Six of the Best 578

Mary Reid has been reading a report from the Manifesto Club on Public Space Protection Orders.

It's not Bernie Sanders that Jerermy Corbyn resembles, but Donald Trump. Lance Parkin draws parallels between the woes of the Republicans and the Labour Party.

"Our heritage, our history, our quirky collecting natures are being eroded and erased by the need to make financial savings, to economise, to pare down and re-shape." Tincture of Museum on the threat to our smaller museums.

"All this promises well for Mile End, does it not? Think of all the comfortable and respectable suburbs of London, from Norwood to Golder's Green, and try to find one with a series of concerts like this." The Guardian recently republished a 1921 interview with Adrian Boult about his plans to bring classical music to the East End.

The Gentle Author on two unlikely neighbours: Handel and Jimi Hendrix.

The Nottingham Post has a gallery of 30 photographs of the city's Victoria station.

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Income inequality was unchanged over the Coalition years

John Rentoul eats humble pie in the Independent:

Nick Clegg: an apology. I may have given the impression that the Liberal Democrats were a waste of space, and their crushing in the general election was a merited humiliation. Statements such as “Clegg was a fool to have gone into coalition with the Tories” and “the Lib Dems got nothing in return for ministerial posts that David Cameron didn’t want to give them” may have led the reader to believe I thought the whole business a diversion and the resumption of single-party government a welcome simplification. 

If so, there has been a misunderstanding. I now realise, reading Clegg’s interview with The Independent’s Andrew Grice last week, that I agree with Nick. 

For all the overheated language from the left about inequality, the record of the Coalition was surprisingly good. New figures from the Office for National Statistics last week confirmed that income inequality was unchanged in the 2010-15 period. This is something of an achievement at a time when the Government was cutting public spending, and Clegg is justified in claiming to have tried to balance the books “in the fairest possible way”.

It's good that we are starting to read views like this, but there is a need to enter a couple of qualifications.

First, income inequality tends to decline when the economy is doing badly and to increase when it is doing well and employers have to compete for skilled labour.

Second, as I once blogged, the Lib Dems won't flourish in 2020 by blaming the voters for 2015.

What these figures do show is how dishonest the Labour Party was throughout the Coalition years.

But that dishonesty did not just harm the Liberal Democrats: it harmed Labour too.

It encouraged a mind-set under which Labour and other left-wing activists spoke only to themselves, became increasingly outraged and steadily distanced themselves from the sort of voters they need to win over.

The natural outcome of that process was their choice of a leader who appealed to them and few others people.

Step forward Jeremy Corbyn.

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Six of the Best 576

"An idea that was floated at one point (which thankfully never materialised) was placing gigantic, inflatable MPs arses in town centres for passersby to kick. There was a sense of enforced “fun” about the whole thing at all times that was exhausting to be around." More and more, the Leave campaign resembles Yes to AV, says Nick Tyrone. And he should know.

Michael Wilson argues that we must defend free speech on campus.

"She began by saying 'You all know me in here…' (I didn’t), I was thrown to discover that the first guest speaker at a Labour Party pressure group was a member of the Socialist Workers Party." Labour member Joe Cox attends a Momentum meeting and finds it is not for him.

Jennifer Wilkinson on the prison memoirs of the suffragette Constance Lytton.

"The exact location and nature of Ravenserodd is open to some debate, but it is often believed to have been located to the east of the present-day Spurn Point and was said in the fourteenth-century Chronica Monasterii de Melsa to have been 'distant from the mainland a space of one mile and more'." Caitlin Green explores the lost settlements of the Lincolnshire coast.

Thom Hickey reminds us of the forgotten talent of Helen Shapiro.

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Paedophile activist suspended from the Labour Party

Last night The Times broke the news that Tom O'Carroll, the public face of the Paedophile Information Exchange around 1980, had joined the Labour Party.

To Labour's credit, he was suspended today.

But his brief presence was in line with the Corbynistas' attempt to return Labour to the early 1980s.

When I worked in Birmingham in 1981 and 1982 it was possible to find literature from the PIE among that from other municipally approved good causes in the city's central library.

The idea that the professional left was the scourge of child abusers did not arise until some years later.

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Lord Bonkers' Diary: Corbyn sends for Christopher Robin Milne

The old boy turns out to have known Labour's new Executive Director of Strategy and Communications since he was so high.

