Judicial Review of a Confidence and Supply Arrangement

An interesting story appeared in The Guardian today, in which it emerged that there may be an attempt to judicially review any agreement entered into by Theresa May's Conservative and Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionists. Having failed to secure an overall majority in the June election, May needs the DUP, at a minimum, to abstain on all major votes if she is to command the confidence of the House of Commons and to get crucial Parliamentary bills passed.

The central contention of those seeking to challenge a "confidence and supply" arrangement is that, if the UK Government were to make concessions of particular political or constitutional salience, it would undermine the duty of the British Government to be "rigorously impartial" as to the exercise of sovereign power with respect to the territory. This undertaking is contained in Article 1(v) of the Belfast Agreement.

I believe this challenge will fail, for several reasons:

This isn't the Government acting

A confidence and supply arrangement is not entered into by the UK Government. It is instead a political agreement, between political parties, to vote in certain ways in a Parliamentary assembly. There is, I think, an arguable case that a coalition agreement might be treated differently, because it forms the pretext-upon which government ministers are appointed from different parties. Ministers are clearly a part of the government and the presence of DUP ministers might reasonably have been thought an act of governmental partiality were the Irish nationalist community not also involved in the arrangement.

Crucially, however, commitment in the Good Friday Agreement is concerned with the obligation of governments to remain impartial; it does not commit every political party, or every member of the legislature, in the UK or Republic of Ireland to avoid alliances, even formal, with one or more Northern Irish political parties where there is common purpose or interest. The distinction between acts of government and acts of parliamentary caucuses is an important one.

The inference of the contrary position - that this is a governmental and not a party-political act - is that no government can ever rely-upon the voting or abstention of a sectarian political party from Northern Ireland in order to pass a piece of legislation. This, intuitively, does not seem tenable. It would defeat the whole point of Northern Ireland returning representatives to the Westminster Parliament in the first place. That they are there is for a purpose: while Government may be expected to operate with impartiality in how it exercises its power with respect to the six counties and the devolved government and two communities there, Parliament is not so bound.

The content of an agreement would not in fact compromise "rigorous impartiality"

Even if it is rejected that a confidence and supply arrangement is party-political rather than governmental, it still falls to show that the government's conduct would be unlawful. "Rigorous impartiality" is a bespoke phrase in the Good Friday Agreement. But what does it actually mean? It does not mean, surely, that a British Prime Minister cannot express a personal view that Northern Ireland should, in any border poll, choose to remain a part of the United Kingdom. The Conservative and Unionist Party, and its two Prime Ministers since the Agreement came into force, have never sought to conceal precisely this view. The clue is, in part, in their party's name. Clearly, then, adherence to a position on that question does not itself constitute falling short of "rigorous impartiality".

For an arrangement to compromise the impartial exercise of "the power of sovereign government" then, there must be something more substantial to it. The mere fact that a political agreement exists, and that it involves a sectarian party, does not mean that the UK Government is, by necessity, now partial concerning the question of "the power of sovereign government" in Northern Ireland. If an agreement saw the UK Government's programme undertake to act in ways that would (have a realistic prospect of) very clearly picking sides on an issue of contention being addressed at Stormont, or altered the protection of fundamental rights or some other part of the Belfast Agreement designed to protect the rights of nationalists/republicans in the six counties, we might reasonably conclude that "rigorous impartiality" has been fallen short of.

This would have to mean something like caving to a demand on parades or placing obstacles in the way of an Irish Language Act. Such commitments would likely, however, be in neither of the political interests of the Tories or the DUP. They are unlikely to be part of the agreement precisely because of how they would be received politically, regardless of any legal obligations.

This is not a domestic legal obligation

Perhaps more practically, the "rigorous impartiality" provision is in all likelihood not a (domestically) justiciable issue, or at any rate a subject matter to which the exercise of governmental power attracts considerable judicial deference. The Good Friday Agreement is in essence a treaty between two sovereign states. Its provisions, in and of themselves, are not legally binding in a UK court. The Good Friday Agreement does, however, have a slightly special relationship with the law in the UK in that it is directly referred to in the Northern Ireland Act as the multi-party, political, basis for the restoration of Northern Irish devolution. This allows judges to, among other things, take into account the intentions of the parties in that agreement when interpreting constitutional statutes and the content of their provisions. This makes the GFA different from, say, the Calman Commission's Report, the Edinburgh Agreement, or the Smith Commission proposals in Scotland, all of which would likely be less easily used as constitutionally relevant materials for judges interpreting provisions of the Scotland Act.

