Mark Kennedy - the saga continues

Well, this is currently making me feel pretty vindicated about this (and, to a lesser extent, this).

For those without the time or energy to follow links: it turns out the CPS knew about the infiltration of the climate movement by police spy Mark Kennedy at the time they were prosecuting 26 activists for thinking about taking direct action - and, more crucially, knew about the evidence he'd obtained that basically exonerated six activists of the charges they faced. The trial of these six activists collapsed when that evidence became public, after the activists themselves uncovered the spy. It's now being suggested that the convictions of the remaining 20 may be unsafe.

The CPS's position on Ian Tomlinson now looks even more absurd than it did before. It was bad enough that they refused to charge the officer involved because there was 'no realistic prospect of a conviction', based on nothing more than the testimony of a dodgy pathologist. It became worse when that pathologist's evidence was soundly rejected by the jury at Tomlinson's inquest, thus demonstrating that it might indeed have been possible to bring a successful prosecution.

But it seems like an obscene irony that, we now discover, the CPS was quite happy to proceed with charges against well-meaning activists who, let's not forget, hadn't actually done anything, despite having much more serious and credible evidence to cast doubt on their culpability. Of course, in this case there was a realistic prospect of a conviction - because, um, the police and CPS suppressed said evidence.

As ever, there are now calls for an inquiry - but, as this person points out, we've had half-baked inquiries every time a tiny corner of the huge festering mess that is the policing of protest in this country has been exposed. I wouldn't say they've made no difference at all, but there has to come a point where we stop chin-stroking about the symptoms and address the cause: police contempt for the right to peaceful civil disobedience, and the insidious rise of the category 'domestic extremist' which puts those who believe in it neatly in the same box as Abu Hamza and the BNP. There does need to be a proper inquiry, but it needs to be serious, independent and far-reaching - and most importantly, it needs to come at the issue with a respect for the traditions of civil disobedience and a willingness to ask the right questions.

Dear Lib-Dem hating leftie friends...

Come on, Left. I know it's fashionable to hate the Lib Dems right now, but after a couple of exchanges on Facebook about the NHS reforms I've decided enough is enough. By all means, challenge and question the moderating effect that coalition government is having on Tory hideousness. That's a legitimate debate to have. But the self-justifying disdain some people now seem to be harbouring, to the extent that when Lib Dems clearly are moderating a policy we all oppose, you have to find ways to explain it away and carry on hating them regardless, is frankly just silly.

Two arguments I've seen to play down the Lib Dems' role in forcing a rethink of the NHS reforms, and why I think they're both wrong:

1. “This has happened because the policy is a political liability – the Lib Dems had little or nothing to do with it”

Um, Iraq war anyone? I worked in parliament for nearly two years, which admittedly does not make me a world expert - but my experience with majority governments was that they pretty much do not give a shit what you think. If they want something badly enough, they will push it through regardless of public opposition. We are talking about a government that didn't feel the need to consult the medical profession before launching this thing at Parliament in the first place. Why should things be any different six months down the line? And why is everyone so conveniently keen to forget that the original 'pause' in the Bill's passage through Parliament was announced not following some cataclysmic protest, but shortly after the Lib Dem Spring Conference overwhelmingly rejected the proposals?

2. “Yeah, well, pity they didn't start opposing it before they got slaughtered at the elections”

Um, except they did. See above. (As an aside, the Lib Dems' policymaking process is one of the really brilliant things about them. It's kind of like how I imagined parliament ought to work before I started working there and all my illusions were shattered. Ordinary members bring motions to conference. Hundreds of delegates sit and listen to a reasoned debate. Then they vote on the motion and any amendments, and if they pass it, it becomes party policy. Might sound trivial, but to my knowledge no other major party still does it.)

Fair enough, Nick Clegg signed off on the White Paper: the proposals needed his support to get off the blocks in the first place, and that at least puts him legitimately on the hook. And fair enough, he does seem to have grasped the urgency of the issue rather more immediately since May 5^th. But there is a distinction between party leadership and party itself, and that's exactly what's so great about the Lib Dems' policymaking process. At the first opportunity it got, the party rank and file told him in no uncertain terms that the reforms were unacceptable. And, from pretty much that point onwards, things started to change. This is democracy in action, and you can be damn sure nothing like it would have happened without a coalition government. How much things will change remains to be seen – but, at the very least, reserve judgement until the outcome is clear.

I don't think the Lib Dems have got everything right in the last twelve months, far from it. All I'm saying is, I wish people would reserve their contempt for the people who are actually contemptible and their anger for the things worth getting angry about. Give credit where credit's due and, more importantly, recognise an ally when you see one.

