Addiction is not a moral issue - on Rennie, the Record and Labour

On Thursday afternoon, the Scottish Parliament debated the Scottish Government's Drugs Strategy, which has been in place since 2008. In general it was a pretty intelligent debate as you can see from the Official Report. The Government even accepted amendments from the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, which passed. They would not, however, accept a Labour amendment after the opposition party has been supporting the Daily Record's campaign against methadone prescription. Because pharmacists who dispense methadone have extra costs in so doing, they get extra payments to help them with that. It's a maximum of £2.49 a prescription, so for Labour's Jenny Marra to describe the pharmacists as "methadone millionaires" is a bit much. 

Labour and the Record seem to have gone for full scale demonisation, not only of addicts, but also the health professionals on the front line who dispense their medication or who make judgements about care. Labour's attitude seemed to be more about trashing methadone than recognising it as part of the tool kit for treating people with addiction. It can stabilise lives, and to suggest that the heroin substitute was solely responsible for half the drugs deaths is wrong.

I was pretty unimpressed with Jenny Marra's rhetoric on this, and so, to be honest, was the Parliament. Very few speakers, even Labour ones, agreed with her line. Not, of course, that you would have guessed from the  Daily Record's coverage the next day which failed to point out that Liberal Democrats, SNP and Tories all spoke against Labour. When you can't even get the Tories to agree with your ill-judged and prejudiced stance, then surely you know you are on a hiding to nothing.

The paper edition of the paper (which I actually went out and bought), had a special section on Willie. It accused him being out of touch for, get this, suggesting that health professionals and not politicians should be making the decisions on appropriate treatment for people. If I go to see my MSP Angela Constance, I don't expect her to give me medical advice, or to tell me what my doctor should be doing for me.And nor would she ever do so.

I guess you can't really expect a sensationalist tabloid to understand the nature of addiction - although it would be good if they tried. You expect a bit more, though, from the people who make the laws that could potentially affect the treatment people are offered. I've become increasingly worried at the way Labour are treating addiction as a moral issue in the same way as the Tories, and, yes, sometimes Labour too, treat poverty and joblessness as some sort of personal failing. Don't swallow Labour's sanctimony on welfare - one of their first acts in Government way back in 1997 was to remove certain benefits from lone parents.

When I was at Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton, I attended a fringe meeting on civil liberties at which one of the speakers talked about how people with addictions were often handed ASBOs and, then, when the inevitable breach happened, they were carted off to prison rather than given the help that they needed. I tweeted this and Labour MP for Glasgow South Tom Harris started on about how decent people needed to be protected from adults. We then had quite a long conversation on Twitter, some of which has been blogged by Zoe over at Complicity.

I found the distinction between decent people and addicts deeply offensive. I've had people close to me who have really struggled with addictions. If they could have stopped, they would have. Their lives degenerated into a fair bit of chaos but that didn't make them somehow not decent people. The struggle, torment and suffering they went through was immense, over many years. And there was a time when they actually were free for several years before, suddenly, just losing it again. It was horrible for us and horrible for them.

But, no, Tom took pride in how he'd had an addict evicted because they were making a constituent's life hell. He didn't seem to realise that the addict was his constituent too and was quite happy to see them made homeless rather than given help to recover. I just found that lack of compassion astounding, and very worrying.

Contrast with Willie Rennie's people-centred contribution to the debate:

There are about 60,000 drug users in Scotland. I met one of them, whom I will call Mary, when I visited Turning Point Scotland’s facility in Glasgow. She had a young son and her ambition was to be able to take her young son to school in the morning after giving him breakfast. That was her lofty ambition—something that for us would be quite normal. If we have kids, we do such things every day, but for her it was an amazing ambition, because she did not see in what circumstances she could achieve it. Her son was getting looked after by her brother on an almost permanent basis.

I said that about Mary because we talk about big numbers and big programmes, but at the end of the day people like Mary are normal people who deserve a chance like anyone else. Some of the ways in which we talk about them and whether they do or do not contribute to society demonise them but, for me, they deserve a chance. They would love to go back and have another chance, and we should respect them for the tremendously difficult challenges that they go through. They go in and out of drug use; sometimes they are in remission and sometimes they relapse and go back into serious drug use. Such is the chaotic life that those people lead.

Mary was on methadone, along with 24,000 other people. However, for me the central methadone issue is about health professionals choosing the right way to proceed. It is not for politicians to decide which treatments can and cannot be used; it is about giving the health professionals the tools. They have the evidence and the know-how and are the best people to make decisions to help people out of their circumstances. Recovery means different things for different people. Sometimes it is about being able to stay alive; for other people it is about getting back into work. For Mary, it is about being able to take her son to school in the morning. That is why it is regrettable to see some of the stuff that has been happening in the Daily Record, supported by some in the Labour Party. Demonising pharmacists just for doing their job is deeply regrettable.

Often, we focus only on the medical aspects of drug use, but much of the issue is to do with a person’s whole life experience. Perhaps they have mental health problems, housing problems or debt. Perhaps they have a chaotic family life and have been divorced. Perhaps they have had experiences in the military that have led them into drug use or alcohol use. We must sort out those issues as well if we expect people to recover long term. However, we must also recognise that sometimes people will have a chaotic lifestyle for some time. The simplistic view is that somehow we can get people into recovery automatically, if only we change one little thing, but that is just not going to happen.

I have been to some projects, including the Lothian and Edinburgh abstinence programme—LEAP—in Edinburgh. I saw its abstinence regime. It is not right for everybody, but it is right for some people. They brought the whole family in to share the experience and ensure that people were able to recover on a long-term basis.
It is a shame on this country that we have such a high proportion of drug users when we have such wealth. Poverty—the pockets of poverty that we have in many communities—is the root of much of the situation. Again, we must deal with that if we are to expect any longer-term benefits.

On methadone, the HIV rate among drug users in Russia, where they do not have the same kind of programmes as we have in Scotland, is about one in three. In Scotland it is less than one in 20. I do not know what more evidence we need than that simple statistic. In addition, lots of scientific studies show that hepatitis C is reduced by about 80 per cent as a result of needle-exchange and methadone programmes. Elish Angiolini’s report on Cornton Vale shows that when a lot of the women sent to the prison were taken off the methadone programme, the self-harm rates shot up. That is no coincidence, because significant benefit can be got from methadone.

Annabel Goldie is right when she says that the treatment is not necessarily right for everyone and is not perfect, and I accept that. However, we should not say that methadone is the reason why so many people are dying, because it is not. Other drugs were involved in 60 per cent of the cases in which someone’s death was connected to methadone, and alcohol was involved in 40 per cent. 

 Further, in many of those cases, the methadone was illicit, rather than being part of a programme. To simply say that all of those people are dying because of methadone is wrong. Methadone is part of the solution, not part of the problem. We need to be careful about demonising the programme and the pharmacists, because we might undermine the good work that is under way.

Almost every subsequent speaker expressed some sort of agreement with Willie. Maybe there's hope for this Parliament yet.

Later on, in his closing remarks, Willie talked about how hard it was to persuade people that addicts were people who needed help and compassion, not condemnation:

There is a big divide between drug users and the communities in which they live. I put up a Facebook posting about drug use the other day, and the response showed that a lot of people believe that drug users should be cut off. We need to recognise that there is a huge divide. People do not understand why drug users receive support, and we have a big job to do to convince people about the merits of providing support.

The approach by some members of the Labour Party is quite disgraceful in fuelling the lack of understanding. Politicians are supposed to show leadership, not pander to people's ill-informed prejudices, whether they're on human rights, immigration or addiction. Having a wide range of treatment options and not imposing the sort of one-size-fits-all approach that Labour is instinctively so keen on, is going to get more people better. That will benefit everyone, including their communities.

