Election Fever: Big Noise in Little Britain
Debate
Soon Britain will be going to the polls to decide which political party will lead the country. The date for the general election is set for May 6. Elections in Britain are traditionally fought between the two main parties - the Tories (Conservatives, on the right of the political spectrum) and Labour (traditionally left/Socialist in outlook).
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The party that follows behind them is the Liberal Democrat party. Formerly called the Liberal party, this grouping has had no hope of winning a majority in the House of Commons for 88 years. The last "Liberal" prime minister was David Lloyd George. This individual (pictured in a 1920 cartoon) had become Prime Minister in 1916. In 1922, after exposure of his corrupt dealings, Lloyd George and his party representatives were swept away in a landslide Tory win. From that time onwards, the Liberals have never been either as powerful or as prominent.
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Consistently over the past year, opinion polls were placing David Cameron (pictured) and his Conservative party above Gordon Brown. The election was widely considered to be a "two horse race". There were fears that even though Cameron was being seen as more popular than Brown, he would need to have more than a ten point lead to ensure that his party has an overall majority in parliament.
On Thursday April 15, 2010, a national debate was presented on British television. Following the model set in American election campaigns, this was the first of three debates, much as happens in the USA. In America, these have always involved the presidential candidates from two parties - the Republicans and the Democrats.
The British debate on Thursday, broadcast live by ITV, was the first time that leaders of the main parties were invited to set out their policies to the public before an election. The members of the audience, some of whom posed questions, were instructed not to give applause to any statements, and they complied. Joining David Cameron and Gordon Brown was the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, Nick Clegg.
Clegg had only become the leader of his party on December 18, 2007. His predecessor, Menzies Campbell, had resigned two months before. Campbell had come to lead the party after his predecessor, Charles Kennedy, had resigned on January 7, 2006 amid concern about his drinking problems.
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When Nick Clegg (pictured) came to the podium in the televised debate, members of the public had very little idea of what he personally stood for. The full debate can be seen here. It had been widely expected that Gordon Brown would not perform too well. Even Brown's supporters were admitting that Brown lacked in style, though they claimed he makes up for this in substance. David Cameron was expected to display communication skills and to present his party's policies clearly. Cameron did present himself clearly, but no-one expected that Nick Clegg would be a master of communication. Clegg was confident in his presentation, and this confidence and assuredness of style proved popular with viewers.
What ensued after the debate has been unprecedented in British politics. Clegg, the outsider in the election race was suddenly hailed in opinion polls as a new hope for Britain. During the debate, Clegg had positioned himself as a voice of something "new", as opposed to "more of the same tired old policies" represented by the Tories and Labour. The public, if polls were to be trusted, believed that Clegg represented a fresh wind blowing away the cobwebs of the main established parties.
Expenses
Clegg had argued that Labour and Tories had helped to discredit politics with the appalling revelations of the "expenses scandal" that rocked the country last year. Taxpayers had been shocked to find that politicians in the Houses of Commons and the House of Lords had been milking their expenses claims with spurious demands. The worst culprits were Conservatives and Labour politicians. For example, one Tory Member of Parliament (Peter Viggers) had claimed £1,645 for a floating home, styled like 19th century Swedish architecture, for the ducks on his lake. Another Tory (Douglas Hogg, aka Viscount Hailsham) charged taxpayers for the costs of a mole catcher on his ancestral estate, and for the costs of having his moat cleared.
Some MPs' claims were scandalous for their pettiness. Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is Labour MP for Redditch in Worcestershire. She was earning £141,688 from the tax-payer, when she sent in a receipt for a bath plug worth 88 pence. Her miserly insistence on being reimbursed by the public for small bills brought her and the Labour government into disrepute. In March 2009, it was revealed that she had submitted a request for reimbursement for two porn movies. Her husband Richard Timney, who acts as her "assistant" had ordered "Raw Meat" and "By Special Request" on pay-per-view cable TV and put them onto her list of "Additional Costs Allowance" expenses. After Ms Smith apologized, Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended her. Eight weeks later, Smith resigned as Home Secretary.
Smith famously tried to butcher the English language by describing Islamic terrorism as "anti-Islamic activity." She went on to declare that Geert Wilders and Michael Savage were to be banned from entering Britain for "engaging in unacceptable behavior" even though her government was planning to meet Dr Ibrahim Moussawi at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Moussawi is a spokesperson for the terrorist group Hizbollah.
Her political gaffes aside, Jacqui Smith claimed the maximum expenses allowance possible (£116,000 over six years) for having a second home. As MPs have to represent their home constituencies and also appear in the House of Commons, it is not unreasonable for some to require living expenses for a second domicile. Four fifths of MPs do this mostly from necessity, but Smith spent most of her time staying with her sister while in London, rather than spending on rent or a mortgage. Stretching the definition of "honesty" to breaking point, she claimed that her sister's home was her "main home".
Smith is not the only MP to have played fast and loose with expenses for "second homes". Margaret Moran, Labour MP for Luton South, conned the taxpayer by "flipping" the location of the abodes listed in her "second home" expenses between three separate properties. Moran agreed to pay back some of her expenses, and then went on "sick leave". While on sick leave, she was secretly filmed seeking lobbying work. This documentary caused her to be suspended from the Labour Party. As well as Moran, three former Labour Cabinet Ministers were also suspended. Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon had featured in the same documentary "expressing a desire to work for a consultancy firm at a fee of up to £5,000 a day."
It is not only members of Parliament who have manipulated details of their "second homes". Members of the House of Lords such as Labour peer Baroness Uddin have acted similarly. She also blatantly lied by declaring that her "main residence" is a home she visits only once a month, but as rules for members of the upper house are vague, she escaped prosecution.
Lord Hanningfield, a Tory member of the House of Lords, was not so lucky. He had claimed expenses of £174 a day for staying in London, even though he lived in Essex, less than 50 miles from London. In all, he has charged the taxpayer £100,000. In February this year, Lord Hanningfield was indicted on charges of false accounting. However, he is accused of falsifying his travel expenses.
Three Labour MPs, Jim Devine (MP for Livingston), Elliot Morley (MP for Scunthorpe) and David Chaytor (MP for Bury North) were also indicted. In May 2009 it was revealed that Chaytor had been claiming £13,000 reimbursement for a mortgage that had already been paid in full. Chaytor described this act as an "unforgivable error". At the same time, Elliot Morley was accused of claiming £16,000 for a mortgage that had been paid off. In May 2009, Morley was suspended from the Labour Party. Scottish MP Jim Devine had submitted receipts for work at his home that appeared bogus. He has subsequently admitted that the receipts were fake, but claims he had not profited from them.
