A day in London to celebrate Andrew Reeves

Yesterday I joined around 200 others in the excellent and beautiful surroundings of the Union Chapel near Highbury Corner in Islington to remember our friend Andrew Reeves.

It was quite an expedition for me - and I was the furthest I'd been from Anna and Bob in 12 years, but it was well worth going.

I arrived at Waverley Station in Edinburgh at 8 am yesterday. I realised I'd forgotten to take anything to read, so I went into W H Smith's. I was thrilled to bits to see my friend Keris Stainton's new novel, Jessie <3 NYC in pride of place.

I only managed to read about 60 pages of this book - and loved  them - before Anna nicked it off me. Not only did she think the story and characters were fantastic, but she now wants to go to New York. Good luck with persuading her daddy on that one....... When I finish it, I'll write a review here.

There was a bit of  a poignant moment at Costa Coffee. As I checked in on Foursquare, a tip came up from Andrew recommending the Chocolate Twist. He said "it's the best." Well, I couldn't disobey - and it was indeed delicious.

I travelled down with Andrew's husband Roger. He bore my incessant chatter with great fortitude - and the four and a half hour journey to London passed incredibly quickly.

We decided to check out the venue first and as we came out of Highbury and Islington Tube Station we  found a pub that Andrew would definitely have taken note of because, obviously, of his well known love of fowl of his ability to see smut in virtually anything. To be fair, you don't have to look hard in this sign.

And the food was indeed good and very well priced. I had a fish finger sarnie and skinny fries, one of my favourite things to eat, and Roger had the well filled club sandwich. I had expected London prices to be exorbitant, but that and a pint for him and a small glass of wine for me came to just £18.

I think Roger had been amused by my bug eyed fascination with the sheer number of people milling around King's Cross. I did feel like a complete teuchter.

After lunch, we went across to the chapel where Rhiannon Wadeson, Sarah Morris, Austin Rathe and Steven Jolly were amongst those setting up. The Chapel itself is an amazing venue. It's welcoming and spectacular at the same time. It just had a feeling about it that it was a venue you could feel safe and relaxed in. On its website it says that it aims for a naturally chilled out environment and that's exactly what it provided.

The orders of service were beautiful, and  to my regret, I never actually got one to take home. They were hand tied with pink ribbon and had a photo of Andrew in front of Tower Bridge on the front.

The boy from West Bridgford who made such an impact on our party had several ministers at his memorial. Vince Cable was there, as were Lynne Featherstone and Sarah Teather. Deputy Leader Simon Hughes was there along with party President Tim Farron. Alistair Carmichael was brilliant at holding it all together as Master of Ceremonies, summing up our mood and saying that there could be no more fitting tribute in our Lib Dem family than Simon Hughes turning up early. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg would have been there had he not been required in the House of Commons for the phone hacking statement.

Also there were virtually all the party's key campaigners over the last few decades - the likes of Candy Piercy, Paul Rainger, Neil Fawcett, Duncan Borrowman, Ed Fordham, Arnie Gibbons - friends I hadn't seen for years. It felt in many ways like my whole Lib Dem life was in that room.  Neil has today shared his memories of Andrew here.  Mark Cole has also done a superb post about the day here.

Director of Campaigns Hilary Stephenson paid tribute to the work Andrew did and talked about how he was always one to call a spade a shovel. She talked about the difficult circumstances we fought the Scottish elections in and how the prevailing mood music means that results don't always reflect professionalism and effort.

Fred Carver and Craig Ling shared funny and moving memories of Andrew, Fred particularly pointing out how much this guy is going to be missed.

Simon Hughes can always be relied upon to say exactly the right thing in these circumstances. None of us will ever be able to look at a picture of Tower Bridge again without thinking of Andrew. There was a picture of Andrew in front of that famous London landmark on the front of the order of service. It was a lovely photo, despite the angle meaning that he had a sort of Sontaran quality about him. Simon said that Andrew was like Tower Bridge - dependable, reliable, unique and iconic.

At Andrew's funeral 6 weeks ago, our emotions were raw and intense. All of us were pretty much being buffetted by shock waves then. Mike Moore, giving the eulogy that day, was absolutely perfect, making us cry and laugh with equal  intensity. Yesterday I felt like we really had a chance to celebrate his life. Don't get me wrong, I haven't cried my last tears over his loss by any stretch of the imagination, and everyone who knew and loved him misses him terribly, but yesterday was a vital opportunity to pay tribute to him. I'm so grateful to everyone who had a hand in setting it up. They are all kinds of awesome.

Another great thing about the Union Chapel is that it has a bar, which we all happily availed ourselves of after the service. I was particularly impressed that they had McGuigan Estate wine there - one of my favourites..

We stayed there for a while, and then Roger, Martin and Linda from Scottish party HQ and I headed over to the Houses of Parliament where we had been invited for dinner.

I may have worked for an MP for 4 years but had never, ever, in my whole life, visited Westminster, so this was very exciting for me. It was quite an awe inspiring experience to walk through Westminster Hall into Central Lobby and, after eating in the Strangers' Cafeteria, to spend some time on the Terrace. It was cool-ish and not always dry, but that relaxed couple of hours was exactly what we needed. I took some photos as night fell:

Then it was off to Euston to catch the sleeper home. It wasn't ready when we arrived so we went for a drink in the Britannia bar in the station. Owners of that establishment please note that it is not nice to see a mouse running around like it owned the place. Get it sorted, please.

I found the sleeper a lot more comfortable than I expected so I'm not as wrecked as anticipated today. I'm off to take children out to do exciting things now, but I'll leave you with the fabulous music choices from yesterday.

5 days to save Perth - say no to the incinerator!

When my niece Laura was a baby, my sister lived in Perth. Whenever I visited, I used to take Laura to play on the South Inch, a gorgeous green space in the city centre. It's a fabulous asset to a beautiful city.

I was very concerned to hear yesterday when I went to the Perth Lib Dems' annual Strawberry Tea that someone has applied for planning permission to put a whopping great incinerator right next to the South Inch, on the shore of the River Tay.

There are no words to describe how offensive I find this proposal. Not only will it ruin the area for residents, but it'll ruin one of the most famous views in Scotland.

The Fair City would not be quite as fair if this goes ahead.

This is the second time Grundon have tried to do this. Last time, local residents made it more than plain to them, in massive numbers, that they did not want any incinerator.

Local Cllr Peter Barrett will be along in a couple of days to tell you more, but in the meantime, he and his colleagues have been collecting letters of objection from Perth residents - over 500 were collected last Saturday alone.  The deadline for objections to Perth and Kinross Council is this Friday. You can object online here. Please do so if you live in or have connections with Perth.

Now, there are very few things that I know how to do that Peter Barrett doesn't and setting up online petitions is one of them. With his permission, I have set up a petition against the incinerator to make it even easier to collect signatures. Please feel free to pass the details on to anyone you know with Perth connections.

This has to be one of the worst planning applications I have ever come across. Incinerators are bad enough anyway and not the right way to go environmentally, but to slap one bang in the middle of  Perth would be absolutely devastating. It can be beaten, though. Please do what you can to object to these ill thought out plans.

Why I'm not seeing the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today............

........ although I'd really love to.

I was having nothing to do with this phenomenon when the books started coming out. Then Bob read the first book while stuck at Rome airport during a strike in November 2001. I then started reading them the day after Boxing Day - and had the then 4 books finished by Hogmanay, totally gripped by the saga and the quality of the writing and characters.

A couple of years ago, Anna lapped up the first five books with a similar fervour, but she just couldn't get into the Half Blood Prince.

I have a bit of a thing about reading books before you see the films therefore we haven't seen either Half Blood Prince or the Deathly Hallows part 1.  I could have, but herself has a thing about me watching films we both want to see before she does.

