But evidently this is a state of affairs insufficiently insane for Liberal Democrats who rejected sensible proposals to phase out faith schooling in England, instead opting narrowly for Tim Farron’s hopeless compromise of requiring schools to prove their inclusiveness over a five year period, whatever that means. James Graham has written an excellent piece (with lively discussion) about everything that is wrong with Tim’s amendment, describing it as being, “little more than a state-commissioned fig leaf scheme.” Certainly its full subtleties were lost on the BBC, who declared simply that, “Lib Dems back state faith schools.” Needless to say, that is not the headline I was looking for.

Under the Farron scheme, while we avoid the unspeakable evils of selection by ability or aptitude, faith-based selection for existing schools would remain intact. Yet if any form of selection were to be permitted, this must surely rank as the most absurd. As if parents didn’t suffer enough angst over the prospective quality and location of their child’s school, they also have to contend with questions of theology which are as ludicrous as they are obstructive. Under present Lib Dem policy, there would be no end to the spectacle of pushy parents with an eye on the local faith school, attending church for the first time in their lives and pretending to worship God alongside the regular churchgoers who have just been pretending for a bit longer.

Another argument, advanced by the great Vince Cable I understand, is that it is essentially illiberal to oppose faith schools. To this I have always posed a simple question: whose education are we talking about – the parent’s or the child’s? The assumption is that parents have an inalienable right to transmit their cultural prejudices to the next generation, and that the state should fund this, both now and maybe later on when we have a divided society to mend. The principle of liberty cannot readily apply to education; if it did, many children might choose not to attend school at all. What we are actually enacting here is the “despotism of custom” of which J.S. Mill spoke long ago. I sometimes wonder whether all the Mill fans in the party ever made it to chapter three of On Liberty from which these snippets are taken (my emphases):

Where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress. . . . The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it. . . . The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary, which is called, according to circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or improvement.

Over the past couple of years, I have been variously told that I don’t understand secularism, that it is not the same as atheism or religion bashing, and that I am generally an embarrassment to the cause. But I think I do understand secularism. Secularism simply means that religion should be kept separate from the institutions of the state, for the compelling reason that historically whenever they were mingled, things never seemed to turn out for the best. It’s a fairly straightforward deal: you (religion) leave us alone, and in turn we’ll leave you alone to get on with your prayers and rituals in the church, synagogue, mosque, temple – that is to say where religion belongs. Not in our legislature, our courts, our schools, where it so clearly doesn’t.

But it never seems to work out that way in practice. Faced with an innocuous enough proposal to end selection by faith – a proposal entirely in line with our core values of fairness, equality, freedom from ignorance and conformity – Liberal Democrats baulked at the prospect. The result of this sort of timidity is that we end up in a very strange place. Instead of backing the “one true religion” (theocracy), or backing no religion at all (secularism), we are effectively endorsing all religions equally at the taxpayer’s expense. I’m not sure what the name for that is, but I’ll just call it “total madness,” because if there is one thing we can know for sure, it is that the competing and contradictory claims of religion cannot possibly all be true.

I suppose I ought grudgingly to acknowledge the gentle progress made at Harrogate – no faith-based selection for teachers or head teachers (despite Farron’s best efforts), opt-outs for collective worship and religious instruction. But overall, we missed an opportunity to move decisively against the principle of faith schooling – a policy position that would be intellectually sound, clearly communicable, and more popular than you might think. So in the light of last week’s result, I have decided to make a subtle alteration to my Lib Dem membership card.

And to be honest, I’m starting to wonder whether I should even bother to renew it. It looks like I’ve only got a couple of weeks remaining. Any suggestions?

* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member, and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.

There’s really nothing quite like a religious question to upend our political and moral intuitions and reduce any sort of reasoned argument to rubble. So it was that Chris declared Fitna to be “definitely inciting people to violence,” on the Today programme. Definitely inciting people to violence? It is true that the 17 minute film does contain endless incitements to violence. The trouble is that all the incitement is coming from the mouths of Muslim clerics. It is also true that these images are interleaved with some fairly offensive written statements. But they are mostly quotations from the Koran. Could it be that Chris got a bit confused?

Jo Swinson fared a little better on Any Questions by distancing herself from Chris and acknowledging that Fitna did not in her view incite violence. But then she drifted off into some fairly banal platitude. “Any text can be twisted,” she said. “If you want to pick and choose, you can actually create something horrific out of any text that you like.” Any text, Jo? I’d love to see a version of Fitna based on the Liberal Democrat constitution. You could juxtapose a statement about freeing people from poverty, ignorance and conformity, with some beard and sandals imagery maybe. Enough to incite anyone to violence, I’m sure you’d agree. Could it just be that some texts are in fact nastier than others?

It’s a common objection of course – that the offending quotations have been “taken out of context.” But what I’d like to know is precisely what context would make all the misogyny, homophobia, and violence contained in our various sacred texts acceptable? If we wish to read either the Bible or the Koran “in context,” then it might first help to understand who wrote them – to wit, primitive men who would be completely outshone in knowledge and understanding by a modern twelve-year-old with access to Wikipedia. No, the people who are truly taking the holy books out of context are called Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. who claim that these writings are the “word of God” – whether it be that they believe this literally or in some ambiguous manner.

I don’t think I much care for Geert Wilders. His political hero is Margaret Thatcher – that is rarely a good sign. His perfectly reasonable desire to move freely between nations is undermined to some extent by his own anti-immigration politics. He should know that you can’t defeat an ideology by erecting physical barriers and pulling up the drawbridge. Calling for the Koran to be banned is totally daft. It would be quite impossible, even assuming such a thing were desirable which it isn’t. But I do share one thing in common with Wilders, namely that I am not prepared to read the Koran and pretend that it means the exact opposite of what it says, for the sake of some political expediency.

The Koran reads like an apartheid manual. The dichotomy between the believers destined for paradise, and the unbelievers (i.e. me) destined for the eternal torments of Hell, is set up on almost the very first page. In case you weren’t paying attention, this sentiment is then repeated ad nauseam throughout the text. It is what makes the Koran fundamentally divisive and means that it will never form the basis for any “global peace and unity.” The reference here is to an event which Nick Clegg attended last October in which he shared the same platform with a Holocaust denier, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, and a one-time supporter of the Rushdie fatwa, among others. Strange but true. Here was Nick’s justification on that occasion:

Of course I don’t agree with the views and opinions of every speaker at this event. But I do believe in free speech. I do believe in an open society where disagreements are aired and expressed, not ignored and suppressed. The best way to undermine a liberal society is to undermine the freedom of expression which we all enjoy, and I will never ever do that.”

Fine words indeed, but in the light of the Fitna debacle we could now stand accused of grotesque double standards. Nick shares a platform with some of the finest Islamic fruitcake on offer, but Chris wants to ban Geert Wilders for calling a spade a spade? I think they really ought to get together and straighten this one out.

What is missing from this debate is any objective sense of what is and is not offensive. By any objective analysis (as opposed to one clouded by religious metaphysics), the Koran is more offensive than The Satanic Verses, the Danish Cartoons, and Fitna all combined. Hundreds of deaths ensued from these and similar controversies, all the mayhem emanating from Islamic extremists, and yet bizarrely it is now Wilders who stands accused of inciting violence. How has it come to this? It is as if we have reached a place of logical and rhetorical insanity from which there appears to be no immediate escape.

I’ll leave the last word to Kenan Malik speaking on the World Service last week about the Rushdie affair:

It seems to me that the critics of Rushdie lost the battle in the sense that The Satanic Verses continued to be published, but to a large degree they have won the war in that we have come to accept broadly that the giving of offence is wrong, and that makes the writing culture much less rich than it should be. We’ve got a very constrained culture when it comes to questions of what you can say, what you can do, and what you can write.”

I fear that Malik may have this about right. The late Ayatollah Khomeini still casts his long and malevolent shadow. The Satanic Verses is freely available; they say it is a terrific novel; I must read it one day. But the overarching political climate appears to have evolved into one which places all religion, but especially Islam, beyond criticism, parody, or censure. Unfortunately that is a criticism, parody, and censure which some of us feel has never been more essential since the events of 9/11. Perhaps one day my fellow liberals will wake up to this, and I won’t have to come on here and bat for the far right again.

In the meantime, the final score is as follows – Geert Wilders: quatre points, Jo Swinson: trois points, Chris Huhne: nul points.

* Laurence Boyce is a Liberal Democrat member and occasional contributor to LDV.

Et tu, James?

Recently, James Graham has called me a bigot on Lib Dem Voice. (gasp!) As James is a blogger whom I admire and respect – blogger of the year no less – I have been stung into writing a riposte to this scurrilous charge. It was in the context of yet another debate on religion and the problem of Islam, that James essentially accused me of tarring all religious believers with the same brush. According to the big man, “religions are ultimately what you make of them.” When pressed as to whether Marxism, say, is also ultimately what you make of it, James replied, “I would have thought that is self-evident.” Excuse me?

Let us get one thing straight: Marxism is not simply what you might choose to make of it. While the task of nailing down the principles of Marxism might not be entirely trivial, we can nevertheless be clear in the main about what Marxism does and does not entail. For instance, it is surely uncontroversial to assert that Marxism comprises a belief in the common ownership of property and the means of production (a terrible idea by the way). Now I suppose there is nothing to stop somebody from saying, “I’m a Marxist, though I don’t believe in the common ownership of property and the means of production.” But on the whole, I prefer the simpler, “I’m not a Marxist.” It’s brief and to the point, and has the compelling advantage of not stretching the meaning of words beyond the bounds of reason.

Likewise, we can be clear about what religious belief entails, and what its consequences might be. And yet whenever I assert that the claims of religion are false, I know that I am bound to be met with the stunning insight that there is no homogenous object called “religion,” that religion comprises many different strands and styles of belief (no shit Sherlock!), and that I am therefore making a sweeping, and indeed bigoted, generalisation. I am not. Having been raised a Catholic, and having observed religion in its many forms, I think I know roughly what the deal is, and it is this: That there exists a supernatural deity who exerts a causal influence upon the natural world though scripture, prophets, prayer, and miracles. He wishes us to praise him, obey him, and love him unceasingly. Essentially, this life is a test. If we get it right, then he will reward us in Heaven. Otherwise… you know what to expect.

