Blair, Brown, Major and Cameron. Really?

Tweet The original stated premise of Cameron’s promise of a referendum on the EU was that he would first conduct some sort of renegotiation of the terms of membership and then put the result to a vote.  Perhaps he genuinely intended things to work that way, although exactly what was to be ‘renegotiated’ was never very clear.

It’s increasingly irrelevant though.  Both the ‘in’ camp and the ‘out’ camp are gearing up their campaigns already.  The ‘negotiations’ have barely begun, but the results – if there are any – will have no effect on the make-up of the campaigns.  Cameron’s fig leaf is looking decidedly dodgy.

In a sense, it’s not really a bad thing that the debate centres on the principle rather than the detail; I find it hard to believe that many electors will make up their minds by looking at the details of any Cameron package and carefully weighing up the impact.  It’s much more likely that they will be voting on issues such as immigration, or even just a desire to give a kicking to a government mid term, which all serves to underline the folly of getting into this position for short term internal party reasons.

I do wonder though about the strategy of the ‘in’ camp in the names that they’re putting forward.  It looks like the product of some sort of bubble-think to me.  I fear that an unholy alliance of Blair, Brown, Major and Cameron might actually end up having quite the opposite effect of that intended.

Veterans and roadblocks

Tweet The Labour leadership contest seems destined to provide more fun for the spectators such as myself for the remaining days before the result is announced.  Last Saturday, we had the latest Blair attempt to assist stop Corbyn’s campaign.

It demonstrated yet again (not that we needed a further demonstration) Blair’s unerring ability to present his own opinions as incontrovertible fact and everyone else’s as fantasy.  He knows that he’s right; no evidence is therefore required (although if really pressed, he could probably find someone to draw up a dossier ‘proving’ his case).

He lambasts those who would fight an election on a manifesto similar to that of 1983 when Labour lost the election, demanding instead that members support one of the three candidates offering a version of the highly successful 2010 manifesto, on which Labour obviously won the election (although I must have missed that result somehow).

My favourite passage was this one:

“It is like a driver coming to a roadblock on a road they’ve never travelled before and three grizzled veterans say: “Don’t go any further, we have been up and down this road many times and we’re warning you there are falling rocks, mudslides, dangerous hairpin bends and then a sheer drop.”

The three ‘grizzled veterans’ are obviously Blair, Brown and Kinnock, but another part of history that I seem to have missed is the bit where all three of them in turn tried the Jeremy Corbyn route and found it wanting.  The tricks age plays with the memory, eh?  But in the version of history that I seem to remember living through, all three of the grizzled veterans ‘knew’ how bad the road was without ever needing to try it. 

I can understand his frustration though - why, oh why do these people not simply believe what they’re told by those who’ve never, ever been caught out making anything up?

Rocks and hard places

Tweet I don’t know whether it’s true that Gordon Brown still enjoys much more support and respect in Scotland than he does in the rest of the UK.  It’s reported as a fact by the UK media, but it has a slight feel of being one of those pieces of ‘conventional wisdom’ as seen from the perspective of Westminster; the sort of wisdom which only matches the facts in the imagination.

True or not, the ‘no’ camp seem to be placing a lot of faith in his ability to win people over in the last week or so of the campaign.  It’s hard to judge whether that faith is misplaced.  His task is not an easy one with the momentum going the other way, and it isn’t made any easier by the differing perspectives held within his own party on some of the key issues, such as funding mechanisms.

Last week, he declared that the Barnett formula is a “needs-based approach” to allocating resources, and said: “I don’t think there is going to be much change in the Barnett formula at all in future years”.  Speaking to a Scottish audience, I guess he didn’t have a lot of choice.  But I can’t imagine that our own First Minister can have been best pleased as he prepared to make the journey north to support Brown and others in the Labour Party.

It’s a problem of Labour’s own making.  They’ve had the facts and they had the opportunity to search for a way forward on funding which reconciled the different perspectives in Wales and Scotland.  But they decided that it was too difficult, and bottled it.

But those different perspectives also undermine something else which was part of Brown’s key message.  He said of the Union, “We are four nations that have come together.  We have proved what no other four nations have proved, that we can allocate resources amongst each other, according to need.” 

Given the large and growing geographical inequalities in the UK, and given the forensic dissection of the effects of the Barnett formula by the Holtham Commission and others, many would argue that the UK has proved quite the opposite – that it is in fact utterly unable to allocate resources according to need. 

