The UK Needs a Growth Strategy . . . . so here it is! (Part 1)

It's pretty widely accepted that the UK economy is in trouble again.  There's been no 'double-dip' recession so far, but the economy is flatlining.  We've had growth of only 0.2% over the last 9 months, and the forecasts are equally grim for the next months. Inflation remains high at 4.5%, consumer and business confidence is rock bottom, consumer spending is flat and the mini-manufacturing boom of the start of the year has vanished. Internationally the world is in even worse trouble. The EU is still neck deep in a sovereign debt crisis that it seems incapable of getting itself out of, the US has downgraded its previous growth since the recession, and even China and the other leading emerging economies are struggling. Having blown their reserves getting through the first crisis they are fighting even higher Inflation than us and, with eerily familiarity, the first signs of credit drying up in economies become dangerously dependent on cheap money.

All is not yet lost though. The British economy is not yet going backwards, but it is barely moving forward . It's like a car whose engine is grinding away but doesn't quite have the power to push it up the hill. But it hasn't stalled entirely.  The reason growth has ground to a halt is the over-hang of the incredible levels of debt that built up until 2008. Businesses, the financial sector, households have all been plowing money into paying off debts rather than increasing output, for the first time in 20 years.  And the government has been straining every sinew to cut the deficit, and bring the explosion of public debt under control. This is important, and indeed essential to future prosperity.  We have had a debt crisis, we need to reduce our debts.  But underlying growth is needed so we can pay off our debts.

The government's original economic strategy was to focus on getting the deficit under controls, thus securing confidence in the UK's ability to control its debt and through that secure the low interest rates essential to our tentative recovery. Beyond that, Monetary stimulus would improve liquidity and lending, the devaluation of the pound would boost manufacturing and exports, and tax hikes on consumption and financial services would raise extra money while further encouraging the economy to rebalance away from consumption, debt and banking towards manufacturing and exports. Business investment and export trade would provide the fuel for the economy to steadily rebalance itself and pay off debt allowing it to move onto a more balanced and stable long-term footing.

'Expansionary fiscal contraction' hasn't quite worked out the way it was hoped though. International conditions have deteriorated dramatically and confidence has collapsed. With the whole world sinking Business investment and Exports just can't provide enough boost to push growth along. No growth risks the economy sinking back into self-reinforcing recession. It means no extra money to pay off private debts and not enough extra jobs and profits to increase taxes, cut spending and close the government's deficit. There are, thankfully, at last signs that the government is properly facing up to the reality that they need to do more to encourage growth and that deficit reduction alone, while necessary, is not sufficient to ensure recovery.  Especially with International conditions so poor. Plan A has proved insufficient.  So what is the alternative?  Well, there are two main points of view on that one. Either Plan B, Or Plan A+. 

Labour and left-wing sources have called for Plan B 'to support jobs and growth'.  Unfortunately what they mean by this seems to just be more government borrowing and spending, and more debt, rather than facing up to the more complicated issues slowing our economy. They blame the slowdown in the recovery on the government's spending cuts. I still think this approach is rubbish. Overall Britain has the 2nd largest private and public debts of any country. We need to beat this as fast as possible or we will never get back to truly stable prosperity. Devotees of 'Plan B' seem to have a belief in the almost magical power of government spending. They seem to think that what is in reality merely a slower rate of growth in nominal state spending is entirely to blame for all our economic woes; but the massive convulsions shaking the world economy in Europe, the US and elsewhere, not to mention rampaging inflation, and the drag caused by households and businesses ploughing money into paying off their own debts, is totally irrelevant. This is plain nonsense.

They also cheerfully ignore the reality that Britain could face rising interest rate and collapsing economic credibility. We have to worry about the supplying our deficit as well as the demand for it in the economy. Our struggling economy increases the case for a higher deficit to support private demand, but it also simultaneously increases difficulty in funding that deficit, cancelling this argument out. This is not just some right-wing scare story. We have almost the highest deficit of any country but yet thanks to our commitment to taming that deficit in the next 5 years we enjoy interest rates almost the lowest in the world for both public and private debt. It is correct that we were never in as bad shape as Greece or Ireland. Nor has our political system been as dysfunctional as America's. But when even countries like Spain and Italy are facing interest rates of 6% it becomes impossible to deny that Britain could have faced similar problems, if strong and determined action hadn't been taken. A higher deficit might have helped cushion the fall in growth thus far, but it may also have pushed interest rates up enough to counter any beneficial effects, or even worse.

In addition, regardless of its intrinsic merits, having committed ourselves to this plan to abandon it would hit confidence hard, as a frank admission of failure. Our current relatively privileged position rests on global confidence in our government's plans, whatever they may be.  To dramatically change direction would quite probably shatter that confidence, thus bringing about the result it was intended to avoid. There is another alternative to a Plan B of increasing borrowing and debt. That is what has been called Plan A+.  This regards Osbourne's program of deficit reduction as an essential basis for stability, but accepts the argument that deficit reduction alone is not enough and that it needs to be 1 wing of government policy complimented by an equal 2nd wing, a push for growth. A major drive across the entire range of possible government policy to improve the UK's supply side economic efficiency and productivity and thus improve growth through measures other than just crudely increasing demand.  So what would a full Plan A+ look like? 

Here under 10 broad headings I outline the steps the government could take to give the UK the boost to growth is so desperately needs. 

1) Complete Measures to ease Planning Restrictions.

One of the Government's key pro-Growth measures is a radical overhaul of the regulation surrounding getting planning permission for new construction and development.  Business leaders have long identified restrictions on planning and development as a major brake on growth in the UK. Official guidance on planning decisions now spans thousands of pages and it is reportedly slower and more expensive to gain planning permission for major projects than in almost any other European country.  According to some reports between twice and ten times more expensive.  The government has committed to massively cutting down regulation, from thousands of pages to 60, while simultaneously localising decision making and abandoning central targets and planning quotas.  For the first time a presumption in favour of (sustainable) development is being introduced.  It is estimated that our slower and less responsive planning system costs the economy £3 billion a year relative to the average of our competitors. If reform could deliver benefits of even a part of this figure it would be a significant economic boost.

2) Even-handed Business & Employment de-regulation.

The Labour years from 1997-2010 saw a vast explosion in the quantity of regulation surrounding Businesses and Employment. From the Social Chapter to the Equality Act the government imposed a vast range of new requirements around environmental issues, health and safety, employee rights, anti-discrimination measures, etc.  All these impose costs on businesses and especially small businesses that lack the capacity to spread the costs across a large turnover. Labour never found a problem they thought they couldn't regulate into submission, often in a haphazard and expensive way. The government should hold a wide-ranging review on all regulations on Business and Employment seeking to save the economy Billions of pounds a year through time and expense saved by reducing this burden.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do this though. Some right-wingers figures have recently campaigned on this front against the introduction of the latest Working Time Directive, which extends employment protection to temp workers. This is to take the wrong approach though. We don't need one class of workers who are cossetted and one group that lack even basic protections, whether that's between permanent and temporary workers in employee rights, or between public and private workers with the issue of pensions. What we need is comprehensive approach that works out what is a decent minimal level of protection and support that should apply to all workers, but which minimises the cost in time and expense to employers. Some amount of regulation and worker protection is an essential feature of a decent country and economy, but too much of it can backfire. Regulation that makes it very difficult to fire permanent workers will also reduce the willingness and likelihood of hiring workers, thus protecting those in a job at the expense of those without one, and encouraging employers to hire temporary staff with more flexible conditions. On a large scale this may even have detrimental social effect, introducing division between those workers who are so secure and those who aren't, as has actually happened in some European countries. Another argument is that extensive regulation does give protection we would like to have, like good services and lower taxes, but when the country is broke we accept that this may require paying more taxes and getting less services than we'd like, equally it may mean having less regulatory protection for a while as a cost of getting our economy back to a stable position.    

3) Reign back on and re-target 'Green' Polices.