This, I submit, is a reasonable definition of monotheistic religion which pretty much covers the faiths that are causing all the trouble at the present moment. Too broad a definition to be useful maybe? Not at all. Already we see some disturbing elements: Why, for instance, does God require constant praise and worship, more reminiscent of Stalin than of a “loving father”? Then there is the obvious scope for abuse when one is claiming to be in possession of a divine and unalterable revelation. Finally, there is the belief in an afterlife – the killer doctrine that, whichever way you cut it, has the effect of utterly diminishing the value of life on earth. And yet for some reason we continue to allow these simple tenets of faith, now largely debunked by science and philosophy, to impose their terrible burden upon humanity.

Why is it so hard for us to speak plainly about the absurdity of religious belief? Why is Nick Clegg already brown-nosing faith groups when he is barely out of the traps? Why is it quite beyond any of our politicians to draw a connection between belief in the “afterlife” and the practice of suicide bombing? Why, when the terrorists are patiently articulating their theology on homemade videos, do we search desperately for the “root causes” in order to exonerate the role of faith? Why are we constantly being assured that “Islam is a religion of peace,” when a cursory inspection of the Koran tells a completely different story? Why do we stay silent when millions of women worldwide suffer under the yoke of clerical oppression? Why are we still fiddling while the Middle East burns?

And why, in the face of all this carnage, do we imagine that an acceptable response is simply to water down the beliefs a bit and call ourselves “moderates”? Think how this might work in the political context. Suppose that the Liberal Democrat election manifesto contained a proposal to the effect that homosexuals should be put to death (as the Bible clearly stipulates in Leviticus 20:13). What would be an adequate restitution for allowing this hateful line into party policy? How about a spot of artful sophistry to patch things up? “Look, you really mustn’t take the manifesto so literally you know. It’s the interpretation which matters more than the actual words. Ultimately, it’s what you make of the policy that counts.” Happy now? In fact, nothing less than a total recantation would do, in the bid to salvage a political reputation which would in all likelihood be damaged beyond repair.

So please, at least on this occasion, spare me the mealy-mouthed justifications: that not all Christians take the Bible literally; that jihad is really about personal fulfilment, not the subjugation of infidels; that the struggle over the “Holy Land” has nothing to do with religion (there’s a clue in the name if you look closely); that it is important to distinguish between nice Christians, and nasty Christians; nice Muslims, and nasty Muslims; (and presumably nice Nazis, and nasty Nazis?) I’ve heard it all before, and frankly I’m not impressed. I know that you are nice – hey, some of my best friends are Christians! But your religious “moderation” – at once intellectually and theologically bankrupt – serves only (in the words of Sam Harris) to “provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed.”

So my message to religious fundamentalists is … not a lot. There’s really no point in talking to you. To my nice moderate Christian friends: I beg you to find some honesty before the Armageddon so longed for by the aforementioned fruitcakes finally comes to pass. And to James, I say: Marxism is not just what you make of it, neither is religion, and calling a spade a donkey buys us precisely nothing.

* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.

But just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water from which we first emerged over 300 million years ago, along comes the delightful Sarah Palin who appears to be some sort of creationist, or so it is being widely reported in the media. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise I suppose; polling regularly reveals over half of Americans to be creationists. But even so, the question has to be asked: how is it that views which are considered crazy amongst intelligent Europeans have come to seem almost normal in the context of American political discourse, particularly that of the right-wing?

I have a somewhat convoluted and highly speculative theory about all of this which borrows heavily from a very important book – perhaps even the most significant book published so far this century. But despite its relevance to political thought, I have yet to see it mentioned in any of the book lists that political types are often asked to draw up as essential reading matter. It wasn’t listed among the favourite books of Chris Huhne or Nick Clegg, nor indeed among those of our leading Lib Dem bloggers (here and here). The book in question is The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker.

Pinker’s book concerns a question that is as old as the hills, and yet in many ways remains central to one’s entire outlook, be it political, philosophical, or moral. The question is: which is the greater determinant of human behaviour – nature or nurture? Yes, that old chestnut! Are we principally fashioned by our genetic inheritance, or are we instead shaped by the environment in which we find ourselves situated? Do we start out in life with a “blank slate” so to speak, or is the slate already covered with writing before we even begin?

The answer, of course, is that there is plenty to be said in support of both of these positions but, once the argument begins, it is astonishing how rapidly tempers flare. For some reason, this stuff is dynamite. Opposing viewpoints are often characterised as being on one extreme or the other. So people like Pinker are “genetic determinists” who believe that our genes control every aspect of our lives, and every decision we make; while Pinker’s opponents are the “out-and-out blank-slaters” who think that every child is born with equal potential, and how we turn out as adults is entirely due to social conditioning. In reality, virtually nobody holds these positions today.

But leaving these caricatures to one side, Pinker’s thesis is that we have, for far too long, erred towards the blank slate end of the philosophical spectrum. I have to say that in general I agree. While I have yet to meet the mythical out-and-out blank-slater, I would nevertheless like to suggest that we are genetically determined to a far greater extent than many people would appear to be comfortable with. The principal opponents of this viewpoint are some on the political left, and the Marxist or feminist academics with whom Pinker seems to have been battling for most of his adult life.

So why all the discomfort? Pinker sets out four “fears” that might make us hesitate in the face of what the science is increasingly telling us. These are the fear of inequality, imperfectibility, determinism, and nihilism. I can’t possibly do justice to all of these – you’ll have to read the book – but the fear of inequality is probably the one which most offends left-wing sensibilities. The blank slate theory of human nature is totemic to the left because it acts as a guarantor of political equality – or so they think. All men (and women) are born equal, and so it follows that whatever differences emerge later in life must be due to the pernicious inequities which we tolerate in society.

In fact we are not born equal. The truth is that the angels handed out our key physical and behavioural attributes in varying quantities and, worse still, these attributes are largely heritable. To some, this is simply too unpalatable and leads in extremis to outright denial of the science. But this fatal misstep does incalculable damage to the cause of equality. For political equality was never a scientific theory; it is a moral principle. It is a declaration that everyone, of whatever colour or sex, has a right to equal treatment under the law; and it is a commitment to treat everyone on their individual merits, and never as representatives of some arbitrary group. Deciding a priori what the science ought to say merely serves to offer up a needless hostage to fortune, as and when more of the data rolls in.

So it would appear that Sarah Palin is not the only one who might be in denial of science. If Pinker is right, the political and academic left have long been resisting scientific findings which threaten to upend their cherished world-view. This is why I am now finding it hard to join wholeheartedly in the chorus of sneering which has been directed at Palin since her name first emerged. Feminists, in particular, seem to have been thrown into total confusion by the appointment of the Alaskan bombshell. It would certainly be easy enough to slam her for being a creationist, but even here I’m starting to wonder whether this embarrassing state of affairs might not play to her advantage.

You see Palin doesn’t make the mistake of hitching her moral outlook to some half-baked science – heck no, she just gets her morality straight out of the Bible! Not for Palin the false promise of a socialist Utopia – she believes literally in the Genesis story – in the “original sin” of Adam, now passed on from generation to generation. But here’s a strange and wonderful thing: the doctrine of original sin has in fact been partially vindicated by modern science. For we principally inherit the genes required to survive and reproduce, not those required to be nice! In her innocence, could it be that Palin is in fact closer to the truth than all the lefty social science academics in the world?

Of course Palin’s naive world-view can never be more than half correct. Her pro-life views will do little to empower women. I hear she has a few doubts about climate change – hardly surprising if she has been taught that man has been granted “dominion” over the world’s resources. Doubtless she will see aggressive tax-cutting as some sort of moral imperative. After all, we have all been bestowed with the divine gift of freedom, with which we may either choose to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or not as the case may be. Personal responsibility is everything – never mind that from a scientific standpoint, the concept of “free will” has never looked more shaky than it does today. So it’s a mixed bag.

Well that’s the theory (and it is “just a theory” as a creationist might say about evolution). I’ll briefly summarise it in case you weren’t paying attention: It is that the American liberal left is gravely at fault for remaining too long (on account of a variety of misplaced fears) in a state of denial regarding a modern scientific understanding of human nature, thus allowing the religious right to punch through with their grossly inferior (yet still vaguely credible) theory of human nature based essentially upon scripture which (though it pains me to say so) does actually contain the odd useful insight. What do you reckon?

Do you know there is a part of me that actually wants Sarah Palin to win in November? Frankly she hasn’t got a clue, but she is in possession of a simple childlike honesty that is really quite endearing. By contrast, the political left can just leave one feeling so tired.

* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.

Starting from a position of puzzlement over the extent to which civil liberties seem to dominate political discourse, I have now come to see the whole charade as an excuse on the part of self-indulgent and out-of-touch politicians for not talking about the issues that really matter to the electorate. To the ordinary man and woman in the street, freedom is paramount – but it is a freedom which has nothing whatsoever to do with detention without charge, ID cards, CCTV, or any of the other oppressive instruments of the big-brother police state (which doesn’t exist by the way).

The sense in which many people find their freedoms curtailed on an everyday basis is that they are obliged to work long hours each day, maybe with a difficult or cynical employer. That higher food and fuel bills are starting to hurt their ability to hold body and soul together. That they increasingly find themselves facing impossible decisions balancing work, life, and family. What they are less concerned about, I would suggest, is the prospect of being arrested and imprisoned for 42 days without charge, especially if they have done nothing wrong. In fact if they saw a policeman on their patch at all, they might be pleasantly surprised.

But no, to a certain breed of dull-witted politician, Magna Carta is what it’s all about. The level of unthinking inertia is such that they forget – as they drone on about “hard-won freedoms” and “slippery slopes” – that today’s technological era hardly bears comparison with anything that happened in the previous century, never mind in another age altogether. And they don’t come much more unimaginative than the member for Haltemprice and Howden who has now embarked at considerable public expense upon a political stunt that, when the dust has settled, will prove precisely nothing.

Of all the lazy and incoherent things that have been said regarding the forthcoming contest, the most absurd is this notion that we may declare the by-election to be fought over the sole issue of 42 days detention without charge. In truth, there can never be any such thing as a single-issue by-election, for the simple reason that, once elected, the victor will have to face a decision regarding each and every division which comes before Parliament. For example, Saint Martin of Bell voted on a total of 620 divisions during his term of office – strange to tell, they were not all regarding the issue of undeclared donations to MPs.