Making policy based on rational evidence is always a better option than subjective moral judgement. Labour would do well to learn that.

Here be SPOILERS: Asylum of the Daleks review

Just in case you didn't read the word SPOILERS in big writing in the headlines, I'll do a bit of a long introduction before I start to spill any beans. I didn't actually watch the programme live, which is a bit sacriligious, I know. This is all Natalie McGarry's fault for arranging the second #twinner, a loose gathering of the Scottish political twitterati to partake of some good food and a little light refreshment for the same night. There are not many groups of people for whom I would have missed the season opener, but this was one. When I say light refreshments, by the way, when I left, our table of nine, of whom one was driving and therefore not drinking booze, had consumed six bottles of wine and two of Sauternes. We had a beautiful meal at Bo'Vine, opposite Oran Mor at the A82 end of Byres Road. I had the 3 course pre-theatre dinner which was £18 and delicious. The smoked mackerel pate was probably a bit smooth for my liking, and it wouldn't have killed them to throw in an extra oatcake, but the sirloin steak was cooked perfectly and the chips were to die for. I even ate the roasted tomatoes which did not taste like they were the food of Satan himself as I normally consider such evils to be. A spoonful of  brown sugar in the rhubarb crumble wouldn't have gone amiss either, but the gingerbread ice cream was amazing.

Ok, enough SPOILER space. The goodies are coming now. Anna had already watched it and had spent the entire evening discussing it with the other fangirls on the internet and she was happy to watch it again with me. We watched it again this afternoon. Here are my thoughts:

It was proper creepy. 

Dark spaces, mad daleks, people having dalek stalks bursting out of their foreheads. If I could have climbed behind my sofa, I would have done so.

Where in the name of god did all these daleks come from?

The first seasons of New Who were predicated on the idea that all the daleks had been locked in the time war - and then the Doctor busted the Canary Wharf specimens into the time vortex. The only daleks supposed to exist are the brightly coloured jobs from the Victory of the Daleks. The only person who could unlock the Time War would be another time lord and supposedly the only other one left, the Master is dead, isn't he? 

Genocide is not good

Not impressed with the idea that people can just kill off their criminals and mentally ill. I know that a whole load of insane daleks wandering the universe is not a great idea. But then nor are any daleks. And I'm especially not keen on the Doctor not only agreeing but colluding. It's a bit like the Silence last year. 

What was with the forcefield?

Was I missing something? Where did the forcefield come from? Was it made by Oswin? Otherwise it makes no sense to have a prison planet with a forcefield that they couldn't access from the Dalek ship. I mean, a prison where the "warders" were locked out from?

Dalek scaredycats

There's an inconsistency between "daleks fear nobody" and daleks needing to hunt the universe for the Doctor and his mates to sort their problems out cos they're scared to go down there.

The Dalek PM

makes you almost feel lucky to have David Cameron. Almost. Wonder why they expose the jellyfish in their most important? Surely that renders them vulnerable. He's very creepy, anyway. 

The layout of the Parliament is so much more Holyrood than Westminster. Surely the PM couldn't be based on Alex Salmond? I mean, writer Steven Moffat is mates with Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South who isn't the FM's greatest fan.... I just lay that idea before you without comment:-)

Amy and Rory

No, sorry, I don't buy it. These two have been so close since childhood. Infertility is a huge thing. They would have talked about it. Rory would have guessed what Amy was trying to do when she chucked him out. Mind you, it came out that he doesn't think she loves him as much as he loves her and he could have been just setting her free. But I don't think any couple who have been through the trauma and violation that they have endured would part so easily. I mean, one day, they were having a full English served up by an Ood and seemed perfectly happy, the next, he was leaving with all his worldly goods in a bin bag. I have more faith in them. They would not treat their relationship so casually.

Oswin

Now there's a surprise. Our new companion (we know these things, sadly, cos the tabloid press and anyone with a smartphone can't be relied upon to keep their gobs shut) seems to have been turned into a dalek and been blasted to smithereens. How is Moffat going to bring her back from that to lounging around the TARDIS playing Carmen and calling the Doctor Chinboy? Seriously, the latter could get irritating, but Moffat has to turn that around plausibly in 5 episodes. 

And, sorry, but as it happens, I don't want to swap Amy for her.

Souffle jokes

It was weird that the Doctor was asking about where Oswin got the milk for the souffles. Eggs are a much more intrinsic ingredient. The Eggs...term...inate stuff was pretty funny. Rory hadn't met the daleks before, of course, so we know what's going on but he doesn't. Very clever.

Who put the chains on Oswin?

She's hardly likely to have done it herself, is she?

Dalek MP

If you have not yet discovered the amazing Dalek MP Twitter account, do so now. The Member for Skaro North East's thouhts on life, the universe and everything appeared almost simultaneously with the episode and has some very new Labour messages. My first thought was "Tom Harris". When I asked him if he was behind it, he said that his wife had just asked him the very same thing but he wasn't. I have enough faith in him to think that he wouldn't tell a downright lie. However, this is a Twitter One to Watch.

Conclusion

Moffat started last season by killing the Doctor. It was hard to imagine that he could surpass that. He actually might have done. By giving us the serious creeps over the fact that there's gazillions of daleks out there, by making us angry and sad and devastated and relieved over Amy and Rory's relationship, he's kept the standard up. We know we're going to lose them in a heartbreaking way in just 4 weeks' time, though....

Whatever the plot holes, Asylum of the Daleks worked. Having watched Torchwood's CyberWoman this weekend, I'm not sure I can be as confident that next week's episode, also by Chris Chibnall, will be of the same standard. We'll see.

Labour's "attack dog" silenced, so why does Joan McAlpine still have a job?

So far, only the Sun in its usual inimitable style, appears to be reporting the story I heard on Good Morning Scotland that Tom Harris, pugnacious Labour MP for Glasgow South has been forced to stand down from his post as Labour's New Media Adviser. This is because he put out a You Tube video satirising the comments by Alex Salmond's parliamentary aide Joan McAlpine that the unionist parties were "anti Scottish."

The video was yet another Hitler parody. The Guardian wrote a couple of years ago about how this phenomenon of using that scene from the movie Downfall to satirise current events was getting a bit old. In fact it's not the first time it's been used to make fun of events in Scottish politics. Just after the SNP won Glasgow East, that scene was subtitled to make it seem as if the news was being brought to Gordon Brown and his subsequent tantrum. It wasn't just comparing Brown to Hitler, but was highly offensive to the people of the constituency who had just rejected Labour. A few months later, there was another one after Labour held Glenrothes depicting Salmond as Hitler. 

The difference with "Joan's Downfall" of course was that neither of these previous efforts had any clear links to anyone in either the SNP or Labour. We all watched them, we may or may not have guiltily laughed at some elements, but we couldn't pin them on anyone. Tom brazenly published this one on his You Tube channel.

I had a conversation with Tom Harris on Twitter last week about how I wanted the referendum debate to be conducted in passionately positive language. He disagreed with me, saying that "attack dogs" were needed. I'm not convinced raising the temperature of the debate is particularly helpful. although certainly the SNP's plans need to be robustly analysed.

Tom is many things, but stupid is not one of them. I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing and that he would have to resign for it. But how big a tragedy is that? New Media Adviser? It's hardly ruling the world, is it? Thing is, he associates himself, on new media, with something pretty tasteless. Within hours, before there is even that much of a fuss, Johann Lamont has him in and tells him to sling his hook. 

