BREXIT CONSIDERED by Vernon Bogdanor

ON June 23, 2016, British voters decided by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union.  Since then, British politics has been convulsed by the referendum’s repercussions. Some Remainers do not accept the finality of the vote.  The margin, they argue, was too narrow to provide a mandate for fundamental change, while some of the arguments that persuaded voters to support Leave were mendacious.  The hope that Britain could, in the words of then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, have its cake and eat it has proved misplaced.

The hope that Britain could, in the words of then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, have its cake and eat it has proved misplaced.

If, to alter the metaphor, one leaves a tennis club because one does not wish to pay the subscription and does not like the rules, one will not be able to continue to use the tennis courts on the same basis as the members. Therefore, some Remainers conclude, there should be a second referendum, to discover whether the British people still wish to leave the European Union.

The European issue is difficult for Parliament to resolve for two reasons. The first is that May’s government holds only a minority of seats—317 out of the 650—in the House of Commons, meaning it must rely for its narrow majority on the 10 members of parliament from the vehemently pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland. But, perhaps even more important, both the Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party are internally divided between Remainers and Brexiteers. That division reflects a geographical and cultural division in the country.

The large cities, together with Scotland and Northern Ireland, welcome globalization and are relaxed about the EU’s principle of freedom of movement. They voted to remain. But smaller towns and older manufacturing areas, in which many feel left behind, are hostile to globalization and freedom of movement, which, they argue, have kept wages down and put undue pressure on public services. These areas supported the Leave campaign.

Parliament has enacted that Britain will leave the EU on March 29. After long and tortuous negotiations, Prime Minister Theresa May in November 2018 secured a deal with the EU. That deal comprises a legally binding withdrawal agreement providing for a transition period until December 2020, during which Britain will remain bound by EU rules while negotiating the final relationship. The pattern of that relationship is outlined in a nonbinding political declaration that hints at an outcome in which Britain could negotiate independent trade agreements, while also providing it with some degree of frictionless trade with the EU.

May’s cabinet, despite internal tensions between Remainers and Brexiteers, accepted the deal. But the Tories’ DUP allies were fiercely opposed to it, as they claimed that it might separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom by preventing a hard border with the Irish Republic and potentially creating a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The deal was also opposed both by Brexiteers in the Conservative Party, who claimed that it tied Britain too closely to the EU, and by Remainers—primarily Labour, but also Liberal Democrats and Scottish Nationalists—who argued that it allowed for too many barriers to the export of goods and services to the EU. This coalition of incompatibles imposed a crushing defeat on the government motion to accept the deal on Jan. 15. Just 202 MPs supported it, while 432 rejected it.

A defeat of this magnitude is unparalleled in Britain’s parliamentary history. No fewer than 118 Conservatives, mostly hard Brexiteers, voted against the deal, with just 196 Conservatives supporting it. And many of those who voted for it had no choice.  (Because approximately 100 Conservative MPs are ministers or on the government payroll, they were duty-bound to support May or resign.  This means that a majority of Conservative backbenchers were opposed to the deal.) May’s defeat, in what was arguably the most important parliamentary vote in Britain since World War II, creates a moment of acute danger for the prime minister, the government, the Conservative Party, and the country.

A harder Brexit to placate Conservative rebels would alienate Conservative Remainers. Conversely, a softer Brexit to win support from the opposition parties would increase the number of Conservative rebels.

The hope was that the deal could unite Brexiteers and Remainers. Instead it has driven them further apart. A harder Brexit to placate Conservative rebels would alienate Conservative Remainers. Conversely, a softer Brexit to win support from the opposition parties would increase the number of Conservative rebels. Indeed, there may be no deal that could hold the Conservative Party together; an alternative could end the cabinet truce and possibly lead to the disintegration of the minority government, with a general election to follow.

It has happened before. In 1979, the Labour minority government led by James Callaghan disintegrated in this way, in part because Labour was internally divided on the issue of devolving power to Scotland. Then, in 1951, Clement Attlee’s Labour government, which enjoyed a majority of only five, disintegrated because the party was internally divided between left and right. In both cases, long periods in the opposition followed.