Importantly, however, the Good Friday Agreement is not enshrined in domestic law. At best it represents political undertakings that frame the pretext for the Northern Ireland Act itself. The Northern Ireland Act does not commit the UK Government to behave with "rigorous impartiality" on this issue, nor does any other statute. If there is a potential breach of law here, it is of international law and not of domestic constitutional law.

This is important because, unless otherwise expressly authorised, it is not within the gift of the domestic courts of the UK to prevent a minister from undertaking their office's powers and duties (as they relate to foreign affairs) in contravention of international law. The prerogative power would be particularly important here, as might political forms of constitutional accountability (like Parliament's scrutiny of any deal). But as a matter of domestic law there is no hard constraint. This is the important difference between a judicial review in this case and, say, the judicial review in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union where what was being contested was the existence of a legal power in domestic law to make a notification under a treaty.

Why an overtly common-law challenge would (probably) also fail

Any argument then, would rely-upon a contortion of common-law grounds of review. Perhaps they might maintain that, by failing to take into account the relevant considerations of the undertakings of the GFA, the Prime Minister had exercised her power improperly. Perhaps even they might argue that no reasonable Prime Minister properly applying their mind to the question would conclude that the grave constitutional (if political) undertaking of rigorous impartiality was compatible with whatever agreement was reached.

Even if these issues were regarded, in principle, as justiciable, it is difficult to see how a court would interrogate the decision so meticulously as to annul that of the original decision-maker (the Prime Minister). It would be very easy on her part to show that her decision has seriously contemplated the implications on the peace process, even if one might politically and quite radically disagree with her.

Perhaps more importantly, courts are generally deferential when it comes to constitutional disputes. The generous reading-in of materials in Robinson v Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, for instance, had the effect of relaxing apparently plain legal obligations to allow for political negotiations to take precedence during the crisis. A court that went out of its way to say that a Prime Minister was acting irrationally for going into an agreement of this sort would in effect be doing the opposite: giving legal properties to negotiations concerned with profound high-politics.

Parting thoughts

This (potential) case is interesting from my perspective because my doctoral thesis is concerned, in part, with the judicial treatment of constitutional secession negotiations. I look at questions like, for example, what a court would do if the UK, Canadian or Spanish Governments refused to enter into secession negotiations to honour a (constitutionally valid) referendum result on the part of Scotland, Quebec or Catalonia to secede. Even in the Canadian case, where their Supreme Court articulated constitutional duties to "negotiate" a response to a clear result, however, they stopped short of saying that they would intervene in a dispute of that nature if those duties were not honoured.

It seems to me that the duty to uphold rigorous impartiality in Northern Ireland is of a similar order. The Courts will not intervene except in the most clear-cut cases of interests being compromised, and even then they will do so on the basis of overt statutory authority, not by reading-in the Good Friday Agreement.

This is not to diminish the political importance of those undertakings. We should have grave concerns about any government, whether formally or informally, that is dependent upon sectarian parties to get its legislative agenda through. Constitutionally, however, at best these references to the Belfast Agreement seem to me to restate the constitutional tensions that already exist. They do not solve them.

Howling at the Moon? Yep.

On Saturday, the Scottish Liberal Democrats confirmed themselves as unconditional Unionists.

This is not liberal.

The Parliamentary Party turned on a motion that was itself an attempt to heal the divide between members of the party for whom the result of the EU referendum will likely compel the choice between two unpalatables. They showed a total unwillingness to listen, to acknowledge that the Unionism of far too many, especially many in the Scottish Tories, is unthinking, tribal and contrary to the interests of either people in Scotland or other parts of that Union.

They falsely accused the movers of the motion of pushing them to break a pledge they made to the electorate in May. The movers of the motion deliberately framed the motion in such a way so as not to put them in that position. Whatever your view of the merits of either the manifesto commitment against supporting a referendum in this Parliament, or the donor-seeking Scotland in Union pledge overtly to oppose any such referendum, we were very clear we would not and could not ask them to go back on it.

Yet the leadership's inner-circle lined up one after another, frankly, to tell barefaced lies to the Conference hall. They smeared those bringing the motion as unwitting nationalist conduits, for having the audacity simply to ask that they do two things. Those two requests were possibly the most painfully reasonable one could hope for a liberal and democratic party to agree to.

