The new government in Scotland is faced with its first public, though doubtless not first unpublicised, problem with the Labour party Executive in Westminster not grasping what is no longer within its jurisdiction.
The Libyan convicted of involvement in the PanAm Lockerbie plane bomb has been the subject of discussion between the Westminster Prime Minister and the President of Libya. Unfortunately the Prime Minister at Westminster has no say in the fate of a prisoner held in Scotland, convicted in a Scottish court, of a crime committed in Scottish airspace.
Attempts by English Foreign Office civil servants to advise the Labour Westminster Prime Minister that this was a matter for Scottish Prime Minister Salmond were not accepted (or understood).
The Libyans have got it now though and, according to the Sunday Herald, are not best pleased. The Herald notes in a leader,
'...Alex Salmond is using the full authority of his position to challenge Westminster's ways of doing things - from leading talks with Europe on fishing to signing memoranda on prisoner transfer with Colonel Gaddafi. The SNP government will shortly publish its white paper and bill for a referendum on independence.'
The MP for the Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and Leader-designate of the Labour party is looking ever weirder as candidate prime minister at Westminster.
Showing posts with label Blair and his going. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blair and his going. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Thursday, 10 May 2007
How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?
There is an approach to political understanding that has much in common with that Shakespearean criticism dominated by "the assumption that Shakespeare was pre-eminently a great 'creator of characters'". Of course political commentators occupy themselves not with "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?" rather, "The nature of the relationship between Brown and Blair ”, but they need to be Knighted just as much.
Knights' insight, that "the only profitable approach to Shakespeare is a consideration of his plays as dramatic poems, of his use of language to obtain a total complex emotional response" applies just as well to the New Labour Project;
Blair’s years should be understood as just such an attempt “to obtain a total complex emotional response" .
Knights writes,
“ Macbeth [i.e. the New Labour Project] is a statement of evil. I use the word "statement" (unsatisfactory as it is) in order to stress those qualities that are "non-dramatic," if drama is defined according to the canons of William Archer or Dr. Bradley. It also happens to be poetry, [harder to argue for the Project, but it shares the abstraction of values and their presentation, rather than policies and their delivery] which means that the apprehension of the whole can only be obtained from a lively attention to the parts, whether they have an immediate bearing on the main action or "illustrate character," or not. Two main themes, which can only be separated for the purpose of analysis, are blended in the play [the Project]—the themes of the reversal of values and of unnatural disorder. And closely related to each is a third theme, that of the deceitful appearance, and consequent doubt, uncertainty and confusion. All this is obscured by false assumptions about the category "drama" [or politics]. Each theme is stated in the first act [i.e. since 1997]... every word...[which] will bear the closest scrutiny, strikes one dominant chord:
Faire is foule, and foule is faire,
Hover through the fogge and filthie ayre.
It is worth remarking that "Hurley-burley" implies more than the tumult of sedition or insurrection." Both it and "when the Battaile's lost, and wonne" suggest the kind of metaphysical pitch-and-toss... played with good and evil. At the same time we hear the undertone of uncertainty... the scene [i.e. the beginning of the Project] expresses the same movement as the play/Project as a whole: the general crystallizes into the immediate particular ("Where the place?"—"Upon the Heath.") and then dissolves again into the general presentment of hideous gloom [or, in the Project’s case, general presentment of vainglorious achievement].
Just as Knights traces the development of the reversal of values, unnatural disorder, and deceitful appearance themes, these themes can be traced too through the New Labour Project. Macbeth /Blair’s "ruin is never complete. [though Shakespeare in My way of life / Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf, and "To morrow, and tomorrow" has quite an edge over Blair’s echoic speech writer]. To the end he never totally loses our sympathy... In the very depths a gleam of his native love of goodness, and with it a tinge of tragic grandeur, rests upon him." [precisely what Blair was after].
But ‘to concentrate attention on the personal implications of these lines [Macbeth /Blair’s] is to obscure the fact that they have an even more important function as the keystone of the system of values that gives emotional coherence to the play/ Project .
While "total complex emotional response ", is not all about themes and a "system of values ", political commentary about character is too common while in-depth examination of themes and values, rather scarce.
(Probably this could be boiled down into a couple of sentences; but L.C. Knights explains it so well, hence the extensive quotes. Today’s Blair speech, emotionally distasteful as it was, was all about evoking Project values and responses. It’s a different kind of politics, not within shouting distance of Shakespeare's manipulations of the world, cheapened, but a derivative).