There is a growing focus in government on bringing in 'Green' policies that are aimed at reducing our Carbon emissions over the next 20 years to hit various targets to combat Global Warming. Largely this consists of subsidising renewable energy and attempting to raise the price of energy generally to make renewable energy competitive, and to spur investment and research into these fuels. Unfortunately this is forecast to lead to a significant increase in fuel and electricity bills, particularly hitting those most energy intensive businesses, generally manufacturing and industry, to the tune of billions of pounds. This obviously goes right against our need to rebalance our economy. It may also prove largely futile if our efforts merely lead to industry relocating to countries with cheaper energy. 'Greening' our economy, like a strong welfare state is something that relies on general prosperity to fund it. They cannot be opposed. The public will not accept green measures that cut their standard of living, and Green measures that hit the economy will not last past the damage they cause. Environmentalists must abandon any policy plan built on such a basis. But the public can and do embrace Environmentally friendly measures when these measures work with them and make life easier. The massive growth in recycling coincides with government taking steps to make recycling easy, not with people being threatened into it. Also environmental targets must be feasible. We are currently signed up to strong theoretical targets for emission reduction that look good but like almost every other country we are on the way to missing by a clear mile.

This is all clearly ridiculous. But the government can take action to change these features.  It could soften our targets for Emission reduction somewhat, leaving targets that are still strong compared to where we are at the moment, but which we have a cat's chance of hell of hitting, rather than just sounding nice, and then make sure we really hit them. It should cut the cost of Green policies by reducing ridiculous levels of subsidies on certain renewable energy sources, like feed in tariffs for solar energy that are more twice the general cost of electricity. It should abandon a restricted view of what is acceptable renewable energy, and concentrate on what is practical, embracing nuclear as a relatively cheap and non-carbon intensive source of power, as well as off-shore hydro and wave, while abandoning its Quixotic obsession (if you'll excuse the pun) with Wind energy, which is expensive, ineffective and a total eyesore, even if very Green. It should focus efforts on helping households and businesses save and reuse energy, through programs to insulate homes, like the 'Green New Deal' and re-use heat and energy in industrial processes rather than just raising the price of energy until no-one can afford it. These measures would cut the cost of green policy and focus it towards saving energy, and thus cutting costs for homes and businesses and increasing their efficiency rather than pricing them out of energy.

4) Continue pursuing Public Service revolutions in Justice, Health, Education, Welfare.

The current Coalition government is currently pursuing major reform in almost every one of our major public services. These reforms have the possibility of dramatically increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of our public services at the time we need it most. In our Justice system, the government is attempting a rehabilitation revolution.  If even moderately successful this could cut serious sums of money off the massive costs to our economy from crime, as well as the expense of locking up an ever expanding number of people.  In Education, Britain has slipped down the international league tables for basic Maths and English skills, and too many of our schools are average rather than excellent. Businesses frequently complain about the standards of basic skills of high-school and even university graduates. The government is expanding spending on apprenticeships and technical education, and attempting a revolution in Schools, giving many schools extensive freedoms to run themselves while nationally improving the quality and rigour of qualifications. In Welfare the government is transforming welfare to alleviate the welfare trap that many people find themselves in and incentivise employment and work.  These measures will hopefully cut welfare spending and encourage into jobs. In Health the government is transforming the NHS in order to help is make an unprecedented £20 billion of savings and improve productivity in one of the largest organisations in the world. Improving productivity in these vital services would be worth billions to the economy a year and with the continuing likelihood of there being little extra money to spare they are vital to driving improvement in these essential public services that our economy relies on so heavily.

5) Continue efforts to improve Public productivity: procurement, quangos, PFI etc.

The Public sector in Britain generally consists about 40% of our economy, and over the last 3 years since the recession it has made up 50%. How efficiently this money is spent makes a huge difference to our economic performance and our capacity for growth. It is estimated that if public sector productivity had grown at the same rate as private sector productivity over the last several years then it would add 0.5% to our annual growth. There are various the ways that government can boost the general productivity of public sector spending.

The current government has launched reviews of procurement led by Philip Green, to look at the opportunity to use central government's spending power to gain better economies of scale in procurement, and this has outlined £3 billion of savings that could be achieved by co-ordinated action.  There has been a 'bonfire of the Quangos', operationally independent but publicly funded bodies that Labour set up in vast numbers. Dozens of these bodies have been abolished or merged, or their functions returned to the relevant government departments, with the best estimate for savings at around £1.5 billion a year. The spending cuts themselves have led to a massive drive to save money in back-office functions, in attempt to make cuts while sparing highly visible 'front-line' services as far as possible. Both central and local government are making huge efforts to save money by merging and cutting back office functions between departments. This is estimated to save £6 billion a year by 2015. 

PFI has been another area the government has attempted to gain better value-for-money. PFI is a program where the private companies build major public infrastructure projects, like a school or hospital, and the public sector rents them back for a fixed period after which they become public sector property. It is possible for PFI to deliver good value for money, but Labour went at PFI like a drunk let loose in a wine cellar. A government investigation has suggested that the public sector got only £50 billion worth of assets for a £200 billion commitment and on average PFI were 50% more expensive than conventional government borrowing. In an attempt to recoup some of these huge costs there has been growing calls for a massive across-the-board re-evaluation of all PFI contracts. The problem is that these companies have legal contracts, so even if the government does decide the contracts were insanely generous then they cannot force companies to re-negotiate. If companies refuse one other option is to levy a windfall tax specifically on those companies deemed to have made excessive profits from PFI. This is still a remarkably complicated move though.  Either way it is done it is possible that serious drive in this direction could save £1-2 billion a year in costs on these projects.


(That's 1-5. I decided to cut it up for time constraints and to keep it short.  I hope to be posting entries 6-10, from tax reform to allowance rushing shortly, so please come back soon.)

God Bless you, George Monbiot. You've never been so right!

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George Monbiot does speaks a lot of total rubbish.  But, My God, when he's right, he's right.

On the Guardian website he's making a point I've thought true for years.

That academic knowledge and research is painfully restricted from the wider public by a high wall of ridiculous prices for books and journals.  
 
That academic discussion and research, much of it funded by every single taxpayer, is kept hidden and restricted for the benefit of journal publishers and academic institutions, locking that information within small and incestuous 'professional' academic circles, much to the detriment of our entire wider society.
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Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist
Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research paid for by us. Down with the knowledge monopoly racketeers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
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Only he says it far more eloquently (and well informed) than I ever could!

It's good to see a mainstream journalist giving both barrels on such a nerdy and niche,  but I really think quite important, issue.  So Good on you George Monbiot, Guardian hack that you may be.  Keep fighting the good fight.

And if you're interested in the spread of knowledge and discussion in our society do give his article a read.

We have Nothing to Learn from these Riots!

And there is a very simple reason for that.  Because all the pious, boring observations trotted out by commentators and politicians are all things that we damn well should have known already!

Of course mindless, idiotic, destructive, unbelievably selfish and heartless destruction , theft and violence is totally unjustifiable or excusable regardless of other factors.  But then we should already know that!

Of course there exists an underclass in our society, dangerously detached from the respectable mainstream of our society, ghettoised geographically, educationally under-qualified to compete in a globalised world, and utterly let down by a society that has simultaneously preached mindless consumerism and an open contempt for the traditional moral and spiritual values that kept communities together despite poverty and social neglect. But then we should already know that!

The gross failure of the education system when for poorer communities, the lack of stable families and male role models, the sneering contempt at every single common social institution from the liberal 'elite'; the inter-generational worklessness reinforced by pockets of bad education, low skills, crap environments, widespread reliance on welfare, and geographical isolation from jobs and investment.  The collapse of an actual sense of community among 'communities' caused by the decline of the social institutions that have traditionally bonded together; the 'progressive' doctrines that tell people that any possible reason excuses them from their own actions and out-and-out expects them to fail; the empty consumerism and nomadic nature of modern economic life, crude multiculturalism & constant immigration, damaging economic disruption and a political culture that just does not listen, does not pay attention and would rather mouth the same platitudes over and over again than face up to the reality that stares them in the face.

None of this should come as a surprise to anybody.  All of these factors have existed for years and have been clear and obvious for as long for anyone who actually bothers to see. None of them have suddenly become true over the last few weeks. In fact they are largely unrelated.

Despite the blase generalisations that have come from so many people, the rioters and looters were not all particularly poor, unemployed, cut off from society, or from broken homes.  They were not all 16-19 year olds with good prospects cruelly cut short, rioting as a response to the ending of EMA or the increase in tuition fees; nor were not all Black people rioting as a response to police oppression and racism.  Many of them had jobs, qualifications, prospects, money, and already owned much of the stuff they then went on to steal.  Plenty of people poorer than them didn't steal and riot, plenty of people unemployed didn't murder and rob, plenty of people with fewer qualifications or prospects, or from worse home, kept their dignity and honour and didn't go on a violent rampage.