So, I think I've decided to make a compromise - we'll watch the films on DVD in the hope that it'll inspire her to read the books, and then we'll go to the cinema to see the final one. It seems wrong not to see it on the big screen.

My favourite of the books is the Prisoner of Azkaban. I probably fell a bit in love with Sirius. And Lupin. And Snape - but that may have more to do with Alan Rickman than anything else.

Harry, bless him, isn't that great a wizard but Rowling's portrayal of the effects of the expectations on him of his destiny and the losses he's suffered is very moving. Every child feeling isolated and unloved by their parents, and there are more of them than we'd ever like to admit, could feel empathy with him.

The story is so multi-dimensional. On one level, it's about growing up - the normal teenage angst and trauma set in a backdrop of magic, castles, flying Ford Anglias, phoenixes,  werewolves and amazing food. On the other there are dark themes about the abuse of power. The Ministry of Magic is pure evil, Harry's abuse by Dolores Umbridge dark and sinister and the Daily Prophet provides a topical parallel about the inter-relationships between media and government.

But that's why you read the book. You watch the movie to see it all brought to life on screen, to see stunning visual effects and action.

I think we shall go to see the final instalment on my birthday. Because it's Harry's birthday too. I kind of did my grieving for the end of the series when the last book came out in 2007. It's interesting that I've never read it since my first frantic readthrough to find out how it would all end. Usually I'd read them on the day they were published, often staying up half the night to do so, and then almost immediately read them again, more slowly.

There's no doubt that these books have been part of the background of this generation growing up - and I'm sure future generations will also embrace the beautifully written tales of the boy wizard and his friends.

Alison McInnes: Kenny MacAskill must stop dodging responsibility for Cornton Vale

Phone hacking and News International are both terrible things, and they have, understandably, dominated the headlines over the past couple of weeks.

However, there's another scandal in Scotland - that of the appalling conditions endured by prisoners at Scotland's only women's prison, Cornton Vale, near Stirling.

Not once, but twice now, HM Inspector of Prisons has uncovered horrendous conditions there. In 2009 he outlined a series of failings. Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, did very little to remedy the situation. This may be because he and Alex Salmond have made it clear that they consider prisoners among the vilest people in society and so don't have much concern for their basic wellbeing and human rights. That's certainly how it looks.

Earlier this year, the inspector returned to the prison and discovered that, if anything, things had got worse. I wrote about this in greater detail here.  Basically many women in the heavily overcrowded Cornton Vale don't even have access to a decent bed or toilet. And when it comes to their mental health issues, they simply don't get the treatment they need.

Scottish Liberal Democrat Justice spokesperson Alison McInnes spoke out at the time and I'm glad to see that she hasn't forgotten the issue.

Today she challenged Kenny MacAskill, who's on a tour of Scottish prisons, to sort out Cornton Vale without delay. He extraordinarily said last month that this was an operational matter for the Scottish Prison Service. This is nonsense and he should take personal charge of the matter.

Alison said:

Kenny MacAskill has refused to answer why he failed to take any action to improve conditions at Cornton Vale prison after two damning reports.
 “When he arrived at the prison today, he would have seen how ‘stark’ the conditions are and how many prisoners are sleeping without proper beds. I hope this will shame him into taking immediate action.
 “The Scottish Government is failing women in the criminal justice system. Instead of dodging his responsibility, the Justice Secretary needs to take direct responsibility and ensure immediate improvements are made.”  

I'm sure Alison will be on MacAskill's case until conditions improve.

Nick Clegg's speech on media reform in full

This morning Deputy PM Nick Clegg gave an impressive speech on freedom, accountability and plurality of the media, in which he outlined the Liberal Democrat view of these things. There was some powerful stuff in here about the nature of power and how vested interests have been able to exercise inappropriate influence unchallenged for too long. It's worth pointing out that he made his speech on the very morning Julian Astle in the Guardian pointed out how vital the Liberal Democrats as a party have been, challenging the Murdoch empire for years and how "if there was no Liberal party in Britain, we would surely have to invent one".


This whole sorry episode has its parallels to the MPs' Expenses scandal - another occasion when Liberal Democrats were found not to have abused the system in the same way as MPs from Labour and Tories. We also had a long record of calling for greater transparency on expenses. Now, we can prove that we never sucked up to Murdoch and have a long record of opposing his companies' expansion in the UK. I hope that people who may have had their trust in us broken over the single issue of tuition fees will see how our integrity runs deep.


The way I see the media reform thing is that I absolutely agree with what Nick has laid out - but we are a very long way from making it happen. We're at the bottom of a very big hill. If we think that those vested interests in the media are going to roll over and accept what's coming, or even that the Conservative and Labour parties really mean  what they say about the need for reform, we need to think again.


The sort of reform we need is not yet secured - and the ongoing support of the public is needed to keep the politicians on track. We can't let our outrage at the appalling criminal acts perpetrated in the cause of profit for News International diminish - it needs to be transformed into a determination to ensure tangible institutional reform.


I'm off to the beach now - it's too good a day to be sitting around blogging. I'll see you later. In the meantime, here's Nick's speech in full. It's a treat, so enjoy.

This has been one of those weeks in which it really feels like something big has changed. Pillars of the British establishment have been put under the spotlight - the media, politicians, the police - with public confidence in each crumbling before us.

As the Prime Minister explained yesterday, the Government has set up an Inquiry into these events. A two-stage, judge-led Inquiry looking, without delay, at the culture, ethics and practices of the British press as well as the role of the police and politicians. Reporting, we hope, in a year, and also looking at the specific allegations as soon as criminal investigations are complete.

Yesterday, News Corps’ bid to takeover BSkyB was dramatically withdrawn and, for the first time in days, it feels like this morning we have a chance to catch our breath, and ask: what next? What are we going to do about everything we have seen and heard over recent days? What are we going to build from the rubble of the last week? Is it enough to just clean up the current mess? Or, are we going to go further? Tackling the institutional failings that have allowed these gross intrusions to occur in the first place so that they can never happen again.

I want to set out today the principles that I believe must now guide future reform.

First, that the freedom of the press is vital. Liberty and democracy are founded on freedom of expression.

Second, that our media must be held to account ensuring it acts within the bounds of the law and decent behaviour, with politicians and police equally accountable for their role.

Third, that our free, accountable press must be plural, guaranteeing healthy competition and diverse debate.

Freedom, accountability, plurality. That is how we preserve the best qualities of investigative journalism, but mitigate the worst excesses of an unfettered press too.

Before I talk about those principles, we first need to be clear about the problem.

The charge sheet is, by now, familiar. Newspapers hacking into the phones of missing children, of the grieving parents of fallen soldiers, of the victims of terrorist attacks. We’ve also heard allegations of journalists bribing police officers. And, while we await the outcome of the criminal proceedings, the Government has been assured by the Independent Police Complaints Commission that it has the resources and powers necessary to properly deal with these allegations. No matter how senior or powerful the people in question.

These scandals are a disgrace and misconduct and lawbreaking must now be punished. But they are also symptomatic of problems that go much deeper.

They flow from a fundamentally corrupted relationship between politics, the media, and the police. All these groups are supposed to serve the people. But too often they have been serving only themselves or each other. A light has been shone on the murky underworld of British public life. A world in which confidential information is for sale; in which journalists cross the line from public interest into vulgar voyeurism; and politicians, petrified of the power of the media, fail in their duty to ensure a free, accountable, plural press.

So it’s time for fundamental reform. Liberalism, as a political creed, is deeply sceptical about untrammelled media power. In a liberal, open and democratic society, we are constantly alert to the dangers of power that is concentrated and unaccountable in government, politics, the economy and the media. That’s why plurality and diversity, along with accountability and transparency, are so vital. And liberals also believe it’s necessary to maintain a clear distinction between different domains of power. Because, when financial, political, law enforcement, and media power spill over into each other, the fabric of liberty is threatened.

