With polls suggesting that something around 62% of the population wants a "fairer" voting system, and just such a policy having been Liberal and then Liberal Democrat policy for as long as anyone can remember, many people are suggesting that for the Lib Dems obtaining a promise to achieve some kind of fairer voting system for Westminster elections should be a "red line" without which no deal should be concluded to form any coalition government with anyone.  I have even seen some people promising to resign their party membership if this is not part of any pact.

This is wrong.  If they want to tear up their membership cards, and God knows I've been close so many times and on so many issues far more important to me than Proportional Representation (such as whether government has any moral right to kill people by their legislation), so be it.  I think they would also be wrong to do so.  

What our supposed "leaders" have shamefully and dishonestly failed to enumerate for the electorate in the sham election just concluded is that fiscally the United Kingdom is but weeks away from looking like Greece or Portugal.  Whatever happens in the next few days over decisions as to who will run the country and with whose help, this must, far and away, be the most important consideration.  You do not want to see what the price of failure on this front might be.  I for one do not believe the party that got us into this situation, Labour, and under any leader previously a part of their last government, are capable of making such a volte face, owning their responsibility and dealing with the fall out from their decade of decadence.

But, since people are so fond of quoting the Lib Dem preamble to the party constitution in an attempt to prove that an anarchist such as myself cannot possibly be a member in good conscience, let me quote some of it back to those people who think PR is such a red line:

We believe that people should be involved in running their communities. We are determined to strengthen the democratic process and ensure that there is a just and representative system of government with effective Parliamentary institutions, freedom of information, decisions taken at the lowest practicable level and a fair voting system for all elections...We believe that sovereignty rests with the people and that authority in a democracy derives from the people. We therefore acknowledge their right to determine the form of government best suited to their needs and commit ourselves to the promotion of a democratic federal framework within which as much power as feasible is exercised by the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. We similarly commit ourselves to the promotion of a flourishing system of democratic local government in which decisions are taken and services delivered at the most local level which is viable. _{[Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Constitution]}

Of far greater importance in there, for me, is our (also long standing) determination to give away power; to devolve decision making to the lowest practicable level.  And this is an aim shared, in principle at least, by very many Conservatives.  And not, from plenty of evidence over the past 13 years, by nearly as many in Labour.

We have to ask ourselves which is more important: getting decision making at a level at which people feel better able to hold their representatives taking such decisions to account more easily, if such are needed (since I would of course say the "lowest practicable level" is likely almost always to be the individual!), or continuing to have decisions taken far away, by central government power-grabbers, who once every half decade are subject to a slightly fairer electoral process?

Of course, the passage quoted above talks about achieving a "fair voting system for all elections", which might, for example, mean holding out for PR in any devolved body elections - which, since so many of them already involve the notion of multi-member constituencies, either in first or second tier local authorities for example, might be an easier ask of a PR sceptic Tory party.  And that is key, isn't it -  the most important representative bodies for which fair votes are needed most are those with the real power.  If we devolve as much power as possible to fairly elected sub-national bodies, the less we need to worry about how Westminster representatives are chosen.  But also, people will have seen a coalition work together to devolve power, to reduce central government, and to implement fair voting for devolved government, and even Tories may begin, by the time that process has seen some meaningful wins, to be less fearful of PR at Westminster level.

Naturally if all power were devolved, we'd at least be part way to my ideal scenario of not requiring political "leaders" at all, and who knows, we may even decide that the better way to select the few people needed to deal with the rump of issues that cannot be dealt with by more local forms of governance is for the fairly elected local bodies to send representatives from amongst their own number, as in David Hume's "Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth" on an ad hoc basis.

So, let's drop this PR as a "red line" business shall we and focus on where we might get agreement to implement some of our core beliefs that will have just as wide ranging an impact on the accountability of our representatives at whichever level they take decisions, and most of all, concentrate on not becoming the next tear-gas capital of Europe, huh?

Incidentally, as a little codicil, I notice also in that passage something that could perhaps bring us closer to the Tories on the issue of Europe too.  Devolving decision making to the lowest practicable level must surely be accompanied by us scrutinising the purpose of and applicability of European regulation on those services and constituencies whose main level of operation is lower than the national government.  If Europe is a "free trade" oriented network, it beggars belief that "free trade" requires more and more supra-national regulation.  Indeed it is regulation from government at any level that makes trade less free.  If we believe a particular type of decision is one most appropriately taken at the "lowest practicable level" it should be one on which we tell the EU to butt out.

In the depths of last night I happened to stumble upon the BBC reshowing its "HardTalk" interview from last week with David Milliband. Right at the end, Stephen Sackur's last question to Millipede was about whether the Home Department was correct in preventing Geert Wilders from coming to the UK. Millbland's answer was to repeat, time after time the phrase "hate filled film" and that it was "incitement" to show it. Suddenly Sackur asked whether the Milliner had actually watched the film.

Of course he hadn't, and after running that off his tongue easily he went back to his assertion that this was a "hate filled film" that would "incite" and so on and so forth.

