So, Farewell Then Tom Harris

I'm depressed. I've just seen that my friend Tom Harris has decided to give up blogging. Lord knows I understand his reasons, but what does it say about the political blogosphere that it has forced someone like Tom to give up. He's a brilliant writer with a fantastic sense of humour who provides insights into politics that you just don't get elsewhere. I know he was hugely disappointed at not being appointed to Ed Miliband's front bench team - a completely baffling decision, in my opinion. Perhaps he has decided that it is indeed his blog which is holding him back. He may be right, but whatever the real reasons are for his decision to give up, let's just all thank him for the last two years of brilliant blogging. I hope one day he may return.

But he's just the latest in a long line of top class bloggers who have given up since the election. It does make me wonder if real change is afoot in the blogosphere. And one reason is that it is gradually becoming a nastier and nastier place. It's a place I am getting less and less pleasure inhabiting and I can quite see the day I may well follow Tom Harris onto the blogging scrapheap. No doubt my growing legion of enemies out there would cheer that to the rooftops. Which is the main reason I keep going. I don't intend to give them the satisfaction. Yet.

Tom Harris Wants Your Vote (If You're a Labour MP And Have a Brain)

Tom Harris is Labour's best blogger by a long chalk. He's said on his blog that is he succeeds in his bid to be elected to the Shadow Cabinet he'll have to give up blogging. This would be a terrible loss to political blogging, so I am almost tempted to ask Labour MPs not to vote for him on that basis alone.

But if I were a Labour MP serious about wanting to get back into power, I'd read the email he's just sent out to his colleagues and think to myself, "yup, here's a guy who gets it - he understands what's needed to get us back into government". I think this is the second email he has sent out to his fellow MPs and he's clearly serious about his campaign.

And yet is he likely to succeed? I have my doubts. There are too many of the old guard standing and now there is this ridiculous quota whereby 25% of the members have to be women. So instead of Tom Harris lining up in a shadow cabinet photo alongside Ed Miliband, you're more likely to see Geraldine Dreadful.

Tom Harris And His Authoritarian DNA

Tom Harris just doesn't get it. His latest post seeks to defend the practice of the state holding the DNA of innocent people.

LIKE Damian Green MP, I’m having my own battle over the DNA database.

Hundreds of thousands of people not charged or convicted of any crime have nevertheless had their DNA taken by the police and stored, despite a European court ruling that “innocent” people’s DNA shouldn’t be held.

So here’s my problem: how do I persuade the police to store my DNA? Why should I, an “innocent” person, be denied the right to have my fingerprint and other personal data included in the national database with everyone else’s, “innocent” and guilty alike?

I feel like my civil liberties are being compromised the longer this outrage continues.

Very droll, but I'll tell him why he should be concerned. Ronald Reagan (not for the first time) put it best when he said that the most dangerous words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I am here to help". We should always question any expansion of the power of the state. Just because the forces of government say something is necessary, we shouldn't do what Tom invariably does and say, OK, you've taken away another one of my hard won freedoms, would you like this one over here too?". We should fight for our privacy, protect our civil liberties and resist any attempt to store further information on unwanted and hugely expensive government databases.

One of the reasons I always wanted to go into politics was to try to protect people from big government. It looks like that fight is far from won. Labour used to revel in its reputation as the party of civil liberties. That reputation has been shot to bits. And Tom Harris delights in pulling the trigger.

Labour Must Not Punish the Rich

That's not me saying it. It's not a Tory MP saying it. It's a Labour MP. Tom Harris has a cracking POST discussing the proposal by the left to cap private wealth.

THERE’S a terrific scene in the TV adaptation of Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup in which the newly-elected left wing prime minister, Harry Perkins, is catching the train to London and is asked by a journalist: “Do you intend to abolish first class, Mr Perkins?” To which Perkins replies: “No, I intend to abolish second class. I think everybody’s first class, don’t you?”

And there we have it: a template for New Labour half a dozen years before Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party. New Labour’s appeal was based on an explicit acknowledgement that success, ambition and the pursuit of wealth are all Good Things. Suddenly the taxation of the wealthier was not an end in itself but simply a necessary evil. And it was okay to want a better job, a higher income, nicer holidays, a bigger house. Voting Labour became something you did for yourself as well as for the greater good.