First, we asked them to talk to the Scottish Government, and to go to the table without preconditions and demands. We wanted them to work with their group of experts to identify possible ways of protecting Scotland's interests in the EU. Rule nothing in; but rule nothing out, until the lie of the landscape is clearer.

Their response? To say that the Muscatelli Group was a PR exercise and a ruse for independence. Never mind that a longstanding and highly respected Labour MEP sits on this group. Never mind that Sturgeon has been back-peddling on the imminence of a referendum ever since June, and has directed her focus towards single market and free movement protection since. To expect this group to have done much before Art 50 has even been invoked is disingenuous, and not even to work with them is narrow-minded.

Secondly, we asked them to bring their proposals, once the terms of a Brexit deal are known, before Conference, so that the membership could freely and openly discuss the best way forward for Scotland. The amendment they voted for removed that commitment. The leadership therefore has a free hand to ignore the concerns of the membership about whether, and to what extent, leaving the European Union alters Scotland's interests in the British Union.

Several times those of us with concerns about the party's increasingly default hostility to anyone who didn't toe the line on the constitutional question have reached out, to try to reach a compromise that lets us move forward as one liberal voice. Time and time again those requests fell on deaf ears. There is now barely any room whatsoever for even critical unionists in the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The gravity of the party has shifted, and it amounts, in essence, to a slightly more cosmopolitan Conservative and Unionist party that doesn't like Iain Duncan Smith.

Some people yesterday said that it was a mark of strength that the Lib Dems allow debates like this. In truth it was nothing of the sort. Instead of having respect for the perspective of members of their own party who disagreed with them, the Parliamentary Party treated them like pests to swatted. They opposed a motion that would have very specifically put the future positioning of this party in its membership's hands.

That membership would, in all probability, have, when the time came, reaffirmed the party's opposition to Scottish independence and may well even have extended its opposition to another referendum, even beyond the 2016-21 Holyrood Parliamentary session. But what would have mattered is that the leadership would have been obliged to justify their stance and ask the membership to back them, when all the information was laid bare and made available to the membership and to the rest of Scotland as a whole.

Put simply, they don't trust the members of the Party, and they don't trust the Scottish people.

A political party for whom both of those things are true might not become extinct, but it will also never be relevant in Scottish politics. Taking two mainland constituency seats to replace two mainland list seats isn't "winning again"; it's palliative care that writes off people who are liberal by politics to court tactical Tories.

And make no mistake, in 2021 and 2026 the Tories will come gunning for those seats. They have the money and after 2016, they have the ground operation. And when that happens, the Lib Dems really are in trouble.

To see ourselves as broadcasts see us

A vexillological ménage à trois

Okay, so the European Parliament elections don't exactly have a track record of engaging the public in enthusiastic debate. The turnout in the UK was 34%. In Scotland it was even worse: 28.5%. They are often seen as an opportunity for a protest vote or to make a statement about domestic issues. It provides an opportunity for those outside of mainstream politics to shout rather loudly and incoherently without any semblance of actual accountability, to energise the already malcontent. That leads to the election of, at times, questionable and populist (such as UKIP), and in worse cases, overtly racist, representatives (the BNP).

The failure of mainstream political parties to engage the public as a whole with European politics is not a failure which is unique to the UK. It is, nevertheless hugely regrettable, considering the importance the EU has in international relations and on our domestic affairs. The EU is the forum through which we establish complex but economically vital relationships not just within Europe but beyond, with some of the largest and some of the fastest growing export markets in the world. It is the forum through which we bring about unprecedented levels of multilateral cooperation on criminal justice, the environment and globalising industries like financial services. As a coherent whole, it has both the economic and political clout to ensure the influence of the interests of European countries in a world where the big decisions are taken by the US, China, Russia and increasingly India and Brazil. It provides an important counter-balance to US dominance of western interests and without it, European influence would surely suffer.

Alas, the consequence of people failing to make the "positive case" for the EU has meant that our public discourse about it is overwhelmingly negative. A combination of misinformation, apathy and cautiousness on the part of its advocates has created a narrative and a set of terms for debate that make it difficult for mainstream parties to support the EU in a concrete and public way. The EU is always discussed in the context of reforming our relationship with it (usually code for taking powers back) or whether we should be part of it at all. Notwithstanding Tony Blair's proud EU credentials, Labour's relationship with the EU has always been ambivalent, even since the days of the EEC. Wilson's referendum was, let's remember, a get-out-of-jail-free card to prevent a split of the type seen within the Tories since Maastricht. In Scotland, we get a slightly softer narrative about EU hostility, and the SNP have spoken in the past about "independence in Europe" as being part of their vision. The message, however, is always timid and scarcely if ever made with enthusiasm.