So the problems we face can’t be put down to the behaviour of a few individuals. This isn’t just about Rebekah Brooks or the Murdochs or what happens with BSkyB. This is about a systemic failure. A failure, above all, to keep power in check.

We now have an opportunity to fix those failings. I know that there is real fear, among reformers, that this opportunity will pass us by. That there will be plenty of heat, but no light. That, now that the BSkyB bid has been withdrawn, now that one tabloid has been sacrificed, soon we will be back to business as usual.

The pessimists have a point. In recent decades the political class has consistently failed to stand up to the media. Seeking to curry favour with powerful media barons or prevent their own personal lives from being splashed across the front pages.

It’s not a new problem. It was the Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin who warned in 1931 that the media was exercising: “power without responsibility”. But the same challenge plagues us today.

In 1981 the then Conservative government waved through Murdoch’s takeover of the Times newspapers and then excluded that same proprietor from rules preventing simultaneous ownership of newspapers and television stations.

When the rules were being redrawn on media ownership in the mid-1990s and John Major attempted, to his credit, to retain rules that that prevented major newspaper proprietors from controlling British television stations, Labour opposed. Tony Blair travelled to the other side of the world to speak at a conference in Murdoch’s defence. Literally flying to his rescue.

In 2006, when the Information Commissioner provided incontrovertible evidence of the unlawful trade in confidential information, proving that private medical records, tax records, financial records, phone records - even records only accessible through the police database, were being bought and sold on an industrial scale - nothing really changed. Labour refused to take on Murdoch. And, as Peter Mandelson admitted this week, the reason was simple: fear.

So the political establishment has hardly covered itself in glory. But, whatever this politician did, or that party did, we now have a rare opportunity to work together in the national interest. If we’ve learnt anything over the last few years it is that change in Britain’s institutions is best secured at moments of public outcry. That’s what brought about the clean up of MPs’ expenses, it’s what turned attention onto our big banks. Now, it’s the media’s turn.

So what are the three principles that should drive future reform?

The first is press freedom. It would be wholly wrong to respond to the present crisis with any action that inhibits a free and vigorous press. That is the lifeblood of liberal democracy. It is absolutely central to an open society in which information is dispersed, corruption is exposed, and the powerful are kept honest. And let’s not forget – while we are currently witnessing the humbling of certain types of journalism - the last week has also been a triumph for proper, investigative reporting.

So politicians must resist any temptation to impose knee-jerk, short-sighted restrictions on the media. This is an area where it would be easy to legislate in haste and repent at our leisure. The Coalition will not succumb to that temptation and if you needed proof of our commitment to press freedom – commitment that predates this crisis - let me remind you that we are already taking far-reaching action to reform England’s libel laws. So that public-spirited journalists can publish free from the threat of litigation by big businesses and wealthy individuals.

But, if we support press freedom, as we do, we have to be realistic about what that means. A raucous, probing press, able to hold politicians and public figures to account, comes at a price. Journalists will always operate at the boundaries of what is and isn’t acceptable in order to unearth the truth for the sake of the public interest. And we need to now have a proper debate about where that line lies.

Newsrooms will never be a place for shrinking violets. The daily cut-and-thrust of Fleet Street will always attract individuals hungry for a story – tenacious, irreverent, often idealistic and cynical in equal measure. And papers will never be owned by angels. Like any other business, they will compete ferociously with each other for their core product: information.

Yes, the press is a national institution, and a public good. But it is commercial too, serving private interests. At its best, the competitive instinct of journalists and proprietors to get the story first helps ensure other institutions are held to account. But, at its worst, the unscrupulous and illegal pursuit of a headline to drive sales has led to the revelations of the last week. That is the reality we face.

Like all liberals, I don’t want to live in a society where journalism is enfeebled and hemmed-in. So our challenge is getting the balance right, ensuring our media is as free as possible, but without sacrificing ethical standards or seeing itself as above the law.

Which brings me to accountability. Over the last few years, there has been greater awareness of the impact of certain institutions on the public good, including professions such as the law, and institutions like the banks. And there have been huge improvements in the way professional and public bodies are now held to account through professional codes of conduct and independent scrutineers. The medical profession, the legal profession, financial services, the police, although they have some way to go, as recent events have shown. And all are now far more accountable for their behaviour.

The media, however, has not kept up. Together, the political class, parts of the police, and the press have granted our media an institutionalised immunity from the basic standards that govern the rest of society.

Clearly, part of the problem has been a monumental failure of corporate governance. As a group of investors said of News Corps earlier this week. And all media organisations, the senior staff and board at News International included, should now be looking very hard at the composition of their boards and their systems of corporate governance.

But we also need to ask more widely whether corporate law in the UK does enough to push managers and directors into being more active. Something must be wrong when misconduct and lawbreaking can become endemic within an organisation. While the senior staff do nothing. So we need to look at whether or not there is a failure of enforcement of the existing corporate governance rules. Or if the problems lie within the rules themselves.

We also need to address the lack of clarity over who or what constitutes a fit and proper owner of a media corporation. It is not clear whether or not institutions can be deemed unfit and improper. Or if the issue is strictly one of personal liability. And even legal experts well-versed in these issues do not agree. That then creates potential for organisations to evade responsibility by blaming a handful of individuals, when clearly the problem is ingrained across the culture of an institution.

Beyond that, there is now an inescapable need for an overhaul of the regulatory system too. The PCC has failed as an effective watchdog.

It is a complaints body at best, and a limited one at that, able only to respond to complaints made by the individuals directly affected by the reports in question. So, for example, anyone who was shocked in 2007 by the sight of Kate Middleton being hounded by photographers and film crews couldn’t complain. In that situation, until she herself complains, the PCC won’t investigate. That is absolutely ludicrous – as if the public have no say whatsoever over the conduct of journalists.

Nor is the PCC independent. It is run by the newspapers, for the newspapers, who act as their own judge and jury. No wonder it has no teeth - that’s exactly how the industry wants it. It doesn’t provide real redress. A person can have their public reputation left in tatters after ruinous accusations splashed across a front page and all the PCC gets them is a short apology hidden somewhere at the back of the paper. And the PCC doesn’t even cover the whole industry.

Major news outlets can opt out. And that is precisely what has happened with the Daily Express, the Sunday Express and the Daily Star.

No one now believes that the status quo can continue. Much of the debate has been about whether or not we should replace it with a reformed system of self-regulation or else a new system of statutory regulation. But, in my view, that misses the key point: what we need is independent regulation, insulated from vested interests within the media, and free from Government interference too.

There are a number of very sensible proposals out there already, not least the need for the regulator to have proper sanctions at their disposal, including financial penalties, against editors, journalists and proprietors who breach the Code of Conduct.

Greater accountability and scrutiny must also extend to dealings between the press, politicians and the police. That’s why the Government will amend the Ministerial Code so that Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and Special Advisers have to record all meetings with newspaper proprietors, editors and chief executives, regardless of the nature of the meeting with the information published quarterly.

On the police, we’ve heard some extraordinary things from the Met this week. Not least that a high-ranking officer felt it acceptable to be wined and dined by senior newspaper executives under investigation. The Met now has a big job on its hands winning back the public confidence that has been lost and the Independent Police Complaints Commission is now looking into allegations over criminality and misconduct.

On the issue of selling confidential information to journalists specifically, a whole range of professions have been implicated. Not just the police, but also private investigators, medical professionals and phone companies. Under the current law, for fraud and phone hacking you can go to prison. Whereas, under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act, unlawful use of personal data can get you a fine. The Information Commissioner recommended in 2006 that that offence should also attract a custodial sentence. It wasn’t taken up then, and this Government has said it will keep it under review. I think that now – where it cannot be proved that information was obtained in the public interest – there is a case for looking at this issue again.