This has been one of the weaknesses of the unionist case from the outset – whilst, theoretically, a union ought to be able to redistribute resources fairly, successive governments have shown only limited inclination to attempt it.  If they had succeeded, then the unionist case would have been very much stronger; but claiming to have done something which has patently not been done only draws more attention to the problem.

Worse still, if people like Brown really do believe that they have achieved this outcome, then we can be fairly certain that they won’t feel much need to change what they’re doing if they win the next UK election.  After all, “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”.  I almost feel sorry for the “senior elected Labour politician in the UK”, as he finds himself bound to support a campaign which is, effectively, trashing the conclusions of the Holtham report and distancing itself from everything that he has been saying on funding.  But only almost.

Bigger and Browner

Tweet In his speech at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Gordon Brown appears to have managed to state the obvious without understanding the obvious conclusion to be drawn.  Referring to the successes of the UK’s team in the Olympic Games, he said:

“And the Olympics is pretty clear to us that, by the pooling of resources in, say, cycling, we managed to do what if you just divided the money and put a 10th to Scotland and a 10th to Yorkshire and so on you could not have achieved the same results.”

He also said:

"When we pool and share resources for the common good, it's often the case that the benefit is far greater than would have occurred if we'd just summed up and added up the parts.”

It’s impossible to argue with his logic, which basically amounts to saying that bigger countries can have access to a wider pool of talent and can choose to concentrate resources rather than spread them more thinly.  What it doesn’t say - but certainly implies – is that what happens to the parts isn’t important, only the overall total.

It’s basically the same as the economic policy followed by his Government – concentrate resources in the South East in ways which improve the overall average even if those on the periphery lose out, and call it success.

He’s not following it through to its natural conclusion though.  Just think about the pool of talent and the resources available if the EU were to combine and send a single team to the Olympics.  If you just want to measure ‘success’ in terms of a ranking in the medals tables, then bigger is almost always going to be better, isn’t it?

The reason that doesn’t occur to him is that he is, however rational and logical his position might appear to be, starting from a prejudiced view about what the ‘right’ unit is.

Oh, and by the way, why the ‘Edinburgh Book Festival’?  Wouldn’t it be a bigger and better event, able to call on more talent and ability, if it were renamed and held somewhere else?  Like London, perhaps…

The People's Party

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In a speech on Saturday, Labour’s new leader Ed Miliband proclaimed that he wants Labour to become once again the ‘People’s Party’.  Whilst I’m completely convinced that he would like people to believe that Labour can return to its roots to that extent, I’m rather less convinced that he really wants it to be true, or that it would be achievable if he did.

The British Establishment has always had a superb record of drawing discordant voices into itself and assimilating them without actually changing very much in the process.  I was re-reading parts of Bob McKenzie on British Political Parties the other day.  First time for years, but it reminded me of how different the origins of the Labour and Conservative Parties are, given how similar they’ve become.

The Conservative Party was founded in Parliament, of parliamentarians – indeed, if I remember correctly, until the 1980s, no-one who wasn’t an MP could actually join the party, they could only join the local ‘association’.  Labour, on the other hand, was founded outside parliament, with the aim of getting its representatives elected and securing radical change.

They’ve both changed.  People can now join the Conservative Party as ordinary members (although the party has never embraced the concept of democratic decision making!). 

Labour has changed far more; it’s become more top-down, less democratic, less open to serious debate on policy, and very much part of the establishment.  People sometimes suggest that Blairism was some sort of aberration; I suspect it was merely the latest manifestation of a very long set of processes.  The chances of Miliband (or Brown before him) reversing other than a few superficial policies were always negligible.

One could have an interesting debate about the causes.  Was it really the power grab by leaders and parliamentarians as which it’s sometimes been painted?  The problems certainly began very early in the party’s history, as entries in Beatrice Webb’s diaries reveal.  (One of my favourites was her description of Ramsay MacDonald as “a magnificent substitute for a leader”; her comments on others were equally acerbic.  I’d love to see what she would have had to say on Blair or Brown.)

I’m not convinced that what happened to the Labour Party was as simple as being the result of individuals pursuing their own interests.  I suspect that it was close to being an inevitable outcome when an initially radical party succumbed to the temptation to work entirely within the system, and fell under the control of the civil service in the process. 