Logically speaking, if there is one issue the Haltemprice and Howden by-election will not be about, it is 42 days because we’ve just had that vote. Equally spurious is the idea that a tiny region of North-East England can be relied upon to speak for the entire nation on any topic. In fact whatever combination of candidates were to stand in the by-election, and whatever the result may turn out to be, nothing whatsoever will be proved regarding 42 days or civil liberties in general. Yet David Davis would have us all buy into this fantasy contest of him versus the government, when everyone knows perfectly well that Labour (who polled 12.7% last time) cannot possibly win.

So what of Davis’s wider record? On the issue of detention without charge, his record is impeccable (though I’m struggling now to recall any occasion when he has publicly and unequivocally condemned arrangements at Guantanamo Bay – has he ever?). He has also been a stern critic of DNA databases and surveillance cameras (which I happen to think are terrific crime prevention measures!). And of course he has championed the right to trial by jury (now that really is the most stupid idea ever – your whole life hangs in the balance, so why not ask twelve guys who have just stumbled out of the pub to decide your fate?).

Davis voted in favour of the Iraq war (obviously), opposes the Human Rights Act (obviously), and is a strong advocate of the death penalty – what would Shami Chakrabarti think? He is also a staunch defender of free speech . . . well, at least so long as you don’t intend to poke fun at Christianity (he voted to retain blasphemy legislation, both in 2005 and 2008 – make sense of that if you can). And last, but not least, he’s a Conservative! Why on earth are we supporting this guy (because by withholding a candidate, we plainly are in effect supporting Davis whatever the official line may be)?

Nick Clegg has clearly been party to a stitch-up here and, in so doing, has either been exceedingly clever in a way that I can’t quite understand, or has made a grave error of judgement. Because on the face of it, we have rolled over and allowed a man to champion the cause of liberty whose track record should be enough to make any liberal gag. And in attempting to justify our own position, we have been obliged to buy into this highly strained concept of the single-issue parliamentary election which, in my view, is making us look rather foolish and disingenuous.

David Davis is just about the last person I would choose to defend my liberties, and we should never have given him a pass to set up his stall as self-styled freedom-fighter on behalf of the nation. In the absence of any credible Liberal Democrat candidate, I shall be backing Miss Great Britain for Haltemprice and Howden – I hear she has some terrific . . . erm . . . policies. But I’m afraid that the former shadow Home Secretary simply doesn’t stack up.

* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.

So it is the debates and divisions of Monday 19 May pertaining to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill on which I now wish to focus the attention for a moment. Broadly speaking, the day’s events split into two parts: measures to do with hybrid embryo research (with three divisions), and then measures concerned with saviour siblings (with three divisions). So as not to cast the net too widely, let us concentrate only upon the first half of the debate and its subsequent divisions which it will be useful to characterise as follows (technically, MPs were voting against opposition amendments rather than in favour of these measures):

• Vote A – to permit the creation of cytoplasmic hybrid embryos
• Vote B – to permit the creation of true hybrid embryos
• Vote C – to permit the creation of genetically modified hybrid embryos

The debate
Many emotive and specious arguments were made in opposition to these new genetic techniques, and a surprising number of them were to be found in the speech delivered by Sir Gerald Kaufman. The most popular of the afternoon was the assertion that there is no guarantee that embryo research will produce any medical cures in the foreseeable future. Well, that’s true I suppose! In this regard, Sir Gerald compared scientists to Shakespeare’s King Lear when he exclaimed, “I will do such things – what they are yet, I know not.”

The analogy was meant unkindly, but is in fact a near perfect description of how the frontier of science progresses – an accidental discovery here, a chance meeting at a scientific conference there and, many blind alleys later, a delicate thread of knowledge and understanding emerges. It should go without saying that if we had the whole project mapped out now, then we would have all the answers now. What they are yet, we know not indeed; and may not yet know for some time to come.

Bill Cash doesn’t get any better either. His chief concern appeared to be that treatments arising out of embryo research might be subject to commercial exploitation and would therefore not be universally available to all regardless of need – bless his little conservative heart! Though why his argument could not equally well apply to all manner of human enterprise was not clear. Cash also rambled on a great deal about the “avowed eugenicists” in our midst, causing visible embarrassment on his own benches. In fact no fewer than three Conservatives intervened against him in a bid to limit the damage.

Young David Burrowes went on at tedious length about how alternatives such as umbilical cord blood were proving so much more effective at providing remedies than embryo research – forgetting maybe that it is the role of Parliament to provide a regulatory framework for the granting of research licences, not to adjudicate on the most promising lines of inquiry based upon a layman’s grasp of the subject. As with so many of his comrades, one could not help feeling that Burrowes’s argument drew far more inspiration from Christian theology than from hard scientific evidence.

The star of the show was our very own Evan Harris. Displaying a complete mastery of both the scientific and legal technicalities of the Bill, Harris swatted away interventions with consummate ease. In a wide-ranging speech, he dealt with the numerous canards raised during the course of the debate. In particular, he dismissed the idea that we should abandon embryo research due to a paucity of cures as, “the worst argument that I have heard from opponents of the research,” pointing out that embryonic stem-cell research is all of five years old in the UK, while adult stem-cell trials have been ongoing for at least fifty years worldwide.

The results
Well that’s just a rough survey of the debate, inevitably skating over many contributions. But how did the results turn out? All of the above measures were carried easily – in each case with a majority of Labour and Lib Dem MPs in favour of the gentle path of human progress, whilst a majority of Conservative MPs voted in line with their bizarre theological objections which stood up to scrutiny not at all during the course of a three hour debate. So pats on the back all round, and three cheers for Evan! Well . . . not quite so fast. The unhappy truth is that a closer inspection of the voting figures leaves much to be desired from a Liberal Democrat point of view.

Only 28 Lib Dem MPs – a mere 44% of the parliamentary party – were capable on the night of following Harris’s lead by ticking all three boxes A, B & C. Indeed fifteen MPs were apparently not capable of ticking any of the boxes at all, and voted against all three measures. Remember that no embryo may be kept beyond fourteen days. Remember that no embryo may be implanted. Remember that no research may be performed without a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Remember too that, according to legal advice received by the HFEA, cytoplasmic hybrid research is already permitted under the HFE Act of 1990.

Yet notwithstanding all of that, fifteen Liberal Democrat MPs clearly felt that the present Bill was a step too far and voted – potentially (it must be stressed) – to prolong the agony of sufferers. Their names are: Baker, Barrett, Breed, Cable, Carmichael, Farron, Hemming, Hunter, Mulholland, Pugh, Rowan, Teather, Thurso, Webb, Younger-Ross. How did these MPs justify their decision to Parliament? Well, they didn’t. Not one of them made a speech, though some of them were clearly present in the chamber. Of course time is always limited; they may have had a speech ready but were not called. They should feel free to post a summary of their objections in the comments below.

But that’s not all. A number of MPs who seemed quite content with the principle of cytoplasmic hybrids, baulked when it came to a consideration of true hybrid embryos. These are the full 50% human/animal hybrids – I know it’s shocking. So in Vote B, a further eleven Liberal Democrat MPs joined the above list in an attempt to block this confounded measure. What were they thinking of exactly? Centaurs maybe? These poor confused souls are: Brooke, Burt, Gidley, Hancock, Reid, Rogerson, Russell, Stunell, Swinson, Williams M, Williams R. So on this particular measure, it came to pass that a total of 26 Lib Dem MPs entered the same lobby as the worst elements of the Conservative party plus Ruth Kelly. Did they think nobody would notice?

Conclusions
Look at the picture at the top of the page. What do you see? Is it a human embryo or a cytoplasmic hybrid? Or maybe it’s a full hybrid? Does it look like it has been genetically modified in any way? Perhaps it’s not a human embryo at all? Maybe it’s a mouse embryo? Or perhaps it’s just some bacteria? It’s kind of hard to tell, don’t you think? Maybe those who insist on drawing clear ethical distinctions between such various entities should consider that they are, to all intents and purposes, identical in nature up to the cut off point of fourteen days. Until then, we’re just talking about an undifferentiated ball of cells. All things considered, we probably ought to manifest greater ethical considerations towards a bumble bee.

But there is also an important strategic consideration to be taken into account here, which is really the point of my article. It is quite clear, following the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, that David Cameron is out of the traps and on course to win the next general election. Much could go wrong for him yet, but a Conservative win must now be the most likely outcome on present trends. In expectation of having our own vote squeezed as it was in Crewe, Liberal Democrats desperately need a distinctive “narrative,” as we keep saying, to distinguish ourselves clearly from the Conservatives in the mind of the electorate.

Yet here is a perfect narrative laid out for us on a plate, and we spurn it. We could be the true inheritors of the Enlightenment tradition, carrying the torch aloft for reason, science, and human progress; while the Conservatives are, as ever, backward, reactionary, disingenuous, their thinking clouded by a medieval theology of the soul – a theology whose logical endpoint must surely be that we commit genocide every time we scratch our chins. Cameron’s own voting pattern speaks volumes – he turned up for the first division before disappearing into the night. Perhaps duty called. Or maybe the prospect of being cast as a rebel within his own party for six divisions on the trot was just too embarrassing for words.

I would love to see Liberal Democrats in a position to exploit this tension between Cameron and the remainder of his party, and to expose the true nature of his backbenchers who, taken as a group, voted against every single one of these progressive measures. The plain truth is that a Conservative government could never have introduced this Bill into Parliament, (and we should pause for a moment to applaud the leadership shown by Gordon Brown on this occasion). But before we may open fire on the Conservatives with a degree of credibility, it would appear that we first need to deal with some deeply conservative attitudes lurking amongst a few of our own MPs. Nearly half of them in fact.

Jo Christie-Smith asked Nick about our much-heralded “narrative” and, on a related theme, Helen Duffett questioned Nick regarding our media profile, or rather lack of it. To reinforce the point, Helen produced a pair of “media goggles” with a red lens on one side, and blue on the other – the point being that the media tend to view politics in terms of a straight divide between Labour and Conservative, thus marginalising the Liberal Democrats. Nick acknowledged the problem and assured us that we have people on the case in Cowley Street, but I was heartened to learn that he is not obsessing over the media. Nick says he doesn’t even read the newspapers every day, and tends to think that their influence is on the wane.