Knights' insight, that "the only profitable approach to Shakespeare is a consideration of his plays as dramatic poems, of his use of language to obtain a total complex emotional response" applies just as well to the New Labour Project;
Blair’s years should be understood as just such an attempt “to obtain a total complex emotional response" .
Knights writes,
“ Macbeth [i.e. the New Labour Project] is a statement of evil. I use the word "statement" (unsatisfactory as it is) in order to stress those qualities that are "non-dramatic," if drama is defined according to the canons of William Archer or Dr. Bradley. It also happens to be poetry, [harder to argue for the Project, but it shares the abstraction of values and their presentation, rather than policies and their delivery] which means that the apprehension of the whole can only be obtained from a lively attention to the parts, whether they have an immediate bearing on the main action or "illustrate character," or not. Two main themes, which can only be separated for the purpose of analysis, are blended in the play [the Project]—the themes of the reversal of values and of unnatural disorder. And closely related to each is a third theme, that of the deceitful appearance, and consequent doubt, uncertainty and confusion. All this is obscured by false assumptions about the category "drama" [or politics]. Each theme is stated in the first act [i.e. since 1997]... every word...[which] will bear the closest scrutiny, strikes one dominant chord:
Faire is foule, and foule is faire,
Hover through the fogge and filthie ayre.
It is worth remarking that "Hurley-burley" implies more than the tumult of sedition or insurrection." Both it and "when the Battaile's lost, and wonne" suggest the kind of metaphysical pitch-and-toss... played with good and evil. At the same time we hear the undertone of uncertainty... the scene [i.e. the beginning of the Project] expresses the same movement as the play/Project as a whole: the general crystallizes into the immediate particular ("Where the place?"—"Upon the Heath.") and then dissolves again into the general presentment of hideous gloom [or, in the Project’s case, general presentment of vainglorious achievement].
Just as Knights traces the development of the reversal of values, unnatural disorder, and deceitful appearance themes, these themes can be traced too through the New Labour Project. Macbeth /Blair’s "ruin is never complete. [though Shakespeare in My way of life / Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf, and "To morrow, and tomorrow" has quite an edge over Blair’s echoic speech writer]. To the end he never totally loses our sympathy... In the very depths a gleam of his native love of goodness, and with it a tinge of tragic grandeur, rests upon him." [precisely what Blair was after].
But ‘to concentrate attention on the personal implications of these lines [Macbeth /Blair’s] is to obscure the fact that they have an even more important function as the keystone of the system of values that gives emotional coherence to the play/ Project .
While "total complex emotional response ", is not all about themes and a "system of values ", political commentary about character is too common while in-depth examination of themes and values, rather scarce.
(Probably this could be boiled down into a couple of sentences; but L.C. Knights explains it so well, hence the extensive quotes. Today’s Blair speech, emotionally distasteful as it was, was all about evoking Project values and responses. It’s a different kind of politics, not within shouting distance of Shakespeare's manipulations of the world, cheapened, but a derivative).
Tuesday, 8 May 2007
Labour rules
The Labour party Rule Book (what is usually called a constitution) is an ill-drafted and often silent document, whose difficulty of interpretation is, I suspect, a political tool.
It states:
Leader and deputy leader
(a) There shall be a leader and deputy leader of the party who shall, ex-officio, be leader and deputy leader of the PLP.
(b) The leader and deputy leader of the party shall be elected or re-elected from among Commons members of the PLP in accordance with procedural rule 4B.2, at a party conference convened in accordance with clause VI of these rules.
In respect to the election of the leader and deputy leader, the standing orders of the PLP shall always automatically be brought into line with these rules.
...
i) When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister and the party leader, for whatever reason, becomes permanently unavailable,
the Cabinet shall, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to serve as party leader until a ballot under these rules can be carried out.
ii) When the party is in government and the deputy leader becomes party leader under (i) of this rule, the Cabinet may, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to serve as deputy leader until the next party conference. The Cabinet may alternatively, in consultation with the NEC, leave the post vacant until the next party conference.
If Blair resigns as Party leader this week, but does not go to the head of state to resign the office of prime minister then the question ‘why not?’ receives no satisfactory reply from the claim that time is needed to organize the election to the Labour party leadership of his successor before the head of state can call on the new Labour leader to form an administration.