This does not compare well with the SNP leadership standing full square behind Joan McAlpine. Her comments were much more divisive and sinister. If anyone was ever more deserving of the sack, I've yet to come across them. 

You could be forgiven for thinking that Harris had done this on purpose to underline the distinction.

Kenny Farquharson wrote in yesterday's Scotland on Sunday of the importance of playing nice during this long referendum campaign:

Our politicians have a responsibility to acknowledge this danger and commit to conducting themselves in a way that minimises such antagonism. With the eyes of the world and the eyes of history upon us, each side should bear in mind that no matter which vision of Scotland’s future wins out in the end, it has to be a united Scotland that gets on with the business of making it work.

Gerry Hassan suggested that those on the Nationalist side should do more to understand those coming from the other point of view. And I'd add that a bit of reciprocation is also necessary.

We all have to live with each other when this is over. This referendum can't be allowed to fracture and polarise our society, our communities, our families or our friendships. We can't allow our lives to be poisoned by intemperate and personally offensive language.

Whether Tom Harris' latest stunt is contrived or not, Joan McAlpine, guilty in my view of much worse and unrepentant, should not still be in a job as close to the First Minister as she is. Salmond's condoning of her behaviour is a strong signal to others who hold the same view that they can do what they like without fear of sanction.

Scunnered already - and the referendum won't happen for years......

We've had a wee glimpse of what life would be like if Tom Harris won the leadership of Scottish Labour over the last couple of weeks - and it isn't a pretty sight.

The debate on the future of our nation, which should be full of vision and detail, currently has neither. If it's left to Labour and the SNP, or more specifically Harris and Salmond, all we're going to have for the next five years is sterile, macho posturing in a series of manufactured squabbles. It makes me want to run into the middle and shout "STOP!"  The independence referendum itself will not take place for at least three years - I'm actually not sure I can cope with this sort of nonsense for that long. That's not to say I think Westminster should call a referendum unless there is a very clear indication that the Scottish people want them to. 

It's actually doing my head in. What would an independent observer see? A diverse nation deciding its future - but the main voices heard are two white middle aged men shouting at each other and not listening to anything the people are saying.

If I see another Tom Harris #riggedreferendum tweet I'm likely to scream. Mr Harris has decided that the SNP are trying to rig the result by giving 16 and 17 year olds the vote. For me, it's simple. I've always been in favour of votes at 16, the principle is right - if we take their money in taxes, we need to give them a say in the spending of those taxes. It really is that simple. I might remark in passing that this is one long standing SNP policy that they could have passed for Council elections in minority Government with Green and Lib Dem backing.

But rather than actually going to find some young people and discussing their vision for the future of Scotland and explaining his - you know, good old fashioned civilised debate - Tom Harris decides to insult every young person in the country by suggesting that somehow their votes aren't valuable. His assumption, too, that they'd all vote for independence is not a huge amount of help to those of us who don't want to see independence.

The SNP are little better. Yes, I see a better, more secure future for Scotland as part of a federal UK, but I'd really, really like to understand and learn more from them about their reasoning for independence and how it would work in practice. I don't want to hear about dry constitutional stuff going back hundreds of years - I want to hear about how my pension would work under independence, how much money we'd have to spend on schools and hospitals, how I'd still get my Child Benefit, exactly how these databases would be split and, crucially, how much it would cost.  If Anna had a job in England, would she be chucked out on the day Scotland became independent? I mean, would Scotland be accepted as a member of the EU from Day One? If so, then she'd be fine under EU rules, but would she need a work permit and how would she go about getting it. And if there were a majority Tory Government in England (or even a Labour one given the stuff they've been coming out with on immigration recently), would she be subject to some sort of quota? I could go on. I will - but I need to head into town now as Anna's Winter boots won't, however much I might like them to, buy themselves.

Rather than actual detail from the SNP, we're getting attacks on Westminster at every single opportunity combined with vague, idealistic utterances about the utopia that an independent Scotland would be. I wouldn't buy a house without checking it didn't have dry rot,solid foundations and that it was put together properly. I can't imagine the people of Scotland will want any less detail on the future of their home nation.

This debate could be so much better. Scotland deserves calm, reasoned, engaging debate on its future. Of course emotions will play a part - but game playing and negativity should not be tolerated. I include my lot in that too. Mike Moore is the most reasonable person on the planet, and I can't criticise anything he's said so far in all of this. Danny Alexander, on the other hand, needs to take a wee bit of a look at how he's coming across. I didn't particularly feel comfortable watching him, in his penguin suit at the CBI dinner ( I mean the bow tie, not that he was actually dressed as a penguin - it wasn't Gregory's Girl), tell Scotland that we couldn't make ends meet as an independent country. I know you can't go to these events in jeans, but it just looked all wrong.

I don't agree with independence, but that doesn't mean to say that I think that the idea is inherently incompatible with liberalism and I don't want to hear that from any of our lot. There is a superior, narcissistic sort of insular looking nationalism that is pretty ugly and we do sometimes see that from the SNP.  I agreed wholeheartedly with the release of Megrahi but this from Kenny MacAskill on the day made me wince:

"In Scotland, we are a people who pride ourselves on our humanity.

"It is viewed as a defining characteristic of Scotland and the Scottish people."

I actually thought humanity was a defining characteristic of human beings and to claim it as some sort of singularly Scottish trait is not credible. That sort of attitude is where liberals and nationalists can find themselves in real conflict. However, there will be some people in our party - a minority for sure, who will choose to campaign for independence because they believe in it. And that's fine. If they make the whole debate a little healthier, so much the better.

Those who don't want to see the UK broken up need to think very carefully about how they are perceived. They need to create a positive, emotive, practical, relevant blueprint for the future that engages with people. 

Scotland needs the macho mudslinging to stop and the proper dialogue to begin. And a few young and female voices in it would not go amiss either. Otherwise we'll all be driven demented by Christmas.

Labour are finished until they lose their sense of entitlement to people's votes #lab11

Labour MP for Glasgow South Tom Harris took his book promotion tour  Scottish leadership campaign to Good Morning Scotland today.

He may well be talking the talk about how rubbish Labour have been recently, and how they need to change, but the use of a simple word shows that the old mindset is truly alive and well within him.

He talked about how voters had abandoned Labour. That to me is an interesting choice of word because it implies some wrongdoing on the part of the voter. It's almost as if Labour feels aggrieved that those voters deprived them of  the votes that they were entitled to.

When I first got interested in politics, it was clear to me that Labour literally took people for granted. It's the sort of attitude that comes along with a voting system that will give your party an inbuilt majority and is therefore the clearest argument possible for electoral reform.

Let's be clear - no party ever has the right to anyone's vote. Trust has to be earned and renewed by hard work and empathy and engagement. That is why Liberal Democrat elected representatives at all levels tend to work very hard for their communities.

The trouble with the Labour party is that arrogance is hardwired into their DNA. They expect to be in power and when they aren't, they get stroppy and petulant and irrational. They've spent the last 5 months with their heads up their own backsides trying to work out what went wrong - something that's obvious to even the most casual observer.

Taking people for granted is what they do instinctively. Until they un-learn that behaviour, get out of that hubristic mindset that the people owe them something, embrace pluralism and show willing to work with other parties, they are finished. The kicking they got in May has been a long, long time coming. The scales have fallen off the people's eyes and they have seen the party for the brutish, remote, disconnected machine it is.

They will not be so easily taken in by Labour again.

Labour have to realise that they are villain, not victim and they need to change from the inside out. Otherwise, their fortunes will never improve. The jury is out on whether they are capable of what is necessary.