I would like to learn a lesson from a friend of mine and avoid falling into hyperbole.  So I'll say that, for me, the 2nd worst thing about these Riots is that for a few days, or weeks if we're lucky, these issues will be aired.  Various commentators and politicians will pull them out and dust them off and trumpet them in connection with the disturbances we've suffered, regardless of whether there's any actual real or direct connection involved.  Everyone will have an opinion about their favourite left wing or right wing explanation, almost all based on nothing more than personal hunches and a complete absence of actual data.

But then after a few weeks the media focus will move on.    The politicians and commentators will pontificate about some other subject that has been pushed into the news and this will all once again sink back below the surface of our national conversation, to fester and spoil, invisible in plain view, while our leaders and commentators mouth the ideological platitudes that are so much easier and more satisfying than facing up to the difficult reality of issues that no one on the political divide has any easy solution to.

Hopefully this time will be different.  Hopefully the politicians and media will not just move on but will take a concerted and realistic look at the problems that dog many of our communities.  Maybe they'll actually be motivated to try something different rather than mouth the same irrelevant platitudes that press the right ideological buttons but have so little do with what is actually going on in people's lives.  To be honest I'm not that hopeful, but it would be wrong to be entirely cynical and despondent.  It is precisely that gnawing cynicism that gets us into this situation and then leaves us stuck there.

Because the truth is we can change even these seemingly intractable problems for the better.  It all comes down to the choices people make, both in the short term and the long term. Whether they take the hard choices and face up to the uncomfortable reality we have to deal with as individuals and a society, or the easy choices, either for themselves or us all, and try to sweep it all under the carpet once again and hope it will magically just go away.

Only time will tell.  But we can all do our part, if we just have the will and determination to take some responsibility for the world we live in, both individually and socially.

Dear Father, we pray . . .

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For those who live in fear,
That they may find courage,


For those who live in Darkness,
That they may find Light,


For those who live in Anger,
That they may find Peace,


For those who live in hatred,
That they may forgive.




In Jesus's name we ask this, 


Amen.










An old prayer of mine, from about ‘04.

How to Fight for Electoral Reform.

In my previous articles I looked at the main reasons for the dramatic failure of the 'Yes' campaign for reform to the Alternative Vote in 2011 and then I suggested a better replacement for pure FPTP now AV has been so thoroughly electorally discredited.  That covers want went wrong before, and what we should try to achieve in the future.

So what's left?

Well, how we actually achieve that goal in the future, and make sure we don't just repeat the absolute thrashing of 2011.  What tactics and strategy should be used to finally achieve the dream of electoral reform?

I have become more and more convinced due to the election results in 2005 and 2010 that our electoral system is inefficient, unresponsive and broken, concentrates power in an arbitrary manner, and fails to respond to the plural reality of the modern world.  I also think that there is a relatively simple adjustment that can be made to it to bring it up to date, while still maintaining the vast majority of the tried and tested principles and structure that are such an ingrained part of our national and political culture, and have helped make Britain the longest lasting and most stable democracy in the world.

I am a conservative and a Conservative.  But a conservative is not opposed to all change, rather he supports measured change, considered change, evolutionary change, change that goes with the grain of human nature and most of all change that is necessary and possible without just making things worse.  I have come to believe that electoral reform, done properly is both necessary to make our democracy suitable for the 21st Century, and possible without losing what is best about our long-standing system. A conservative also knows the importance of practicality. Good intentions alone don't do anything unless you have the practical means of making them happen.  No-one can fault the devotion and patience of Electoral Reformers, but their tactics have been awful.  The 'Yes' campaign "was an epic clusterfuck of a campaign which will go down in the annals of political incompetence" in the words of one of its senior activists.  In fact a future campaign for reform couldn't go far wrong if it just did the exact opposite of everything done by the AV Yes campaign.

The 1st thing is to realise that a fundamental change of strategy and tactics are needed.  The cause of electoral reform has to be one of the most longstanding and least successful causes in UK political history.  The Electoral Reform Society, the UK's largest and oldest supporter of reform was founded in 1884.  It has been fighting the same battle totally unsuccessfully for 130 years.  Along with the Joseph Rowntree Trust it had a major role in the Yes campaign in 2010-11. These groups provided much needed money for the campaign. But beyond that though they imported a downright damaging mindset that profoundly handicapped the Yes campaign.

The skills needed to run a pressure group are very different to the skills needed to run a political campaign.  And the ERS is not even a particularly successful pressure group.  Pressure groups need to inspire a particular group of supporters and keep them involved.  National election campaigns need to rapidly build as a broad a coalition as possible and provide a clear and compelling narrative about why they are the choice that will most benefit people.  A pressure group must grab as much attention as possible in an public arena crowded with many other calls on people's attention, as well as simple apathy.  A referendum campaign has to win a binary choice.  It is Yes vs No.  Any future campaign for reform must move away from the ERS, pressure group model that has failed so comprehensively over many decades.

Electoral reformers shouldn't be thinking like an unsuccessful pressure group, they need to think like a political party. And also they need to appreciate the importance of political parties, and how they can be used to effect change.  The Yes to AV campaign had some idea about building an anti-politics campaign that would set itself against political parties and politics as usual.  This approach was rubbish. It straight and away alienated the very people most experienced and professional in political campaigning. and with power and influence in British political life. Like a political party they need to be able to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible from different ideological and political backgrounds and tie them together temporarily around a belief that electoral reform is a cause for them. It also needs to be ruthlessly practical in reaching out to people.

It must think about political parties in another sense as well. The facts are that our political life is overwhelmingly conducted through political parties, as much as they are also generally somewhat distrusted.  When people want cues about political decisions they don't look to celebrities or entertainers, they look to political figures, media commentators, etc, they trust.  These people set the tone of debate and commentary.  Politics in Britain is conducted on a shoe-string, but what resources there are, are overwhelmingly held by political parties as well, both in terms of money and also connections to the media, experience of campaigning, and standing nationwide networks for disseminating ideas and encouraging volunteers.

Political unbalance crippled the Yes2AV campaign. It deliberately sold itself as a left-wing, progressive cause and made deliberate attempts to even portray AV as an anti-Conservative measure.  At a stroke they successfully managed to alienate 43% of the electorate.  They also managed to alienate many more people who didn't want to support a political stitch-up designed to permanently exclude a particular party from government. It also allowed its media presence to be dominated by Liberal Democrats far too much.

This allowed the No campaign a completely clear run of right of centre voters and even motivated many to get out and vote against. This was absolutely fatal when the left-wing vote was also thoroughly split.  Any future campaign for electoral reform should put deliberate effort into pumping up a Conservative Yes campaign and UKIP Yes Campaign as much as possible, as well as among Lib Dem and Labour voters. The clear truth is that electoral reform will never happen without the support of many right-wing voters. (For a first hand account of how the Yes campaign deliberately ignored even the Conservative Yes organisation.  See here)

This is also important because any future chance for reform is most likely to come about due to action by a political party.  The 2011 referendum occurred because Gordon Brown opened a window in the Labour party, and the Lib Dems got themselves in a position to exploit it when a hung parliament occurred.  This means that a future opportunity for reform may occur as soon as 2015, and reformers should be working towards that eventuality.  The other thing is that an opportunity for reform will only most likely present itself if one of the two main parties opens itself up to reform.  As long as both parties are opposed to a referendum, then they can maintain a solid front against any attempt to negotiate for one. The best chance then is to persuade either Labour or the Conservatives to at least support a further referendum on electoral reform, though this may be too much of a long shot.  At best, it will require another hung parliament, with the Lib Dems in the driving seat.

This work should also be done starting years in advance, building a constant presence, however large or small, and seeking to influence the terms of debate through these crucial drivers of the political weather and discussion. Efforts should go into both lobbying and building support among the MP's, MEP's, Lords, Councillors who hold a vast amounts of power and influence among these parties and also persuading ordinary activists and members, as well as figures in the media and think tanks.  These are the politically active people in our country, and the best hope for reform success must involve getting as many of them as possible onside, regardless of their particular party affiliation. Also because they are among the few people interested in politics enough to listen to arguments about reform outside the context of an imminent referendum.