The Rule Book ‘s provision for an immediate substitution of a ‘permanently unavailable’ Party leader ‘When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister ‘ is clearly designed to deal with precisely the contingency of a resigning (or arrested, or dead) Party leader. (It is noteworthy that the Rule book seems to envisage a situation where the Party leader might not be prime minister, although the Party is in government).
Why does Blair not resign from leadership and prime ministerial office, the cabinet appoint Brown leader until there is a confirmatory ballot, and Brown go to the palace to accept the invitation to form an administration? What is the purpose of the hiatus; or have the media misunderstood the process that will occur?
A prime minister has two great powers, to recommend his successor, and to recommend a dissolution. His advice on either of these has not been disregarded for over a century. What is Blair trading for those weeks in which the Labour party acts out an unnecessary electoral process that all know to have an inevitable outcome?
It states:
Leader and deputy leader
(a) There shall be a leader and deputy leader of the party who shall, ex-officio, be leader and deputy leader of the PLP.
(b) The leader and deputy leader of the party shall be elected or re-elected from among Commons members of the PLP in accordance with procedural rule 4B.2, at a party conference convened in accordance with clause VI of these rules.
In respect to the election of the leader and deputy leader, the standing orders of the PLP shall always automatically be brought into line with these rules.
...
i) When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister and the party leader, for whatever reason, becomes permanently unavailable,
the Cabinet shall, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to serve as party leader until a ballot under these rules can be carried out.
ii) When the party is in government and the deputy leader becomes party leader under (i) of this rule, the Cabinet may, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to serve as deputy leader until the next party conference. The Cabinet may alternatively, in consultation with the NEC, leave the post vacant until the next party conference.
If Blair resigns as Party leader this week, but does not go to the head of state to resign the office of prime minister then the question ‘why not?’ receives no satisfactory reply from the claim that time is needed to organize the election to the Labour party leadership of his successor before the head of state can call on the new Labour leader to form an administration.
The Rule Book ‘s provision for an immediate substitution of a ‘permanently unavailable’ Party leader ‘When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister ‘ is clearly designed to deal with precisely the contingency of a resigning (or arrested, or dead) Party leader. (It is noteworthy that the Rule book seems to envisage a situation where the Party leader might not be prime minister, although the Party is in government).
Why does Blair not resign from leadership and prime ministerial office, the cabinet appoint Brown leader until there is a confirmatory ballot, and Brown go to the palace to accept the invitation to form an administration? What is the purpose of the hiatus; or have the media misunderstood the process that will occur?
A prime minister has two great powers, to recommend his successor, and to recommend a dissolution. His advice on either of these has not been disregarded for over a century. What is Blair trading for those weeks in which the Labour party acts out an unnecessary electoral process that all know to have an inevitable outcome?
Sunday, 6 May 2007
Why are we putting up with this?
England doesn't want Gordon Brown and his Labour MPs sitting for Scottish seats, like him, deciding policy for England in Westminster. Why should it? The Scottish have their own Parliament to make their political choices and have little and spurious claim to involve themselves in ours.
And now it's clear that Scotland doesn't want Labour Scottish MPs sitting for Scottish seats making political choices for Scotland either.
So Scottish Labour MPs sitting for Scottish seats who are members of the Westminster Parliament are going to be making political choices for the English electorate who have not voted for them, and for the Scottish electorate who have voted them out of office.
And now it's clear that Scotland doesn't want Labour Scottish MPs sitting for Scottish seats making political choices for Scotland either.
So Scottish Labour MPs sitting for Scottish seats who are members of the Westminster Parliament are going to be making political choices for the English electorate who have not voted for them, and for the Scottish electorate who have voted them out of office.
Thursday, 3 May 2007
The relevance of Trollope
Since the Brownite attempt to oust the Prime Minister last year, which led to that extraordinary ‘farewell to the Party’ speech by Blair at the last full Labour conference, the government of the UK has become the material of novels.
Facing the electorate is the nightmare experience for any sitting MP; so much so that the rules governing the holding of an office of profit under the Crown were altered to preserve those accepting ministerial appointment from having to refight their seat. For most MPs an election is the bottom line to be evaded at all and any cost, but few considerations of the political settlement after the last war, that watershed of modern UK politics, take this into account.
The steady growth of party grip on elected members also has been a feature of the advance of the Labour party and the decline of the Liberals for even longer.