On April 12 this year, it was announced that the three Labour MPs will get legal aid to help them defend their cases, a decision made by the courts that caused public outrage. Devine had argued that as he was "out of work", he was entitled to legal aid (financial assistance to meet his court costs). Two days before the televised debate between the three main party leaders, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the three Labour MPs would have to pay back their legal aid. New rules on "means-testing" of recipients of legal aid are expected to be in force when the separate trials take place later in the year.
With a catalogue of appalling behavior by certain Labour and Tory Members of Parliament, Nick Clegg gained a few credibility points on the expenses issue. A woman in the audience asked about how the leaders intended to restore political credibility after the expenses scandal. Clegg was the first to answer, stating: "Well I don't think that any politician deserves your trust... deserves any credibility until everybody comes clean about what has gone on. There have been some changes to the rules and all that- the expenses rules, but there are still people who haven't taken full responsibility for some of the biggest abuses of the system, There are MPs who flipped - one property to the next - buying properties paid by you the taxpayer, and then they would do the properties up, paid for by you, and then pocket the difference in personal profit. They got away Scot free. There are MPS who avoided paying Capital Gains Tax, and of course we remember the duck houses and all the rest of it. But it is the people the MPs making the big abuses, some of them making hundreds of pounds, Not a single Liberal Democrat MP did either of those things. Those still haven't been dealt with. We until we're honest about what went wrong in the first place."
The Liberal Democrats' representatives did not feature in the expenses scandal, but when they have only 62 MPs out of the full complement of 650 in the House of Commons (compared to 196 Conservative and 354 Labour MPS) that is no guarantee of universal probity within the party.
It was only after the debate, when popularity polls showed Clegg soaring into pole position in the electoral race, that the Liberal Democrat leader's own expenses came under the spotlight. David Cameron may have looked uneasy during the debate, and Brown may have looked sullen and antagonistic, but neither had run up expenses as high as Clegg. Over the last four years, Clegg has cost the tax-payer a total of £84,000 for his second home. He has defended paying for a gardener to prune his "apple and plum trees". He also ran up £850 on curtains and blinds, which he claimed as expenses.
In May 2009 it was revealed that Clegg had also charged the taxpayer for phone calls to Colombia, Vietnam and Spain. Clegg repaid £80.20 for these phone calls, declared that he had made an "innocent mistake". As well as large expenses, Clegg proved himself to be as stingy as Jacqui Smith, charging the taxpayer for a cake pan costing £2.49 and £1.50 for paper napkins.
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In October 2009 Prime Minister Gordon Brown was ordered by Sir Thomas Legg to repay £12,000 of expenses. Legg, the auditor brought in to examine the MPs expenses scandal, had imposed limits upon what MPs can claim. Brown's expenses, which had been incurred for "cleaning costs" had exceeded the limits imposed by the auditor. Nick Clegg was ordered to repay £910 as his gardening costs had exceeded the annual limit of £1,000 allowed by Sir Thomas Legg.
It should be mentioned that five days after the debate, Gordon Brown grumbled about being forced to repay £12,000 of his expenses. He declared on radio that he would not "employ anybody without paying them a decent wage. I feel my crime was to pay a decent wage to my cleaner, because nobody was saying you can't claim for cleaning your house." No-one cares what he pays his cleaner. Brown's "crime" was to make the taxpayer foot the bill for his cleaner, rather than himself.
Does Britain Need Clegg?
The media has elevated Clegg from a rank outsider into the position of a "contender", but due to the way that electoral groupings are measured in Britain it is unlikely that his party would be able to gain a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives would need to have at least 5 per cent more votes than Labour to gain a majority. There will be another televised debate tonight, on the subject of Foreign Policy, and one more before the May 6 election.
The public may initially have swallowed Clegg's claim that his party represented change, but seems to have forgotten one of Clegg's claims on the first debate, concerning immigration. Clegg argued that there should be no "cap" on immigration. Labour is widely perceived as being responsible for the uncontrolled immigration that has taken place in Britain since 1997. David Cameron scored some popularity points during the first debate by declaring that he would impose a limit on numbers arriving on UK soil.
Nick Clegg, despite being treated as a wunderkind by the media, not only has no plans to set a fixed number upon migrants, but thinks that the public will accept the notion of granting citizenship to illegal migrants who have managed to beat the system for 10 years. Logically, such a policy is absurd. Why have immigration policies, if those who openly flaunt them are to be rewarded? Yesterday, Clegg appeared on radio and this particular policy was roundly attacked by listeners. Clegg attempted to defend this policy by stating: "Better to have them out of the hands of nasty criminal gangs and into the hands of the taxpayer."
The naivete and lack of logic in Clegg's policies on legalizing illegal immigration was proved by a caller who pointed out that there was no way that an illegal immigrant could "prove" he had been living in Britain for 10 years as he would have had no entry papers. When pressured to be more realistic in his responses, Clegg began to display signs of anger.
Clegg wants closer cooperation with Europe, even though the more the EU strengthens, Britain's autonomy weakens. He is opposed to the renewal of the Trident nuclear missile-carrying submarines. When a listener on Radio 4 yesterday asked what would Britain do if it suffered a nuclear attack, Clegg, prevaricated and tried to ridicule the scenario as too "apocalyptic" to be treated seriously. The fact that North Korea has already detonated two nuclear weapons and Iran intends to create its own seems to have escaped Clegg's narrow view of the world.
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After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Liberal Democrats were behind many of the antiwar protests. However, the antiwar movement has made common cause with Islamists and antisemites. There are members of Clegg's party who have taken dislike of Israel's policies to levels that have been seen by some as "antisemitism". Jenny Tonge was a former MP for Richmond until 2005. She sits in the House of Lords and was the Liberal Democrat's spokesperson on health.
She had once been on the front bench in the House of Commons, but on January 21 2004, Tonge had said to a rally that with "killings and the bulldozings and all the other horrible things" going on in occupied Palestinian areas that if she lived there, she would consider being a suicide bomber. She told the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign: "This particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber, is truly born out of desperation. Many many people criticize, many many people say it is just another form of terrorism, but I can understand and I am a fairly emotional person and I am a mother and a grand mother, I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming one myself. And that is a terrible thing to say." Charles Kennedy, who was then leader of the Liberal Democrat party, sacked her from her position as children's spokesperson for the party.