George Osborne and the Axis of Charity Evil

You know you're doing something right when George Osborne thinks you're the scourge of society. In a marvellous speech of his today at the Institute of Directors, I learned that organisations like the one I work for are apparently now the "forces of stagnation". Having set out his stall as "unequivocally pro-business" and extolled the virtues of deregulation and low taxes (for which Miles Templeman, outgoing Director General of the IoD, has - quelle surprise! - been a "tireless advocate"), he went on to say:

"Delivering this will not be easy. The forces of stagnation will try to stand in the way of the forces of enterprise. For every line item of public spending, there will be a union defending it. For every regulation on business, a pressure group to defend it. Your voice, the voice of business, needs to go on being heard in the battle."

I'm confused, George! Yesterday we were the Big Society. Today we're the Forces of Stagnation. I don't know what to think any more. I suppose I'll just have to carry on thinking that you're a horrendous Thatcherite idiot.

Really, I just do not know where to start with this bullshit. I think the thing that annoys me most about it is the way that civil society groups are presented as the vested interests, while business leaders asking for lower taxes and less regulation are "tireless advocates" for what's best for Britain. Honestly, what exactly does he think the IoD is if it's not a pressure group? But it's the good kind of pressure group, the kind that agrees with his neoliberal politics because it's in their direct self-interest. Not the bad, nasty, stick-in-the-mud kind, the kind that defends regulations because... because... um, maybe because it's the right thing to do? Maybe because those regulations are there for a reason? Maybe because they protect vulnerable people who don't have Miles Templeman to stand up for them in the corridors of power?

I've blogged before about the 'Red Tape Challenge', which the government has likened to a trial in which regulations will be deemed "guilty until proven innocent". Soliciting a case for the prosecution and not one for the defence is one thing. Attacking the defence as the "forces of stagnation" is another - and for me it feels like the last straw.

He's got a whole field of ponies and they're all literally running away from his taxes

Today, one of my many news-digest mailing lists informed me that

"Peter Hargreaves has soared 46 places on The Sunday Times Rich List, placing him ahead of musical maestro Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lord Alan Sugar and Easyjet's Sir Stelios Haji-Ionannu."

Peter Hargreaves, I thought. Why does that name ring a bell? Oh yes, it's because back in February, I posted an immoderate rant about an article he wrote which suggested that the government wasn't nearly serious enough about cutting spending and that, if you were filthy rich, the only morally responsible thing left for you to do was furiously avoid paying your taxes.

Peter Hargreaves is now the 65th richest person in the United Kingdom. Peter Hargreaves is a billionaire. Peter Hargreaves' tax bill is probably within the same order of magnitude as the cost of some of the vital public services people are battling to save - my local library, for example. Basically, the amount of tax Peter Hargreaves pays has a not-entirely-negligible impact on the deficit.

Peter Hargreaves does not believe the deficit isn't an issue. On the contrary, he believes it's an enormous issue. Clearly, for every billionaire who pays less tax, the government has a bigger gap to plug, which means harsher spending cuts. So by endorsing tax avoidance, Peter Hargreaves is effectively saying he thinks that money is much better off stashed in his bank account than paying for services for the poor and vulnerable. Not only that, he presumes to moralise on the matter. Is it just me, or is that utterly grotesque?

(Incidentally, Stephen Lansdown, Hargreaves' partner at Hargreaves Lansdown brokers, comes in at a mere number 90 on the rich list, with a piffling £750m personal fortune. Amateur.)

The Ian Tomlinson verdict should put the CPS on the hook

Very encouraged to see that the inquest into Ian Tomlinson's death has returned a verdict of unlawful killing. The Guardian reports that the CPS is now reconsidering its decision not to prosecute the office who shoved him.

But surely the next question has to be why on earth they made that decision in the first place. The ostensible reason why charges could not be brought was that there was "sharp disagreement between the medical experts" about the causes of death, and that this was so irreconcilable that there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.

It was obvious at the time that this was outrageous: the 'disagreement' was the result of a discredited pathologist giving a dubious analysis which was contradicted by two other pathologists in two independent post-mortems. Now that a jury has considered that pathologist's evidence and dismissed it as unsound, the decision looks indefensible.

As I understand it, in order to decide not to prosecute, the CPS has to be pretty damn sure that there is simply no way a jury could come to a guilty verdict. In this case, a jury not only could: it effectively has. That is surely enough to demonstrate that the CPS acted improperly in pre-empting deliberation of those issues by the criminal courts.

I hope the CPS comes under serious pressure over the coming days and weeks to explain itself - and that questions are asked about the real motives for its original decision.

(Incidentally, it makes me very angry that this verdict has not been enough to prompt an urgent question in parliament - neither was Tomlinson's death at the time, although we tried our best to get one - yet some smashed windows on the anti-cuts protests apparently were. In my experience - with a few honourable exceptions - this is completely typical of parliamentary and government attitudes to police treatment of protesters, and it's unacceptable. In our political system, the state's use of violence is supposedly legitimated by parliamentary democracy. If parliament shrugs its shoulders when the police kill an innocent man, that notion massively loses credibility.)

Opportunist? Moi?