The vote also creates a moment of danger for the country. Since Parliament has already approved a bill stating Brexit will occur on March 29, that is the default position. The exit date can, admittedly, be extended with the agreement of the other 27 members of the European Union. But those countries may be unwilling to agree if the only reason for extension is that MPs, 30 months after the referendum, still cannot make up their minds. In any case, an extension would only postpone the dilemma. It would not resolve it.

Unless Parliament passes new legislation—and there are now fewer than 40 sitting days before March 29—Britain will leave the EU without a deal.  That is regarded by most commentators as disastrous, since it would mean that EU customs duties and, even more disadvantageously, an intimidating host of EU regulations would be imposed on British exports.  It would no longer be as easy to send goods from London to Paris or Frankfurt as it is to send goods from London to Edinburgh.

The Jan. 15 vote showed what MPs are against. But there seems to be little agreement on what they are for. Theresa May is now seeking consensus through all-party talks, although she has not yet budged on her so-called red lines, namely that Britain should leave both the European customs union (in order to pursue an independent trade policy) and the single market (to avoid allowing free movement of people and the jurisdiction of EU courts).   And the opposition parties see no reason to help her. Labour is unwilling to allow its deep internal divisions to be publicly exposed by articulating a clear alternative policy. It seeks not consensus but a general election to remove the Conservatives from power.   The Liberal Democrats seek a second referendum, while the Scottish nationalists seek to exploit the government’s difficulties to further the case for independence.
There is no obvious resolution of the problem that could secure majority support.

There is no obvious resolution of the problem that could secure majority support.  Were Britain to remain in the EU’s customs union, it would be unable to sign independent trade agreements.  Were it to remain in the EU’s internal market, it would have to accept freedom of movement.  Yet control of immigration from the European Union was one of the main motivations behind the Brexit vote.
At this point, there seem to be just three alternatives. The first is May’s deal, perhaps in a slightly modified form.  The second is for Britain to leave the EU without a deal; even though most MPs are against a no-deal Brexit, they find themselves unable to agree on an alternative.  The third is for Parliament throw the issue back to the people in a second referendum, even though the prime minister has so far opposed such a move, and its advocates cannot agree on the question to be asked.  Finally, given that the country remains almost evenly divided, a second referendum would not necessarily resolve the conflict.

The issue of Britain’s place in (or out of) Europe has arguably destroyed five of the last six Conservative prime ministers—Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and David Cameron.  It may be about to bring down another.

Vernon Bogdanor is a professor of government at King’s College, London. His book Brexit and the Constitution will be published next year. In 2019, he will be giving the Stimson lecture at Yale University on the consequences of Brexit for Britain and the European Union.

************

Corbyn and a Pyrrhic Victory

by Les May

IT's déjà vu all over again.   No sooner has Theresa May reached for the phone book and started to look up the number of the nearest removal company, than the media pundits are telling us just why last Thursday upset all their previous predictions.  Apparently it was the ‘youth vote’ which overturned the apple cart even though they had been telling us for two weeks previously that it was we oldies who were becoming disenchanted with the Tory manifesto’s plans for social care.  Or perhaps it was we oldies after all and whoever coined the term ‘dementia tax’ deserves a medal.

They are making the same mistake that they made after last year’s Referendum: constructing a narrative which suits their prejudices. Having first constructed that narrative they then came to believe it themselves and it would seem, convinced Theresa May to believe it was true.

After the Referendum it suited the media pundits to construct a narrative that it was all Corbyn’s fault that the Remain campaign had lost.  The story was that Corbyn had campaigned half-heartedly and that Labour voters had turned their back on the party and voted in their droves for Brexit.

This suited both the pro-Brexit, anti-Labour Tory press and the plotters within the Labour party who used it as an excuse for getting rid of Corbyn.

But as I pointed out on the Northern Voices blog in July last year this narrative did have the slight disadvantage that it wasn’t actually true. This is what I wrote with reference to Angela Eagle’s leadership bid:

‘According to an analysis of media coverage by Loughborough University for the period 6 May to 22 June, Corbyn scored 123 media appearances.   Eagle scored 15, one less than Angela Merkel who is Chancellor of Germany!  Alan Johnson who was supposed to be running the Labour party's Referendum campaign scored slightly better with 19.’

