Tag Archives: David Cameron

Obama in Britain: let’s stop talking of special relationship

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PM Obama

An essential relationship? Photo © Prime Minister's Office

President Barack Obama's visit to Britain has been a huge success. We like America's 44th president. We're touched by his place in history as the first black president. And we cheered his election, as I blogged at the time. So the fact Obama has stolen hearts is no surprise. 

But I was dreadling the visit, in a small way, as I knew it would prompt a wave of comments about whether Britain and America shared a 'special relationship'. This is an obsession of politicians and the media. Yet no one in the bars of London, Cardiff or Edinburgh would give it a moment's thought. If they did, they'd surely point out that the UK and US have lots of relationships with lots of countries. And then get back to talking about Ryan Giggs.

Yet The Times carried an Obama and Cameron article lauding the essential relationship. 

It's true that Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt forged a very close relationship during our darkest days, the second world war. But the war leaders weren't in total harmony: FDR was soon tormented by WSC's wilder ideas, and Churchill was rightly frustrated and frightened by FDR's complacency about Soviet designs on eastern Europe. 

And all this talk of a special relationship encourages the two countries' addiction to military adventures, as the Guardian's Simon Jenkins comments today. At a time when the BBC's World Service (not to mention all our public services) has had its spending slashed, David Cameron miraculously found £1 billion to burn on a war in Libya that has absolutely nothing to do with Britain. Yet a BBC reporter said in all seriousness that America thinks Britain should spend more on 'defence'. 

Britain admires America and its president. But neither country has any reason to spin an idea of a mythical special relationship.

 

A strange revolution: Ryan Giggs, the celebrity, Twitter and the law

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It's a crying shame that Britain's clash over the respective rights of privacy and freedom of speech focuses on a footballer's affair. It's hard to imagine a cause less likely to justify a public interest case – as opposed to the interest of tabloid papers. As the Guardian's Michael White put it, it's not exactly Tahrir Square, the centre of Egypt's revolt against tyranny. 

Yet it was obvious days ago that Ryan Giggs' injunction preventing him from being named was a futile exercise. Twitter users knew what newspaper readers weren't allowed to. Yesterday, a Scottish newspaper became the first to name Giggs – and this afternoon Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming relied on the protection of parliamentary privilege to follow suit. Within minutes, Sky News and other major news outlets decided to ignore the legal order. Despite this, Tugendhat J this evening became the second judge today to reject News Group's attempt to lift the injunction. The legal establishment is understandably reluctant to abandon the rule of law to what has been described as Britain's biggest act of civil disobedience. Yet the longer this goes on, the less respect the law will enjoy.

The biggest lesson in this saga is that a cover up often ends up creating a bigger story. Anyone wanting to minimise bad headlines should think very seriously before going to law to try to stop it. Ryan Giggs isn't the first person to find that managing the story might have been a far better tactic. 

But we should also pause before accepting that a Twitter storm is somehow more legitimate than a reasoned legal judgment. Alastair Campbell made the point well in an interview on BBC Radio 5's Drive show.  The media, he suggested, were relying on a 'useful idiot' like John Hemming MP breaking cover so they could name Giggs. He added that something that interests the public isn't the same thing as the public interest. News Group itself struggled to claim a public interest in naming Giggs. 

The prime minister weighed in again today, arguing that Britain's privacy rules were unsustainable. But he repeated his concern about judge-made law, rather than legislation passed by parliament. This is facile. Much of our law is case law – an act of parliament is never the final word. It's the job of judges to interpret the law and – in the higher courts – establish precedent. If parliament doesn't like the results it can legislate to change them, but parliament has a far from unblemished record – as anyone who remembers the Dangerous Dogs Act of the 1980s will recognise. That was a classic example of the adage that hard cases make bad law. 

The greatest irony is that Britain had no general right to privacy until the 1998 Human Rights Act incorporated the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law.  How curious that this new right should almost immediately be eroded by the explosive growth of social media and the new power of the crowd.  

 

 

Britain’s new government: let’s praise our politicians and civil servants

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Britain's politicians aren't the most popular people on the planet, especially after the MPs' expenses scandal. But they deserve great praise for the responsible, dignified and mature way they behaved after the May 2010 general election resulted in a hung parliament.  

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg rose to the occasion, with statesmanlike speeches the day after the election. Negotiations were carried out without the usual leaks and briefings. And the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats made great compromises with good grace to create what I hope will be a stable and enduring government. 

Let's not forget the huge contribution made by Britain's highly professional and non-political civil service. It must have been a great professional challenge to respond to the uncertainties of the last six days and enable the new coalition government to take office just hours after the parties finally reached agreement. 

Changing a government is the greatest glory of a democratic country. In many countries, it would be an impossible dream. Last night's dramatic events reflect well on Britain.  

The problem with The Observer’s urge for Lib Dems to embrace Labour

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Today’s Observer urges the Liberal Democrats to partner Labour rather than the Conservatives, after Thursday’s general election led to a hung parliament.

As I blogged earlier, Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems face a cruel conundrum. Embracing the Tories may reflect the fact that David Cameron’s party won more seats and votes than anyone else. But the Conservatives oppose all the Lib Dems’ most cherished policies.

