No surprises at the Bridge

I couldn’t honestly say that Arsenal’s defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge today came as a terrific surprise – it hasn’t been a good week or two for Arsene Wenger’s team.

What was billed as the defining period of the season (Premier League matches against Aston Villa, Manchester United and Chelsea, and a Fourth Round FA Cup tie at Stoke) has yielded one point and the end of Arsenal’s Wembley dream for another season. Anyone with a passing interest in today’s fixture could have predicted the Gunners might yet again suffer at the hands of Didier Drogba, and indeed the Ivorian managed to hit Arsenal where it hurts with two killer goals within the first half hour.

Funnily enough for most of the game Arsenal looked the better side at Stamford Bridge (in stark contrast to the desperate non-performance against Manchester United at the Emirates) but yet again there were those well-documented frailties where the team looked naive in defence, highly vulnerable to the counter-attack and seemed to be carrying a goalkeeper whose confidence looks to be completely shot. In spite of what the manager will say, Arsenal’s title challenge is certainly over now. Four games against the other title contenders, four defeats. Enough said.

But before we get into too much of an Arsenal downer it’s probably worth remembering what was predicted for the Gunners before the season started. If the media were to be believed the top three was going to consist of Man United, Chelsea and Liverpool (whatever happened to them?) and Arsenal were going to do well to roll in sixth behind Man City and Tottenham. While I don’t think third place should be the summit of Arsenal’s ambition, the club has definitely made progress since last year, but the question still has to be: how much longer can the team be an exciting project awaiting fruition?

We have, in Cesc Fabregas, unquestionably one of the finest midfielders in the world. His loyalty and commitment to Arsenal have been more than impressive and he never looks like he’s angling for a move to sunnier climes, but who could blame him if he succumbed to this summer’s inevitable advances from Barcelona? Arsenal haven’t won anything since the FA Cup in 2005 and players of his calibre can’t be expected to simply settle for Champions League qualification every year. The Gunners need to win something, and soon.

Don’t be in any doubt that Arsene Wenger has a rather better idea about what he’s doing than any of his critics, and I certainly wouldn’t want to see anyone else in charge of the team, but the Champions League is now the last hope of silverware this season. If Arsenal are unable to surpass the top teams from Spain, Italy and the UK to lift this year’s trophy then the club will inevitably find itself at a crossroads in the summer. Will Fabregas stay? Will Wenger make a significant move in the transfer market? Will next season be more of the same?

Can someone – anyone – give a straight answer on Ashcroft?

Another day, another story about Lord Michael Ashcroft, frequent-flyer and chief benefactor to the Conservative Party. This time the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, has accused the Tory hierarchy of being “evasive and obfuscatory” over the tax status of their Deputy Chairman and effectively given everyone 35 days to come up with some answers.

Strangely, the onus appears to be on the Cabinet Office (rather than the Tories) to outline what undertakings were given by Ashcroft and those acting on his behalf (most notably the then Leader of the Conservative Party, William Hague) when the Tories were fishing for a peerage for their largest donor back in 2000. Ashcroft, who had previously been a resident of Belize for tax purposes, agreed to become ‘domiciled’ in the UK as part of the conditions for his ennoblement.

Since then it has been less than clear whether the Noble Lord has actually complied with this gentleman’s agreement. In theory the Treasury should be receiving its annual share of Ashcroft’s multi-billion pound fortune, but in practice the only place his money clearly shows up is in the coffers of the Conservative Party, as the lion’s share of their General Election fighting-fund. No one – least of all David Cameron, George Osborne or William Hague – seems capable of giving a straight answer on this.

It might help if the media (with a few notable exceptions) were actually prepared to ask a few straight questions to the Tory leadership. If Labour had a similar donor and were anywhere near as ‘evasive and obfuscatory’ you could bet your last Belize Dollar that the press would be all over them like a rash. In the case of the Tories, however, this issue is treated like an unsightly boil on the face of a dinner host – everyone can see it is there but nobody wants to ruin the evening by being so impolite as to mention it.