‘… 60% of Labour voters supported 'Remain' and 60% of Conservative voters supported 'Leave.  Dumping the blame for Brexit on a few northern towns where Labour had performed well in past elections and ignoring the vast swathes of the country which were solidly Conservative in the election and solidly for 'Leave' in the referendum, won't wash. Check it out on the appropriate maps if you doubt it.’

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/

Political journalists who promoted this narrative live in a different world to the rest of us. Like media pundits and political nerds, they read the party manifestos, we don’t. So they ‘simplify’ things for us by producing catchy phrases:  ‘Comrade Corbyn’, ‘Dementia Tax’ and ‘Millionaire Pensioners’ are just three.  Even the elusive floating voters, vote on impressions. Means testing my winter fuel allowance and my bus pass are what I expect Tories to do. I didn’t read either manifesto.  I vote Labour because I know that in general it will favour the less well off and I know the Tories will favour the wealthy.  And increasingly the very wealthy. Or at least that’s the impression they give.

If as I suggest people do vote on impressions rather than a deep knowledge of policies, Labour would do well not to feel too self congratulatory. Yes, Labour has shown that putting ‘clear blue water’ between it and the Tories is not a recipe for electoral disaster.

But it is equally true that the Tories did what I suggested could happen in my August 2015 NV article ‘Why Burnham, Cooper and Kendall Deserve to Lose’. They ‘fell over their own feet’. I had seen this happen on two previous occasions; in 1964 when Harold Wilson was the beneficiary and in 1997 when Tony Blair was the beneficiary. Macmillan, Major and now May looked shambolic and generated the wrong sort of headlines for just long enough for it to sink into people’s consciousness.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/why-burnham-cooper-and-kendall-deserve.html

That Blair’s 1997 and later victories were not entirely due to him having ‘made the Labour party electable’ as he and his acolytes would like us to believe was noted in 2015 by Kenan Malik a contributing editor of the New York Times who wrote ‘His election victories were as much the product of the exhaustion of the Conservative Party after 18 years in power as they were of his political acumen’. Essentially his diagnosis was that Labour's 1997 victory was as much to do with the internal squabbles of the Tories as with Blair making the party 'electable'. His critique was that the Blair years failed to provide a long term solution to Labour's need 'to find a new constituency and a new role'.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/opinion/kenan-malik-jeremy-corbyn-britain-labour-party.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FMalik%2C%20Kenan&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection&_r=0

In response to Malik’s article in I wrote in September 2015:

Although Malik attributes Blair's strategy of 'triangulation', or stealing policies from one's opponents, as being borrowed from Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign it has a much longer and more informative history. The 'post war' consensus which he identifies with Keynesian policies and the use of the state as a lever for social change was based upon 'triangulation' between a 'One Nation' Tory party and Labour. In fact the consensus was also built around a mixed economy, full employment, strong but not overweening trades unions, the welfare state, decolonisation and the Atlantic alliance. Speaking recently on the Parliament Channel Kenneth Clark described the final two years of the Heath government of the early 1970s as 'like a poor man's social democracy'.

So strongly was this the case that The Economist invented a fictitious figure 'Mr Butskell' when a moderate Tory, R. A. Butler (Rab), succeeded Labour's Hugh Gaitskell as chancellor in 1951. Today the equivalent figure would be 'Mr Camonblair', who may well turn out to be a hermaphrodite.

Butskell and Camonblair are where the two main parties have reached a kind of equilibrium. But those equilibria are poles apart and whether Mr Butskell and Mr Camonblair would be on speaking terms I rather doubt, with Butskell far to the left in present day terms and Camonblair far to the right from a post war perspective. The emergence of Mr Camonblair may be what Malik means when he argues that the division between social democracy and conservatism has gone. If indeed this were the case then the Labour party has indeed outlived its usefulness.