That leaves the third principle: plurality.

It is not the place of politicians – not least liberal politicians – to dictate who should own which newspapers. But diversity of ownership is an indelible liberal principle because a corporate media monopoly threatens a free press almost as much as a state monopoly does. For liberals, a cacophony of dissenting and conflicting voices is a prerequisite for healthy competition and vibrant debate. Some say that the rise in social media and internet news means we should worry less about plurality.

It is true that the media landscape is changing, but it simply is not the case that traditional media no longer matters. It is still responsible for the majority of original journalism and so it is as important as ever to ensure it is not concentrated in a small number of hands. That said, the increasing diversification of media sources does raise new issues over cross-media ownership, which is something the Inquiry will now look at.

We also need to address the way in which the rules on plurality are applied.

At the moment we have a plurality test which can be used to prevent media mergers when they are deemed to undermine the public interest. However, it only made it onto the statute book in the first place as a concession from the previous government. When they were passing legislation that otherwise relaxed the rules on ownership, so it was never developed as a comprehensive safeguard. We now need to go back to first principles to make sure we get the framework right for the future.

Crucially, the plurality test can only be applied at the point of mergers or acquisitions, but why doesn’t it cover companies which expand their market share gradually, over time, by natural growth? And can we be sure plurality will be defined sufficiently broadly? In the case of the BSkyB bid it only covered news and current affairs, but would a broader understanding be better? These are all questions we must now ask.

We should also look at the way competition law operates and one idea we are investigating is to give the competition authority the power to report on public interest issues, which could include media plurality, in the same way as it can now for mergers.

So, to sum up, three principles: freedom, accountability, plurality.

That is how we create a press that is bold, dissenting, and fearless but bound by fair rules and decent standards. That is the best of all worlds, and it is the balance we seek.

The hacking scandals will no doubt continue to lurch from one headline to the next, but we must stay focused on the endgame. If we get this right, if we get the ball rolling while the demand for change is still strong, we can rebuild the confidence in our major institutions that, this week, has been so badly knocked. And we can make sure this never, ever happens again.

Thank you.

Wanted: P45 for Mrs Brooks

I spent probably too much of yesterday following PMQs, David Cameron's statement on the phone hacking enquiry and the Hacked Off Campaign's press conference outside 10 Downing Street.

By the end of the day, we had been assured of a wide ranging judge led enquiry, and News International had withdrawn their bid for BSkyB. However, what I can't understand is why Rebekah Brooks still has a job. She was in a very powerful position at a time when, as we know now, heartless, dishonest, unethical things were not just happening but hard wired into the organisational culture. And she claims to have been completely ignorant of it.

Scotland's transport minister Stewart Stevenson resigned last year for shortcomings in the response to particularly severe weather. At the time I felt a bit sorry for him, to be honest and I certainly didn't think he should have to go. Compare and contrast with Mrs Brooks not just clinging on, but, nauseatingly, being feted by the Murdochs.  I asked on Twitter why she hadn't been handed her P45 and Olly Grender said that she's being kept in place as padding:
 because she is the buffer zone, once she goes the next in the firing line is James Murdoch
Her continued presence at News International is nothing more than a two fingered salute to all those who had their privacy invaded.

And on to the events of the rest of the day in a bit more detail.....................

PMQs was a strange affair. Liberal Democrat MP Duncan Hames kicked off proceedings with a well phrased question:

Secretly deleting voicemails left for a missing teenager, buying the silence of public figures who would incriminate your business, and publishing the confidential medical details of a disabled child who just happens to have a famous father: I ask the Prime Minister—are any of these the actions of a fit and proper person?

 Cameron's answer was not quite as high quality - but Duncan received praise on Twitter from Politics Home's Paul Waugh who described him as "one to watch."

There then followed an awkwardly choreographed series of exchanges between David Cameron and Ed Miliband in which they tried to outdo each other condemnation of News International, while both knowing fine they and most of their front benches, unlike the Liberal Democrats, had until very recently worshipped at their altar.

Ed Miliband had a good go at Cameron on Andy Coulson. Now, Cameron has absolutely no defence on his decision to hire him, and I think he knows it. He was well and truly warned, but pressed on regardless. Trouble with Miliband's line is that he's hired Tom Baldwin, a former Times journalist about whom questions are being raised.

Despite the new found political consensus on the way forward, it was clear that Tory and Labour MPs were more interested in knocking lumps out of each other than actually discussing the issues.

Liberal Democrat MPs Malcolm Bruce and David Ward brought some sensible questions into the febrile atmosphere - Malcolm on sign language trials and David on ridiculously high car insurance premiums for young people.

I was, however, gutted that nobody asked about the implications of the demise of the Immigration Advisory Service that I wrote about the other day.

After PMQs, Cameron made his statement on the enquiry and took some much more sensible questions from all sides of the House. I wish people could behave like this during the weekly pantomime. I do worry that John Bercow is going to spontaneously combust with rage as he tries to get people to behave themselves.

Simon Hughes asked:

I thank the Prime Minister for his decisive announcement and for the work that he and the Deputy Prime Minister have done to ensure that the concerns that my colleagues have been expressing for 17 years, and the calls for an inquiry that we have been making for two years, have at last been accepted.

Will the inquiry look into the Information Commissioner’s reports of 2006, and why his confirmation that 31 media titles and 305 journalists were involved in illegal activities in relation to personal information were not the subject of implementation of recommendations by the Labour party in government, whose leadership continued, even as late as last December, to accuse my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary of being too critical of Murdoch?

Credit where it's due, Cameron took this one on the chin, saying his opposition was blame too.

 To be fair to my right hon. Friend, the issue of the Information Commissioner’s reports—particularly the two reports he mentions—really is a rebuke not just to the previous Government but to the then Opposition. We too should have made more of those reports, which included some very important detail about what was going wrong in data handling, data theft and the rest of it. We must ensure that the inquiry asks the question, “Why were they ignored, and what are we going to do about it now?”

I was particularly pleased to see Jo Swinson tackle the issue of publication of private details about children, even if it was legal to do so. I had earlier been horrified to see the front page of yesterday's Sun, which ripped Gordon Brown to shreds, accusing him of smearing them. I can only imagine how horrendous it must have been for Sarah and Gordon Brown to get a call from Rebekah Brooks saying she knew that Fraser had Cystic Fibrosis and they were going to publish.We already know that ethics, compassion and decency were in short supply, but how cruel is it to publish details when parents are trying to come to terms with a diagnosis and its implication? Jo asked:

 Even if private medical details are obtained without breaking the law, it does not mean that it is right to publish them, especially when they relate to a child and no possible public interest case can be made. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the inquiry will consider and recommend what meaningful sanctions can be imposed in cases where media outlets might not have acted against the law but have certainly acted against common standards of decency and ethics?

Cameron showed a fair bit of understanding in his answer on that point:

we must still have people at the top of newspapers and media organisations who take responsibility and recognise that it is not right to reveal that someone is pregnant, for instance, when there is no certainty that they will keep that baby. 

 Don Foster raised the issue of whether News International were a "fit and proper person" to hold its current 39% of BSkyB, Tessa Munt wanted an assurance that police officers wouldn't receive taxpayer funded pensions if they were found to be corrupt and Julian Huppert asked about whether Cameron would take Hacked Off's concerns on board.

As if that wasn't excitement enough, we then had the announcement that News Corp was abandoning its attempt to buy BSkyB. Ed Miliband was quick to hail this as a victory for the British people. I felt that was hopelessly naive. All the Murdochs care about is saving their own financial skin. I suspect they took the decision because they wanted to find the quickest way of accessing BSkyB's profits - which will involve getting rid of their newspapers.