With this in mind, I thought the Party Election Broadcasts of Scotland's main four parties ahead of the European Parliament Elections in May were instructive. I found them telling, not just from the perspective of attitudes towards the EU itself, but of Scottish politics more broadly.

Where is Europe?

The first thing I observed is that two parties don't seem to want to talk about the EU at all. In neither the SNP broadcast, nor the Labour broadcasts, were the words "European Union" even uttered. Neither of these parties, both nominally pro-EU, seem to have anything to say about how decisions are made in the elections we have in barely 3 weeks' time. No discussion about climate change. No discussion about our economic relationship with Europe. No discussion about the benefits to us as EU citizens. No discussion about the challenges the EU faces in terms of reform and helping us better to tackle the problems that remain stubbornly immune to borders. They seem to be banking on the inherent apathy people have towards these elections and institutions, in the hope that they won't be asked actually to do anything about it.

All this Referendum Malarkey

The second thing I noticed is that the SNP broadcast just talks about independence and the referendum. It's a rehash of previous general broadcasts they have used to support their raison-d'etre. It was rather light on actual substance in terms of new arguments for independence, repeated some pretty tired themes with which anyone with a television set in the last decade will now be familiar (still bashing on about Tony Blair's illegal war in Iraq, misleading platitudes about university education, ending "rule by Westminster politicians" and the like). If they were looking to use this broadcast as a springboard to winning a 3rd seat in Scotland on 22nd May, this was a pretty uninspiring way to do it, and its lack of freshness probably will not help them noticeably in the independence referendum.

It does, though, prove symptomatic of the one-dimensional outlook they are taking to politics in Scotland at the moment. Everything is seen through the prism of the referendum, and an opportunity to make capital there, while other meaty issues get swept under the carpet. Far from making the case for "independence in Europe" this broadcast was using one poll to affect another, something which others have pointed out may in fact fall foul of OFCOM's rules on Party Election Broadcasts. Rule 18 specifically provides that "the purpose of a PEB must not be to promote any particular outcome of a referendum". Given the only reference to a polling day in the broadcast is 18th September, you have to think they've got a point, albeit it is OFCOM more than the SNP that would have questions to answer.

Where is Scotland?

The third thing I noticed, first and foremost, was that the broadcast last week (23rd April) on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party, er, wasn't. It was the generic one put out by Labour across the UK. And, as I pointed out earlier, it has nothing to say about the EU elections. It is a three minute David Morrissey voice-over diatribe about David Cameron and the Tories, and their top-down reorganisation of the NHS with a swipe about the Lib Dems breaking their promises on tuition fees. I point this out because not only was it a London hand-me-down, but it was talking about things that are totally irrelevant to voters in Scotland, where different policies are pursued. It continued to give me the distinct impression that Labour just doesn't get devolution, the long-standing irony given they delivered it.

They don't know whether they like centralisation for solidarity or subsidiarity to allow for genuine difference. It's not just a problem for them in Scotland. When Ed Miliband talks about creating regional ministers in England, that's not a creed of localism. On the contrary it ignores the people and bodies at a more local level who already exist. His solution is not to give Yorkshire a man in Westminster, but Westminster a man in Yorkshire. Labour, in embodying this top-down concept of local power, find themselves institutionally at odds with the EU debate. Their problem is they don't know what the EU is for either. They can't talk about a vision for Europe or what they want to do with the EU, because they don't have a big idea for it. They don't really get the European principle of subsidiarity, so they don't know how to fight for it.

I had thought this was the only offering Labour would give Scotland, but it was brought to my attention that this evening they did in fact release a Scotland specific broadcast. It was much the same story, though. Combining the failures of their UK-wide broadcast with that of the SNP, they managed not to talk about the EU, mutter platitudes about the independence referendum and not say much else. Though not as explicit as the SNP broadcast, this too could arguably fall foul of the OFCOM rules for irrelevancy.