Jeremy Corbyn sends for Christopher Robin Milne

There is only one area of our national life where the hereditary principle holds greater sway than it does here in the aristocracy. I refer, of course, to the press and broadcasting. There are whole neighbourhoods of London where it is impossible to toss a brick without hitting a Coren or a Dimbleby – not that one would try too hard to avoid doing so. Thus I was not surprised when the son of my old friend Milne went into journalism nor when he became director of communications for the new leader of the Labour Party.

I remember him as a golden-haired little fellow in the Nursery astride his rocking horse in a sailor suit or kneeling at the foot of his bed saying his prayers. Less happily, I remember him down from Winchester or Oxford talking the most awful rot about the need for Socialism. Why, he even spoke up for Stalin! I don’t think he would have been so keen on him if he had met the fellow as I did. Then came the Guardian and endless articles with titles like ‘Did 20 Million Really die?’ Now he sits at Corbyn’s right hand recommending purges every second day.

No, I cannot pretend to care for Christopher Robin Milne.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

A shadow cabinet maker

Giving Isis one up the snoot

Andrew Neil's press gang

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Lord Bonkers' Diary: Andrew Neil's press gang

It seems all those Labour tweeters were right to detect foul play behind the resignation of Stephen Doughty as shadow Foreign Office minister live on air.

Andrew Neil's press gang

To Westminster for a round of meetings. In the evening I repair to a quaint back-street hostelry with exposed beams, dimpled window glass and exposed, dimpled barmaids. The atmosphere is tense: word has got about that the press gang is on the prowl. Sure enough, the door bursts open and a group of men with lanterns and tricorn hats hurries in. The Shadow Minister for Fish cowers under the table, but they see him, drag him out and bear him away.

“What will become of him?” I ask the landlady. “Mark my words,” she says, “they’ll take him to the dungeons beneath Broadcasting House, put the frighteners on him and ply him with Blue Nun. The next thing you know he’ll be on Daily Politics resigning from the Labour front bench.”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

A shadow cabinet maker

Giving Isis one up the snoot

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Shirley Williams retires from the Lords 62 years after fighting her first parliamentary election

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From BBC News:

Baroness Williams has delivered her final speech to the House of Lords before retiring from the chamber. 

In her speech she talked of the UK's "special genius" for "great public sector imagination" and international leadership. 

The former education secretary said she hoped the UK would continue to play that leadership role by staying within the European Union.

You can watch a video of the speech below.

Above you can see a photo of her in 1954 when, as Shirley Catlin, she fought and lost a by-election in the Harwich constituency for Labour.

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Six of the Best 569

In a thoughtful post, Mark Mills reminds us that there can be pessimistic liberals as well as optimistic ones.

Matthew d'Ancona puts his finger on Labour's problem: "It is New Labour, or what remains of it, that needs to admit its faults, dismantle itself and rebuild from scratch."

"By the Victorian era, however, the formality of cat funerals had increased substantially. Bereaved pet owners commissioned undertakers to build elaborate cat caskets. Clergymen performed cat burial services. And stone masons chiseled cat names on cat headstones." Mimi Matthews on a forgotten corner of social history.

London was once powered by a vast underground hydraulic system, explains Andy Emmerson.

Tess Reidy shows us what happens to night clubs after they close down.

Adam Covell explores the landscape of M.R. James' A Warning to the Curious.

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Luciana Berger shows what it will take to survive in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party

You may have seen the front page lead of today's Guardian: a deeply worrying story about a sudden spike in the number of mental health patients dying unexpectedly in NHS care.

It was based on figures obtained by the former health minister Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk.

The Guardian quoted Norman's comment on the figures:

"Significant numbers of unexpected deaths at the Mid Staffs NHS trust caused an outcry and these figures should cause the same because they show a dramatic increase in the number of people losing their lives,” Lamb said. 

“NHS England and the government should set up an investigation into the causes of this as these figures involve tragedies for families around the country and the human impact is intense.” 

Underfunding of sometimes threadbare mental health services which are struggling to cope with rising demand for care is to blame, Lamb claimed.

One of the best things about politics since 2010 has been the new importance given to questions of mental health. This was exemplified by the 2012 debate in which MPs from both sides of the Commons spoke about their own experience of mental health problems.

So how did Luciana Berger, Labour's shadow mental health minister, respond to Norman Lamb's comments?