And just as I was about to pick myself up off the sofa, former Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris, now with the Hacked Off Campaign, appeared outside Downing Street with former mayoral candidate and hacking victim Brian Paddick and the Dowler family to hold a press conference. I was particularly touched to later read our Alistair Carmichael's Facebook status:

One of the great things about my job is the people I get to meet. From The Dalai Lama to Dolly Parton I have met some truly remarkable people. Today was one of the best in this regard when I looked after the family of Milly Dowler for a short time. I have never met such strong, graceful and inspiring people.I shall never forget them.

I came over a bit tearful as Evan Harris paid tribute to the Dowlers' efforts, saying that they had been instrumental in getting the terms of reference of the enquiry widened. Losing a child is bad enough but Mrs Dowler's comments the other day that the deletion of the voicemail messages gave her hope just shows how damaging, cruel and distressing the News of the World's actions were.

It was a dramatic day - but is only the start of a process which will hopefully see the inter-relationships between Britain's powerful vested interests properly tackled. This will be the work of years - and it's really important that public anger does not disperse and keeps driving through real, meaningful and lasting change.

Vince Cable: Liberal Democrats vote on Murdoch without fear or favour

I tip my hat at Lib Dem Voice and the Divine Ms Duffett, who had this first, but I thought it was worth sharing.

I was slightly rueful watching Jeremy Hunt, Culture Secretary, make the statement yesterday in the House of Commons yesterday. But for the Telegraph, it would have been Our Almighty Vince making that statement.

He was in good form, however, yesterday, when asked how we would vote on a Commons motion to delay the B Sky B takeover, saying that we'd have to read it, but we were the one party not compromised by dealings with the Murdoch empire, so we would vote "without fear or favour".

The video is also available here at the Telegraph.

Twisted by the Telegraph: Miriam Gonzalez Durantez

There are many good reasons I'd never buy the Telegraph. First there was the way it made incorrect insinuations about people I care about during the MPs' expenses scandal.

Then there was the not very small manner of sending undercover reporters to Lib Dem ministers' surgeries which led to a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission being upheld:

The Commission considered that there was an important dislocation here between the prima facie evidence and the method used to test it. It was notable, for example, that the newspaper was relying upon off-the-record comments from Conservative ministers on the subject of the Coalition to justify covert recordings of Liberal Democrats on the same subject. Those Ministers were being asked, in theCommission’s view, to comment on a series of policy issues with the evident intent of establishing on which subject they might say something newsworthy.Certainly, the level of subterfuge was – contrary to the newspaper’s assertion – high. The Commission wished to make it clear that recording individuals using clandestine listening devices without their knowledge was particularly serious and intrusive, requiring a strong public interest defence. Secretly recording a public servant pursuing legitimate public business was without question a serious matter.On this occasion, the Commission was not convinced that the public interest was such as to justify proportionately this level of subterfuge. 

So their journalistic practice has been found wanting for me on too many occasions now, but it's those little poisonous touches they add in whenever they write about Nick Clegg and his family that really make me mad.

Today, the paper reports, not even on a story of its own making, but on an interview Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, Nick's wife, gave to Grazia magazine. I shall nip out and buy it later because it looks interesting. I think what's really clear from the interview is that the three Clegg children grow up in a house where both parents bend over backwards to put them first, making sure that the family spends time together and that there's always a parent on hand at those crucial times of day. But what's the first line of the Telegraph's report?

The Deputy Prime Minister’s wife, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, has painted a chaotic picture of life at home.

The basis for this is that Nick apparently sometimes nips home after attending early morning meetings to do the school run.

Frankly, if that's chaos, bring it on! There should be more of it about.

One of the things I really love about Miriam is the way she lets rip when confronted with chauvinistic insinuations that she should be some kind of Stepford Wife whose sole function is to support her husband. Asked about how the family coped with the pressure of Nick's job, she replied in her customary forthright manner:

“I always get very surprised when I’m asked this question because, you know, I have three children, I have a busy career and I have a very busy husband. Yet my husband has three children, he has a much busier career than I have, and he has a busy wife.“Nobody would ask him how he balances everything. For some reason there is a kind of assumption in your question that it is my role to balance it,” 

 I am doubly grateful to her - firstly, by blowing this sort of sexist rubbish out of the water so eloquently, and secondly for providing the sort of equal partnership, real life environment all male politicians should live in, she makes life a bit better for women everywhere.

The snidiness of the Telegraph's report does it no credit - but it's no surprise. In the related stories at the bottom of the article, there's one about Nick Clegg not being a member of his local tennis club.   The reason for that is that he's not applied to join. Yet the paper devotes several paragraphs to a total non story, even resorting to quoting the club's head coach from 10 years ago.

There was no mention at all of Nick ever asking for his kids to join this club, yet there's a lengthy quote from this coach in which he, shall we say, conveys the idea that children are as welcome on the courts as rats are in my bed.

I suppose I'd worry the day that the Telegraph wrote something nice about Nick or his family, but the quality of their reporting is sub-tabloid in standard - a shame for a paper with such an illustrious history going back more than 150 years.

Scottish Blogs on Wikio - July 2011

It's been a good month for the Scottish political blogosphere in the Wikio rankings - most of us have gone up. There are now 4 of us in the top 50.

1  Now, here's a surprise, Caron's Musings at 19. There was a very sad reason for that, I think - the posts I wrote about Andrew when he died which were heavily linked to. 

2  Alex Massie at 21.

3  Better Nation at 33, up another 6 places this month.

4  Lallands Peat Worrier rises to 38

5  Underdogs Bite Upwards at 53 up 5

6  Subrosa at 69 up 3

7  A Burdz Eye View rises to 84



8 I feel so sad and so proud all at once to see Andrew back in the top 100. He'd only really started blogging again the week before he died. The post that everyone linked to was this one, explaining why he got married in January. A week today, at around this time, I'll be leaving his memorial service in London. I have no doubt we'd have had some typically robust stuff from him this last month and he'd have made it back into the top 100 easily.

Willie Rennie tries to pin Alex Salmond down on News International dealings

A phrase including the words jelly and wall comes to mind, but we shall see...........

I said yesterday that Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie had got out his wooden spoon as regards Alex Salmond's locking-stable-door-after-horse-bolted comments about News International.

Today, he ramped up the pressure on Alex Salmond by writing to him to ask him to give more details about his dealings with News International and whether he had ever raised the issue of phone hacking, about which he suddenly feels so strongly (and it's all Westminster's fault, by the way).

Willie said:

“The First Minister needs to come clean instead of ducking and diving on his responsibility.
 “Instead of carping from the side-lines, the First Minister needs to tell us what he had to do to secure the endorsement of News International and the affiliated papers that backed him during the recent Scottish elections.
 “The First Minister has criticised Westminster politicians for their failure to regulate the industry but has neglected to answer the questions laid at his door about his relationship with News International. Surely the First Minister does not realise how two-faced he is being. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. “I want to know whether the First Minister asked any questions or was he prepared to turn a blind eye in order to secure support for Scottish independence at any cost.
 “If the First Minister is to save any face, he needs to distance himself and the Scottish Government from this scandal.” 

The full text of Willie's letter to Alex Salmond is as follows:

Dear First Minister, In light of the deeply shocking events that have unfolded over the last week, I am writing to urge you to disclose the details of your dealings with News International while seeking their endorsement. Following the criticism that you levelled at the corporation this weekend, it is inconsistent for your party to continue to accept News International’s support.
 The allegations that have surfaced over recent days are dreadful, yet these follow on from those that were made a number of years ago. People in Scotland want to know what questions you asked of News International before accepting their backing for the election in May. Did you raise any concerns about phone hacking during these discussions and, if so, what assurances did you seek about the previous allegations? This scandal has shocked people throughout the country and I believe that, as First Minister, you must now make your position clear. Will you now set out the details of all discussions and negotiations between your party and News International?
 Yours sincerelyWillie Rennie MSPLeader, Scottish Liberal Democrats

It'll be interesting to see how Mr Salmond responds. It's not as if the First Minister had no opportunities to raise his concerns about phone hacking, as Severin Carroll of the Guardian pointed out back in April.

