Tuesday 11 May 2010

1927 The Prime Minister makes way for a Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition

23.00. Monday May 10th 2010 is a day which will go down in the history of Britain. Gordon Brown British Prime Minister has announced that he is standing down as Leader of the Labour Party with the intention that a new Leader will be elected in time for the Party Conference this autumn. It is evident that he had made up his mind to do this once his Party failed to hold even the largest number of seats in the new Parliament, but could not make this announcement until there was an indication of whether the Conservative Party or his is own was likely to be able to form a government with the Liberal Democrats.

He had understood and agreed with Mr Clegg that there was no alternative but to attempt to form a government with the Conservatives who were the largest party with some 50 seats more than Labour but 20 short of an overall majority. When Mr Cameron announced his intention to seek an alliance with the Liberal democrats it was evident to me but not the large section of the media that the only position likely to succeed was for the Conservatives to offer a coalition with some form of voting change plus significant concessions on the proposals in relation to the economy and taxation system and on education. This was also a view taken by former Prime Minister John Major and former leadership contender, and Minister and present political commentator Michael Portillo.

It was also evident from what key members of the Labour Party were saying who were also in favour of a coalition that they were prepared to make offers on all these four matters and on a full coalition and with David Miliband, Deputy Leader Harriet Harman and others also to the fore. Traditional Tories such as Michael Heseltine and Norman Tebbit were expressing opposition as was former Home Secretaries David Blunkett and John Reid.

By Monday evening the Liberal Democrat negotiating team were meeting that of Labour at the House of Commons, to be followed by a meeting at 10pm with the full new Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party. Meanwhile the Conservatives who had held formal talks in the morning and then met their Parliamentary Party at 6pm this evening announced that on the issue of a change in the voting system they were prepared to offer a referendum on a second preference voting system if the first past post candidate did not command 50% of the total votes cast. This falls short of the Labour Party who are said to be offering legislation on this system to take effect from the next General Election, plus a referendum on form of proportional representation, although this was later denied.

The effect of both offers would be to ensure that on the broad present voting of the British electorate there would remain a coalition of the Labour and Liberal Democratic Parties for the foreseeable future, rather than with the Conservatives stretching over more than one Parliament and increasing further if a form of full proportional representation is agreed.

This is worst fears of many people who are party tribal and party fundamentalists. It means that even before the ink is dry on the election manifesto’s the political parties involved will also be preparing separate negotiating positions, covering the legislative programme and the budget for the life of the Parliament. However this will only mean dropping any proposals which the other partners in any coalition cannot agree on and moving forward on all the programmes of the Parties involved subject to the limitations of funding. In the present circumstances funding and achieving financial stability is the principal concern, although it also being used as a scare tactic and to try an bounce the Lib Dems into putting Cameron in Downing Street and to force reducing the debt to levels the market likes within one Parliament rather than two.

What interests me first is that this development does implement what all three political parties were claiming they supported- a fairer and more honest political system in which the outcome of elections reflects the majority of the total number of votes cast and more of negotiation and discussion system instead of ideological, tribal and confrontational politics. The parallel with religion is those who support ecumenical movements and those who what to push more individual fundamentalist and ideological positions.

Already there are indications of horror and panic on the part of the right and the left in British politics within the three main political parties as well as those in other parties on each of the two political wings. Mr Cameron is said to have persuaded his Parliamentary assembly to offer a referendum on the second preference system and on starting income tax after the first £10000 earnings but in doing he will accept the return of David Davies, and former Party leaders Michael Howard and Ian Duncan Smith into his Cabinet. Given that any coalition agreement is a formal contract recorded by the civil service the official ability to change anything agreed is limited only by the availability of funds and external developments. What happens in practice is that individuals within the coalition rebel because of some aspect with which they disagree and this forces an end to the coalition, causing another General Election. However there is evidence that those causing the Election then face the wrath of the majority who favoured compromise. It can lead to some politicians breaking away and forming their own Parties and for other within the coalition to join one of the other parties involved. It can lead to a more unstable situation but equally many democratic countries are able to undergo and complete the process on a regular basis without destabilising the economy.

00.00 I have decided to join the world of Twitter UK and confirmed my membership and made my first Tweet. One appears limited to making brief write bites of 140 characters or less, but one can make a succession of these.

I spent Sunday night at the Trowell Nottingham Service Station Travel Lodge for £9.20, noting as I joined the M1 from the Nottingham Derby Road along the Brian Clough Way that the motorway work in this section has been completed into four lanes. The following morning I discovered that since my last visit last year the bollards have been raised preventing immediate crossing over to the other side of the motorway. This is irritating although to go south only requires an extra journey of a mile north and then a mile south. However to get to the service area from the north does involve a journey of two miles south and then back two miles north. I will take this up with Travel Lodge when they send the Tell us what you think about your stay.