This is the uphill struggle the Yes campaign faces.  The Lib Dems and Minor Parties are already solidly behind reform, for obvious reasons.  Labour and Conservatives do very well out of the current system though.  This means roughly 65% of the electorate have very little incentive to support change.  One way that this can be countered is by stressing the dangers of FPTP to both sides as well as the way specific reforms such as AMS cohere with the principles they consider themselves to be proud of, such as fairness, while being aware how members of these parties conceive these values differently. Elements of these parties may support change to a more stable proportional system as an insurance rather than the more dramatic shifts of FPTP.   For the Conservatives the ghosts of 1997 and 2005 should raise a powerful argument against FPTP, as does the way FPTP continues to totally disenfranchise large right-wing minorities like UKIP  For Labour, the ease with which the Conservatives have dominated UK government over the last 130 years despite being a minority compared to the broad agreement along the left for much of that time, can only raise question marks against FPTP. Reformers can also appeal to Labour 'progressive' principles.  This attempt was one of the few successful parts of the AV yes campaign, that managed to build an, initially, impressive Labour Yes campaign out of almost no traditional Labour support for reform, although it was later lost in the general chaos and incompetence of the Yes campaign.

But support among political leaders and activists alone will not a referendum victory make.  It is obviously also extremely important to lodge the ideas of reform in the minds of the wider public.  The general public is even less interested in electoral reform that political activists though.  Because of this it may be wise, outside a referendum campaign, to concentrate on discrediting FPTP in the eyes of the wider public rather than actively promoting an alternate system. Support for an actual separate voting system is worth building among a wide range of poltical activists and parties as far in advance as possible, but among the general public this is almost certainly impossible, requiring too much detail.  However, even if reformers could just manage to lodge in the public consciousness a couple of ideas about how FPTP is an unfair, broken system it would build a much stronger platform to persuade them of an alternative in any future referendum campaign, which would hopefully have some support from activists and political groups across the political spectrum ready to go for any campaign.    

The crucial feature is to make electoral reform relevant to people.  In the jargon of campaigning it needs to be 'Retailed'.  That means instead of presenting people with an abstract argument and cause break it down into simple examples of issues people actually care about, both of how the old system is broken and of how the alternative (which for me would preferably be AMS) would be better.  This is what the No campaign successfully managed to do with its arguments about the cost and complexity of AV, and what the Yes campaign singly failed to do.  And again it is something that should be done years in advance.  FPTP has the massive advantage of incumbency.  A Yes campaign for reform needs to take a clear two part message.  Firstly, demonstrating why FPTP is broken, and then explaining how AMS will solve this problem. It is not just enough though to take reform, and take something people like, and tell them the two are connected.  There has to be a plausible and simple logical connection between the two such that their mind's will naturally slide between the two, even for someone not paying that much attention.

Again this was one of Yes' main failure in 2011.  Messages about the expenses scandals and ending seats for life look superficially clear and resonant with a cynical electorate but they failed the connection test.  The Yes campaign never explained (because there was no obvious link) how AV was meant to achieve these miracles and so they made little progress with the electorate.  On the other hand the No campaign's arguments plausibly, clearly and simply connected to AV and so were more successful at sticking in the electorate's minds.

The third crucial feature is to work with the general conservative bent of the public.  If it was not obvious before the massive AV No vote, the public is reflexively conservative about constitutional change, especially any one they don't easily understand the rationale and argument for.  A Yes campaign for Reform should seek to work with this rather than against it.  Stress should be put on how reform actually strengthens the familiar principles and arguments used in favour of our electoral system.  Obviously this won't be possible with all such traditional 'principles' but where possible it should be tried, to counter the unfamiliarity proposed in any change. An example would be that AMS would actually increase representation by electing Labour MP's where enough people vote Labour or Conservative MP's where there are Conservatives or etc.  Rather than giving large numbers of voters no representation on arbitrary geographical grounds.

The next point is not to do your opponents work for them.  This is largely a tactical point to consider during the election campaign.  The side that wins will be the side that more clearly gets their message to the electorate.  Relentlessly push the clear positive advantages of change, relentlessly slag off FPTP.  Every single message should follow a clear formula, FPTP bad because X, PR better because Y. Do not spend valuable time arguing about the minutia of your opponents claims. Don't waste time discussing their arguments to the point where it crowds out the points you are trying to make, especially when media coverage is scarce and the public's attention distracted.  All a No campaign has to do is generate enough reasonable doubt in the public's mind. A Yes campaign has to not do what their opponents would want them to do, which is to get bogged down in precisely the manner the Yes campaign for AV did. I can only repeat the ridiculousness of the latter stages of the AV campaign.  The NO campaign wanted to portray AV as an expensive Lib Dem fix, so the Yes campaign treated them to the ridiculous spectacle of a chorus of leading Lib Dems talking about nothing apart from how much AV would cost. A text-book example of what not to do.    

Be aware of what your opponents will do.  Any future Yes campaign has the advantage of the experience of the AV campaign, and especially the reaction of the No campaign.  Under any future referendum, for AMS for example, it is likely that very similar No arguments will be used.  Other obvious arguments against a semi-PR system can be anticipated. The argument about Cost, possibly about complexity, about there being more hung parliaments, etc.  A Yes campaign should already have pre-prepared and tested plans and responses to the main likely arguments, ways of countering them and re-directing the debate back to the areas a Yes arguments want to hold it on.  They know what didn't work for the Yes campaign in 2011, and hence what to do differently, both in terms of debate and in terms of messages in the future. Generally speaking a No campaign will try to make the argument about anything rather than the issue of the actual features of FPTP vs AMS (or another alternative) because they know that FPTP just doesn't stand up under scrutiny. Yes campaigners must do whatever they can to shut down other issues and direct any debate back to the failures of FPTP and the advantages of AMS (or another alternative).  That is their winning ground.

The final point is a positive one.  The circumstances will be better.  The circumstances in 2011 were almost uniquely bad for Reformers.  It is highly likely that a future referendum will take place in more favourable political weather.  This is certainly not a reason for complacency, but it is a reason for hope.  This is doubly true if Reformers do learn the lessons of 2010-11 and make sure they are better prepared and better planned for any future referendum.  With a combination of a broad political coalition and a clear set of anti-FPTP, pro-AMS reform lines to take there is every reason to hope that we will see Electoral Reform in this country within the next decade.

Love Is . . .

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Love is patient; Love is kind;  Love does not Envy; Love does not boast; Love is not arrogant; Love is not rude. Love does not insist on having its own way; Love does not get irritable; Love does not resent; Love does not rejoice in evil; Rather Love rejoices in Truth. Love bears all things; Love believes all things; Love hopes all things; And Love endures all things.  Love never ends.

Love is the meaning and purpose of a human life.  Everything else is a tool, a method, a stalling tactic.  We eat so that we may have strength, we breath so life goes on, we study so we know more so we can achieve more, but all these are merely means to the end of having the chance, the opportunity, the possibility to Love; whether we love our life itself, the Universe we inhabit, the joys and wonders we experience, or discover, or learn to understand, the other unique human beings we meet or the God Almighty who gave us all this.  And gave us all this to Love.

But what is Love?  St Paul gives us a description that takes the breath away, that stills the voice, that rests perfect.  But it is a list of features, rather than an essential definition. Love comes in many different forms, we can love another human being , as a friend, as a lover, as family; or we can love a piece of beauty or music or calm or expression, or we can love a sensation, like the taste of chocolate chip ice-cream, or we can love a subject and be driven to learn more, understand more, know more of the thing we love.  Or most mysterious of all we can Love God, who we can never clearly see, or truly know, but people like me feel utterly drawn to none-the-less.

All these Loves are different, as many and diverse as there are different individual possible objects of Love.  But still they are all very much the same.  The Greeks famously had three different common words for what we simply call Love.  And it is important to recognise how Loves can be different.  But also to realise that they all have so much in common.  Though one may be a thing of little importance, whereas another can define an entire life, or shake the whole world.

All Love has so much in common, though still each is utterly unique, to the person loving and the being loved.  What it always is is the utterly deep appreciation of the value of the thing loved.  This leads to care, this leads to kindness, this leads to constant devotion, this leads to boundless optimism.

Love is not just a feeling and Love is not just a commitment. In fact if it is any one thing it is a realisation. But really it is all these things and more.  It is utterly unique and it is totally universal. It can involve your whole being; body, mind, heart, and soul. And Love binds you together as one being, just as it binds you tightly to the thing you Love.

