Gordon Brown

Brown's test for Ming

Rob Knight — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:44:18 +0100

At the Lib Dem Spring Conference, Ming Campbell set five tests for Gordon Brown, a set of criteria by which Brown could be examined on Lib Dem values of liberty, fairness and responsibility.

As Brown moves closer to taking over from Tony Blair, he is increasingly asserting his own views and his own policies. This weekend, he announced an intention to press ahead with new anti-terrorism legislation, and in doing so issued an implicit challenge of his own: will Ming's Liberal Democrats accept a compromise on the length of detention without charge? For it is the increase in this period, above and beyond the 28 days already agreed, that forms a major part of Brown's plans:

Mr Brown wants to give police more powers - including holding suspects without charge for more than 28 days - when he takes over as prime minister.

Civil liberties campaigners warn the plan amounts to "internment".

But in a speech earlier, Mr Brown insisted he would bring in safeguards, including a judicial review of detention every seven days.

Brown is obviously trying to pitch this as a 'middle way' between the Blair/Reid authoritarianism and the libertarian objections of the Liberal Democrats and, on occasion, the Conservatives. The BBC seem to have taken this line, and have entitled their story 'Brown pledge to protect liberties', a strange title given that the first major proposal of Brown's mentioned in the story is a further erosion of liberty. Brown's 'protection' of liberty seems to consist mostly of judicial review:

He added: "We will have to consider further legislation to do so. I think that is where the public will need to recognise that we have got a new security problem."

But he said he would make sure that "at no point will our British traditions of supporting and defending civil liberties be put at risk.

"There has got to be independent judicial oversight. There has got to be proper parliamentary accountability.

"We should give the police the power to question people so we can both prevent incidents and get to the bottom of some of these very, very strange dealings."

Judicial oversight and parliamentary accountability are obviously good things. But judicial oversight is something we should have already, and parliamentary accountability is something that any responsible government should accept on all matters. These things should not be offered as sweeteners to a deal that is fundamentally unpalatable to the majority of people, indeed to a majority of MPs, who in 2005 defeated the government's last attempt at allowing detention without charge for 90 days.

Brown does offer some positive steps - the admission of phone-tap evidence in court would allow much more straightforward prosecution of terrorist suspects, removing some of the need for the grey areas of control orders and detention without charge. But the test for Ming is this: will he accept a 'consensus' on the 'need' for harsher laws in return for claiming some success in influencing Brown? After all, allowing phone-tap evidence in court is a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy and any improvement in judicial and parliamentary oversight will be welcomed by the party. Nick Clegg's comment on the matter is somewhat ambiguous:

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said Mr Brown "appears a little more concerned about parliamentary accountability than his predecessor".

But he added: "It now remains to be seen whether this is just a procedural fig-leaf for more authoritarian measures or part of a genuine shift in guaranteeing and not undermining our fundamental civil liberties."

Lord Carlile goes further, seeming to suggest that a need for consensus might trump possible objections:

Lord Carlile told the BBC: "I do think it is time for the political parties to get together and to try to reach a consensus with the government, so we can move forward on terrorism legislation on the basis of fitness for purpose, rather than having a hot political debate about these desperately difficult and important matters."

It is to be hoped that a compromise is not about to be struck. For many Liberal Democrats, this is a test of principle. If Ming gives any support, even in the context of a supposedly more liberal-friendly approach from Gordon Brown, to the idea of extending the detention period beyond 28 days, he will have failed a key test in the eyes of his own supporters and party members. Britain needed the Liberal Democrats to stand firm against Tony Blair's plans in 2005, and Britain needs the Liberal Democrats to stand just as firm against Gordon Brown's attempt to revive those plans.

Why do the poor pay so much tax?

Rob Knight — Wed, 23 May 2007 09:16:25 +0100

One of the most obvious things one can say about the present government is that they have increased public spending. From low (by 20th century standards) levels in 1997, public spending has increased substantially under Gordon Brown's Chancellorship. It was always obvious that taxes would have to rise in order to pay for this, and that was part of the implicit bargain New Labour made with the electorate. But has this actually led to a fairer society?

Chris Dillow has pointed out some evidence that it has not: look closely at the table on page 7 of this PDF and you will see that the poorest quintile of the population are paying 36.4% of their income in tax, whilst the richest pay only 35.5%. Let me reiterate: the poorest in Britain pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than the richest, according to the government's own statistics.

This is an outrageous situation for a supposedly progressive government to have created. And it's not as if Gordon Brown's latest Budget did anything to reverse the trend; the abolition of the 10p starting rate of income tax will hit the poorest most of all. Increasing focus on environmental taxation also hits the poor, which is why the Lib Dems advocated a substantial increase in the personal allowance as part of the 'Green Tax Switch' proposal. Green taxes raise more revenue for the government, and a responsible government should make sure that the poorest in society are properly protected from these taxes by equivalent cuts in taxes that they pay.

Of course, Gordon Brown would respond that the poor are helped by tax credits. But the tax credit scheme itself is descending into farce, the latest fiasco being the revelation that the total overpayments made by the scheme since its inception has reached £9bn. At heart, tax credits are actually a good idea, but their implementation bears all of the hallmarks of New Labour's greatest mistakes: an intrinsically good idea has been badly implemented due to over-complication and a reliance on the ability to process lots of complicated and variable information. Overpayments happen when a person claims tax credits when their income is low, then does not cancel their claim when their income rises. For the poor, whose income is very volatile, even from month to month, it is almost impossible to put in an accurate claim for tax credits. They are left with a choice between claiming and hoping that they get to keep what they receive, or not claiming at all; some 2 million potential tax credit claimants opt for the latter.

