Month: June 2008

The US Supreme Court made the right decision yesterday, giving to the interns of Guantanamo rights to justice from the civilian courts in the USA.

One of the many attacks upon our liberties perpetrated by this Labour government was its acquiescence in the arrest and detention without charge or trail of UK citizens at Guantanamo. I and others spoke out against this, urging the then Prime Minister to bring them to trial for terrorist plotting or to give them their freedom if there was no evidence of wrong doing. It took all too long before the UK authorities negotiated the homecoming of the detainees, for their freedom or their punishment.

When great democracies form a coalition to champion liberty around the world it is especially important that they do not damage that liberty they wish to champion in the name of security. Of course in extreme and dangerous wartime conditions combattants have to be locked up under the rules applying to military prisoners. There may have been a case for this in the early days of the Iraq conflict, but once the President had declared victory and the troops became policemen in a new democracy established by the invasion the authorities should have charged or released the prisoners.

Some think this position is naïve. Surely, they say, if we have suspicions about these people and think they might be planning mass murder in our countries, we should lock them up for long periods? Such conduct breeds distrust with minority communities in our own society, acts as a further grievance to recruit more evil people of violence and damages the very causes we hold dear. If the authorities have suspicions about certain people, we have given them powers to keep them under surveillance. Such powers are designed both to protect us, by gaining advance warning of any evil they may be planning, and to allow the security services to collect evidence so they can be brought to trial.

The UK government’s idea that it should be able to arrest people on suspicion and then hunt the evidence of wrong doing is dangerous as well as wrong. Let us suppose the UK authorities rightly have worries about an individual. If they arrest him and detain him for 42 days in order to try to find evidence that he has committed an offence already they alert all other members of his network to their suspicions. Those who have not been arrested can then destroy evidence, lie low, leave the country for a time or do whatever it takes to avoid arrest. If, on the other hand, the authorities use their powers to intercept communications and eavesdrop, they have more chance both of collecting evidence to charge the first person with an offence, and of finding out who all the others are. Terrorists do not normally operate on their own.

Liberty is not just the right approach. It may also be our best security.

I agree with everything David said about the erosion of our freedoms. He expressed the frustration many of us feel about the build up of the controlling state – the way ID cards, spy cameras, the loss of Habeas Corpus, the daily assault on our freedoms by nit picking regulation – now add up to an unacceptable loss of liberty. He spoke for me when he listed the monstrous assaults on freedom this government has mounted.

His selfless act to give more prominence to this issue is a bolt from the blue. I do hope the Conservative party will allow him to fight the seat as he sees fit, and welcome him back if and when he wins. He deserves to win, for surely he speaks for the overwhelming majority of English people who want to keep their freedoms, or regain control over their lives after years of stealthy assaults on our liberties. It is a commentary on the way that this government has marginalised and sidelined its part time Parliament that a leading MP feels he needs to trigger a by election to get the message across.

Good on you David. I want you to win.

If Labour fail to put up a candidate we will know they are frit, unable to face the electors on a crucial topic where they claim to be on the popualr side of the argument. Clearly they do not really believe it is the popular side if they don’t want to fight.

The Treasury and the Bank lurch from policies which promote boom, to bust, and from boom to bust again. In the period 2001-6 they followed a low interest rate strategy, supplemented by a regulatory approach which encouraged the most extraordinary boom in off balance sheet financings and a credit bubble. The government was especially keen on this, ballooning its own true balance sheet with PFI and PPP packages which it did not include in its stated borrowing figures.

In the summer of 2007 the Chancellor and the Governor concerted their rhetoric to blame the banks for this inflationary bubble, telling them that there would be no bail outs and they would have to correct it on their own. Readers of this site will remember I urged them (as others did from the banking sector itself) to make the markets more liquid in August and early September to avoid a banking crunch. The pleas fell on deaf ears, so we witnessed the run on Northern Rock. If the authorities had made less than £50 billion available in September to the markets the Rock crisis could have been avoided.