Somewhere along the line, Nick and I got into a mild disagreement over David Cameron. I quite like Cameron, seeing the deeply reactionary forces on his backbenches as being more of the problem as far as the Conservatives are concerned. But Nick is not remotely impressed with Cameron, whom he regards as superficial and deeply conservative, notwithstanding some obvious movement towards a place of sanity which has taken place under his watch. I will naturally bow to Nick’s better judgement, but a brief survey of some voting figures from last week serve to highlight the point I was trying to make:

The evening before we saw Nick, David Howarth and Evan Harris were busy seeing off the oppressive, defunct, and frankly embarrassing crime of “blasphemy” in the House of Commons. The division was never in doubt; nevertheless 57 MPs voted in a desperate attempt to retain blasphemy legislation in the 21st century – virtually all of them Conservatives. So while both Cameron and Clegg were among the Ayes that evening, it would appear that at least a quarter of the Conservative parliamentary party are completely mad! In short, there is a rich seam to be mined here, if only Liberal Democrats could be persuaded to openly embrace a more radical secular agenda. But I digress!

Paul Walter wanted to know whether, what with Labour steadily losing confidence by the hour, there might be any scope for applying pressure on electoral reform for Westminster. Nick was adamant that he has no intention of flirting with Labour on this, or indeed any other issue. But Jo wanted to know why we are so bad at fighting PR elections (echoing a point made recently by Jonathan Calder). The sad truth is that proportional representation in Scotland, Wales, or London has not thus far led to a dramatic change in Liberal Democrats fortunes. The reasons may be various, but some aspects of the recent mayoral elections might give us pause for thought:

For example, Helen may want to get away from the red and blue “media goggles,” but how are we to prevent the media from asking the obvious (and entirely legitimate) question as to where one is intending to cast one’s second preference vote? Brian Paddick resisted this up to a point, but was unable to avoid letting out a few hints along the way, before eventually “declaring” for the Left List after the close of poll (the less said about that the better). Helen also spoke on the tube home of a large number of erroneously filled ballot papers at her local count. It may be a shade condescending to suggest that not all of the electorate can get their heads around the system, but it may also be a shade true.

Gavin Whenman asked Nick what single law he would like to see repealed. After a short pause, Nick responded “ID cards,” and Millennium gave the air a little fluffy punch. But I have a serious reservation about our position on ID cards, so it was time for me to challenge Nick as to why he has stated that, when the moment arises, he will refuse to surrender information to the ID card database, taking his case to court if necessary. Put bluntly, he has promised to break the law. I put it to Nick that, in the abstract, this was undermining of the rules of the game called democracy, in which we are surely all engaged in order to bring about whatever change we desire.

Nick conceded that a number of people from within the party had cautioned him against breaking the law. But he nevertheless stood firmly by what he has said in the past, holding up the example of Harry Willcock, the much romanticised figure who is said to have brought down the previous ID card scheme (a hangover of World War II) with the immortal words, “I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing!” Harry did not actually win his case (how could he? – he was clearly in breach of the law), but the judge’s remarks are thought to have hastened the end of the scheme which came about in 1952.

This is all well and good, but Nick Clegg is leader of the Liberal Democrats, whereas Harry Willcock was just a dry cleaner (nothing against dry cleaners – they do a fantastic job). I can’t think of any precedent for a party leader who has appeared to endorse law-breaking, and I’m not convinced this would be an entirely happy precedent for Nick to set. Another thing that troubles me is the sort of company that we might appear to be keeping. I’m thinking here of all the libertarian fruitcakes of this world, not to mention the aforementioned “inhabitants” of Parliament Square – people who seem to have given up on democracy entirely, preferring to live in a tent to make their point.

Somewhat exaggeratedly, I described Nick’s stance on ID cards as being what I thought was his biggest mistake but, as Nick rightly pointed out, nothing has actually happened yet. The question is: do we want it to? Should Nick be breaking the law? He first set out his position before he became party leader – should he be sticking to it now? Should the baton not instead pass to the present home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne? Or should we in fact simply all obey the law like we’re supposed to do? Take a look a Nick’s video from October and see what you think.

P.S. Alix Mortimer and Linda Jack went on the vital issues of tax, poverty, and redistribution; but I’m afraid I’m having a little difficulty recalling in detail what Nick said here (and besides this article is long enough), so please refer to those respective blogs!

However, though our democracy may be somewhat imperfect, it remains a democracy nonetheless; and the notion that we are labouring under some colossal electoral injustice is, I’m afraid, just another instance of Lib Dem whining we would do very well to drop. I’m quite sure that Liberal Democrat fortunes would rise a little under a system of PR, but hardly enough to justify making this a flagship issue. The rules of the game may be arcane, but we all know in advance what the rules are, and we all know how to vote tactically if needs be – thanks in no small part to a million bar charts which have probably outlived their useful purpose.

But, while the myriad options for systems of proportional representation have been gone over in tedious detail, there remains one topic of electoral reform which appears to be strictly off limits, and it is this: that maybe, just maybe, not all votes are equal. Or rather that, while all votes are clearly equal, some votes may be more equal than others. The purpose of this article is to address this rather glaring omission, propose my own suggestions for reform, and of course open up the floor for debate.

The first thing to say is that, up until now, what I am about to propose would not have been technically possible. Using only the prevailing piece of paper, pencil, and big black box technology, it is really quite infeasible to attach a value scale to the assembled collection of opinions. But the digital era is now firmly upon us and it is surely now time that we gave serious consideration to the possibilities opened up for us through the power of electronic voting.

So the first and very necessary and indeed urgent step, is to recreate the electoral register in the form of a large government database containing everyone’s personal information. The database would be backed up once a week onto a DVD and put somewhere safe. Voting would be as easy as clicking a mouse button. In fact, voting would be clicking a mouse button. Clever encryption technology would prevent any conceivable possibility of electoral fraud.

Now to where all this is leading: Once votes have been cast, they are then scaled (key point) according to some simple (or perhaps even rather complex) weighting function. The precise form of the weighting function would be determined by the Electoral Commission, ultimately under parliamentary control. Much fun is to be had from devising various options for reform but, purely to get the ball rolling, I have created an initial example of the sort of thing I have in mind.

I ought to stress that this is just a back-of-an-envelope job, with a view to instigating a lively discussion. If you don’t like my graphs, then the obvious thing is to produce your own improved recommendations. But, broadly speaking, you can see that the proposed scheme gives little weighting to votes from the very young and inexperienced. The weighting then ramps up with age, before tailing off again later in life. Eventually, when one reaches the point where most of one’s life lies in the past, the weighting diminishes once again to bugger all.

A key advantage is the ability to engage voters at a young age. I must admit that I have never quite recovered from Paul Walter informing me that his eight-year-old daughter voted for Sir Menzies Campbell in 2006, something she will probably regret should we ever meet. But with my scheme, we can sensibly open up the vote to anyone capable of firing up the computer unaided. Of course, their votes would count for precious little at that stage but, crucially, they will be actively engaged in the process.

More controversially perhaps, the scheme discriminates between the sexes. My thinking here is a bit vague, but is broadly based upon the fact that men are notoriously more inclined towards violence than women. I’m thinking that maybe if we were to give women a greater priority earlier in life, then we might not find ourselves fighting quite so many disastrous and un-winnable wars around the world. However, in order to preserve gender equality, their weighting must dip below that of men at the last.

The problem we currently face is that, without such technical arrangements in place, the electoral system is a very blunt tool which can be hopelessly unresponsive to pressing problems. It’s a bit like trying to fix the economy when one only has access to the crudest levers of power, or like trying to cure an illness with only the most primitive drugs. In such situations, one may certainly make a difference – a big difference even – but there are likely to be some rather unpleasant side effects.

It is only a highly and skilfully tuned scheme that has the power to reach the parts that other electoral systems simply cannot reach. Rather than fuss over PR, is it not time that Liberal Democrats embraced some truly radical proposals for electoral reform that can really do the business? You may not like my graphs, indeed I would not be surprised to learn that they might be flawed in one or two minor respects. But can anyone seriously suggest that even my initial proposal is not a huge improvement over our present, crude, and wholly unscientific arrangements?

* Laurence Boyce is a Liberal Democrat member, and well aware of what day it is.

Let us get one thing straight: Marxism is not simply what you might choose to make of it. While the task of nailing down the principles of Marxism might not be entirely trivial, we can nevertheless be clear in the main about what Marxism does and does not entail. For instance, it is surely uncontroversial to assert that Marxism comprises a belief in the common ownership of property and the means of production (a terrible idea by the way). Now I suppose there is nothing to stop somebody from saying, “I’m a Marxist, though I don’t believe in the common ownership of property and the means of production.” But on the whole, I prefer the simpler, “I’m not a Marxist.” It’s brief and to the point, and has the compelling advantage of not stretching the meaning of words beyond the bounds of reason.

Likewise, we can be clear about what religious belief entails, and what its consequences might be. And yet whenever I assert that the claims of religion are false, I know that I am bound to be met with the stunning insight that there is no homogenous object called “religion,” that religion comprises many different strands and styles of belief (no shit Sherlock!), and that I am therefore making a sweeping, and indeed bigoted, generalisation. I am not. Having been raised a Catholic, and having observed religion in its many forms, I think I know roughly what the deal is, and it is this: That there exists a supernatural deity who exerts a causal influence upon the natural world though scripture, prophets, prayer, and miracles. He wishes us to praise him, obey him, and love him unceasingly. Essentially, this life is a test. If we get it right, then he will reward us in Heaven. Otherwise… you know what to expect.

This, I submit, is a reasonable definition of monotheistic religion which pretty much covers the faiths that are causing all the trouble at the present moment. Too broad a definition to be useful maybe? Not at all. Already we see some disturbing elements: Why, for instance, does God require constant praise and worship, more reminiscent of Stalin than of a “loving father”? Then there is the obvious scope for abuse when one is claiming to be in possession of a divine and unalterable revelation. Finally, there is the belief in an afterlife – the killer doctrine that, whichever way you cut it, has the effect of utterly diminishing the value of life on earth. And yet for some reason we continue to allow these simple tenets of faith, now largely debunked by science and philosophy, to impose their terrible burden upon humanity.