It has been common for commentators to give Gordon Brown a relatively easy ride over the last 10 years. The economy hasn't collapsed under his stewardship and there has long been a sense that we wouldn't see the best of Gordon Brown until Tony Blair has made way for him at Number 10. But the evidence is mounting that Brown has done very little to help those most in need in society and that, for all of the money spent, we have not seen the improvement in public services that we might expect. It is time for the Liberal Democrats to become much more robust in attacking Gordon Brown's mistakes, and exposing the genuinely outrageous aspects of the tax system we have today. The Conservatives seem to be embracing almost every aspect of the Blair-Brown project; it's up to us to provide the alternative.

Brown's credibility problem

Peter Welch — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:31:33 +0000

The pre-Budget statement is said to be an exercise in saying little this year. Brown will want to save his best lines for when he becomes leader.

Vince Cable expects Brown to try to claim that the Gerson efficiency review has saved billions from the cost of Government services. But Vince does not believe him:

"Mr Brown's efficiency savings will undoubtedly sound very impressive. But unfortunately no one believes it.

"The civil servants I speak to regard them as a joke, because they are not independently audited.

"Gershon called on Whitehall to save £20bn, through sackings, new IT systems, new procurement deals.

"It all sounds massively impressive, but until there is an independent verdict, it's inconclusive."

Vince is right. It is not happening. The UK civil service has a terrible record on implementing IT projects, and they are not going to produce the savings foreseen. Staff moves are not meant to produce real savings in many instances but to enable departments to move staff from administrative functions to "frontline" roles.

There is scope for this. But often the support staff are not well suited to a frontline role. And departments are well able to massage the figures by redefining roles.

The BBC is reporting "billions of pounds of investment in schools". This sounds good. But it wasn't so long ago that Brown was announcing billions of pounds of new investment for the NHS.

And that has led to the Prime Minister manning the barricades to fight for the closure of A%E units.

Whether it is claims of savings or of extra spending, who is going to believe Brown?

Brown's Britain

Rob Knight — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:08:55 +0000

The Prime Minister-in-waiting has given his verdict on the recent court case involving BNP leader Nick Griffin: he has called for changes to the law.

Griffin and co-defendant Mark Collett were charged in 2005 with inciting racial hatred following the broadcast of secretly-filmed footage of the pair by the BBC. After the first trial failed to reach a verdict, the fresh retrial has found the men not guilty.

Nick Griffin and his party are odious fear-mongers. Most British people agree that they are odious fear-mongers and, aside from a few pockets of discontent, their party receives very little support. Much of the support they do receive has been generated on the back of the publicity surrounding the trial.

So would a new law have made things any better? I doubt it. Incarcerating Nick Griffin for his views is exactly what the BNP would want; it would give a real boost to their claim that the current government is repressing the BNP's views, and would make valuable propaganda. Not only that, but there comes a point at which we have to accept that some people simply have odious views which we can do nothing about. Brown's exact quote is revealing:

"Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country.

"We have got to do whatever we can to root it out from whatever quarter it comes.

"And if that means we have got to look at the laws again, we will have to do so."

He's right to say that preaching of hate offends mainstream opinion. It certainly offends mine. But is that a justification for a law against it? I'm not convinced. I do, of course, have to recognise that I am not the target of Nick Griffin's hatred and, if I were, I might feel differently. But even that consideration leaves plenty of unanswered questions. Can we ever criminalise 'hatred'? I'm really not sure that we can, and that the use of the law to control hatred may be a mistake. Hatred is a state of mind, not a practice. It cannot be outlawed like smoking, or fox-hunting. A society demonstrates its willingness to confront hatred in other ways than by passing laws. In particular, we can defeat Nick Griffin's ideology by voting against it at the ballot box.

What's more, Brown is giving credence to the idea that any crackpot demagogue can become a real threat to the lives and liberties of British citizens purely on the basis of their ethnicity. Britain ought to be a country made of better stuff than to allow such a thing to happen. We should not need to silence Nick Griffin by force of law; let him say what he wants, and be publicly rejected for it. If we want to guarantee the liberty of British citizens, we could start by promoting those liberties and protecting them in law - that would be a better guarantee of protection against a future fascist government than trying to criminalise those who fantasise about such a government's rise.

Brown's views seem to build on the 'managerialist' view of government (take a browse through Chris Dillow's many excellent posts on the subject); that every problem must be rectified by government action, whether the passing of laws, the changing of tax structures or the spending of money. His policy suggestions are based on using the law to control individuals, rather than on strengthening society and institutions necessary to tackle the problem. If the problem is disenfranchised white communities voting BNP, the solution is to address the genuine causes of discontent in those communities. If the problem is fear amongst ethnic minorities, the solution is to strengthen and guarantee their rights as British citizens, so that no amount of 'send them back' rhetoric from the BNP can ever be taken seriously. I'd prefer to see a Britain where ethnic minority Britons are able to laugh in the face of the BNP and where no community feels so excluded from society as to fall prey to demagogues. That is the real goal, not the temporary silencing of uncomfortable or offensive views.

Gordon Brown to dignity: you´re fired!

Peter Welch — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:46:05 +0000