Way to up your book sales, Tom Harris

I felt that low political stuff, especially when it involved a certain amount of teasing, was not appropriate for such a sombre weekend of remembrance.

It's Monday morning now, though, so I am quite happy to poke a wee bit of fun at Tom Harris, the Labour MP for Glasgow South. I reckon he'll be relatively untroubled by my comments, and I kind of owe him after he upset my baby last year.

Tom announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party on Saturday after the decision by the Party's Scottish Executive Committee to allow MPs to stand as well as MSPs. Labour's leader in Scotland will now be a proper leader, not just the head of the Group in Holyrood. This is a very radical step for Labour, but to those of us who understand devolution, it's kind of natural.

I always get quite worried when I agree with Mr Harris. It has happened occasionally, but it's safe to say that he and I are pretty far apart on the liberal/authoritarian scale. And Tom hates Liberal Democrats with a passion unrivalled in its intensity. He is, however, a showman. He and Salmond thrashing out the issues would be hilarious - but ultimately destructive and depressing for politics.

For all I criticise the SNP, to accuse them of not being patriotic, or not caring about Scotland, isn't fair - and I really can't stand bringing that sort of language into the political arena. However, Tom's going the same way as Jim Murphy did as Secretary of State:

“Above all, we need a leader who will always put Scotland ahead of their own party. On that count, Alex Salmond is lacking, because he puts his ambitions for independence above the interests of Scots"

I can't see an SNP led by Salmond and a Labour Party led by Harris ever co-operating on anything, or discussing anything in other than soundbite fashion. You just get double the amount of bluff and bluster if you try and out-Salmond Salmond.

I can't see Scottish Labour and the Unions for one second backing ultra Blairite Harris. How many photos of Tony Blair appeared on Labour leaflets in Scotland?  The fact that there were more on our literature tells its own story. I will be very surprised if he wins.

However, he may get a bit of a consolation prize in more sales for his upcoming book, "Why I was right and everyone else was wrong".  This book is published on 22 September by Tory blogfather Iain Dale's publishing outfit, Biteback.  Since I pre-ordered it on 4 September, the price has gone up by £1.50, from £7.49 to £8.99 today.  I suspect it'll be a very good, funny, read.

Of course, book deals don't appear overnight and when I teased him about his leadership being a way to promote his book on Twitter the other night, he replied that:
In my defence, the book deal was agreed when it looked like Labour might win at Holyrood!
Of course and any extra sales resulting from his leadership bid will, of course, be a happy coincidence.

Another interesting thing is that there's a possibility that if Tom does win, he may not be in Holyrood until 2020. Saturday's statement said that:


Tom reconfirmed his intention to stand for Holyrood at the 2016 elections and to step down from Westminster as soon as practicable thereafter. 


What on earth would be the point of voting for Tom in the 2015 Westsminster elections, knowing that he'd stand down in a year if he were elected to Holyrood? And what if he didn't win in 2016? If Tom gets his wish, Labour's leader in Scotland could spend 9 years outside Holyrood until the 2020 election.  Actually, if he didn't win, it would probably mean that Labour had done so badly that he'd have been the victim of a post election internal bloodbath, but it's still worth pointing out.


Now that Tom's book is all printed, I wonder if there's anything in it that he might regret, now he's about to woo his party faithful. I'm looking forward to reading it to find out. 


I was quite amused to see, by the way, that also recommended on the Amazon page for Tom's book was a Frijid Pink album. This isn't a euphemism for Scottish Labour, but an American psychedelic rock band whose bassist is called Tom Harris. 


Update: Iain Dale told me on Twitter that  it's "Nothing to do with me, Gov, Amazon set their own price". I reserve the right to be amused by the happy coincidence, though. 

Scottish Blogs on Wikio - June 2011

The Wikio rankings for June are out. There are still, sadly, only 7 Scottish blogs in the top 100 - and as there are a darned sight more than 7 brilliant Scottish blogs, I make my usual nagging effort to get you to register yours.  I suspect that the new Labour blog, Labour Hame, will be in there soon. Go and take a look at the project which has tempted Tom Harris MP back into blogging.

1  Alex Massie at 16

2  Caron's Musings at 28 - first time I've ever been in the top 30

3  Better Nation at 39, continuing meteoric rise

4  Lallands Peat Worrier at 43

5  Underdogs Bite Upwards at 58

6  Subrosa at 72

7  A Burdz Eye View at 88

Just outside the top 100, at 106, is Andrew Reeves Running Blog. He was finally finding the time to start blogging again last week, and I'm sure he'd have made it back into the top 100 again next month. I also noticed that he'd missed a big milestone. This post, about Malcolm Chisholm's resignation, was his 1000th, and what nobody expected to be his final post, a typically snappy and pugnacious effort on Spanish cucumbers, was his 1001st. Just over 1000 snippets of a life well lived. We'll miss him.

Another good guy dies too soon - David Cairns MP RIP

I was really sad to read a while ago that David Cairns, the MP for Inverclyde, died last night.

For a while, I hoped Twitter must have got it wrong because there was nothing on the BBC- and things aren't true until you read them on the BBC, are they? Unfortunately, though, it is true. It wasn't the BBC that convinced me, it was a tweet from Tom Harris, linking to a heartfelt and very moving tribute he'd written to his friend.  In it he paints a picture of a compassionate, honest, very funny man.

I only knew David from Twitter, which he clearly enjoyed. He was razor sharp politically and we had some robust exchanges ,but shared the same interests in trashy television so Saturday nights would find us both contributing to the plethora of Strictly and X Factor tweets.

He was clearly a people person as he always engaged with everyone no matter what their background was.

He had me in hysterics over Christmas when he tweeted something about Tracey Barlow in Coronation Street being let out of prison & slagged off Ken Clarke for it.

My abiding memory I think, is of last year on St Andrew's Day. We were under 2 feet of snow here and it was starting to fall in London. David Cairns was out watching a group of MPs take on a UN team at football  in the freezing cold to mark World AIDS day the next day. The MPs were getting absolutely slaughtered. I was following the match with giggling admiration on Twitter. They could have cancelled and gone for hot chocolate instead, but they kept going for the cause and David's commentary was hilarious.

I feel sad at his passing and I only knew him on Twitter. I can only imagine what those close to him must be feeling at the cruel loss of such a bright and good young man and my thoughts are with them.

A lesson in coping with criticism

While we were in the cafe at Edinburgh Castle yesterday afternoon, I checked my Blackberry and found this tweet from Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South:

I see @caronmlindsay's new blog design has a battered LibDem bird being swallowed in a sea of blue. Interesting...,http://bit.ly/3SM1qq

What he couldn't have anticipated, or I suspect would have wanted, however much he tries to be the pantomime villain as far as the Lib Dems were concerned, was that Anna, who drew the picture in question, was reading over my shoulder. It's safe to say that she was none too pleased, taking particular exception to the battered Lib Dem bird bit. I was proud of her, though. If someone had commented in such a fashion on my work in public at her age, I'd have been devastated and never drawn anything again. She was hurt, but unbowed. Once I explained to her that he was making a political joke rather than insulting her drawing, she was fine.

Just for Mr Harris' benefit, though, he needs to learn the difference between blue and aqua. Anna drew this earlier this year long before the coalition was ever a proposition. I was really pleased that she'd picked up on the Party's new colour scheme without me ever having really talked about it with her.

Tom Harris, IPSA & a reminder of how the Labour Government treated people

Tom Harris has been writing fairly extensively in recent weeks about the problems he and others have experienced with the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. On some issues, I agree with him - I really don't see why MPs should have to pay 15% of their constituency office phone bills. They should not have to subsidise their public service. Of course, it's the MPs who work hardest to serve their constituents who will end up paying out more in hard cash. It's a very silly rule, and I hope it changes.

