasure to work with Will McAdam - an excellent local candidate, and one to watch for the future.

The law is an ass

Today's ruling by the European Court of Justice that insurance companies must not differentiate between men and women when setting prices for car insurance and other financial products is stupid and perverse.

Responsible young female drivers will have to pay more to cover irresponsible young male drivers, who are statistically twice as likely to have an accident. How is that fair? My student daughter, a careful driver already feeling the financial pinch of rising fuel prices, will see the cost of her car insurance soar by 20-25 per cent, a blow she can ill afford and one she does not deserve. And there'll be hundreds of thousands of young women like her.

I'm not an anti-European. And I believe that as a general principle we cannot expect to pick and choose which laws to obey and which not. But something is seriously wrong with the basis on which the European courts are making asinine judgements like this, and it needs taking in hand fast.

AV (again)

Do you think this is what he meant to say?

Fairer votes: the dishonesty of the No campaign

The Independent today reveals the depths to which the 'No' campaign is prepared to sink in trying to prevent a fairer voting system for Britain.

A series of advertisements has been launched by the 'No' campaign, suggesting that if the move to fairer votes is defeated, there will be more kit for soldiers serving overseas, more equipment for babies in hospital, and all sorts of other extra public spending.

The trouble is, it's completely untrue.

The 'No' campaign claims that moving to a fairer voting system will cost£250 million. But of that £250 million, £82 million is the cost of the referendum itself. If that's the cost of the referendum, it will have been spent whether people vote Yes or No.

And £150 million is apparently for 'electronic counting machines'. Yet nobody has said these would be needed. According to the Financial Times, the independent Electoral Commission hasn't even considered them. And they're not required in Australia, which has used AV for a very long time.

The tactic of the 'No to AV' campaign seems to be to invent some silly and untrue figures and hope the voters will believe them. Voting 'Yes' to fairer votes on 5 May, then, would appear to be an excellent way of demonstrating that we're not as gullible as the 'No' campaign believes we are.

Oh, and just a final thought. If David Cameron doesn't believe in the AV system, shouldn't he step down as Conservative Party leader in favour of David Davis, who would have been Tory leader if the Conservatives used First Past The Post for their own elections?

Stagecoach starts packing up its things

So Stagecoach has taken its cue from Cambridgeshire County Council's Great Bus Cull and started to pack up its bags already. A mere week after the Cambridgeshire Conservatives took an axe to bus travel in the county, Stagecoach is de-registering a range of bus routes across Cambridgeshire.

The Stagecoach no 9 service between Ely and Cambridge will stop earlier in the evenings.

There will be reduced services to Milton (Citi 2 and Citi 4); Duxford and Whittlesford will no longer be served by the Citi 7; Cambridge will lose the City Circle; there will be reduced services on the 12a to Newmarket, the 15 to Swavesey, and into Cambridge from Longstowe and Comberton in the evenings.

The 31a school journeys from Trumpington and Netherhall School will cease to be operated by Stagecoach. The 30 from Ramsay to Huntingdon will cease to operate in the evenings and on Sundays, and the 45 from St Ives to Huntingdon in the evenings.

And that's just for starters. Woe betide you if you live in Cambridgeshire and don't drive.

A fairer, more democratic, greener, liberal country

Climate change: A Summary of the Science

Someone's just pointed me to this summary from the Royal Society. It's worth reading in full, as it's a useful outline of where there is broad agreement on the state of scientific knowledge about climate change, but also where there are uncertainties. But if you don't have that luxury here's the summary at the end:

"There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last half century. This warming trend is expected to continue as are changes in precipitation over the long term in many regions. Further and more rapid increases in sea level are likely which will have profound implications for coastal communities and ecosystems.

It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and associated uncertainties have been made. Scientists continue to work to narrow these areas of uncertainty. Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected.

Like many important decisions, policy choices about climate change have to be made in the absence of perfect knowledge. Even if the remaining uncertainties were substantially resolved, the wide variety of interests, cultures and beliefs in society would make consensus about such choices difficult to achieve. However, the potential impacts of climate change are sufficiently serious that important decisions will need to be made. Climate science – including the substantial body of knowledge that is already well established, and the results of future research – is the essential basis for future climate projections and planning, and must be a vital component of public reasoning in this complex and challenging area."

The Royal Society is a Fellowship of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.

In case we forget

It's worth just reminding ourselves occasionally of the complete and utter mess in which Labour left the public finances when they were kicked out of office last year.

This year we'll be spending over £43bn just on the interest on our debts. That’s £830m per week. Just under £119m a day. For that money, we could
- build a new primary school every hour
- buy a new Chinook helicopter every day
- take 11 million people out of paying income tax
- triple the number of doctors in our hospitals.