It is now over seven months since I last posted anything about Wilfred.  My intention had been to post every few weeks to tell the story of what he was getting up to in France as a member of the 19^th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.  However, life got in the way and someone inconsiderately decided to call a general election, which I felt the need to write about.  However, Wilfred has never been far from my thoughts and I have not been entirely idle on his account.  My main sources of information for this stage of Wilfred’s life are the War Diaries of the 19^th Battalion C.E.F.  I’ve have been working through these, a process that is rather more time consuming than I expected.  Like any technical document, it is one thing to read the words in front of you and understand their literal meanings, but it is quite another to gain the background knowledge to truly understand the full meaning of the documents.  A bit like reading the Bible – but that’s another story.

Although I last wrote about Wilfred as he was arriving in France, I’m going to jump ahead to July 1917 and will come back and fill in the missing months later on.  The 19^th Battalion was to be found on Sunday the 1^st of July 1917 billeted in Verdrel (roughly 20km West of Lens), where they had been since Monday the 4^th of June.  For most of that period they had been engaged in drill, training, sports and parades and on the 1^st July were parading at the sports ground in nearby Coupigny for a service in commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the Confederation of the Dominion of Canada.  This relatively quiet period was brought to an end by orders for the Battalion to proceed to Marqueffles Farm (a few kilometres towards Lens) on Tuesday the 3^rd of July, to be in Divisional Reserve for the 2^nd Canadian Division, of which they were part.  On Sunday the 8^th of July they were ordered to move to Fosse 10 (precise location uncertain), still in Divisional Reserve.

On Tuesday 10^th July, the 19^th Battalion received orders to relieve the 24^th Battalion in the line.  They commenced their move at 9.00pm and completed the relief at 2.30am on the 11^th.  The section of the line they held was on the south-western outskirts of Lens.  Two men were wounded on the 11^th, with two killed and four more wounded on the 12^th.  In the early hours of Friday the 13^th of July, the 19^th Battalion was relieved by the 27^th Battalion and moved to Maroc for a couple of days as Brigade reserve.  In the early hours of Tuesday the 17^th July (the day on which King George V issued a proclamation changing the name of the British royal family from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor) Wilfred’s Battalion returned to the front line, in the same section they had held a few days previously.  They remained there until Tuesday the 24^th of July, when they returned to Fosse 10 as Divisional Reserve.  This is where they remained into the beginning of August.  During this time, they were “practising for the offensive over specially prepared ground at Marqueffles Farm”.  The main offensive that began at the end of July was Passchendaele, 60km north of Lens at Ypres.  The 19^th Battalion would eventually be drawn into that battle, but not until the end of October.  Wilfred would not be joining them.

In her article in The Guardian (10^th June), Val McDermid described how her desire for proportional representation had been reignited over the past year by conversations with her 16 year-old son.  These conversations were triggered by the election of Donald Trump and advocated that Westminster should adopt the additional member voting system used for elections to the Scottish Parliament.  Over a similar period, however, I have found my beliefs move in the opposite direction.

Val concludes her article with the following words from her son, “Wouldn’t it be great if someone came up with a system of governance that worked for everybody?”  In answer to that, I say that we already have a beautifully simple yet flexible system of governance that should work for everyone.  The problem is that we have chosen to corrupt it.  We don’t see it as being corruption because we have dressed it up with rules and conventions.  As Jesus said to the Scribes and Pharisees, all those years ago, “You scrub the outside of the cup and the dish, but the inside is full of extortion and moral flabbiness”.  Many people don’t see boxing as being violent because of its rules and conventions, but at the end of the day it is just two people attempting to punch each other into submission.  You can’t get much more violent than that.

In October 1774, two hundred years before my birth, John Wesley wrote in his journal:

I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them:

1) To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy.
2) To speak no evil of the person they voted against.
3) To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.

Although times (and, indeed, elections) have changed considerably since then, this came to my attention during an election campaign in which I had reached broadly similar conclusions:  rejecting party politics and deciding that the only honest vote I could make was for the person who I felt was best equipped to represent me in parliament.

Personal attacks on politicians – both local and national – from rivals, media and voters sadly seem to be an accepted part of the rough and tumble of political battle these days.  Another side of this would be the all too common tactic of attempting to induce voters to fear your opponents rather than trust in the truth of your own arguments.  At the end of the day, though, these things all amount to speaking evil of the person you have voted against or plan to vote against.  Another sad fact of modern politics is to blame outcomes on people who made a different voting choice to the one that you made.  Another side of this would be the comments I’ve read saying “I can’t understand how anyone could vote for XXX!”  I would suggest that people making such comments either do not want to understand or have not made sufficient effort to understand.  All this amounts to sharpening our spirits against those that voted on the other side.

Wesley’s first point, however, I suspect we rather take for granted in the UK.  Election expenses scandal notwithstanding, we are fortunate to live in a society where financial inducement to vote is something to guard against rather than a part of everyday life.  However, as the dust settles, I have found myself worried not by the notion of people receiving a fee in return for their votes (something that the prohibition on signing ballot papers guards against) but by the notion of people receiving a reward.  I have placed manifestos in the firing line on several occasions in my blog, complaining about the ways in which they:  make unrealistic promises to appeal to our need for certainty in an uncertain world; limit the ability of government to react to events and; take the power of decision making away from our MPs.  These things are all symptoms of an underlying disease:  manifestos exist to bribe us to vote for political parties.  What are manifestos, if not a list of rewards on offer in exchange for our votes?