Why is it so hard for us to speak plainly about the absurdity of religious belief? Why is Nick Clegg already brown-nosing faith groups when he is barely out of the traps? Why is it quite beyond any of our politicians to draw a connection between belief in the “afterlife” and the practice of suicide bombing? Why, when the terrorists are patiently articulating their theology on homemade videos, do we search desperately for the “root causes” in order to exonerate the role of faith? Why are we constantly being assured that “Islam is a religion of peace,” when a cursory inspection of the Koran tells a completely different story? Why do we stay silent when millions of women worldwide suffer under the yoke of clerical oppression? Why are we still fiddling while the Middle East burns?

And why, in the face of all this carnage, do we imagine that an acceptable response is simply to water down the beliefs a bit and call ourselves “moderates”? Think how this might work in the political context. Suppose that the Liberal Democrat election manifesto contained a proposal to the effect that homosexuals should be put to death (as the Bible clearly stipulates in Leviticus 20:13). What would be an adequate restitution for allowing this hateful line into party policy? How about a spot of artful sophistry to patch things up? “Look, you really mustn’t take the manifesto so literally you know. It’s the interpretation which matters more than the actual words. Ultimately, it’s what you make of the policy that counts.” Happy now? In fact, nothing less than a total recantation would do, in the bid to salvage a political reputation which would in all likelihood be damaged beyond repair.

So please, at least on this occasion, spare me the mealy-mouthed justifications: that not all Christians take the Bible literally; that jihad is really about personal fulfilment, not the subjugation of infidels; that the struggle over the “Holy Land” has nothing to do with religion (there’s a clue in the name if you look closely); that it is important to distinguish between nice Christians, and nasty Christians; nice Muslims, and nasty Muslims; (and presumably nice Nazis, and nasty Nazis?) I’ve heard it all before, and frankly I’m not impressed. I know that you are nice – hey, some of my best friends are Christians! But your religious “moderation” – at once intellectually and theologically bankrupt – serves only (in the words of Sam Harris) to “provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed.”

So my message to religious fundamentalists is … not a lot. There’s really no point in talking to you. To my nice moderate Christian friends: I beg you to find some honesty before the Armageddon so longed for by the aforementioned fruitcakes finally comes to pass. And to James, I say: Marxism is not just what you make of it, neither is religion, and calling a spade a donkey buys us precisely nothing.

* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt over genetic modification often finds its root in the fallacy of the “noble savage.” This common misconception (which frequently afflicts the debate on climate change) would have it that the world in its natural state is perfectly fluffy, peaceful, and harmonious – or at least it was before mankind turned up with his corrosive concept of “civilisation.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau expressed this idea succinctly when he said in 1762, “Tout est bien sortant des mains de l’Auteur des choses; tout dégénère entre les mains de l’homme.” More recently, no less an intellect than Prince Charles echoed this sentiment when he declared, “I happen to believe that genetic modification takes mankind into realms that belong to God, and to God alone.” (Which just goes to show how little progress you can make in 200 years if you really put your mind to it.)

In reality, tout n’est pas bien with the natural order of the world. Far from being the handiwork of a benevolent Creator, nature displays all the cruelty and pitiless indifference which one might expect had it been designed by, say, the blind forces of evolution through natural selection. But while animals have been bitterly fighting it out for millions of years, the plants have not been sleeping either. Over the ages, plants have developed an impressive set of defence mechanisms of their own. These range from the familiar thorns and prickles, to the less visible toxins and irritants which are now responsible for the common food allergies suffered by many. And in addition to being cruel, nature is also inherently wasteful. For instance, plants typically grow much taller than necessary, thereby squandering valuable energy on a hardy stem which happens to be of little or no nutritional value.

The plain truth of the matter is that there is no fundamental difference between genetic modification, and the selective breeding and hybridisation which has been going on for millennia – save maybe that “natural” methods are way slower and less reliable than their hi-tech counterparts. The advantages of GM crops are legion. Pest-resistant crops make redundant the harmful pesticides which, ironically, so upset the eco-warriors of a generation ago. We now find ourselves in a position to breed out the harmful allergens, while simultaneously breeding in essential life-saving nutrients for the developing world. It would be nothing short of criminal to allow progress in this field to be retarded by the medieval superstitions of Prince Charles and his entourage. And as Tom Papworth pointed out, Chris Huhne is treading on dangerous territory should he wish to encourage a scepticism of genetic science, but not of climate science.

In summary, there are substantial benefits to be had from the related technologies of DNA profiling and genetic modification. Nobody is saying that there are no associated risks or drawbacks, but it is somewhat unfortunate if both Chris and Nick appear to be framing these debates as if the smallest fly in the ointment were sufficient to put the kibosh on the whole project. We are not a left-wing pressure group; we are a mainstream political party – and as such, Liberal Democrats should be endeavouring to produce practical solutions to real problems, not dancing to the ideological tunes of Liberty or Friends of the Earth. Neither should we be indulging in populist scaremongering on these vital issues – an irresponsible pastime which we might just leave to the fourth estate, seeing as they do it so well.

I thought that liberalism was supposed to draw its inspiration from the Enlightenment values of philosophical and scientific rationalism. Yet I detect little by the way of a balanced and reasoned argument on these policy positions. Nor do I detect any great mastery of the hard science so crucial to the process of their formulation. As a matter of interest, who is the chief scientific adviser to the Liberal Democrats? What? You mean we don’t have one? Now that explains a lot!

* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member, and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.

But not every day is quite so good as that. So in the first of two articles taking their cue from recent statements made by the leadership contenders, I would like to begin by considering the remarks of Nick Clegg concerning the shocking revelation that some 150,000 children might have found their way onto the national DNA database. “The disturbing and illiberal policy of adding a child’s most personal information to a massive government computer system, simply on the grounds of an accusation, must stop immediately,” says Nick. Well there’s no disagreeing with that I suppose. Storing a DNA profile “simply on the grounds of an accusation” is indeed barmy. No, I tend to think that Lord Justice Sedley had it exactly right when he suggested that the time has come to create a universal DNA database comprising the profiles of every man, woman, and child in Britain.

Answer me this: why is it that when contemplating the prospect of a national DNA database, we are more likely to find Liberal Democrats wringing their hands over “civil liberties,” than we are to hear them extolling the virtues of the most devastating forensic tool ever to be placed in the hands of the police? Only this week, Ronald Castree was finally sent down for the murder of Lesley Molseed, a conviction which sadly came far too late for Stefan Kiszko who died a broken man not long after emerging from sixteen years of wrongful imprisonment. But Castree was only required to supply a sample following his recent arrest on an unrelated charge, later dropped. Under the terms which Nick Clegg and others would like to see in force, whereby the DNA of innocents is never retained, Castree would literally have got away with murder.

Yet examples such as this appear to make little impression upon those who routinely concoct the lamest excuses imaginable for not rolling out this technology to its fullest extent. Typically we are told that DNA evidence is not 100% reliable, or that there is a risk of contamination at the crime scene, as if these were profound or novel insights. Well contamination is always a possibility with any kind of forensic evidence, something which the police are perfectly well aware of. And while the reliability of DNA profiling is already superb, the technology can only improve dramatically over time – because that’s what technology always does. The overall impression conveyed by these objections is that of a neo-Luddite refusal to keep pace with the march of scientific progress.

Extrapolating into the future, Richard Dawkins has estimated that by the year 2050, the cost of sequencing the full set of human DNA will be less than £100 per person. That’s an entire Human Genome Project (present cost around $3 billion) for each and every one of us. So why might we want to do that? The promise is that, one day, treatments and prescriptions will be uniquely tailored to the individual, and that the scope of preventative medicine will be expanded beyond our present imagination. Make no mistake, the technology is on its way and before too long will be hitting us like a train. Notwithstanding the combined exertions of all the tedious civil libertarians in the world, the result could be nothing less than a total transformation in global healthcare.

Liberal Democrats ought to be highlighting the genuine hazards and ethical dilemmas brought about by the genetic revolution, not appearing to act merely as an obstacle to human progress – progress which, in the fields of forensic and medical science, is coming our way whether we like it or not. Unless we engage constructively in the debate, we may simply find ourselves excluded altogether while others take all the key decisions. So please could we hear a little more enthusiasm for the amazing power of this extraordinary molecule? And please join me again shortly, when I shall be giving Chris Huhne a hard time over GM crops!

* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member, and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.

For those were the reported comments of General Sir Richard Dannatt, who managed to take time off from fighting two wars, in order to address a recent conference for evangelical Christians in Swanwick, Derbyshire. To my ears, it would have been scarcely less bizarre had he been extolling the virtues of the goddess Aphrodite, discussing his private conversations with Elvis, or perhaps suggesting that every soldier be equipped with a voodoo doll of Osama bin Laden as a key weapon in the war against terror. And yet, with one notable exception, the General’s remarks produced barely a murmur in the press; while our politicians, fearful as ever of losing the God vote, maintained a strict radio silence – such is the absurd degree of respect we routinely afford those who would order their lives (and indeed everyone else’s given half a chance) around the delusions of one or other of the ancient mythologies.

But what makes this latest public display of deranged thinking at once astonishing and deeply disturbing, is Sir Richard’s explicit invocation of a metaphysics of life after death. Failing to explain to our brave soldiers that this life is but a trivial prelude to the eternal life to come, would in his words amount to a “betrayal.” Has he forgotten so soon the apocalyptic events (if you pardon the expression) which brought on our disastrous misadventures in the Middle East? When the 9/11 hijackers ploughed into the World Trade Center in 2001, they did so with a huge grin on their faces. For they believed with chilling certainty that they were merely seconds away from entering a paradise flowing with milk and honey, scented wine and delicious fruits, and never forgetting of course the seventy-two dark-eyed rechargeable virgins (or whatever it is that devout Muslims actually believe). So it was that 16 acres of Lower Manhattan were duly demolished in the name of the “religion of peace.”