An alternative view is that these two fictitious figures simply illustrate the futility of arguing about where the centre ground in politics lies. The effect of the Thatcher years was to shift 'the centre' far to the right around a new equilibrium. But it was the unravelling of the post war consensus which allowed Thatcherism to emerge. If, as argued earlier, part of that consensus was 'strong but not overweening trades unions', then union militancy in the late 1970s was as much a factor as changes within the Tory party.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/labour-party-whats-it-for.html

Before Blair came to power in 1997 Labour still called itself a ‘left of centre party’. By 2015 his comment on Ed Milliband’s failure to win the election is that his policies were ‘too left wing’.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/re-writing-clause-4-for-labour-party.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/explanations-for-labour-party-defeat.html

It is only from a perspective in which the ‘centre ground of politics’ has been shifted grotesquely to the right during the Blair years that Corbyn’s policies are judged as ‘extreme’ by political journalists, media pundits and the ‘Bitterite’ (John Prescott’s delightful term) faction of the Labour party.

Just as the Labour MPs like Roy Hattersley who entered Parliament in the 1960s and John Prescott in 1970, absorbed the milieu of the ‘post war consensus’ and now look like ‘Old Labour’, the Labour MPs who entered Parliament in the Blair years came to believe that his ‘third way’ was the only way to win over the electorate. In spite of the evidence no doubt some still do.

What Corbyn has done in the past few weeks is to show that the division between social democracy and conservatism isn’t yet dead. It appears that a significant fraction of the electorate is willing to vote for a party which promises to implement the sort of policies which the actor Roger Allam described as ‘our brief social democratic blip’. Perhaps Labour has found that ‘new constituency and new role' that Malik thought it did not have.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/roger-allam-living-in-london.html

But let’s not fall into the trap of inventing our own narrative. Corbyn did wondrously well and has shown his policies can win votes, but a Labour led government means doing even better next time. And that may not be too far off.

Ricky Tomlinson outs Richard Whiteley as MI5 Spy

RICKY Tomlinson, the actor star of The Royle Family reckons Richard Whiteley, the late TV Countdown presenter was working for the security services. 
Ricky made the claim about Whiteley during an interview marking the opening of a Wetherspoons pub in Chester.
Mr. Tomlinson, was a plasterer before taking up a career in comedy, and he helped to organise the controversial national building workers’ strike in during the 70’s at the same pub.
In 1973, he was sentenced to two years in prison after having been found guilty of 'conspiracy to intimidate' as one of the so-called Shrewsbury Two with Des Warren
The actor and other campaigners have long believed that he was the victim of an establishment set-up.
The Labour MP and a former Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle is now calling on the Government to own up over the affair, which has remained shrouded in secrecy for 35 years.
Mr Kilfoyle spoke out after the Cabinet Office refused to release its secret files on the case, which include a report to the then Prime Minister Edward Heath, because of the need to 'protect the security services'.
Today the Daily Express reports:  'Files released earlier this year show the then head of MI5, Sir Michael Hanley, intervened personally to block Ricky’s release, claiming that he was involved in a communist plot to destabilise Britain.'
Ricky and his friend Dezzie Warren were dubbed the 'Shrewsbury Two' after being jailed for organising a picket in the town in 1972. The pair, who both spent much of their sentences in solitary confinement, staged a 22-day hunger strike in a bid to be declared political prisoners. Mr Kilfoyle said he would now launch an appeal to get the information released.

The Overactive Imagination of Simon Danczuk

by Les May

IF you want to know what 'The Establishment' really is and how it works, look no further than what has happened since allegations of sexual abuse of a twelve year old boy were made against the late Sir Edward Heath at the beginning of August.

On 3 August the Daily Mirror was running the story with the headline 'Sir Edward Heath child abuse claims: Alleged victim was raped by ex PM when he was just 12', complete with the obligatory photographs of Heath with Cyril Smith and Heath with Jimmy Savile.
Simon Danczuk was quoted as saying:
'These are very serious allegations and they need to be investigated as a matter of urgency.'

In another Mirror article, he is quoted as saying:
'There have been rumours and allegations out there for some time, and I don’t say that lightly.'
Now this is a bit of a porky because in his book he is happy to make statements about child abuse by Cyril Smith being part of a paedophile ring in the absence of evidence of any kind.  Two days after the book was published in April 2014, he told the Today program:
'Had he been prosecuted, then the house of cards would have fallen, in terms of that paedophile network, and it could have brought the government down.'
Again no evidence is produced.