Yet the Labour alternative is equally appalling. It may offer a greater chance of electoral reform but the fatal block is Brown. Many voters will be appalled if the Lib Dems sustain the deeply unpopular Labour leader in power. Yet constitutionally, I’m uncertain how the Lib Dems can demand Brown goes but at the same time create a Lib-Lab pact. The Observer editorial suggests Brown should signal he will go within two years, but most people want him to go within two weeks. My father says Labour could elect a new leader in just one day, but even if that were true we’d face a huge issue about Britain getting a new prime minister who hadn’t been a party leader in the election.

The next week will be fascinating!

Clegg’s conundrum: Cameron or Brown?

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Be careful what you wish for. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg faces an appalling dilemma this weekend. Should his party help David Cameron form a Tory government? Or partner the election’s biggest loser, Gordon Brown, to create a Lib-Lab pact?

Clegg made it clear on Friday that the Conservatives had won the right to try, as they won the greatest number of seats and votes in Thursday’s general election. Cameron quickly offered the Lib Debs a partnership, but one that would have required Clegg’s party to give up most of its cherished policies, especially on fair votes. The parties have been in talks ever since. 

Gordon Brown is desperate for the third party to choose Labour. His death bed conversion to electoral reform means that Labour offers the Lib Dems a far greater prospect of changing Britain’s corrupt voting system. But propping up such a deeply disliked – and defeated – prime minister would be very unpopular. 

Pundits are drawing parallels with the last time a British general election resulted in a hung parliament, in February 1974. (As a precocious 10 year old, I was fascinated by that election, supporting all the three main parties over the campaign.) The defeated Tory prime minister Ted Heath had to resign after the Liberals refused a coalition. But the circumstances are very diferent. Heath’s party was just four seats behind Labour, and actually won more votes. So either main party would have had a good claim to legitimacy had it formed a government. As it was, Harold Wilson became prime minister after winning three elections out of four as Labour leader. 

The TV and social media election

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It was billed as the social media election. Yet television – invented the year my father was born, 1926 – has electrified Britain's 2010 general election campaign.

Nick Clegg's performance in Britain's first leaders' debate a week ago catapulted the Liberal Democrats into pole position as the party for change. For seven days, Labour and the Conservatives have agonised how to respond. Should they attack Clegg or ignore him? Should they play the man or his party's policies?

Tonight's second televised debate was eagerly awaited. Would Nick maintain his lead? Would the two other party leaders perform better?

I thought all three leaders did well tonight. Interestingly, Irish journalist Christine Bohan said on Twitter that she'd kill for a leaders' debate of this calibre with Ireland's political leaders Cowen, Kenny and Gilmore. (Thanks to Orlaith Finnegan for a retweet of this.) Brown, Cameron and Clegg were impassioned and smart.

I blogged recently that talk of a social media election was overplayed, as BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones became a digital election reporter. I don't think Twitter will win the election, but it has complemented the role of the TV debates. And it's giving fresh power to the people and the political parties against the deeply biased old print media. The brilliant #nickcleggsfault viral Twitter campaign, mocking the Tory press's smears about the Liberal Democrat leader, rattled the Daily Telegraph, which was forced to defend its smear against Clegg earlier the same day.

Here's to next week's final debate.

The election leaders’ debate: making up for our democratic deficit?

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History was made tonight as Britain held its first leaders' election debate. (Or more accurately, the first debate between the three biggest UK-wide parties.)

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg got off to an uncertain start, with Clegg nervous as he opened the debate. But the Liberal Democrat leader must be delighted with his performance, as ITV News and YouGov both proclaimed him the winner.

That said, the BBC's Nick Robinson made a fair point: debates have no winners. We all watch with our own prejudices and values. Labour's Alan Johnson said Brown was the victor, while William Hague said Cameron came out on top. I think they're wrong, but who am I to say? The real test will be how the leaders came across to millions of voters, especially in marginal seats.

I didn't think Cameron was as bad as some have argued. But his curse is to be seen as the successor to Tony Blair. We're suspicious of slick politicians, after discovering from Blair that that smooth-speaking politicians are the last people to trust. And the Tories have been so muddled in their thinking (slash spending? cut taxes?) that no one knows what they'd do if Cameron moved into Downing Street after 6 May. (Lesson from the past: Thatcher doubled VAT in 1979 despite not breathing a word about this bombshell during that year's election campaign.) 

The debate reinforced the view of many of us that Britain's electoral system is fundamentally unfair. Some people's election votes carry far more weight than others, which is outrageous. We must never repeat the travesty of 1983, when the Liberals and SDP won almost the same proportion of the vote as Labour but got a fraction of the parliamentary seats. I hope that the three debates help nudge the British public to share their votes more evenly, to force a fairer voting system.

The other lesson, for me, was that social media made the debate far wider than the three men in suits, watched by a studio audience told not to cheer, applaud or boo. I loved seeing what people were saying on Twitter, and sharing my thoughts and weak jokes. It made up for the ridiculous, Orwellian rules constraining the debate. (Are the politicians really so frightened of the public that they need such protection?) We've got another three hours of debate before polling day. It should be surprisingly interesting.