Once the Rock run began, many of us urged a quick deal to buttress the bank’s mortgage book. Instead, the Bank claimed it could not do this owing to EU rules – although on the continent under the same rules banks were rescued quickly. We had to watch the agony of the Rock leading to the eventual nationalisation of the bank.
I argued strongly against nationalisation. The government, the BBC and others allowed Vince Cable to front the ridiculous case for nationalisation and give it plenty of airtime so it would go through without it being an Old Labour idea. The Lib Dems showed themselves to be old time spend and tax socialists wanting to stick anything really expensive onto the taxpayers account: now the taxpayer has to pay the losses as the business is run down. As a result Northern Rock has effectively withdrawn from the mortgage market (for good competition reasons as a nationalised and subsidised bank) making the housing market worse. It will have to sack more than half its staff as it retrenches and fights to pay back the huge sums of money taxpayers were forced into lending it. The collapse of Northern Rock is a huge hammer blow to the housing market in the UK, as it was a large participant who can no longer play any serious part and is effectively in run off.

After the Rock had been nationalised at huge cost to taxpayers – with a maximum potential liability of over £100 billion – the Bank then made available up to a £100 billion to ease credit shortages in the markets! Why on earth didn’t they do that before the run on the Rock? Then they would have saved themselves the large sums they spent on the Rock as well. At last it seemed the authorities understood that they had to be in the downturn fighting business, and had to ease the credit squeeze.

More recently, following further increases in international oil and food prices, the Bank has decided its policy is too loose, and has warned that it might have to put interest rates up again! It effectively declared war on the property sector, and helped trigger large share price falls in the shares of the housebuilders. It threatened higher rates at a time when banks were seeking to recapitalise themselves by asking shareholders for more funds, helping to drive their share prices lower and jeopardise those fund raising activities.

The idiotic inconsistency of the authorities has reached new heights. The early 2000s saw low rates and boom boom. 2007 brought higher rates and bust. Early 2008 saw edging to lower rates and more liquidity. Middle 2008 has delivered the threat of higher rates and bust. This is made worse by their gross insensitivity to markets struggling to recapitalise the banks, and to the financial plight of the housebuilders, retailers and others. They should want a better equity market to raise the large sums of new capital it will take, following the wealth destruction brought about by their lurch from credit boom to credit bust.

It seems clear that we no longer have an “independent” Bank of England, if we ever did. The Chancellor and the Governor concerted their tough talk and their decision to say “No” to more liquidity in the crucial summer months of last year. They concerted their bungled response to the run on the Rock, and agreed the eventual nationalisation. They clearly agreed the extra liquidity earlier this year, and are now both trying to talk price increases down. I just don’t think the international oil and food markets are listening, and it makes the Governor and the Chancellor both look silly.

As a result the government’s housebuilding strategy is in tatters. When the government published its work telling us the problem in the UK was one of a shortage of new homes being built, I pointed out that you need to understand the impact of mortgage finance on the market. Take the excess credit creation away, as they have now done, and you have no shortage of homes for sale, as you cut off the possible buyers. The government went out with a demand that the UK industry move towards building 300,000 homes a year at the very top of the cycle when ti was obvious there would be a sharp fall, not an increase. How stupid can you get? They should revise their position, for this year will see a big downturn in the numbers of new houses being built.

The government should recognise there is a credit crunch, for after all they created it. In a credit crunch businesses can’t afford to build new homes, and people can’t afford to buy them. The government needs to be in downturn fighting mode.

I know my critics think I am too careless about the inflationary threat. I tell them that was something to worry about a couple of years ago when the authorities were encouraging a bubble with too much credit. You cannot stop global demand for oil and the action of global oil speculators by hiking UK interest rates. Tightening money here is not going to stop Chinese and Indian housewives buying more meat and grain. The UK economy is no longer inflationary. Each time oil and food prices go up we do not demand more wages – we take a further cut in our real pay, and rein back on other items in our budgets. That’s not evidence of an inflationary problem. It’s evidence that the government has declared war on individuals and families, and is going to make them pay for its economic mistakes by a very nasty squeeze on the living standards of us all.

