Author Archives: Mark Argent

Mark Argent

Opinion: Why I’m supporting Norman Lamb for leader

By Mark Argent | Mon 8th June 2015 - 9:15 am

At the Spring Conference I went to a fringe event by the Social Liberal Forum entitled Mental Health: equality of esteem?, addressed by Norman Lamb with Ian Brodie Brown (of Imagine Mental Health) and a mental health services user.

This could easily have been just a health minister supporting health things, but there was a great deal more to it than that. Mental health is stigmatised. It took courage to make a stand and put this on the agenda before it became clear that it would not cost us votes.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: Thinking on a delusion

By Mark Argent | Wed 20th May 2015 - 10:34 am

On the morning after the General Election, feeling rather shell-shocked by the results, I turned on the radio and caught John Dowland’s lute song In darkness let me dwell. The music captured the feeling of the moment, but context was more thought-provoking: a Radio 4 programme The glass delusion, exploring a seventeenth-century phenomenon of people thinking they were turning into glass.

The link to Dowland was because melancholia was seen as a disease of the imagination. That flowering of melancholic music and the glass delusion were reflections of what was going on in society at the time.

Delusions are manufactured symptoms which make life bearable: they beg the question of what someone with a delusion is escaping from. Freud’s influential essay Mourning and Melancholia suggests that the two look very similar, but in mourning there is a clear sense of what has been lost, but in melancholia it is something unknown, or unacknowledged, so melancholia is more generalised.

This leaves me thinking about the election. We face some big issues: globalisation, climate change, the European Union, and the potential breakup of the UK. These were barely mentioned. Even talk of the NHS focused on money and fantasies of threats, ducking the real issues of increased life expectancy and fear of death.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: Back to the core

By Mark Argent | Sun 3rd May 2015 - 10:36 am

A little while back, like many candidates, I responded to an email from simplepolitics.co.uk and made a 30 second video to encourage people to vote  for me as a Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate. It mentioned a few policy headlines, not least that we were the only party committing to provide the additional £8Bn the NHS is predicted to need by the end of the next parliament.

In seemingly no time at all, the Tories made the same promise (I am spinning this as a Liberal Democrat policy victory even before the vote). Then The Economist ran a provocative article about how the Conservatives were seeming to appeal to workers and Labour to business, in a way that showed how confused the campaign was getting. I began to have some sympathy for people I was canvassing who said they couldn’t make up their minds “because all politicians are saying the same thing”. On that logic it is especially difficult for us as we are most likely to be delivering our manifesto commitments in coalition with another party, so things that are highly distinctive are also things we might struggle to get into a coalition agreement (as happened with tuition fees last time).

I’ve found myself moving from what we will do that is different, to what are the core values that animate us. That’s not to wriggle away from policy, but is to articulate something quite fundamental that we will bring to the process of forming a new government, from which the policy ideas flow.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: We shouldn’t demonise the Scots or the SNP

By Mark Argent | Fri 1st May 2015 - 2:42 pm

I’m increasingly concerned at the way in which the prospect of SNP MPs at Westminster is being treated in the English media.

My fear is that the SNP is being demonised in a way that undermines the future of the United Kingdom by bracketing the SNP and the Scots together and demonising both.

I’ve heard many stories from people in Scotland of the bitter taste left by the Thatcher years, when the Tories foisted the poll tax first on the Scots, smashed industry and caused mass unemployment. All this led to a Tory wipeout in 1997 and they still have only 1 MP in Scotland, although they do have a sizeable contingent at Holyrood due to PR.

Both the SNP and Plaid Cymru pushed an anti-austerity agenda in the television debates. This chimes in with resentment at austerity across the UK but doesn’t make economic sense: cutting too much chokes (as the Tories propose) off growth, but letting the deficit grow undermines financial stability in a way that is just as dangerous. They both have a purchase on Labour because they chime in with Labour’s left wing.

The sociology seems complex, both within and between the countries of the UK, but short circuiting with cheap shots such as adverts showing Ed Milliband in Alex Salmond’s pocket, can only fuel resentment.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: L’Europe : le chien qui n’aboie pas*

By Mark Argent | Mon 20th April 2015 - 3:34 pm

 

* Europe: the dog that doesn’t bark

At the East Midlands Liberal Democrat conference in February Sal Brinton’s advice was not to make Europe a campaign issue. Subsequent events have proved her right.  My agent urges caution as UKIP did well in this constituency in the European elections. Ed Milliband ran it up the flagpole at the start of the short campaign by pointing out how destabilising a referendum would be for business, but but no-one saluted. Tony Blair mentioned it and had a similar non-response. On the doorsteps it’s barely figured. A handful of people have voiced strong anxiety over UKIP and been delighted when I say I’m their opposite: as many have said they are voting UKIP and slammed the door.

