We need a power of recall and we need it now

Not everything can or should be seen through the prism of constitutional politics.  Yet, some, it would appear, are so caught up in that hothouse that they are failing to see what is in the common weal (to borrow a phrase).

This week’s Sunday Herald reported on the latest allegations facing Bill Walker and considered UK Government proposals to introduce a power of recall of MPs.  (I’d post a link but it’s impossible to find).  It follows Bill Walker’s refusal – some might say obduracy – to stand down following his expulsion from the SNP.  The newspaper’s analysis revealed that the proposals as they currently stand would only apply to MPs and not to parliamentarians in any of the devolved jurisdictions.

It means that even if they wanted to, the people of Dunfermline could not rid themselves of their MSP.  Unless he does the honourable thing and resign, they – and we – will be stuck with him until the next election.  And that seems highly unlikely given his defiant stance to date.

So, opinion was canvassed.  Lord George Foulkes rose to the challenge and declared that he would raise the matter in the House of Lords to try and get any UK bill extended to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Yet, bizarrely, both the Scottish Greens co-Convenor and an SNP MSP suggested that this was not something Westminster should legislate for.  Patrick Green MSP said:  “I certainly wouldn’t want Westminster to amend its bill so that it applies to the Scottish Parliament.  Holyrood should be in control of its own rules.“

And James Dornan, MSP for Glasgow Cathcart, added:  “Clearly, there are issues with these politicians, but these matters should be decided by Scotland’s Parliament.“

I don’t disagree with the principle being espoused.  The Scottish Parliament should be in a position to legislate on all matters pertaining to its operation, including electoral arrangements.  But that is some way off, no matter how hard some of us might wish it.

In the meantime, are they serious?  That because Scotland lacks the constitutional powers for its Parliament, we should not take advantage of a legislative opportunity to fix a problem that has recently come to light?

Who cares who does it?  Having blogged previously in favour of such a power of recall, what I want to know is how and when, with the emphasis being on a solution being found sooner than later.

Bill Walker’s sticking two fingers up at the democratic process – and also Eric Joyce’s – has exposed a fault line in that process.  That once they are elected, we cannot rid ourselves of politicians we no longer want, or we consider no longer meet our standards.  Clearly, with any legislation (whoever passes it) safeguards would have to be built into such a power to prevent frivolous attempts to remove sitting members.  It is easy to see how it might be misused by parties or community groups with a bee in their bonnet.

The current stushie over wind farms is a case in point.  If we had a power of recall, anti-windfarm campaigners, if they were feeling mischievous and were funded by the likes of Trump, could launch a campaign for the recall for high-profile supporters of renewable energy.  Like the First Minister.

But safeguards could be provided.  No matter where the legislation is passed.

Politicians would do well to remember that democracy is not theirs but ours.  To be fair to the parties in this situation, and in particular, the SNP who pushed Bill Walker out – Eric Joyce resigned from Labour before he could be shoved out of the fold – they have done their bit.  The SNP followed its disciplinary process and reached the obvious conclusion:  there is no place for Bill Walker in its parliamentary grouping nor in its party.  So, it should now do what it can to remove him from the Parliament too.

If there is no place for him in the party, there is no place for him in Holyrood.  The sooner the electorate has powers to act to remove the likes of Walker from his comfy berth and salary the better.  It should not matter which legislature gives it the tools to do the job.

Sometimes, there are more important and urgent matters to be considered than constitutional niceties.  And politicians, especially those advocates of more powers for Holyrood, would do well to remember that.  We don’t all inhabit the hothouse;  some of us have to live in the real world.

 

 

The people of Falkirk deserve better

At the risk of inciting cries of “haud the front page”, allow me to announce that the burd has changed her mind.  Rather, the burd has been persuaded by articulate and eloquent argument made elsewhere, that she got it wrong.

First, it was the comments from Jo in relation to the statement in this blogpost concerning Eric Joyce.  Jo, to put it mildly, was raging with me but still managed to string a cogent sentence or three together.  Then, there was Lesley Riddoch’s excellent article on the subject matter and Johann Lamont’s woeful leadership on the issue.  Leadership or more pertinently, lack thereof.

Silence has been the order of the day, which brings into sharp relief my rather premature declaration of promising signs from Scottish Labour’s putative leader.

The episode also demonstrates two things.  That the Scottish Labour leader is not really mistress of all she surveys in her land and that the rules on recall of MPs need changed, urgently.