Yet now we learn that Sir Richard himself holds beliefs which, though arising from Christian culture, are qualitatively no different to those held by the 19 gentlemen who managed six years ago to upend our world in such spectacular fashion. So, whilst it seems most unlikely that the General will soon be perpetrating a terrorist atrocity of his own, do we really think that he is a fit person to be commanding the British Army?

I submit that no-one with a talent for such monumental self-deception should be allowed anywhere near our levers of power, whether they be political, military, educational, medical, or judicial. For the “afterlife,” it must now be stated plainly, is nothing but a vain and ignorant superstition born out of a natural fear of death – a fear that religions have been exploiting for millennia in the furtherance of their respective kingdoms, which appear to be very much of this world, not of the next.

Of course when it comes to public manifestations of religious stupidity, we’ve got a little way to go before catching up with our friends from the United States of America. Yes, welcome to the “land of the free” – so free in fact that only 28% believe in evolution, while 68% believe in Satan, and around 44% think that Jesus will in all likelihood return sometime within the next fifty years. Hilarious, isn’t it? So naturally you might expect the US military to contain a few fruitcakes of its own. You wouldn’t be disappointed. Here’s a great quote from top Pentagon official Lieutenant General William Boykin in 2003: “Why is this man [Bush] in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him.” (so far, so good) “He’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.” Shortly after making these remarks, Boykin got the promotion he was angling for when he was put in charge of “stress and duress” techniques at Abu Ghraib – just the job for a nice Christian gentleman.

You’d think that with God on our side, the military interventions of the last few years might have proved to be a great success. In fact, virtually none of our foreign policy objectives have been achieved. In Afghanistan, bin Laden was allowed to skip over the hills, leaving us to fight a protracted battle against the Taliban which Lord Ashdown now considers to be a doomed enterprise. Meanwhile, Iraq is fast mutating into the most ghastly theocracy imaginable, and the world is without question a far more dangerous place than before, (when it should have been perfectly obvious that an Iraq invasion would end in tears: “If you fight against the Babylonians, you will not succeed.” – Jeremiah 32:5). The correct lesson to be drawn from all of this, is that if the problem is radical Islam, then the solution is emphatically not a Christian President Bush and his crazy sidekicks, taking orders from God to wage a “Crusade” against the Muslim world. It just doesn’t sound good.

The trouble with religion is that it promotes a fundamental double standard in our thinking and behaviour – between the domains of faith and reason, between the natural and the supernatural, between evidence-based knowledge and divine revelation – and we are now paying a terrible price for this duplicity, as we find ourselves inhabiting a world fractured along sectarian lines and balkanised into separate moral communities. The religious violence we witness around the globe today, invariably attributed to “extremists,” is nothing less than the guaranteed consequence of a struggle between competing and unfalsifiable ideologies – one in which differences may be settled by one means and one means only: with a fight to the death. May I suggest that we dismiss General Dannatt, pull our troops out tomorrow, drop the “special relationship,” and then spend the rest of the century attempting to cure our own collective insanity before we ever presume to be capable of fixing anyone else’s?

* Laurence Boyce is a Liberal Democrat member.

The first of many side-swipes at the Bush administration comes seven minutes into the film. Then, after about half an hour, we are treated to a reprise of the farcical 2000 presidential election. We see Gore making his final concession speech – “While I strongly disagree with the [Supreme] Court’s decision, I accept it.” The clear implication is that he was robbed. Further on, we see clips of Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior, indulging in a spot of climate change denial. Republican Senator James Inhofe suggests that the threat of global warming might be, “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” These guys are the baddies, make no mistake about it. The Philip Cooney affair – where scientific research papers were doctored by a White House official connected to the oil industry – is covered in some detail, again placing the administration in a very poor light.

Not that I’m complaining, you understand. In fact I rather wish that Gore had hit out harder against the persistent foot-dragging of George W Bush over the environment. He might, for instance, have followed the example of Malcolm Bruce who, reacting to the news in 2001 that America was to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol, said of the President, “Not content with killing Texas prisoners by lethal injection, he now wants to kill thousands or even millions around the world by lethal pollution.” Now that’s more like it! On the 2000 election, it’s a moot point whether or not Bush “stole” it, but I can’t help wishing that Gore could have prevailed instead, whether by fair means or foul. As the late Robin Cook observed in his 2003 resignation speech, “If the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops.” What followed has been a tragedy of epic proportions.

But none of this makes Gore’s film any more appropriate to the classroom, which ought to be a place for learning established truths, not for imbibing political propaganda. In fact when it comes to the issue of climate change, there seems to have been a general failure in our discourse to separate the science from the politics. Science is concerned only with comprehending the natural world – this is where the consensus on global warming indisputably lies. But in the political arena, there are no right or wrong answers. Instead, politics is all about negotiation, compromise, and judging what might be a realistic objective under the circumstances. Screening An Inconvenient Truth in schools as part of a government-sponsored programme is simply wrong, and given that teachers are now obliged to hand out Mr Justice Burton’s corrective crib-sheet to accompany the film, a confused and mixed message is likely to result – a gift to the so-called “sceptics.”

This all reminds me of an earlier incident involving the BBC and its proposed “Planet Relief” jamboree, which was scheduled for transmission in January 2008. Newsnight editor Peter Barron was the first to state the obvious when he pointed out that it is, “not the corporation’s job to save the planet.” The plan was subsequently (and mercifully) dropped, but to some, the BBC was guilty of a feeble capitulation. Christopher Huhne, normally of sound judgement, was reported to have said that, “accusing the BBC of campaigning on such an undisputed threat is like suggesting it should be even-handed between criminals and their victims.” Well no Chris, it’s really just to be clear about what the BBC is for, and what it is not for. If the corporation really wishes to play its part in saving the planet, then why not make its own documentary Can We Save Planet Earth? freely available to schools? Unlike An Inconvenient Truth, Sir David Attenborough’s film is both meticulously accurate and apolitical, while still conveying the message loud and clear.

One final observation. As you will know, the extent to which religion influences public life troubles me greatly, one of the worst examples being the teaching of creationism in some of our City Academies. This ongoing educational travesty seems to provoke precious little agitation from Liberal Democrats – indeed whenever I mention the topic, I find that I am more likely to be branded “illiberal,” than I am to be encouraged. So I would just like to say two things: Firstly, that if liberalism entails that we should be relaxed about having our children taught demonstrable falsehoods in school, then I don’t want to be a liberal. But more to the point, I do hope that no-one is seriously expecting any child who may have had their respect for science so fatally undermined, to accept the scientific consensus on climate change.

It’s time to join up all the dots.

Fulsome tributes were paid by Lord Attenborough, Wendy Woods, and the Mayor of London. “The most inspiring and greatest leader of our generation,” said the Prime Minister, “and one of the most courageous and best-loved men of all time.” And everyone cheered and clapped their hands raw. Well, everyone except for Donal Blaney.

In a tired and predictable throwback to Conservative attitudes of the 1980s, Blaney decided that this was a fitting moment to remind us all of a darker side to Mandela. “One must not forget,” he intoned, “that he raised funds for the ANC’s armed wing, arranged paramilitary training, and led an armed struggle against Apartheid. He was no Gandhi.”

This sudden conversion to pacifism will undoubtedly come as a shock to many who are more familiar with Blaney as the last man in Britain who still thinks that the Iraq invasion was a good idea. In a reference to the practice of “necklacing”, a gruesome method of retribution which tragically spread through the townships during the late ’80s, Blaney proposed that, “instead of laying a garland at the feet of Mr Mandela’s statue or about his neck, maybe someone should be placing a rubber tire there instead.” A bit politically incorrect is young Donal – not to mention cynical, ungracious, and crass.

Of course it’s hard to see what Mandela could have done to put a stop to necklacing, seeing as he was being detained against his wishes at Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison – though doubtless Blaney would have been praying earnestly for his release, devout Christian that he is.

But it’s not difficult to understand why Blaney’s hackles might have been raised. There were times during last week’s event when even I felt that it was starting to turn into a Labour love-in, as extravagant praise was heaped upon Gordon Brown and Mayor Livingstone, both for making the day possible and for being long and steadfast supporters of the anti-Apartheid movement. But the truth is that if Conservatives were feeling a bit left out and were having to cheer Mandela through gritted teeth, then really they only have themselves to blame.

Mandela’s personal long walk to freedom finally ended when he strolled out into the African sunshine on 11th February, 1990. The Prime Minister at the time was Blaney’s hero Margaret Thatcher, who three years earlier had declared: “The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation. Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land.”

But suppose that instead of playing to the right-wing gallery, Thatcher had been in the forefront of the campaign to free Mandela and end Apartheid. Who knows, we might then have been able to witness the extraordinary spectacle of an elderly Lady Thatcher warmly embracing an even more elderly Mandela in Parliament Square, to the enthusiastic applause of her old enemy Ken Livingstone. But alas it wasn’t to be; she was nowhere to be seen.

Last week on internet TV politics channel 18 Doughty Street, Iain Dale made the following quip about me (@ 44:25): “Bear in mind that Laurence is a Liberal Democrat – well he says he is, but everything he always says is Conservative.” It’s not an unfair remark. I do indeed lean to the right politically, and I don’t need to tell you how thoroughly fed up you are with the barrage of criticism I keep up against our own leadership and direction as a party.

But from time to time, it’s useful to be reminded of why I will almost certainly never be a Conservative. It is because if the unreconstructed Thatcherites ruled the world, the Apartheid regime would in all likelihood still be intact.

* Laurence Boyce is a Liberal Democrat member.

Naturally I approached the cinema with great caution, checking that no-one was on my tail, and paid cash to ensure that I could not be traced in any way. What I settled down to watch turned out to comprise two quite distinct narratives rolled into one – an indictment of our disastrous misadventures in the Middle East, mixed into a bubbling cauldron of pure libertarian paranoia.

The film, directed by Chris Atkins, begins with three coach loads of activists on their way to the American military base at Fairford Gloucestershire to protest about something or other. En route, the coaches are pulled over by “over a hundred police in riot gear,” though from the footage it looked like two dozen police men and women at the most. And they were certainly not in riot gear, only fluorescent jackets. Clearly we were going to be taking liberties in more ways than one over the next 100 minutes. Anyway, according to the film, the police searched the coaches for two hours before turning them back to London under police escort, with everyone on board desperate for a pee.

