Quote Of The Day

From Tom Harris regarding votes and prisoners:

At least one normally pro-European colleague said to me last night that he was truly appalled by this interference in our jurisdiction. I agree.

Jesus wept! You've made your pro-Europe bed, now go fucking lie on it.

The Liberal Conservatives

From Iain Dale:

Listening to Nick Clegg's speech I am struck by the fact that I could imagine David Cameron giving more or less exactly the same speech, almost word for word.

And:

It was a good speech, delivered well. The Number 10 team will be pleased.

At least we know where we stand, although this message is still only very slowly permeating through the 'vote blue at all costs' vote.

hattip: Tom Harris

Boom!

As Fraser Nelson reveals in the Spectator one of the first of Labour's landmines, laid before the election, is primed to go off:

"Has Mark Hoban just become the first victim of the New Labour landmines? He was asked on the Today Programme whether the Treasury had conducted a formal study assessing the impact of the cuts on ethnic minorities. Hoban was speechless - as well you might be. But the assessment, he was told, is required under Harriet Harman's Equalities Act. Has it been carried out? He avoided the question and was asked it again. And so it continued, a la Paxman v Howard.

When Labour retreated, it sewed several landmines in the political territory it was about to cede. One of them was Harman's Equalities Act, which - as Pete blogged a while ago - mandates government "to consider how decisions might help to reduce inequalities associated with socio-economic disadvantage".

Of course if Cameron had any kind of backbone he would have abolished most of these acts the moment he came to office, but didn't - obviously too worried that repealing an 'Equality Act would've undermine the new 'cuddly' Tory image.

Fraser makes another salient point in this rather revealing passage:

In this way, Labour transferred power from parliament (where it was about to lose power) to the courts (where the lefty judiciary reign supreme). Their calculation was that if they did this quietly enough, and in technicalities, the Cameroons would not wise up to it because of their aversion to detail. Cameron should have repealed the Equalities Act instantly.

Aversion to detail? Great! That is going to be so helpful when they start dealing with the complexities of the EU.

The Mail reports today that a challenge to the budget may be about to start:

The Coalition is facing legal action against its Budget from an equality watchdog after analysts found it hammered the poor.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission said it was considering whether to take the Treasury to court.

The quango said it feared Chancellor George Osborne had not investigated the impact of his Budget on vulnerable groups – such as women, the elderly, the disabled and ethnic minorities – as legally required.

The Treasury is also facing legal action from women’s rights group the Fawcett Society, which says ministers took no account of the Budget's effect on women.

Unelected Quangos are now gearing up to challenge the sovereignty of Parliament in the courts. Tom Harris is still bleating (in some ways understandably) about the inefficiencies of the IPSA, but in truth he and all the others might as well stick a great big sign outside the House of Commons saying: "Closed, until further notice".

Manifesto Promises

I'm not sure whether Tom Harris, Labour MP, does it deliberately to wind up his readers, but he regularly criticises on his blog the failure of other parties in upholding their manifesto promises, without any hint of irony. For example:

The interesting thing during the exchange was the heckling I received from the LibDems opposite, who shouted: “It’s the coalition agreement that’s important, not the manifesto!”

This is a new departure for democratic government, isn’t it? An assumption that a coalition agreement cobbled together behind closed doors after the polls have closed is more important than the manifestos on which the parties fought the election? Really?

Let’s recap the important figures, shall we?

Number of people who voted after being given the chance to peruse the parties’ manifestos: 29,691,380.

Number of voters who voted after being given the chance to peruse the coalition agreement: 0.

So remind me why the coalition agreement is “more important” than the manifestos? Ah, yes, of course! The New Politics…

Of course this would be the same Tom Harris who voted against a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite his party's manifesto promise in 2005 (emphasis mine):

The new Constitutional Treaty ensures the new Europe can work effectively, and that Britain keeps control of key national interests like foreign policy, taxation, social security and defence. The Treaty sets out what the EU can do and what it cannot. It strengthens the voice of national parliaments and governments in EU affairs. It is a good treaty for Britain and for the new Europe. We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote to keep Britain a leading nation in Europe.

I can only assume Mr Harris has his shirts especially tailored in order to accommodate his enormous brass neck.

Is the Government stalling on Prisoner Voting Rights?

John Hirst, who was convicted of killing his landlady with an axe, has long campaigned for voting rights for prisoners, something which I fundamentally object to, and I would imagine so would a large proportion of the British public.

As part of his fight, Hirst took the the issue to the European Court of Human Rights, but despite winning in 2005, the UK Government has yet to implement the Court's judgment 4 years later, much to the frustration of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers.

In a recent Interim Resolution, the CoM has not only indicated its frustration at the substantial delay, but also that the next GE election faces a significant risk of failing to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.

So is the Government deliberately stalling and does it intend to grant prisoner's the right to vote in advance of the next election?

Given that granting voting rights to prisoners is unlikely to be...er...very popular, any delay would be entirely understandable, Tom Harris MP certainly thinks so (my emphasis in bold):

Do I give a stuff that the Council of Europe is a bit annoyed at the UK for (ahem!) dragging our feet on implementing the court’s ruling? No, not really.

However, the issue of the ECHR's judgment, and the Government's slow response was raised in the House of Lords yesterday, and after some protracted non-answers by Lord Bach, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice, was this exchange (again me in bold):

Lord Pannick: My Lords, does the Minister accept that one reason for the considerable concern about the extraordinary length of time that the Government have taken to implement a decision dated 6 October 2005 is that they appear deliberately to be delaying this matter until after the next general election? Can the Minister give the House an unequivocal assurance that that is no part and has been no part of the Government's motivation?

Lord Bach: Yes.

So whom to believe?

In the Dark

Labour MP Tom Harris, publishes on his blog today, an email from an irate constituent which neatly illustrates Britain's current democratic deficit.

Tom's constituent is clearly not happy about the ban on incandescent 100watt light bulbs (my emphasis bold):

I can’t see a bloody thing. It is dark outside and we have run out of light bulbs that have anything other than a glow. I am stuck with a 60watt bulb in a room with a ceiling that an athlete couldn’t reach. Which bunch of well meaning but utterly misguided idiots decreed that to have 100watt conventional light bulbs was bad?

What idiots indeed? He continues:

Without being too hasty, I promise you my vote if you bring back proper, enlightening, illuminating lightbulbs.

Understandably frustrated and annoyed by the ban, he writes to his MP using his vote as the weapon. But what can Tom do?

The ban is the result of EU Eco-Design of Energy-Using Products Directive, Directive 2005/32/EC. No matter who the constituent votes for, the ban will remain.

Tom, and therefore by default his constituent, have been rendered powerless, and the MP is left with the only solutions of lending out light bulbs, if he had any, and publishing the email on the internet.

What a sad state of affairs!

P.S. I'm not sure what Tom's private response was, but it's notable that he doesn't mention the EU in the post itself, although some of the comments pick this up.