The comparison between achieving something by working in and with the institutions and achieving nothing by being in perpetual conflict with them is a stark one; the temptation to do what they could to help people in the here and now must have been pretty much irresistible.  Given the social and economic conditions of the time, it’s harsh to be overly critical. 

But combining that sense of urgency in the here-and-now with keeping alive a radical vision was never going to be an easy thing for Labour to achieve; we shouldn’t really be surprised at the extent of their failure.  The surprising thing for me is more that so many people who do have a different vision have stuck with the party for so long.  

 In opposition, Labour generally have a tendency to sound rather more radical than their behaviour in government would suggest.  Miliband will, no doubt, follow that historical habit.  Somehow, though, I don’t see Labour ever really recapturing the idealism of the party’s founders.

Conjuring up numbers

Tweet I have considerable sympathy with Gordon Brown's response to Cameron's extra £12billion of savings. It seems clear that faced with a need to offer an unsustainable reduction in income by promising to cancel the NI increases, Cameron has been forced to pluck a figure out of the air and claim that he will 'cut waste' to achieve it.

The problem with Brown's argument, however, is that his own starting figure of £15billion is as arbitrary and unfounded as is Cameron's extra £12billion. And if one of them can just pluck figures from the air, why shouldn't the other do likewise?

Everyone wants to 'cut waste', of course. But it's impossible to simply put a figure magically on how much waste there is available to cut. And the phrase 'cutting waste' conceals a multitude of sins. As we saw in the coverage of the IoD/TPA report recently, the word 'waste' can be used to refer to any government expenditure with which someone disagrees.

So for the IoD/TPA, free bus passes seem to count as 'waste'; for the Tories, 'free prescriptions' is a form of 'waste'. Politicians - of any party - who claim that they are going to fund spending pledges by 'cutting waste' need to be challenged far more robustly over what they mean by 'waste' than seems to be happening currently.

Back to the workhouse?

Tweet Alwyn has reacted strongly to the proposal announced on Tuesday by Gordon Brown to offer young parents and their families supported living facilities rather than simply allocating them council housing. Personally, I'm not sure what to make of the proposal without seeing a great deal more detail.

Where Brown is right in my view is that far too often teenage parents receive wholly inadequate support, and that it is a mistake to simply see them as a 'housing' issue, to be resolved by allocating a council house. If what Brown is proposing instead of that is an assessment of the needs of such families on an individual basis, and ensuring that there is a range of solutions available offering different levels of support according to those needs, then the proposal is worthy of more discussion rather than being dismissed outright.

If on the other hand, he is simply playing to the gallery, trying to appear to be tough on the young parents involved by making sure that their experience is sufficiently unpleasant to act as a deterrent to others, then he deserves all of Alwyn's condemnation – and more besides.

Teenage pregnancy is a serious issue; but the solutions we need to find are those that prevent it before it happens, not those which stigmatise it after the event. At the moment, I'm still unsure whether Brown is offering more and better support for those who find themselves in that position, or making their lives difficult in order to deter others. Like much of what he said on Tuesday, it's a case of headlines and sound bites rather then substance.

TV debates

Tweet As I have said before, one of the problems of a "head to head" debate between party leaders - which now seems pretty much inevitable - is that a UK general election isn't primarily (constitutionally, anyway) about electing a government; it is about electing a legislature. The government is then formed from within the legislature. That is a key difference between the UK system and, say, the US system where head-to-head debates are a natural part of the campaign.

It is, of course, entirely natural for any member of a party which has no chance of forming the next government of the UK to worry about being excluded from the debate about the selection of members of the legislature. But that is not my only concern about the proposed debates which now seem extremely likely to occur.

In reality only a tiny minority of the UK electorate can vote for Brown, Cameron, or Clegg. Only in three constituencies can electors vote for any of them, and there is no single constituency where individual electors can choose between the three. I'm sure that the broadcasters would argue that by limiting the debate to those three individuals, they are including only those who could conceivably be Prime Minister of the UK. In the case of Clegg in particular I'm sure I'm not the only one to doubt the rationale of that argument.

It could be argued that, in constitutional terms, they are in any event wrong to limit the debate to those who they think could be the next Prime Minister. According to the (unwritten) constitution of the UK, the Queen chooses the next prime minister. And there is nothing in law, as I understand it, which limits her choice to the leader of the largest party, or indeed the leader of any party, or indeed a member of the House of Commons. It is only political convention that limits the choice to two.