In March 2009 while in Syria, she met Khaled Meshaal, the leader of terrorist group Hamas. She also met Ramadan Shalah, head of Islamic Jihad, which also carries out terrorist murders against Israeli civilians. Tonge said that Meshaal was "shrewd, plausible and actually very likeable."
In 2006, when Menzies Campbell led the Liberal Democrats, she was reprimanded for stating that "The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips. I think they have probably got a certain grip on our party." The leader claimed that her comments had "clear antisemitic connotations".
Baroness Tonge is a patron of the Palestine Telegraph, an online source of propaganda and "news". This website also seems to support a revived version of the ancient "blood libels" used to demonize Jewish people.
In August 2009, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet had published an article stating that Isiraeli soldiers had killed Palestinians to harvest their organs. This story had no basis in fact. On February 1, 2010 the Palestine Telegraph published a story by an American (Stephen Lendman) that alleged Israeli IDF medical staff in Haiti were harvesting the organs of people in Haiti. Lendman wrote that "The Israeli government acts as facilitator, providing subsidies of up to $80,000 for 'transplant holidays'," and "Its medical teams apparently are doing it in Haiti, exploiting fresh corpses and the living." Lendman's sources included Manar TV - an organ (no pun intended) of terrorist group Hizbollah.
With no evidence other than hearsay to support the claims of organ-harvesting, Tonge demanded that the IDF should be investigated for "organ-harvesting". She admitted that the IDF had done a fine job in Haiti, but stated that "the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti."
Finally, On February 13, 2010, Clegg told Baroness Tonge that she could no longer be the Lib Dem spokesperson on Health in the Lords. He called her comments "wrong, distasteful and provocative". The Palestine Telegraph portrayed Tonge as a martyr.
Clegg stated that: "While I do not believe that Jenny Tonge is anti-semitic or racist, I regard her comments as wholly unacceptable. Jenny Tonge apologises unreservedly for the offence she has caused." Though firing her as spokesperson, he has not removed the whip. She can still proclaim herself as a "Liberal Democrat" peer.
Clegg is a leader of a political party. He has had ample time to notice that Tonge, with previous record for comments that appeared antisemitic, and also that she is a patron for an online site that criticises Israel but seems to offer little comparable criticism of groups like Hamas or Hizbollah. The blog "Harry's Place" has highlighted that another Liberal Democrat peer has defended Tonge, and attacked the Likud party. As described in the Jewish Chronicle, Lord Wallace of Saltaire was addressing members of the Board of Deputies, but used language that caused certain Deputies to walk out in disgust.
No Change
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The worst aspect of Clegg's rise to importance is not really connected to his policies (even though these need to be seriously questioned by both the media and the electorate) but in the manner that his "presentation skills" are being used to propel him to a position of political prominence that his track record does not merit. Should his current popularity be translated into a surge of votes, it is highly likely that Britain would have to experience a hung parliament (where there is no practical majority). Votes which would have gone to David Cameron's party could go to Liberal Democrats and create a disastrous scenario - where a public already fed up with 13 years of Labour mismanagement of the country and the economy could see Labour continuing for a further five years.
The Liberals have made pacts with parties in the past, usually to bolster up Labour's command of the Commons against the Conservatives. In 1916, the last elected Liberal government of Britain had been led by Lloyd George, in a coalition with the Conservatives. Lloyd George was popular but divisive, having alienated the previous Liberal leader (Lord Asquith). His coalition soon dissolved in 1922 after Lloyd George was shown to have sold peerages and knighthoods and at the close of the year, Bonar Law, a Tory, was in power. He died six months later, ushering in an era of political instability. The Liberals have never recovered as a party from the era of Lloyd George and Asquith, and have generally settled for deals with Labour, known colloquially as "Lib-Lab pacts".
In January 1924, under Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour government came to power with no real a hung parliament The Liberals supported Labour but by the end of the year the Tories were back in power. In 1929 Labour won most seats, but it was still a hung parliament, and Ramsay MacDonald did not have a practical working majority. The Liberals agreed not to align themselves with the Tories, but after two years the government collapsed and Ramsay MacDonald (expelled from the Labour party) continued until 1935 as a leader of a coalition of parties.
In early 1977, when the Labour government of James Callaghan was struggling with no real majority, the Liberal Party under David Steel stepped in to support the government in the most famous "Lib-Lab pact". This pact ended in July 1978 and at the end of the year Britain was riven by strikes and unrest, in the "Winter of Discontent". In the spring of 1979, the public voted in Margaret Thatcher and for almost two decades Labour and the Liberals existed in a wasteland, with Labour rebels splitting off in 1981 to form a party called the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In 1983 and 1987, the Liberal party campaigned for election in alliances with the SDP. This splitting of the electorate was used by the Tories to remain in power, and in 1988 the Liberals and the SDP merged to become the "Liberal Democratic Party".
With a long history of cozying up to some governments and parties, and cheering on the demise of other parties, the Liberal Democrats have never had any monopoly on policies. For most of the British public, they represent something somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum, with socialists assuming that the party is "left of center" and supporters on the right assuming they are a "soft" version of Conservatism.
There is a saying - that a week is a long time in politics. This week has seemed longer than most, with endless hysteria about Nick Clegg's alleged virtues, while we all were told that the atmosphere above Britain was filled with ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. For the first time in living memory, no commercial planes were allowed to fly in or out of Britain. While the skies were quiet over Britain, media noise increased.
American readers may have heard of our political dramas. Nick Clegg is currently being hailed as a new phenomenon in Britain, but he is not really presenting policies that are - of themselves - popular. For a public that is now accustomed to shows like the X-Factor and other talent contests hosted by Simon Cowell, Nick Clegg is seen as a "star in the making". He may have delivered his lines with confidence, but the public should look closely at what the words mean. Being comparatively young (at 43) and being confident is not of itself a guarantee of a good leader.
David Cameron has tried to woo voters by presenting himself as a "normal" person, but people do not want "normal" or "ordinary" leaders; they want someone extraordinary. Cameron seems almost embarrassed by his privileged background. Leaders like Winston Churchill (born in a palace) did not bother to excuse the circumstances of his birth, and was loved by rich and poor alike. In the Sunday Times, Nick Clegg's post-debate poll results were used to compare his popularity to that of Churchill, but Clegg is no Churchill.
Cameron has seen his poll lead slipping as Clegg is fêted as an object of hope and change. For the Tories to have stayed ahead, they should have been presenting policies that the public can clearly understand. Clegg may show skills at delivering speeches, but when he is questioned about his questionable policies, he is as tetchy and evasive as any other politician. Hopefully, in the next two debates, people will start to see Clegg for what he is and see how far Liberal Democrat policies do not mesh with the wishes expressed by respondents to recent opinion polls.
