Emanuel Wins

Fascinating article from the Chicago Tribune about the intense, forceful, and foul-mouthed Chicago congressman, Rahm Emanuel, who ran the campaign that has just won the Democrats control of congress.

"The House that Rahm Built"

Anyone who has been involved in the running of an election campaign will find some of the stories told in this article all too familiar.

Two things from the article worth highlighting are;

• The deliberate organised recruiting of tough, credible, and non-traditional candidates to fight key swing seats, such as the Iraq war veterans, often pushing out more traditional and long-standing candidates.
• The conflict between the ruthless targetting strategy employed by Emanuel and the activist-based party development "50 State" strategy of Howard Dean. (See also)

You may need to register to see the article, but it was available without earlier.

More Junk Mail

Today I got some more junk mail, from the same source as last time. This time thanking me for something I haven't done.

Most odd.

The speed of environmental politics

On Friday I was at a conference for Lib Dem environment portfolioholders in London. A really good event with lots of interesting speakers, including Chris Huhne MP, our environment spokesperson. I came away with a long list of new ideas.

One of the highlights was the leader of Richmond upon Thames, Serge Lourie, who explained the thinking behind their proposals for variable residents parking charges based on the carbon emissions of the cars. He also described the crazy amount of media coverage they got over it.

One of the most striking things about the Richmond proposals was how quickly politicians from other parties rushed to support them, with endorsements from both David Cameron and David Milliband within hours. It wouldn't have been that long ago that they would have been jumping up and down to label such a proposal as another example of the "loony liberals". That they feel such a need to get behind the Richmond proposal, in a way that mirrors how they have also jumped quickly on the green tax bandwagon, is a good example of a key theme that came out of the conference.

Both Chris Huhne and Lord Redesdale made reference to how fast the political agenda on the environment is moving. No longer is climate change an "if" question, but has become a "when". Environmental issues are firmly in the mainstream, not on the fringe. Political parties are advocating policies they wouldn't have touched a couple of years ago, and some of them actually mean it!

At the heart of this is of course climate change and the recognition by those across the "mainstream" of british politics that if we don't get on with doing something about this then we (and I mean the human race "we") are FUBAR. So witness the hugely important launch of the Stern Report on the economics of climate change. With Gordon Brown going green we can be confident that Westminster and Whitehall have recognised that, as Huhne says, this is the "most important policy agenda for the next 20 years". Whether they have the ability to do something about it is another question, and I suppose that should be where we come in.

But I think there is something crucial we all should grasp. That is that on this issue the public are way ahead of the politicians. That Labour and the Tories are trying to signal how green they are is not a demonstration of leadership. It is a recognition that sufficient numbers of the public have shifted their perception about what matters within society and they feel that they need to do some bandwagon jumping to catch up.

I believe that the Liberal Democrats have shown a great deal of leadership on environmental issues. But we should not rest on our laurels. The speed at which environmental politics is developing could easily leave us behind, as easily as it could the other parties, if we are not prepared to be sharp, bold and flexible.

So, Richmond, respect!

"Live in Luton"

Last Wednesday, with my councillor hat on, I went to the launch of the "Live in Luton" CD. A diverse collection of music by local people from a Luton based arts project. I've listened to it a couple of times since then and have been impressed by the range of musical talent the town has to offer. Tracks range from classical to hard rock. My favourite track is the "contemporary folk" from Nemo.

The CD can be bought online from the Headstart Project website.

The Norway Debate

Following the debate on Iraq this week I noticed the prominence of a number of historical parallels, including Suez, and in particular the Norway Debate of 1940. This gave me an excuse to distract myself with a little research. The story of this crucial parliamentary debate, which Roy Jenkins (in his biography of Churchill) calls "the most dramatic and the most far-reaching in its consequences of any parliamentary debate of the twentieth century", has a number of lessons to teach us.

The debate, which formally was on an adjournment motion, was about the conduct of the disastrous Norwegian campaign. But it became a crucial debate on the conduct of the war generally and on the competence of the Chamberlain government. Much like the debate this week, which was supposed to be about an enquiry, but in reality was firstly about the need for a change in strategy in Iraq and secondly was about the style and nature of the Blair government.

What strikes me most in reading up about the Norway Debate is, at a time of war, just how robust it was and how supine in comparison the Commons is today. Can you imagine an equivalent sight in 2006 to that in 1940 of the Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, Member of Parliament for Portsmouth, dressed in full uniform and adorned with medals laying into the government’s conduct of the war.

Some things don’t change though. The government spokesman winding up the debate made calls for national unity, talked of the need not to be distracted, and how all energies should be concentrated on the task at hand. However, the language used was a little more elegant than the language used this week. No talk of “sending signals” in 1940. Not surprising really when that government spokesman was, ironically, Winston Churchill, the main beneficiary of the results of the Norway Debate.

Having got myself wound up listening to all the nonsense from the government about how outrageous it was for parliament to even dare consider having an enquiry into Iraq. I found it comforting to read the words from Lloyd George’s speech in that debate. This was the last significant speech that the Welshman made and it was one of his best. Not least because of the large amount of bile towards Chamberlain and others that lay beneath it.

One passage particularly struck me as relevant in today’s context. He said;

“Now, the situation is a grave one……and it would be a fatal error on our part not to acknowledge it. In such experience as I have had of war direction I have never tried to minimise the extent of a disaster. I try to get the facts, because unless you really face the facts you cannot overcome the difficulties and restore the position.....there is a grave case for pulling ourselves together. We cannot do that unless we tell the country the facts.”

We have a desperate need to face the facts about the true situation in Iraq. This government is not willing to do so neither, despite the debate this week, does Parliament seem capable of doing so. Simon Jenkins, who I increasingly rate as a columnist, neatly sums up my feelings of frustration about the inability of our politicians to get to grips with these issues.

One fact I found in my research was the last survivor of the 33 Tories who voted against Chamberlain was John Profumo, who died this year. A footnote in the Churchill biography tells the story of how after receiving a fierce dressing down from the whips (“you utterly contemptible little shit”) Profumo, a serving officer at the time returned to his unit worrying about what reaction he would get from this fellow officers. He of course found that they were completely unaware of what had taken place. A story like that illustrates just what a pile of crap Margaret Beckett’s argument that MPs should keep quite about Iraq in order to avoid upsetting the troops is.