Holding direct debates involving only those with at least an outside chance of becoming the next prime minister of the UK excludes the views of other parties who stand a realistic chance of becoming members of the legislature, which is what is actually being elected. It is another step towards a presidential style of government rather than a Parliamentary style of government. I actually think that there may well be arguments in favour of holding separate elections for the legislature and the government; but that should be the subject of political discussion and decision. It should not be forced upon us by a commercial broadcaster holding a gun to the Prime Minister's head.

Brown has been given very little choice in this instance, but it is a sad day for democracy when the nature of UK politics can be changed by a commercial company acting largely in their own rather than the country's interests.

A meaningless gesture

Tweet The first elections of which I have any memory were those of 1964 and 1966. In the first Labour narrowly scraped in, and in the second, they consolidated their position. There was a lot of excitement, and a mood of change - sweeping away '13 years of Tory misrule', in the 'white heat of the technological revolution'. They were good slogans; sadly, in many ways they turned out to be just that – slogans.

One of Labour's key pledges was to scrap Polaris; the change of heart once in government was one of the reasons why so many young people at the time ended up turning against the Labour Party. Nuclear weapons have always been something of an Achilles heel for them; they returned to an abolitionist position during their long period in opposition after the election of Thatcher, only to abandon that principled stand again before being re-elected in 1997.

Indeed, looking back, it seems that several of the key decisions to upgrade and renew the UK's nuclear weapons have actually been taken by a party many of whose members genuinely and sincerely oppose the very existence of such weapons.

I have never believed that the 'independent deterrent' was either 'independent' (the missiles cannot be fired without US permission) or a 'deterrent'; and at long last mainstream views are coming around to a similar viewpoint, even if only because the nature of any 'threats' is perceived to be different. Plaid have never been supporters of nuclear weapons, but at a time when both the Lib Dems and even the Tories are coming around to the idea that replacement of Trident is a pointless and unnecessary expense, the party which has traditionally provided the backbone of CND at UK level seems to be the only one still wedded to the concept.

It's against that backdrop that we need to consider the statement made by Brown yesterday that he might reduce the number of submarines from 4 to 3 in any replacement programme. The statement was so highly caveated as to be pretty meaningless. Effectively, he seemed to be saying that he'll reduce the number from 4 to 3 as long as he ends up convinced that the actual number of missiles which can be fired at any time remains the same as currently. And it was predicated on what happens as part of the replacement process, which will still proceed.

Trying to present that as a contribution to disarmament is one of the most utterly dishonest things that I've ever heard him say (and there's plenty of competition). In no sense or meaning is he proposing any reduction in the UK's capacity to launch weapons of mass destruction; indeed, his whole position is based on building a whole new generation of such weapons. To expect nuclear wannabes to respond by dropping their aspirations is totally unrealistic. The UK under Labour is making no contribution whatsoever to a process of global disarmament.

Caption Competition

Tweet Thanks to a reader for the scanned image.



On reflection, I think Hain is probably saying, "Not so fast you two. I'm in charge here." All other suggestions welcomed.

Gimmick or precedent?

Tweet It's too easy to dismiss the UK cabinet's little jaunt to Wales yesterday as a gimmick - but that doesn't mean it wasn't. It's certainly generated large numbers of column inches of publicity for the Labour Government in the Welsh press - most of it positive. Reading today's Western Mail, one could be forgiven for thinking that not much else happened in Wales yesterday.

The government and their spin doctors will undoubtedly be pleased with the coverage – but how will the public perceive it?

I think the jury's still out at this stage. If it's something which is repeated on an annual basis, then there's a good chance that it will be seen as an attempt to bring government a little closer to the people. And if every visit is accompanied by the sort of good news announcement that we had yesterday on rail investment, then perhaps we should encourage them to come once a month.

If, on the other hand, it ends up being a one-off in what must now be seen as the run-up to a General Election, then 'gimmick' would be the appropriate description, and it will be likely to increase cynicism.

PS – Am I the only one who found it odd that Wales' First Minister (based in Cardiff) should arrive with Brown, whereas the Secretary of State (based in London) was waiting to meet him on the platform?

PPS – Can't find it on the internet, but the photo on pages 4-5 of the Western Mail would make a superb caption competition. Hain's face as he reaches out to Brown's arm is an absolute picture. My entry is "Hey, I'm still here too".

An objective assessment?