Time is running out for these questions to be asked (and answered). In a little over three months Ashcroft’s money may well have played a key part in a Tory election victory. And who will ask the awkward questions then?

See also: Some are more equal than others

So what was that all about then?

I was astonished to find myself on the front page of the Western Morning News today as part of a curious ‘process’ story on the use of Twitter from Council meetings. I haven’t actually seen it myself, as I tend not to buy confused right-wing newspapers, but I have seen the online version. That’s right, it’s your basic slow-news-day hatchet job and I shouldn’t really complain because I’ve written far worse about other people on these very pages.

What was perhaps most surprising was that the news editor at this esteemed (Daily Mail owned) publication felt that publishing ‘tweets’ from a meeting that took place ten days ago was actually (a) news, and (b) worthy of the front page. What was less surprising was that the ubiquitous Tax Payers’ Alliance were wheeled out to foam at the mouth about… well, they weren’t quite sure really, but something was definitely an outrage. (I must confess to feeling slightly proud to have finally won my ‘TPA wings’.)

Life will go on and all of this will no doubt blow over in a day or two. While I’m still not entirely sure what the whole thing was about, I have at least learned one valuable lesson: beware the phone call from a friendly journalist on a slow news day.

See also: A Slow News Day

Iraq – Labour’s War

(Image from "The Unsuitablog")

Credit where credit’s due, I suppose. Gordon Brown did at least call the Chilcot Inquiry. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, a diversionary tactic in the wake of a pasting in the European and Local Elections of June 2009, and an attempted leadership coup by Hazel Blears and James Purnell (last year’s Hoon & Hewitt).

It is a mark of Gordon Brown’s continuing allergy to any kind of good luck that, in doing the right thing and establishing the inquiry, all he will really do is succeed in bringing Iraq back to the forefront of voters’ minds with a General Election only a matter of weeks away – particularly since he will now be the star turn of the inquiry alongside his predecessor, Tony Blair.

The 2005 Election was, in many parts of the country, largely defined by the Iraq War. Five years ago Labour was able to withstand this. The vagaries of Britain’s bizarre electoral system and the continuing dysfunction in a Conservative Party led by Michael Howard meant that Blair was able to ‘win’ the election on 36% of a 61% turnout. 2010 will be a quite different kettle of fish, not least because, for over a year now, the opinion polls have barely shifted from the 40/30/20 split that just about favours the Tories.

Of course, the Tories shouldn’t be let off the hook over Iraq – they happily voted alongside the government when the decision was taken to invade. Would a Conservative government have gone to war alongside the Americans? Of course it would, and the Tories’ sabre-rattling tendency was very much in evidence during the build-up to the war. In office their unquestioning Atlanticism would certainly have delivered the same result, and if anything George W Bush would have found in the Conservatives a whole government of kindred spirits rather than simply a rogue Prime Minister who slavishly did his bidding.

The only consistent and meaningful opposition to the war came from Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats, but the electoral system offers no reward for simply being right. Labour looks incapable of any meaningful revival anyway, and it would seem that all the Tories need to do is sit tight and repeat the refrain “we were lied to” every time the subject of the war is raised. Sadly, given the near-total lack of media scrutiny of the Conservative policy agenda, they’ll probably get away with it.

When the dust has settled from the Chilcot Inquiry it shouldn’t be forgotten that Iraq was Labour’s War. Yes, Tony Blair will rightly take the bulk of the flak, but the Labour Party had the numbers and the personalities to call the whole thing off. Instead the vast bulk of the parliamentary Labour Party dutifully filed through the ‘Aye” lobby, Robin Cook’s was the only Cabinet resignation and Gordon Brown, at the time still regarded as Britain’s most powerful post-war Chancellor, happily signed the cheques.

Don’t forget – people are wonderful

On Saturday it rained in Cornwall, rained like I’ve never seen it rain here before.

I’m lucky enough to live in an old house in the country, which is my dream life for most of the year. There are one or two drawbacks to this, the main one being that we are quite often prone to minor flash-flooding. It’s a costly irritation which has defied many attempts to remedy and generally leaves us feeling sad and disheartened.