Love is revelation, Love is the one thing that is truly transcendent; Love is true prophecy because in Love the person sees utterly through the skin of things, through the ordinary everydayness of the world, into the Truth that lies hidden just out of ordinary reach. For in Love a person sees through the stuff that makes up the world and catches of glimpse of what lies beneath it: the endless, bottomless well of value, the beauty, the wonder, the perfection hidden inside every ordinary thing whether anyone else sees it or not. And he doesn't just see it, he falls head first into it.

And the world is then filled with light. William Blake said "To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour."  A single flower can be enough reason for an entire life's devotion if someone truly sees the wonder that is contained in it. A single sight of beauty can leave you transfixed for hours.

The world can be grim and dark, the world can hurt, the world can wear you down, the world can seem bleak and grey. But just a little bit of Love shines through all that and fills the world with light that darkness in the entire world can not overcome.  Love makes the utterly ordinary extraordinary.  Love makes a bunch of noises a piece of music, love makes the fall of night a beautiful sunset. Love makes you realise in all the darkness that good will certainly win, that Heaven is real, because through Love we experience it, and that evil will never destroy all that is good. Love is solid and real in the world even when everything else slides into dust.

To Love another person is to truly live. It is to see them as they truly are, the bright Image of God. For in love you see the infinite beauty in their eyes, the infinite nobility in their soul, the infinite possibility in their life if only they chose to do it. And you see the sheer perfection even though on an intellectual level you know that they have flaws like everyone else.  For just a moment you cannot see the flaws at all. You just see the kindness, the generosity, the wisdom, the dedication, the gentleness, the patience, the elegance, the warmth, the intelligence and the laughter. You see the one you Love as we all should truly be, were we all not fallen, and you realise why Life is sacred.

To know someone loves you is the greatest thing in the world.  To see someone's love for you written over their face in a moment is that greatness and wonder captured in a single frame. To be standing unaware, and then to see them looking at you with that incredible, indescribable, unforgettable, unmissable look, which says more perfectly than anything else could ever say, I Love you. Who knew a human face could express so much. And it takes your breath away. And you would live in that moment forever if you could.

Love gives you strength. Love means you can endure more than you ever thought you could.  Love means that the cold and the dark don't touch you because Love transforms every situation. Even a boring or dull task with someone you love becomes a source of joy and laughter and an experience to cherish, because you are sharing it with them.  Love is incredible because uniquely love is not something about yourself but is utterly about the those you love, and so it connects you more deeply with the Universe we inhabit than anything else can.

Love drives you to great things.Love alone can make you sacrifice anything and everything, even if they do not love you.  Love gives true heroism, courage, nobility, wisdom and without it none of these things really exist.  Love makes you realise what truly matters and Love drives you to do something about it, because Love makes every obstacle  and danger seem like a tiny thing compared to all the wonder.

Love may not be grandly expressed; Love may not burn brightly for all to see; Love may be unspoken; Love may be a quiet thing, but it is no less wonderful for that.  Love goes on and on.  You may not feel, but you may still Love, in your commitment, in your dedication, in your kindness, in the actions that you do. And that is Love to.

Love can hurt, and if you trip and fall Love can lead you to do terrible things.  Love can bring great pain, it can be fragile, and it can break, and then it can hurt more than anything else. "Sometimes it last in love, but sometimes it hurts instead".  Love can lead to great loss that cannot be healed, even with time. It can only be slowly forgotten.

But to Love is to realise that the risk is worth it.  To realise that to feel great loss means that you had something wonderful, if only for a while.  Otherwise it would not hurt so much to see it gone. To Love is to realise that it is better to have stood on the peak of the highest mountain and seen the Sun for a few minutes than to have spent all your life in the valleys in the shadows, never knowing what could be possible. Love is a light that even its pain and darkness cannot put out.

Love is the meaning of the Gospel and the Law and the Prophets.  Love is the 1st and 2nd Commandment. Jesus talked about the pearl of great price that a man sells everything he has to hold that pearl and is happy, the treasure in a field that a man sells everything he has and owns just to buy that field. He speaks about the reckless joy and abandon of Loving something and truly knowing it matters, whatever that may be, and that is his description of the Kingdom of Heaven and God.

Christians argued for Centuries about the importance of Faith, and Works, and Gifts of the Spirit, and Knowledge. But in a few lines St Paul bats them all aside. If I speaks prophecies and do wonders and speak in tongues but do not have Love, it is nothing.  If I have all faith, but do not have Love, it is nothing.  If I do all works, but do not have Love, it is nothing. If I know all things, but do not have Love, it is nothing.

St John says it even more briefly: God is love.

God is Truth and Being and the only thing that is truly solid and real in a world of shadows.  But far more than all that God is Love. and as St John also says whoever Loves is truly of God.

And with that I don't know what else to say.   Nothing can truly describe.  Yet if anything is worth writing about it I would say that Love is.

The Future for Electoral Reform is AMS

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After the AV referendum a quick consensus formed that Electoral Reform is off the political table for a generation.  This was a consensus between opponents of reform and, bizarrely, most supporters of Reform, who seemed to suffer a massive collective loss of nerve.

I, personally, could not disagree more.

Over the medium and long-term the time is ripe for change, regardless of the result of that referendum. Reform failed in 2011 due to a combination of temporarily awful political circumstances, the presentation of a weak alternative and gross incompetence on behalf of the Yes Campaign.  None of these circumstances need recur, and it is highly likely that the long-term trends will continue to strengthen the argument for change, as they have since the 1960's.  The decline of the two party vote, the rise of the minor parties, the increasing inability of FPTP to properly represent the democratic wishes of the people of Britain.  None of these things are going away.

What is needed is for the Reform movement to pick itself up off the floor, knock itself hard on the head and learn the lessons of 2011.  Only honestly admitting that it got things horribly wrong and committing to change can give hope of success in the future. The Electoral Reform movement needs a dramatic modernisation, like Tony Blair's refounding of New Labour or David Cameron's modernisation of the Conservative Party, to achieve its aims in an age where politics and campaigning are professional and serious businesses.  It needs a thorough reconsideration of both Aims and Methods.

In this article I consider the aim for reformers by suggesting what I consider to be the best achievable alternative to FPTP.  And a superior alternative to AV.  In a following article I will suggest some ideas about a change in tactics and strategy that I think reformers need if they are to actually achieve their goals within a generation, and avoid repeating the disaster of 2011.
 
The massive 2011 vote against AV doesn't have to kill hope of reform for a generation. But it quite probably has put paid to any hope for change to AV itself for at least that long.  Or to put that another way, any hope for change within the next two decades can only exist on the basis of abandoning AV.  Good, I say. AV was adopted mostly because it was what was on offer, and it only became what was on offer for reasons of Labour Party convenience.  AV was capable of solving at most one of the numerous problems with the current system, and in a manner that had the potential of making other problems worse.

It did have one particular advantage though that should not be forgotten in its tidal wave of defeat. It was quite similar to the current system.  This made it an achievable reform. And this is my first criterion for a candidate for replacing FPTP. A further attempt at change should be focused on a similarly achievable reform, sufficiently similar to the current system to be recognisable as operating on similar principles, and sufficiently different to AV to seek distance from its calamitous defeat. Regardless of the problems with FPTP the massive No vote shows there is considerable public sympathy or at least overwhelming familiarity with its principles.  Any proposed alternative must work with this familiarity rather than against it.

It should also not be based on the same principles as AV i.e. preferential voting. This means not only AV, but also the other alternatives to FPTP that have been seriously proposed by reformers, namely STV and AV+.  AV+ was the system recommended by the Jenkins commission on reform in the late 90's. It is AV with an additional top-up of PR apportioned seats. It is a remarkably complicated change, as one would perhaps expect from a committee, and should be rejected for that reason and for being largely reliant on AV.

STV is the long-time preferred alternative of the Electoral Reform Society, Lib Dems and most other UK reform groups, and is currently used in Ireland. It is AV in multi-member constituencies, which unlike AV gives largely proportional results. STV is the preferred system of a majority of reformers. However, regardless of this, it should be abandoned, at least as a medium term aim. The staggering defeat of AV means that its central mechanism is politically discredited for the foreseeable future and because it requires voters to accept change to preferential voting and much larger multi-member constituencies, in reality, like AV+, it is too large a change to be sellable at once.