Tweet According to all the headlines, Gordon Brown lives to fight another day following last night's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Given the way that the meeting has been reported, I'm not so sure that his neck is as safe as suggested.

The assessment seems to have been based largely on the fact that the majority of the 30 or so people who expressed an opinion supported him, with the implicit assumption that if the majority of those who spoke backed him, then he enjoys the support of his party. Given that at least one of those who was present then ran to the media and gave them the story about who had spoken and what they said, I somehow doubt that his troubles are over.

I can fully understand why, faced with a difficult situation, the party avoided holding a vote on the issue. Any party manager would understand that holding any sort of vote of confidence in the leadership actually adds to the impression that things are bad, even if the result is overwhelming support. But not having any objective assessment inevitably leaves an open question over the true level of his support.

With some, at least, of his own party members apparently determined to work against him in a semi-public fashion, and no obvious financial upturn on the immediate horizon, I question whether it is really in the interest of anyone except the Tories for him to limp along for another year.

Ghosts of the past

Tweet Like many others, I really don't understand how a 13% lead for the 'yes' camp in any referendum on enhancing the powers of the National Assembly has been covered as though it were a major problem. It's a very healthy lead – the sort that any government would be very happy with if it were about to call an election.

I do understand, though, why some are still so cautious. For those who got their fingers burnt in 1979 - and very nearly so again in 1997 - there is a real fear of failure. The danger, though, is that seeing only the echoes of the past, seeing only the similarities with what happened before, may blind us to the very real differences. Historical experience is a useful input to the present, but fear of a repeat of the past should not be allowed to determine our responses to such an extent that we wait for unanimity.

There are two key differences between the next referendum, whenever it happens, and the two previous referenda, and those differences need to be considered as carefully as the similarities. And then we need to make a measured judgement about the risks.

The first is that the Assembly now exists, and people have had ten years' experience of the new situation. The sky didn't fall in, and in a growing number of areas, the Assembly has started to make a real difference to people's lives. In some areas, there have been disappointments, of course, and it would be dishonest to deny that. But its influence on our daily lives is growing, and all the polls indicate that people understand that - and broadly welcome it.

The second key difference is that this is not an 'all or nothing' referendum, as were the two in 1979 and 1997. Even if the referendum were to be lost (and I don't believe that it would be), the Assembly would still be there, it would still be gaining powers and influence, just at a much slower pace. In short, there is less to lose.

That is not to say that a lost referendum wouldn't be a setback for Wales; it would. But the scale of the setback would be a great deal less that than which occurred in 1979 – and which so nearly happened again in 1997.

Some have argued that the opinion poll lead must be at least x% - put whatever number you like instead of the x – but I simply don't accept the validity of such a mechanistic approach. Setting an arbitrary threshold is no substitute for making a proper judgement of the situation at the time, and coming to a decision based on that judgement.

There is a danger that we see only the views of those with whom we concur, and rush into a judgement based on that. I attended the meeting of the Convention in Carmarthen a couple of weeks ago, and if the feeling of those who spoke at that meeting is typical of the views of the population as a whole, then the Carmarthen jury declared pretty clearly that the biggest problem with the proposed referendum is that it does not go far enough. I know, though, that other conclusions would probably be drawn from meetings elsewhere in Wales.

There are those who are starting to doubt the commitment of the One Wales government to holding the promised referendum. I do not share those doubts. For me, there were always two windows in which the One Wales government could have called a referendum. The first was immediately after taking office, in 2007; but the agreement of the partners to set up the Convention effectively ruled that one out. The second is after the Westminster election but before the 2011 Assembly elections.

That second window has been narrowed by the fact that Gordon Brown is now likely to hang on until the bitter end before calling the election, but it has not been closed by a long shot. Any referendum campaign is likely to be as painful for the Labour Party as it will be for the Conservatives, since both parties are hopelessly divided on the issue. Expecting Labour to expose and emphasise those internal disagreements in the period immediately before an election is just not realistic. And, whether we like it or not, the commitment of Labour to any campaign is a key element in ensuring success.

DIY is best

Tweet There's no arguing about the fact that Wales has a lower GVA per head than the UK average. Nor about the fact that this is a very long-standing problem. But whose fault is it?

