The People's Jury: Guilty or Not Guilty?

In his excellent piece for the Telegraph (here) blogger Graeme Archer does a grand job of knocking down the rather, ahem, inetresting idea in the Guardian (where else?) that a randomly selected "jury" of 1,000 Britons ought to hold court on some of the big issues facing the public.

Putitng aside Archer's point about this unelected clique telling our elected parliament what to do and think (I am rather fond of the idea of parliamentary sovereignty and voting at election time to make my voice heard) the idea is doomed because it almost certainly won't get the protagonists what they want.

By dangling 3 big issues - MPs expenses, the banking crisis and phone hacking - in front of the public, all issues where the public take issue with "vested interests" and "big businesses" - they make the idea sound attractive. But consider this. Britain is - wait for it - a conservative (small "c") country. For the vast majority of the last century or so, we have had Conservative, Conservaive-led or Conservative-dominated National governments. There is, as we are now finding out, a big conservative element to the LibDems and also to the Labour Party too. We have had precious few radical socialist, or even just socialist, governments and the only time recently when Labour have "won big" is when they shifted to the right (i.e. to where the people of Britain are). Sorry Guardian readers, however few of you there are left, it is true. Go to a council estate anywhere in the country, where you might expect Labour support to be strongest. Ask them about Europe, or immigration, or taxation levels and see what they say; I distinctly remember one voter last time in the heart of Lakeham lecturing me about the evils of Europe, too many immigrants, tax too high etc etc and - you guessed it - he would still be voting Labour. Even Labour folk have a conservative element to them.

So if you take 1,000 random Britons you wouldn't get the spread I think The Guardian expect. And instead of asking them about MPs expenses, as Archer suggests, you put other issues in front of them, you might not get the answer you expect either.

So I lay this challenge to The Guardian, The People's Jury and its fans. With some polls putting support for a return to the death penalty at over 70%, would you be happy for the first idea for discussion to be the death penalty?

Dontcha just love indrect democracy - when it suits you, eh, Guardian readers? ;-)

Ireland speaks for Europe again

The victory for the NO campaign in Ireland has a huge impact on EU politics; but interestingly the one thing that came through from all of the TV coverage and news reports that I have seen if the total lack of political education and the numbers of people who didn't understand what they were voting on. I'm pretty sure that's the excuse they'll use for holding another vote, in the hope that the Irish can (once again) be convinced to change their minds.

However in a funny way, once again Ireland has spoken for the whole of Europe - because whilst the bureaucracy and the spineless politicans seek to remove more and more powers from national legislatures and place them in a political superstructure that has an increasing democratic and legitimacy deficit, the people in these countries have their views and opinions ignored.

The betrayal by Labour and the LibDems over the Lisbon Treaty denied the people of Britain their say over the future; without knowing it, the Irish may just have given us our voices back.

In politics today, a cry for freedom has gone up.

LibDems make another U-turn on Lisbon

Tonight Nick Clegg's ridiculous stance on the Lisbon Treaty go a whole lot more ridiculous after his peers in the House of Lords did another u-turn and outright voted against a referendum.

So now we've had a manifesto committment to a public vote, abstention from his MPs and opposition from his peers.

So what do the LibDems think about the biggest European issue around at the moment? Nobody knows because you just can't pin them down. Still, at least Clegg has the 42 day fiasco to hide behind; but he can't do it forever.

MEP tells truth shock!

I mentioned the case of Independent MEP for the East of England, Tom Wise, a few days ago when Mr Wise was caught admitting how much he was enjoying milking the EU cash cow for himself. Now Mr Wise, who was first elected under a UKIP banner, has said he is pleased to have been caught because it would show up the problems in the EU.

Well done Mr Wise; a good point, well made. You have been honest in an odd sort of way that others wouldn't have been. Now emerge from politics with at least some dignity by resigning as our MEP.

More from the Norwich Evening News here.

Nick Clegg: Utterly Useless

If the Liberal Democrats had any powerful men-in-grey-suits they should be striding towards Mr Clegg's office tonight to give him the roasting of his political life. His populist position on the Lisbon Treaty has failed on all fronts and now he must face the public backlash and the political crisis within his own party. How has it come to this?

Well, for reasons best left to Mr Clegg he decided against sticking to his 2005 election committment and backing a public poll on the Lisbon Treaty. Quite why is beyond me, but never mind. He then thought up a huge wheeze - go for the big referendum on the "in-out" question; he'll look mildly euro-realistic, it'll be an elephant trap for the Tory right and gets him out of his Lisbon hole. One problem - it was a rubbish plan.

Immediately people like me, who want Britain to say in Europe but don't see the need for a constitution/treaty would be disenfranchised. It's like saying if you won't play football then you won't play any ball game at all. Europe-with-Lisbon or no Europe at all. Actually, Mr Clegg, I want to be in Europe but without Lisbon. I want to play Rugby (if you follow my point).