The main purpose of my visit was to watch Durham play Nottinghamshire in the County Cricket Championship. I say was because there was no play until after lunch when only a handful of over were bowled and then a further short spell around tea time. In addition to constant spits of rain and dark clouds it remained freezing cold. Durham were made to bat after Notts won the toss and by close of play had lost three wickets for 76, with Benkenstein and Blackwell adding 33 runs. Later England beat New Zealand by three wickets to head their group with 3 wins from 3 and will progress to the semi finals. On Sunday Durham lost to Warwickshire at Edgbaston, Chelsea became Premier Champions with an 8.0 drubbing of Wigan and Mark Webber followed by Alonso and Vettel won the Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix. Jensen still leads the driver’s championship but by only 3 points, Schumacher was 4th in the race followed by Jenson and Massa thus three world champions were in the top six.

I had difficulty finding my way to the Riverside Travel Lodge because of the one way system although it is comparatively a short way from the cricket ground.

I was delighted this morning when the markets demonstrated that some Tory politicians who had warned of market panic and collapses over a hung Parliament, that is where no single Party has a overall majority, were told to shut up as shares soared and the pound rose against other currencies. Tonight some were still hoping that the prospect of a Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition would now cause the predicted panic. These people are anti the National Interest and the majority should tell them to shut up or words to the same effect. They are the traitors to democracy.

To fully understand what has been happening it is necessary to go back to the autumn of 2008 when in keeping with tradition, the Prime Minister of the day gave authority to the senior civil service to have contact with the Conservative Party, and possibly the Liberal Democrats as the two accepted official Leaders of the Opposition in Parliament to provide them with information about the processing of forming a government at the next General Election and to offer to assist them with technical aspects of creating a legislative programme should they gain power taking account that the Queen’s speech takes place within three to four weeks of the Election.

At that time the planning assumption would have been for either a Conservative led majority government or for a House of Commons where either the Labour Government or the Conservative Opposition would not be able to guarantee a majority unless they formed an alliance, possibly a temporary one for the agreed life of the Parliament with the Liberal Democrats, and perhaps other political parties. Although it is over 30 years since such a situation existed for the Westminster Parliament there has been minority government in Scotland, and partnership government in Northern Ireland, and local Government has substantial experience of such situations.

In addition civil servants were authorised to make contact with their colleagues in other countries to establish their procedures, given that almost all the countries forming the European Community do not have single party government, and some have not had single party government for decades and their Political Parties, Party politicians and political activists have long since adjusted to the difference between the culture of Political Parties, the Party Political Manifesto, produced for a Parliament and the Legislative Programme, as well as the differences between the power of the executive, of the Parliament and of the judiciary responsible for interpreting political legislation.

As soon as the Party Manifesto’s are published the Civil Service breaks these down according to existing structure of Governments, or any structure which the Opposition Parties, and Government have indicated they wish to change so that on taking office, the Departmental Ministers can be provided with relevant information and technical assistance on the drafting of legislation where this is indicated as being part of the Queen’s speech for the first year of the Parliament. The Minister will also be given information on who does what within their department, what their statutory and other duties and powers and any inherited schedule of meetings and visits. They will have contact with the private office staff and their political advisers.

There are also two aspects of being in government, whether national, regional or local which many people fail to appreciate. First not one penny can be spent by a Minister without Parliamentary approval in advance and then by the Treasury on a day to day basis, followed by auditing to ensure that any allocated funds have been spent as authorised. Secondly the power to take any decision is governed by legislation plus any subsequent definition or alteration because of judicial review. Being in government as a politician or as a senior civil servant or senior local government officer is limited in these ways. There will be areas of discretion and choice but these have been defined in law and procedure in advance. It also not usually understood that even when new legislation has gone through the Parliamentary process, it does not mean that all or part will be implemented or implemented in the way those drafting the legislation or settling on the policy and procedures intended.

I was fortunate to gain knowledge and direct experience of this reality as a young man and then as a young adult after first deciding to study for a local government examination when I was seventeen years and which included local and central government and the British Constitution as subjects together with public finance and basics such as English and History. I then decided to take British Constitution at Advanced Level, General Certificate of Education, going on to study Political and Economic Theory and Political and Economic History at Ruskin College, before switching to the Oxford University, Public and Social Administration Diploma Course and to have as my tutor someone who became a professor of Social Administration. It was one of my memorable moments when she and the head of the Social Work Department at the University, who also became a professor, visited me South Tyneside as members of the Social Welfare Benefits Commission to discuss the impact of the then benefits system on the range of clients covered by local authority social service departments.

I had then had good fortune to be asked to become the Parliamentary officer of the Association of Child Care Officers and to take a lead role in presenting the Association’s views on the proposed 1969 Children’s and Young Person’s Act and this led to my having to contact government and Opposition spokesmen and arranging an all Party gathering at Parliament attended by Ministers and Shadow Ministers as well as representatives of organisations concerned with child care. I have also had the rare opportunity of sitting on the floor of the House of Lords and House of Commons, with direct access to the Ministers and Members, in the first instance by the Government Home Office Minister in the House of Lords and by the Deputy Chief Whip for the Labour Party in the other. I was stared at by Margaret Thatcher who turned to a colleague to ask if he knew who I was as he Deputy Chief Whip came over to talk about the Ministerial statement and questioning and comments which followed.

