John Hemming's Web Log

Those who have followed the changes internal to parliament will have noticed the creation of the Back Bench Business Committee. I am pleased to have been elected to this committee and hope that we will be able to use the committee to strengthen parliament and strengthen the ability of back benchers to fight for their constituents in various ways.

The public finances will be a challenge over the next 5 years. Apart from the tax and benefit changes in the budget yesterday there are also the cuts in public spending. All of these arise from the mismanagement of the economy by the previous government. We should have been in the situation of Germany (who went into the recession in surplus) rather than Greece. The situation is straightforward. It compares to a household that has fallen on hard times and needs to bring its income and expenditure into line. You can do this without external intervention. You can do this when you get the court orders and end up paying court fees. Alternatively you can wait until you go bankrupt and the bailiffs are at the door. The bailiff bankruptcy option is like Greece. The court orders and court fees option is like Spain. The DIY approach is what we are doing. The key to all of this is that by controlling public finances in a proper manner there will be less cuts than was otherwise necessary. I...

The link is to a judgment from HHJ Bellamy which in my view starts to look properly at one of the ludicrous cases that many local authorities have rubber stamped by other judges. He recognises in this that the intervention of the local authority has been harmful to the family. This is also another case where older children who are now adult were adopted and have reinstated the relationship with their mother. I wonder if the local authority's motivation in going after the younger children was driven by a need to justify their earlier intervention. It is worth reading through the judgment to see what rubbish Local Authorities come up with at times.

There is a discussion going on about whether or not the limit for blood alcohol should be reduced from 80mg/dl to 50mg/dl. It is argued by some that this would reduce substantially the number of people who die in road accidents. The problem is, however, that this is not generally accepted to be true. There are two aspects to such a change. The first is whether there is a problem with people whose blood alcohol is between 50mg and 80mg causing large numbers of fatalities. The second aspect is whether making such a change would have the effect of reducing drink driving overall - a laudable objective. The other question is whether it is worth introducing a particularly low limit for novice drivers of say 20mg/dl which says basically don't drink at all if you are not an experienced driver. I think there is a good argument for this as it would get new drivers into the habit of not drinking and driving. To me, therefore, the key question for the 50mg/dl change is whether that would sa...

The link is to an Irish article refering to what happened in New South Wales in Australia where the same mistake as being made in England was made. Having more and more references to Child Protection services does not make children safer. All it does is to overwhelm the system.

The link is to a web page on Channel 4's website about their "undercover Social Worker" programme. This is now available on 4 on demand. Surrey is not one of the worse childrens services units. Nothing in the programme is particularly surprising to anyone who knows much about how the system works. In part it is also a reflection of the nature of society. One lesson that needs to be learnt is that there is nothing to be gained by becoming harsher and harsher with individual practitioners. This creates an environment in which people both a) Don't want to do the job b) Act defensively to protect themselves rather than make good judgments. Questions have also got to be asked about how the system responds to deal with situations such as domestic violence. Rather than acting to protect the victim the system acts instead to remove the children. The psychological evidence is that removing children causes themselves psychological harm. Hence this really should not be th...

Lord Myners spoke in the House of Lords Yesterday. Amongst other things he said: There is nothing progressive about a Government who consistently spend more than they can raise in taxation, and certainly nothing progressive that endows generations to come with the liabilities incurred by the current generation. There will need to be significant cuts in public expenditure, but there is considerable waste in public expenditure. I have seen that in my own experience as a government Minister. I hope that the Government will pursue with vigilance their search for waste and efficiencies without making cuts which are injurious to the provision of public service. The difference between the Government and the previous Government was on the issue of timing and when those cuts should take place. There was flawed thinking about job creation in the past. I found it very frustrating to sit in meetings with some of my fellow Ministers talking about creating jobs in the green economy and biotechnology...

The link is to a post by Craig Murray who used to be the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan. He makes the interesting point that Turkish vessels have been attacked by a non-member of NATO and that Nato's prime function is a military alliance established to defend its members against attack. It raises the question as to what extent NATO is independent of the USA. He also looks at the conflict in Afghanistan from that perspective. The conflict is in essence a tribally based conflict where the NATO forces are aligned with a number of minority tribes. This is dressed up as an ideological conflict. That is an error of analysis.

The attack on the aid convoy to Gaza has to be seen as a job for the international criminal court to investigate as an act of piracy. It does, however, raise the question as to how it becomes possible to move towards peace in the Middle East without greater intervention from international bodies. Somehow there needs to be international peace keeping action to keep the sides to the conflict from attacking each other. At the same time bodies such as the ICC need to get involved in invesigating and prosecuting what are war crimes (that includes bombing the Israelis with rockets - which was some time ago).

