You can watch Brown’s speech live here.

Wit and wisdom suggested here that I should have done some more research for my post. I don’t really think that you can determine the strength and chances of a party from a conference speech, seeing as it tends to be only pre-existing party members, media types, political junkies (this is my category) and those members of the public unfortunate enough to be picked for “Focus groups” who watch them. They can, however, be used to determine the calibre of the speaker and so I thought I might as well offer my views on Clegg’s speech.

If you wish to watch it it starts here:

(At the moment it has only 196 views, rather supporting my view on the public impact of these things.)

Clegg was described in our comment section as “genuine and warm”. There certainly is a warmth to him which is revealed in his surprisingly strong wit. He broke out the constituency anecdotes very early on but although initially it was pretty standard fare he later saved himself with a rather non sequiturious but utterly charming tale of a girl drawing God. This also reminded me of his atheism, which makes a pleasing change from the standard bland faith you tend to find amongst British party leaders.

The main line for this speech was “The future’s bright, the future’s liberal.” The accompanying subtext was, of course, “Labour is dead, Tories are still Tories.” Perhaps as some indication of my political bias I found the final message by far the best executed: when attacking the Conservatives Clegg surely conjured envy amongst the squirming Labour partisans who have been flailing around for years now, unable to land a blow upon the pristine PR of Cameron. The bike with a car driven behind line felt a bit tired but for the most part he staged a strong attack on the Conservatives which felt like apt preparation for the job of constant pounding of their record that will be required of him when they take office. What exactly he meant by calling them “Blue Labour”, though, is beyond me. This phrase left me rather baffled.

It was his attacks upon Labour which were a little lacking. His main line was that they “Labour are finished, it’s over” which presumably was intended to be one of those prophesies where the mere utterance brings about the outcome foreseen. Pleasingly classical but perhaps something of a strategic error: should the widespread assumption that Labour will collapse in itself before tearing itself to pieces on the floor instead of trying to stand up fail to come to pass Clegg has left his party exposed to being overtaken by the Party. This is probably a safe enough gamble, but the fact remains that his argument is somewhat lacking: when mentioning the vast number of CCTV cameras in this country, for instance, he fails to mention that the executive was in no way responsible for this. For the most part cameras are installed either by private firms or as a council measure. In this way what is responsible for their presence is a local populist statism rather than Brown’s clunking fist.

Indeed, the most striking abuses of state power performed under New Labour (Iraq War aside) have largely happened upon a local level with officials using the endlessly exploitable Terror Acts to have their way with the public. If Clegg has any desire to repeal these pieces of legislation or amend them so as to be less easy to use against elderly dissenters and those who prefer their mail unpilfered then he does not express it. Furthermore, if he is actually desiring to restrict the number of CCTV cameras he will, ironically enough, have to overpower local government with the executive. There is certainly a case for doing so, but if Clegg is simply slipping into the habit of identifying problems and suggesting that he should be given power despite neither offering nor having any ideas for amending them then I would suggest he join the Conservatives.

Indeed due to his perfectly presentable tone it is only when his speech is subjected to an inspection of content that it struggles. Take the commitment to a “Green economy”. This sounds similar to Miliband’s mooted “Low-carbon economy”, as well as equally devoid of explicit commitment to environmentally friendly policy so radical and substantial that it reconstructs the entire economic ordering of Britain. Take the most notable example of his rightwards swing of “Tax-cuts for working families”. This slid over my consciousness upon the first hearing, but then snagged after a moment’s consideration. Is Clegg suggesting that we tax the unemployed instead? Or that we make singletons and spinsters yet more miserable by increasing their tax-burden? Or is he saying that the wealthy he presumably needs to tax more heavily to maintain spending without plunging the country into debt are somehow not engaged in “working”?

This is not to say that I am in favour of the fantastically wealthy clinging onto their absurd excess. I simply think that such rhetorical vagueness is immensely intellectually sloppy. Clegg at other points in his speech manages moments of extreme and relieving freshness (suggesting we base our benefits system around what the recipients required rather than bureaucrats desire was a striking and sublime proposal, upsetting as it may have sounded to the civil service) but in mouthing this vapid, vacuous, void filled cliché he left himself with an unstable centrepiece for his economic proposals.