During his flying visit to Wales, Cameron attempted to pin the blame on Rhodri Morgan and Gordon Brown – presumably hoping that voters have short memories. In reality, insofar as Morgan and Brown are guilty on this score, it is of failing to improve on the legacy left to them by the Tories, rather than creating it. (WelshPoliticalHistory comes to a similar conclusion, although it's disputed in some of the comments. In the narrow context of an utterly hypocritical accusation by Cameron, I agree with his conclusion). In fairness to the Tories – did I really just say that? – they in their turn were guilty primarily of failing to improve on their legacy from the previous Labour government. And so, apparently, ad infinitum…

That doesn't mean that I don't consider Morgan and Brown to have been a failure; merely that the accusation was disingenuous at best, given its source. Cameron is wrong to hurl the accusation at Labour without taking at least equal responsibility for his own party's past actions.

The problem of Wales' comparatively low GVA is a serious and deep-seated issue. It would be easy at this point to revert to the simplistic traditional position that it's not which party is in government which is the problem, but that London government in general fails Wales. I happen to think that that is true, but it isn't the whole story.

It is actually extremely difficult for any government to ensure that GVA per head is consistent across its territory. The very nature of the word 'average' requires that some areas are below it and some above it. There are differences between the different parts of Wales as well. Attention is currently focussed on the differences between Wales and England, but I am certain that in an independent Wales, the differences between Cardiff and Ynys Môn would be receiving a similar level of attention. It isn't just a problem for 'London government'.

Governments setting economic policy make choices. Maximising GVA per head in the economy as a whole isn't necessarily inimical to sharing growth and prosperity; neither are they automatically the same thing. But the belief that the 'free market' is the best way of achieving the former (a belief which is now common to both the Tories and Labour) will almost inevitably lead to 'regional' variations. The question is – how do we respond to that?

The least helpful – and least honest – response is to start accusing the least well-off areas of being somehow responsible for their own failure, of being dependent on handouts from the centre, and of whinging. It's unhelpful, yet it seems to underlie the attitude of a number of unionist politicians, who seem for some perverse reason to be almost pleased that - as a result of their economic policies - 'Wales is too poor to be independent'. Even more bizarrely, the only remedy they offer is more of the same.

A more honest unionist response would be to say something like, "Our aim is to maximise the prosperity of the UK as a whole. We believe that the policies which we are following are the right ones to do that. We recognise that this might well mean that some parts of the UK are relatively less well-off than others, but we will do what we can to redistribute wealth so that all citizens benefit from the prosperity which is being created."

It's a better line than complaining about having to give out 'handouts' to the poorer areas, an approach which serves not only to increase the likelihood of a dependency culture, but also to build resentment amongst both the givers and the receivers of the alleged largesse. The problem is that, to be credible, such a line needs to be backed up by precisely the sort of pro-active regional policy which has been progressively dismantled by Labour and Tory governments alike.

The other response, of course, is to argue that the best way of reducing the disparity in GVA between Wales and England is to have an economic policy focussed specifically on the needs of Wales – and that means maximising the economic powers of the National Assembly and/or Independence.

Nobody will be in the least surprised that I favour the latter viewpoint. I have zero faith that anything which Cameron would do in government would have any more impact than the efforts of previous governments – especially given his stress on cutting the public sector. Focus on, and ownership of, our own problems always seems to me to be preferable to expecting someone else to do something.

Who's really being decisive?

Tweet Whilst Gordon Brown endlessly reiterates the mantra that he is acting decisively, the Irish government has actually taken action, rather than just talking about it. And Brown's response is to raise doubts about what they've done - when he should be following suit.

The Irish have, effectively, guaranteed the whole of the deposits made in their banks, whilst the UK government proposes only to raise the level of guarantee from £35,000 to £50,000. It's a meaningless distinction. In reality, as one Labour peer has already pointed out, the UK government, whatever it says about imposing a limit, is for all practical purposes committed to a full guarantee - so why not just be honest about it?

A few days ago, I raised the question of how 'global' the crisis really is, drawing attention to places like Spain which have been relatively unaffected. The Economist carried an interesting article about how Spain managed to avoid the crisis so well. This could have been us – but for the obsession with allowing the 'markets' to do whatever they wish.

And, if any more confirmation was needed that the time has come to clamp down on the speculators and gamblers who have already done so much damage, the headline in yesterday's Daily Express certainly provided it. Not content with forcing a bank onto the rocks, it seems that the speculators were actually trying to wreck the rescue deal for HBOS. Not because it was a bad deal, not because the deal isn't necessary, but purely because they could make a bit more money by doing so. It neatly sums up the (lack of) values which drive them.