The rewards on offer are sometimes explicit gain for certain sections of the population:  vote for us and we’ll give you this.  (We gloss over such attempts at bribery by calling them “appealing to certain sections of the population”.)  Examples of this could be:  lower taxes, free bus passes and free university education.  On other occasions, the rewards on offer are rather more subtle, designed to appeal to our better instincts:  vote for us and we’ll give this to other people.  Often, manifesto promises are cleverly designed in both ways, for example winter fuel payments.  This policy offers direct financial benefits to a large, electorally-active section of the population.  It is, essentially, a seasonal bump in the state pension, but by marketing it as a winter fuel payment it also appeals to the compassionate instincts of people who do not stand to gain financially.  I’m not saying that any of these policies are intrinsically wrong (some of them I agree with) but when political parties set them up as “vote for us and we’ll give you this” that is bribery.

As well as arguing against manifestos, I have also been arguing recently against political parties.  The two things are, of course, linked:  political parties write the manifestos.  However, I wonder whether the two are more intertwined than that.  No single candidate can offer a meaningful policy bribe.  By grouping together in large, powerful political parties, however, they can make these bribes meaningful and increase the size of the rewards on offer.  To ensure the bribes are paid up (something we euphemistically call “acting on their mandate”), parties have to enforce discipline by whipping.  Why have we allowed political parties, and the people running them from the shadows, to take control of our MPs?

Returning to where I started, Val McDermid concludes that to get the change she advocates we don’t need another referendum on electoral reform:  we need “a parliament willing to put the interests of democracy ahead of naked, self-perpetuating self-interest”.  However, electoral reform would enshrine in law our slavery to the parties and condemn us to their authoritarian rule forever.  We would finally lose sight of our duty to vote for the person we judge most worthy.

To get the changes I want, we don’t need electoral reform:  we simply need to clean the inside of the dish by being a people willing to put the interests of democracy ahead of naked, self-perpetuating self-interest.  We need to commit ourselves at future elections:

1) To vote, without fee or reward, for the person (or persons) we judge most worthy.
2) To speak no evil of the person (or persons) we vote against.
3) To take care our spirits are not sharpened against those that voted on other sides.

Yesterday, I was asked to help someone with their mathematics homework as there was one question that they were stuck on.  I looked at it, thought about it, but was stumped.  Although potential solutions kept nagging at the back of my mind, they couldn’t break through until it dawned on me that I had made a mistaken assumption about the rules laid down in the question.  I’m not generally one for breaking rules, but I do like to challenge assumptions – especially my own.  It was difficult to challenge my assumption because it felt like breaking the rules.  Having the courage to do so turned out to be liberating:  a simple and elegant solution quickly emerged.

During the election campaign, I worried about the possible consequences of tactical voting.  These worries were based on the assumption that the most that tactical voting could achieve would be to limit the size of the Conservative majority to that which it had when the election was called.  This assumption turned out to be false:  I never seriously considered that the Conservative Party could lose their overall majority.  Had I considered the possibility of a hung parliament, I would probably have worried about the implications of that too.  However, on waking up the morning after, bleary-eyed as I was, I saw this unexpected result as a glorious opportunity to do government differently.  I had voted with hope and found that I woke up with hope.

As per convention, Theresa May has remained Prime Minister throughout the election campaign and is now attempting to carry on as Prime Minister in our tradition of authoritarian democracy by doing a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.  How long she can carry on as Prime Minister remains to be seen, but we should prepare for the moment when a vacancy emerges for Prime Minister by challenging our assumptions about how Prime Ministers are appointed.

The Prime Minister of the UK is not directly elected.  By convention, the monarch appoints as Prime Minister someone who can command the confidence of the House of Commons.  This Prime Minister is then invited to form a government.  Normally, the political parties are ranked according to the number of our MPs who belong to each of them and the leader of the largest party is then appointed as Prime Minister.  The assumption being made is that the leader of the largest party is the person best able to command the confidence of the House of Commons.  I would like to challenge this assumption.  The leader of the largest party may be able to order the obedience of the largest number of our MPs, but that is not the same as being able to command the confidence of the House of Commons as a whole.  It only makes sense if we view our MPs as a TV election-night graphic:  discrete, homogeneous, colour-coded clusters that can only be manipulated in blocks.  This is another assumption that needs challenging.

We assume that many of our identities exist as sets of discrete options when they are actually continuous spectra.  Political identity is one such example.  Political identity is an expression of opinion.  Since every person is unique and therefore has a unique set of opinions, political identity must exist as a continuous spectrum.  Trying to divide a continuous spectrum into discrete blocks applies a distorting filter to our view of political identity.  If we have the courage to challenge our assumptions about political identity and remove the distorting filter of political parties then, when we look at the House of Commons, we simply see 650 people from across the continuous spectrum of political views who we have chosen to represent us.  Suddenly, it is entirely possible that one of their number could command the confidence of a majority.  The difficulties of forming a government from the hung parliament melt away.  Simple and elegant solutions emerge.

The first stage is to identify someone who can command the confidence of the House of the Commons for the monarch to appoint as Prime Minister.  Since we are too accustomed to the distorting filter of political parties, it seems unlikely that the leader of either of the two largest parties could command the confidence of the House of Commons as a whole.  They are probably the least qualified candidates.  A new approach is needed.  We can’t just ignore the political parties because we are all too accustomed to them.  It will take time for us to see clearly without their filter.  I do, however, have some ideas that might help in the short term:

• Suggest that the monarch appoints Caroline Lucas as Prime Minister. The Green Party has long talked about doing politics in a different, more collaborative manner so she should be well placed to show her parliamentary colleagues the way.  In addition, as the only MP from the Green Party, she would not have to deal with any factional difficulties in her parliamentary party.  Finally, I rather like the symbolism of turning the usual assumption upside down and offering the top job to the smallest party.  High office is an opportunity to serve, not a prize to be won.
• Alternatively, invite the MPs belonging to the largest party to select someone for the monarch to appoint as Prime Minister. However, they would not be allowed to select a member of their own party.
• The Egyptian Coptic Church elects its new Pope by selecting two candidates and then asking a child to choose one at random. Our MPs could select two or three candidates who would be able to command the confidence of the House of Commons and one could then be chosen at random.