Let me show you:

.@normanlamb until 8 months ago u were the Minister for #mentalhealth. What did you do about this during ur 2.5yrs? pic.twitter.com/G4fFEF8vkV

— Luciana Berger (@lucianaberger) January 25, 2016

Why did Berger break from the cross-party approach to mental health?

It is certainly not because she is a wild left-winger.

Though, as the great niece of Manny Shinwell, she has some claim to come from the working-class aristocracy, she comes from an affluent background. She attended the private Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls (current fees £15,516 per annum).

When she was parachuted into the Liverpool Wavertree constituency just before the 2010 election she soon became a controversial figure. She was seen as a Blairite, not least because of her friendship with Euan Blair.

But being a Blairite won't do her any favours now. Not with boundary changes in the air and threats of deselection coming from Corbyn loyalists. Certainly not on Merseyside.

Hence the stupid, partisan tweet we see above.

I am sure Berger is intelligent enough to realise that this approach will alienate the moderate voters Labour needs to win over to have any hope of winning the next election.

But she is trapped. And her fellow moderate Labour MPs are trapped too until they see the opportunity and summon the courage to depose Jeremy Corbyn and his strange inner circle of Trots and Stalinists.

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Rochdale Liberal Democrats question Simon Danczuk's expenses

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From Rochdale Online:

Rochdale Lib Dems have officially complained to Parliamentary Watchdog IPSA and Greater Manchester Police about the expenses claims of Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk.  

They have alleged a 'misuse of public funds' and called for a full investigation into Mr Danczuk claiming thousands of pounds under the Parliamentary living allowance scheme. 

Mr Danczuk claimed for four 'dependants', despite not seeing his two eldest children for years. 

Lib Dems have claimed this is an abuse of the system and asked Greater Manchester Police to investigate.

The website has the full text of the complaint.

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The Labour leadership is split between Kennites and Corbynites

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The cool kids agree that this Labour Uncut article from the end of last year by Atul Hatwal got it about right:

At the heart of the split is a long-running tension between two factions of the hard left: Socialist Action and the Labour Representation Committee. 

In the corner on the left is Socialist Action – a Trotskyist group most closely associated with Ken Livingstone with several of his advisers from his time as Mayor, either members or supporters. 

As Livingstone himself said, “Almost all of my advisers had been involved in Socialist Action,” 

“It was the only rational left-wing group you could engage with. They used to produce my socialist economic policies. It was not a secret group.” ...

Prominent Livingstone City Hall alumni, Simon Fletcher and Neale Coleman, now occupy central roles in Jeremy Corbyn’s office as chief of staff and head of policy and rebuttal while the former Mayor is co-chair of Labour’s defence review.

And the other group?

In the corner even further to the left is the Labour Representation Committee. (LRC) Founded in 2004 (lifting the name of Labour’s original founding committee from 1900) by John McDonnell, the LRC has a more doctrinaire and unbending view of the path to socialism. 

Compromise is to be minimised – the frog needs to be dropped into boiling water with the lid clamped tightly shut to prevent escape. 

The majority of Jeremy Corbyn’s inner sanctum is drawn either from the LRC or sympathetic to its perspective. 

For example, John McDonnell MP remains the LRC chair, Corbyn adviser Andrew Fisher was until recently its Secretary, Jon Lansman, who runs Momentum, is on its national committee and Katy Clark, the former MP and now political secretary to Jeremy Corbyn is a long term supporter. 

Until his election as leader, Jeremy Corbyn was one of the most prominent MPs affiliated to the LRC.

The resignation of Neale Coleman suggests the Kennites are losing.

But whatever the truth of that, enjoy the picture of a young John McDonnell above.

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Six of the Best 568

"There is only one conclusion that we can possibly draw ... if nothing changes radically between now and 2020, Labour is headed for disaster." Public Policy and the Past tells it like it is.

Zaid Jilani argues that our celebration of Martin Luther King today is based on a simplistic view of him that passes over his more challenging views.

"David Litvinoff was, by nature and temperament, a wanderer between worlds: between the Chelsea set and hardcore criminals, between Soho and the East End, between the Scene and Esmeralda’s Barn, between Lucian Freud, George Melly, Peter Rachman, the Krays, John Bindon, Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger." Jon Savage reviews a biography of a central but elusive Sixties figure.

What makes music sad? Ben Ratliff tells us, with particular reference to the songs of Nick Drake.

Lynne About Loughborough selflessly investigates the Leicestershire town's pubs.