Both the reform movement's concentration on STV for decades and the strength of its conversion to AV in the previous year can be explained by its obsession with preferential voting. Most organised reformers are just convinced of its superiority to simple majority voting, regardless of other considerations. However, it has been rejected in the form of AV for now. It would appear to be a change and complication too far and, quite frankly, it is not worth sacrificing the chance of achieving real improvement by other means, merely out of a quixotic attachment to the wonders of preferential voting.


Where does this leave us if we've already rejected FPTP, AV, AV+ and STV? Except in Acronym hell. Another option worth mentioning is Closed List PR.  This would be a very simple system where you just vote for a party, and then the votes are counted and seats portioned out to the parties equal to its percentage of the vote.  This is the only true PR system.  However its side effects are so awful that it is generally rejected even by hard-core PR enthusiasts. Basically the problem is that voters have no control over who is actually elected, and there is no geographical connection between voters and representatives or sense that representatives represent everyone, rather than merely those who voted for them.  It is hence a massive leap from the current system, though it does bear the award of being the joint simplest system with FPTP.  Though from the opposite side of the spectrum.

So, ignoring Closed-list PR, AV, AV+, STV and FPTP, what is possibly left?


The answer to that is very simple. It's more proportional than FPTP, maintains constituency links, is a modest change from FPTP, is widely used by some European countries and within the UK itself, makes every vote count and is relatively simple compared to AV or STV but would still have given single-party government from our more decisive of recent electoral victories.

This system is the Additional Member System (or AMS).  In particular in a form I like to think of as FPTP+.

It is a combination of our current FPTP system used for UK General Elections and the Proportional Representation D'Hondt system we use for European Elections.  It would work like a combination of the two, producing a composite system that hopefully maintains the main advantages of both, while smoothing away their most stark problems.

The way it would work is simple.  Most MP's would be elected the same way as now, one per constituency under FPTP, with every bit of the country having a constituency MP.  In addition to these ordinary constituency MP's there would also be top-up list MP's.  Parties would gain a number of these MP's in proportion to their share of the vote, taking into account those MP's already elected in the constituencies.  The system works like our current FPTP system, but the top-up list MP's act to dampen the extremity of its results. Guaranteeing a degree of proportionality and ensuring that if you get enough votes you will get seats.

An AMS election would be simple.  Each voter gets a ballot paper with two sections.  One where they vote with a cross for whatever candidate they want to be their local constituency MP, exactly as now, the other they vote for the party they support, which goes towards deciding who gets the list seats.

In particular for the UK I would recommend the following arrangement.  I would suggest keeping a House of Commons at its current size of 650 MP's.  Of these 500 would be constituency MP's and 150 list MP's.  List MP's would be allocated by the D'Hondt system based on the list vote, taking account of the number of constituencies already won.  List MP's would not be based on the vote over the entire country.  Rather I would suggest multi-member list constituencies across the country based on the UK regions used for European Elections.  These could be subdivided to give list constituencies of an appropriate size of 4-8 MP's. I would also suggest allowing candidates to stand as both constituency and list candidates at the same time.  I think of this particular arrangement of AMS as FPTP+.      

That's phrasing it technically.  Basically it would be the same system currently used for Scottish and Welsh devolved elections.  Just with a higher proportion of constituency MP's to list MP's than they have.

I believe this system has a number of immediately apparent advantages.

Nobody Left Out In The Cold - minimum acceptable compromise on Disability Cuts

Take a good look at the above picture.  It is called 'Left Out In the Cold', and it is by disabled artist Kaliya Franklin lying on a British beach on a freezing cold day, just out of reach of the wheelchair she needs to get around.  It represents the almost certain consequence of the Government's planned cuts to support for the long-term sick and disabled. Deeply vulnerable and  disadvantaged people left just out of reach of the vital financial and care support that they need to lead safe and dignified lives as part of our society, despite the disadvantage of their illness or disability.

I have already written about the full range of Cuts to support for sick and disabled people at some length here. If you're thinking of clicking on that link I apologise in advance for the length.  It's long. Unfortunately the scale and range of cuts, and the general public ignorance about this issue means it has to be long to cover the subject even vaguely properly.  I would still honestly recommend you read it though, or at least look up something else on the issue.  It's extremely unlikely you've even heard of the main planks of welfare that support Sick and disabled people, unless you, a close friend or a family member are Sick or Disabled.  But this is such an important issue you really need to.  They are an absolutely essential life-line for literally millions of people in this Country and they are deeply threatened by the Government's planned cuts.  If I still haven't convinced you to read more about it, don't worry, this will be mercifully short.  

The main facts that everyone should know are extremely simple.  Even before the Recession and any of the cuts to support for Sick and Disabled people families with a Sick or Disabled member were twice as likely to be living in Poverty and had an unemployment rate running at 50%.  The Sick and Disabled are facing the entirety of the squeeze on public services and taxes that everyone else are experiencing, whether cuts to council services, education, healthcare, public sector job losses, housing benefits cuts, rises in VAT and National Insurance, surging fuel prices and Inflation and stagnant wages.  This on its own is probably enough to drive already struggling and vulnerable households into Poverty or just deeper in.

Incredibly though above of and On top of this general financial squeeze they are also facing additional swingeing and targeted cuts to the extra support available to Sick and Disabled people totalling some £5 billion a year.  Employment Support Allowance (ESA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), the Access To Work Fund, the Independent Living Fund.  All are facing significant cuts and restrictions.  These cuts and changes will make it considerably harder for Sick and Disabled people to move into work.  They will take a segment of our society that already has a Poverty rate DOUBLE that of everyone else and push hundreds of thousands more into Poverty.  DLA, for example, is being cut by 20%, far above the average 11.5% cuts facing the Public Sector. They are fundamentally unjustifiable on this basis alone.  Dry figures are certainly not all there is to this though.

Suffering a severe, long-term illness or disability is one of the most difficult things to live with of any of the disadvantages in people can face. Almost by definition it robs people of so many advantages the rest of us take for granted including too much of the ability to take part in society. It is often painful, almost always fundamentally exhausting and draining and always stressful for the rest of a sick or disabled person's family.  It often makes life constantly more of a struggle than for well people. It also leaves a person open to a constant flow of minor indignities and general ignorance from a society where many people are still totally clueless about how to relate to disabled and extremely sick people in a human manner.  I could, of course, go on; the difficulties faced by disabled and long-term sick people are as various as the possible mental and physical conditions and the unique individuals that must live with them, but I'm sure you understand the general idea.  The truth is for many families and invididuals who struggle with these problems the effect of these cuts will be to pile stress, fear and struggle, both financial and emotional, on already difficult circumstances above and beyond that faced by any of their able-bodied and mentally well fellow citizens.

I'm an optimist about human nature.  I don't think politicians are deliberately trying to drive some of the most vulnurable people in our society into poverty, harship and despair. I just think they're ignorant.  But the truth is there none the less.  And it is centred on three massive issues that the Government must be forced to compromise on.  I get the idea that some cuts will fall on the Sick and Disabled.  Cuts will always fall on those already struggling because, quite frankly, that's where the money is being spent.  If the Coalition compromises on these three issues though they will have a defensible, if harsh, platform. Without compromise though they are leading an organised public Outrage.

Issue No.1 is DLA.  Disability Living Allowance is a universal benefit designed to help people with the extra costs of care or mobility that comes with being disabled or seriously ill, put by one study at 25% higher than the living costs faced by a non-disabled person. And is only available to the most disabled and ill.  Being disabled or sick is an expensive business.  Whether it's expensive home modifications, mobility equipment, prescriptions, taxis because public transport or driving is impossible, tuition support, personal care or god alone knows what else.  DLA is not an out-of-work benefit, it helps many people who are sick or disabled stay in work as well as others who cannot work. DLA is an almost model benefit.  It is heavily targeted at the most Sick or Disabled (see here for some of its restrictive conditions), it helps large numbers of people into useful employment, it has the lowest fraud rate of any piece of welfare.  Despite this the government has announced they are going to entirely redesign it.  In theory to improve it.  They have been stunningly vague about how they are intending to improve it, but they have very clearly stated they want to restrict it massively and cut spending by 20%, save £2 billion.  This is a massive cut, pure and simple, masquerading as a redesign.

DLA is already restricted to the very Sick and Disabled, massively restricting it further like this, and prioritising achieving a certain saving over need, will leave many people without vital support.  A simple compromise would be to readjust the figure for Savings to £1 billion, a 10% cut.  This would be in line with the general cuts across the Public Sector, it would still be a considerable cut, but it would maintain the integrity of DLA.  It would be a total that is far more likely to be achievable without taking support away from those with truly serious need.  It would give a chance to reform DLA, if that is truly what the government wants to do, without basing the changes around the need to make deep savings, giving the chance to actually improve support.