Those who have followed the issue of my exile now ex flatmate now ex Senator Stuart Syvret will know about the fact that he left Jersey in protest at the undermining of the rule of law by the authorities in Jersey. He was then disqualified as a Senator, has returned to Jersey and is a candidate in the by-election for the seat he was disqualified from. I am hoping that our new government will take the issue of the Rule of Law in Crown Dependencies more seriously than the previous government.

The link is a story in today's telegraph based on a research project reported in the Lancet. What it finds is that the UK now has the highest child mortality in Western Europe. It is approximately twice the rate of Sweden.

A number of public spending cuts have been announced today. What is absolutely certain is that the UK Government has to cut the deficit reasonably quickly. Germany is paying around 2.633% on its government debt. The UK is paying 3.516 on government bonds and Greece 7.8%. This is all based upon how risky investors perceive the debt. If we don't show a commitment to bringing the deficit really under control then the interest rate we have to pay goes up. This year's forecast deficit is over £150,000,000,000. Just for that borrowing interest of £5,274,000,000 will be due to be paid each year. At the Greek interest rate this would be £11,700,000,000. This has a massive long term effect.

The second coalition agreement has now been published. I have it in a PDF form and it would be messy to simply copy the text into the weblog hence I am not publishing it here. It is here.

What does Liam Byrne's "joke" say. He left a note saying: "I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left.” The point about the money is that without funds the government is limited as to what it can do in assisting the weak in society. Labour Ministers may have had a laugh creating a "scorched earth" environment for the next government. But it is no joke.

Harry Hayfield seems to be running a web log which reports election results. I will, therefore, cease posting election results on this weblog. His weblog is http://postgeneral2010.blogspot.com/

6th May Halton UA, Mersey LD Christopher Martin Carlin 1117 (38.9) Lab 1153 (40.2) Lab 1062 LD Trevor Edward Higginson 1044 (36.4) Con 364 (12.7) BNP 235 (8.2) Majorities 55 / 91 Turnout 102.83% Reigate and Banstead BC, Redhill East Green 1882 Con 1398 Green 1361 Con 1364 LD Soo Abram 1335 Con 1274 Green 1043 Lab 880 Lab 635 UKIP 509 Ind 140 Turnout 66.34% Preston City Council, Riversway Lab 1140 LD Liam Pennington 807 Lab 803 LD Stephen Wilkinson 709 Con 466 Con 407 Turnout 53.2% Warwickshire CC, Nuneaton St Nicholas Con 3195 (56.3; -8.5) Lab 1616 (28.5; +9) Green 589 (10.4; -5.4) Oth 280 (4.9; +4.9) Majority: 1579 Turnout: Con Hold Percentage change is since June 2009 Test Valley BC, Anna Valley Con 1804 (63.5; -0.3) LD Tony Evans 836 (29.4; +9.9) Other 202 (7.1; -9.5) Majority 968 Turnout 75% Con Hold Percentage change is since May 2007. Wokingham UA, Shinfield South Con 1949 Con 1820 LD Elaine Spratling 1188 Green 664 Green 251 Con hold Chesterfield BC, Brimington South Lab 1500 (...

Ed Balls appears to have been attempting to rewrite the history of last week. Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister before the partnership between Liberal Democrats and Conservatives had been agreed. On Monday he indicated that he was willing to step down as Labour Leader to facilitate a rainbow coalition. On Tuesday he resigned as Prime Minister many hours before an alternative coalition had been agreed. If that is not Labour taking away their bat and ball and refusing to play I don't know what is.

There has been a roller coaster ride since the General Election and there has not yet been a week since the first results were declared. The Country faces some very serious problems. The facts are clear 1. The Country needs a stable government and it will take the full term of a parliament to sort out the deficit. 2. The Labour Party took their ball and bat away and refused to play. 3. A minority Conservative government would not give sufficient stability. Those three points mean that the only conclusion in the national interest is for the Lib Dems to enter into coalition with the Conservatives to provide stable government. This requires compromises on both sides and what we will see is likely to be more of a centrist government than a centre left government (which is what a Lib Dem Government would be likely to be). The fact is, however, that the agreement that I have just published is a major step forwards on a number of issues beyond that of the deficit. 1. Fair taxes. Reduc...

The following document is now public, but I don't know where it is on the web so I am publishing it here. Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition negotiations Agreements reached 11 May 2010 This document sets out agreements reached between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on a range of issues. These are the issues that needed to be resolved between us in order for us to work together as a strong and stable government. It will be followed in due course by a final Coalition Agreement, covering the full range of policy and including foreign, defence and domestic policy issues not covered in this document. 1. Deficit Reduction The parties agree that deficit reduction and continuing to ensure economic recovery is the most urgent issue facing Britain. We have therefore agreed that there will need to be: - a significantly accelerated reduction in the structural deficit over the course of a Parliament, with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than i...

Given that I probably need to go to London today I will aim to hold a consultation session for Yardley Lib Dem supporters later today. I will provide details of the location to anyone who emails me and/or puts a note through the office door by 1pm.