Indeed, although his presentation led to my characterisation of his words as “bluster” as in hindsight being far too harsh the rational value of them is even worse than I had anticipated. Clegg has committed himself at least in part to the “Orange Book” brigade, forgetting that it was while acting as a proper, progressive centre-left alternative to the increasingly and seemingly irredeemably populist Labour Party that the Liberal Democrats ascended in popular support to their greatest heights. The policy of taxing the wealthiest and firm opposition to the war both drew in voters who had no other refuge from New Labour’s relentless lunge towards neo-liberalism.

In other words the Social Democratic elements of the union being stressed served the party well, while Clegg seems interested only in the Liberal.

But despite this he has ambition not voiced anywhere near as explicitly by his last to predecessors. The phrases: “A million doors in Britain” and “Calling 250,000 people” were followed shortly by his description of the party as the “Vanguard” and the “Forefront of a revolution”. These frankly Leninist terms caught me rather by surprise. I still uncertain whether they should be taken as something of a joke or whether he actually is trying to claim the rhetoric of the revolutionary left as the Liberal’s own.

But his follow through actually was decent enough: the Liberal Democrats were indeed earlier champions of equal human rights for homosexuals, opponents of the war, defenders of the environment and prescient over a number of positions that are now consensus pieces and points of unanimity amongst the parties (well, perhaps not the War…).

The difficulty is that the Liberal Democrats are able to lead in this fashion, but not capitalise. They are restrained both by the fact that their opponents will happily and shamelessly steal them of their clothes and this robbery leaves them without a stitch, as well as from the electoral system which favours those with concentrated bases (both other parties, as well as the SNP). This is why towards the conclusion a barn-storming appeal for a “New politics” (I hazily remember him calling for that a while back) which, as far as I can tell, seems to consist of bringing a lot of new people into politics (so that they can vote LibDem) and changing the electoral system totally (so that all the new LibDem votes can get counted and not go to waste).

Really, only the latter would be required for the Liberal Democrats to become a far more substantial force in politics. However, with both the other parties perfectly aware of this and of the two the one with the word Conservative in their party name looking by far the most likely to triumph at the next election the likelihood of the LibDems getting their greatest dream made flesh seems about as likely as Cameron’s hair surviving this decade.

Therefore there is certainly a case to be made that no matter what political ideology they cleave to (and it must be remembered that due to their precarious balancing between disaffected Labour and disaffected Tories to a degree the LibDem hopes of electoral success depend upon cleaving firmly to neither one base of supporters or the other) no political theory will bring about their ascension to power, which has struggled largely due to reasons the political scientists could explain.

In extricating themselves from this awkward position Clegg will be of some utility. Certainly my description of him as “lithium” was overly brutal. But I maintain that he is not a leader that can claim the position the Liberal Democrats could do in their position as the only centre-left party left standing.

The Green Party Conference finished today - so regular updates should resume soon, along with a write-up of my conference. In the meantime, enjoy the best bits of Caroline Lucas’ inaugural Leader’s speech:

And, for good measure, Adrian Ramsay’s Deputy Leader’s speech too:

Nice, no?

My immediate reaction to this monstrosity of televisual farce was:

1. What the fuck this?
2. What the fuck is this?
3. What the fuck is this?

I can honestly say that nothing has horrified me so much since our new mayor was declared. I’m aware that if you have cute children you have political capital and Barack Obama has certainly not been entirely averse to spending it, but after tonight Palin must surely be forced to declare herself a bankrupt. Perhaps a good deal of the blame lies on the head of the choreographers and cameramen who decided it apt to have a Downs afflicted infant passed around, from father to seven year old and onwards.

To accompany this nauseatingly exploitative spectacle (her daughter obviously had no idea what to do with the camera shoved in her face, and contented herself with coating her younger brother’s head with saliva and sticking her finger in her eye, which would be fine under most conditions but in this context presented something of an incongruous non sequiter) was Palin introducing them all in a fashion which felt as if it lasted for a week, followed by a barrage of hackneyed nonsense, shards of barbed wit and every weary, faded buzz-word that her script-writer (a former author of George W. Bush’s words, and it showed) which had the whole room enraptured.

Yes, there was a whole room full of people lapping the stuff up like hungry rats. The sight of a room full of Republicans has quite honestly disturbed me, with it hardly surprising me that the spectacle aided Barack raising $8 million (however much that is worth, now) in a single day. I knew that people like that existed, but there there was something about the sight of so many wrong-minded people crammed into a room together braying and clapping and shouting “Drill, Drill!” oh so eagerly that made me recoil and want to wretch.

If you want a more measured view then see here and here. Mudflats, of course, has some excellent words to say. A tad less rational but as fun in a different fashion.