This new Prime Minister would then be invited to form a government, just as they are now.  Because they have not gained their post through a political victory, the Prime Minister would not be constrained to handing out jobs to the political allies who had helped them to secure their own position.  Whilst aiming for a reasonable balance across the political spectrum, the driving force should be finding the best people for the jobs.  With a government that is representative of the political spectrum, there would be no need for political whipping.  MPs would be free to vote as directed by their consciences to represent their constituents.  Legislation brought forward by the government would, therefore, have to be built on consensus.  It would truly be government by the people, for the people.

Challenging our assumptions about political identity and the appointment of our Prime Minister is difficult because it feels like breaking the rules.  Having the courage to do so would be truly liberating for us all.  Without having to break the rules by going to all the trouble of introducing electoral reform, it could give us the strong and stable leadership we need to change Britain’s future by bringing us together as a confident and caring country that works for the many, not the few.  The system isn’t broken:  we just need to use it in the way in which it was designed to work.

I have a name for my proposal:  liberal democracy.

Last night, I attended my first ever general election hustings, in which the candidates for the Thornbury and Yate constituency faced questions from a local audience.  As I’ve said recently on my blog, I think the dominance of political parties has separated us from the importance of choosing a candidate with the right range of skills and qualities to represent us at Westminster.  I therefore hoped to get a sense of what the candidates were like as people.  The Gazette has produced a live transcript of the event, so I won’t try and recreate that, but rather try and describe the impressions that the candidates made on me.  Before doing so, however, I want to make a few general points about the questioning.

Questions, Questions

It was unfortunate that nearly all of the questions related to the major national issues (education cuts, social care, environment etc.)  The result of this was that the candidates spent a lot of time quoting from their manifestos, rather than revealing very much about themselves and their own views.  When talking about money, this generally involved Luke Hall (as the sitting MP from the governing party) blinding us with detailed figures and the other candidates obfuscating with commitments to spend billions here and billions there.  The lack of any expert interpretation of such figures rendered much of the discussion meaningless.  This is why I am not a fan of the televised leader debates.  I think that a series of one-to-one leader interviews with a well prepared interviewer actually stands a much better chance of getting closer to the truth.

I had submitted some questions, although since I did so less than twenty-four hours before the event, I did not get a chance to ask any of them. As an indication of some of the things that might have interested me to hear the candidates talk about, here are my proposed questions, with a couple of notes of relevant comments that candidates made when answering other questions:

1. When voting in parliament, how would you balance the competing demands of your constituents, your party whip and your own conscience and would your answer depend on whether you found yourself sitting on the government or opposition benches?
2. What it your opinion about the UK’s national debt and how would your party’s policies impact upon it?
   [Although it was not especially relevant, Luke Hall did raise the issue of the national debt in his response to the final question of the night.  He pointed out that it is not just about leaving a large debt for future generations to deal with but also about the large sums we are paying each year to service that debt.  I am really concerned about both aspects and I worry that the Conservative approach of austerity does not appear to be solving the problem and that none of the other parties really seem to have a plan for reducing it, or even for stopping it growing.]
3. What could be done to address rising inequality in the UK?
4. Is it the job of parents or of the state to feed our children?
5. Is the proposed Trinity Lane housing development on the northern edge of St John’s Way, Chipping Sodbury an appropriate contribution to the national housing crisis?
6. Please name one policy that you agree with from the manifesto of a party other than your own.
   [Iain Hamilton mentioned that there was one – and only one – UKIP policy that he agreed with:  raising the minimum wage.  This was greeted with a volume of amused laughter that was only eclipsed when the Labour party representative accidentally referred to the Prime Minister as Margaret Thatcher.  Furthermore, Iain talked on another occasion about the need for politicians to work more collaboratively across party lines and having the courage and confidence to use good policies that other parties have come up with.]

Brian Mead (Labour)

Since Brian couldn’t get time off work to attend, I was unable to form any impression about him.  John Turner, who stood in at short notice, was very eloquent on behalf of the Labour Party’s policies.  I note that Brian omitted to answer the following questions on his Bristol Post Candidate Profile:

• Why do you want to be elected as an MP?
• Why do you think you would be a success at the job?
• What would your main aims be during your term of office?

Claire Young (Liberal Democrat)

Claire struck me as being rather tentative and, given the importance the Liberal Democrats must have on regaining this seat I would have expected her to be better prepared.  (I comment further on this below, in my discussion of Luke Hall.)  She didn’t strike me as someone who really wanted to win this seat, but more as someone who had been reluctantly persuaded to stand.  This does rather tie in with my observations regarding the generally poor quality of her campaign materials, many examples of which have come through my letterbox.

In addition, on several occasions she talked about what the Liberal Democrats would do if they were in a future government.  Since, however, Tim Farron has ruled out a coalition with either the Labour Party of the Conservative Party, this isn’t going to happen.  Given that she is the candidate with the best chance of unseating Luke Hall, I would feel more confidence in voting for her had she given any clues as to how she could make a difference for Thornbury & Yate from the position she would take up on the opposition benches, rather than talking about what her party would do from a position they have ruled out taking up.

Iain Hamilton (Green)

Iain has been the candidate who has been most openly active on Facebook, but some of this activity had given me concerns.  In particular, I would mention his sharing of news stories from Russia Today and The Canary (which, as far as I can gather, has all the balance and accuracy of a kind of left wing Breitbart).  Furthermore, when discussing the issue of Conservative election expenses on Facebook, he gave the impression of not affording Luke Hall the courtesy of the assumption of innocence until proved guilty that I hold as being an important component of the rule of law in this country.  He did, however, have the grace to respond when I queried this – the only response I have had from any candidate to a question I have asked on Facebook.  Despite these reservations, I do applaud his passion both for politics and for open engagement.

