Tendring Topics…….on line
Nick Clegg
Do
you remember the televised debates of the Party leaders prior to our last parliamentary
General Election? I don’t usually listen
to politicians sounding off – but I did watch those debates, and thought that I
learned from them.
I had for many years considered myself to be an
internationalist and a democratic socialist. More recently though I had come to
the conclusion that the most
important task any new British government needed to undertake was the reduction
of the yawning gap between the incomes of country’s wealthiest and poorest
citizens. I had been impressed by The
Spirit Level by Quakers Kate Picket and Richard Wilkinson which
demonstrated that reducing that gap benefited the whole community and not just
the poor. I had become a modest
supporter of the Equality Trust* and
had come to realize that public ownership of the means of manufacture and
distribution (whether by local or national government) was only one of the
means by which greater economic justice could be secured. .
During the
decade of New Labour rule the gap
between the incomes of the rich and poor had actually widened! Lord Mandelson, a creator of New Labour had publicly declared that he
had no problem with billionaires. Well, I believe that while there are
families that are homeless, ill-clad, and don’t know where the next meal is
coming from, he should have a problem
with them!
Despite being
well into my eighties at the time of the last election I was one of those
‘floating voters’ that politicians are eager to persuade. I intended to vote
for the candidate of the Party most likely at least to attempt to reduce that
ever-widening gap.
I have to confess it. I was taken in by Nick Clegg. He I thought was the most inspiring of the
three speakers, and the one with the most radical ideas. He appeared to have a ‘fire within’ that reminded me of
some of the early twentieth century Labour Movement pioneers Because of this, for the first time in my
life, his party received my vote and although with our system of voting it
would have made no difference which way I voted, I have since deeply regretted
it.
Tony
Blair, although he abandoned many of the purposes for which the Labour Party
was created, did at least win elections for his New Labour. Nick Clegg
didn’t. His party did quite well – but
not well enough. He went into an unequal
coalition with the Conservatives and began to drop the principles on which he had been elected. I had hoped that he might work towards a more
equal society. He supported the new
Chancellor’s early gift to the super-rich, the reduction of the highest rate of
income tax, thus benefiting those with a taxable income in excess of £150,000 a
year – while beginning an austerity programme that particularly affected the
poor and disadvantaged! In his election
campaign he had tried for the student vote – promising not to raise tuition
fees. In coalition this was one of the
first promises that he abandoned.
He
would no doubt claim that by membership of the coalition he had been able to
modify his Conservative partners more objectionable policies in a way that
would have been impossible had he been in opposition. In the world of British politics today, I
don’t believe that that is true. When a
government doesn’t command the majority of votes in the House of Commons a
determined opposition party can support the government on matters about which
they agree or at least find acceptable, and join (or threaten to join) with
other parties to defeat legislation that they find unacceptable. Thus, in modifying the policies of a
‘minority’ government a determined opposition party can exert more effective influence
than a coalition partner.
Nigel
Farage’s UKIP has an increased representation in the European Parliament - where the Ukippers revealed themselves as an ill-mannered rabble, insulting
their fellow parliamentarians by ostentatiously turning their backs on the
European Anthem!. In the European and local government elections
UKIP have shown themselves capable of appealing to the xenophobia, greed and
fear of a great many electors and of taking votes, particularly from
Conservative candidates. They haven’t
yet any Westminster MPs and they haven’t gained control of any local authority, but they have gained many Council Chamber seats and, again and again, have
driven representatives of the Conservative, Lib.Dem. and Labour parties into
‘third place’ in the polls.
Anybody
surveying the UK
political scene today can see that it is the Ukippers rather than the Lib.Dems.
who pose the greater threat to an overall
Conservative Majority at next year’s General Election. Ukippers
themselves are becoming increasingly confident.
