UPC’s to the rescue?

Angry, self regarding and uncomfortable in his own skin, just three of the terms used by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to sum up the character of Gordon Brown. He used them in a string of emails sent to Derek Draper, some time editor of the Labourlist website better known for playing Dastardly to Damian McBride’s Muttley in the email smear scandal that wrecked both their careers, published in the Mail on Sunday last weekend.

Few people would disagree with that character assessment and most would suggest that it could be applied equally well to the party he leads and which this week, again, lost its nerve when challenged to back or sack him.

Like the Tories under John Major the Labour Party, as led by Gordon Brown, has lost the ability to make the public like, let alone trust or respect, them and the collapse of the party’s vote at the European Elections predicts disaster at the polls in May 2010 or maybe sooner followed by a generation or more in the political wasteland.

As disaster loons and even the most loyal and determinedly upbeat activists begin to talk about limiting the size of the party’s defeat rather than playing for a last minute turn around the stature of Alan Johnson continues to grow.

Promoted to Home Secretary in Gordon Brown’s last ditch reshuffle of his cabinet Johnson continues to maintain with Zen like calm that he has no ambition to be either Prime Minister or leader of the Labour Party were it to find itself in opposition this time next year. Cue much nodding of heads by the sages of Fleet Street and proclamations that he would say that wouldn’t he since politicians always profess to want least the one thing they want more than anything else, don’t’ they?

In any other case I would be inclined to agree, with Johnson thought things are never quite how they seem. He has outsmarted the Oxbridge educated chancers in the cabinet by the simple, but devastatingly effective tactic of being honestly ordinary, and he may well be being honest now when he claims to have no desire to be party leader.

Honest in the sense that he realises that in its current form the only place the Labour Party seems in the mood to be led is over the edge of a cliff.

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It must have been a supremely satisfying experience for some lucky Unite Against Fascism activist to land an egg right in the fact of BNP leader Nick Griffin as he attempted to give a press conference to mark his election as a member of the European Parliament, satisfying; but counter-productive in political terms.


The disruption of his press conference by protesters angered, quite rightly, by the continued rise of the far right in British politics, allowed the odious Griffin to sound almost like a real politician when he told the BBC that ‘people should be entitled to hear what we have got to say and to hear journalists question us robustly.’ Suddenly the people who really are in the right because the oppose the nasty checklist of prejudices and paranoia put forward as policies by the BNP were made to look like an extremist mob as this witless man with little of consequence to say found himself the lead story on every news bulletin and decorating the front page of the next day’s newspapers.

It may sound dull and timid to the sort of people who cut their politics with a hefty shot of adrenaline but the only real way to beat the BNP is though the ballot box. That requires real thought from the three main parties about how they address the practical problems faced by may Britons and a mature determination to rise above petty point scoring that is seldom in evidence amongst our elected representatives.

Anything else, however satisfying it may seem at the time, is just so much sound and fury signifying nothing.

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As the dust of the scandal over MP’s expenses finally dies down thoughts within the Westminster bubble turn to reforming the political system, which means, inevitably, reviving the ancient debate over whether or not we should embrace proportional representation.

Viewed from a purely political perspective the answer is yes, although as recent experience has taught us politics is seldom pure and rebuilding its reputation is more about rebuilding grass roots democracy than changing the way we vote.

To do that we need to embrace UPC’s rather than PR. Who they? How much will that cost? They acronym stands for ‘unreasonably persistent complainants’, the sort of people who sink their teeth into an issue and don’t let go until they get a result and they would probably cost no more than the price of a stamp.

What any UPC deserving of the name does is highlight local issues, often to the frustration of local and national government that would prefer to deal with an electorate that doesn’t trouble its fluffy little heads with scrutinising what the great and the good are getting up to in their name. Once upon a time back bench MP’s used to do this job back in the innocent days when politics was still a vocation rather than a safe berth for mediocrities.

What poetry can do and ID cards can’t.

Carol Ann Duffy has been appointed as the first female Poet Laureate, telling the BBC she had accepted the post as a ‘recognition of the great women poets we have writing now.’

The gender of the Queen’s official poet matters less than what the incumbent does with the role. Thankfully Ms Duffy looks likely to continue the tradition established by Andrew Motion of concentrating less on writing doggerel to accompany national events and being instead a roving evangelist for poetry, as she put it in when interviewed on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour she wants to ‘contribute to people’s understanding of what poetry can do.’

She’ll have her work cut out as a pernicious culture of tests drives literature and the idea that people might read poetry, or anything else for pleasure, ever further out of the educational mainstream.


Alan Johnson for PM? According to the Mail on Sunday a number of ‘plotters’ on the Labour back benches are ready to back the affable Health Secretary as a challenger to Gordon Brown.

On the same day Hazel Blears, New Labour’s very own little miss sunshine, wrote an article for the Observer in which she described the attempts made by minister to communicate with the electorate as being ‘lamentable.’ For ‘ministers’ read Gordon the manic micro manager since his dead hand seems to hover over every movement this luckless government makes.

As the government lurches between the self inflicted wound of its ungrateful attempt to prevent Ghurkhas who fought for this country from settling here, the fall out from Alistair Darling’s hike in taxes for high earners and the seemingly never ending scandals over MP’s expenses it is easy to see why Alan Johnson suddenly looks like the man who could bring an end to all their troubles.

He represents, to many party members, the one fixed point of calm and common sense in a government that is fast entering an irreversible tailspin. Are these the qualities a troubled nation looks for in a prospective Prime Minister? Probably not, even Alan Johnson himself seems unsure of his credentials as a potential saviour, telling the BBC’s Andrew Marr show last Sunday ‘I have no aspiration to be party leader. My aspiration was for the deputy leadership and I didn’t even get that.’

Such a demonstrable lack of the killer instinct suggests Johnson would, however much backing he has, be unlikely to seize the crown this side of a general election, however his amiability might make him the best choice to lead a traumatised and fractious Labour Party during its first difficult term in opposition.


Your papers please, the sinister request issued by hatchet faced secret policemen in countless mediocre thrillers came a little closer to being spoken on British streets this week. The Home Office has announced that Manchester will, this autumn, become the first city in the UK in which citizens will be able to, voluntarily, apply for ID cards. The cards will be available to anyone over sixteen and will cost £30.

The cost of the scheme, as shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling pointed out could run to between two billion pounds and, although not compulsory, it sends the message that ‘the government’s plans are quite clearly for a compulsory ID card scheme in the end.’

This current scheme has, of course, one major problem, apart from a few swivel eyed policy junkies few residents of Manchester will bother to take part rendering the already exorbitant costs even more wasteful. There is also the small matter of whether or not a bureaucracy given to leaving the most sensitive information lying around in train carriages like a discarded copy of Metro can be trusted with the personal of every resident in one of our major cities, let alone the whole country.

There is a more serious point to be made about the idea of having ID cards in the first place, for all the claims made by the Home Office that they will help to combat fraud and terrorism there is a real concern they will also change, for the worst, the relationship between the public and the authorities. When every identity is considered to be suspect until evidence to the contrary is produced trust dies and with it the idea that the law and the people who enforce it are there to protect rather than control the public.


Poetry, as I’m sure our new laureate understands only too well, is valuable because it unites people, giving them a sense of place and shared identity that, for all their biometric technology and the undoubted good intentions of many of the people who support their introduction, is something putting an ID card into the pocket of every Briton can never hope to do.