A Talk with Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat Leader

From the desk of admin ·July 20, 2008 at 9:00 am · Filed under All WW, LibDem, Media, Parliaments, Politics, Video

The Catch21 team has a casual chat with Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, on a range of topics from the current economic crisis to faith schools.

We are still experimenting with settings for posting videos, so the quality of this one is lower than will be usual.

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Laurence Boyce and Weighted Votes: Lib Dem Proposals

From the desk of admin ·April 1, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Knockabout, LibDem, News - Current Affairs, Politics

The Lib Dems have some more proposals about voting reform over on Lib Dem Voice. On this occasion it is Laurence Boyce proposing “weighted votes”. I’m not going into the detail - Laurence does “political techno-nerd with occasional explosions” far better than I ever will, but this graph will give you the idea.

In outline, the Lib Dem proposal involves “weighting” the votes according to some “criteria”, that is “yet to be defined” (Mr Gordon will love it).

The problem we currently face is that, without such technical arrangements in place, the electoral system is a very blunt tool which can be hopelessly unresponsive to pressing problems.

Pressing problems such as getting Lib Dems elected, presumably.

It’s a bit like trying to fix the economy when one only has access to the crudest levers of power, or like trying to cure an illness with only the most primitive drugs.

Ah well. That’s crude drugs such as marijuana and alcohol sunk as a solution to the illness of attendance at Lib Dem conferences then. May I suggest you try some political speeches? They’ll never come back. Sorted.

In such situations, one may certainly make a difference – a big difference even – but there are likely to be some rather unpleasant side effects.

Yep

More controversially perhaps, the scheme discriminates between the sexes.

Why is that controversial? They have been doing that for years (even when it was proven to be illegal). Remember all women shortlists….

I’m thinking that maybe if we were to give women a greater priority earlier in life, then we might not find ourselves fighting quite so many disastrous and un-winnable wars around the world.

Hmmm. Bouadicea, Joan of Arc, Mrs Thatcher, Hillarious Clinton, Janet Street-Porter. Maybe not. I’m tempted to suggest weighting the votes according to the weight of the candidate, but that would not go down well with Nanny McFee-Brown. I suppose we could try using the reciprocal of the body-mass index of the voter (if we can accept a PM selected by supermodels). My comments are below.

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Politicians doing and not doing God: Thinking Aloud by Simon Barrow

From the desk of admin ·March 6, 2008 at 1:30 pm · Filed under All WW, Columns, LibDem, Thinking Aloud

Earlier this week I interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in his parliamentary office. Such great revelations as emerged are mostly reserved, I’m afraid, for Third Way magazine – which is not some kind of house journal for Blairism, but a Christian social ethics and current affairs monthly founded in the 1970s.

What they had in mind in using the title “Third Way” was a re-framing of standard political discourse in terms of principles emerging from the biblical traditions of social thought.

The Influence of Personal Convictions on Politics

Anyway, the influence of religion and other personally grounded [notice I didn’t say ‘private’] convictions in the political arena was obviously one of the issues I wanted to discuss with the new head of Britain’s third party – especially as there was a minor fuss when he proclaimed, shortly after his election as leader, that he was an atheist. Well, that’s what most people think occurred.

As a matter of fact, there was no such announcement. What happened was that Clegg responded to one of those quick fire interviews, was asked whether he believed in God, and was given only two possibilities, yes or no. So he chose the one that approximates closest to his view. On that basis many headlines and columns were written.

This little episode certainly tells you rather more about media pigeonholing than it does about the subtleties of Mr Clegg, as you will find out when you read May’s Third Way. But it also highlights a rather important question that hardly figures at all on the commentariat’s agenda. As I put it in one of my sideways interrogations,

“How do you think not believing in God impacts on the way you conceive politics and the way you make political decisions?”

Though Nick Clegg is undoubtedly a thoughtful man, I’m probably not breaking any embargoes by revealing that this question took him a bit by surprise. I suspect the same would be true of almost any figure in public life. We have got very used to enquiring about how religion should or should not enter into the political process through the pores of politicians who “do God” in other aspects of their lives (at least). However, it rarely occurs to anybody that non-belief might be anything more substantial than a rejection of, or aversion to, “religious faith” – whatever that means for the person doing the non-believing.

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Labour Blog Explosion? Crunching the Numbers

From the desk of admin ·April 3, 2007 at 1:00 pm · Filed under Labour, LibDem, Political Blogging, Politics, Tory

This is the third of a series articles commenting on the possible expansion of the Labour Blogosphere during 2007, following Mike Ion’s recent Comment is Free Column “Power Bloggers”.

This article looks at the party political “home” blogs using Technorati and Google data. This article focuses mainly on the numbers.

(Image credit: Dorking Labs.)

Comparing the Grassroots Blogs

In the UK each of the main parties has blogs that are designed to be rallying and conversations points for activists. These blogs are the subject of this article.

Before you start, it is worth reading these definitions once. The data was collected in March 2007, as part of a survey of recent data for 100 of the blogs from the UK Political Blogging guide published by Iain Dale.