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David Cameron should stop trying to be "nice" to Clegg, hoping that he can create a "pact" in the event of a hung parliament. If Cameron wants to win, he needs to expose Clegg and his policies. Yesterday as Cameron campaigned in Cornwall, someone threw an egg (pictured) at him, hitting him on the head. Maybe that experience will wake him up and make him realize that politics is an ugly business, and if he wants to win over the public, he needs to be more prepared to engage in no-holds combat. Perhaps he could also present some policies........
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Wednesday 21 April 2010
Thursday 1 April 2010
Is the "Special Relationship" With Britain Really Over?
Origins of the name
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The "special relationship" between Britain and America was first popularized in 1946 by Winston Churchill (pictured above with President Harry S. Truman). Three years earlier, Churchill had used the term in a private communication. According to the first edition of John Dumbrell's book "A Special Relationship" (2001, page 7), the notion that something "special" existed between Britain and America was first put on paper in July 1940. Edward F. L. Wood, first Lord Halifax, had been Britain's Foreign Secretary from 1938 until 1940, when he wrote of "the possibility of some sort of special relationship" between the two nations. Wood became Britain's Ambassador in Washington from 1940 until 1946.
There was considerable difference of between Churchill and Lord Halifax, with the latter associated with Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards the Nazi war machine. Despite this, the notion of a "special association" was taken seriously by Churchill, himself the son of an American mother. On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a speech at Fulton, Missouri, which he called "The Sinews of Peace". It is popularly referred to as "The Iron Curtain Speech" as it was within this address that he declared that an "iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe."
It was within this speech that the term "special relationship" first came to the attention of the world at large. Churchill said: "....I come to the crux of what I have travelled here to say. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States."
The "special relationship" was born out of a mutual suspicion of the intentions of the Soviets. It has suffered fluctuations over its history. The Suez Crisis of 1956, when President Gamel Nasser of Egypt, armed by the Soviets, appeared prepared to increase Russian influence in the Middle East. This development strengthened the "special relationship", and under president Kennedy the bond was strong. In the late 1960s, after Soviet-supported Arab nations attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow Israel in 1967, the United States of America embarked upon a new "special relationship" with Israel. Initially this led to a cooling of relationships with Britain, which maintained its previous links with Arab nations.
The special relationship seemed to be more intense while there were threats of Soviet expansionism. Though British soldiers fought in the Korean War, and Prime Minister Harold Wilson offered verbal (but not practical) support for the Vietnam War, China did not pose a direct threat to Western European interests. During the 1960s, Britain ceded many of its former colonies, and with its diminished territorial influence, its political and military influence waned. Britain was influential within NATO more on account of its intelligence, rather than its military power. Shared intelligence began during World War II and around 1947 (the year the CIA was formed), SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) agreements had been made between Britain and the US, formalizing intelligence-gathering.
In the 1970s, the special relationship between Britain and America seemed to be losing its importance, but at the start of the 1980s, the close bonds between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ensured a revival of the association. In the 1990s, the rise of the Asian economies and the demise of the Soviet Empire eroded Britain's strategic importance.
Since the end of WWII, many UK air bases have been used by the US Air Force. During the 1980s, plans were made for some of these to house ground-launched Cruise Missiles. Among these, sites such as RAF Greenham Common, RAF Upper Heyford, and RAF Molesworth are now hardly used for flying. These sites are still remembered for the protests, but with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the fall of the "Iron Curtain", their strategic importance is secondary to other American Strategic Air Command sites in Britain and Europe. At Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, F111E aircraft once thundered above the Cherwell valley, and American airmen mixed well with the local community. In 1994, American occupancy at Upper Heyford finally came to an end.
Bill Clinton took an interest in British affairs, assisting Tony Blair in his attempts to achieve peace in Northern Ireland (where earlier Ted Kennedy had involved himself in divisive factionalism). It was under George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003 that the "special relationship" came once again under the spotlight. The common enemy was no longer the USSR but violent Islamism.
Blair retired from British politics in May 2007. He gave his position to Gordon Brown, who officially became prime minister 12 weeks late. Neither the general public nor his own party voted for Gordon Brown to be premier. On July 31, 2007, when Mr Brown went to Camp David to meet George W. Bush, I wondered on the pages of Family Security Matters if Gordon Brown would maintain the "special relationship" between America and Britain. In August 2007 I wondered if Gordon Brown's almost appeasing approach to homegrown Islamist terrorism, so at odds with that of the Bush administration, signaled the "first crack" in the relationship.
This past weekend, on Sunday, March 28, a report was published in Britain. Compiled by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, a panel of Members of Parliament from all major political parties, the message of the report was stark and depressing. According to the report, the "special relationship" between America and Britain, at least in the manner in which it is understood, is now dead.
The Report
The entire report, entitled "Global Security: UK-US Relations" can be read in either pdf format or via subject-related HTML links. In the official press notice Mike Gapes (Labour MP for Ilford South) stated: "The UK needs to adopt a more hard-headed political approach towards our relationship with the US with a realistic sense of our own limits and our national interests."
He added: "Certainly the UK must continue to position itself closely alongside the US but there is a need to be less deferential and more willing to say no where our interests diverge. In a sense, the UK foreign policy approach this Committee is advocating is in many ways similar to the more pragmatic tone which President Obama has adopted towards the UK."
Gapes admitted that a "close and valuable" relationship still existed but warned that the actual term "special relationship" is "misleading and we recommend that its use should be avoided."
It is argued that any special relationship that exists must also be shared with other countries, but the report suggests (section 6, para 210) that the Obama Administration itself is behind much of the cooling of the special relationship.
Heather Conley and Reginald Dale, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, were called to give evidence. They are quoted as saying: "There is clear evidence that Europe (and thus Britain) is much less important to the Obama administration than it was to previous US administrations, and the Obama administration appears to be more interested in what it can get out of the special relationship than in the relationship itself."
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When Gordon Brown went to the United States in 2009, many organs of the British press grumbled that President Obama appeared to be making snubs toward the British prime minister. Certainly there seemed an imbalance in the exchange of gifts. Obama gave the UK premier a boxed set of 25 DVDs of classic movies, movies that could be bought off Amazon or in a video store. Brown gave Obama a pen-holder carved from timbers of HMS Gannett ship built in 1878 to protect trade and combat slavery.