Partial credit for candour

At least the Tories had the courage to talk about the European Union in their broadcasts, both their UK-wide one and their Scottish one. They outlined the broad achievements they believe Cameron has secured in the EU, the broad areas they want to change about our relationship with the organisation, and what their policy is on a future referendum. You can disagree with their policies, but both their UK and their Scottish message actually dealt with EU-issues, and in a way which was at least relatively constructive rather than overtly hostile as we hear from UKIP.

An idea for Europe

Which leaves, among the parties still holding seats in the European Parliament from Scotland, the Liberal Democrats. Now of course I'm biased. But it's not as though the Scottish Lib Dems have an unblemished track record on Election Broadcasts. I still have the occasional nightmare thinking about Tavish Scott's wind-tunnel "Save our Police" disaster in 2011. But the Lib Dem effort this time round is pretty much the only one with a clear, unequivocal, positive message specifically about EU issues and how the EU works for us, pitched to a Scottish audience to deal with our concerns. It talks about trade, growth, employment, education initiatives like Erasmus, environmental standards, cross-border co-operation on crime and raising employment protections across the single market.

Will these broadcasts significantly impact the way people vote on 22nd May, or even if they vote at all? Probably not. But that's surely all the more reason for our political parties to take on the responsibility of using platforms like that to explain to people why they should care and why they should learn about what it is the EU does and how it affects their lives. If we treat the EU elections just as an excuse to propagandise about whatever side of Scottish independence or to ram home the mid-term-blues of the government of the day, is it any wonder the only people who are left caring about Europe are the nutters who want out of it? Scotland isn't as Eurosceptic as the UK as a whole. There is no serious danger of the majority of the Scottish population wanting out of the EU.

But if Scotland's two biggest parties won't make the positive case for the EU, either in its current form or reformed, it is only the cause of international co-operation that suffers. With every election that fails to break 40% turnout, we entrench the apathy without quelling the antipathy, on a popular mandate that withers the further we move away from 1975. If people don't trust or won't support, institutions which benefit them and their children, and their children after them, then our political class have only themselves to blame.

Appeal to Ken Clarke - Join the Liberal Democrats

It's Conservative Party conference, and somewhat predictably, they're going at it hammer and tong at the Human Rights Act combined with another of their pet hate subjects, immigration. First Theresa May, a Home Secretary that occasionally threatens to make David Blunkett and Jack Straw seem reasonable, briefs in interviews with the press that she thinks the Human Rights Act is stopping us from deporting people, then she goes on to set-off Immeowgrationgate by claiming that a Bolivian man was only allowed to stay in Britain "because he kept a pet cat".

Never mind, of course, that she'd lapped up a craven Daily Mail article which massively distorted the truth of the matter (that the cat was merely one element of extensive evidence put forward alongside being in a long-term relationship that proved residence in the UK had become integral to his family life per Article 8 ECHR). Facts are an inconvenience for this Home Secretary. She's the same Home Secretary who stymied efforts to reform control orders properly and whose response to the riots was to knee-jerk into the default "flog" setting on the Tory bandwagon.

Never mind, too, that it's not the Human Rights Act that prevents the UK from deporting people. The Human Rights Act is substantially a domestic enforcement of the provisions of the ECHR to which we are a signatory. It is the interpretation of the substance of that document, and not the Human Rights Act itself, that gives rise to deportees being deemed to have had their right to a private family life infringed.

If the UK still wanted to deport these people, it could do so with astonishing ease. All it would take is an Act of Parliament (with sovereign force...) expressly empowering the Home Secretary to deport certain classes of persons notwithstanding any potential Convention breach. This would still lead to Strasbourg cases and damages payments being made relatively frequently, but that's no different than if they were to "get rid of the Human Rights Act" as either way they'd be denying individuals the right to a domestic remedy per Article 13.

If anything, wholesale repeal of the Human Rights Act would be even worse as it would expose them to more Strasbourg cases, and increase litigation costs across the board. Any replacement "British Bill of Rights" would have to confer exactly the same human rights or even make them more robust than the existing set-up, for this not to be the case. If it's to be the same: what's the point? If it's to be stronger: why get rid of the Human Rights Act at all: surely it would just need supplementary legislation or amendment?

Unless, of course, she actually wants to withdraw from the ECHR, the international treaty we the UK were largely responsible for drafting to restore basic liberty to a post fascist Europe? Well that would give us about as much credibility in the international human rights movement as Belarus, the last European dictatorship (save the Vatican...), or Russia and Turkey, whose pervasive disregard for the ECHR sees them account for over two fifths of member-state violations.