Now Mr Clegg could have hidden behind political obscurity and hope nobody noticed this blunder, but then a dozen or so of his parliamentary party promised their electorate they'd vote for a referendum and this blew the lid off the plan. Again, Nick Clegg could have dealt with this - but he insisted on having a massive LibDem frontbench (half his party count as such) and so consequently a few of them held important posts and so having them resign looks bad.

He might still have escapes, but then he went on Newsnight last night and totally humiliated himself; firstly by being savaged by Paxo and then saying that Brown was u-turning but, of course, he wasn't at all... And then he chose the most barking of views; that he should three line whip his MPs into abstaining! So he's prepared to force his own side to resign over not making up their mind!

And today three senior members of his party quit and, from what I hear in Norwich, his party grassroots are in uproar. Not helped by the fact that 63 will be his magic number - the number of votes that the referendum was defeated by and also the number of MPs in his party.

So, Nick Clegg is utterly humiliated in a political crisis entirely of his own making. He could have avoided this at several points and didn't.

This issue is no longer about Europe, it's about Clegg's judgement. He should go home, learn the lessons, make up with his own party ... then start working on his reshuffle. Because I'm pretty sure a few LibDem MPs will be going to home to think about their future under Clegg.

QT: LibDem Laws squirming on EU Treaty

The LibDem policy on the EU Treaty - that is, to demand a referendum on Britain's future in the EU - which has been through the mill by bloggers this week is totally falling apart on QT.

The question no LibDem will answer is this; what happens if you are pro-EU and anti-Treaty?

Let the people decide!

UPDATE: Letwin winning the battle; audience joining in on the Tory side. Laws struggling without support. Why on earth has Clegg allowed his party, and some of his best spokesmen, get mullered on this subject?

UPDATE 2: Daily Mail woman says that Laws has thrown a Queenie strop: "if you won't give us our treaty, we'll tear the whole thing up!" Good on her! Exactly the point. This isn't about the whole EU Question, its about the Treaty!!! And it's about Labour and the LibDems breaking a promise.

Very brave, Mr Beazily

I have just watched the BBC Politics Show during which our local MEP Christopher Beazily ruled out a vote on the EU Constitution saying that the issue hadn't been explained and that we should trust parliamentary procedure.

Nothing about Gordon Brown's promise at the 2005 election which he subsequently broke. Nothing about the convention that major constitutional changes must be ratified by a referendum.

Blair could have forced through devolution in 1997 but he chose to put it to the vote because it was a constitutional issue, despite having a massive parliamentary majority. Ditto in Northern Ireland, London and even the North East of England. Yet Europe is a no-no.

Mr Beazily is, in case you've never heard of him, a Conservative MEP who will face re-selection in the next few months. Airing such views, so alien to Conservative Party members, so close to his re-selection? In the words of Sir Humphrey ... "very brave" ...

Sir Ming sets a new low for a political leader

Ming Campbell's call for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU was clearly designed to be a political masterstroke, so how did it go so wrong?

Sir Ming has previously ruled out a vote on the EU Constitution despite promising one just 2 years earlier. He then suffered ridicule from the press and, more damagingly, his own side via the blogosphere. Then days later, Sir Ming aimed to trumpt his critics by calling for a vote on the whole question of Britain's EU membership. Instead of declaring this a brilliant act of democracy, the collective political wisdom of the nation stumbled backwards, stratched its head and said "what?!?"

The LibDems don't have a problem with Britain's membership of the EU - why call a referendum and then campaign for a "yes" vote? Doesn't this just give fuel to the UKIPers around the place?

But the biggest problem is this. I would probably (though not certainly) vote to saty in the EU but to reject the constitution. So what would I do in the LibDem referendum? If I voted "yes" it would seem as if I were backing the constitution, but if I voted "no" it would say I wanted to pull out of the EU.

This policy is so muddled, and so stupid, that it failed to achieve any of his objectives and just reinforced how shaky his leadership really is. This was badly thought through knee-jerk reaction - the kind we in the Tories were used to seeing under IDS. It looked good for five and a half seconds and then the reality of this latest rushed-policy sinks in.

Campbell, and by extension the LibDems, now have no credibility on this at all. I know some LibDems are tearing up their membership cards, others are openly calling on him to resign. If their parliamentary party could be ruthless with Kennedy, why aren't they showing more guts when it comes to useless old buffer Sir Ming?

Apart from Iraq, what are the LibDems for?

The LibDems spoilt their summer of silence with a brief period of media activity when Gordon Brown replied to a letter written by Sir Ming demanding the withdrawl of troops from Iraq. It is, therefore, a surprise that the next LibDem media hit is ... Iraq, again.

Apparently Sir Ming has made a video about the issue and will use their conference to put it centre stage. Why?

Is there a single person who doesn't know the LibDem policy on this? And, more importantly for them, is there a single vote still to be won with this issue?

Why are they not trying to expand their single issue USP and at least trying to make the next election competetive? The Tories learnt the long, hard way what this does to a party. Our experience with Europe tells us something. If you find an issue that your party loves but the country doesn't rate then don't expect to win an election by banging on and on about it.