That’s why we won.

Yesterday Compass launched a campaign for a High Pay Commission. Its inaugural statement reads:

The crisis we find ourselves in is one significantly caused by greed. The salaries of those at the top raced away while the median wage stagnated. Inequality grew, and an economic crisis ensued. The unjust rewards of a few hundred ‘masters of the universe’ exacerbated the risks we were all exposed to many times over. Banking and executive remuneration packages have reached excessive levels. We believe now is the time for government to take decisive action.

Fortunately, the chancellor has already dismissed the idea. But as dog whistle politics go, it’s pretty effective.

But perhaps the most damning part of the article is its conclusion...

Although we might feel better confiscating money from rich people, the actual effect on our economy would be negligible. And making yourself feel better is a very poor motivation for policy, whatever “the court of public opinion” might say on the matter.

And when any party starts producing policy “to secure the core vote”, it might as well write of the next election, go quietly into opposition right now and start thinking about the election after next.

Ouch.

God Doesn't Do Party Politics, But If He Did...

I don't do God. But even if I did, I would make sure I kept my religion out of my politics. The debate sparked off by Archbishop Cranmer in a post titled ONE REASON CHRISTIANS SHOULD VOTE CONSERVATIVE illustrates the dangers of mixing religion and politics - particularly party politics. Labour MP Tom Harris has now weighed in with a powerful piece asserting that God doesn't belong to one political party - which is, of course, true. Cranmer's thesis is that if Christians want to restrict abortions, then the Conservative Party is the only party to vote for. Tom argues that this is akin to bringing American style abortion politics to this country.

Tory-voting Christians all too often try to make this specious argument, that a single party (theirs, of course) most accurately represents “Christian values”. Labour-voting Christians, in my experience, tend not to, or at least, they do it less often. Perhaps that’s because they look across at the American political system and are repulsed by the stranglehold that the Christian Right have over Republican policy and don’t want to see the same thing happen here.

This is the only part of his article I must take issue with. I've certainly come across Labour supporters who are religious who cannot fathom how a God fearing Christian could ever vote Conservative. And secondly, I know of no mainstream Conservative who would ever want the so-called Christian Right to have a stranglehold over the Conservative Party.

Although I am not religious I share many Christian values (at least, I hope I do), and so does the Conservative Party. So indeed do other political parties. There are plenty of Labour MPs, and a few LibDems who would share Cranmer's concern about abortion law reform. But these are matters of conscience - not matters of party politics. And long may they remain so. To that extent I am with Tom Harris on this, rather than His Grace.

God doesn't do party politics*, but if he did, I suspect that he would have voted for all three political parties over the last 100 years.

* Yes, I can see the deep irony of an Agnostic writing about God as if he exists...

Every Prime Minister Needs a Tom Harris

Tom Harris has written today about how he finds it rather incomprehensible that people like me still hold a candle for Margaret Thatcher. In 20 years time no doubt someone will say the same thing about him and Tony Blair. But there was one sentence in his post which sticks out like a sore thumb.

The only reason the Conservatives won in 1992 was that they had had the very good sense to ditch a terminally unpopular leader who had lost her political instinct.

Hmmm. Do you think that was a Chipmunkesque 'Youtube if you want to' moment? Surely he couldn't be hinting that the only chance Labour has of winning the next election is to have the "very good sense to ditch a terminally unpopular leader who had lost his political instinct"? No, of couse not. How silly of me...

His commenters seem to think so though...

The Making of Tom Harris

There's a long profile of and interview with Tom Harris in the Sunday Times. He expands on his views on the family. A fascinating read. He clearly believes his views have finished him in the Labour Party. If that is true, what an indictment of our politics. But I suspect that he is wrong and that it will be the making of him and propel him into the front line of politics ... when Labour is in opposition.

Things You Never Thought a Labour MP Would Say: No 94

Wow. Tom Harris has certainly put himself in danger today with THIS post headlined THE RETURN OF MORALITY. I say 'put himself in danger' because I wouldn't want to be him when he next encounters Harriet Harman in a dark alley. Here's an extract...

I can no longer pretend that the army of teenage mothers living off the state is anything other than a national catastrophe.