I awoke this morning to hear the BBC say the irish “No” campaign had “sniped” at the Treaty with a series of “improbable claims”.

Why can’t these journalists get into their head that many Irish and English people want to keep the right of self government – hard won in Ireland’s case – in their own country. Why do they use such pejorative language about people struggling against a monstrous bureaucracy to keep some control of their own lives and some meaning to their own votes?

The BBC just can’t help itself coming over as a pro European government organisation in receipt of Euro money.

UKIP showed its true colours in the Commons yesterday, voting for Brown’s ghastly Bill. They voted against Habeas Corpus and the doctrine that someone is innocent until proved guilty, by voting for 42 day detention without charge. Don’t rely on them to save our constitution.

On his way to power at Number 10 Gordon Brown was keen to associate himself with the ever larger sums of public money the government decided to raise and spend on public services. I remember grasping just how single minded and professional he was about the use of public money when I went to a briefing on FE colleges one day.

I went because my local FE college had asked me to take up a matter for them. I was invited along with every other MP because Ministers wished to use the Civil Service to help them with the organisation of the meeting, so it could not just be a Labour party affair. I went expecting the HE/FE Minister or maybe a Junior Treasury Minister to take us through the detailed numbers of individual FE colleges and answer our queries. To my surprise we were greeted by no less a figure than the then Chancellor himself, who showed great grasp of the detailed numbers of each FE college constituency by constituency. Most of the MPs present were Labour MPs, and Gordon Brown was good at either showing them just how well their FE college was already doing, or promising them theirs would do better next year whilst thanking them for their interest and good work as constituency members.

It was a virtuoso performance which told you half of what you need to know to understand how Brown governs (The other half is when in doubt throw the kitchen sink at your opponents, never sparing the vilification). He believes that people vote for you if you associate yourself with spending large sums of money in their town or district. In this view all public spending is good. Big public spending is better. Lumps of money buy votes. Conservatives can be regularly condemned for not having spent as much, or for probably not spending as much in the future,whatever their true intentions.

Watching the PM I think we should expect more of this simple combination of bash the Tories and spend the money. The fact that the government has spent far too much and is getting such shocking value for what it is spending will not concern him unduly. The fact that the more he spends the more unpopular he becomes will not be a thought which crosses his mind. The fact that the hugely overborrowed public sector is now the main cause of poor UK economic performance will not occur to him. The limit on new debt and borrowing placed by the high levels of total debt outstanding and of new debt being drawn down will be ignored. Instead the PM will order Ministers to spend what it takes – in the naive belief that more spending will in the end win through.

First World War Generals in the first couple of years of the war, safely encamped well behind the front trenches and far back from the shellfire, ordered yet more men over the top and across No-Man’s Land in the belief that it was just a matter of time and numbers before they won. The PM takes a similar approach to public money in the face of adverse opinion polls. This week we have seen the offer of £1.5 billion to Manchester for public transport schemes, and £3000 a day to anyone wrongfully detained under the government’s lock up anyone suspicious scheme. In recent weeks we have seen £2.7 billion for the Crewe by-election problem of the abolition of the 10p tax band. The fact that Crewe did not say “Thank you” for the extra does not seem to have led to any rethink on the strategy.

This generosity is unlikely to extend to constituencies where Labour have no hope. Do not expect a generous package of infrastructure money for Henley this week to help the by-election there.

This morning we hear that the Prime Minister is offering more of our money to try to appease his backbenchers who disagree with him over extended detention without trial. Apparently people locked up for weeks who turn out to be innocent will be offered £3000 a day, as if that were sufficient compensation for the ignominy and frustration of being locked up for a month and a half, cut off from your job, your friends and your family. If you run your own business you would be bankrupt by the time the state had decided it had made a mistake. It shows how desperate the PM is to try to win over his own side. It illustrates that they do at last realise that innocent people will be treated in this disgusting way by the government. It also shows a wider point – that Mr Brown now squanders and throws money at any problem, in the mistaken belief that money can buy him popularity.

