The Utilitarian Libertarian

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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