My baby sister is cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats........

This is my gorgeous little sister, Honor, with her boyfriend Jamie, pictured last week when they came to visit us at our cute holiday cottage on the Black Isle.  And do feel free to comment on the family resemblance. I look that good in real life too, honest..............

My said little sister is all kinds of awesome for many reasons. She's one of the bravest people I know already before her latest escapade. A week on Friday, this girl who hadn't been on a bike since we were kids until about 6 months ago, will be embarking on a Land's End to John O'Groat's cycle for charity.

She's going as part of a team who call themselves the Inverness Spinners. There are 12 riders and 2 support people. There is a huge variety of experience amongst the riders. Jamie has climbed the Ventoux and several other of the hideously difficult mountain climbs on the Tour De France. He is also used to endurance events having gone from Paris to Marseilles last year. Another member has cycled in North Vietnam. And there are some, like Honor, who are doing this for the first time.

This isn't something you can do without months of preparation, so the whole team has been training hard for months. The thing which attracts the most sweary words from my little sis is called hill training. This involves finding a hill, the more vertical the better and then cycling up it not once, but several times in quick succession. It sounds deeply unpleasant, particularly in the middle of  a gale and driving rain. They've been going out for very long cycles at weekends, on some occasions aiming to do 80-100 miles per day.

Now, dear reader, I'm looking for some help from you - and it doesn't need to involve cash, but they are aiming to raise £10,000 for the MS Society Scotland and Inverness SNAP, a local charity which helps kids with learning disabilities, so if you have any spare, it would be gratefully received here.

Cycling not that far off 1000 miles in 10 days is quite some undertaking, so if you have any experience of doing it and have some constructive advice to offer, or you just want to wish them luck, like their Facebook page and leave them a message.

Also, if you are going to be anywhere near their route, which is outlined here, if you're around at the time, please go and wave them on and wish them well. I know she's a grown up, but the mother hen in me wants my baby sister to be looked after along the way.

I am so proud of Honor for what she's achieved and wish her and all the team the best possible weather, not too hot, not too cold, and luck for their long trip. And let's hope they reach that £10,000 target for those good causes.

Harper Seven - sounds like a space probe, doesn't it?

Or, as my friend Derek Young said on Twitter this morning:

"Harper Seven reminds me of the Inspiral Carpets lyric "the most beautiful woman alive, Saturn Five ..."

But, no, it's the name of the Beckhams' new baby girl.

Congratulations to them, and all of that.

Apparently some are suggesting that Harper could be a tribute to Harper Lee's classic book To Kill a Mocking Bird. Given that Victoria professed some time ago never to have read a book in her life, I'd say that that's unlikely, but I wouldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand.

Seven is apparently (and I wouldn't have had a clue about this) the number on her Daddy's back during his footballing career.

The Beckhams have always been good at keeping their baby names a secret - and this one had been the topic of much speculation across social networking sites. Atlanta and Santa sounded too predictable. I'd thrown Obama into the mix.

Anyway, any story of a new baby arriving safely into a loving family has to be welcomed so best wishes to all of them. Derek, above, and his wife Louise will be cuddling their own wee baby girl soon enough, so good luck to them too.

Immigration Advisory Service in administration - Government needs to ensure access to advice and justice

I was absolutely gutted to reported here on the BBC that the Immigration Advisory Service has gone into administration. I've had many dealings with them over the years and they have always been incredibly helpful. It saddens me to think of the massively overworked staff being suddenly propelled into unemployment.

In Scotland, the IAS had an office in Glasgow and they did a free telephone advice day on a Wednesday. This was a lifeline to many people who had immigration related problems. The immigration rules in this country are extremely complicated and the UK Border Agency does not always treat people fairly. A free advisory service to those most in need is vital.

You may remember that my friend Juliette Frangos wrote a few months ago of her concerns as a lawyer in a law centre about the cuts in Legal Aid. A situation where the most vulnerable can't access the law is not acceptable in a liberal society and a brush with the immigration system can mean the difference between life and death.

How many times have we heard of people like Janipher Maseko, the teenage mother thrown into Yarl's Wood and separated from her breastfeeding baby, or Mehdi Kazemi, the gay asylum seeker threatened with deportation to Iran. Thankfully both these stories ended with them being able to stay in this country, but how many others don't get the help they need?

I could tell you no end of stories where the UK Border Agency went against its own policies or made decisions that were just plain wrong.  They aren't mine to tell, though, so I can't give you the details. Just take my word that if it hadn't been for organisations like the Immigration Advisory Service and an MP willing to go into battle on their behalf, the people concerned would have suffered even more than they did.

Imagine the stress of facing a terminal illness and your sister is refused entrance to this country - and her appeal is unlikely to be heard before you die. Imagine the fear of being told you have to live apart from your husband or wife, possibly for months or years on end. Imagine being told you have to make an expensive and potentially dangerous foreign trip to apply for a visa because of a mix up. These sorts of things happen every day and it's vital that people have someone they can go to for advice that doesn't cost the earth when they need it.

It's vital that funds are found from somewhere to keep IAS or something very like it going. IAS always had more clients on its books than it could comfortably deal with - it needed to be expanded not closed.

Nick Clegg in Independent: Lib Dems more competent than Labour, more progressive than the Tories

Last Friday Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg went to Paris for the day in the company of Andrew Grice from the Independent. The resulting interview is published today and in it Nick emphasises how our party has been right on so many of the key issues facing Britain today, acknowledges the challenge of being in the coalition and uses some new language to describe our place in British politics.

He talks about our space being that of:

 "compassion and competence", adding: "I don't think they fit on a leaflet... We need two shorter words." He insists: "I think the long term is really, really bright. There is a huge appetite in British politics for a party that is economically more competent than Labour and which is more progressive than the Conservatives. Only the Liberal Democrats fit that bill.

What he says is absolutely right. We can be trusted with the purse strings, at any level of Government. You only have to look at what happened in Edinburgh, where our Council Leader Jenny Dawe was told on her first day that the reserves were dangerously low because Labour had been on a spending spree. Sound familiar?

Nick acknowledges that this language is a work in progress which is a good thing. The stuff about us being more economically competent than Labour and more progressive than the Tories is right but it ain't going to tug on any heart strings. And competence in itself doesn't tell you much about our values. It's management speak. I'm sure the trains in Communist East Germany ran competently on time.

We need to get our core values out there and for that you don't really need to stray too far from the preamble to our constitution - the stuff about a fair, free and open society where none shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity is pretty powerful. What's wrong with using that as a strap line on our leaflets?

And Nick could do a lot worse than listen to Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie, who's expressing our values in three key principles which we are bringing into play in the Coalition too. He's using everyday language to express what he calls opportunity, "giving people the chance to get up and get on in life", community "trusting local people" and sustainability "no quick fixes - looking for long term solutions to problems". I've noticed a big difference in our public statements now - none of our MSPs or Willie say anything without associating it with at least one of these three values.

The words Nick is using now are many millions of times better than the concept of Alarm Clock Britain which resonated with nobody.

Nick seems confident that by 2015 people will see the changes we've brought to the Government, how we've taken the sting out of the Tories, in a way that they can't just now:

By 2015 we will be able to show people we have put the building blocks in place on tax, education, the early years, apprenticeships, vocational education and greater social mobility in a way that the Conservatives would never have done on their own and, at the same time, we have put the economy back on course. 

We need to be a bit more specific, but that's a good start - and there's a lot more we can do before 2015.

Read the interview in full because there's some good stuff in there.