On the evening, I found Iain engaging and, although on occasion he didn’t answer the question that had actually been asked (which, it seemed, the audience was more forgiving of if your name was not Luke Hall) he did speak passionately on many issues.  In particular, his passions for finding new ways of looking at long standing problems and – as I’ve already mentioned – for greater collaboration in politics shone through.  As he said, the nature of the two-sword-lengths-apart debating chamber of our parliament (compared with the more common modern day circular designs) is symbolic of the problems with our current adversarial style of politics.  Finally, the principal he mentioned of having a thirty year plan for things like education and the NHS, rather than major reorganisations every five to ten years matches up well with my own views.

Luke Hall (Conservative)

In his opening statement, I was concerned to note that Luke Hall repeated the implication he has also made on Facebook that a Conservative MP is more likely to have their voice heard at Westminster than an MP of another party.  I queried this on Facebook the other day, “Luke, I worry about the implication in your post that a Conservative government would only listen to Conservative MPs. Surely our voice should be listened to in Westminster, whether or not our MP belongs to the party that forms the government?”  I have yet to receive a response.

The first question was about school funding.  When Luke Hall took his turn to answer, he rather aggressively questioned the other candidates before answering the question himself.  In particular, he repeatedly asked Claire Young what the funding per pupil was in South Gloucestershire.  After a couple of attempts at avoiding the question, she did admit that she didn’t know the figure off the top of her head.  Luke’s point was that the figure had risen by over £200 per pupil per year and he was annoyed that this was being misrepresented in other parties’ campaign materials, particularly those of the Liberal Democrats.  Now, since Claire Young is a local councillor and has been trying to gain a lot of political capital over the issue of school funding, I might have expected her to have had the figure to hand (if not in her head).  Having said that, I wasn’t too surprised, given that when I asked for more detail a couple of weeks ago about her claims about school funding on a Facebook thread in which she was active, she failed to respond.  However, the manner in which Luke Hall set about her did not, I suspect, win him many fans on the night.  He came across more Westminster than Thornbury & Yate.

These type of events are always rather different for sitting MPs (especially if they belong to the governing party) than for their challengers.  People will tend to take out all their anger about the problems of the world on them.  This is yet another symptom of our muddled politics in which our local candidates have become the mouthpieces of one of a handful of political parties.  On occasion Luke was treated rather rudely, which (as with his early treatment of Claire Young) was regrettable as it makes it much harder to get anywhere near the truth.  He did, however, settle down and take it with better grace as the evening went on.

Candidates for governing parties are often more constrained in sticking to the party line than their opponents.  Given this, I find it important to read between the lines in their answers.  There were two such occasions when Luke made interesting comments that seemed, to me, to be challenging the official Conservative positions.  On the issue of grammar schools, he made a point of addressing the unfairness of the 11+ by placing great emphasis on the need for multiple entry points at different ages, to reflect that fact the children mature academically at different ages.  He also raised the idea of scouting to encourage more applications from disadvantaged pupils who are generally less likely to apply for grammar schools.  Furthermore, these points were all framed within language about the policy that made great reference to “if, after consultation, this goes ahead” etc.  I didn’t get the impression that he is convinced by the grammar school policy.

The other occasion was on the issue of fox hunting.  The questioner asked whether the candidates would vote to reinstate fox hunting if the proposed free vote on the issue goes ahead.  Luke started by saying that he thought this would be a bad use of parliamentary time, which seemed to me quite a bold statement for a Conservative candidate.  He then stated that how he would vote would depend on the details of the legislation.  Although I’m tempted to see fox hunting as a black and white issue that he should have given a clear answer on, issues are always more complex than they seem.  After some reflection on comments I have previously made about the madness of voting for politicians based on promises they make long before the time when they actually have to decide, rather than choosing someone that we trust to make decisions as and when they arise, I would not be being true to those principals if I criticised him for this answer.

Conclusion

I am glad I went to hear the candidates speak and hope that I will make the effort to attend a hustings next time we have an election.  To some extent, the emphasis on national policies got in the way of what I hoped to achieve: getting a feel for which candidate had the qualities to represent the constituency for the next five years.  I have still not decided who I will vote for, or how I will decide, but the candidate that won me over most on the night was Iain Hamilton.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Manchester on Monday night, I found myself wondering (not for the first time) either, “How could anyone do a thing like that?” or the precursor question, “How could anyone even think of doing a thing like that?”  After all, no one does a thing like that without first spending a lot of time thinking about it.  Over the last few days, with a sense of unease, I have found some insight into this from my experience of depression.

During my depression, my mind took me to some dark places, although I would have had to have spent months or even years thinking those thoughts in order to have actually followed them through.  Nevertheless, from where I stand now, I can say to myself, “How could I even think of doing a thing like that?”  Those dark places were the result of my mind feeding on a distorted vision of the world:  a self-imposed one in which my existence was a constant burden to others.  My mind took this distorted vision, powerfully amplified it, followed it to its “logical” conclusion and supressed any dawning realisation that its foundations were not those of truth and love.

As I found with my reading about the Holocaust, having a sense of how people could come to do these things is deeply disturbing.  It would be much easier to think of such people in simplistic terms such as “evil losers”, who are impossible to understand and in some way created from a completely different mould to the rest of us.  The truth, I believe, is rather more complex than that.  I’m reminded of the following story:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.  “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.  “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”  He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.  The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

As someone once said, “No man is an island, entire of itself”.  We are social creatures and as a result do not feed our wolves alone, but also feed those inside each other.  Evil does exist and it can grow in any of us.  Our actions are our own responsibility, but how might those actions be affected by our minds being fed a distorted vision of the world by those around us:  one based on fear, anger, hatred and lies?

