Blog Nation: what would I like to see discussed

Sunny ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ Hundal is organising a follow-up to 2008’s successful ‘Blog Nation’ event. Details over at Liberal Conspiracy, but Sunny asks what we’d like to discuss; below the fold, then, are some thoughts.

In terms of logistics, I would make three suggestions. Given the layout, it’s important that each table isn’t talking amongst itself thereby making so much noise that you can’t hear the speaker. Secondly, there are two breakout rooms. I would like to see the two used for an hour each for anyone to stand up a present an idea for five minutes. Thirdly, I’d like to see it recorded and ideally live streamed. Certainly, the plenary sessions could be on uStream or BlogTV.

—fold—

I start with some of the themes Sunny suggests, and add in some more. This is by no means exhaustive; just some things that interest me.

London

Firstly, I don’t think anyone who can’t beat Ken for the Labour nomination will be able to beat Boris. However, I’m not convinced that Boris will run again; it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion and it seems the main reason he would stay on is that there is no obvious heir apparent from the Conservative ranks, certainly not with with any significant profile. If the competition is between Ken and Oona, I would favour the former on the basis that he stands a better chance of building a broad coalition that goes beyond the Labour party. We will need to develop a narrative on the Conservative administration of City Hall, and I would suggest that it should focus on a lack of big ideas and not making the case for London in Whitehall and Westminster. Boris has also had a few bizarre flights of fancy – Boris Island Airport and the Boris Bus (especially its cost) – while scrapping ideas like Cross-River Tram that would have been beneficial to London.

When it comes to the Mayoralty, I have no idea who the LibDem candidate will be (although Susan Kramer is available). The choice of LibDem candidate may well indicate how London LibDems feel about the ménage à deux and whether they feel the Orange Book tendency has moved their party in a way with which they feel uncomfortable. We will have to determine whether attacking the LibDems for their coalition with the Tories is sensible, responsible and effective, and that may well depend on who the candidate is.

I am plotting an idea to set up a London political podcast. I will do a separate post on that as and when I have settled my ideas, but some of the ideas that have come out on that are important. We will need to look to the growth in Labour councillors and councils to be the starting point of a fightback against the Tories in the capital.

Wales and Scotland

We must avoid making this project too London-centric. Yes, it is being hosted in the capital and London has many millions, but we should look at the other devolved areas in Britain: Wales and Scotland. All three could learn from each other, but they may be particularly useful in working out a tack to take with regard to the LibDems. We also have to work out how we strengthen the progressive position at Holyrood and the Senedd, given that the former has extensive powers and it seems likely that the latter will be gaining similar powers. Alternate centres of power in Wales, Scotland and London may well be able to slow at least some of the damage I fear the current administration will bring.

The West Lothian Question

I think that progressives need to seriously consider the idea of English regions.

There is a lot of talk about devolution, giving power to the people and so on. We need to work out what that actually means. If we regionalised, we would see alternate centres of power. To give them meaning, they need powers substantial powers and we should consider the inclusion of policing, transport, housing, spatial planning and, potentially, health. I feel that counties are too small and too easily controlled by the centre to be able to effectively devise and implement policy.

Regions would mean the main parties would have to have some sort of meaningful regional structure. Much as I hope the regions would be able to stand up to Whitehall, I hope that meaningful regional structures within political parties would weaken the wearisome control from the centre to which so many people object.

I would hope that this would lead to the economic weight of the country shifting away from London and away from financial services and giving parts of England outside of London the opportunity to be something more than vassals.

We have spoken much about the sad state of local media. I merely raise the question as to whether regions would cause a re-alignment of newspapers, radio and television so that there could be meaningful coverage and scrutiny of politics and competition between outlets.

I reject the idea of and English Parliament as an answer to the West Lothian question out of hand (a Parliament for forty-eight million people isn’t much less unitary than one for sixty-one million).

We should emphasise that this would not create an extra layer of bureaucracy. There are already Government Offices for all the English regions along with Regional Development Agencies and Local Authorities Leaders’ Boards. This is about democratising those structures.

Ultimately, I think we have seen a flourishing of the London, Welsh and Scottish blogospheres that is indicative of better relations between citizen and state in those three areas and I want the same for the rest of England. This will mean addressing some of the mistakes and lack of ambition from the failed north-east referendum.

The LibDems

We should pursue a strategy of splitting the Social Democrats from the Liberals/Orange Book in the Lib Dems with a view to one side joining the Tories and the other Labour. We should make it clear that you cannot go into coalition with the Tories and call yourself progressive.

I think we should advocate that the cuts are being implemented too soon; that if they are going to do a zero-budget process, it has to be zero-budget across everything¹; that these cuts are also the political desire of the Orange Book and Tories; ensure efficiency where they are made; oppose the most egregiously unfair cuts; maintain support for industry.

That having been said, we need to work out how we can use social democratically-minded LibDems to control the excesses of the coalition.

Others

• Low pay. We must continue to support the living wage, consider the benefits of a citizen’s wage and ensure that the minimum wage is increased appropriately.
• Europe. As people will know, I am pretty pro-European. However, we should explicitly say that there should be no further integration for a couple of Parliaments to give the Lisbon changes and expansion time to bed down. We could expand to the relatively small countries of the Balkans when the time is right, but we will need to be in an economically strong position to welcome Turkey to the EU when the time is right. It should be made clear that member state of the EU have the right to nationalise, municipalise and deprivatise and that the principles of the free market should not prevent this (although I would retain the state aid prohibitions as they are).
• Co-ops. It strikes me that this is a movement to which we should reach out; surprisingly large, but often very local and potentially powerful for community organising.
• The BNP. We need to consider what’s going to happen next with the BNP and their fellow-travellers. I welcome their thorough trouncing at the recent election and I look forward to Richard Barnbrook being invited to pursue interests of his own choosing by the good people of Barking and Dagenham. However, I have three concerns. One is that we will become complacent about the BNP et al. and that they will be able to regroup. We must keep the pressure on them. A second is that the BNP’s problems may lead to more support for the EDL; while they are clearly not going to get anywhere electorally, they are violent. Thirdly, we need to explicitly oppose and combat the rising populist nationalism that we see in UKIP, sections of the Conservative party, sections of the media and, frankly, amongst people who should know better.
• Women’s rights. We must defend the right to abortion. I feel the likelihood of an attempt at restricting it in this Parliament is high and I feel there is a good chance it could be successful. I feel that we should also be looking at Norwegian-style rules for gender-balance in the boardroom. We should discuss the sex industry and the objectification of women.
• Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t want to belabour these subjects. For the moment, I want to set aside whether they were a good idea or not, and just look at the conduct of the campaigns. It is clear that there were mistakes and shortcomings. We should look at what they were, how they happened and how we stop them happening again. In order to do it properly, we must be able to do it without always going back to the morality of the conflicts. I’m not saying we shouldn’t consider the morality of the conflicts; I’m saying it’s not the only issue.

I’ll probably do something on electoral reform in the coming days.

xD.

1 – Including the NHS and Trident. I am prepared to at least consider that (for instance) industrial promotion is currently more important than (for instance) fertility treatment. I am not saying that is the case, but that we should be prepared to consider it.