How Westminster Works

In 1997 New Labour came to power. There was little freedom to start spending so they needed a big statement that would cost little. Throughout the 1990s the John Major government had used interest rates as a political tool. I made my first mortgage payment for several years on the day known as Black Wednesday in 1992 when interest rates briefly went up to 15%. New Labour, on about day three, gave the Bank of England the freedom to set interest rates independent of government. It changed public perception of politicians overnight and bought good will for their first two years in which spending was tight

I first encountered Ian Dunt's writing as a columnist in the ipaper. I was impressed by pithy articles that educated whilst questioning in areas of political life. It is proper journalism written in a style that never allowed the prose to interfere with the point.

The second Dunt is a rather sweary tweeter (now Xer) who gives full reign to his political anger with relatively good humour.

And the third is the author of this wonderful book. I had previously read his 2020 work How To Be a Liberal which is a guide to the development and growth of Liberal Democracy and the challenge of Populism. It was the sort of textbook, and he the sort of teacher, I wish I'd had at school. 

This latest book How Westminster Works has the sub-title ...and Why It Doesn't. In ten very readable chapters Ian Dunt takes the lid off the way our national life is supposed to be run. He analyses subjects such as MPs, government ministers, the Houses of Commons and Lords and the Civil Service. His conclusion is that most of the bits of government that are set up to work well have been so tweaked and abused that they are virtually useless to anyone except the executive (the PM's office). A Commons majority allows a dangerous amount of power. The one bit that should not work, an unelected second chamber, manages to do all the hard graft of refining legislation and discussing issues in a grown up way with the voices of experts listened to. In a final chapter called Solutions he revisits the question which has cropped up throughout - what should we do?

The prospect of a Labour Government with a huge majority in 2024 (or maybe2025) is growing. And so my opening question re-emerges. What might be the big political statement that costs little? I think Starmer and crew must get to grips with the ideas in this book. Because, make no mistake, many of them will take more than one electoral cycle. Labour might well have that in their grasp.

Of the things Dunt suggests a quick big statement might be to move out of Downing Street. It is obviously a useless place to work and, as he points out, a symbol of our country's desperate addiction to tradition.

Longer term I agree I would want a new administration to:

• Reform the House of Lords
• Fix the voting system
• Reward a Civil Servant for staying in the same department long-term and becoming an expert
• Move Parliament to a new, purpose-built chamber with a co-operative, rather than antagonistic, seating plan

Much of our national life has been deteriorating slowly over the last fourteen years. The triple whammy of Brexit, Covid and Ukraine  marked the point at which people noticed, because we got suddenly and obviously poorer. We need journalists like Dunt to keep working for us with analysis in depth, challenge where necessary and righteous anger that the people who should have put things right, didn't.

You should read this.

Football Headlines

I used to work with a colleague who, for a time, shared a surname with the England Football Manager. One of our joys, as kind-hearted and thoughtful colleagues, was to cut out particularly apposite newspaper headlines to adorn said colleague's desk. Let's call him Venables (it wasn't that one).

Disappointing nights provided the richest pickings:

VENABLES IN TROUBLE

INJURIES MOUNT UP FOR VENABLES

And my personal favourite:

VENABLES DOESN'T KNOW HIS BEST SIDE YET

You get the sort of thing. After several years in the job we had quite a scrapbook.

This thought came back to me at the weekend as I pondered the potential headlines a successful performance by Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus might elicit in the top-of-the-table clash with Manchester City on Easter Sunday.

We learned before kick off that City's John Stones was unavailable. What a joy it would have been to read:

JESUS TAKES ADVANTAGE OF MISSING STONES

Although the less-used bit of the name might have led to:

GABRIEL LEAVES A BIG MESSAGE

Maybe a few balls in from the wing could have prompted:

JESUS PUTS AWAY CROSSES

Or a mighty comeback:

JESUS LEADS GUNNERS BACK FROM THE DEAD

Or:

JESUS ALIVE TO BURY CITY

As it happened the only headlines were about a boring 0-0 draw. Which left my favourite footie headline of all time still unopposed. It concerned the night after the Mighty Celtic had been knocked out of the Scottish Cup by lowly Inverness Caledonian Thistle. The midnight duty sub-editor had either been saving this one for ages or it just came to them in a moment of genius:

SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC CELTIC ARE ATROCIOIUS

Marvellous

Breaking News - Book Review

Alan Rusbridger was the editor of the Guardian from 1995-2015. This book is a careful analysis of what happened to journalism through those years as his newspaper team realised that print journalism was no longer marketable.