In his latest post, Tom gives some examples of inefficiency, ineffectiveness and general craziness in the new system of MPs' expenses some of which are quite unfortunate, especially those relating to staff not being paid.

From Tom's complaints, you would think that the public services the Labour Government he was a member of was perfect in the way they dealt with people and they never made mistakes. Sadly, I could spend all day giving examples of inefficiency, ineffectiveness and general craziness I've come across. The people these blunders affected didn't have around £5000 a month to fall back on, either. (Actually, as Tom points out in the comments, it's only £3200 after deductions, so I put my hands up to that inaccuracy, but, well, it's more than most people get).

Let's start with an example of UK Border Agency incompetence. Someone applied for a work permit. UK Border Agency lost all the original documents they sent. They forked out for copies and then turned the person down for not having original documents.

Then there's the (numerous) examples of how the Tax Credit Office computer suddenly decided to start forgetting that claimants had children, and pursued them for overpayments of all the Child Tax Credit they had ever received, often thousands of pounds, despite being provided with evidence that the children existed.

Sticking with the TCO, they're not above losing things either. I've seen families struggling on Income Support have to wait for months for their tax credit applications to be processed when they have children, repeatedly lsing official documents and being slow to pay for their replacement. They often had issues with taking forever to process a claim in the easiest of circumstances, leaving people without any money to buy food.

This slightly puts into perspective reports that MPs' mortgages aren't being paid. It's not as if they are going to be out on the street - and IPSA, if they are in error, will, I'm sure, refund bank charges.

Then there's the Tax people being slow to deal with correspondence, creating all sorts of problems for people and businesses. Imagine any private company telling people their letter, no matter how urgent, wouldn't be opened for at least 3 months.

Then there's the Child Support Agency, lumbering one particular person with tens of thousands of pounds of arrears of maintenance, not accepting that they actually never lived at the address they'd sent the initial correspondence. It took years to sort that one out.

And paying one person's payments to somebody else, leaving the first person with no money to pay for fuel in the depths of Winter.

I have a particularly special love for Department of Work and Pensions. They can pay off their own staff after decades of exemplary service because their occupational physicians define them as too ill to work. When these same individuals try to claim benefit, the very same company tells them they are fit for work.

Those same people then have to wait for months to appeal, receiving reduced payments in the meantime and at the moment almost half of the appeals are successful.

Then there's people's benefits being stopped for all sorts of random and unjustified reasons with no warning.

In all cases, people report that when they try to communicate with the department concerned, they are made to feel like criminals, and the people on the other end of the phone are just so rude to them. There is no excuse for that.

There might be some who take a bit of perverse pleasure in seeing MPs being treated like that. I'm not one of them, although I have no objection to them having to provide documentary evidence of things. You try claiming benefits or tax credits without providing supporting documents and see how far you get. Most MPs, as I have repeatedly said, are good people - but then so are most people who deal with the Department of Work and Pensions, the UK Border Agency and HM Revenue and Customs - and nobody should have to put up with poor systems and bad service.

One thing IPSA hasn't done yet is lost any confidential data, unlike HMRC under Labour where the details of Child Benefit claimants went missing.

I do have a slight concern about the way in which one MP spoke to the IPSA officials (apparently interns, who have no power in the organisation) when asked to file his children's birth certificates:

It is not yet known whether the IPSA official in question is even physically capable of performing the act the MP then requested of him, or even if it is legal within the United Kingdom.

.

I wonder if this is a bit of poetic licence on Tom's part but if a benefit or tax credit claimant had spoken to a Government official like that, they would have suffered some fairly severe consequences and perhaps been denied service, however understandable the grievance. I also think Tom would be the first to stand up and defend the relevant Government agency in that instance.

I hope that the new MPs' Expenses regime settles down and starts to operate efficiently, but Labour MPs who are annoyed about its operation should reflect that this is exactly how they have been treating the vulnerable for the last 13 years, with far more serious consequences. What I would say to Tom is make sure you pick your fights carefully, otherwise you sound a bit like the boy who cried wolf. Nobody else would be able to claim expenses without evidence. I know that's a big change for MPs, but it's a change for the better, and they just have to suck that one up. There are, however, justifiable concerns and changes need to be made - they shouldn't drown those out with relatively petty complaints.

I've been on the radio talking about Danny Alexander!

See that Twitter, it gets you into all sorts of trouble.

I noticed just at the end of the F1 Forum on the Red Button that Iain Dale was on LBC talking about David Laws. I can listen to that through the infernal wickedness of Sky Plus so I turned over. He said that he wanted to talk about whether the appointment of Danny Alexander would get the confidence of business.

I decided to phone in and put the points that I'd made in my posting earlier today, namely that although nobody could have anticipated need to replace David Laws, but Danny was obvious choice because:

a) he's a key ally of Nick Clegg
b) he's impressed key Tories during the coalition negotiations
c) he was pivotal in drawing up the final coalition agreement
d) he has experience of managing change within the Lib Dems
e) he drew up manifesto so has experience across all policy areas.

Iain then asked me what personal qualities I thought Danny had. I couldn't just say "he's really nice" so I went with excellent communication skills, ability to listen as well as talk and the ability to ensure that the Government stayed on course to cut the deficit while keeping people together and focused. What I should have added is his decisiveness and analytical skills which I have seen in action when he reviewed the workings of the Scottish Party a few years ago. He was thorough in his gathering of evidence and clear in his recommendations which were pretty much spot on.

I've had some good feedback on Twitter about how I did, which is encouraging. I was quite nervous and possibly spoke too fast - but Iain did say that it was a good call, which he didn't say to Tom Harris later, so maybe I should take heart from that:-).

David Laws' dignified and honourable resignation

I am still pretty heartbroken at the circumstances surrounding David Laws' resignation from the Cabinet.

It was so sad to watch him make what must have been an excruciatingly painful statement in the full glare of the media and I admire his courage in so doing.

Did he need to resign? Probably not. I don't seen I've ever seen a Minister resign when they have such an outpouring of support and understanding for their position and such a sympathetic press. You think of all the Labour Cabinet ministers who stayed put no matter what, serial flipping and incompetence no barrier to their continuing in office.

The exchange of letters between Laws and Cameron, published on Lib Dem Voice, show the incredible impact he'd made on the Government in just a couple of weeks.

Dear prime minister,

The last 24 hours have been very difficult and distressing for me, and I have been thinking carefully about what action I should take in the interests of the government, my constituents and – most important of all – those whom I love.

I am grateful for the strong support which I have received from my friends, family, and from you, the deputy prime minister and the chancellor.

This support has been incredibly important, but nonetheless, I have decided that it is right to tender my resignation as chief secretary to the Treasury.

I have done so for three reasons.

Firstly, I do not see how I can carry on my crucial work on the Budget and Spending Review while I have to deal with the private and public implications of recent revelations.

At this important time the chancellor needs, in my own view, a chief secretary who is not distracted by personal troubles.

I hardly need say how much I regret having to leave such vital work, which I feel all my life has prepared me for.

Secondly, while my recent problems were caused by my desire to keep my sexuality secret, the public is entitled to expect politicians to act with a sense of responsibility.

I cannot now escape the conclusion that what I have done was in some way wrong, even though I did not gain any financial benefit from keeping my relationship secret in this way.

Finally, and most importantly, I have an overriding responsibility to those I love most, and who I feel I have exposed to scrutiny in this way.