"Not far from London’s Euston station is a slightly spooky old derelict building. The former London Temperance Hospital on Hampstead Road." Flickering Lamps takes us there.

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Sir Peter Soulsby on Keith Vaz

Leicester Labour's internal politics can be hard for outsiders to fathom, but one thing at least is clear. Keith Vaz (MP for Leicester East) and Sir Peter Soulsby (the city's elected mayor) do not get on.

In 2011 I quoted a Leicester Mercury article on the funding of Soulsby's first mayoral campaign:

Sir Peter's was funded by the three city constituency Labour parties. Leicester South and West branches gave £3,100 and £2,100 respectively. Leicester East's branch gave just £80.

What I didn't know then is that the Vaz/Soulsby enmity had reached Westminster.

In February 2001 the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee investigated a number of allegations against Vaz. Some were upheld and some were not - you can find the committee's report on the investigation on the Parliament website.

One of the witnesses who gave evidence to the inquiry was Sir Peter Soulsby. Here are a few extracts from his evidence:

397 ... There have been a number of occasions when members of the community in Leicester, particularly members of the Asian community, have been critical of Keith and have made statements criticising Keith and subsequently changed the position they have taken in public. Indeed, there were a number of occasions around this time I am talking about when people changed their positions. How the trick is achieved, I do not know, but it has happened on a number of occasions.

And:

406 ... I think there have been a number of occasions in the past when I have felt Keith's attitude to the truth is different from the attitude I feel appropriate for a person in public life. It ranges from a whole range of issues: from telling one group in the community that he is in support of a road scheme, while telling another that he is opposed to it; through to rather more national or even international issues, such us his message of support to Salman Rushdie followed by taking part in a march with a group of Muslims wanting to burn the Satanic Verses; through to the difficulties he is having with his attitude towards Kashmir, telling different communities different attitudes, which has caused a number of problems, not just in Leicester but at a national level.

And:

449 ... I am sure he would suggest to you I have a vendetta against him. I think the reality is, as I described earlier, we have a very different view about what is proper in public life, and how one ought to behave, and a different attitude as to what is true and what is not. That has inevitably led to us falling out a number of times over the years. That is not a vendetta; that is a difference in personality and attitude.

I cannot vouch for the truth of what Sir Peter said, but it  is the evidence he gave to the committee.

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Report on the handling of allegations against Greville Janner

The independent inquiry into the handling of allegations made against Greville Janner which was commissioned last year by the Director of Public Prosecutions issued its report today.

That inquiry was conducted by the retired High Court Judge Sir Richard Henriques.

You can download the full report from the Crown Prosecution Service website, and the Guardian has a summary of his its findings:

The report found:

• The decision not to charge Janner in 1991 was wrong because there was enough evidence against him to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for offences of indecent assault and buggery. In addition, the police investigation was inadequate and no charging decision should have been taken by the CPS until the police had undertaken further inquiries. 

• In 2002, allegations against Janner were not supplied by the police to the CPS and so no prosecution was possible. This merits investigation by the IPCC. 

• There was sufficient evidence to prosecute Janner in 2007 for indecent assault and buggery. He should have been arrested and interviewed and his home searched.

The evidence of the first complainant against Janner, who gave evidence in the trial of Frank Beck in 1991, is particularly strong.

The Guardian says:

These allegations related to 1975 when, it was alleged, the young boy from a children’s home met Janner after the then MP performed magic tricks. 

The alleged victim, known as Complainant One, said he was quickly befriended by Janner and was sexually abused and raped repeatedly. The complainant went to a wedding with the peer’s family, it was alleged, and it was only two decades later in 2014 that a subsequent police investigation found there was film footage of Complainant One at the event. 

According to the report, the prosecuting authorities discussed the possibility of arresting and interviewing the complainant in relation to charges of perverting the course of justice.

ITV News interviewed Bernard Greaves, who was part of Beck's defence team, about the case this evening.

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Where is the Liberal Democrat equivalent of the Beckett Report?

Margaret Beckett's report on what she believes to be the reasons for its defeat in last year's general election has been published by the Labour Party. BBC News has a summary.

There is an article about it on Liberal Democrat Voice, which gives in passing a dispiriting glimpse of the tactics we used to hold on to Sheffield Hallam.

It also has a noteworthy comment from Liberator's Mark Smulian:

At least Labour has published its report. I understand the equivalent Lib Dem one was released only to Federal Executive members on paper, which they were obliged to return at the end of their meeting, and has otherwise remained secret.