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The Daily Mail stated that "oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880. Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert."
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During George W. Bush's tenure of the White House, a bust of Winston Churchill, carved by American-born sculptor Jacob Epstein, had been displayed in the Oval Office. Worth a mint on the art market, it had been on long-term loan since 2001. The fact that Obama formally handed back the bust, despite being encouraged to keep the object for four years, was perceived as the biggest snub of all. As noted by Newsweek, the London Times newspaper assumed Obama associated the bust with Churchill's 1952 order to crack down on the Mau Mau rebellion. Hussein Onyango Obama, grandfather of the president, had been interned as a subversive for two years. Whether Hussein Onyango Obama deserved jail or not is debatable - but Churchill could not be held personally responsible. H.O. Obama was jailed in 1949, three years before Churchill ordered a crackdown.
The returning of the bust of Churchill - first proponent of the "special relationship" was seen in Britain as an insult to that relationship. Toby Harnden of the Telegraph newspaper, reporting on the recent Foreign Affairs Committee report, sees the Obama Administration as indifferent to the special relationship: "Ask an official in the Obama administration about the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom and the response will be at best a roll of the eyes and at worst an unprintable epithet."
Justin Webb. a BBC correspondent in Washington, sees little American enthusiasm for the special relationship. In March 2009 he wrote that "the truth is that the special relationship or special partnership or whatever we call it now is not that important to the modern Americans who will shape the future of this nation and whose families hail from Mexico or China or Sudan or wherever else."
Webb, who in January 2010 gave a lecture on the subject of the special relationship, also evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. He told the committee: "I think there genuinely is a sort of carelessness in the (Obama) Administration about this special relationship, indeed almost a neuralgia about the term, which co-exists with the fact that a lot of them are Brit-educated and very knowledgeable about the UK. Phil Gordon, the Assistant Secretary for Europe at the State Department, couldn't be more knowledgeable or linked into the UK, so these things can coincide..."
"...In preparation for coming to see you, I asked someone in the White House to take a minute or so with a senior Administration official the other day and have a quick word on the current feeling. He said that he had 30 seconds: the Administration official said, "Get out of my room. I'm sick of that subject. You're all mad". There is a sense in the Obama press office that we obsess about this. I was speaking to another Administration official about the bust of Churchill and the way in which it was rather unceremoniously taken in a taxi to the British Embassy, and the fallout, particularly in the British press. He said, "We thought it was Eisenhower. They all look the same to us". They like and admire us in many ways, but they don't want to be dealing with this kind of moaning—not from you and certainly not from Downing Street or from the Leader of the Opposition's office, but from the press."
Robert E. Hunter of the Rand Corporation, a former US Ambassador to NATO, wrote (page 172 of the report) that the “special relationship” still exists as between the United States and the United Kingdom, and is regularly honored by US leaders, but it has changed—and diminished—significantly over time..."
President Obama and members of his administration may seem to be aloof towards Britain, but Britain has done little to assert its importance either economically or politically. For the entire duration of Mr Obama's presidency Gordon Brown, a man regarded even by his own supporters as lacking in charisma and communication skills, has been the British premier. The Labour Party, which Brown heads, has been at the forefront of diminishing Britain's influence. Labour created regional "parliaments" for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Some embarrassment ensued when the Scottish government decided to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi from custody. Megrahi, who had been convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people, had been suffering from prostate cancer. His release on compassionate grounds on August 20, 2009 enraged many in America (the plane carried many US civilians).
Robert Mueller, head of the FBI condemned the Scottish government's decision. In a letter addressed to Kenny MacAskill, Scottish Justice Secretary, he stated: "Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world.". Brown's powerlessness to intervene showed how small his political stature, even within the "United" Kingdom", had become.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator, had declared that Megrahi's release had been part of a trade deal, a claim denied by Lord Mandelson, Britain's Business Secretary. In January this year Alex Salmond, head of the Scottish parliament, claimed that in May 2007, Tony Blair had included Megrahi's release in trade discussions with Gaddafi. This deal, made in Libya, had taken place while Blair was still prime minister. Alex Salmond asserted that Blair had kept close colleagues in the dark about the inclusion of Megrahi. The Libyan trade deal was confirmed in December 2007, when Brown was prime minister.
On December 13 2007, Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty (pdf document), which was designed to make administration of the expanded European Union (EU) easier. The EU now has 27 member states. In 2004, European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/38/EC (pdf) was introduced, allowing free movement of EU nationals between states, and also restricting rights to deport individuals from EU nations. That came into law in 2006. The Lisbon treaty (see pdf document) is regarded by some as a "constitution" and Brown had promised a referendum before any European "constitutions" were signed. No time was given in parliament to fully discuss the treaty before Brown committed Britain to its aims. The Lisbon Treaty introduced another tier of legislation that further diminishes EU member states' autonomy. The consequences of the rushed legislation of the Lisbon treaty are still being felt; in March 2010
While British politicians have signed away Britain's rights to decide its own destiny, it cannot be seen to have the same importance that it may have had in the past. The recent report by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee suggests that on issues of global affairs, the US and Britain share similar goals. The report suggests that there is concern that funds for Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) may be cut.
The Future
When Churchill first publicly employed the term "special relationship" Britain was one political entity, with one seat of democratically elected power. Since 1997, Britain has been split with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales having national assemblies, with only England lacking regional representation. This division of the country has gone hand-in-hand with Labour policies of encouraging multiculturalism. Instead of forging one unified and multiracial society, Labour's support for multiculturalism has encouraged the ghettoization of society.
In October 2009 a former government adviser claimed that Labour had relaxed immigration rules. Andrew Neather claimed that "mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
http://morganinterviews.zoomshare.com/files/BritanniaWaivesRules.jpg
In 1946, there was virtually no drug problem. Nowadays, most people in Britain are concerned that neighborhoods have become swamped with illegal drug use. Strains of cannabis that used to be smoked recreationally by people like Jacqui Smith (former Home Secretary) have been replaced by far stronger varieties such as "skunk", grown illicitly in greenhouses. Though cannabis is one of the few drugs that appears to be dropping in popularity, use of other substances such as cocaine have risen dramatically. Britain is now viewed as the "drugs capital" of Europe. Where Britannia once "ruled the waves", she now waives the rules.