On Saturday the field we sit at the bottom of had just soaked up the thawing snow when, in a very short space of time, enough rain fell to send a Wonka-esque chocolate river heading towards us. Nine hours of mopping up ensued.

We were blessed, if I can use that word in a secular sense, that we had a fantastic group of family and friends who dropped everything on a Saturday night to come to our aid, helping with the flow-stemming mopping, wringing out towels, making tea, not to mention working in the mud to try to find a way to stop the advance of the water. They came without being asked for the simple human reason that they recognised friends needed help, and I’m still trying to work out how I can ever thank them properly.

Much as I love to sit here and have a good bitch about those richer and more powerful than me, it’s good to have the occasional reminder of how great people really are. I was genuinely touched by the warmth of those wonderful people for whom nothing was too much trouble on Saturday night.

As we had a chance to draw breath on Sunday morning I picked up the paper and saw a front page headline about water shortages in quake-devastated Haiti, and it quickly put our temporary difficulties very much into perspective.

Zac Goldsmith – Yet another warning about the Tories

It will come as no great surprise to connoiseurs of the Conservative Party’s love of money (and complete disregard of what anyone else thinks) that Zac Goldsmith has once again appeared at the centre of a Tory financial scandal. You will remember that Mr Goldsmith recently came under the most fleeting scrutiny for his ‘non-dom’ status as a parliamentary candidate. Now it turns out that the Conservatives have been covering up cash donations he’s channelled to the party through the ‘wealth management firm’ Unicorn Administration.

None of this shocks me in the slightest, nor should anyone else be surprised. What does disappoint is the fact that, once again, the story only merits the merest of mentions in the news media (although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about that either).

Let’s not forget that this last week we’ve had wall-to-wall coverage of a half-hearted attempt to unseat Gordon Brown by two obscure former ministers, a relative non-story that even managed to shunt aside the media’s current obsession with levels of snow regarded as perfectly normal in the rest of Europe.

In contrast the Tories (who, it should be remembered, are the bookie’s nailed-on favourites to form the next government) once again escape any real examination of who is paying their hefty campaigning bills and what those donors might hope to receive in return. I guess I should probably accept that the tone was set a year or so back when Gideon easily managed to sweat out that grubby business on the yacht with Nathaniel Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Oleg Deripaska, but that last remaining part of me that I can still call idealistic does rather hope that someone (anyone) sees fit to find out what type of people might be running the country come June.

Labour’s Deathwish helps no one but the Tories

It looks like the latest (and very probably last) attempt by factions within the Labour Party to remove Gordon Brown has already run its course, with all the major figures in the Cabinet lining up to offer their public support to the Prime Minister. It doesn’t really matter how weasel their words are, or whether they are doing so because they feel they ought to rather than because they want to, Brown will survive. Again.

It’s difficult to work out what thought processes, if any, were whirring away in the otherwise empty heads of Geoff Hoon (a former Chief Whip) and Patricia Hewitt when they drafted the email to backbenchers which has caused all the fuss. Labour has had a (relatively) good start to the year: the opinion polls have showed the Tory lead narrowing, David Cameron has been having a fit of the wobbles over tax and Brown put in a dominant performance at PMQs just minutes before the story broke. Why then did Hewitt and Hoon make a move that has served only to take the heat off Cameron and snuff out Labour’s recovery before it had even warmed up?

Yet again rolling news made more of the story than was warranted. Sky (with its seemingly indelible ‘Breaking News’ banner) and the BBC have valiantly done their best to give the story legs all day, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the press will have another stab at blowing it out of all proportion tomorrow, but it really does look as though this coup is going to go the way of all the others and that Gordon will limp on to probable defeat in March/May/June. I can’t help but think that there wouldn’t be such a feeding frenzy if, say, Douglas Hogg and Stephen Dorrell (or any other obscure pair of former Cabinet ministers) had sent an email around Tory backbenchers calling for David Cameron to face a leadership contest, but I suppose I should be quite used to the media running with the Conservative news agenda at every opportunity.

