Blockages

'Process Guy' has been rather quiet of late. This is not because there has been any shortage of things to write about. Far from it. I've been getting exercised at varying levels of intensity about a wide range of topics. Yet, while not exactly writers block, a number of things have been getting in the way. In part it has been a curious mixture of when I have had the inclination to put together a post on something I haven't had the time, yet when I have had the time I haven't had the inclination.

Another part of this 'blockage' has been something I am discovering about my attitude to this blogging lark. I frequently have ideas for things to write about but want to attempt to come up with a least a half-decent argument in the subsequent post. But I am not one of these people whose thoughts flow easily out of my brain and on to my keyboard. I have to work at it in order to come up with something coherent. So often, while I have a good idea, the time I have available to work on expanding it into something worth asking someone else to bother to read is not sufficient. In the desire not to write rubbish I end up writing nothing at all.

“If that is the case, how come this rambling effort?” I hear you ask. Well, one of the few pieces of advice I can remember hearing about writing was that if you are finding it difficult to write what you want just start writing anything. You can attempt to write your way out of the difficulty. Also blogging is habitual, but once you fall out of the habit it can be difficult to fall in to it again.

So after some weeks without anything appearing on this blog I thought I had better make a concerted effort.

Party Reform: A Baroness responds

Following on from from my post yesterday about the Party President, one of the declared candidates, Ros Scott, has written about her take on the issue on her blog 'Because Baronesses are people too'.

A new leader for the PDs

Given that only the other day I was bemoaning the fact that we don't pay enough attention to politics in the Republic of Ireland I thought I'd better highlight the fact that the Progressive Democrats, the Irish equivalent of the Liberal Democrats, have a new leader.

Senator Ciaran Cannon was elected as leader yesterday. He takes over from Mary Harney, who is herself a former leader and currently Health Minister in the Irish Government, who had been the acting leader since the 2007 General Election when the previous leader Michael McDowell lost his seat. We should wish Senator Cannon well in restoring the fortunes of the Progressive Democrats.

Rather, I think, proving the point I was making in my previous post, I learn these facts courtesy of a news story in the 'Northern Ireland' section of the BBC website.

Party Reform: The Presidency again

In the run up to this year's Spring Federal Conference I wrote an number of articles about party management and in particular one for Liberal Democrat Voice outlining my opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment which would remove the requirement for the Party President to Chair the Federal Executive.

At Conference I was able to carry that opposition through to the debate as I was called to speak. Whether that speech helped or hindered I don't know, but the result was the amendment failed to secure the 2/3rds majority it needed and so failed to pass.

Yet, I don't regard that as the end of the matter. It still leaves open the question of what to do with the role of President of the Liberal Democrats. Now, I know many people find this stuff rather dull, but how we organise ourselves does effect how successful we are, so I make no apologies for returning to this subject, if a little later than I had intended.

It seemed that the key argument made in favour of the constitutional change concerned problems with practicalities. This was very clearly summed up by Duncan Brack in response to my LDV post:

"the current role of President in practice encompasses two entirely different jobs: (a) being the voice of the membership at the centre of the party, morale-raising, etc., etc.; and (b) overseeing the work of the federal party and coordinating its committees. I think it’s almost impossible to do both of them satisfactorily, and they demand different sets of skills and personalities."

Essentially there is too much for the President to do and something has to give.

By and large I accept this analysis. I am perfectly willing to accept that the Party may have difficulties in getting the practical arrangements of this role right. These things aren't easy, particularly with the lack of resources we operate under. So I am equally willing to accept that some change in how we do things may be necessary. The question is what change.

Duncan, who drafted the amendment for the FE, says he suggested two options and that the FE "went for the less radical option". His other option, while I still think it is flawed, certainly seems more coherent than what was offered to conference. I still find it curious that those who advocated this change presented a case that seemed to prioritise what are the essentially ceremonial parts of the job over the organisational.

Yet, I am totally unpersuaded that these changes require a constitutional change of any kind.

Yes there may be significant problems with the way the Presidency operates but re-writing the fundamentals of the Party's Constitution as a way to solve these problems does seem a little like overkill. It is surely possible to arrange things so that the role of the President can be made to work better within the terms of the existing Constitution.

For example, the Constitution already says that the existing deputy chair of the Federal Executive can chair meetings “at the request of the President”. So surely a President whose strengths do not lie in the realms of Party management could ensure that a competent and trusted person is elected as deputy chair of the FE and authority given to them to act on behalf of the President. With a little imagination and political insight solutions can be found to these practical problems that do not require diluting the critical feature of the role of President, their accountability to the wider Party.

For me the most important aspect of the role of the President is that they are the only party office, other than the Leader, elected by the whole party. I would hope that no one who calls themselves a Liberal Democrat could object to the idea that those that have the responsibility for running the Party should be accountable to the members of the Party. Operating in an accountable and democratic manner is at the very heart of what being a Liberal Democrat is all about. The question is how best we can make that democratic accountability work.