The 2nd and 3rd issues are the Employment Support Allowance.  This is the benefit that supports the living costs of those people too Sick or Disabled to work, or to fulfill the requirements for the Dole.  No.2 is the government's plans to restrict contributory ESA to 1 year, for around 90% of claimants.  This move is supposed to save £1.5 billion.  On the surface it seems reasonable.  Contributory JSA is limited to 6 months, so why should the equivalent for those Sick or Disabled and out of work, ESA, be different?  There is still Income based ESA to support those with no financial resources.  The problem comes because the connection between ESA and JSA is tenuous at best in this instance. JSA is meant to be distinctly short-term.  For many ESA will be extremely long-term, even with the government's most optimistic assumptions.  Also the government's definition of financial resources is frankly laughable.  Any family with a Sick or Disabled member that also has either any savings or a partner earning almost any money will be deemed to be not eligible for any ESA.  Ignoring the quite savage work disincentive this creates for families with a disabled or Sick member, as I already said families with a sick or disabled member were already twice as likely to be in poverty as other comparable families before these cuts, and the individuals within these families on average have costs 25% greater than a non-Sick or Disabled person.  The considerable and additional financial pressure of this measure will hence almost certainly push most of the three hundred thousand households affected into poverty, or push them even deeper therein if they are there already.

Compromise is easily possible here to.  This measure is meant to save £1.5 billion a year, by taking £90 a week of ESA away from hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise be eligible.  As previously discussed, this is an awful ideas that will drive many families already struggling financially, and with Sickness and stress, into the ground.  There are various possible compromises though.  The Labour Party has suggested limiting Contributory ESA to 2 years.  This would avoid catching a considerable number of families, but would still leave most with the same problem, just somewhat later on.  Another possible compromise is based on the structure of ESA.  ESA is made up of two parts in theory, a £65 a week basic element and then a £25 or £30 additional element that everyone gets.  Those effected by this cut would be receiving the £25 additional element.  The compromise is to remove the additional element after 1 year.  This would save around £0.5 billion  a year and while still leaving families with some ongoing support.  Under this regime they would still almost certainly wear down both savings and suffer and struggle financially, considering the high-levels of costs they generally face.  But it would leave them with some support, and would be a change there would be some chance to adjust to, rather than the immediate removal of almost all income.  There are also other options that would deliver some savings to the government, without the same harsh risk of leaving many families facing near destitution if their Sick or Disabled members do not find work within a year.

The 3rd Issue is the nature of the assessments for ESA itself.  These have been roundly, widely and very strongly criticised by everyone from the Citizen's Advice Bureau, one of the experts who actually designed the system, the government's own review of the system, and pretty much every single person who has experienced it.  It has been particularly criticised for failing those with mental health disabilities.  It's not hard to see where the criticism comes from.  The assessments are a tick-box exercise scored on a computer, with all the flexibility and individual consideration that description suggests, and often not even conducted by relevant medical personel.  The evidence that the system is broken is overwhelming.  Appeal rates run at almost 40%, of which about half are upheld. The acceptance rates for ESA are also frankly unbelievable with 2/3rds of applicants being found 'Fit for Work', even some who have then literally died the next day.  The sense that this is all motivated by financial rather than medical need is overwhelming when the government has already announced how much money it expects to save from this whole exercise.

This final issue desperately needs change. The government must recognise the serious problems with the assessment process and commit to sweeping changes to meet these serious issues.  They could start in worse places than implementing the reccommendations of their own Review.  Changing the assessments in a direction of bringing in a genuine holistic assessment of an individual's capabilities, rather than a tick-box exercise, with proper recognition of the distinct circumstances faced by those with mental health conditions or just highly variable long-term conditions.

I entirely understand and appreciate the need to cut spending in this country considering the £155 billion deficit we have. I'm the last person who would argue against that. But like that does not justify any old cut. Families with long-term sick or disabled members already face some of the worst poverty and social exclusion in our society, without even mentioning the obvious pain and suffering that so often comes with these conditions, and the huge stress it places on individual and families.  A lot of cuts are unfortunate and down-right difficult, but they do not involve the risk of fundamental damage to our most basic social duty, provision for those who just cannot provide for themselves.  Neither is this a partisan issue.  many of these problems were started by Labour and are now being continued and in some cases intensified by the Coalition.  There is plenty of failure to go around, and plenty of scope for minds to change and governments commit to do better.  These compromises I have mentioned would 'cost' the government around £2 billion a year.  They are the absolute minimum acceptable if we are to live in a decent and supportive society. This still leaves around £3 billion a year of cuts directed at support for the disabled, above and beyond the wider financial squeeze being imposed on society. Surely more than enough of a reduction to be borne by possibly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable section of our society.

The final question then is what can people do?  Many things.  I wrote to my MP for the first time today.  On its own this won't change anything.  But it is an essential part of making sure politicians are aware of the depth of feeling about this issue.  And that this is something that cannot just happen quietly.  Another important thing you can do is just to get yourself informed about what is happening.  And if you have the chance get others informed as well. The greatest danger is just that so few people know about these cuts, because sadly the sick and disabled do not have the loud supporters, friends in the media or noisy ability to defend themselves shown by more high-profile but less vital issues. Though it is inspiring to see the grassroots movement that has emerged (largely online) in a few months to campaign against these measures. 'The Broken of Britain' is a great collaborative group that attempts to raise the profile of this issue and bring disabled, sick and well and able-bodied people together to campaign against these cuts. 'Diary of a Benefits Scrounger' is a great blog written by a wonderful lady called Sue Marsh, who herself suffers from serious Crohns disease, and explains these issues much more eloquently (and briefly) than I could hope to. Both of these have a lot of information on what people can do to help. There are also a load of other resources online.

There is also some time, since many of these changes do not come in until 2013 or later.  There has even actually already been some success. Under great pressure the government has already decided to review the decision to remove mobility allowance DLA from those in care homes, and in the last day has announced a public review into ESA.  This is hence a crucial time to increase the pressure on them to reverse these cuts and secure proper support for long-term sick and disabled people in our society permanently.

But it will require people like you and me to get off our asses and get informed, get aware and look out for the opportunities to do whatever we can to make sure these disastrous changes are not allowed to just happen around us.



Many thanks to 'Broken of Britain' and Kaliya Franklin for the above Picture.

How could Electoral Reform Fail so Badly?

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It's not very controversial to say that the result of the AV referendum on was disastrous for the cause of Electoral Reform in the UK.  Almost everyone was surprised by the scale of AV's defeat and this has been followed by an immediate consensus that electoral reform is off the political table for at least a decade, if not a generation. For reformers, after 80 years of campaigning and finally getting the referendum they had dreamt and hoped for reform is now, cruelly, even further away than before.

This would seem an odd time then to talk about the future of electoral reform.  But in reality now immediately after its big defeat is precisely the time that supporters of Reform needs to take stock, think clearly about what has happened and plan for the future. And there is no such thing as a perfect certainty when it comes to politics and the future. With boldness and a serious willingness to really reconsider both means and aims anything is possible.

First it is important to face up to the reality of what happened, what went so wrong, and what must be learnt from 2011 to make sure next time is extremely different.  So this is what I try to do in this article.  In my next article I set out what I believe to be a better option for achievable electoral reform than AV, and then argue how we can apply the lessons outlined here to give the best chance to achieve that success as soon as possible, however long that may be.  


Just a quick note.  If at any point I make rude comments about electoral reformers, I mean the core of leaders of pro-reform organisations, politicians, media commentators and the rest of the small group of people who frame and direct the public image and fight for electoral reform, rather than supporters of electoral reform generally, of whom I am one.

So what happened?  And what went so wrong?

2 weeks ago the UK held its first ever referendum on the subject of electoral reform.  This represented the 2nd closest Britain has ever got to ditching First-Past-The-Post as its electoral system.  The 1st being when a switch to AV and STV was narrowly rejected by parliament after a lot of argument and numerous votes in the 1920's.  The particular chance of electoral reform on offer was of course the Alternative Vote.  This was rejected by 68%-32% on a 42% turnout, or in other words by 13 million votes to 6 million.  It is hard to over-estimate the scale of the thrashing.  AV lost in every region of the UK and in 430 out of 440 counting regions.  Equally telling is the fact that in the tiny number of areas AV did pass in it squeaked through with around 55% of the vote, only gaining more than 60% in a single London Borough.  In contrast it was defeated by margins of 70-30% in literally hundreds of areas.  Most UK regions did even contain a single voting area that supported AV.