A previous commenter on this site got it spot on: many (though not all) teenage girls do not become pregnant accidentally because of ignorance, because of a lack of understanding of how their bodies work. They become pregnant because they have absolutely no ambition for themselves. They have been indoctrinated with the lie that they’ll never amount to anything, and have fulfilled that prophesy by making no effort to achieve any qualification. Very often they live with parents (or a parent) who have no jobs themselves, who are setting the example of benefit dependency for all their offspring.

Such young women see parenthood as one way of achieving a level of independence and self-worth. And they’re right, because that’s more or less what they get: a flat and therefore some privacy, an income for the first time in their lives. And in fact, many of them make a decent job of parenthood despite the awful circumstances. But even they are nevertheless rearing the next generation in an environment where the main adult isn’t working, but claiming...

Teenage girls shouldn’t be having underage sex. Why? Because it’s wrong.

Teenage girls shouldn’t choose to have babies as an alternative to getting an education and a career. Why? Because it’s wrong.

Parents shouldn’t teach their children that a lifetime on benefits is attractive or even acceptable. Why? Because it’s wrong.

Being accused of agreeing with the Daily Mail’s agenda is not the worst thing my critics can say about me. Being accused of accepting the current appalling state of affairs, of pretending that the concepts of right and wrong are meaningless - that is far worse than being accused of pandering to the right.

And, of course, it is a complete load of bollocks to suggest that the ordinary working class people of Glasgow South and in hundreds of other constituencies throughout the country don’t agree with me. The most vociferous critics of the dependancy culture and of deliberate worklessness have always been those who live in the same communities, those who resent paying their taxes to help other people waste their lives.

Don’t interpret this as any kind of “back to basics” crusade; I’m not remotely interested in what adults do in the privacy of their own homes, and I’m not sounding the rallying cry for Christian or religious morality. But when the actions of others has such a debilitating effect on the rest of society, it’s time to stop being polite. It’s time to stop worrying about how people’s feelings might be hurt if we question the choices they’ve made.

Because very often, those choices are wrong. And it’s about time we said so.

Well, hear hear. Of course, this is something many on the right have been saying for some time (IDS, Nadine etc), but the liberal media treats them as being slightly deranged for holding such views. If Tom Harris can provoke a real debate in the Labour movement and get people to wake up about what's right and wrong, then that can only be a good thing.

Out of Touch, Soon Out of Office

Tom Harris, the Carlsberg of Labour bloggers, has responded to my post last night about the letter in Der Spiegel. He reckons I am talking a load of nonsense. Well, he is not particularly original in thinking that, but I do think he strectches his case a little when he says this...

The regular accusation that we are living in what is close to, or is in reality, a “police state” is not only ridiculous - it’s offensive to the millions of people across the world who do live in such states and who regard the UK, rightly, as a beacon of freedom and democracy. So there.

I didn't actually mention the words "Police State" but if the cap fits. He then responds to something I said in the comments on his post about the proliferation of CCTV cameras by saying...

But can you explain to me exactly why or how our civil liberties are even remotely infringed by our being “the most watched society in the world”?

You know, if a Labour Minister like Tom asks that question, suddenly you realise just how out of touch this government has become. And he's one of the more sensible ones!

Why Gordon Should Listen to Tom

That's Harris, not Watson. He's the only one who seems to 'get it'.

...Instead of asking “What should we offer the people in our bid for a fourth term?”, let’s instead ask: “If we were in opposition right now, and the country were facing exactly the same challenges as it is now, and we were determined to form the next, new, government, what would be in our manifesto?”

What new policies and projects would an experienced Labour opposition in 2010 propose to the electorate in order to woo it, and would they be measurably more radical than what an incumbent government would offer?

If so, then we need to adopt a new mindset. And do it quickly.

Tom Harris is clearly an under-used resource. That's why he has such a good blog.

Tom McHarris: I'm Lovin' Him

Tom Harris and I are in danger of becoming a mutual admiration society. For those who don't know him, he is a Labour MP and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport - and a bloody good blogger. In fact, I would say he has become my number one must read Labour blogger of choice. He has a slight devil may care attitude, which has in the past got him into a tad of trouble. Today he is at it again with a post titled IN PRAISE OF McDONALD'S. I admire his bravery. It's already brought out the veggie/animal rights brigade. I'm a Burger King man myself...