Tomorrow sees the deadline for nominations for local elections in England and, like many of you, my nomination papers are with my local District Council for inclusion on the ballot on 4 May. We take on a serious responsibility, especially for those of us with prospects of victory, as representing our communities is not to be taken lightly, regardless of the level and scale of that position. But, whether you’re a target seat candidate, or an incumbent, or even just a name on a ballot paper, thank you in anticipation of what you’ll be doing over the next thirty-one days.
It’s been a testing few weeks for the Scottish Nationalists, with a leadership contest which exposed the philosophical divides within their ranks, and a new Leader who has attracted much ad hominem criticism from, it must be said, the usual English media suspects. I don’t pay enough attention to Scottish domestic politics to really know whether or not Humza Yousuf is up to the job, but he has a huge challenge on his hands following on from Nicola Sturgeon, whose leadership transcended the ideological question marks within SNP ranks.
I’m an agnostic on Scottish independence (sorry about that, Caron) as I respect the notion of self-determination. I’ve always said that independence comes with a price in terms of “blood and treasure” and, if Scots are allowed to make a properly informed decision and vote to go ahead, then so be it. That said, one does wonder if the SNP would long survive a victory given the loss of the one obvious factor which currently unites them.
Robert Colvile wrote an interesting, if somewhat shallow piece in the Times this week, suggesting that the Civil Service needs to be slimmed down but better paid. And, whilst the latter half of that equation is an inevitability if you really want good governance, the former suffers from the small detail that, when any government passes more laws, it tends to create more tasks to be performed. Address that, and use digital technologies to take out the mundane processing still done by people, and you can achieve his goal.
Of course, you could also cut public sector workforces if people obeyed the rules and behaved properly but we all know how realistic that is…
And finally, Suella Braverman. She’s clearly been given the task of supplying red meat for the “Red Wall” but, given how ineffectual the Department she leads is after thirteen years of Conservative Home Secretaries, you have to wonder why, if it wasn’t for her cheerleaders in the right-wing Press, anyone would believe any of her promises. Highest net migration figures, lowest processing rates for asylum applications, a deal with Rwanda which would generate more asylum seekers at a net cost both financially and morally, the bankruptcy of her rhetoric is limitless. Sadly, there appear to be no consequences for her failings and, with Labour politicians rather more willing to attack her organisational failings rather than her moral ones, not much is likely to change other than the colour of the headed paper of the excuses.
* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.
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5 Comments
I admire your willingness to admit being agnostic on Scottish independence when the Party is trying to present itself as being as solidly Unionist than the Tories. I do believe that we would be in a much stronger position if ‘agnosticism’ was our official position as part of our constitutional offering where we argue the case for Federalism or even Confederalism. I suspect many pro-independence voters could be attracted to vote for us on the basis of our general policy offering and commitment to grassroots politics if it were not for their distaste of the Unionism/UK nationalism we currently project.
As an observer of Northern Ireland politics, I despair when I hear the term Unionist missused too widely. The LibDems are not unionists, we are Federalists, wishing for constitutional powers to be devolved to national, regional and local government. Unionism, as defined in the late 19th century, meant no government layers between Westminster and county councils.
@ Ian Sanderson,
I’m not sure where you get your definition of Union from. The Stormont Government was set up as a devolved national government with the creation of the state of Northern Ireland. It was fully controlled by the Unionists up until the imposition of direct rule in 1972.
Supporters of devolution often overlook that the Troubles of the sixties broke out largely because too much power had been given away by a Westminster government. The Unionists wanted it both ways. They wanted to be a part of the UK but didn’t accept that UK law should be paramount. The Westminster government should never have allowed the sectarian laws and blatant electoral gerrymandering of the
sorry that last comment somehow shot off before I’d quite finished!
.. electoral system which ensured there could be no legitimate challenge to Unionist policies.
If anyone wants to be British then they should abide fully by British law. This includes UK taxation laws and should be applied to residents of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar etc.
@Peter Martin Indeed, I stopped my comment before I said that what was strange about the Stormont regime was that it accepted for Northern Ireland what Unionism had been opposing for decades for the island of Ireland as a whole. The Irish Free State on the other hand, took more than Gladstonian Home Rule and declined to participate in all Ireland institutions. From the point of view of Westminster, the arrangement succeeded for half a century, as it removed from London the minutae of Irish politics. In hindsight, the Stormont regime made two major blunders: in the 1920s the abandonment of PR and in the 1940s, not following the Atlee government in changing from rateholder franchise to adult franchise for local elections. The sectarian hostility which embittered Ulster politics was more manifested in business and on a personal and local council level than in Stormont which, in general, post-World War II, tended to shadow Westminster.