The only winners from this are the Tories, who once again manage to give the slip to one of those rare moments when their policies were actually being scrutinised. And the sad thing is, if the Tories are the winners there are going to be vast numbers of people who will be the losers. There are many areas where Labour has failed over the last twelve and a half years (tackling inequality, protecting civil liberties, meaningful constitutional reform, avoiding illegal wars, to name but a few) but it has to be remembered that on all of those issues a Conservative government would be inestimably worse. As someone who isn’t a Labour supporter, perhaps I shouldn’t intrude into the private grief of others but – if today’s events are indeed the pre-cursor for a comfortable Tory victory at the General Election – the Labour Party will have a good place to start when the inevitable inquest gets under way.

The Tories, Tax and Marriage

“I like you guys who wanna reduce the size of government – make it just small enough so it can fit in our bedrooms.” Josh Lyman, The West Wing.

I’ll never learn. I wasted half an hour this morning listening to a radio phone-in about David Cameron’s plans to “recognise marriage through the tax system” or, as Nicky Campbell billed it, “Is wedlock the bedrock?”. Quite. Inevitably I ended up shouting at the usual reactionary Daily Mail nonsense that spewed out of many of the ‘contributors’ prissy, moralising mouths until I realised with disgust that I had allowed their Middle England rage to push my buttons. The thing is, if the Tories get in this year I’ll have to be prepared for much more of the same as there will no doubt be an endless stream of core vote-pleasing guff emanating from Downing Street.

What annoys me most about the policy of tax breaks for married people is the interference with people’s private lives and choices. The Conservative Party have spent much of the past twelve years moaning about the ‘Nanny State’ yet don’t see the irony in proposals which foist their own version of morality onto everyone else. The unspoken part of the deal is that, if you’re co-habiting, divorced or simply choose to live alone, you are somehow inferior to those (like me) who have decided to get married. It’s classic, old-fashioned, prescriptive Toryism and it’s one of those things that the people who are flirting with voting for Cameron have completely overlooked.

It’s not as if there is an unarguable case that marriage makes everything better. The Tories seem more than willing to pin all of society’s problems on the declining popularity of the traditional family unit without any solid evidence to back it up. They conveniently ignore the role that basic old-fashioned poverty may have to play in crime and social division (problems that their eighteen-year period in office did much to exacerbate) instead choosing to believe that a ring on the finger will make it all better. It is, of course, patronising nonsense aimed at the already affluent and (coupled with the inheritance tax giveaway to the very wealthy) gives a fairly clear indication of the direction Cameron aims to take us in, not that it was ever really in any doubt.

Doctor Who – the new boy will do just fine

To those who don’t give a damn, I make no apology for posting an item on Doctor Who. I’ve loved the programme since I was a kid (I vaguely remember Jon Pertwee, but Tom Baker was ‘my’ Doctor) and have greatly enjoyed Russell T Davies’ ‘re-imagining’ of the show over the past four or five years. Last night one of the great Who traditions continued with the passing on of the sonic screwdriver from David Tennant to new boy Matt Smith.

Much discussion has surrounded the change with many fearing that Smith, a virtual unknown for those who never saw ‘Party Animals’, will never be able to fill the boots of the mighty Tennant. We have, of course, been here before. Patrick Troughton replaced William Hartnell, the original Doctor, and went on to become one of the best-loved incarnations of the Time Lord. Similarly Jon Pertwee, the action man dandy of the genre, was superceded by the then unknown Tom Baker (who has subsequently ‘regenerated’ into barking-mad national treasure). After a mighty seven years in the hotspot, Baker made way for Peter Davison who managed to make the role his own, despite a dodgy re-working of the theme tune and the shunting of the show from Saturday tea-time to midweek.

After that, it’s fair to say that the show struggled. Colin Baker always seemed a bit too grumpy (in a badly-clothed psycho-killer sort of way) and Sylvester McCoy – well… By the late eighties it was difficult to argue with Michael Grade’s assessment that the programme was “rubbish” and the then BBC1 Controller cheerfully brought the axe down on Doctor Who in 1989.