I have pursued a political career because of my sense of public duty, but I have too often put this before the interests of those I love most. It is time to redress the balance.

I want to apologise to my constituents for falling below the standards that they are entitled to expect from me.

The job of being a constituency MP is no less important to me than my Cabinet responsibilities.

I shall ensure that I co-operate fully with the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner in the review that I have requested.

I intend to consider carefully over the period ahead how I can best serve the interests of my Yeovil constituency, which I care so passionately about.

It has been a great honour to serve however briefly in your Government and I will remain its strong supporter.

Yours sincerely,

David Laws

David Cameron's response - with my bold added

“Thank you for your letter tendering your resignation from the government, which I accept with sadness.

The last 24 hours must have been extraordinarily difficult and painful for you.

You are a good and honourable man. I am sure that, throughout, you have been motivated by wanting to protect your privacy rather than anything else.

Your decision to resign from the government demonstrates the importance you attach to your integrity.

In your short lime at the Treasury, you have made a real difference, setting the government on the right path to tackle the deficit which poses such a risk to our economy.

I hope that, in time, you will be able to serve again as I think it is absolutely clear that you have a huge amount to offer our country.

I hope that we see David Laws back in Government at some point in the not too distant future.

Compare and contrast the dignity and humanity of Cameron and Laws with the really quite unpleasant behaviour of Labour tweeters yesterday. They were so swift to apray bile around the place and even crack jokes. Even their MPs were getting in on the act. Ben Bradshaw should feel completely ashamed of himself for this effort:

clegg statement re laws nonsense. why should anyone in Britain today feel ashamed to acknowledge they're gay


as if Labour had created this utopia where everyone was free to be themselves. The truth, as I wrote yesterday, can be very different. If anything good comes from what's happened to David Laws, I hope it's greater awareness that coming out can be hard and greater discussion about what we can do to change attitudes. Lynne Featherstone shows an understanding of these issues which is just another reason why it's a good thing that she's Equalities Minister.

In addition to that we had some pretty cutting comments from Tom Harris and David Cairns. There are times when if you can't say anything pleasant, it's best not to say anything at all and their almost gleeful joking does them no credit.

Happily, there are some who showed empathy and decency. See this from Eric Joyce:

Feeling very sorry for David Laws. The rules effectively required him to 'out' himself. Surely that's not right.

It's a sad day for the Government, the country and for David Laws. We'll all recover, but let's hope that it makes us a better, more undersanding society.

Tom Harris' Party Political Broadcast with a difference

Many of the readers of this blog will have had more important things to do on Thursday morning than keep an eye out on Tom Harris' blog in case he posted anything funny. For many of you the lure of that hot date with the good morning leaflet would have been too compelling to miss. Those involved in their first campaign would have been discovering that knocking up isn't quite as much fun as it sounds.

So, this is why I'm posting Tom's election day video here. It starts off like a boring old traditional talking head party political broadcast......



Tom Harris is one of the most annoying people on the planet. He loathes Lib Dems and he's in favour of all of the nasty authoritarian crap that Labour has piled on our heads over the years. He's very funny, though and I love the twist at the end from his fabulous wife, Carolyn. Enjoy!

Tom Harris and the Labour /Tory Neverendum

There's been an interesting discussion over on Lib Dem Voice today where Stephen Tall took Tom Harris to task for a post he wrote criticising Nick Clegg in general and what he thinks the Lib Dems would do in a hung parliament in particular. To be honest, I'd be surprised if Tom Harris were to say anything nice about us. That, surely, could only take place in a some sort of surreal parallel universe where daleks were compassionate, caring and kind to animals.

Tom was good enough to join in the debate on Lib Dem Voice and I thought that some of his comments were interesting and showed the totally different mindset between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Look at this one for example:

Well. it’s not up to me, sadly, but my guess is that GB would do the same anyway – form a minority government and then call another election after a short period. And that’s exactly what Cameron would try to do in the same circumstances. The key as to whether Labour or the Tories could form such a government within a hung parliament would be the main opposition party’s calculation as to whether it wanted to force the other party into a coalition that would likely result in electoral reform, or whether they were willing to allow it to govern as a minority for a while.

I'm sorry but that's just rude. Not willing to accept the hand the people deal, he expects that either Labour or Tory, if they didn't have a majority, would just assume that the people had got it wrong and, rather than actually doing what the people wanted, would keep asking them until they gave them an answer. It's a bit like the SNP saying that they would just keep asking the Scottish people if they wanted independence until we came up with the "right" answer to them, the so-called neverendum.

His remarks show an arrogance that we've come to expect from the two old parties - it's almost like they believe in the political party equivalent of the divine right of kings. I don't know about you, but their ideas that they will govern at all costs and without doing what the people ask of them makes me absolutely hopping mad.

Tom attacks Nick Clegg for not being clear about what we would do in the event of a hung Parliament. But, excuse me, look at what Nick said yesterday. You can actually imagine Chandler from Friends saying "Could you get any clearer?"

This weekend we’ve given the answer:
We will give you fairer taxes. We will make sure your child gets the fair start in life they deserve.
We will create a new, fair economy where we are no longer held hostage by the greed of bankers in the City of London. And we will give you a fair, open and transparent politics after the gross betrayal of the expenses scandal. It really is as simple as that. No-one can guarantee what the election result will be. But I can guarantee what we will always fight to deliver.

And if you like what we say. If you share our values. If you want fair taxes, a fair start in life for your child, a fairer economy, and a new, fair politics. Vote for it.

And while Tom thinks that the people's job is to put Labour in office, Nick Clegg shows our fundamentally different view of and trust of the people:

"People often ask me what the Liberal Democrats will do after the General Election. I’m flattered that people think I can predict the future. The newspapers certainly think they can. Some days I read we’re planning a deal with Labour. Some days that we’re planning a deal with the Conservatives. Other days that we’ll refuse to talk to anyone at all. Yet, when all the speculation is said and done, I keep coming back to some simple truths:
I am not the kingmaker.
The 45 million voters of Britain are the kingmakers.
They give the politicians their marching orders, not the other way round.
It’s called democracy – and I kind of like it.

Almost 1 in 4 voters chose the Liberal Democrats at the last election. If that increased to 1 in 3, we could lead the next government. This election is a time for voters to choose, not a time for politicians to play footsie with each other."

Just to remind you, in Lib Dem Voice's new rank your MPs as liberal or authoritarian site, Tom came out as 86% authoritarian. I'm sure that he will be disappointed with that, but I'm confident that if he'd actually been present for the other 2 votes, he'd have scored 100%.

No offence to Tom, after all, his blog is witty and well written, if a bit tribal, and he is one of the few Labour politicians who actually gets Twitter as a means of real, meaningful engagement, but I'd much rather have Nick Clegg at the helm of the HMS United Kingdom than anyone with the arrogance to think they deserved to rule in the way they wanted.

Tweeting Bloggers, Blogging Tweeters...

When you put it like that, it kind of sounds like you're making a euphemism for sweary words, but, no. A Very Public Sociologist has published a list of the top 100 Tweeting Bloggers in the UK.. I'm in there at number 82, but Scotland's finest Lib Dem blogging tweeter (or whatever) is none other than Andrew. As far as I can see there are only 4 Scots, the others being the ubuiquitous Tom Harris and Greener Leith..

However, this list doesn't pretend to be and isn't exhaustive. For example, Stephen with 845 followers to my 773 should be nestling up around number 75. I have pointed out A Very Public Sociologist in the comments.