Johann Lamont appears to have no locus on matters pertaining to Westminster and the conduct of MPs.  Labour has already removed the whip from Mr Joyce which is fair enough, but it seems clear that the Scottish Labour leader had nothing to do with that decision.  It was made by Ed Miliband.  Even if that is the right and proper thing to do – and it probably is – they could have at least made it look like Johann had summat to do with it.  She could have made lots of appropriate sounding noises and shown that she was in charge of all things Scottish and Labour.  It would appear, either that the new status of the Scottish Labour leader got forgotten in the rush to act, or Johann Lamont was happy to avoid the situation.

Whichever, or whatever if the reason for her being absent without leave on this occasion was because she was flossing her teeth, in one swift move, her authority and credibility has been undermined.  And she has made no attempt to try and claw back lost ground.  Leaders are expected to lead or at least, give the impression that they lead.  Johann Lamont, on this one, failed on both counts.

Despite local folk and Labour worthies lining up in an orderly fashion to furnish the Sunday papers with quotes stating that Joyce must go, the people have no power in this matter.  Eric Joyce is an MP and as an elected representative, the only person who can remove him is himself, until or unless he gets a suitably hefty conviction for the bar-room brawl.

And despite promising to introduce recall powers in legislation, the Coalition Government hasn’t quite got round to it yet.  A draft bill was published in December which would enable the recall of an MP imprisoned for less than 12 months or if the House of Commons determines to recall an MP, after 10% of the registered electorate of a constituency signs a petition seeking one.  Given the reaction to Eric Joyce’s misdemeanours last week, such a petition would seem pretty easy to fill, if only the good folk of Falkirk had the chance.

So we are left with Eric Joyce doing the honourable thing and that amounts to the Labour party, whichever bit of it wants to take charge, making him do the honourable thing.  If the party was wishing to demonstrate that it has learned its lessons, it would act tout de suite and not wait for the outcome of justice.  The people of Falkirk deserve better.

But even if we have to wait a while, a by-election there shall be.  So who might be Labour’s chosen one?  It’s probably far too early to tell, but when has that ever stopped me having a punt?

Ian Smart was being poked and prodded on Twitter to declare his intentions.  Naturally he said no.  I mean, who’d declare an interest at this stage: Mr Smart is far too experienced an activist to make such an elementary mistake.  He says no, he might well mean yes when the time comes.  I’d like to think he’d have a shout but then maybe the issue is that it would mean hauling up and down to London every week.  I’m not sure I’d want that either.

Someone who was pretty keen out of the traps was John Mackay, erstwhile “not very good former Labour candidate”.  That’s the problem with Twitter:  everyone can see your tweets.  So he has acknowledged an interest in pursuing an opportunity to stand and would definitely be one to watch.  Whether or not he has the hinterland is debatable: sadly, at a time when Labour should be looking to introduce bright young things into its mix, there is bound to be a time-served angle to the decision.  There usually is.

Which is where the former MSPs come in:  bound to be at least one whose name gathers a few mentions.  Whether or not he or she will actually mount a challenge for the seat is a moot point.  Speculation is about getting enough runners and riders in the column inches to make it seem like a hot contest, whether or not it actually is.

It would be nice to think that a woman might make an appearance at some point, though none of the parties in Scotland are renowned for their feminine side when it comes to choosing by-election candidates.  There’s plenty former women MSPs who might fancy it, though the ones with a connection to the Falkirk area are bound to wonder if they can be bothered.  When a man usually wins such internal contests after all.

Then there are the local worthies.  The time-served councillor who often wins the day, if not the contest.  I scanned comments carefully to see if there were any obvious contenders but alas not.  Which is not to say one or other would not fancy their chances, especially when many of the Falkirk wards are on a shoogly peg courtesy of continuing party doldrums and a rampant SNP in the polls.

So who would I like to see get it?  If Mr Smart puts his hat in the ring, my heart would definitely will him on.  A more thoroughly decent guy in Scottish politics would be hard to find.  He’s served his party loyally and deserves reward for that; more importantly, he’d make a good MP.  My head would point at the likes of John Mackay. Scottish politics needs new talent and he comes from a decidedly different Labour tradition which would be welcome in the central belt.  Besides he’s done things other than politics (though that is bound to disqualify him).

But the smart money should probably be on a local, never heard of councillor, with years of experience, a biddable presence and a risible media personality.  His kind – and they nearly always are male – always win through in the end.

And while the people of Falkirk deserve better than Eric Joyce, it’s doubtful they’ll get it from Labour anytime soon.

The worst of times are just around the corner

The UK Government’s response to the rise in unemployment is a remarkable example of the triumph of spin.