Although this more complex view of evil might seem rather scary, there is a more positive aspect to it:  although we don’t have the power to control or eliminate evil, we do all have the power to make a difference.  We can choose which wolf we feed in ourselves and in those around us and so build a better society.  As individuals and as a country, we can choose which wolf we feed in our enemies.  Suddenly, the command to love your enemies comes sharply into focus:  any other response merely feeds the bad wolf in them and builds up greater trouble for the future.  We should have the courage to acknowledge this truth, even though we may be accused of making excuses for those who perform evils deeds.

With the general election campaign back under way, I have one final thought.  Fear is a powerful tool, but it is not just the foodstuff of terrorists.  All too often, sadly, our politicians try to gain our votes by inducing fear of the opposition’s arguments rather than trusting in the truth of their own arguments:  Leave = financial meltdown;  Remain = swamped by migrants;  coalition of chaos;  dementia tax;  return to the 1970s etc.  Such slogans are all appeals to fear, which fall some way short of truth.  They may win an election, but only by feeding the bad wolves in us all.

Looking forward to the UK General Election, the options for our next national government seem somewhat limited.  The Labour party has shown itself unable to form an effective opposition, so it is hard to see how it can possibly be expected to form a government.  Whilst much of the media places the blame squarely on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, I think the problems are symptomatic of a real struggle for identity in the party as a whole.  The “democratisation” of the leadership selection process has resulted in a schism between the parliamentary party and the party membership.  The result is a principled leader who has too few allies in parliament to form an effective opposition.  Looking to the Liberal Democrats, even they have turned their back on the most liberal thing to happen in UK politics for years:  the Coalition.  (If this statement has raised an eyebrow or two, don’t worry:  I’ll come back to it later.)  Tim Farron has declared that they will not form a coalition with either the Labour party or the Conservative party after the election.  With the Labour party unable to form a government and the Liberal Democrats unwilling to form a government, there would appear to be only one option.  To be faced with a general election where there is only one viable option for the next government is a rather sobering situation that feels distinctly undemocratic.  It is however, bound to happen when politics is dominated by two large political parties.  Any party is bound to need time out every now and then to find itself.

In order to limit the size of a likely Conservative victory, opponents of the party are variously proposing tactical voting or, more formally, a progressive alliance, whereby opposition parties agree not to field candidates or not to campaign in order to boost the chances of the candidate most likely to beat the Conservative candidate.  There are, I believe, two main reasons to be wary of such an alliance, although as an occasional tactic where the battle in a particular consistency becomes a single issue vote (e.g. Martin Bell vs Neil Hamilton or Louise Irvine vs Jeremy Hunt), it has some merit.  Firstly, it further diminishes the already limited options available to voters (another thing that I’ll return to later on).  Our politics has been, for some time, pretty polarised with two dominant parties.  It is not yet in as bad a situation as the USA, where even judges are labelled by which one of two political parties they support, but a widespread progressive alliance would push us further down that road.  The politics of the USA is not a destination that I want to pursue.  We will end up being a country irrevocably divided into left and right.  We need more options, not fewer.

The second (and more immediate) reason to be wary of a progressive alliance is that it might actually achieve its purpose and return a Conservative government with a small majority, much like we have had since 2015.  Why would this be a bad thing?  We need to pause and think about why Theresa May actually called this election now.  First, let’s get out of the way all those denials about having an early election, which she has made since taking office.  “Are you planning an early election?” is question to which the only responses that can be made these days are “Yes, now!” and “No, never!”  A truthful response of “I have no plans at the moment for an early election,” would only lead to endless media speculation about when and if one might happen.  Not for the first time, truth has been sacrificed at the altar of the 24 hour news cycle and our demands for certainty about the future.  (Similarly, much as I regret his decision, Tim Farron was caught between a rock and hard place with the question of whether the Liberal Democrats would form a coalition after the forthcoming election.)

In announcing her desire for an early election, Theresa May spoke about divisions at Westminster hampering Brexit negotiations and the need for an election to provide unity.  She blamed the opposition parties for the divisions.  However, with Theresa May I think you often need to look a bit deeper.  We need to look at what happened only a month or so earlier over the proposed budget increases in VAT.  The humiliating climb-down was not forced on the government by the opposition parties, but by the opposition within the Conservative party, predominantly from the right wing.  When a governing party has a small majority, real opposition comes from within the party because small numbers of “rebels” can bring about defeat for the government.  These “rebels” often come from the more extreme wings of the parties.  Although I don’t agree with all her policies, I think that Theresa May is a reasonably pragmatic politician.  Despite all the current hot air and posturing on Brexit, she will know that compromises will have to be made:  compromises that the right wing of her party will not like.  With a slim majority, it is right wing Conservative rebels who could hamper Brexit negotiations or, perhaps more likely, play havoc with domestic legislation as revenge for not getting everything their own way over Brexit.  I think that this is the opposition that Theresa May really wants to crush.  A progressive alliance could hand power right back to them.

These days, I hear lots of talk about Liberal Democracy:  how lucky we are to live in a Liberal Democracy; how we must defend our Liberal Democracy from the forces of nationalism and populism; how we must help nurture the values of Liberal Democracy in other parts of the world etc.  The thing is, I don’t think we have a Liberal Democracy.  I think we have an Authoritarian Democracy.  If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, then it should:  our system is full of contradictions.  I looked at one of these above:  to avoid handing power to the right wing of the Conservative party we need a large Conservative majority.  Another one I’ll return to below:  do we vote for a party or a person?  We do, of course, live in a democracy, because we get to vote for our local and national governments.  Some of us get to vote for a regional government or a regional mayor.  We even get to vote for our police and crime commissioner.  We were given a choice about joining the EEC (even if slightly after the event).  We were given a choice about leaving the EU.  However, looking at the national governments that our democratic choice produces, they are generally majority governments formed either by the Labour party or the Conservative party.  They, and the people who vote for them (in the post-war period, never more than 50%), take it in turns to impose their views on the whole country.  That is not liberal.  It is authoritarian.