Personally I was broadly neutral on the question of AV or not. I remain massively unconvinced that AV would offer a significant improvement on the current system in terms of results or the problems of FPTP. Neither do I think its introduction would have been the end of the world. AV could be summarised as a system that is slightly better than FPTP in some areas and slightly worse in others. At best it would solve 10% of our problems, at worst it would occasionally make them slightly worse.  That said, in one sense it is a deep shame that AV was defeated so badly, because it discourages the thought of considering further ideas for reform, and gives the resemblance of a mandate for the current pure FPTP system, something that system does not deserve. 


In a weird way though I'm glad AV was destroyed so badly. I'm glad because the result was decisive, thus forcing the defeated party to admit clear and straight defeat. The worst of all possible worlds would have been a close result on a low turnout, whether for Yes or No.  Such a result would have only fuelled bad feeling about any change or lack of it and damaged the credibility of the result. It would have led to an orgy of blame with the losing side looking for any chance to excuse their defeat by blaming a technicality or their opponents misdeeds. The sheer scale of the result luckily means that the defeated side was left with no option but to give way gracefully(ish).  

The second silver lining, from my point of view, is that even when Electoral Reform does come back onto the political agenda it is highly unlikely that pure AV will be the alternative option.  This is good because I don't think AV is significantly better than pure FPTP for Britain, nor solves the problems that pure FPTP brings.  It is a step sideways, the illusion of reform without actually solving the serious issues with the current system. I think it was said best by a journalist, raging against the progressive majority's failure to vote through AV, who complained that FPTP was a "broken, majoritarian voting system that disenfranchises millions of voters and puts power in the hands of a hundred thousand or so "swing" voters in "Middle England" marginal seats". To which his solution was to introduce a broken, majoritarian voting system that disenfranchises millions of voters and puts power in the hands of a hundred thousand or so "swing" voters in "Middle England" marginal seats. Right.  

My general lack of interest in the Alternative Vote to one side, I think Electoral reformers made a big mistake in their approach to the referendum that has the capacity to seriously damage the hope of reform over the next years if not understood and overcome.  Starting on entirely pragmatic grounds I think that whoever was running the YES campaign owes supporters of reform an apology, for monumentally cocking up the 1st decent chance for reform in 80 years.

The scale of AV's defeat means it may have been impossible for the best campaign in the world to have won for a YES vote.  The circumstances were very adverse, but they certainly could have done a lot more with them and given the cause of reform a much stronger platform from here on. Now it is really easy to be wise with hindsight and blame the Yes campaign after it lost but there's more going on here than that. There have been numerous serious explanations about just how bad the Yes campaign was, most damningly by senior members of the national Yes campaign who felt unable to speak up before the vote itself, and feel crushed by how their efforts were thrown away.  (For example, here, here, here and particularly here.)  Even from miles away I can rattle off the top of my head 4 things the Yes campaign were obviously doing wrong.

Firstly, running a cosy, smug, left-wing campaign by Guardian readers for Guardian readers. The Yes2AV campaign made almost no effort to reach out to right-wingers, running a campaign opened by Ed Miliband, Caroline Lucas, and involving almost no attempt at political balance. This was an astonishing failure. Especially when they had an ace in the hole in the form of UKIP and its charismatic front man Nigel Farage.  They could have used these to devastating affect to counter the solid Conservative No campaign among right-of-centre voters.  They didn't almost certainly out of the liberal-left's general distaste for UKIP. They'd rather run a campaign by 'progressives' for 'progressives' and lose. Particularly remarkable was the comparison with the relative role given to the Green's Caroline Lucas, despite the fact that UKIP gets about 3 times as many votes as the Greens. The Yes campaign's seeming approach could be summed up by a short conversation I had with a friend. I said the Yes campaign was cocking up by failing to engage right-wingers. He said why should they bother when right-wingers were a minority and would just vote No anyway. My jaw dropped.

In fairness he was technically right on one thing. Identifiably right-of-centre parties gained 43% of the vote in the last election, which leads me to my 2nd point. If the Yes campaign were going to be so stunningly complacent as to write off almost half of voters they needed to make absolutely sure they had the other half locked down so tight they could hardly breathe. This again they failed to do. Right from the start it was clear to anyone with half a brain that Labour voters would be crucial to securing or defeating AV.  They were the vital swing voters. Especially if the Yes campaign was planning to not bother with right-of-centre voters they needed to make damn sure they secured the support of the vast majority of Labour supporters. 

One way to do this would be to make the referendum a vote on David Cameron, they barely mentioned him. The other way would have been to make sure they had almost all Labour MP's, CLP's and other senior figures on board.  Again, they failed.  They almost went out of their way to antagonise Labour MP's with their main message, which, bizarrely, was that MP's were lazy and corrupt and AV would make them work harder and be more honest. This understandably didn't fire up Labour MP's, Lords, Councillors and other party figures to throw their weight behind the Yes campaign.  Once it became apparent that NO2AV had secured a considerable chunk of Labour support (let alone a majority of Labour MP's), combined with the Yes campaign's wilful neglect of right-wing voters, it was obvious they were going to lose.

The 3rd bizarre error was failing to reach out to as many voters as possible.  Beyond their choice in problem 1, they failed to utilise the opportunities they have available to them.  They and the NO campaign were both offered one free mailing to every house in the UK. The No campaign eagerly took the opportunity, producing a slick and compelling leaflet. The Yes campaign decided to just not bother. The No campaign launched one of the biggest political ad campaigns in UK history, with billboards around the country and vast quantities of online advertising. Yes2AV barely bothered. Yes2AV did manage to produce a TV political broadcast.  It was absolutely bizarre. It contained voters going around harassing MP's through megaphones, who were portrayed as lazy, corrupt caricatures. It barely mentioned any real positives of AV, only vague nonsense about AV making MP's work harder with no back-up explanation and claiming it would have avoided expense abuses.  It failed to make a genuine case for AV, it failed to make any case as to why FPTP was broken. It assumed voters were idiots. It may as well have promised them that AV would make diamonds rain from the sky.        

The 4th failure was doing their opponents work for them.  The Yes campaign spent far too little time genuinely making a case and clearly pushing the positive improvements of AV, or the glaring problems with FPTP.  They spent far more time trying to rebut their opponents case and thus cemented it in the public's mind.  It failed to pick a single message and stick to it, apart from the nonsensical line taken in their broadcast.  The No campaign, on the other hand, desperately wanted to make people think that AV was expensive so the Yes campaign spent huge amounts of time arguing the toss over how expensive it was.  The electorate, seeing the debate through a thick fog of apathy and other concerns, just heard that AV was expensive.  The No campaign wanted to make it a referendum on Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems in general.  So the Yes campaign obligingly filled the latter stages of the campaign with Lib Dem Cabinet ministers complaining about how mean the No campaign was, and to cap it off Ed Miliband publicly refused to share a platform with Nick Clegg. Thus making sure everyone knew the yes campaign thought Nick Clegg was important. Brilliantly done. These failures combined with the genuinely difficult circumstances the referendum was held in meant AV was doomed, and visibly so.

Apart from these pragmatic issues I think that electoral reformers made a serious strategic error in their more long term approach.  The vast majority of reformers did not want AV before the referendum was called. For what I believe are very good reasons. In fact numerous individuals and organisations had been downright scathing about it. As soon as the referendum was called though most of them moved as one to pushing AV and doubling back on their previous opinions. In of itself I don't blame them for this. AV was all that was on offer.  But that was precisely the problem.  The electoral reform movement is built on an extreme point of principle, whereas AV was the result of some pretty seedy political bargaining. In particular Gordon Brown's death bed conversion to reform in 2010, in a late attempt to cosy up to the Lib Dems, all while holding out the one type of electoral reform that could possibly actually INCREASE Labour's already bloated electoral advantage.  Pro-AV campaigners were caught between a rock and a hard place.  Support AV too strongly and they just looked hypocritical, given their recorded objections to it.  Damning it with faint praise was also not really an option, as that would just help speed it to defeat.  Faced with this choice they went with the 1st option and just looked like hypocrites. There was a 3rd option though.