In July of last year, he said with reference to Geoffrey Dickens:
'I have no doubt whatsoever that Dickens was on the right trail and he caused a lot of problems for the establishment. In the early 1980s he famously gave a dossier to the then Conservative Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, giving names of paedophiles operating at the top of the British establishment. Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith were said to be named in the 40-page dossier.'
As Danczuk never saw the so called 'dossier' he cannot know what it contained or how many pages it had, and all this is just another figment of his over active imagination, with a bit of hearsay thrown in. (Incidentally on 5 July 2014 the Mirror said it was 50 pages!)

By 5th, August, The Telegraph was running a story which cast doubt on some aspects of the story and The Guardian's Simon Jenkins was writing:
'The case against Edward Heath looks flimsy, but already the gutter is being dredged for lurid, unsubstantiated claims'.  He also wrote that the past weeks assault on Heath's reputation 'has been driven by political antipathy to Heath, by latent homophobia and by a general suspicion of people who seem to lead abnormal lives.'

In late August, Harvey Proctor 'outed' himself as a suspect and made a detailed statement about the nature of the accusations which had been made against him. This may have had some influence in shifting perceptions as what had seemed 'lurid' allegations began to look like 'ludicrous' allegations.

Five weeks after the initial claims about Heath the Daily Mail, which had been eager to serialise Danczuk's book about Cyril Smith, was writing; 'Nick: Victim or fantasist?  Rape.  Torture.  Murders'.  These were the extraordinary claims made by one man against leading Establishment figures.  Police called his story 'credible and true' but there's not a shred of evidence to back his allegations'

Then last Tuesday, a BBC Panorama programme cast serious doubt on the claims of a paedophile ring using the facilities of the Elm Street guest house, which seems to have been operated as a homosexual brothel, and on the accusations against the late Sir Leon Brittan and others.

In recent days we have had demands for an apology from Tom Watson with regard to statements he made about Brittan.  As these demands have been prominently reported in the Daily Mail there is no doubt a bit of added spice in being able to attack the Deputy Leader of the Labour party.

So in just nine weeks our print and broadcast media have at last woken up to the fact that it might be a good idea to adopt a slightly more sceptical approach to reporting allegations of child abuse.  Or
at least they have when the accusations are levelled at Establishment figures.

When Danczuk was interviewed by LBC on 10 October the accusations against Establishment figures were described as 'ludicrous', but the claims in his book about Smith being a paedophile were taken for granted as being true by the interviewers, though I doubt that either of them have actually gone to the trouble of reading it. Remember also that on 3rd, August Danczuk was quoted as saying:
'These are very serious allegations and they need to be investigated as a matter of urgency'.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist so I don't think this reflects an attempt at an Establishment 'cover up' to protect people in high places because I too think they are 'ludicrous'.  But if we are going to be asked to re-evaluate the allegations against Heath, Brittan and sundry others of the 'great and the good', should we not also re-evaluate the allegations of paedophilia against Cyril Smith and especially the claims in the Danczuk book?

Whilst no one can possibly defend what Tom Watson repeated about Leon Brittan after his death nor his attempt to pressure the Director of Public Prosecution, at least he has had the good grace to apologise for what he did say and to make an effort to explain some of his actions saying, 'I had been told of multiple allegations about Leon Brittan and I had met some of the people making those allegations at their request. I did not and could not know if they were true but I did believe their claims should be fully investigated'.

In contrast to Danczuk, Watson recognises in that last sentence that just because he was told something, he should not just assume it was true. Yet Watson is being vilified by Richard Littlejohn who calls him the 'Nonce Finder General' in the Daily Mail, whilst Danczuk, who never misses the opportunity to repeat his claims about Cyril Smith as if they had been proven to be true, seems to be immune from criticism. Perhaps the reason is that the Daily Mail paid him to serialise the book. Or is it that they consider him their 'tame' Labour MP always ready to criticise his party?