Highlights include the central assertion that the “rise in employment and vacancies shows a stablising labour market“, the suggestion that 1,000 more young people becoming unemployed and 22,000 more full-time students looking for work represents “a more stable picture“; and the trumpeting of there being 11,000 more jobs in the economy while hiding the fact that over the year to December 2011, there were actually 21,000 fewer jobs available (in the footnotes).

But the most astonishing claim was that its welfare reforms are working.  The UK Government used the fall in the number of people designated as economically inactive to point to its success (sic).  The number of people claiming incapacity benefits – disabled people to you and me – fell by 43,000 while the number of lone parents fell by 84,000.  Cheerily, the media release points to a further fall of 15,000 in the number of lone parents on income support for November 2011, “driven by welfare reform“.

What all this means is that in the last quarter of 2011, there were at least 150,000 more people chasing just 11,000 more jobs.  Far from the picture being rosy, it is terrifying.  There might be 476,000 vacancies in the economy but there are now 2.67 million unemployed people in the UK to fill them.  You don’t need your Standard Grade in Arithmetic to work out the supply is nowhere near being able to meet the demand.

The UK Government also suggested that the number of people claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) rose, partly because of the shift of people off of incapacity benefits and income support on to JSA.  This might be true, but if there are only 1.6 million on JSA, it begs the question – what are the other 1 million unemployed people now living on?

Sorry, but however the latest Labour Force statistics are viewed, they are far from good.  Unless, of course, you are a Conservative or Liberal Democrat and want to point to the impact of the toughness of your austerity measures in all their technicolour glory.  They might see this all as very good news, but the rest of us can only watch from behind a cushion.  It’s beginning to feel like we’ve been pushed down Alice’s hole and are now hurtling ever faster without any sense of how and when we are going to hit the bottom.

As Polly Toynbee pointed out in an excellent Guardian article a week or so ago, the cuts have barely got going yet.  Only 6% of public service cuts have actually filtered through (it’s probably less in Scotland) and in benefits, 88% of already announced cuts and changes are still to come.  April is going to be a bit of a shocker for many individuals and families, as reality bites.  In fact, that moment for many came yesterday, when epistles from HMRC indicated an end to people’s entitlement to tax credits.  The cut off point is £26,000 for joint and single incomes:  a lot of families are going to hurt.  My own hit is in the region of £50 a month.   Still, let’s look on the bright side, there’s another budget looming – there will be more goodies coming our way from 2013 and 2014.

Everywhere you look, people really are starting to struggle.  A recent Netmums survey found that one in four families are living on credit cards and one in five mothers regularly go without meals in order to feed their children.  Anyone shocked at the latter finding shouldn’t be.  Such behaviour has always been with us:  I remember doing it too, a while ago.  You wait to see what they leave before you decide whether or not to make yourself something to eat.  More often than not, you make do with a half portion of food off of your child or children’s plates.  It ain’t pretty but it’s survival and it makes sure that your children get what they need.  The feckless poor and single parents huh?

The gulf between the haves and have-nots all across the UK has never been greater.  What has kept the system of inequality in place, the demographic glue of it all, has been the existence and mobility of a big group in the middle. Folk shifting their status a bit, from lower middle class to nearly the top, by dint of a university degree, a decent berth, promotion, credit, fortuitous house purchase etc, with the prospect of more to come, particularly if employed in middle management in the public sector or the financial services industry.

They are the ones about to slide right back down the ladder, for whom the haves were tantalisingly in reach and are now still sitting pretty while they and their families suffer.  The haves remain at the top, still untouchable in every way it seems.

Many, including myself, have been astonished at how calmly we have taken every insult and injustice thrown at us since 2008.  Self-interest and self-preservation has played its part in ensuring that we have chattered and grumbled but shown no real outward sign of our pain and displeasure.

All that might well change from April.  Middle income families – that’s people on between £15 and £45,000 per year – are about to get hammered.  It’s a big pool but the Tories are keen not to discriminate for once; while people at the lower end of the band will face real hurt, the impact might well be most keenly felt by families at the top end.

A two parent family could lose one worker, endure another pay freeze, lose the tax credits and find the credit cards maxed out.  Just like that.  Such a scenario takes them from the top end of that income band into its lower steps but with all the trappings of greater prosperity – cars, mortgages, holidays, nursery fees.  In the coming year, notorious lag indicators like homelessness and repossessions will undoubtedly start to rise.

The worst of times really are just around the corner – we might well be about to see deprivation creep in from the margins of our towns and cities and into suburbia.  Poverty is bound to get more visible, more pervasive and it will be interesting to see if folk continue to seethe silently or become more vocal about it all.