I would not claim that the current arrangements for ensuring democratic accountability are perfect. Far from it. One of my concerns is that in many ways we actually have too little internal party democracy at the moment. But it was clear that to have accepted this constitutional change would have further diminished the democratic accountability within the structures of the Party.

I have come to the conclusion that the real problem with the role of the President of the Liberal Democrats is not one of practicalities. It is the fundamental mismatch between on one hand the role as specified in the constitution and the potential inherent in the authority it gets from being accountable to the whole membership and on the other hand the conception of the role as 'ceremonial' that so many in the Party have, including those at senior level.

In itself this doesn't matter much. But if you accept my argument that the Party has a serious problem with a lack of organisational leadership, then the failure of the Presidency to live up to its potential is, at the very least, a missed opportunity.

It looks like we are going to have a contested election for the next Federal President. I hope that in the coming campaign, whoever the candidates are, they clearly set out their objectives for their Presidency and how they will both overcome the practical difficulties in operating that role effectively and make it a real force for Party reform.

Brown - Only a bit crap

Although I have had a lot of thoughts about the state of Gordon Brown's troubled Labour Government I haven't written many of them down. Mainly this is because they tend to be rather contradictory. I am finding it difficult to come to a conclusion about what is really going on and what the ultimate consequences will be.

However, I thought it was worth bringing to people's attention this extraordinary article from Brown's chief and most loyal cheerleader amongst the commentariat, Jackie Ashley.

Again, I am confused. I am not sure whether she is right to call for a greater sense of proportion and point out the pernicious effect of the Murdoch press, or whether the very fact that an article from Ashley of all people is headlined "He may be disappointing, but Brown isn't a disaster" indicates just how big a hole Brown really is in.

Our ignorance of Ireland

The British political classes seem to pay far less attention to the politics of the Republic of Ireland than it deserves. I was reminded of this when reflecting on the resignation of Bertie Ahern last week.

There seems to be a level of ignorance of, and in large part an indifference to, the politics of Ireland amongst MP's, commentators, and journalists. You only need to contrast the acres of coverage given to US politics, or indeed the attention paid to the ups and downs of French president Sarkosy, in the British media with the limited attention given to significant developments in Dublin. I remember at the time of the last Irish General Election trying to get hold of detailed information about the results. I say detailed, what I was after was simply the number of seats won by each party. I found that it was impossible to find this information from the mainstream British media and had to get my answers from Irish websites.

If you talk to people who have an interest in politics you will be aware that each of them will an opinion on Clinton and Obama. But how many of them will have an opinion on the likely consequences of Cowen taking over from Ahern as Taoiseach? How many of them will have even noticed this change?

I find it very curious that the politics of the UK's nearest neighbour is so little discussed.

I have no doubt that part of the reason for this is deeply rooted in historical attitudes. The common English perception of Ireland, developed over centuries, of a rural backwater which, while occasionally troublesome, can safely be discounted I suspect still lingers in many places. The English, in particular, have tendency to let ancient prejudices blind them to current global realities.

Our more recent history also doesn't help. For the British the phrase “Irish politics” will instantly bring to mind Paisley and Adams, Belfast, and Stormont. Seemingly to forget that the Republic exists at all.

Yet these factors can't wholly explain why we ignore the politics of the Republic of Ireland so much. I find this ignorance even more curious amongst Liberal Democrats.

Let us remember that Ireland is a country that successfully operates an electoral system that uses a form of STV. That it has in recent years been governed by stable coalition governments. That the Irish equivalent of the Liberal Democrats, the Progressive Democrats, have featured prominently within those coalition governments holding significant ministerial posts. And that the policy programmes of those governments has been significantly influenced by the PDs.

This alone should make a study of Irish politics of interest to Liberal Democrats. I would of thought that particular lessons could be learnt by Scottish and Welsh colleagues who have their own experiences of coalition politics. I am sure there are other things we could learn. For instance, the policy agenda of the PDs over the last 10 years has prominently featured the push for the liberalisation of the Irish economy. So why aren't the so called “Orange Book” liberals regularly quoting the Irish experience in debates?

This goes beyond policy. There are, quite naturally, strong links between the Liberal Democrats and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. I have seen, and met, Alliance party members and politicians attending party conferences. Yet in my long history of attending these things I can't ever recall coming across a member of the Progressive Democrats or, with one exception, seeing a politician from the Republic talking at a conference event.

Amongst others, Nick Clegg is keen to hold up Dutch and Scandinavian models of public service delivery as examples of better ways of doing things. Yet where is the discussion of what lessons we can learn from the huge change in Irish society towards a more 'liberal' country?

Isn't it time we started to look West more often?

Chagos update

I've written before about the plight of the Chagos Islanders who were forcibly expelled from their homes by the British government. The latest development in their campaign for justice is the publication of a report that sets out a practical plan for how they could return.

See the New Statesman and The Guardian for more details.

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury is quoted in the New Statesman article saying;

“The removal of the Chagossians from their homeland was a gross violation of the law.....It was an operation that has no parallel in modern history.”