I’ll be comparing these sites: Lib Dem Voice (LDV), Conservative Home (CH) and Labour Home (LH). If any of my information is inaccurate, I welcome corrections (in the comments below or via the Contact Page). The basic data is in the table below.

The most glaring point is how far Conservatime Home is ahead of the other two on these figures. The Google backlinks figures may be higher partly due to the age of Conservative Home. I am always surprised by the effect that sheer age has on the importance of a blog as assessed bby Google. That is not the case for the “Technorati Links” figures - as these only take the previous 180 days into account.

This gap is there for both the Technorati figures (which relate to links mainly within the blogosphere), and to the Google figures (which give a better indication of visibility of the site to the wider internet).

In the run up to a general election, a lower visibility in Google could reduce the visibility of a political website to the general public - although this effect would depend on the source of the traffic to the website. If any of the sites featured are willing to supply a breakdown of their traffic date - e.g., the amount coming from direct links vs search engines - I would be interested in including the comparison in a future article.

I suggest that the Lib Dems and Labour sites are going to have a tough time getting on terms in much less than a full year - and they might struggle to do it by the next election, even if New Labour wait until the last possible moment.

It is instructive to compare two of the most popular political blogs. Data is from March 2007. Figures in brackets are the equivalent from September 2006, taken from here.

* Although the blog started in 2002, postings before December 2003 vanished into the “Blogger Bermuda Triangle”.

The big change over the last 12 months has been a 600% increase in Iain’s traffic. His technorati ranking (which is based on links created in the previous 180 days) has responded rapidly. The Google rank figures - by contrast - change (either up or down) at a far slower rate.

Warning: Harry’s Place is using a Sitemeter webcounter, which since late March has been placing third party tracking cookies on visitors’ PCs without notice. This may (or may not) be an issue for you. I dumped Site Meter from this blog this morning.

Tags: Political Blogging, Labour Bloggers, Labourhome, Mike Ion, Blogosphere, Politics, Matt Wardman, Tim Montgomery, Jag Singh, LabourHome, ConservativeHome, LibDemVoice, Harrys Place, Iain Dale

[tags]Political Blogging, Labour Bloggers, Labourhome, Mike Ion, Blogosphere, Politics, Matt Wardman, Tim Montgomery, Jag Singh, LabourHome, ConservativeHome, LibDemVoice, Harrys Place, Iain Dale[/tags]

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Wallace and Lembit …. Hhmmm.

From the desk of admin ·March 23, 2007 at 8:30 am · Filed under Humourous, LibDem, Politics

Not quite identical. And yet, and yet …

Tags: Lembit Opik, Lembit, Cheeky Girl, LibDem, Lookalike, Humour, Humourous, Politics Wallace and Gromit

[tags] Wallace and Gromit [/tags]

[tags] Lembit Opik, Lembit, Cheeky Girl, LibDem, Lookalike, Humour, Humourous, Politics [/tags]

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Tax the Little Man and Bugger the Public Sector

From the desk of admin ·March 22, 2007 at 1:54 pm · Filed under Labour, LibDem, Politics, Tory

I find myself surprised to write about the Budget - I had resolved not to do so.

However, I am directly affected by measures that no one seems to have noticed yet: dealing with “Tax Avoidance by means of Managed Service companies” (FT Article here).

IR35: A History Lesson

The use of Managed Service companies is one result of proposals introduced by Gordon Brown back in 2001 called IR35, which targetted freelancers working through one man limited companies via a very complex set of ambigous rules and tests. The upshot of that were hundreds of tax investigations and some legal actions (like this one). Assessment had to be done on a contract by contract basis, which complicates everything.

There have been some hundreds of investigations, of which the Inland Revenue have won a tiny proportion. The costs have been huge.

As a result there were far fewer contractors available; the uncertainty forced many thousands out of the industry. In turn customers - many of whom are government organisations with IT Projects in a mess - ended up paying a lot more money.

Measures in 2007: Tackling Managed Service Companies

For several years the Treasury has been working on proposals to attack Managed Service Companies. These have gone through virtually unchanged - hardly surprising- and come in from the start of the next financial year, i.e., in 2 weeks time.

There have been consequences already.

Playing Field no Longer Level

People working through a structure called “Umbrella Companies” - who are effectively full time employees for the duration of a short term contract and pay full National Insurance Contributions - will be unable to offset travel and accommodation against tax. They do this in order to increase efficiency and spend their time doing real work, and pay a full whack of taxes

So, if an engineer is based in Birmingham, and working for a client in Glasgow - the train fare and accommodation in Glasgow will have to be paid out of after tax income. Large companies, such as Accenture, will be able to offset these costs against tax

Therefore, freelancers will lose out against corporates by Gordon’s removal of a level playing field.

And of course, the corporates will charge £800 a day for work that freelancers will do to the same quality for £200 to £300.

Customers of Freelancers will Suffer

The people who suffer will be the customers of the freelancers. The customers of the freelancers are mainly public sector organisations struggling for staff. The extra charges that will be needed to cover the tax and administration involved will go from the public sector to the government, with added costs to pay for accoutants and time filling in forms.