Why Tom Harris is wrong on Gary McKinnon

A couple of days ago, Tom Harris published this posting in which he basically took Alan Johnson's line that Asperger's Sufferer Gary McKinnon should be hung out to dry and be extradited to the United States for trial. I think he's wrong, as I have posted before for both humanitarian and legal reasons, and here's why.

Tom outlined what he saw as a series of myths in the debate about what should happen to Gary:

"MYTH #1: Computer hacking is not a serious crime.

Yes it is, and it causes millions of pounds of damage every year. People who hack into other people’s computers should be charged and tried. If convicted, the sentences should be severe.

The people supporting Gary acknowledge that what he did was wrong, and he admits it himself. I think that any punishment meted out should take into account the circumstances of the crime and the intent of the person who committed it. Gary McKinnon is not an international terrorist nor is he a threat to others. He suffers from a condition which gives him a tendency to obsessive behaviour combined with the brilliance to understand how to hack into seriously secure computers and deprives him of the ability to fully understand the consequences of his actions. These circumstances do not say to me "lock up and thow away the key."

MYTH #3: Asperger’s sufferers shouldn’t be extradited.

Why not? Would this argument be made in favour of an Asperger’s Syndrome sufferer who had committed a less “acceptable” crime, like murder or child abuse?


This is so completely irrelevant that it's almost not worth bothering with. Anyone committing these awful crimes would usually be brought to justice in the country where the offence was committed. Gary's offence was committed at home in London. One of the important points raised by Shami Chakrabarti on Andrew Marr this morning is that the extradidtion treaty is completely silent on what should happen when the criminal offence takes place here. What she says carries some weight because she is a barrister who understands these things. If the Treaty is silent, then Alan Johnson is talking nonsense about having to fulfil international obligations.

MYTH #4: The extradition treaty with the US is one-sided.

There is some truth in this, but because of the role of the US constitution, not the UK legislation itself. But are we saying that because of this, no British citizen should ever be extradited to America? If Gary Glitter’s extradition was demanded by the US authorities, would there be the same level of oposition on the grounds of a lack of reciprocity?

No, Tom, what we're saying is that someone in the UK Labour Government should have grown a backbone and told the Americans to get stuffed until they came up with a form of words which meant that the terms under which citizens could be extradited between tbe two countries were the same. Why did this craven Government fail to give us the same protection as an American would have? If we'd told George Bush that we weren't signing, would the Americans have let there be no provision for extradition? Of course not.

I tend to agree with what Liberty has to say about when a person should be extradited, taken from their website:


"# - A person should not be extradited to stand trial in a foreign country without evidence being presented in a British court to prove there is a basic (prima facie) case against them
# - If the crime is alleged to have occurred in whole or in part in the UK, then the person should not be extradited if a court here decides it is not in the interest of justice to extradite
# - A person in the UK should not be extradited for something that is not a crime in the UK. British justice should not be circumvented.

Fast-track extradition is justice denied."

What is not fair about that? And what would have been wrong with presenting that list on a take it or leave it basis to the US?

MYTH #5: McKinnon cannot expect a fair trial in America.

Nonsense. The US legal system is one of the fairest in the world and McKinnon will have his chance to plead his case in open court in exactly the same way as any US citizen. And the highest courts on this side of the Atlantic – including the Court of Appeal and the European Court of Human Rights – have already given McKinnon a fair hearing and have found against his request to remain in the UK.


Tom, you have got to be joking. The fairest in the world? I think not. Let me give you one example - Troy Davis, who has spent 18 years on death row for a crime for which the main witnesses for the prosecution have withdrawn their evidence.

Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland, recently both visited Troy in prison in Georgia and hosted his family at the House of Commons last week. He has been to the scene of the crime and he is convinced that it would have been very unlikely that anyone would have been able to identify the perpetrator. If that's his judgement then that's good enough for me.

Alistair was also involved in the case of Kenny Richey, who was eventually released from prison in Ohio 10 years after evidence established an almost certainty that he was innocent.

I remember being horrified by the case of Louise Woodward who was convicted of murdering the baby in her care when she was working as an au pair. Even the prosecutor now admits that she would have been exonerated if tried today.

MYTH #6: McKinnon will receive an unduly harsh sentence.

Unlikely. This is from Corante Blog:

(Federal) sentencing guidelines are referred to in Lord Brown’s ruling, but they are rarely referred to in UK coverage. McKinnon was offered a plea agreement if he pleaded guilty to two of the seven charges.

From the ruling: “On this basis it was likely that a sentence of 3-4 years (more precisely 37-46 months), probably at the shorter end of that bracket, would be passed and that after serving 6-12 months in the US, the appellant would be repatriated to complete his sentence in the UK.”

That's irrelevant. The issue is whether he should be extradited, not how long he would serve. Even if that would be the case, 6-12 months plus the time leading up to a trial is a hell of a long time to subject a vulnerable man to detention in a foreign country, thousands of miles from his family. How can we be assured that he will be provided with the care that he needs? Familiarity is pretty much everything to an Asperger's sufferer and yet Alan Johnson thinks it's ok to send him to a foreign country where every single thing he smells, sees, hears, touches and tastes will be completely strange. It's an awful lot to put someone through when we have a judicial system in this country that's more than capable of dealing with them.

There's evidence from senior, credible psychologists that he's at risk of suicide if he is extradited and that his condition has significantly deteriorated since the start of this process. What sort of Government fails to protect a vulnerable citizen like Gary?

There are still two further points for the Government to answer: firstly, why has the Government not given Gary's legal team the usual three months to file their application for a judicial review?; secondly why did the US not ask for Gary to be extradited before the unbalanced extradition treaty was in place?

It's clear to me that there's certainly enough legal and medical evidence to drive a coach and horses through the Government's position on Gary McKinnon. It's also clear that any other Government would take a different view.

I just hope that in some way common sense prevails and that Gary is not extradited to the US. That would be a terrible injustice.

Brown's barbaric plans to stigmatise teenage mothers.

I'm going to leave others to rip to shreds Gordon Brown's claims on the economy and his new found belief in local Post Offices he made in his speech today. There's plenty of scope for an awful lot of shreds. Others can also comment on the number of Lib Dem policies he stole. Update: for a really good overall analysis of the speech, look at what our favourite Elephant has to say.)

I want to concentrate on one truly horrific aspect of what he said.

Over an hour on, I'm still actually shaking with shock at this sentence:

"From now on all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer will be placed in a network of supervised homes"

Parents? In reality, that will be mothers, then, because they're the ones who generally claim the benefit. I don't know how much Gordon Brown knows about Biology but they don't tend to have sex on their own, or at least not the sort that results in babies being born. Here we have another crazy Labour idea which could result in the fathers of these babies carryng on life as usual while the girls they've impregnated are taken to be taught about responsibility. You couldn't make it up!

And while we're at it, does that mean that any 16/17 year old who claims either Child Benefit or Child Tax Credit, both of which are support from taxpayer, even if they have a stable home, will be dragged off to one of these "supervised homes" against their will?

I don't know whether Brown was trying to lovebomb Tom Harris MP who was the sole backbencher to call for him to go at the febrile Labour Parliamentary Party meeting after the disastrous Euro and local elections this year. Earlier this year, I had a bit of a go at Tom after he advocated what I felt was a return to the Dark Ages on this issue. At that time I felt that he was a bit of a lone voice in Labour but now it seems that Gordon Brown has morphed into Iain Duncan Smith lite too.

There are plenty reasonable, fair and effective ways to reduce teenage pregnancies - raising the self esteem and reducing the sexualisation of young women; accessible information about contraception; education for all teenagers, girls and boys. Ultimately, though, they are always going to happen - teenagers always have had sex and always will and no form of contraception is infallible. I don't think that effectively locking up young girls is a constructive way forward - in fact, it's a return to the days when unmarried mums were hidden away and whispered about, their lives ruined.