As a BBC report from November 2012 makes clear Danczuk's original intervention was with regard to 'indecent assault' by Smith who had carried out fake medical examinations and spankings of young men (not 'young boys' as Danczuk claimed) at Cambridge House hostel in the 1960s.

Although Danczuk has been happy to be seen as the person who unearthed this sordid story, in fact it was revealed in the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) in May 1979 by the co-editors David Bartlett and John Walker.  Whilst these two could support their story with affidavits from six of the men indecently assaulted by Smith, Danczuk can offer nothing but assertions, and second and third hand gossip about Smith's activities after the closure of Cambridge House in the 1960s.  At least one of his claims involving a car boot load of child pornography, and Northamptonshire police looking the other way has been shown to be without foundation.

Is it not strange that the BBC can so quickly research and produce a Panorama programme casting doubt on the truth of some of the claims made against some very prominent figures, yet the organisation has been happy to offer Danczuk an option on his book about Cyril Smith being turned into a television programme?

Is it not doubly strange that even though we now know that Danczuk's former aide Matthew Baker has been accused of attempting to smear a former Labour Leader of Rochdale council with having knowledge in the 1990s of abuse in a Rochdale School, no-one has thought to question the veracity of some of the claims about abuse by Cyril Smith made in the book he co-authored with Danczuk?

What Simon Jenkins had to say about Heath can equally well be applied to Smith. Danczuk has repeatedly used Smith's actions at Cambridge House and his claims based on gossip and hearsay
against Rochdale LibDems and Nick Clegg, Smith was a homosexual, and his size and devotion to his mother no doubt made his life seem 'abnormal' to some people.


http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/88102/letter-from-parliament-simon-danczuk-mp
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sir-edward-heath-child-abuse-6188388
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sir-edward-heath-child-abuse-6188663

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11786520/Sir-Edward-Heath-Sex-trial-was-not-dropped-to-cover-up-ex-PM-allegations-says-lawyer.html
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/05/convict-dead-defenceless-case-edward-heath
https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/full-statement-of-harvey-proctor/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240661/Nick-Victim-fantasist-Rape-Torture-Murders-extraordinary-claims-one-man-against-leading-Establishment-figures-Police-called-story-credible-true-s-not-shred-evidence-allegations.html
http://www.lbc.co.uk/danczuk-we-ruled-out-action-on-abuse-allegations--117706
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34484611
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/09/i-had-a-duty-to-pass-leon-brittain-allegations-to-authorities-says-tom-watson_n_8268722.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3265531/Lord-Brittan-treated-outrageously-police-gossiped-journalists-unfounded-rape-claims-against-brother-says.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3265772/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-not-say-sorry-Mr-Watson.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3265730/Why-Nonce-Finder-General-Tom-Watson-won-t-say-sorry-unfit-high-political-office-bearded-Trot-Corbyn-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-20303606
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-33716982
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-34400387
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27047442

Harvey Proctor & Extra Judicial Tactics

NORTHERN Voices, ever since 2012, has been in the forefront of exposing issues surrounding Cyril Smith and child sex exploitation.  However, we are concerned about the recent practices of some politicians and certain media outlets with regard to their use of parliamentary privilege and the use of trial by media to potentially influence the process and administration of justice.

 

On Wednesday in the Daily Telegraph, Mathew Scott wrote:

'In a year's time Harvey Proctor's news conference will be seen either as a chilling display of hypocrisy or as the moment a brave man finally took on the combined might of a misguided Metropolitan Police and a small, nasty and highly influential section of the press and internet.'

Harvey Procter, is a former Conservative MP who was very publicly implicated in 1987, in what was then regarded as a 'gay sex' scandal, when he stood down from his parliamentary seat.   He left the House of Commons – after pleading guilty and being fined for gross indecency charges.  At present the campaign against certain so-called 'VIP paedophiles' , including Sir Edward Heath, Leon Brittain, and others, has been promoted by the online news organisation Exaro News.  Exaro's editor in chief is Mark Watts, a highly experienced journalist who, before setting up Exaro, had contributed stories to the Daily Telegraph.