David Cameron, 12 May 2010, asked if he thought coalitions were a good thing:

"We did both have a choice. We could have gone for a minority government backed up by the Lib Dems. But we sat down and looked at it and both thought this is so uninspiring, it's not actually going to do what we came into government to achieve. We want to give the country good government."

David Cameron, 18 April 2011, arguing that AV will lead to more coalition governments:

"That undermines accountability and that's not right. That's what I believe AV could give us - power with less responsibility and pledges with less accountability."

Yes, yes, I know he tries to make a distinction between coalitions in 'exceptional circumstances', which can apparently be a 'good thing', and the idea of coalition governments becoming routine. But he doesn't give any reasons to back that up, as far as I can see, so really it's little more than the age-old tactic of acknowledging the glaring flaw in your own argument in order to fool people into thinking you've addressed it. Really, Mr Shiny-Face, are you seriously trying to exploit people's dissatisfaction with your own government to try and scupper AV? That's a pretty breathtaking move.

Incidentally, I also think this is another example of the Tories playing a much cleverer and nastier game than the Lib Dems when it comes to coalition politics. Notice the detail of Cameron's 'AV-means-more-coalitions' argument:

"I can absolutely put my hand on my heart and say in preparing our manifesto we really did go through every pledge and thought, 'We could be accountable for this. We aim to have, and believe we can have, a single party government so don't put anything in your manifesto you don't believe you can deliver,'" he said.

"If you move to a system where coalitions become the norm rather than the exception I think you might find politicians start being very casual about what they put in their manifesto because you can put in policies that you know you can get rid of as you form a coalition."

Indeed, politicians "may start to put things into their manifestos that might sound good but they can't deliver because they know that in a coalition they're not going to have to answer for them."

Things like, ooh, I don't know, let's pluck a hypothetical example out of the air... pledges to scrap tuition fees? Is it just me, or is the subtext here, 'Well, personally I take my manifesto pledges very seriously - but some people, like Nick here, are sadly not quite so conscientious, and I think you should all bear that in mind when casting your vote.'

Nasty, cynical stuff.

Why I'm getting excited about the Red Tape Challenge

When I first saw the launch of the Red Tape Challenge, it made me want to throw things at other things. Now, however, I'm quite excited about it. Not because I've had some kind of Damascene conversion to the joys of libertarianism, but because it seems, finally, to have woken civil society up to just how dangerous the deregulatory agenda is.

I've blogged before about the farce that is one-in, one-out, so feel free to go and read that if you need some background. Done that? Good. So, the Red Tape Challenge is that latest manifestation of this policy: the idea is that every regulation ever will go up on this website, and the public (ie. businesses) can submit comments on which ones they find tiresome or inconvenient. The regulations will then be reviewed - and will be, ahem, "presumed guilty unless proven innocent". In other words, every regulation that's ever been made will be abolished unless somebody can make a good case for it to stay. As David Cameron put it in his letter to all government ministers:

"In the past... the assumption was that regulations should stay, unless there was a good case for getting rid of them. Our starting point is that a regulation should go or its aim achieved in a different, non-government way, unless there is a clear and good justification for government being involved."

The most obvious problem with this approach arises from the question: who in practice will be making the case for and against? The idea is that, because they're on the 'front line', businesses' "understanding of how things really work will mean you know there is a better way of doing it." I sort of get that. I get that there are things that make life hard for small businesses - the kind of local shops and services I try to support - and that they should have a chance to highlight those problems. But in practice, that's not what this exercise means - or at least, certainly not the only thing it means.

Big business has millions of pounds of lobbying muscle only too happy to explain why all that pesky regulation it has to comply with should be swept away. Now they're basically being asked for their wish list, and told that, unless someone can make a pretty seriously good case for the defence, the assumption is that they'll get it. But there's a reason we don't let businesses make regulatory policy. The whole point of regulation is that it makes companies do stuff they would rather not have to do. If I were the government, and any big company or trade body came and told me a regulation was worthy but unnecessary because there was a 'better way of doing it', I'd be immediately suspicious: if you're so committed to doing this anyway, why are you so desperate to get rid of the regulation?

Meanwhile, the civil society organisations who would make the case for regulations to stay - organisations like the one I work for - have mostly tiny budgets and are fighting on many fronts as it is. To extend the courtroom metaphor, it's like giving your 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' defendant access to the cheapest legal advice going while the prosecution is represented by some silly-money hotshot barrister. Of course, as with all such government initiatives, it's hard to know how much of it is cosmetic and how much is genuine. But I don't think we can afford to be complacent.

My biggest fear about the Red Tape Challenge has been that individual NGOs and trade unions would be too busy fighting their individual battles to get involved in the deregulatory war. But in the last couple of days I've seen trans friends getting outraged at the notion that the Equality Act is 'red tape', and Greenpeace and 38 Degrees condemning the fact that environmental regulation has been put up for grabs. I am finding this genuinely encouraging. We're still no match for the corporate lobbyists. But it's starting to look like the Red Tape Challenge could achieve what I've been wishing I could for months: mobilise the public in defence of regulations that protect us all.