I have always regarded our own Conservative MP Douglas Carswell as a
Crypto-Ukipper. He has the essential qualification of acute Europhobia and has even been singled
out for praise by Nigel Farage. Yet UKIP
has selected a candidate to oppose him in the forthcoming General Election. That candidate probably won't win – but he could
take enough Conservative votes to ensure that Douglas Carswell doesn’t win
either. It isn’t surprising that David
Cameron is much more concerned with out-flanking Nigel Farage with ever-more
Europhobic measures to halt the flow of EU visitors and immigrants, than he is
with the concerns of his own Lib.Dem. ‘deputy’.
I think it likely that Nick Clegg will be
remembered in history as the man who finally destroyed the once-great Liberal
Party.
*For further
information about the Equality Trust and ‘The Spirit Level’ contact www.equalitytrust.org.uk or
Equality Trust, 18 Victoria Park
Square , London E2 9PF
The Slaughter of the Innocents!
Last week the CIA announced
that it had found no evidence of Russia being directly involved in
the destruction of that Malaysian air liner.
That, I am sure, was not what
their political bosses had wanted them to report and I am equally sure that, had the
Russians been directly involved, the CIA would have found evidence of it.
On 28th July, a spokesman for
the Kiev Ukrainian Government declared that the aircraft’s ‘black boxes’ had
revealed that the air liner had been destroyed by a ground-to-air missile as
had been surmised. That was surely
extraordinary. We had been told that the
‘black boxes’ had been handed over intact by the pro-Russian insurgents to
representatives of the Malaysian Airline and that they were being sent to the
UK to be opened and have their contents analysed. How, I wonder, did those boxes fall into the
hands of the Kiev
government and had they tampered with them in any way?
It was a fortnight before international inspectors were able to secure the site of the crash and begin to make a proper
inspection of the remains of the plane and even now their situation is far from safe and secure. This has not been because of lack of co-operation from the insurgent authorities (they, after all, found and
secured the ‘black boxes’ and handed them over untouched to the Malaysian air line).
The reason the inspectors can't get on with their work is continued shelling by
the artillery of the Kiev Government and the refusal of that government’s
forces to cease their attacks while inspection is going on.
In fact, we
still don’t know for certain how that air disaster took place. We don’t know if it was shot down by a
missile and, if it was, who fired that missile, why they fired it and from
where. This hasn’t prevented the
leaders of the EU from deciding that it was all the result of Russia ’s support of the Ukrainian rebels – and
they have imposed a further set of economic and political sanctions on Russia . Meanwhile, NATO is holding a series of naval
exercises in the Baltic Sea and the UK
is sending troops to take part in military exercises in Poland . Both
actions are surely quite uncalled for and dangerously provocative. Can we really have already forgotten the
horrors of the two twentieth century world wars? The few of us who still remember World War II
certainly haven’t.
Meanwhile in
the ‘Holy Land', Israel is conducting a bloody and destructive campaign in Gaza
which has so far resulted in the deaths of nearly 2,000 Palestinians, mostly
civilians and many of them women and children. A fragile temporary cease-fire lasted only a matter of hours and the Israeli
Prime Minister has suggested that the campaign may go on for much longer. Yes, they have been provoked. HAMAS too
bears some responsibility for the slaughter – but the Israeli response has been and is totally disproportionate. The situation
is made worse by the fact that Israel
exerts a tight blockade on Gaza which means that the unfortunate victims haven’t even the choice of fleeing their country and
becoming refugees. Twice at least, Israeli forces have bombed or shelled United Nations buildings in which hapless civilians have sought safety. ISIS, Al Qaeda and
the like must be delighted by the extra recruits that the
situation is producing!
Why is there
not even talk of sanctions and dire ‘consequences’ for Israel and those who support her
and supply her with the weapons of death?
Israel
is responsible for many more deaths and much more destruction than those east Ukrainian insurgents. Are the lives of Middle Eastern women and
children less sacred than those of European countries? Or is it, as I suggested in this blog a
fortnight ago: It’s not what is done,
it’s who it is does it, that really matters? How much more strident and belligerent the voices from 'the west' would have been if only it were the 'Russians’ who were slaughtering innocent women and children in Gaza!
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