Mathew Scott writes:
'In an internet trial there are no rules of evidence, no right to insist on answers to questions or even to know the identity of the accuser.  “Nick” is anonymous and as a result almost beyond criticism.  Why did he contact Exaro in the first place?  Did he seek them out, or did they go out and find him?  If the latter, why and how? Has he been paid for his story?  Exaro has not revealed.  Why did he wait until 2014 before contacting the police?  Why, for example, did he not do so in 1987 when Mr Proctor was very publicly implicated in what was then regarded as a “gay sex” scandal?  Why, as Mr Proctor asked, was a representative from Exaro permitted to be present when he was interviewed by the police?   Exaro, again, has not revealed.'

 
This short-circuiting of the legal process seems to be becoming all too common, in a letter in tomorrow's Rochdale Observer, a critic of the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, Les May questions the politician's involvement with officers from the Leicester Police force who Mr. Danczuk in a speech to the House of Commons reported to be 'furious' at a decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) not to prosecute Lord Janner.  Mr. May who resides in the Rochdale area writes:
'On July 25, 2015, Mr Danczuk received a payment of £10,000 from the owners of The Sun for an article he had contributed to... [and] he declined to say which article the cash related to.'


Les May further points out that 'Mr Danczuk is MP for Rochdale, not a constituency that is within the Leicester Police area.' 
And he asks:
'Was the intention to use an extra judicial method of bring pressure on the DPP ...?'


In the case of Harvey Proctor last December the police officer leading the investigation, detective superintendent Kenny McDonald even announced on the BBC that he believed that the victim 'Nicks' allegations to be 'credible and true'. 


The journalist, Mathew Scott in the Telegraph, rightly questions this statement from a police officer:
'It was a disgraceful statement. McDonald's job is to investigate, not to judge and most certainly not to broadcast his opinion.  Expressing any opinion about the truthfulness of a witness would – as he knows perfectly well – be inadmissible and improper even in the controlled environment of a trial.  To announce on national television that you believe a suspect is guilty of multiple rape and murder, before a single body has been found, and months before speaking to Mr Proctor, suggests a mind-boggling level of prejudice and foolishness.'


While no laws may have been broken in either of these cases, and in the case of Mr Proctor there has been no technical breach because he has not been charged, but the spirit of fairness and justice is being damaged.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11823190/Harvey-Proctor-accuses-police-of-homosexual-witch-hunt-over-paedophile-ring-murder-claims.html  

The Price of Milk & a Free Market

by Les May

I seem to have heard quite a lot in recent weeks from 'Tory Lite' Labour leadership contender Liz Kendal and her 'Crypto Con' cheerleader Simon Danczuk, about the need for Labour to take a business friendly attitude.

 

So why then have they remained silent about the spat between the farmers and the supermarkets about the price of milk?  Surely they've heard of it, or were those pictures of cows in supermarkets a tribute to the Photoshoppers artifice?

 

You don't need a degree in economics to understand what is going on.  There is a glut of milk at the moment allowing the supermarkets to buy it cheaply.  So cheaply in fact that the price being paid to UK farmers is below the cost of production.  That means only one thing; some farmers will go out of business.

 

So what; they should be 'more efficient'; more responsive to 'market forces'.  But is it really so simple as that?

 

We already import about one third of all the food we eat.  Driving farmers out of business will exacerbate that.  But the 'efficient' (or lucky) farmers will survive, fewer farmers means less milk will be produced, so the price of milk will rise again.  That's free market economics and you can't buck the market!

 

That's not how the farmers see it.  Farming and supermarkets are both businesses.  They just happen to be motivated by very different self interests.  So what is a 'business friendly' approach in this case?

 

One of the first responsibilities of any government is to ensure the security of the nation's food supply.  The national interest ought to override the self interest of particular group.  Just as Jim Callaghan found he could not rely on the Trades Unions to act in the national interest in the late 1970s, we cannot rely on businesses to act in the national interest in 2015.

 

In 1971, the Tory government of Ted Heath nationalised Rolls-Royce after it ran into difficulties over the development of the RB211 engine.  Thankfully Heath realised that the national interest had to take precedence over dogma and Rolls-Royce survived to become the very successful company it is today.

 

Ironic isn't it that Kendal and Danczuk are more in thrall to free market economics than a former Tory prime minister?