Unlike the Conservatives and the Liberals, Labour requires its candidates to be members of an affiliated organisation - principally a trade union or the co-operative movement, plus some others, or to have the specific nulla osta of the NEC where such formalized allegiance is lacking. Effectively Labour MPs are mandated in a way that those of other parties are not. This federation of mandated interests that demands, and controls party discipline within Labour and its constituent organisations and funders, does not co-exist easily with our single-member, geographically located, first past the post election system where once elected, an MP at least notionally answers to, and represents, the interests of all within his constituency, supporters, electors, or simply constituents.
Labour has much more in common with the notion of representation used in continental systems of party lists and proportional representation, even while it is forced to conform to UK practice. The conflict between the party structure and its discipline, and continuation in the enjoyment of a seat is particularly sharp for Labour MPs.
If the electorate are seen as spoilers of MPs’ enjoyment of seats, and consultation of the electorate the thing to be avoided at all costs, then the threat of the sitting prime minister’s power of dissolution could take us back to before Labour-style party- controlled politics, - to Trollopeland.
Blair, consummate politician and empathizer that he is, has got this in one; Brown, crude Party controller, and unaware of non-rule bound nuance, freak that he is, has not.
Since the last Labour party conference Blair has been Prime Minister without the encumbrance of the Labour party, except for a Parliamentary Labour Party desperate not to be exposed to an unnecessary general election, particularly one where any number could well lose their seats. All Blair has to threaten is to call one if he is not allowed to run his full term; Brown's levels of voter-put-off , despite his control of the Party delivering the leadership to him, may well provide Labour MPs with the determination to support Blair in his anachronistic adventure.
A careful reading of Blair’s speeches and interview words, coupled with an attempt to grapple with the ill drafted and ambiguous Labour Party Rule Book, the placing of the UK constitution above that Rule Book in importance and relevance to a correct interpretation of what can be done, and bearing in mind that the Labour party is a superseded organisation in everyone’s view but their own, leads to the same conclusion.
Guido thinks Blair might not be going either. If he is going, he has outstanding power to negotiate his departure on his own, and any, terms.
Facing the electorate is the nightmare experience for any sitting MP; so much so that the rules governing the holding of an office of profit under the Crown were altered to preserve those accepting ministerial appointment from having to refight their seat. For most MPs an election is the bottom line to be evaded at all and any cost, but few considerations of the political settlement after the last war, that watershed of modern UK politics, take this into account.
The steady growth of party grip on elected members also has been a feature of the advance of the Labour party and the decline of the Liberals for even longer.
Unlike the Conservatives and the Liberals, Labour requires its candidates to be members of an affiliated organisation - principally a trade union or the co-operative movement, plus some others, or to have the specific nulla osta of the NEC where such formalized allegiance is lacking. Effectively Labour MPs are mandated in a way that those of other parties are not. This federation of mandated interests that demands, and controls party discipline within Labour and its constituent organisations and funders, does not co-exist easily with our single-member, geographically located, first past the post election system where once elected, an MP at least notionally answers to, and represents, the interests of all within his constituency, supporters, electors, or simply constituents.
Labour has much more in common with the notion of representation used in continental systems of party lists and proportional representation, even while it is forced to conform to UK practice. The conflict between the party structure and its discipline, and continuation in the enjoyment of a seat is particularly sharp for Labour MPs.
If the electorate are seen as spoilers of MPs’ enjoyment of seats, and consultation of the electorate the thing to be avoided at all costs, then the threat of the sitting prime minister’s power of dissolution could take us back to before Labour-style party- controlled politics, - to Trollopeland.
Blair, consummate politician and empathizer that he is, has got this in one; Brown, crude Party controller, and unaware of non-rule bound nuance, freak that he is, has not.
Since the last Labour party conference Blair has been Prime Minister without the encumbrance of the Labour party, except for a Parliamentary Labour Party desperate not to be exposed to an unnecessary general election, particularly one where any number could well lose their seats. All Blair has to threaten is to call one if he is not allowed to run his full term; Brown's levels of voter-put-off , despite his control of the Party delivering the leadership to him, may well provide Labour MPs with the determination to support Blair in his anachronistic adventure.
A careful reading of Blair’s speeches and interview words, coupled with an attempt to grapple with the ill drafted and ambiguous Labour Party Rule Book, the placing of the UK constitution above that Rule Book in importance and relevance to a correct interpretation of what can be done, and bearing in mind that the Labour party is a superseded organisation in everyone’s view but their own, leads to the same conclusion.
Guido thinks Blair might not be going either. If he is going, he has outstanding power to negotiate his departure on his own, and any, terms.
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