Enter Russell T Davies in 2005. The show was given the benefit of Davies’ scripts, a half-decent budget, 21st century production values and Christopher Eccleston in the title role. It was an instant hit but many were shocked when Eccleston announced he would quit after just one series. David Tennant had worked with Davies on ‘Casanova’ and was seen by the production team as the obvious choice for the tenth Doctor, but many in the wider public wondered if such an early change at the top might kill the Doctor Who revival before it was even a year old. (I remember thinking at the time that John Simm would probably have been a better bet, but he was destined for darker things.) Tennant went on to become the most popular resident of the TARDIS since the programme began way back in 1963, and the latest in a long line of actors who have proved that, no matter how loved their predecessors were, the show must go on.

So give Matt Smith a chance. He looks the part, he can act and he has a great production team around him who have demonstrated that they know what they’re doing (although Davies has moved on to pastures new). Doctor Who always seems to keep its popularity, come what may, and a new face will not change that. Within a year or so Smith will have become as synonymous with the role as (nearly) all the other Doctors have done. The new boy will do just fine.

The Death Penalty – why it’s a really bad idea.

China’s execution of Akmal Shaikh for heroin smuggling has once again re-opened that thorny old debate on the topic of capital punishment. The radio phone-ins were alive this morning with most of the contributors concluding that China had acted perfectly within its rights and that Shaikh’s fate was entirely of his own making. Leo McKinstry was keen to join the charge, posting this typically vile piece in the Daily Mail, which demonstrated both a lack of humanity and a lack of humility which have become the trademarks of Fleet Street’s most poisonous rag over the years. It would seem that, aside from the usual ‘liberal’ suspects, the majority of the British public are more in tune with McKinstry than they are with Amnesty International.

Much of the debate has centred around Shaikh’s bi-polar disorder and his unsuitability for trial or execution, which in any criminal trial should surely be a fair enough point, and China’s human rights record has once again come under scrutiny. However, surprisingly little has been said about the basic principle of putting people to death for their alleged crimes.

I absolutely, fundamentally believe the death penalty to be wrong, regardless of the nature of the crime involved. I don’t believe it acts as a deterrent, I don’t believe any country in the world can guarantee a judicial system which is immune to miscarriages of justice, but most of all I simply don’t believe it is right to kill another person.

America still persists with the death penalty in many of its States, but that seems to have very little impact on their record levels of violent crime. The strongest deterrent against crime is detection, not sentence – offenders tend to commit crime because they don’t believe they will be caught. Is a knife-wielding killer really weighing up in his mind which is more preferable between a life sentence and the death penalty, or is he thinking how likely he is to get away with it?

As for the soundness of convictions, the UK is hardly the place to start when looking for good practice in this field. The Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, the Bridgewater Three – they and countless others wrongly accused would all have been sent to the gallows if the British legal system still included capital punishment. Once carried out, the death penalty is final and irrevocable – there is no margin for error.

So what of the victims? How would I feel about the death penalty if someone close to me was murdered? The honest answer is that if one of my loved ones was the victim then I imagine no punishment would be too harsh – I would probably want the murderer hanging from the highest tree. But that is precisely the reason why judges and juries with no prior knowledge of the individuals concerned are appointed to carry out trials, and exactly the same logic should always be extended to sentencing. Of course, the flip-side of this argument is how would those baying for the blood of every criminal react if their own son or daughter was accused?

The bottom line for me is that it is wrong to kill people, unless it is the only way to stop them killing others. The death penalty belongs to another age, an age when people took the Old Testament literally, when trial by drowning was an acceptable method of dealing with witchcraft. It is not something that should have a place in a modern society. It saddens me when I read and hear people from this country (which, for all its flaws, still upholds free speech) holding China up as a shining example of how things should be done.

Most countries in the world have turned their back on the death penalty. In time I hope that the two most powerful nations on the planet, China and the United States, will do the same. I’m sorry about what happened to Akmal Shaikh, regardless of what he did or why he did it, but I hope that one day his story will come to be seen as part of the narrative that led to the worldwide end of capital punishment.