A short history lesson on Nazi Germany follows, and then it’s straight off to Tony Blair’s 1997 election victory, not that we’re meant to draw any connection between Blair and the Nazis you understand. So the new government starts enacting various laws, then 9/11 happens, so we go to war, then 7/7 happens, so we go completely mental with anti-terrorism legislation which in the process manages to strip us of all our basic rights and freedoms – or so they say. The first of these to bite the dust is our right to freedom of speech which has been dramatically curtailed under Blair, so I’ve no idea how you’re going to be able to read this article, or for that matter how it was that I was sitting in a cinema the other day witnessing this outspoken polemic against New Labour. Doesn’t the very existence of Taking Liberties undermine its entire message?

Two words should suffice to dispel such notions: “Walter Wolfgang,” the octogenarian refugee from Nazi Germany, who joined the Labour party before Tony Blair was born, and who was ejected from the 2005 Labour conference for shouting the word, “nonsense.” Later, Walter attempted to return to the conference venue, but then found himself detained under the Terrorism Act. So there you have it: dissent was ruthlessly quashed, and Walter’s lone voice was silenced by the hired heavies of the party inner circle. The only slight flaw with this depiction is the fact that Walter immediately became the guy everyone wanted to talk to, and that a year later he found himself elected to Labour’s National Executive Committee, where he gets to bend the ear of the Prime Minister.

Next up, we meet Milan Rai and Maya Evans, a couple of peace activists who wished to protest against the Iraq war by reading out the names of casualties at the Cenotaph in London. However, since 2005 and the introduction of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA), permission is now required in advance to mount any protest within a one kilometre zone around Parliament Square. So they sent off for the forms, but when it came to the point of filling them in they somehow felt violated to the very core of their being, and so they merely notified the police of their intentions without asking for permission as such. This technically placed them in breach of the law so, strange to tell, when it came to the day of the protest they were duly arrested. Maya and Milan were fined but are refusing to pay, so they will probably be spending some time in prison. Idiots.

In part, the SOCPA legislation was enacted specifically to deal with another determined peacenik, Brian Haw, who has been demonstrating round the clock in Parliament Square since 2001. By all accounts, his one-man demonstration comprising a vast array of placards and banners was a complete eyesore, and his continuous use of a megaphone was having a similarly unpleasant effect upon the ear. Amusingly however, SOCPA failed to deal with Brian at the first attempt because a court ruled that the onset of his demonstration predated the new legislation, from which he was therefore exempt. But eventually, after a few more legal rulings, his daily pantomime was mercifully restricted to a relatively small patch following a police raid reported to cost £27,754. They should send him the bill.

Here’s what I don’t get: I am totally opposed to the Iraq war, but I recognise that the Labour government was elected with a substantial majority in 2001, and obtained a vote in parliament in favour of the war with another big majority which included most of the Conservative members. So where’s the logic here? That despite carrying the clearest of mandates, the war should be halted immediately because there’s some guy outside wearing a silly hat with badges on it? When you stop to think about it, there’s a certain arrogance to this protesting and demonstrating malarkey. Don’t listen to the electorate; listen to me! Brian actually stood as a parliamentary candidate in 2005, obtaining an impressive 0.8% of the vote. The people have spoken. If he truly believes in democracy, then perhaps he should give up now.

After a good hour of this ferocious tilting at windmills, we are at last given something to consider which might actually be worth fretting over. Mouloud Sihali, an Algerian refugee, spent two and a half years in Belmarsh prison prior to standing trial for the now infamous “ricin plot.” He was eventually acquitted on a legal technicality, namely that nobody ever managed to find any ricin. But a mere two months later, Mouloud had his door kicked down again, and this time was placed under house arrest for no very apparent reason. Today, he is tagged, restricted to a tiny area of London, and must report to a police station twice a day – a situation he describes as being worse than prison. Should it all get too much for him, he is free to return to Algeria at any time, where he would face certain imprisonment for being a terrorist suspect.

And finally, we get on to the really bad stuff: the “anomaly” of Guantanamo Bay, by any measure a badge of shame for America and, by virtue of our cringing acquiescence, for Britain too. Then there’s the truly diabolical “extraordinary renditions programme,” the process by which you kidnap someone before flying them off to some hellhole where you hand them over to the locals with a list of questions. In due course, they return the suspects with a list of answers. Best not to enquire how they were obtained. If, as has been alleged, CIA rendition flights have been refuelling at British airports, then a sticky end might yet await Tony Blair. In the words of Philippe Sands QC: “If evidence emerges to show that the PM knew, or should have known, that this type of activity was going on, then he is open to the possibility of criminal charge for complicity in torture.” Well there’s no harm in dreaming.

So all in all, some deeply troubling material is presented towards the end of the film, unfortunately preceded by a series of pretty frivolous examples of how we are supposed to be losing all of our “hard won freedoms.” Here’s my executive summary. Things worth worrying about: Iraq & Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, our dubious entanglement with the Saudi regime. Things not worth worrying about: left-wing vegetarian do-gooders on pointless demonstrations who positively want to get arrested so they can play a starring role in a documentary on civil liberties. It’s a shame that to some extent the latter is allowed to obscure the former. Ultimately, a film which purports to reveal how the government is whipping up fear over terrorism, is itself whipping up fear of an ever encroaching authoritarian state.

As a final piece of foolishness, Taking Liberties plays out to the Jarvis Cocker song, C***s are Still Running the World. Very subtle. Well here’s the thing: if c***s really are running the world, then we put them there. We are not living in a police state, or anything approaching one for that matter. We live in a democracy, which means quite simply that we get the government we deserve every single time. If, like me, you believe that New Labour is up to its neck in blood, and that the Conservatives have essentially been complicit throughout, then the solution is really very simple. Don’t go on a protest march which will achieve nothing save to waste police time. Just vote Liberal Democrat. That’s it! And maybe blog a bit on the side.

One last anecdote. After the screening, I retraced my steps to the car park, once again taking great care to see that I was not being followed. When I arrived, I started to breathe a little easier, but then what I saw made my blood run cold. Two sinister looking men, probably secret services, were loitering around the car, clearly waiting for me to show up. For a brief moment I considered running for my life, the only thing preventing me being the knowledge that I can’t actually run. So I turned to face my assailants who, as it happens, turned out to be a couple of car park attendants. Still, you can’t be too paranoid these days.

In a deeply political intervention, which Lynne Featherstone described succinctly as “diabolical,” the Cardinal made an outspoken attack on what he termed the “evil trade” and “unspeakable crime” of abortion. “In Scotland we kill the equivalent of a classroom full of school children every day,” he said, later likening this to “two Dunblane massacres a day.”

The Cardinal is no stranger to political controversy incidentally. Six months prior to the Scottish parliamentary elections, he stated that he would be happy to see an independent Scotland, to the delight of the SNP. In 2005, he caused consternation by suggesting that proposed gay adoption legislation would place children “in peril,” prompting Peter Tatchell to call him “a very sad, sick man.” The previous year, he spoke out against sex education proposals for Scottish schools. Getting a little carried away, he declared that the situation would be tantamount to “state sponsored sexual abuse of minors,” apparently without so much as a trace of irony.

But on this occasion, the Cardinal went much further than simply sharing his ill-informed opinions with the rest of us. His sermon included a veiled threat of excommunication for Westminster and Holyrood elected representatives who adopt a liberal stance on abortion. The Cardinal’s sidekick, Simon Dames, spelled out the message more bluntly: “If you claim to be Catholic, when it comes to the abortion issue, do not promote it, do not support it, and if you do then we’re talking about refusing the Eucharist.” By what authority does His Eminence believe that he may subvert the democratic process in this manner?

Who elected Keith O’Brien? To the best of my knowledge, he does not represent the Scottish people in any shape or form. Doubtless he will consider himself to represent Scotland’s 750,000 Catholics in some way, though in truth I cannot recall the result of any ballot that led to his elevation. In fact so far as I can see, the good Cardinal really only represents one person (or is it three?) – God, a somewhat elusive character who rarely puts in a public appearance, and indeed whose very existence is increasingly being called into question. Why did Alex Salmond even agree to meet him last week?

Of course none of us should be complacent about abortion figures which in Scotland last year reached 13,081 – a number which does indeed sound too high for comfort. But our consequent response should be firmly grounded in reason coupled with modern scientific and ethical insights, not dubious interpretations of ancient scriptures. Rather than shed any light on the matter, the religious perspective routinely obscures the argument and compromises the debate. So in the unlikely event that the Cardinal actually had something useful to say about abortion or sexual health in general, who would listen to him anyway?

I think that Liberal Democrats are missing a trick here. Under new Labour and our deeply religious outgoing Prime Minister, we have seen faith encroach ever further into public life; while at the other end of the scale, the Church of England has not unfairly been characterised as the Conservative party at prayer. I believe that the need has never been greater for an explicitly secular political party in Britain. Secularism does not mean bashing religion (though I am not above indulging in that particular pastime), but it does entail a complete separation of church and state. We should be seeking to drive the influence of religion out of the legislature, our schools, and the public square in general.

In my view, a radical secular platform could prove highly attractive to believers and non-believers alike at the next election; and the Liberal Democrats are perfectly placed from a political, philosophical, and historical perspective, to occupy this position in the electoral landscape. The country is ready for it; the time is right. Let us seize the opportunity.

Ironically, the old vessel was undergoing a “restoration” effort worth some £25 million, which seems like rather a lot of money to spend on a ship which was last sold for a mere £3,750 in 1922. Of the £25 million, £13 million came from the Heritage Lottery Fund or HLF. Since 1994, the HLF has awarded over £3.6 billion to more than 22,500 projects across Britain. Well I suppose that nobody is forcing anyone to buy a lottery ticket, but even so I thought it might be worth checking out a few items of expenditure.