While illegal drugs use increases, alcohol usage has worsened to the degree that is referred to as a "crisis", costing the nation £20 billion a year ($30.6 billion). Alcohol causes more than 30,000 deaths a year, with 31 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women drinking in manners considered hazardous or harmful. Much of the increased use of alcohol has happened under Labour. Between 1987 and 202, annual rates of cirrhosis doubled. In 2005, Labour dropped strict licensing hours and opened the door to 24-hour drinking. During 2008 an average of 1,230 people were taken to hospital because of alcohol-related incidents.
Britain is set to have a general election within a matter of weeks. Despite the current unpopularity of the Labour party, the opposition in the form of David Cameron and the Conservative (Tory) party has been lackluster. Since the current Labour administration came to power on May 27, 1997, it has been busy creating new laws, to the degree that most citizens no longer know what is legal and what is not. Labour has introduced 4,300 new laws since 1997, a rate of one new law a day. Some of these laws are superfluous or imbecilic: the Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 makes it illegal to cause nuclear explosions (seriously!). It is now an offense, under the Polish Potatoes (Notification) (England) Order 2004, to import potatoes, where a person knows or suspects that these potatoes originated in Poland. What is disturbing and undemocratic is the manner in which these laws were introduced. Less than half of these were debated in the Houses of Parliament.
Certain laws erode basic rights to freedom and privacy. The Ripa Act 2000 (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) was introduced to deal with terrorism and serious crime. Initially it allowed only nine public agencies to share data - now 795 bodies can share personal data and carry out surveillance upon individuals, for offenses as trivial as dogs fouling the sidewalk. Many of these bodies that can have access to personal data and permission to carry out surveillance upon individuals are unelected. Annually, half a million requests are made to spy on individuals.
Laws that erode rights to privacy, when Britain has no single document that sets out its citizen's constitutional rights, destroy democracy and undermine trust in government. The current government has presided over the loss of assets that it inherited when it came to power. It is now in debt at levels not experienced since the 1960s. For the very first time ever, government spending makes up more than half of Britain's economy.
Labour has allowed immigration to rise threefold while unemployment has risen. Only now, faced with an imminent election, is it attempting to address public fears about immigration. After 13 years in power, such measures are mere window-dressing to gain votes, and are not based upon substance. On the matter of immigration, Brown cannot even get his figures right. Britain has a growing population of elderly people, and Brown's government cannot address how their future care needs will be financed. Nor do Labour policies address the future care needs of the immigrants it has added to the population.
The "special relationship" is certainly not what it once was. In the past, the relationship thrived when British and American leaders had some semblance of trust and friendship, as with Blair and Clinton, John F. Kennedy and Harold MacMillan. President Obama seems unconcerned about affairs in Britain and Europe, and Gordon Brown has little personal charm to win him over. Should Brown continue as prime minister after the election, the special relationship will diminish even further.
Britain will always be an ally of America, but is becoming increasing like a poor relative. When he was chancellor, he did not increase spending on the military sufficient to its needs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers have died as a result of having inadequate body armor.
Maybe Britain is facing that period that all former empires face - when the barbarians are at the door and there is no national will to fight back and assert its strength. Shakespeare wrote of England (Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1) as "this sceptered isle". Comic writer Mike Barfield has renamed it "This Septic Isle". Maybe Britain will never regain what it has lost but one thing is certain. On its current course, led by Labour's Wise Men of Gotham, its strength as a nation will shrink further. It will become a small province of Europe, a brackish backwater beside the main flow of history. Though I condemn Labour for the current mess that Britain is in, I do not expect the Conservatives to be much better.
The Foreign Affairs Select Committee is perhaps right to declare that the special relationship is virtually dead. Britain's political life is moribund, its identity obscured, and even a change of leadership will not instill much vigor into the body politic. There will always be a relationship with the United States of America, but it is a sad fact that under Britain's current political leadership, that relationship is getting progressively less special.
Origins of the name
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The "special relationship" between Britain and America was first popularized in 1946 by Winston Churchill (pictured above with President Harry S. Truman). Three years earlier, Churchill had used the term in a private communication. According to the first edition of John Dumbrell's book "A Special Relationship" (2001, page 7), the notion that something "special" existed between Britain and America was first put on paper in July 1940. Edward F. L. Wood, first Lord Halifax, had been Britain's Foreign Secretary from 1938 until 1940, when he wrote of "the possibility of some sort of special relationship" between the two nations. Wood became Britain's Ambassador in Washington from 1940 until 1946.
There was considerable difference of between Churchill and Lord Halifax, with the latter associated with Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards the Nazi war machine. Despite this, the notion of a "special association" was taken seriously by Churchill, himself the son of an American mother. On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a speech at Fulton, Missouri, which he called "The Sinews of Peace". It is popularly referred to as "The Iron Curtain Speech" as it was within this address that he declared that an "iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe."
It was within this speech that the term "special relationship" first came to the attention of the world at large. Churchill said: "....I come to the crux of what I have travelled here to say. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States."
The "special relationship" was born out of a mutual suspicion of the intentions of the Soviets. It has suffered fluctuations over its history. The Suez Crisis of 1956, when President Gamel Nasser of Egypt, armed by the Soviets, appeared prepared to increase Russian influence in the Middle East. This development strengthened the "special relationship", and under president Kennedy the bond was strong. In the late 1960s, after Soviet-supported Arab nations attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow Israel in 1967, the United States of America embarked upon a new "special relationship" with Israel. Initially this led to a cooling of relationships with Britain, which maintained its previous links with Arab nations.
The special relationship seemed to be more intense while there were threats of Soviet expansionism. Though British soldiers fought in the Korean War, and Prime Minister Harold Wilson offered verbal (but not practical) support for the Vietnam War, China did not pose a direct threat to Western European interests. During the 1960s, Britain ceded many of its former colonies, and with its diminished territorial influence, its political and military influence waned. Britain was influential within NATO more on account of its intelligence, rather than its military power. Shared intelligence began during World War II and around 1947 (the year the CIA was formed), SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) agreements had been made between Britain and the US, formalizing intelligence-gathering.
In the 1970s, the special relationship between Britain and America seemed to be losing its importance, but at the start of the 1980s, the close bonds between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ensured a revival of the association. In the 1990s, the rise of the Asian economies and the demise of the Soviet Empire eroded Britain's strategic importance.
Since the end of WWII, many UK air bases have been used by the US Air Force. During the 1980s, plans were made for some of these to house ground-launched Cruise Missiles. Among these, sites such as RAF Greenham Common, RAF Upper Heyford, and RAF Molesworth are now hardly used for flying. These sites are still remembered for the protests, but with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the fall of the "Iron Curtain", their strategic importance is secondary to other American Strategic Air Command sites in Britain and Europe. At Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, F111E aircraft once thundered above the Cherwell valley, and American airmen mixed well with the local community. In 1994, American occupancy at Upper Heyford finally came to an end.