One example: In the case of a contract I have just done for a public sector client at a relatively low daily rate (less than £300 a day) using the Umbrella Company setup, the extra cost to the client will be around £3000 per year. Nice one Gordon.

Back to Single Person Companies (Ho-hum)

Freelancers are being forced back into the single person service companies they were forced out of last time around, and this requires more burocracy and administration for those individuals, rather than time spent doing real work.

Since December 2006, when these proposals were announced, the rate of formation of limited companies has doubled rate.

Finally, a quote from the Institute of Directors :

The Institute of Directors also warned the Treasury about the risks of its proposed approach. “Many of the people who currently work through managed service companies will move to personal service companies, giving a much more diffuse target for HMRC to aim at.”

and another one from Christ Bryce, the Deputy Chairman of the Professional Contractors Group. This is the one that he really needs to pay attention to :

“The confusion surrounding self employed, contractors and freelance status is the single biggest obstacle to the highly skilled flexible workforce that Mr Brown has said the UK needs,” added Bryce

“Tax measures such as IR35 and the MSC rules arise from the confusion around employment status. With this clarified, the tax system can be simplified, starting with the repeal of IR35. PCG members are frustrated that the Government fails to grasp this and instead persists with such hopelessly complex tax measures.”

Coming soon: 5 Years of Legal Action

It is going to take 5 years of legal action and case law - that is how long it took to get some clarity on IR35 - at immense cost to all concerned.

Gordon Brown as been Chancellor for 10 years. He should have smelt the coffee, learnt from his experience first time round. He hasn’t learnt a thing. There is a chance that these proposals may still be amended, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Gordon Brown: What a TWAT to do this. What a steaming, incompetent, self-important, illogical, complacent, farcical Twat. And some people think he will make a good Prime Minister .

I am off to spend my time forming a Limited Company rather than doing productive work. That would be the one that the IR35 cockup forced me to close.

You have been warned.

Tags: Budget, Budget 2007, Gordon Brown, Tax Reform, Tax Avoidance, Managed Service Companies, Dawn Primarolo, Labour

[tags] Budget, Budget 2007, Gordon Brown, Tax Reform, Tax Avoidance, Managed Service Companies, Dawn Primarolo, Labour [/tags]

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Reforming Trade Union political affiliation

From the desk of admin ·March 16, 2007 at 5:51 pm · Filed under Human Rights / Freedom, Labour, LibDem, Politics, Tory

I have already posted why the undemocratic nature of my Trade Union (MSF as AMICUS was in the 1990s) prevented me renewing my membership some years ago.

I’m planning a more detailed series of articles on the subject.

Has anyone done any work in this area? It seems to be a total blank. If so please comment below.

I’ll give one example. The rules of AMICUS specifically state that The Union and its branches shall:

“not affiliate to or give support to the candidates of any other political party in Great Britain other than the Labout Party” (35 (1)).

They also allow member to opt out of contributing to the Political Fund, following the trade union laws introduced by the Conservatives, and retained by Labour.

However, the European Convention (Article 14) on Human Rights states that:

The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

The convention gives an express right to freedom of expression:

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to freedom of expression. Before the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force, the right to freedom of expression was a negative one: you were free to express yourself, unless the law otherwise prevented you from doing so. With the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into English and Welsh domestic law, the right to freedom of expression is now expressly guaranteed. (Source).

The question:

Are those who are specifically excluded from political representation by a Trade Union, and specifically treated differently from other Union Members, being discrimated against?

My thoughts are strikingingly similar to the recent proposals (PDF) by Unlock Democracy, but go further in suggesting full democracy for Union Political Funds.

All comments are welcome.

Tags: Trade Union, Labour Party, Political Levy, Political Funding, Conservative Party, LibDem Party, Democracy, Matt Wardman, AMICUS, Parliament, Hayden Phillips, Hayden Phillips Report

[tags] Trade Union, Labour Party, Political Levy, Political Funding, Conservative Party, LibDem Party, Democracy, Matt Wardman, AMICUS, Parliament, Hayden Phillips, Hayden Phillips Report [/tags]

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Trade Union Political Funds

From the desk of admin ·March 15, 2007 at 1:12 pm · Filed under Labour, LibDem, Politics, Tory

Hayden Phillips report on Funding of UK Political Parties was published on Wednesday morning.

One of the more interesting points raised is the status of trade union political levies.

The peremptory imposition of a simple cap on donations from all organisations and individuals alike would place the Labour Party at a peculiar disadvantage because it, uniquely, continues to depend heavily on funding from a relatively small number of large organisations. (page 10)

I was a member of a Trade Union for more than a decade. I left because I attended a National Conference and saw that the claims to treat all members equally and represent all members were untrue.

Minorities (e.g., Tories, Liberals) were treated with contempt - unless they were fashionable “oppressed” minorities. This is not good enough.

Trade Union political levies must be made democratic. There are only two options:

• Allow members to support a political party of their choice.
• Abolish political levies.

Over to you, politicians.

Tags: Union Funding, Political Levy, Politics, Matt Wardman, Political Funding, Labour Party

[tags] Union Funding, Political Levy, Politics, Matt Wardman, Political Funding, Labour Party [/tags]

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