No nukes is good nukes

Tweet The phrase 'dictatorship of oil' has at least two meanings, and when Gordon Brown pledged to end that dictatorship, I'm not entirely sure which of the two he meant. I'm afraid, though, that I suspect it was the wrong one.

If he wants to end our dependence on oil because of a recognition that the world has to move from an economy based on hydrocarbons to a low-carbon future, I'd agree with him. But, although he used the words 'low-carbon', I suspect that he's really reacting more to the way in which oil prices have a lock on our economy, and is looking to free us from that. That's not an unworthy aim in itself; it just isn't the same thing as a recognition of the real problems we face over future energy policy.

His – and others' - continued stress on nuclear energy as part of the future energy mix is something that I just can't accept. It's not that I am opposed to nuclear energy on principle – as I know that some are – I'm just not convinced that it makes economic or environmental sense.

There are a number of arguments for and against nuclear energy, not all of which are purely environmental issues. I know that there are some in the environmental movement who believe that we should now be ready to embrace nuclear energy as the least bad alternative. And almost two years ago, I heard Sir John Houghton speak at a meeting organised by FoE in Narberth, where, as a small part of a very well-made case on man-made global warming, he supported a move to nuclear power. Amongst his other arguments was the suggestion that we have enormous stockpiles of plutonium for nuclear weapons – wouldn't it be better to turn those stocks into electricity and use them peacefully?

It's a strong argument, and disagreeing with one as eminent as Sir John in the field of global warming is not something to be done lightly. But for me, there are still too many unanswered questions over the nuclear option, and without those answers, I am unable to make a sensible judgement as to whether nuclear power is really as low-carbon as some claim.

The fact that the plants themselves are very low-carbon once in operation is only part of the story. The carbon cost of constructing a nuclear power station is significantly higher than the carbon cost of a conventional power station, and then there is the carbon cost of decommissioning the station and dealing with the waste. The problem with this is that we still don't know how we are going to deal with the waste, and without even knowing how, it is impossible to know the cost either in pounds and pennies or in carbon terms. And then there's the carbon cost (and the human cost) of obtaining and processing the fuel to take into account as well.

Whilst I remain willing to listen to the facts and consider the options, I'm simply not convinced at present that the benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the disadvantages. One thing of which I am certain however, is that deciding whether or not to go nuclear is something which affects us all, not just the areas around power stations, since we will all have to face the consequences of disposing of, or simply guarding for thousands of years, the waste produced.

One of my biggest concerns about energy policy is that governments continue to see it as a question of how we obtain vast quantities of energy to carry on as we are. As a consequence, they always seem to be looking for 'big technology'; whether that be nuclear or massive barrages. I think the real issue is how we reduce our demand for energy to a level which can be supplied in a more appropriate fashion.

Titanic Brown

Tweet I find it hard to comprehend how far Labour have fallen in such a short time. Less than twelve months ago, they looked invincible; I was convinced that Gordon Brown would win an election any time he cared to call one. But now, I don't think he has any chance whatsoever of recovering the situation, and Labour are facing a potential wipeout.

Many in Labour seem to be trying to console themselves with the idea that if it went wrong so suddenly, it could just as easily turn around – they do, after all, have almost two years before an election becomes unavoidable. I think they're being unduly optimistic. There's been a change in mood of the sort which happens from time to time, and I suspect it's become irreversible before the next election.

I now think that Brown is doomed. Labour party MPs are starting to panic, and that just adds to the story line. Talk of replacing Brown is rife - but I doubt that it would make any difference at this stage. The ship is sinking. Arguing over who should be piloting it - rather than trying to plug the holes - is merely helping it to sink even faster.

Ceredig seems to blame the media; but my main criticism of the media in all this is not particularly the fact that they have decided on a particular story line – I suspect that they are actually reflecting more than promulgating a change in mood. Rather, it is that they have allowed Cameron and his Tories to get away with not explaining what they would do any differently.

There is an almost total policy vacuum from the Tories, which is hardly subject to questioning at all. The media are right to be holding Brown and Labour to account for a succession of failures. They are wrong, however, not to be subjecting Cameron and his crew to even a remotely similar level of scrutiny. That lack of scrutiny is in danger of encouraging voters to jump from the frying pan into the fire, rather than examining genuine alternatives. And jumping into the fire is something people would come to regret.