Under our electoral system, of course, we do not vote directly for the government that we want.  Despite the way in which Theresa May is presenting herself, it is not a presidential system, which is why I do not think that televised debates between the party leaders are appropriate.  We have a representative democracy:  we vote for a person who will represent our constituency in the national parliament.  It is a beautifully simple idea.  Unfortunately, the existence of strong political parties, manifestos and over-zealous parliamentary whipping has combined to sap the democratic choice from our electoral system.  People suggest electoral reform as the answer.  I agree that this would help (because it would result in the Labour and Conservative parties splitting up which would contribute to giving us a wider choice of smaller political parties that would form coalition governments) but really it is treating the symptom rather than the cause.  I would much prefer to see political parties banned, or their powers severely limited by some means.

Imagine, for a moment, that there were no political parties.  At election time, we would really be forced to think about which candidate to vote for, rather than simply choosing the candidate of our preferred party.  We would have to engage with them in order to decide who best reflects our views and who has the skills to represent our constituency in the national parliament.  We would have to decide whose conscience we trust to guide the country through the next five years.  The candidates would also have to fully engage with us in order to get our votes.  Once elected, the MPs would have to find a way to choose a Prime Minister from amongst their number.  That Prime Minister could then form a government from the whole parliament, choosing the best qualified people without being limited to around half of the MPs.  The government could then represent the broad range of opinions of the country as a whole.  Such a parliament would undoubtedly produce fewer pieces of legislation, but that would be no bad thing.  Since any piece of legislation would require 50% support with no whipping, it would result in higher quality longer lasting legislation that benefitted the many, not the few.  Avoiding the periodic lurches from left to right and back again would provide more stability and make us all stronger.  That would be a truly Liberal Democracy.

Once political parties get in on the act, the first thing that happens is that the field of potential candidates in any constituency is immediately restricted to those people who feel able to sign up to one of the major political parties and are able to convince the members of the relevant local party to support them.  Political parties have taken away from the people the power to influence who stands for election as an MP.  Secondly, committees within the political parties draw up manifestos, which the candidates are expected to adopt.  Political parties have taken away from their candidates the power to fully express their own views.  The manifestos also play a major part in the problem of politicians making promises, which they can’t guarantee to be able to keep, in order to give voters the illusion of certainty that they crave.  Political parties have taken away from us the power to see the future for what it truly is:  uncertain.  Manifestos can also limit governments to acting within boundaries the committee set down several years earlier, removing from governments the power to react to events as they happen and to situations as they are at the time.  Finally, once elected, parties (both in government and opposition) require their MPs to vote with the party whip.  Except on the rare occasions, political parties have taken away from their MPs the power to vote with their own conscience.  This all means that political parties have turned our representatives in the nation’s parliament into their representatives in our constituencies.

This may all seem deeply negative and cynical, but it is not intended that way.  It is the truth I see about our system of government.  I believe that the majority of our MPs enter politics because they genuinely want to make life better for everyone in this country.  I believe that many of them enter politics with very liberal intentions.  I believe that much that happens behind the scenes in parliament, for example the cross-party committees which do so much work, is really very liberal.  I have heard so many new party leaders and new Prime Ministers promising a new kind of politics and promising to work more constructively.  The system works against all that.  It is unfortunate that the bits of parliament that we see are deeply illiberal.  The layout of the House of Commons presents politics as a two sided conflict, where those on one side of the house cannot risk admitting that those on the other side might have a point, something which also poisons political debate on the streets and on the internet.  That is why I see the 2010-2015 coalition government as the most liberal thing to have happened in years.  Two parties shared power and made it work.  They had to compromise.  In a small way, they had to live out the reality that the population is made up of many different people with many different opinions.  That the country reacted so badly to the compromises tells me that we have got a long way to go to become a truly liberal people.  However, looking around the world we’re not doing so badly.  I just think that it is time to have the courage and take the next step along the liberal road towards respecting and even accepting the opinions of others.  That way we can all move closer to the truth.

A few weeks ago, a friend told me about a visit he’d made to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood to view First Minister’s Questions.  He described how Nicola Sturgeon strode in confidently, flanked by her aides, every inch the leader.  To start with, she dominated the assembly as she confidently answered the early questions.  However, when she was asked questions about the performance of Scotland’s schools and hospitals by MSPs from the Scottish Labour and Scottish Conservative parties, she visibly diminished in stature as she struggled to defend her domestic performance.  This got us talking about the extent to which her demands for independence are to distract voters from poor performance on domestic issues.  In a wider context, it is a tried and tested political tactic to distract voters from poor performance on domestic issues by hardening the rhetoric on external issues.  This is a tactic that Vladimir Putin is keen on and one that we are seeing now with Donald Trump’s new-found, aggressive enthusiasm for dabbling in international affairs, after several failures with home affairs.

At the risk of falling into the trap of trying to show awareness of a potentially damaging misunderstanding by attempting to rule it out, let me make it clear that I am not equating Nicola Sturgeon with either Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump.  However, considering the differences between Nicola Sturgeon and Vladimir Putin in parallel does illustrate the first point that I want to make in this post:  the reciprocal link between authoritarianism and dogma.  For the sake of clarity, here are some definitions of these words that reflect the way in which I use them:

authoritarian:  favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom

dogma:  a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as undeniably true (literally “that which one thinks is true”).

dogmatic:  inclined to lay down principles as undeniably true.