Now, someone last week posted a link to the film on YouTube. It's only ten minutes worth (hardly worth traipsing over here to England to show - their lordships would only have actually woken up in time for the closing credits in any case no doubt). It did not incite me to anything. Yes, it is unpleasant in its imagery. It made me want to see a debate about it with Muslims explaining why each piece of the Qur'an it quotes does not mean what he seems to infer it means. But wait, that's a good thing, isn't it? It did not make me believe they do mean what Wilders clearly say they mean personally. It made me want the understand the apologetics to be able to refute such claims where necessary.

It is certainly no worse in its imagery than some of the packages that were being put out on right wing mainstream TV stations in the US in the aftermath of 9/11, for example.

But that's not the point. The decision to bar Wilders from the UK was an extraordinary one - whatever their views it does us no good at all to be barring elected representatives from our close allies, derogating temporarily from core EU principles like freedom of movement if you like. At the very least surely it behoves those who are going to defend such an extraordinary decision actually to have watched the evidence cited for making it, rather than just repeating what you are told and which any concerned individual can decide for themselves by watching it and realize that you have been talking out of the hole between your butt-cheeks.

When you are shown up once as feeding us crap on one subject, how can we take you seriously on anything else you say?

There has been a bit of a spat at the Euro-parl about whether some amendments to the "Telecoms Packet" (how romantic, is that like the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company's packet?) that I encouraged readers to respond to a couple of days ago.

One of the movers of one of the offending amendments has, according to the BBC, said...

What a fuckwit. I doubt there has ever been any piece of legislation in any legislature which was claimed not to have "innocent intentions". But in a month when his own party has been moaning about, amongst other things the use of RIPA in ways for which it was not intended, surely the extension of "innocent intentions" into overbearing surveillance and so on should be obvious.

If there are drafting issues that permit an interpretation of a law that increases surveillance then the lawmakers should protect against it. The world is littered with "innocent" laws that have been interpreted to allow more sinister applications. A Tory, if committed to small government, should know this and not continue to protect his corporate sponsors.

Can anyone point me to a Euro-parl equivalent of "Public Whip" so I can determine if any of my supposedly liberal Euro-reps agreed with this Tory tosspot?

Thanks to Liberal conspiracy for highlighting protectionist amendments being sneaked into the Telecoms directive which MEPs will decide on tomorrow:

The amendments basically set the scene for forcing ISPs to monitor all their customers' traffic to catch them sharing copyrighted material on the web and to cut customers off if they keep doing it.

Over in the comments on Matt Wardman's blog posting the other day I suggested that this whole surveillance obsession smacks of "we do it because we can". Why should one's electronic communications, voice or data, be any more permissible to be snooped on than any other communication - snail mail, face to face or similar. Just because we can. For a variety of reasons electronic communications leave traces, and traces can always be tracked, but why should they be?

It is true that we need to have a debate about intellectual property and how, or indeed whether, it should be enforced in an era of global instant communication. It appears that the artists tend to be ahead of their production companies in exploring how to use the massive marketing opportunity that is the internet, such as recent experiments in releasing music for free, or on honesty box terms, on the web. But of course it is the media corporations and production companies that are lobbying for this sort of protectionist measure. The debate needs to be held much more widely than that though, and not snuck through where these measures were explicitly removed from the directive last time the European Parliament discussed it.

I have written to Sharon Bowles and Emma Nicholson. I suggest everyone take a look at the details of these amendments and give some thought to writing also to any of their MEPs. It is being debated tomorrow, so act fast!

I very fundamentally believe that the internet in particular is seen as a threat by both governments and corporations who feel they are not able to control it. For me, it is the greatest advance in people communicating with people and eventually needing far less "government" to broker their international relationships or trans-national corporations to broker their trade. But for it to bring about the vast benefits of voluntary co-operation amongst individuals around the world it needs to find its own rules, not have them imposed by those very bodies that are scared of it!

Maybe my blog reader is faltering, but I seem to be getting enough comment on the Irish EU Treaty vote from eurosceptic types. But very little from members of the most avowedly "pro-EU" political party in Britain. Are the Lib Dems collectively stunned by the result?

As that strangest of beasts a pretty anti-EU Lib Dem I'm personally kind of pleased.

One last post on this, not because I care, but because I report "news" in this instance...

It was to be expected I suppose that the events of the past few days would be mentioned in Vince Cable's talk at the Oxford East constituency dinner this evening, and he didn't disappoint.

So for all of those out that are talking of splits in the party and and bad feeling, his message was quite clear.

There are no splits. We are (except perhaps for me) the most united party on the whole issue of Europe. There were differences of opinion over tactics; whether abstaining was going back on a manifesto promise, or rather whether abstaining specifically on the treaty rather than the constitution was going back on such a promise. Some people took that position. Those who resigned the front bench before voting did so with good grace and no rancour towards Nick or anyone else.

He did seem to me to suggest, but I'm sure not say explicitly, that the regrets are over the events of the last couple of weeks as a whole. The profile that by implication Nick has given to this one issue. For me of course, I think that's just the new boy not quite realizing in time he was being set up by the Tory Euro-shambles to take the fall for their own irresponsibility on the issue. And perhaps a regret that Nick was backed into a position in which he felt it was right to make it a three line whip issue.