The journey of the Guardian in that time, from broadsheet to tabloid via Berliner, to one of the largest online news portals in the world, is brilliantly chronicled.

Towards the end there is a wonderful assessment of what journalism is today:

'...there is no one thing called 'journalism'; no single entity called 'news'; no single recognisable identity for a 'journalist'. (page 360)

He then goes on to compare Useless 'Proper' News - the scandal-driven red tops - with 'Proper' Other Stuff - a new generation of experts who have learned to use Twitter threads to make their points with links, sources and references: people such as Steve Analyst (@EmperorsNewC) and The Secret Barrister (@BarristerSecret).

Journalists may be able to write slightly better but good journalists always knew that the readers were the real experts.

This was a great read. It isn't a bleeding-heart liberal tome. It is a recent-history text book, fair to enemies, generous to friends. Slightly annoying number of typos but I may have got an early edition hardback (reduced from £20 to £7).

Journalism in a Post-Truth Society

As part of the Bath Festival I went to an interesting discussion on Tuesday, titled as above. It roamed a little freer than I would have liked so I think I will capture the atmosphere better with some quotations, scrawled as hastily as I could.

Julian Baggini is an author and popular philosopher (by which I mean he writes philosophy for an untrained reader). Good places to start include The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, Welcome to Everytown or Do They Think You're Stupid? He said:

‘People didn’t vote for Trump because he was telling the truth. They think all politicians are liars but he’s ‘our liar’.’

‘People don’t think Boris Johnson is great but he has managed to appear genuine - as have Farage and Corbyn (who has held the same views for 40 years).’

‘Philanthropy may come to the aid of local journalism. It may be the only hope.’

Heather Brooke is a Professor of Journalism at London City University. She said:

‘People have not had the journalistic training to assess the truths on the internet. But you could do a one day course in how to spot bullshit.’

‘We are seeing the consequence of the lack of local journalism - it may have caught Grenfell early.’

‘Local journalism holds power to account at a quite detailed and forensic level.’

James Ball, journalist and author, was the chair and also the most engaging speaker. He had to shut himself up a lot ('I'm meant to be the chair') but I wished he had said more:

‘In focus groups people say they want more foreign news and less celebrity. But if you do that, sales plummet.’

‘Newspapers need to make an assumption now that their intelligent, millennial readers are renting their accommodation.’

‘People go to fact-check sites to check stories they don’t want to believe.’

Stephen Bush, who  writes for the New Statesman - a centre-left publication - and occasional columns in broadsheets, was also there. I had looked forward to hearing him but he seemed a little disinterested on the day and  was following something on his phone to begin with.

The whole discussion was full of general agreement that we are where we are and we will have to see how things pan out. It felt pessimistic. The public debate is populated by people who have no rules of enagagement. Naturally they were all protective of journalists although it is clear they meant 'jouirnalists like us'. Apart from the insights about the local press I wasn't taken a huge way on in my thinking but it was an interesting snapshot.

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol an hour ago:

My worst night's sleep ever followed a midnight call from the custody sergeant at the police station. 'Your son has been arrested for burglary.'

As we may well recall, Jo Yeates, a young Bristol woman, was murdered four years ago by Vincent Tabak, who is now in prison for the crime.

The film about her landlord, Christopher Jefferies, a two-part TV drama which concludes tonight, has been the subject of much conversation.

So although only helping police with their enquiries, having been arrested on suspicion of murder, a lot of journalistic digging took place, as if he was guilty. Can you remember what you thought at the time? The Sun called him 'Strange Mr Jefferies'. Unjustified rumours about his sexuality were published. He was described as a peeping Tom.

Jefferies has received an apology from the police for the distress caused during the investigation. He has successfully sued a number of newspapers and given evidence to the Leveson Enquiry.

My son was not charged but released, within 18 hours, having been caught up in something bad a crowd of young men did. He slept with the door open for a few days after that - because he could.

The police were great. CCTV cameras were part of the process by which innocence was proved and no journalists asked me about the gap between my example as a vicar and my parenting skills. Thank goodness.

Being eccentric is not a crime.

Being a young man near a crime is not a crime.

And crucially, being arrested is not a crime.

Beware of jumping to conclusions of guilt.

'Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' A persecuted, innocent man said that.