Brown's idea s a shameful, desperate play for the Daily Mail vote. I hope that enough Labour MPs have the backbone to make sure that it never becomes a reality.

The last word will go to the wise Will Howells who summed up the policy on Twitter like this: "Mothers, lock up your daughters, because if you don't we will."

UPDATE: (already) Paul Waugh has some more information on the plan. The last sentence of his piece is very scary indeed:

"I suspect the Tories will be delighted that the political space has now been carved out for them to perhaps go even further."

UPDATE: (a bit later on) I basically reported the facts and my general horror. Stephen, Jennie and Charlotte have all tackled this with great originality and persuasiveness and their posts are well worth reading.

Things that have made me smile....

Apologies for light blogging - I know my default state has been sick for the last while but I have had a particularly bad week. I seem to have picked up another bug which has pretty much wiped me out.

However, my family as ever have been valiantly cheering me up. They went out to the shops yesterday and as I lay in bed after a long sleep yesterday evening, I heard Anna say "Oh, Mummy updated Facebook from her blackberry 3 minutes ago" and came running up the stairs and coyly sat on the bed with her hands behind her back in that cute way that children do before presenting me with some really hardcore chocolate - 85% Green and Black's. It's not for the faint hearted, and even a chocoholic like me can't manage more than a few squares at a time. It's a wonderfully, bitterly, intense slice of chocolate heaven, though.

On the chocolate theme, by the way, thanks to Subrosa for this. I'm not yet convinced it's going to taste any good, but am happy to volunteer to try it.

When I did eventually manage to drag myself downstairs, I found that they had bought me some lovely flowers as well - orange carnations and lilies which looked lovely in our kitchen.

They went out this afternoon as well, to Beecraigs Country Park near Linlithgow, and then to Cairnpapple Hill. As the latter was Bob's choice of activity, there was also a financial reward in it for Anna. The smart girl also managed to negotiate extra for the fact that they went in the rain and to allow Bob to listen to his music in the car. If it was the CD I bought him (at his request) for his birthday, then no sum of money could be adequate compensation. When she phoned to tell me this as they were going into the supermarket, I also reminded her she was due even more for helping with the shopping.

Mind you, they wouldn't have had to go at all if the Tesco website had only been working yesterday. Three times I filled my basket and went to check out and three times it told me that there was nothing in my basket. I was none too chuffed, to say the least. Anyway, at least they like shopping. I loathe it with a passion unrivalled in its intensity, unless, of course, it's for books or DVDs.

Twitter and Facebook have been making me laugh as well, particularly now that I can get to them from my nice shiny new blackberry. I'm glad that F1 world championship leader Jenson Button has succumbed to the hive mind. He might end up being the new Phillip Schofield, too given that within 25 tweets he was saying "Darn, this is addictive." Most people can't stand Twitter at first and think it's completely pointless before being sucked in a few weeks later. Mind you, I can't see @Schofe doing a 90km cycle ride in the Monaco heat as Jenson did today. I also had a reply from Renault F1 driver Nelson Piquet Jr, meaning that Tom Harris is no longer my most famous Twitter correspondent, thankfully:-).

After Rubens Barrichello's outburst last week after the German Grand Prix, someone was bound to take the piss on You Tube - and here it is:



And finally, it's good to be back in touch through Facebook with someone from my primary school days whom I haven't seen for 30 years.

Anyway, I'm going to go back and lie down again. I hope I'll be back to blogging about more serious stuff soon.

Two approaches to the war in Afghanistan

I've woken up this morning to two different articles on the war in Afghanistan. The first is by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in the Telegraph in which he outlines the ways in which the Government could improve the way it's dealing with the situation there. He highlights how lack of appropriate equipment is costing lives and calls on the Government to address this.

Nick is completely behind the need for military action in Afghanistan:

"I am a Liberal interventionist, who believes military action is justified when supported by reason and the law. I support the aim of our mission wholeheartedly: to stop Afghanistan reverting to a haven for terrorism, with its people oppressed and impoverished. To achieve that, military forces need to create enough space for stability and good governance to take root."

However, he also shows how the aims of the mission are being compromised and lives are being lost by sending troops into battle:

"If you send people to war, you must supply the resources they need, or you should not send them at all. Otherwise you are betraying the fundamental covenant between a nation and its armed forces. I am appalled that so many of our soldiers have been killed because of inadequate equipment, and disturbed to hear from experts that we don't have enough forces to hold and rebuild territory once it has been won."

Nick also highlights the need for all the various troops and organisations engaged in Afghanistan to be properly co-ordinated and highlights how the Government has failed to contribute properly to that.

He also looks to the future and shows how important it is to deal with corruption, to give the Afghan people confidence in the new political system. I would have liked it if Nick had also talked about the continuing injustices to women as highlighted this year by Amnesty as another issue that urgently needs to be tackled.

Nick isn't just randomly making this up. One of the things that has always impressed me about him is his willingness to listen and learn. On this he's been taking advice from Paddy Ashdown, who certainly knows a thing or two about military matters.

If we are sending our forces into battle without the equipment they need to protect themselves and help them achieve their mission, then that is surely a national disgrace. All this at the same time money is being wasted on ID cards and replacing Trident.

Compare and contrast with the approach of Tom Harris. He certainly makes a good case for the intervention in Afghanistan and how we need to deal with the brutally repressive Taliban. What worried me was his solution:

"British soldiers are fighting and dying in the campaign to build a democratic and free Afghanistan. We should be hoping and praying for their safety and for their success against the remnants of a vile and disgusting fascist regime."

I can't believe that anyone would think that hope and prayer was an acceptable substitute for good strategy and appropriate equipment. To lose people unnecessarily, through failure to protect them sufficiently is simply wrong and must stop now. It's an insult to the troops, their families and all of our intelligence to suggest that hope and prayer will bring them home safely when they are crying out to be given even the basics they need for survival and the success of their mission. It's cash, not prayer, that is needed to sort that out.

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It could be so much worse than having Gordon Brown as PM

We've all been complaining a lot about the pig's ear the Labour Government is making of the economy, of civil liberties, of, well, everything. Is there anything they are actually doing well?

Anyway, Bernie Ecclestone offered us a vision of an alternative which made me realise just how lucky we are. There are very few people I'd prefer Gordon Brown over, but Max Mosley is somewhere near the top of that list.

Bernie's interview was quite extraordinary - saying that Hitler was "able to get things done" - sure, it takes some organisational ability to carry out the detention and slaughter of millions of people based on their religion and sexuality, but that sort of atrocity is hardly something to boast about.

He had praise for Saddam Hussein as well, who was able to "control his country". Err, that was usually by genocide and torture, Bernie.

It's only in the light of those distasteful comments that his idea that Max Mosley would make a good PM pales almost into insignificance. However, after the mess Max made of Formula One, with his dictatorial style leading it to the brink of a catastrophic split a few weeks ago, I think we could safely say that Gordon Brown would do a better job.

Tom Harris has taken great exception to chick-lit novelist and Tory candidate Louise Bagshawe slagging off Bernie and reminding us all of the fact that he'd given a million to Labour and, then, entirely coincidentally, Formula One got an exemption from the tobacco advertising ban.

Tom seems to think that telling the truth is some sort of smear. I have no time for Bagshawe, but this was one of the rare things she got right.

But, going back to Bernie, I'm sure that anyone involved at a high level in any other sport would have to get the hell out if they expressed such highly objectionable views. Why should Formula One be any different?

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