But it's not even that I'm finding so incredulous. What is incredulous, is that Ken Clarke, for all his public opposition to, well, just about everything Theresa May and the Tory flog-ems have ever said, is still in the Conservative Party. With Number 10 backing May on the specifics and many others being wheeled out to back her nonsensical stance, it seems clear that Ken Clarke's political sympathies are not shared by his peers.


I'm sure it's been suggested to him before, but the time may come when Ken Clarke makes a stand and joins the Liberal Democrats. Even Nick Clegg nominated him for the 6th Lib Dem in the Cabinet at our party conference, such as is his steadfast support for Lib Dem causes within the Cabinet. On so many policy areas his positions are more instinctively within the liberal tradition than a conservative or authoritarian one his Tory colleagues have to offer. Pro Europe, pro the Human Rights Act, pro sentencing reform, relative economic moderate, supported more liberal approaches to drug addicts in the prison system and more besides.

He's not perfect. His links to BAT will probably rankle a little with some in the Lib Dems and his loading of the justice cuts onto legal aid is certainly not a liberal response. Further, as has been suggested elsewhere in the past, he may advance liberal causes more effectively as an unsackable Tory within a Coalition than he would as an out and out Liberal Democrat. But a cheeky defection a few months before the 2015 election would serve as a massive morale boost to the Lib Dem campaign, help us to show the public why we're different and better than our Coalition partners and not just their lapdogs, and most importantly, he would be a political heavyweight with liberal leanings at home in the UK's only truly liberal party.

Go on Ken. You know you want to...

Oh, and I couldn't let this post end without showing you live footage of Theresa May's plan to deport every last cat owning Bolivian and subvert those sneaky Europhiles...

Tough week for the Liberal Democrats

Been a rough week for the Lib Dems: since the election, they've seen their poll ratings down about 10% or so, on 14% according to the latest YouGov poll. A lot of tiresome "ConDem" bashing is really starting to get on my wick.

A few stories in particular caught my attention, though. The first is in relation to Simon Hughes, who to be fair was never exactly going to be a LibCon enthusiast. He caused a bit of a stir by talking about a coalition veto, and reiterating that a future LibLab pact was still "on the agenda". When I first saw this, my immediate reaction was quite similar to Boris Johnson's aide and London Assembly member James Cleverly: it came across as Hughes trying to derail the spirit of the coalition in what is undoubtedly a challenging context. I was particularly angered because the inference I drew from his, and the mutterings of some other LibDem supporters I know was that they would only ever be comfortable with a coalition with Labour. It seems to me, frankly, to be quite hypocritical for those who believe in proportional electoral systems and therefore coalition based government, not to work with the coalition the election result dealt them. How democratic would it be if, under STV, we had de facto permanent LibLab government because their core votes plus just a handful of swing voters happens to make-up 50% or thereabouts of the voting electorate?

Tony Benn once said of those in power that one of the most important questions we need the answer to is "how can we get rid of you?". A Liberal Democrat party backing Labour all the time would make it absolute hell to get rid of an almost certainly Labour dominated government. Given Labour's track record of overspending and expanding the state beyond acceptable levels, that would be a truly dire, illiberal and certainly undemocratic reality.

HOWEVER, having thought about it for a couple of days, I actually think what Simon Hughes has done is a potential blessing in disguise: for the Lib Dems AND for the Coalition. With Labour doing everything they can to leech off  Lib Dem support (more of later!) the main accusation has been that the Lib Dems have been annexed by the Tories and have sold-out their principles to facilitate cuts. The effect of Hughes' superficial scepticism of the coalition could be to act as the lightening rod for Lib Dem disaffection, preventing large-scale defection to Labour and providing Nick Clegg with a useful check on the Tories if they try to deviate too far from the coalition agreement. Because of their core votes, the Tories are never going to be fully social liberals, and the Lib Dems never fully economically liberals. In the absence of a strong "libertarian" grouping in the UK, the existence of a strong Liberal Democrat party is absolutely essential to produce even occasional semblance of such an agenda. By channelling economic disaffection to a figure within the Lib Dems, the Coalition is more likely to hold, and in time, prosper.