Let's hope the Lib Dem equivalent of the Beckett Report will be published soon.

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Keith Vaz changes his mind on Trident. Again

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Eager to support his new leader, Keith Vaz tells the Leicester Mercury that Jeremy Corbyn has persuaded him it is right to scrap Britain's nuclear deterrent:

"He's made it very clear when he's prime minister he's not going to be able to use these weapons so what's the point of having them.

"I've known Jeremy Corbyn, all the years I've been in Parliament. I'm sure he will use his persuasive skill in order to put these views forward. 

"I've changed my mind on Trident and I've been persuaded by the things that he's said."

I find this puzzling. The first time I came across Vaz was when he was the Labour candidate for Richmond and Barnes in the 1983 general election.

During the campaign (or perhaps shortly before the election was called) I attended a debate on nuclear weapons organised by the local churches.

All three candidates took part - as well as Vaz there was Jeremy Hanley (Conservative) and Alan Watson (Liberal Alliance).

And Keith Vaz proposed that Britain should unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons.

I suspect that Vaz's always has the same beliefs on Britain's nuclear deterrent as his leader - whether that view is for it or against.

Note that today agreeing with Jeremy Corbyn is not the same thing as agreeing with Labour policy.

Later. Thanks to Troy for tweeting this old advertisement. It confirms my memory of Vaz's views on defence in those days...

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Six of the Best 566

MediaMasters has a cracking interview on Labour and political communication with Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Damian McBride.

"Recess is a lot more than just a free break for kids to play after lunch period. That free, unstructured play time allows kids to exercise and helps them focus better when they are in class. Now a school in Texas says it took a risk by giving students four recess periods a day, but the risk has paid off beautifully." Elizabeth Licata brings news from Fort Worth.

Lion & Unicorn on cautious welcomes.

"It’s time we authors were paid, not in promises of better sales and high profiles, but in money. Yes, actual cash. Is that too much to ask?" Guy Walters complains that literary festivals expect writers to work for nothing.

Andrew Hickey pays tribute to the great Roy Wood and in particular his LP Boulders, which was recorded earlier but released in 1973.

The names proposed for Crossrail's stations are all wrong, argues John Elledge.

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Six of the Best 565

Peter Kelner, interviewed in a podcast, looks at how Labour MPs might depose Jeremy Corbyn - something they will have to do if the party is to stand any chance at the next election.

Suddenly Basic Income is fashionable. Tom Streithorst asks if it could work.

April Peavey remembers when Pierre Boulez met Frank Zappa.

"Replacing the aggressive Irishmen in pubs and stoned out drug dealers, the countryside instead provides aggressive farmers and 'country folk' who have no wish to deal with 'London types'." Adam Scovell points out the importance of landscape in Withnail and I.

The Cottonopolis has some amazing pictures of Manchester's abandoned buildings.

"When I saw the rusted redundant railing on a forgotten walkway above the Ouse I thought about how you can live in a place for so long and still have new things to find, when forced from the usual ways and the beaten track." York Stories encounters a flooded river.

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John McDonnell explores new depths of incompetence

John McDonnell gave an interview to politics.co.uk which was posted on their site this morning.

He was asked about Labour's complaint to the BBC over Stephen Doughty's appearance on the Daily Politics:

"Remember, this is not an attack on the BBC and it's not an attack on Laura Kuenssberg either," he says. "There is a private company that makes the Politics programme which is commissioned by the BBC...The editor of the programme obviously decided to do maximum damage to Jeremy's standing."

Scroll down the page and you will find this note:

Update: 15:08 

Contrary to the comments made above by the shadow chancellor, Politics.co.uk can confirm that the Daily Politics is not produced by a private firm but in-house by the BBC.

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Owen Jones warns Labour critics of the BBC

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Not only that, he is such a penetrating commentator that he warned them about their ludicrous campaign back in November:

My view is that the role of the media has become a crutch for the left, a convenient deflection from our own failure to convince and persuade. We fail to get traction, not because we have failed to communicate an inspiring alternative, but because the evil old media has brainwashed the public. 

This is clearly patronising, reducing sentient human beings to sheep or robots, lacking agency and programmed by media oligarchs. It is a defeatist attitude, too, because if millions of people can simply be instructed what to think by powerful forces in society, then we will never win any battle. It stops us from being critical of our own failures and seeking to address them.

Thanks to a tweet from John Rentoul.

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