Liberal Democrat MPs must ensure Murdoch BSkyB bid is delayed

I wrote yesterday about my initial reaction to the phone hacking scandal. I now want to turn my attention to the future of News International's plans to take over B Sky B which looked likely to go ahead from Conservative Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt with few assurances from the Murdoch empire that it would get rid of Sky News. This raises long standing concerns about the closeness of

Our Vince Cable would no doubt have referred the takeover to the Competition Commission. In principle this was absolutely the right thing to do. And that was before the revelations of the past week.

It is so stark staringly obvious that there's no way this takeover should go ahead until we see the conclusions of the judge led inquiry into the phone hacking. On that, Ed Miliband is right, despite his party having spent most of the last 20 years licking the boots of Murdoch and his representatives on earth. He intends to bring a motion to the House of Commons on the matter.

The Liberal Democrats have, as Danny Alexander said on BBC Breakfast this morning, a long track record of not cow-towing to Murdoch or any other media baron. I would expect all of my party's MPs to support such a motion. The signals the party is sending out are quite strong on that. Danny is being quite sensible in not giving Miliband a blank cheque and giving away our support before we actually see the wording of the motion. On the other hand, I don't want to see us use some legalistic excuse for not backing it. Surely the law on such matters can't possibly stop the Government putting a delay in the process when there is evidence that widespread criminal activity has been taking place within the company wanting to take the broadcaster over. And that case is helped by the BBC's report that News International have been covering up evidence of wrongdoing for 4 years.  If News International knew in 2007 that the phone hacking scandal was more widespread than they admitted, and they didn't hand that over to the police, isn't that perverting the course of justice, or something?

It may not come to a Commons vote, though. I am certain that our MPs will be putting a strong case for delay within the Government, hoping to change things behind closed doors. It would  be good if ministers themselves could delay the takeover by an appropriate means.

Of course, if News International had any decency, it would simply withdraw the bid. We have, however, seen that that virtue is in fairly short supply in the Wapping area. I find the smiley photocalls with Murdoch saying Rebekah Brooks is his priority,with the flame haired one helping photographers who've fallen over utterly nauseating.

Let's imagine, though, that by whatever means, the Government or Parliament blocks the bid.  Are News International really going to have the nerve to challenge it in the courts? And, if so, what would the public feel about that? Would they really want to continue buying his products in the numbers that they did?

I'm pleased that our MPs have been as robust as I would expect them to be in all of this - first of all it's down to Nick Clegg that we have a judge led enquiry. I suspect that if it had been left to David Cameron, the Downing Street cat would have been put in charge.

Then Simon Hughes wrote to Ofcom questioning whether News International is a fit and proper organisation to run a broadcaster. Of course, if Ofcom say no, then where does that leave Sky, given that NI own 40% of them already. It encourages me that Simon's letter has been published in full not just by Simon, but on Nick Clegg's website.

An interview in today's Independent with Nick Clegg shows his determination on the issue:

On the 6.52am train from London St Pancras last Friday, Mr Clegg speaks with passion: "You have politicians falling to their knees ingratiating themselves with media moguls. You have too many vested interests tied up with each other. You have a culture of arrogance and impunity"

He was quick out of the traps last week, pressing Mr Cameron successfully for the public inquiry covering the police and the press to be headed by a judge. Mr Clegg believes the crisis offers an opportunity to clean up Britain's "rotten establishment". To reflect liberal values, of course. "The anger people feel is almost palpable. The question is how we harness that sense of outrage to build something better for the future."

While Nick's claim that "the pillars of the British establishment are tumbling one after the other" might yet be premature, it's clear to me that our party has been on the right side of the argument on MPs' expenses, the banks, the press and police when these institutions have been rocked by scandal. While people are becoming more aware of the abuses of power and the ways vested interests work together to protect themselves, we're not yet in a position to make wholesale permanent change.

It's clear that the role of the Liberal Democrats is going to be crucial in determining the progress of the News International takeover. For me, it's inconceivable that we could take a course of action which would lead to it proceeding while the investigation takes place.

In the longer term, I agree wholeheartedly with what Cicero's Songs says - that the Murdoch empire should be severely dealt with if the enquiry or police investigation shows criminal wrongdoing.

Back from holiday. Have I missed anything............?

So, I'm back from my week's break in the highlands refreshed and  relaxed. It's normally quite quiet this time of year so I expect nothing much to have happened.  Just off out to buy a News of the World to check out what's been going on in the world.

Ok, ok, I may have had slow to rubbish to non existent internet access for the last week, but I haven't had my head completely in the sand. I have been itching to write about the scandals which have led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper which publishes its final edition today. 

I watched the nightly news bulletins last week horrified at every passing revelation. People should feel confident that messages left on their voicemail are to be heard only by them. In very rare cases, sanctioned by a judge, the State may have the right to intercept or listen to stuff, but the circumstances in which that power is used must be very limited, exceptional and regulated within an inch of its life. This is not a practice which should ever be carried out in the name of journalism, to give a newspaper competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace. What's become clear over the last few years is that there was a time early in this century when the News of the World were using agents to hack people's voicemails.  Quality journalism, as carried out by most members of that profession, is rooted in ethical behaviour. To tarnish every reporter, even every tabloid reporter, as a result of what we've seen over the past week would be wrong. Those who were involved in such activity were not journalists. They were criminals, pure and simple.

Within the truly sickening revelations this week that those criminals had hacked into the voicemails of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and the families of those murdered in terrorist attacks or service personnel killed in Afghanistan lay another unpalatable insult. The evidence on which they were based is not brand new. A proper investigation in early 2007 when the then NOTW royal correspondent Clive Goodman was jailed should have elicited most of these facts and the people responsible should then have been identified and brought to justice. We should not have had to wait another 4 years to for this information to be dragged to light.

This week has shone a very strong light into the murky world of inter-relationships between police, press and politician. There are suggestions of payments to the police for information, authorised at senior levels. We all know that virtually every senior Labour and Conservative politician over the past couple of decades  has worshipped at the altar of News International, desperate for the electoral endorsement of its powerful tabloids.

Way back in the eighties, every self respecting Labour politician took to the picket lines at Wapping, urging us all to boycott the Murdoch publications. When Tony Blair took over, he decided on a different strategy - that of, to put it bluntly, what Carville and Begala would call "kissing ass". He went after, and won, the endorsement of the Murdoch Empire in 1997 and held it until the General Election last year. 

At News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks' wedding in 2009 saw Labour and Tory frontbenchers mingle with the Murdoch family and other Murdoch high fliers.  David Cameron even employed Andy Coulson after his resignation as editor of the NOTW, a decision which always highlighted flawed judgement to me. His subsequent resignation as Downing Street Director of Communications earlier this year was almost inevitable.

It's worth pointing out that the Murdoch publications and broadcasts rarely if ever have a good word to say about Liberal Democrats. But then you've never seen Liberal Democrats chase after crumbs from their tables. You get an idea of why from Vince Cable's unguarded comments to the undercover Telegraph journalists last Christmas.  At around the same time, David Cameron was socialising with Rebekah Brooks over Christmas and brushing off criticism about it. Was it really right for a serving PM to be seen to be so close to somebody who not only represented a company involved in a media takeover, but about which there were continuing suspicions relating to the phone hacking practices when she was editor of the NOTW?  I don't think so.

And for all Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman telling whoever will listen that they want to see a robust enquiry - as Paul at Liberal Burblings has pointed out often to a ridiculous degree, they need to be accountable for the little they did in Government to ensure that the phone hacking affair was properly investigated.

I think it's clear that Vince Cable would have referred the takeover of B Sky B to the Competition Commission. To me that was the right course of action on principle. To have one company with so much media power across broadcast and print media does raise questions and they should be thoroughly investigated.  He's no longer in charge of the case, because of his comments. Jeremy Hunt, who is in the driving seat and who was known for a much more Murdoch friendly attitude, should now put a stop to the deal that he has looked set to approve.