Even in the torrent of emails from 38degrees (and similar), the only thing even vaguely connecting to the EU has been TTIP,  where the anxieties are far from reality.

Yet  globalisation is moving quickly.  The single market was formed to increase our competitiveness on the world stage (also the primary reason for TTIP), and the associated changes to the institutions of the European Union were to ensure democratic control — directly through the European Parliament, and indirectly though national governments.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: Deficit reduction: between a rock and a hard place

By Mark Argent | Fri 10th April 2015 - 10:25 am

In recent discussions of deficit reduction  my ear was caught by a survey or economists, organised by the Centre for Macroeconomics and the a press release from the National Institute for Economics and Social Research, both suggesting that austerity had not helped growth, and the Office for Budget Responsibility being quoted as saying that cuts reduced growth by one percentage point in each of the first two years of the coalition and by five percentage points over its lifetime.

The subtlety lies in a quote from Charlie Bean, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, that the main purpose of the austerity programme was to stabilise the banking system.

The banking system is vital to any country. Soon after Syriza was elected in Greece and announced an end to austerity I heard a rumour that some Greek government bonds had hit 15% interest: as government bonds are usually the at the bottom end of the range of interest rates in an economy that would point to scarily high borrowing costs for everyone. Banking is a major part of the British economy, which makes us even more vulnerable to the effects of an excessive deficit. That means it clearly makes sense to balance the budget.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: HS2 and the Ivanhoe line

By Mark Argent | Mon 6th April 2015 - 4:33 pm

321px-Sileby_railway_station_in_2010HS2 is the high-speed link which will run from London to Birmingham and then divide, one side going to Manchester (and potentially then to Glasgow) and the other through Sheffield, Leeds (and potentially Newcastle and Edinburgh).

The economic case is overwhelming.  The latest figures I’ve seen suggest that, over the next 30 years, this will cost £32bn to build and generate £43.7bn of economic benefits and £27bn in fares. Those figures are conservative: after 30 years the income will continue, but the building costs will have been covered. On top of this, what they can’t readily include is the role of house prices. At the moment people are paying a substantial premium to live in London (which also pushes up labour costs): finding a way to spread out economic activity across more of the country offers huge additional benefits as people no longer need to live in London.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: Thoughts on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Protocol (TTIP)

By Mark Argent | Thu 26th March 2015 - 10:25 am

While negotiations are continuing on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Protocol (TTIP) it is hard to know whether the outcome will be good or bad. As far as I can see, there are arguments for and against it, so I am feeling the need to keep an open mind.

The arguments in favour boil down to increased trade and economic stability. This is important because the growth of China, India and Brazil will put pressure on Europe and America: at 1.37Bn people, China has an appreciably larger population than the EU (500 million) and USA (320 million) together. The collapse of the Doha trade talks also increase the risk of tarifs and trade barriers between the EU and USA. The hope is that, at the very least, TTIP will counteract this, and at best, it will enhance our economic stability and competitiveness by improving ties between the EU and USA. There are predictions that this will boost the British economy by between four and ten billion pounds annually.

The European commission has been suggesting that many of the stories circulating about TTIP are exaggerated or wrong and is keen to reassure people that European concerns around health. Safety, rights at work, privacy, financial security and environment will be protected. Their information on this starts here.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: Will mental health be a vote-winner?

By Mark Argent | Mon 23rd March 2015 - 5:28 pm

Mark Argent 1

I was surprised when I saw the promotion of mental health emerging Liberal Democrat policy. Its effects are far more widespread than people like to admit, but mental health is so stigmatised that it seems a long way from being a vote-winner. Like entering the coalition, championing it seems like something important, but where we might have to pay a price in terms of popularity.

It is a difficult area to write about. Among my own circle of friends there are a number of people whose lives are badly affected by mental health issues. The area is so stigmatised that I feel I can’t tell stories in writing, but the stories I can’t write down would include some real achievements, of people coping with really difficult situations.

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