Bill Clinton took an interest in British affairs, assisting Tony Blair in his attempts to achieve peace in Northern Ireland (where earlier Ted Kennedy had involved himself in divisive factionalism). It was under George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003 that the "special relationship" came once again under the spotlight. The common enemy was no longer the USSR but violent Islamism.
Blair retired from British politics in May 2007. He gave his position to Gordon Brown, who officially became prime minister 12 weeks late. Neither the general public nor his own party voted for Gordon Brown to be premier. On July 31, 2007, when Mr Brown went to Camp David to meet George W. Bush, I wondered on the pages of Family Security Matters if Gordon Brown would maintain the "special relationship" between America and Britain. In August 2007 I wondered if Gordon Brown's almost appeasing approach to homegrown Islamist terrorism, so at odds with that of the Bush administration, signaled the "first crack" in the relationship.
This past weekend, on Sunday, March 28, a report was published in Britain. Compiled by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, a panel of Members of Parliament from all major political parties, the message of the report was stark and depressing. According to the report, the "special relationship" between America and Britain, at least in the manner in which it is understood, is now dead.
The Report
The entire report, entitled "Global Security: UK-US Relations" can be read in either pdf format or via subject-related HTML links. In the official press notice Mike Gapes (Labour MP for Ilford South) stated: "The UK needs to adopt a more hard-headed political approach towards our relationship with the US with a realistic sense of our own limits and our national interests."
He added: "Certainly the UK must continue to position itself closely alongside the US but there is a need to be less deferential and more willing to say no where our interests diverge. In a sense, the UK foreign policy approach this Committee is advocating is in many ways similar to the more pragmatic tone which President Obama has adopted towards the UK."
Gapes admitted that a "close and valuable" relationship still existed but warned that the actual term "special relationship" is "misleading and we recommend that its use should be avoided."
It is argued that any special relationship that exists must also be shared with other countries, but the report suggests (section 6, para 210) that the Obama Administration itself is behind much of the cooling of the special relationship.
Heather Conley and Reginald Dale, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, were called to give evidence. They are quoted as saying: "There is clear evidence that Europe (and thus Britain) is much less important to the Obama administration than it was to previous US administrations, and the Obama administration appears to be more interested in what it can get out of the special relationship than in the relationship itself."
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When Gordon Brown went to the United States in 2009, many organs of the British press grumbled that President Obama appeared to be making snubs toward the British prime minister. Certainly there seemed an imbalance in the exchange of gifts. Obama gave the UK premier a boxed set of 25 DVDs of classic movies, movies that could be bought off Amazon or in a video store. Brown gave Obama a pen-holder carved from timbers of HMS Gannett ship built in 1878 to protect trade and combat slavery.
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The Daily Mail stated that "oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880. Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert."
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During George W. Bush's tenure of the White House, a bust of Winston Churchill, carved by American-born sculptor Jacob Epstein, had been displayed in the Oval Office. Worth a mint on the art market, it had been on long-term loan since 2001. The fact that Obama formally handed back the bust, despite being encouraged to keep the object for four years, was perceived as the biggest snub of all. As noted by Newsweek, the London Times newspaper assumed Obama associated the bust with Churchill's 1952 order to crack down on the Mau Mau rebellion. Hussein Onyango Obama, grandfather of the president, had been interned as a subversive for two years. Whether Hussein Onyango Obama deserved jail or not is debatable - but Churchill could not be held personally responsible. H.O. Obama was jailed in 1949, three years before Churchill ordered a crackdown.
The returning of the bust of Churchill - first proponent of the "special relationship" was seen in Britain as an insult to that relationship. Toby Harnden of the Telegraph newspaper, reporting on the recent Foreign Affairs Committee report, sees the Obama Administration as indifferent to the special relationship: "Ask an official in the Obama administration about the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom and the response will be at best a roll of the eyes and at worst an unprintable epithet."
Justin Webb. a BBC correspondent in Washington, sees little American enthusiasm for the special relationship. In March 2009 he wrote that "the truth is that the special relationship or special partnership or whatever we call it now is not that important to the modern Americans who will shape the future of this nation and whose families hail from Mexico or China or Sudan or wherever else."
Webb, who in January 2010 gave a lecture on the subject of the special relationship, also evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. He told the committee: "I think there genuinely is a sort of carelessness in the (Obama) Administration about this special relationship, indeed almost a neuralgia about the term, which co-exists with the fact that a lot of them are Brit-educated and very knowledgeable about the UK. Phil Gordon, the Assistant Secretary for Europe at the State Department, couldn't be more knowledgeable or linked into the UK, so these things can coincide..."
"...In preparation for coming to see you, I asked someone in the White House to take a minute or so with a senior Administration official the other day and have a quick word on the current feeling. He said that he had 30 seconds: the Administration official said, "Get out of my room. I'm sick of that subject. You're all mad". There is a sense in the Obama press office that we obsess about this. I was speaking to another Administration official about the bust of Churchill and the way in which it was rather unceremoniously taken in a taxi to the British Embassy, and the fallout, particularly in the British press. He said, "We thought it was Eisenhower. They all look the same to us". They like and admire us in many ways, but they don't want to be dealing with this kind of moaning—not from you and certainly not from Downing Street or from the Leader of the Opposition's office, but from the press."
Robert E. Hunter of the Rand Corporation, a former US Ambassador to NATO, wrote (page 172 of the report) that the “special relationship” still exists as between the United States and the United Kingdom, and is regularly honored by US leaders, but it has changed—and diminished—significantly over time..."
President Obama and members of his administration may seem to be aloof towards Britain, but Britain has done little to assert its importance either economically or politically. For the entire duration of Mr Obama's presidency Gordon Brown, a man regarded even by his own supporters as lacking in charisma and communication skills, has been the British premier. The Labour Party, which Brown heads, has been at the forefront of diminishing Britain's influence. Labour created regional "parliaments" for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Some embarrassment ensued when the Scottish government decided to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi from custody. Megrahi, who had been convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people, had been suffering from prostate cancer. His release on compassionate grounds on August 20, 2009 enraged many in America (the plane carried many US civilians).