Flippin' Journalists

The UKIP Treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, said something which is accurate but most people wouldn't say. He said there are some things, and he mentioned poker, bridge and chess, which men do better than women by and large yet there are no physical attributes necessary for these indoor, parlour pursuits. He concluded that having quotas for gender representation on boards was perhaps inadvisable.

Interviewed on The World at One he accepted that there were many things women did better than men, that mixed gender representation was pretty much a good thing and that he said what he said in the context of a meeting where gender balance on everything was being pushed as the right line and he felt it needed careful cashing out.

Now there is a certain delight journalists take in developing someone's slightly inappropriate and out-of-context comment into a major faux pas. I will bow to no-one in my dislike of UKIP although I take some pleasure in the thought that their very silly ticket may split the silly vote and allow a centre-left administration back in.

The summary at the end of The World at One was that Wheeler had called for an end to fixed quotas for females on lists of applicants. As far as I can tell from his interview and other quotes he did no such thing. It is naughty to suggest so. I hate it when this happens to politicians I like so feel duty-bound to denounce it happening to someone I loathe too.

He was also asked to comment on a joke about attendance at one of Berlusconi's 'bunga-bunga' parties. Jokes never work out of context. Once reported they only cause trouble.

Tarring UKIP with the misogynistic slap-stick brush (what shape would that be?) is not necessary. They make themselves look stupid, given time. Let's not exaggerate for effect. No effect is necessary.

Leaks and Insults

Today a member of my congregation made an insulting comment about another member of my church. Actually they didn't but for the sake of this little essay imagine they did. Ready? Thank you.

Now clearly it was my duty as a minister of the gospel of truth to take that insult, which had not been directed towards the other person, and deliver it to make sure it was understood, digested and caused some harm.

Clearly? Well no. If I had done that it would have been my reputation that was damaged, not either of the other two. And rightly so.

I found it frustrating during the General Election campaign when Gordon Brown was caught unawares calling a lifelong Labour supporter a bigot. She wasn't insulted personally at the time but once journalists had run through the crowd, caught her and delivered the insult to her personally, and then told the world, she was a bit upset. The rest is history and was probably the final nail in the coffin of the Brown Government. Well done journalists.

Yesterday an MP was foolish enough accidentally to allow a photographer, using a camera with a very good zoom lens focused through the window of a private car, to see a projection of one possible unemployment consequence of the spending cuts announced today.

We are led to believe that details of many of these cuts had been leaked to the press, deliberately, in advance.

I am pig sick of this. Will one newspaper, any one, dare to cramp its own style by saying that in future if documents come into its possession by a deliberate and orchestrated leak it will name its source. Will a newspaper furthermore respect the privacy of document-holding MPs and not try to see things they are not supposed to see. Publishing a document (shame on The Guardian amongst others) which has been accessed by taking advantage of a guard drop, is not far removed from stealing a laptop off a car seat because the owner was stupid enough to leave it on view. The opportunist thief argues that they are doing society a favour by reminding everyone to lock things. They would do society a bigger favour by allowing us to leave things unlocked without worry. The opportunist photographer argues that the public interest is served by knowing what MPs are keeping from us. Surely the public interest is served by MPs not having to spend so much time being elusive. Some documents are allowed to be confidential. The photographed document did not disclose a felony or a lie, or a cover-up. It was simply a piece of research of one possible result of one policy not-yet-announced.

I have been around the block a bit and am a realist. Things will only become more transparent if we say we don't like the mist. We don't have to tell everyone who has insulted them. We can let an insult die. We don't have to be interested in leaked documents. We can say, make it official or clear off. We don't have to sneak up on officialdom and search though its bins to see if it has been acting inappropriately. We can ask questions. If we don't like the answers we can vote for someone else.

I like the idea of open government. I have to remember that the governed have as much of a part to play in that as the governors.

No members of Trendlewood Church were harmed in the writing of this piece.

Baltimore

Funny how you can know nothing of a place and then it crops up twice in quick succession. I have been a late entrant to The Wire fan club but am now two episodes off the end of the fourth and final series. If you like character-driven drama and can cope with bad language, sex and violence then this is for you. Gritty is an over-used adjective for street-cop stories but I'll allow it in this case. It's set in a corrupt, drug-fuelled Baltimore.

I've also been reading the biography of H.L.Mencken, the great American journalist, by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers. He was a wonderful mapper of the change of language use, a great satirist and a poker-of-fun at all fundamentalist Christianity - he also, for some reason, had it in for osteopaths. He worked for the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Herald newspapers. There's the link. One city, two stories. One true, one fiction. 100 years separate the two. Fascinating.