Many of us who will vote against 42-day detention without charge or trial do so out of principle. We believe in Habeas Corpus. We were proud to be born in a country which had developed strong liberties for the subject over centuries, and can scarce believe that this Labour government is so careless of them. We have hated the incoming tide of European regulation and Napoleonic law, debauching and overwhelming important parts of our law codes. We have loathed the ever more intrusive state, sending us form after form, demanding tax after tax, and expecting us to drop everything when the inspector calls or the government statistician wishes to record us in yet another data bank. We are spied on continuously, watched over by 4.2 million government spy cameras, and may now even have the contents of our rubbish bins analysed by over-zealous councils. There is no sum of money you could offer as compensation to the badly treated to persuade us that the state should have yet more power to boss people around and take its time with its investigations.

This government does not know the meaning of the word FREEDOM. Its ignorance of history means it fails to grasp the skilful English settlement based on the presumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty, and we all have the right to know who accuses us of what if we are dragged into the criminal justice system. It also means that the government does not understand the peaceful but doughty resilience of many English people to overmighty government. The opinion polls and the Sun may think the further erosion of Habeas Corpus to be a good idea, but I know of no true born Englishman or woman who thinks he or his neighbour should be locked away for 42 days on the whim of authority with no good cause shown and no case brought before a magistrates court.

This week sees the vote on 42 day detention without trial. The Prime Minister has managed to unite the Labour left, the Liberal Democrats, the Welsh and Scots Nationalists and the Conservatives against him. The DUP are still making up their minds. The PM thinks this is a sign that he is both tough and right. Polls show the British people have no objections to locking up possible terrorists before due process, but, if you asked them whether the government should have the power to lock up whoever it likes for 42 days whilst it goes on a fishing expedition for evidence of a crime, there might be a different answer. Brown clearly wants to be able to make Parliament vote for an extension of the detention limits to show he can do something Blair failed to do. It is pathetic gesture politics. If he wins we will then have to put up with days of spin. telling us he is strong, brave, consistent and on the side of the people. If he loses it is a further nail in the political coffin his party and policies are making for him.

On the other side of the Irish Sea an even more important vote is taking place. The latest opinion polls put the two sides neck and neck, after months in which the polls and the pundits assumed an easy victory for supporters of the EU Constitutional Treaty. Cynics say that even if the Irish vote “No” to the EU plan it makes no difference. The EU will carry on regardless, and in due course maybe Ireland will be required to vote again to come up with the answer the Eurolords demand. Listening to Peter Sutherland on the radio reminded me of the vacuity and laziness of the pro EU case. Sutherland just assumes that all enlightened people must want to “share sovereignty”, and will see the inevitability of the Union. He made no attempt to explain why it would make voters’ lives better. He was not asked by incompetent BBC journalists how you can “share” sovereignty, or how far he wished the Euro superstate to go – as so often he was just allowed to get away with a Euro rant. The big extension of powers of the new Treaty, and the remarkable similarity of the Treaty to the old Constitution rejected by voters in France and Holland did not trouble Sutherland or his interviewer.

There is a chance that in the current mood of displeasure with all established governments, because of the poor performance of many economies, the Irish voters will turn out and defeat the Constitution. If they do we must then join them in demanding proper consideration of the implications. Everytime so far the Constitution has been put to electors in a referendum it has been rejected. Surely all those of us who value and support democracy can demand that on this occasion the EU has to understand the meaning of “No”. If Ireland votes “No” the implementation of the Constitutional Treaty must stop, and the provocative advances to a European army which the Irish will be especially worried about should be reversed. Either way, we need to demand the right for UK people to have their say – for we doubtless would say “No” given the chance.