Cameron has not faced such a media backlash for his massive rebellion because although it was a front bench position to abstain from Bill Cash's amendment, he had not insisted on whipping it - but the rebellion was larger than ours and shows up the Tory incoherence on Europe.

The parliamentary party are only too aware that they have caused headlines for the wrong reasons and are apologetic for that. But todays newspapers...

I know sometimes there are things that make one doubt whether one is in the right party. My last occasion was, I think, the stabbing of Charles Kennedy and before that his sacking of Jenny Tonge (though her reaction to his alcoholism proved to me I made the right decision remaining in the party despite my misgivings about his treatment of her).

But, for all the bleating and moaning appearing around the Lib Dem blogs and for all that the other parties are trying to put all the "blame" on the Lib Dems for on not having a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty-not-Constitution, I can't say I give a flying foxbat about the events of today.

There has been plenty of opportunity for those with a differing opinion since Ming first suggested an in or out referendum instead of a Treaty referendum back in summer. We had a leadership election in which both candidates took this same point of view. Members who were so against it now, especially ones with 300+ Technorati ratings perhaps who get way more coverage than most of us, could have argued their position then and got concessions from one or other candidate.  At the very least they could have made it a bigger issue in that campaign either to understand the proposed policy better or to be able to support it with good grace rather than this after the fact bleating.

Let's face it, the Tories have little consistency on Europe. They needed to make us the scapegoats over Lisbon. They would not have wanted an in/out referendum in any event as that would have exposed them for the bi-facial opportunists they have been on Europe since at least the days of Wee Willie Hague's 2001 election campaign.

"In Europe but not Run By Europe" is vacuous tripe trying to have it both ways. They started the move towards being run by Europe before Maggie's volte face "no, no, no" speech. Had they had to face an in/out referendum they would not have known what to do - campaign for "out" as many of their supporters probably believe they stand for, or let those all down and campaign for the protectionist superstate they helped to create and they still support as a political cadre.  Even the true left have had a more credible and long standing consistency on the matter.

Me, I can't see the difference frankly between trying to decide whether to put the brakes on pre-Lisbon or post-Lisbon. Personally at the moment, whatever my party affiliation I would probably fight hard for an "out" vote in a proper referendum on membership. Nick's policy would have given me that chance. A vote on Lisbon wouldn't - it would just let me say "a little bit more or a little bit less" of the same illiberal project of the same power hungry political elitist structure.

Ultimately the one thing that Nick Clegg was probably wrong on was to make it a three-line-whip on an issue on which policy had changed without a positive resolution of the party in conference since his MPs had last put it to their electorates. But the principle of holding out for an in/out vote was to my mind correct, and I know which way I would have voted in that, but not in a silly vote about Europe plus or minus Lisbon, but above all Europe still.  Bu people falling for the Tory and IWAR attempts to lay the blame on Nick are I think mistaken.

A: Before the government bans their legal substance of choice...

It was probably too good to be true, a "legal high" giving similar effects to ecstasy. And so it proves to be. The government, following orders from the bansturbators at Euro High Command (who says we still have control of our own domestic laws any longer?) is to move to ban BZP, Benzylpiperazine. According to the Guardian it is likely to become a class C substance by the end of the year:

Move to ban stimulant BZP | Science | The Guardian:
Owen Bowcott
The Guardian, Tuesday March 4 2008 Article history

BZP, a psychoactive stimulant promoted as a legal alternative to ecstasy and amphetamines, is to be banned in Britain. The government's advisory committee on the misuse of drugs will today begin the process of making it a controlled substance, following a recommendation from the European Union. It is likely to become a class C drug before the end of the year. BZP was once almost marketed as an antidepressant until its similarity to amphetamines was noted. It has been associated with vomiting, anxiety, insomnia, mood swings and seizures. It is already a controlled drug in eight EU countries. The EU action is binding and requires all EU member states to take legal action within a year. There has been no direct evidence of BZP causing death, although it has been linked to several fatalities in the UK.

I haven't tried it yet. I was going to a few weeks ago when I felt a bit down and thought it might be safer than trying to get a black market ecstasy tablet or some MDMA - it's really good for social situations that make me nervous and where I would not want to get drunk just to be able to strike up a conversation with strangers.

The whole sorry saga highlights just how idiotic the drugs laws are, and in particular the British classification system that Jacqui Smith has recently re-inforced with her deadly new death strategy. If BZP becomes a class C drug, while those it seeks to emulate are class B, amphetamines, and class A the even less harmful MDMA/ecstasy, where is the science behind that? Yup, you're right, there isn't any.

They may as well make sugar and chocolate class Bs on a whim if you ask me. Both are "linked" to several thousand fatalities each year in the UK. There's better science there it seems to me to justify that. But more than this, no doubt the search will go on for another substance, as yet uncontrolled, that will give similar effects, and the drugs laws will play catch up once again after legal businesses have built up a good trade in unadulterated doses because they can operate in country in clean, clinical lab factories and not kitchen top clandestine chemistry sets.