Enough of this. Words can not outline the atrocity. See for yourselves and scar your own eyes so I can cease being forced to re-live the trauma:

As far as I’m concerned the above makes it abundantly clear that the Republicans severely overplayed their shoddy hand. They picked too tough a target and one who was capable of far too fine a speech for their smears to stick.

Thus if they have done anyone damage with their distortions, after last night, it will have been themselves.

The text of Obama’s Berlin speech can be found here. Video:

Andrew Sullivan has the transcript for Obama’s speech. If there was any doubt that the man is merry leagues ahead of any other politician active in the Anglosphere a read of that ought to dispell it.

(Or: For Solidarity’s sake, comrade, don’t mention Kronstadt)

On a day where the Prime Minister appointed by his party declared himself against a return to the 1970s, a time which the far-left (and perhaps only the far-left) consider with some nostalgia, at least in contrast to the decade which followed who better to see first thing than Tony Benn?

Watching him at Marxism 2008 had a particular joy; in that it was one of the immensely rare occasions during which his audience would leave him substantially to the right. If, even after all these years of attendence, this left him unsettled it did not show an inch. I showed up very mildly late and he was in full swing; clearly in his element while speaker. His speech roamed over a broad number of points and annecdotes, distinctively Bennite in nature, covering everything from his rather surprising advocacy of rationing (the average height of the working class man rose by two inches due to it) to his ethical vegetarianism (his forward-thinking son Hillary told him fifteen years ago that if all the grain fed to animals was fed to people this would end famine).

It was obvious that the SWP presence (heavy) was left bristling by his outright suggestions that Labour was worth struggling to save and although his suggestion that Labour would swing left after a heavy loss to Cameron (something which would effectively require New Labour to end) he did acknowledge that Labour was not socialist but had socialists in it “Just as the Church has Christians in it”.

Speaking of which, he did not adopt an anti-religious tone but was opposed to religious authority. It occured to me later on (as well as the day before, when I was talking about the importance of imams concerning Respect) that Marxism falters when it comes to understanding the power of religious leaders. Its understanding being limited to wealth results in the power of a poor man standing on an upturned box and raving about a being that loves as it condemns being somewhat alien to them. Preachers often lack fortunes but are able to marshall people through belief in matters beyond the material. Although I would challenge the genuine existence of such forces as firmly as would Marxists I fear that their focus upon the tangible leads them to underestimate the might of that which is elsewhere. Even if it is merely steroid-fed speculation it gives copious power to the undeserving.

Regardless, Benn stated that his internet research had led him to the conclusion that all religions taught much the same message; which was that you should treat others as you would expect to be treated. Perhaps a rather simpler formation than the Universal Ethic tirelessly sought by renegade Catholic Hans Kung but the method of his learning struck me as interesting. When he was taken up on this point by an American concerned about the media (worse in his own country than here, he said, but perhaps America is simply more right wing I would suggest) who stated that the internet was inherently “structured” to favour the bourgeois Benn stayed firm, stating that he was sometimes uncertain why he still watched television as he got all the news he wanted from the websites he followed. A man after my own heart, clearly.

(more…)

David Davis may have stolen the show, but we mustn’t let the media narrative stray too far. Gordon Brown employed what appears to be very dirty tactics to keep his party toeing the line, and we cannot forget his disgraceful bribing of the DUP. We cannot forget their acceptance, either.

Buried in the mix, people have mentioned Diane Abbott’s speech last night as being of particular merit. That it was. A stunning display of defiance of the Whips on grounds of conscience. It doesn’t rank with Robin Cook’s 2003 speech resigning as Leader of the Commons, but it is one of the best parliamentary speeches since. I reproduce it here “below the fold”, as it were, for the sake of completion.

(more…)

Rather shockingly I have as of yet failed to post a link to this speech.

It really is superb. He addresses the damage and difficulties caused both by the racism endemic in American society and the “Positive” discrimination enacted in order to diminish it. Many would simply have ditched their spiritual mentor for the sake of politics and it almost certainly would have fortified Obama’s position more reliably if he had of. But in instead delivering a speech this fine he will hopefully achieve even more.

Obama seems to offer something entirely new that neither of the others in the race are capable of. This speech reminded me that for all the talk of him being “Black” he is in fact of dual heritage and mixed blood. The amount of harm that the conventional view of race would be done by this and the amount of good towards racial miscegenation would be immense, not because of who he is but how unimportant he makes it seem.