The second "news" story relates to rumours that Charles Kennedy and 5 other Liberal Democrat MPs are planning to defect to Labour by the end of the month. The claim has been denied officially by Lib Dem Officials and although not yet by the man himself, I'm largely sceptical that there's any truth in it. Jo Swinson, one of those I would have thought would be among any number led by Kennedy, has point blank denied knowledge of any defections in the pipeline (Kennedy or others) and made clear in no uncertain terms that she has no desire to defect to Labour! As a final link, after a lot of speculation on Twitter, I thought this Tweet rather hit the nail on the head.

If, however, the rumour does prove to be true, I think it would not only be a sad day for the UK's liberal agenda, but would also reflect very poorly on Charles Kennedy, a man for whom I have a lot of respect. It is one thing for him to oppose the Coalition deal on a variety of policy and identity grounds. It is quite another to show total disloyalty and contempt for your successors, and to spit the proverbial dummy out the pram because your democratic party have come to a different conclusion from you. I hope for Kennedy's sake that this isn't true, and that he fights his battles from within the party, instead of making friends with those responsible for a 40 year debt legacy, erosion of civil liberties and the greatest vacuum of principles in British politics through the New Labour project.

My last article sees Nick Clegg's rebuke of a member of the public accusing the coalition of going on "an ideological crusade to attack the weakest in society". 

Leaving aside the low-grade rag the story's taken from, I find myself having a lot of sympathy with the content and manner of Clegg's response. The never ending rhetoric that's being thrown about, portraying the Tories (and via the Coalition, the Lib Dems) as people that will sell your gran on eBay and make you pay the Paypal fees is getting utterly tiresome. The public finances are in an absolutely appalling state, and people don't seem to be picking up that a) almost all of the cuts were of the scale and ilk Alistair Darling alluded to in "the deepest cuts since Margaret Thatcher", so would have been done by Labour anyway b) they're trying to minimise the threat to the absolute poorest by looking at universality of benefits and lowering, for example the Child Benefit threshold so families on two professional salaries, who clearly don't need it, no longer get the same as those who are genuinely impoverished.

Economic growth over the next few years, regardless of deficit reduction model, was never going to be as substantial as during the Blair-Brown years. The suggestion, therefore that we can sustain those sort of levels of spending, when Brown ran up annual deficits during boom-time, is borderline hilarious. The problem with the last 13 years is that people have grown to expect that the state will assist them to a level simply not viable. Responsibility and hard work have been replaced by senses of recklessness and entitlement. Of course some of the public spending was inherently good; few argue with that. The problem is that it was too much, too quickly and too unaccountably. PFI contracts handed out willy-nilly, keeping new schools and hospitals off the balance sheet, leaving the children of people yet to be born to pick up the last of the bill for facilities that will almost certainly be redundant in under 20 years. A tax and welfare combination that makes it less of an incentive for people to work more than 16 hours a week on the minimum wage than to sit at home and pretend to look for a job. That's the legacy we inherit, and although the next four years are going to be bloody difficult for all (and yes we'll have to be especially careful about the vulnerable) a sharp dose of reality being brought to public sector finances will leave us much stronger going forward.

Summer Reflection

Twelve months ago, I thought I had my future career objective set in stone: I wanted to be a solicitor. I was going to find a public law firm, work my way up and become a partner, possibly eventually leaving to establish one of my own. I had my place at Uni to do the LLB and things couldn't be clearer.

It's remarkable, though, how things you seem so certain of can so quickly riddle you with doubt, and how idealist notions you have of how things will pan out in the future never quite live up to their rose laden tint.

Don't get me wrong; I've really enjoyed the last year or so, and I'm still going to finish my joint honours law degree; but it's been enough to persuade me that it just isn't for me.

What to do then, 3 or 4 years down the line? The best thing about the long summer-holiday is that you can take the opportunity to switch off a bit and reflect. I asked myself: what is it that I can really be passionate about, engross myself in, and most of all gain satisfaction from in a career?

I thought about the things that interested me and made me so enthusiastic at school. I pondered for a minute my success and fascination with maths, chemistry and physics. Involving it in a career, though? I couldn't do that. I need something in my life that I can keep to myself: my own intellectual challenge. The old saying about not mixing work and pleasure is true, as the former inevitably drains what of the latter you might once have had.

So then I turned to my other side. I've always been forthright in my political views and most who know me probably see me as a bit of a political anorak. The way the world constantly changes because of decisions made by those in positions of power is something I just cannot help but show enthusiasm and interest about. If there was a tipping point that changed my way of thinking, it was Election Night. For 48 hours straight, I stared at a 15" screen, desperate to find-out who had won that Welsh marginal; who looked likely to win the recount in that former Sinn Fein stronghold; would the Conservatives sneak over the line, or at least close enough to do a deal with the DUP?