Transport projects in general are well favoured by the HLF. More than £58 million has been awarded for over 70 old boats of various descriptions, including the Cutty Sark. More millions have gone on a variety of trams, trolley buses, and trains. But when I say trains, I mean more Thomas the Tank Engine rather than anything which is likely to convey you to a useful destination. Historic buildings have also been well endowed. For instance, £447,500 was awarded to conserve the Harrogate Turkish Baths – the perfect setting to unwind after a tense day at conference, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Of course churches always provide a wonderful opportunity to burn money, and so far over £392 million has been awarded for some 2,600 places of worship, including many that nobody actually wants to attend any more. But it’s good to know that they are being kept in top condition should the local community ever wish to resume ordering its life around some ancient superstition. An important recent announcement was the earmarking of £4.5 million for the conservation of Rosslyn Chapel. Fans of The Da Vinci Code will understand the cosmic significance of this site, housing as it does the secret archives of the Merovingian dynasty in a musty underground vault.

Wildlife conservation is another key beneficiary of HLF funding. Indeed some £806,000 has been awarded to help save what is possibly the most endangered species in Britain – the moth. Yes, you heard it right – the moth. Sir David Attenborough, who is heading up the campaign to save this annoying creature, has stated that unless we reverse the decline in moth population, then the consequences will be ““too dire to contemplate.” Richard Fox, also involved in the project, says, “we need people to love moths,” though he goes on to acknowledge that “currently there’s an image problem.” You bet there is. I look forward to their next campaign to save the highland midge.

Archaeology projects have benefited from some £120 million in total, including ££69 million to “interpret” archaeological sites. Wow, that sounds like a hell of a lot of interpretation. Another award to catch my eye was £990,000 to help work out where the Battle of Bosworth took place. Now I know what you’re thinking – it was at Bosworth, right? But that’’s not the point. The nigh on £1 million is going to pinpoint the precise location of the battlefield, which I’m sure is something we’ve all been dying to know for ages. Other lunacies in no particular order include £800,000 to restore Agatha Christie’s old house, £300,000 on a lighthouse, and £2 million for some allotments.

Look, I don’t want to sound like a total Philistine, and I’m sure that the Heritage Lottery Fund helps out many deserving causes, but there has to be a limit to the amount of old tat we might wish to preserve for future generations. Surely it would make sense, given how space is at such a premium, to allow a number of old buildings and churches to gently decay, before respectfully bulldozing them. And I simply cannot believe that we are seriously contemplating rebuilding the Cutty Sark even now. The mistake, surely, was to commence the exorbitant restoration process in the first place. Why did they even put out the fire? It would have been magnificent just to let it all go up in flames.

National pride has got to comprise something greater than being in possession of old ships with rigging and everything. Perhaps the sad demise of the Cutty Sark marks an appropriate moment to take stock of our collective sense of priorities, and to remind ourselves that the future is always more important than the past.

And so it was that Sir Menzies Campbell was duly elected last year, polling an initial 45% of the vote on a turnout of 72% (a worryingly low figure incidentally which suggests to me that at least a quarter of the membership might be dead). What followed has been a frankly embarrassing succession of glib and hollow performances, wholly lacking in flair, imagination, or lightness of touch. The unvarying sombre and humourless intonation, perfectly suited no doubt to his former role of commenting upon unfolding catastrophe in the Middle East, now simply fails to inspire. In short, he has become an electoral liability.

Without doubt, the biggest single disappointment has been at Prime Minister’s Questions. Ever since he rose in January 2006 to enquire why one in five schools are without a permanent head teacher, Sir Ming’s performances have been irredeemably lame. He should silence the house when he rises to speak; instead the members typically groan and snigger, and not without reason. While Cameron hits the target on a regular basis, Ming routinely causes the Prime Minister no difficulty whatsoever. Even John Prescott is a more effective performer in his own inimitable way.

Take last week’s effort, on the day before the elections. “The President made the decisions, the Prime Minister argued the case, the Chancellor signed the cheques, and the Tories voted it through.” Was that supposed to be the killer blow intended to deliver the goods last Thursday? Leaving to one side the questionable relevance of Iraq to a nation with rubbish collection uppermost on its mind, the delivery was weak and unconvincing, and it wasn’t even framed as a question – just a regurgitated line from the Harrogate conference speech. Blair swatted him away easily as he does every time.

Then of course there is the vexed question of his age. Sir Ming is older today than Margaret Thatcher was at the time when she left office. He could be 74 by the end of the next parliament, taking us into Ronald Reagan territory. Perhaps you consider these comparisons to be somewhat irrelevant, seeing as Ming stands absolutely no chance of ever becoming Prime Minister. Well fine, but that’s exactly what the electorate will conclude too. In fact it’s not unlike having an alcoholic for party leader; in either case the message is much the same: vote for us, we’re the joke party – Lib Dems cannot win here!

Yet what makes all of this so unbearably frustrating is that we are fortunate enough to possess within our ranks a real star – an impressive and fluid performer, a successful businessman and expert economist – I speak of the member for Eastleigh, Christopher Huhne. While Sir Ming has been gently crumbling before our eyes, Huhne has emerged as a punchy and authoritative voice on the environment. But it is his broader experience and economic competence, not to mention a mastery of the broadcast and print media, which could see him seriously outmanoeuvre the opposition, given half a chance.

For a taste of what we are all missing, take a look at this interview for 18 Doughty Street. Huhne talks effortlessly for a whole hour on politics, history, and economics. It’s a relaxed and assured performance, a real pleasure to listen to, genuinely informative and humorous. I simply cannot imagine Sir Ming communicating with such an easy virtuosity. But more to the point, I can’t imagine David Cameron talking like that either. Sure, Cameron is great in front of the camera, that is until we come to detailed questions of policy – then it’s all furrowed brows and carefully scripted responses.

But now Cameron is set on a clear course for number ten, while the Liberal Democrat dream is fading away. Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires!

Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem voter, not a member or activist . . . yet.

And there was plenty more. “The phrase ‘first they came’ springs to mind,” said a normally sensible Iain Dale. Well it might indeed spring to mind, but just how relevant is it precisely in the present context? Martin Niemöller, the author of that famous poem, spent seven years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. We simply have no comprehension of what he endured, though some of our grandparents might. But now, in a bizarre turning of the tables, we are supposed to apply his proverb . . .  how exactly? First they came for the Nazis? It wasn’t until we came for the Nazis that Niemöller was finally set free. 

Ah, but it’s a slippery slope. The thin end of a wedge. It’ll be you and me next. Really? Let’s just stop to think about this for a minute. We hardly have enough prison space for our common-or-garden crooks. How likely is it that the extra places will be found to accommodate a burgeoning population of thought-criminals? I should imagine that only the vilest of thugs would fall foul of any proposed race hate legislation. Moreover, any borderline or malicious prosecution would in all likelihood create an immediate backlash, drawing even greater attention to the original “offence.” So counterproductive maybe, but no slippery slope. 

Of course we don’t need to go to jail to have our freedoms curtailed. Didn’t you know that the forces of “political correctness” are now sweeping the nation to such an extent that we may no longer speak what is on our mind? We are not allowed to “say the unsayable” anymore. What exactly the unsayable comprises, is not entirely clear – it is, after all, unsayable. But “something racist” would not be a bad bet. Now admittedly the “diversity” agenda can become a little tiring after a while, but it’s all part of our discourse. Political correctness (whatever that is) is not an attack on free speech. It’s freedom of speech in action, operating in a marketplace of ideas. 

And it’s a marketplace which has, in the last decade, been blown wide open. It’s easy to forget just how empowered we have all become, in recent times, to make our thoughts and feelings known to the wider world. The Internet has precipitated a seismic shift in the geography of influence, which traditionally was the sole preserve of those able to write a book, or write for a journal or newspaper. That last week’s brouhaha was conducted via a medium which allows anyone with a modem to broadcast to the entire planet, is a stupendous irony which seems to have been lost on just about everyone. 

I never cease to marvel at my ability to publish instantaneously around the world in my boxer shorts. Nor do I cease to marvel at those who cry that their freedom of expression is under attack, employing the selfsame medium so to do. It’s as though some of our Bloggers have read a little history, and therefore know that freedom of speech is the first casualty of a totalitarian regime, and then think that must be what’s going on here. No it’s not. We’re in a new technological situation which has no historical precedent, and which may ultimately call for new modes of thought and new rules of engagement.

In fact Beckett shows that even the £2 million is not all that it appears, frequently comprising “payment in kind” – pretend money in the form of consultancy services and the like – as the government has been forced to water down its funding requirements in a desperate bid to attract new sponsors. And yet for the sake of this moth-eaten contribution from the private sector, unenthusiastic parents and local authorities are encumbered with a school which need form no part of a local education strategy, and which is entirely exempt from the body of education law built up since 1944.

While Academies were supposed to replace failing schools, Beckett reports how they have all too often disrupted the life of well loved schools against local wishes, with the aid of bullying tactics which emanate straight from the top. Of course parents may object to a proposed Academy, and sometimes they even get their way, but they are then made to feel as though they have deprived their patch of millions in education investment, which in a sense they have. The deal is that they can either have the school which the government and sponsor wish to impose on them, or they can go to hell.

And speaking of hell, the most disturbing of all the sponsors are the religious ones. Sir Peter Vardy and Robert Edmiston have plans between them for a total of nine Academies which will teach a biblical worldview that belongs more to the medieval period than the twenty-first century. Edmiston thinks that if you teach children that they are descended from monkeys, then they will start behaving like monkeys. Do we really want him running our schools? When Vardy tried to bring God to the people of Doncaster, it fell to two mums to keep their children’s education out of the grip of his lamentable ignorance.

Yet divine intervention notwithstanding, many Academies have failed to live up to expectations. In spite of all the extra investment, league tables published in January 2006 ranked half of the Academies among the bottom 200 schools in England. Astonishingly, two Academies have already failed their Ofsted inspection. Another one, the Bexley Business Academy, received the damning verdict: “Teaching and learning are inadequate overall.” By the way, Bexley is famous for its classrooms with only three walls, centred around a faux stock-market trading floor – estimated cost to the taxpayer: £58 million.

Tony Blair once famously declared that his three top priorities for the nation were: “education, education, education.” Beckett’s book reveals exactly what he had in mind: expensive gimmicks, creationism in the classroom, high-handed authoritarian and undemocratic processes, leading ultimately to schools which have yielded no dramatic improvement and in some cases have been an outright failure – surely Blair’s most shameful legacy apart from everything to do with Iraq.

The Great City Academy Fraud is available from Amazon and other book sellers.