Robert Mueller, head of the FBI condemned the Scottish government's decision. In a letter addressed to Kenny MacAskill, Scottish Justice Secretary, he stated: "Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world.". Brown's powerlessness to intervene showed how small his political stature, even within the "United" Kingdom", had become.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator, had declared that Megrahi's release had been part of a trade deal, a claim denied by Lord Mandelson, Britain's Business Secretary. In January this year Alex Salmond, head of the Scottish parliament, claimed that in May 2007, Tony Blair had included Megrahi's release in trade discussions with Gaddafi. This deal, made in Libya, had taken place while Blair was still prime minister. Alex Salmond asserted that Blair had kept close colleagues in the dark about the inclusion of Megrahi. The Libyan trade deal was confirmed in December 2007, when Brown was prime minister.
On December 13 2007, Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty (pdf document), which was designed to make administration of the expanded European Union (EU) easier. The EU now has 27 member states. In 2004, European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/38/EC (pdf) was introduced, allowing free movement of EU nationals between states, and also restricting rights to deport individuals from EU nations. That came into law in 2006. The Lisbon treaty (see pdf document) is regarded by some as a "constitution" and Brown had promised a referendum before any European "constitutions" were signed. No time was given in parliament to fully discuss the treaty before Brown committed Britain to its aims. The Lisbon Treaty introduced another tier of legislation that further diminishes EU member states' autonomy. The consequences of the rushed legislation of the Lisbon treaty are still being felt; in March 2010
While British politicians have signed away Britain's rights to decide its own destiny, it cannot be seen to have the same importance that it may have had in the past. The recent report by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee suggests that on issues of global affairs, the US and Britain share similar goals. The report suggests that there is concern that funds for Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) may be cut.
The Future
When Churchill first publicly employed the term "special relationship" Britain was one political entity, with one seat of democratically elected power. Since 1997, Britain has been split with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales having national assemblies, with only England lacking regional representation. This division of the country has gone hand-in-hand with Labour policies of encouraging multiculturalism. Instead of forging one unified and multiracial society, Labour's support for multiculturalism has encouraged the ghettoization of society.
In October 2009 a former government adviser claimed that Labour had relaxed immigration rules. Andrew Neather claimed that "mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
http://morganinterviews.zoomshare.com/files/BritanniaWaivesRules.jpg
In 1946, there was virtually no drug problem. Nowadays, most people in Britain are concerned that neighborhoods have become swamped with illegal drug use. Strains of cannabis that used to be smoked recreationally by people like Jacqui Smith (former Home Secretary) have been replaced by far stronger varieties such as "skunk", grown illicitly in greenhouses. Though cannabis is one of the few drugs that appears to be dropping in popularity, use of other substances such as cocaine have risen dramatically. Britain is now viewed as the "drugs capital" of Europe. Where Britannia once "ruled the waves", she now waives the rules.
While illegal drugs use increases, alcohol usage has worsened to the degree that is referred to as a "crisis", costing the nation £20 billion a year ($30.6 billion). Alcohol causes more than 30,000 deaths a year, with 31 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women drinking in manners considered hazardous or harmful. Much of the increased use of alcohol has happened under Labour. Between 1987 and 202, annual rates of cirrhosis doubled. In 2005, Labour dropped strict licensing hours and opened the door to 24-hour drinking. During 2008 an average of 1,230 people were taken to hospital because of alcohol-related incidents.
Britain is set to have a general election within a matter of weeks. Despite the current unpopularity of the Labour party, the opposition in the form of David Cameron and the Conservative (Tory) party has been lackluster. Since the current Labour administration came to power on May 27, 1997, it has been busy creating new laws, to the degree that most citizens no longer know what is legal and what is not. Labour has introduced 4,300 new laws since 1997, a rate of one new law a day. Some of these laws are superfluous or imbecilic: the Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 makes it illegal to cause nuclear explosions (seriously!). It is now an offense, under the Polish Potatoes (Notification) (England) Order 2004, to import potatoes, where a person knows or suspects that these potatoes originated in Poland. What is disturbing and undemocratic is the manner in which these laws were introduced. Less than half of these were debated in the Houses of Parliament.
Certain laws erode basic rights to freedom and privacy. The Ripa Act 2000 (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) was introduced to deal with terrorism and serious crime. Initially it allowed only nine public agencies to share data - now 795 bodies can share personal data and carry out surveillance upon individuals, for offenses as trivial as dogs fouling the sidewalk. Many of these bodies that can have access to personal data and permission to carry out surveillance upon individuals are unelected. Annually, half a million requests are made to spy on individuals.
Laws that erode rights to privacy, when Britain has no single document that sets out its citizen's constitutional rights, destroy democracy and undermine trust in government. The current government has presided over the loss of assets that it inherited when it came to power. It is now in debt at levels not experienced since the 1960s. For the very first time ever, government spending makes up more than half of Britain's economy.
Labour has allowed immigration to rise threefold while unemployment has risen. Only now, faced with an imminent election, is it attempting to address public fears about immigration. After 13 years in power, such measures are mere window-dressing to gain votes, and are not based upon substance. On the matter of immigration, Brown cannot even get his figures right. Britain has a growing population of elderly people, and Brown's government cannot address how their future care needs will be financed. Nor do Labour policies address the future care needs of the immigrants it has added to the population.
The "special relationship" is certainly not what it once was. In the past, the relationship thrived when British and American leaders had some semblance of trust and friendship, as with Blair and Clinton, John F. Kennedy and Harold MacMillan. President Obama seems unconcerned about affairs in Britain and Europe, and Gordon Brown has little personal charm to win him over. Should Brown continue as prime minister after the election, the special relationship will diminish even further.
Britain will always be an ally of America, but is becoming increasing like a poor relative. When he was chancellor, he did not increase spending on the military sufficient to its needs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers have died as a result of having inadequate body armor.
Maybe Britain is facing that period that all former empires face - when the barbarians are at the door and there is no national will to fight back and assert its strength. Shakespeare wrote of England (Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1) as "this sceptered isle". Comic writer Mike Barfield has renamed it "This Septic Isle". Maybe Britain will never regain what it has lost but one thing is certain. On its current course, led by Labour's Wise Men of Gotham, its strength as a nation will shrink further. It will become a small province of Europe, a brackish backwater beside the main flow of history. Though I condemn Labour for the current mess that Britain is in, I do not expect the Conservatives to be much better.
The Foreign Affairs Select Committee is perhaps right to declare that the special relationship is virtually dead. Britain's political life is moribund, its identity obscured, and even a change of leadership will not instill much vigor into the body politic. There will always be a relationship with the United States of America, but it is a sad fact that under Britain's current political leadership, that relationship is getting progressively less special.
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