Catching up with the Dillons in Moffat

In truth, I can fight it no longer: my future is in politics. Exactly where, I don't know: as someone who would probably stand on the Conservative ticket I wouldn't stand a dog's chance in hell of winning a seat in Scotland, but indeed politics isn't just about elected representatives. The two options I'm still considering are working in central government or the diplomatic service via the Faststream Civil Service scheme. I'll probably change again in another twelve months, but with the time to reflect, I can sit comfortably with where I think I'm going, even if the future is uncertain.

I'm conscious I've not posted here since quite a bit before the election, and I guess with a few month's hindsight now is as good a time as any to reflect on the new direction of our country.

In the European elections last year, I voted Conservative without giving it an awful lot of thought. I felt the way Labour had handed the Lisbon Treaty was an absolute democratic outrage, and I couldn't sit comfortably with ardent Europhilic Liberal Democrats. As the campaign went on in the General Election, though, I really began to lose confidence that the Tories would be able to win hearts and minds whilst still taking the difficult steps to sort out the economic mess Labour had got us into.

What was my choice then? I started reading a little into the work of some prominent and rising Liberal Democrats, who have reflected on the direction of the party, increasingly seen as a middle class Labour alternative. The Orange Book, published in 2004, with contributions from, among others, David Laws and Nick Clegg, asked some radical questions and diverged from the traditional Lib Dem position of using the social market to resolve society's problems and inequalities. In his contribution, Laws suggested that the NHS might better operate if certain parts of it were restructured to form a free market health insurance scheme, with tax relief being used to ensure maximum access at the best level of cost-effectiveness. Clegg surprised me with a vigorous critique of the European Union and how (then) it needed to reform considerably if Britain's future could be within it. He inspired me, a Euroapathist, into seeing that the EU could be used to strengthen the UK's position in an ever more globalist world, if only we stopped bickering about loss of sovereign powers and focused on strengthening the principles of intergovernmentalism at the top table.

When I saw this fresh thinking, and then noticed just how many of the contributors now lead the Liberal Democrats, it was startling. Their manifesto seemed to be one both with a social conscience and an element of rationalism. Their classical but progressive liberal agenda (as opposed to the meaning we associate with "liberalism" in Britain) resonated strongly with my views on civil liberties, coupled with a pragmatic approach to macroeconomics.

I then compared that with the Tories, who seemed still to be shackled by their core vote. Their inheritance tax and marriage allowance policies in particular made me think they were going to struggle to engage sufficiently with the electorate, especially in Scotland where old wounds continue to antagonise despite efforts at modernisation.

And so I voted (perhaps a little tactically) in Glasgow North West for the Liberal Democrats. It was naturally in vein (despite their appalling record both across the UK and as representatives for Glasgow, Labour managed to increase their majority) and when the seats distributed themselves as they did, I feared that the Lib Dems would cave-in to grass roots pressure and prop-up Labour.

Imagine, then, my delight at the Lib-Con coalition being struck after days of deal-making. Certainly on the face of it, they tick all of the boxes I could want: a centre-right but liberal era of British politics. The cores of the two parties isolated: we have the best of both worlds.

Reality, of course, never quite lives up to expectation, and it was desperately disappointing to see David Laws, a man for whom I have great respect and agree on a great many things, depart only days into the new Parliamentary session after personal indiscretions re-expenses. On the whole, though, I think the coalition has done as well as could be expected in its first Parliamentary session. There's been teething problems: the free-schools initiative needs ironed out, and some of the necessary cuts aren't going to make them popular by any means, but I find it equally instructive that Labour's attempts at splitting the coalition has driven them close together. Ultimately it will be judged by its long-term results, but after 13 years of expansion of the state, erosion of civil liberties and undemocratic croneyism, it's nice at least to have the promise of change for the better.

On a final note, I'm sad to report that while I was on holiday in Brittany, one of my hamsters passed on, just shy of its second birthday. It had been getting on a bit and had to be separated from the other one after being bitten by it, and although it seemed to make a reasonable recovery I suspect it had an impact on its prospects. I'll miss the wee guy, and I'll always remember his obituary: Byte bit 8-Bit and 8-Bit bit the dust.