The fact that Rebekah Brooks remains on the News International payroll after all that's gone on is the chief, but far from the only, sign that even after all that's happened this week, Murdoch continues to stick two fingers up to the British people. He's powerful and he knows it. There's no real humility from him or his son James. How on earth can they have confidence in someone who supposedly had no clue about what was going on at her own paper? I'd certainly think twice about promoting someone like that.  Appointing her to lead an internal investigation in to things she supposedly knew nothing about was a sign of contemptuous attitude to us all. Does Murdoch really think we're stupid?

Even if it transpires that Brooks and Andy Coulson have no legal case to answer, surely the climate they presided over, one in which intense pressure was put on staff to deliver that competitive edge delivered by means of an agressive and abrasive management style, was a contributing factor in what transpired. Yes, people are accountable for their own personal actions, but the environment in which they work, the stress which they suffer as a result of toxic management style has to have some relevance.

My initial reaction when I heard about the closure of the News of the World on Thursday was summed up in this tweet: 

"Just checking the news headlines - I see they've got the cosmetics out at News International & Mrs Brooks appears to still have a job."

You can't just airbrush years of routine criminal behaviour by shutting down the paper and leaving the same people pulling the strings in the organisation. The people with least power as usual suffer most by the loss of their jobs - although, it may well be that they'll be absorbed into a new Murdoch tabloid venture, a Sunday Sun, perhaps?

In terms of political leadership on this, I'm glad to see that traditional liberal instincts of transparency and fairness have led to Nick Clegg pushing within the Coalition for a meaningful public enquiry into this. Left to David Cameron alone, the scrutiny would have been much weaker. This isn't about political advantage - but I do think it is important that people know that all the way through this, my party has kept Murdoch and his companies at an appropriate length and has behaved entirely properly.

In Scotland, our leader Willie Rennie has got his wooden spoon out and brought Alex Salmond into the mix - questioning whether the First Minister, who enjoyed the endorsement of the Murdoch stable in Scotland, had ever raised phone hacking with them. Willie said:

'Alex Salmond is right to say that the full weight of the law must be used to prosecute those responsible for  these dreadful events.

'But Alex Salmond must also come clean about the content of his discussions with News International before he secured the support of the Sun and News of World for the elections in May.

'People will want to know if he raised any concerns about phone hacking when he was negotiating their support.

'Was it a case of no questions asked please just support me? Was he prepared to sacrifice anything to get the endorsement?'

Severin Carrell of the Guardian took a look back in April at the potential reasons for the Murdoch stable's about face on Salmond and the SNP, detailing reports of a closer relationship between the First Minister and News International:

Salmond's advisers deny that the first minister and Murdoch have recently met, but do not deny that conversations have taken place at a senior level between Salmond and senior NI officers. NI executives in Scotland have seen Salmond in private, and were apparently handed internal SNP polling results – documents rarely offered to the media.

I haven't looked very far into this, but I can't find any evidence that Salmond has been particularly bothered by the phone hacking issue prior to this week - when he predictably used the scandal to pick a fight with Westminster on press regulation. Opportunism, much?

For me the best thing that could come out of this scandal is that ordinary people wake up to themselves and take more of an interest in the inter-relationships between the people who  hold power in this country, big business, media and politicians and start to realise the dangerous world we're slipping into. We need to question things more, and not just accept what we're told by major corporations and powerful leaders. And we need to understand that even if the phone being hacked belongs to some non entity of a celebrity as an attempt to find out who they may or may not be sleeping with, it matters. We can take a stand on the ethics of our journalists - by refusing to buy what they produce.  At the heart of this story is a very human element. People at the worst time of their lives having their privacy violated, having some disreputable character listening in to try to find a unique angle on their grief to profit from.

A free press is an essential part of our democracy - but we as citizens have to play our part in keeping them honest and ethical too.  The same with everyone else who holds power.  There's talk of politicians having to engage with or connect with people - and that's important. But it's also vital that people properly scrutinise the  sort of government, the sort of press, the sort of businesses available to them - and use the power they have to good effect to improve quality and standards within them.

Greetings from the Highlands

This is the view from inside the car at Tarbat Ness lighthouse near Portmahomack in Easter Ross.

Anna & Bob, the mad fools, are out in this, inspecting the rock pools on a beach he used to play on as a child.

The option I've chosen is probably sensible given that I've spent the afternoon helping my friend Siobhan celebrate her second 21st birthday. The generous slug of Bushmills she expertly put in the coffee cup went down a treat, not to mention the subsequent gin and tonic.

And being within spitting distance of a huge mobile phone mast is giving me the best signal I've had all week.

We are having great fun at the holiday cottage on the Black Isle. There are two cottages together, mirror images of each other. This is the third time we've stayed here, but the first in this particular cottage. It's a little disorientating as everything seems the wrong way round.

I must stop now as the wanderers have returned, bedraggled & frozen.

I'll maybe tell you some more about our adventures later.

We're now off to find petrol. The shortcomings of GPS are highlighted by fact it's telling me there's a filling station in Brora, 12 miles away.

I suspect it's only that close if we drive across the Dornoch Firth!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Did Labour propose benefit cap?

I am on holiday & am just watching Shadow Communities Secretary Caroline Flint slate the Government on the benefit cap.

I am fairly certain that the Labour manifesto had some rhetoric about how people in benefits shouldn't get more than those in work. Were they in office, I reckon their benefits policy generally would not be a million miles from the Coalition's.

I don't have a half decent Internet connection to do more research but thought I'd throw the ball into play.

For the record, I think benefits, as many other things, should be assessed according to need rather than arbitrary limits. This cap idea is pandering to the Daily Fail rhetoric.

I found the Downing Street response to the leaked letter suggesting there could be 40,000 more homeless if the cap goes ahead bizarre. Being old doesn't make the argument less valid.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:The Sunny Highlands

60 - the new 30?

As you may know, my husband celebrated his 60th birthday this week. Today his bus pass arrived.

The photo shows it next to his nightclub discount card.

Sixty is a lot younger than it used to be.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Inverclyde - Labour hold on in their heartland

You'll notice that although I wrote a lot about Inverclyde, and the excellent Liberal Democrat candidate Sophie Bridger, I never made any wild predictions about what would happen. That's because I had a feeling that it would be pretty much as it was.

The result in full was:

Iain McKenzie          Labour      15118
Anne McLaughlin      SNP           9280
David Wilson            Cons           2784
Sophie Bridger          Lib Dem       647
Mitch Sorbie             UKIP           288

Logic dictated that if the SNP couldn't win this seat on a night like they had in May, it was destined to stay as a Labour fiefdom. SNP candidate Anne McLaughlin would have had my second preference in an AV election - because of her big heart and potential to be a complete pain in the arse to the UK Border Agency rather than her party's policies.

Given the result we had in May, it would have been foolhardy and reckless to throw the kitchen sink at this by-election. Our performance has been consistent with other Westminster by-election results in central and western Scotland in the last few years. What we did do, though, is introduce the world to an excellent candidate who already outshines many of the MPs who currently sit at Westminster.

It would be churlish not to congratulate Iain McKenzie. He's been given a huge privilege and I hope he enjoys the experience of representing Inverclyde's people at Westminster.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie struck the right tone with his remarks:

“Sophie Bridger was an excellent and dedicated candidate. She worked extremely hard and it was a pleasure to campaign with her. I am determined that we will get better results in the months and years to come.

"We are listening to what the voters are saying and we will feed this into our plans for the party’s future and development in Scotland.
"I believe that we will restore Scotland's confidence in the Liberal Democrats and continue to be a strong liberal voice, holding the Scottish Government to account.”