I mention these things because of reality lessons which they taught. I will first use three aspects of the 1969 Children’s and Young Persons Act as examples, with the most important, the age of criminal responsibility, secondly the position of children and young people in residential establishment with education on the premises, and which covers the power of individuals who represent a recognised interest to make amendments to legislation.

Immediately on becoming a Minister of State at the Home Office, a small group of like similar minded women, one of whom was the Children’s Officer of Oxfordshire for who I had worked for three years and another was a senior juvenile court magistrate decided to try and persuade the Minister to lower the age of criminal responsibility by two years from the still present age of 14. The 1969 Act went through all the stages of any legislation, a White Paper with consultation, a Bill considered in Committee by both Houses of Parliament and given a third reading and Royal Assent. It included lowering the age to twelve years, subject to an implementation order being laid before Parliament. There was then a change of government and the Conservatives announced that the order would not made as well as other parts of the legislation would not be implemented. This has remained the position thirty five years later.

The Act abolished Approved (Residential) Schools where juvenile offenders or children who refused to attend school could be committed under a court order for a period of years followed by a period of after care. The after care was provided by Probation officers. Under the Act Approved Schools became controlled and partly controlled residential establishments with education on the premises, and the young people were not placed on time specifying approved school orders, but were committed to the care of the local authority until they were eighteen years or discharged or placed home on a trial basis and where the supervision was undertaken by a local authority child care officer. The Magistrates Association became concerned about several aspects of the legislation during the Committee stage in the House of Lords which I attended, and took out the Minister of State for meal and persuade her to introduce an amendment which meant that for any young person in one of the designated establishments who did not have anyone other that the child care officer visit within any three month period, there should be appointed an official visitor. When the amendment went through the Lords and was reported to the Commons it was agreed although no one had information on how many young people were affected. When the survey was undertaken after it had become law, it was found there was no child in the former Approved Schools where the amendment applied, but there were a small number in existing Residential Special Schools controlled through the department of the Minister for Education. However when Social Service Departments were first created in 1970 and again following local government in 1974, individual children in care and placed in residential accommodation provided on a regional or national basis became technically lost as although list of children were created along with lists of all other resources when Social Service departments were formed or to be transferred when geographical areas became the responsibility of different local authorities. Unfortunately staff were not always appointed to these children and in some instances files were not transferred, and with some going into closed cases rather than current and where the appointment of a visitor would have been an asset.

Finally having established links with one backbench Member of the House of Commons he would put down questions which were framed in consultation with colleagues and in one instance successfully moved an amendment which again I drafted on the basis of the policy of the Association on a matter where I had previously drafted that policy. This confirmed that the right individuals who do things in the right way at the right time can exercise considerable influence over the direction and implementation of policies and legislation but to be effective one needs to understand the system and to know the right people.

Another issue which I quickly learnt as a local authority chief officer is the importance of someone taking detailed notes of all official discussions and then paying attention to how these are written up especially the decision which are taken. It is amazing how the recollection of participants changes over time especially if the decision agreed was different from what an individual participant wanted. I would personally study the draft record rather than delegate and the discuss possible modifications with the responsible officer and by approaching this in an honest and fair way ensured that over the course of time, the record was accurate and reflecting my understanding of what had happened. However this is only the first step as there is always a risk that once the meeting has assed people move on to the next subject and without a system no one ensures that appropriate action is taken, or the outcomes monitored with further amendments undertaken, including new or different resources should the outcome proved different from the legislative intention. People with delegated authority will interpret in their own way.

In the local authority were I worked it was discovered that in accord with our already existing local arrangements, if the Director Housing and myself agreed to sign confirmations of a certain position individual elderly people who were being visited by a local warden could receive a concessionary Television licence for which they paid only 5 pence. As a consequence about half the elderly in the local authority area received the concession which brought the politicians additional popularity and which in turn they communicated to their political colleagues in other parts of the country and led to I and my colleague advising other colleagues so that eventually a vast number of elders in the UK were gaining the concession. This then attracted national and government attention as those ineligible complained. The government through the National TV licence office ruled that the interpretation was questionable subject to a legal challenge. A local authority deputation to the Minister brought about a concession of a phased withdrawal with discussion over mounting a legal challenge. It led to a political party adopting the proposal for a concession to apply to all elderly people, and a study of the Party manifestoes of all three political parties twenty five years later reveals a commitment to keep the concession despite the difficult economic situation. I know of one local politician who became a senior member of a government who still thinks that had a legal challenge been mounted that it would have succeeded.

The British Political system with its strong civil service and local government structure therefore has great strength and flexibility and will survive whatever happens over the rest of this week and its present leaders should not be panicked or dictated to by those without any mandate to take decisions. I remain optimistic that we will see major changes in the conduct of politics a
nd a more fair system as well as move away from confrontational politics in its present form

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