In my view – one that is probably not too controversial – Vladimir Putin is someone who is firmly embedded in an authoritarian way of operating.  As a result of this, he acts dogmatically:  laying down principles as an authority that expects obedience and does not expect anyone to deny the truth of them.  Being authoritarian leads, therefore, to being dogmatic, but I think the converse is also true:  being dogmatic leads to being authoritarian.  In fact, this may well be how people get to being authoritarian in the first place.  This does not usually happen consciously, therefore will tend to be denied.  This is the point at which I want to think about Nicola Sturgeon, but before I do I just want to make one further point about dogma.  Dogma can be a principle that we just take on board from an authority without questioning too much (probably how dogma is most commonly thought of).  It is also entirely possible for principles that we have come to believe for ourselves after careful consideration to become dogma.  This can happen over time if we stop questioning those principles and as a result start to treat them as undeniably true.  In some ways, the latter type of dogma is more dangerous than the former because you are more likely to think that you are not being dogmatic.

Returning to Nicola Sturgeon, I wouldn’t say that she is someone embedded in an authoritarian way of operating, but I would say that she is dogmatic about Scottish independence.  The trouble with dogma is that if we believe in a principle, for example independence for Scotland, strongly enough that we think it to be undeniably true then it will naturally seem like it is the best thing for other people too.  We might then be tempted to go beyond simply arguing for what we believe in and attempt to manipulate people into supporting us, for example by putting forward arguments that knowingly present less than the whole truth or by timing decisions around factors that benefit our cause.  We are now seeking to impose our will.  We are acting in an authoritarian manner.  We also risk blinding ourselves to counter arguments.  In arguing for an independence referendum before the UK leaves the EU, Nicola Sturgeon is behaving in an authoritarian manner because she is seeking to have the vote at a time when she thinks she has the greatest chance of winning, when she thinks people will be most disenchanted with the UK, when they are likely to be most scared about the reality of Brexit.  She also presents less than the whole truth in what she says about Scotland’s future being as an independent member state of the EU.  She has no idea whether that is possible.  However, she also appears to have blinded herself to the fact that if she were to lose a referendum on her timescale then Scotland would remain part of a UK that has been saddled with a less good outcome from Brexit than it might have had because of the distraction caused by the referendum campaign.

So, I have argued that authoritarianism and dogma are linked in a reciprocal relationship.  You may have picked up from my language that I don’t think either of them are a good thing.  What, therefore, are the balancing forces in politics?  Liberalism is the balancing force to authoritarianism and, just as authoritarianism is reciprocally linked with dogma, liberalism is reciprocally linked with scepticism.  Once again, here are some definitions of these words that reflect the way in which I use them:

liberal:  willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas

sceptic:  a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions

Why is it that I think liberalism and scepticism are linked?  The inclination to question or doubt your own opinions opens the door to respecting or even accepting other people’s opinions.  Conversely, the best way to show respect for another person’s opinions is to question those opinions (whether out loud or in your own head), rather than dismissing, ignoring or insulting them.

Politics is often talked about in terms of a one dimensional spectrum, with left (or progressive) and right (or conservative) as opposing forces.  In this view of politics, communism is at the extreme left, fascism is at the extreme right and liberals are generally viewed as being somewhere in the middle.  This model doesn’t work for me, mainly because centrist politicians are as prone as those of the left or the right to being dogmatic therefore authoritarian about their views and cannot, therefore, necessarily be described as liberal.  Here is the best way I can find of representing my view of politics in a two-dimensional diagram, with the opposing forces of liberalism and authoritarianism forming the second dimension:

The enclosed, grey area crudely represents the region in which politics operates.  I have already described how scepticism pushes us towards liberalism and dogma pushes us towards authoritarianism.  Whilst such dogmatic authoritarianism can push us to more extreme left or right wing view, note that there is also a purple arrow going straight down.  This represents what I mentioned above about it being perfectly possible to maintain centrist views, but in a dogmatic (and therefore authoritarian) manner.  This is, I believe, where the politics of the centre often goes wrong.  There is a prevalent belief that simply being in the centre, neither too far to the left nor too far to the right, means being liberal.  This is not true.  Being liberal is about the way in which you do politics.  You can be a liberal in a right-wing party or a liberal in a left-wing party or even, although not necessarily, a liberal in a party which is called liberal.  I believe that sceptical liberalism will pull you away from the extremes of left and right, but with significant flexibility to manoeuvre to the left and to the right to find the best solutions for the situation at the time you are looking and the policy area you are looking at.  On the other hand, being in the centre probably protects you from the worst excesses of authoritarianism (totalitarianism – the pointy bits at the bottom left and right of the grey area) which probably only occur in far left and far right politics.

In a previous post I shared some thoughts on what truth might be and how we might go about finding it.  I suggested that in order to move closer to the truth we need to:

1. have a current position
2. accept that our current position may not yet be the truth of the situation
3. understand alternative positions.

Thinking about it, being a sceptical liberal is the key to the search for truth that I described.  Scepticism is vital to accepting that our current position may not yet be the truth of the situation.  Having that liberal respect for other people’s positions is vital to understanding alternative positions.  I have mentioned before that I am inclined to scepticism.  I call myself both a liberal and a sceptic.

“Grandpa, I don’t really feel like going to church today…” I observed over breakfast one childhood Easter Sunday, with my eyes fixed on the pile of Easter Eggs in front of me.  Later that morning, from the pulpit in Chelmsford Cathedral, my Grandpa opened his sermon with my words:  words that became immortalised in one of those frequently recounted family stories.  It was, as far as I know, the first and last occasion when I inspired a preacher of God’s word. It was, however, neither the first nor the last occasion when I didn’t really feel like going to church on a Sunday morning.  So why have I kept going all these years?  What drew me into faith?

Christianity, like most religions, is full of stories and symbols, because it tries to speak about the heart of the human condition.  This is something that we can’t write about or talk about or understand in precise, scientific language.  We have to use picture language:  stories and symbols.  At one level these seem barely adequate, merely the best we can do at describing the indescribable and at knowing the unknowable.  At another level they provide an immensely rich language.  Once you have understood precise, scientific language there is no more to be discovered.  With well written stories and carefully selected symbols, however, there is always more to be discovered.  You can keep coming back to them and as you grow and develop what you find in the stories and symbols grows and develops too.

Looking back (if I can look back at something that I know only from the telling of the story and not from my own memories of the events) I would say that the pile of symbols in front of me that Easter morning was a stumbling block.  I couldn’t look past the Easter Eggs to see what was really important, which is understandable at that age.  I’m not against symbols.  In fact I quite like symbols.  They can be useful reminders of what we hold to be important, useful reminders of what we believe.  As I have heard from various pulpits over the years the symbolism of Easter Eggs can be interpreted in many ways, including:

• eggs bring new life and therefore represent the new life of Jesus’ resurrection
• eggs look a bit like the stone that was rolled away from the entrance of the tomb on the first Easter morning
• Easter Eggs, being hollow, are empty like Jesus’ tomb on the first Easter morning

As a Christian, I may ponder on this symbolism as I consume my chocolate eggs, although, to be honest, I generally view them as merely a secular (though pleasurable) add on to a religious festival, rather like Christmas presents.  At the end of the day, they are just chocolate eggs.  The danger with symbols is that we place too much importance on them and come to believe that they have an intrinsic significance of their own, rather than just being a reminder of what we already believe and a way of communicating with others who also believe.  We might then expect people who don’t share our beliefs to see in our symbols the same ideas that we see in them.  This is the trap that, as I see it, the Church of England fell into when, for understandable reasons, it seized the opportunity provided by the media storm over the National Trust’s “Chocolate Egg Hunts” to try and remind people of the true meaning of Easter.  I doubt many non-Christians have looked at a chocolate egg and as a result come to believe in the resurrection of the Son of God.  With symbols, it is not generally the case that seeing is believing, but rather that believing is seeing.  So, although I like symbols and find them useful, they are not what drew me into faith.

I was fortunate to be brought up in a Christian family and go to a Christian school and so regularly heard stories read from the Bible.  As a teenager, I started to see that that somewhere amid these curious stories that I didn’t fully understand was a message about a better way of living than what I saw out there in the world around me.  This is what drew me into faith.  However much I didn’t fully understand the stories, however much I didn’t quite grasp the symbols, however much I saw the pain of the world repeated inside the church, however much I didn’t really feel like going to church that morning, I kept going because I knew, deep down, that there was a deeper truth to be found there about the human condition.  There was a better way to live.  And for all those times when it was hard to see how the better way could possibly work, how “loving your enemy and praying for those who persecute you” could lead to anything other than greater personal suffering, there was a special story.  A story of a man who suffered the very worst that mankind could inflict:  betrayal, injustice, loneliness, torture and a public, humiliating, agonising death.  A story of a man who endured all of this with love.  A story of a man who, on the first Easter morning, rose again.  A story that says that death did not have the last say.  A story that tells me that although, two thousand years of progress later, mankind still inflicts the worst that it can, this will not have the last say.  A story that refreshes me every year, gives me hope every day and keeps me going in the belief that there is always a better way.

Wishing you all a very happy and holy Easter.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!

Dear Marchers,

As I write this, I see that after some uncertainty there has been clarification that tomorrow’s march will go ahead.  I’m glad that you will get your chance to march:  the right to protest is one of the freedoms that we are fortunate to enjoy in this country.

Wanting to understand more about your reasons for marching, I popped over to read the ‘About’ page of ‘Unite for Europe’s website.  I agree with some statements (one strongly enough to have blogged about already and – in a more formal style – to have written to my MP about).  I disagree with some statements (one strongly enough to have blogged about already because I believe it strikes at the heart of democracy).  However, the statement that gives me the greatest cause for concern is the one right at the top of the page:  the one that defines the “we” and “us” in all the statements that follow.  This is what it says:

“We are the 48% who voted against Brexit and those who were not allowed to vote against it – the young and the EU nationals living, working and paying taxes in the UK.”

That is a bold statement:  one that is, I feel, adrift somewhere in the realm of post-truth.  Language like this encourages the idea that people who voted Remain are a homogeneous group, all with very similar reasons for voting Remain.  It encourages the idea that people who voted Leave are also a homogeneous group, all with very similar reasons for voting Leave.  This then encourages the idea that reasons for voting Remain and reasons for voting Leave are diametrically opposed.  This then encourages the idea that, if you voted for the option which fewer people chose overall, then you have lost everything.  None of this is true.  It is the language of absolutes.  It is the language that crushes hope and stifles our capacity to be changed.  It is the language of division and conflict.

The only way to discover the truth about anyone’s opinions on the EU, or EU nationals, or immigration, or multiculturalism, or sovereignty, or any other issue that you are interested in is to talk to them.  If we talk to people who made a different choice to us then we may find that we have something in common with them.  We may find that some of them share some of our concerns for the future.  We may even find that some of them are politically very similar to us.  Then we can start build real consensus about the way forward.  Not about the negotiations – of necessity they will be done by a handful of people behind closed doors, as were the negotiations to join the EEC.  There is a good reason for this:  as someone once said of negotiations, “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”  Furthermore, although the precise mechanism is unknown at this stage, I suspect that there will be little scope for manoeuvre once a deal has been negotiated.  The options are likely to be:  take it or leave it.  No, the time when we will need that consensus is when powers return to the UK and we have “taken back (a little more) control”.  What sort of country will we choose to be then?  What will our relationship with the EU be like?  These things will be ever growing and changing.  I’d like them to be guided by liberalism.  Would you?

I hope that you enjoy your day out in London.  I hope that some comforting truth emerges from the day’s events.  Above all, take care and be safe.

Best wishes,

A Liberal Leave Voter