Since earlier this year, the Government's quango, the Legal Services Commission, has been locked in a duel with The Law Society concerning the new contract it was seeking to impose upon solicitors who were still prepared to provide legal aid services to the public.  In essence, this new contract (the "unified contract") was a very flexible affair, in that the Legal Services Commission retained to itself a right to vary material terms of the contract during its currency.  Most reasonable minded people would query the fairness of such a one-sided bargain, but not the Government.  The dispute was heard by the Court of Appeal in mid October of this year.  The judgment of the Court was published this morning.

“The Court of Appeal has given judgment today in the appeals by both the Law Society and the Legal Services Commission against the earlier judgment on the LSC's Unified Contract and its terms relating to how the contract can be amended. We are, of course, giving the judgment careful consideration, but we welcome the clarification it provides. This now enables us to move forward with greater certainty”

says this morning’s Press Release from the Legal Services Commission.  The Law Society’s take on the judgement is slightly different (with my emphasis.)

“The Court of Appeal has this morning wholly upheld the Society's challenge to the LSC's unified contract, also rejecting the LSC's appeal. The commission has now lost the power unilaterally to amend the unified contract in the extreme way it proposed. The judgment, handed down by Lord Justice Lawrence Collins on behalf of the court, is a decision 100 per cent in favour of the Society, and the solicitors it represents. The LSC was refused permission to appeal to the House of Lords and ordered to pay Law Society’s costs.

 

Delivering their judgment, the court repeatedly emphasised that this case was extreme: 'The power to amend is better characterised as a power to rewrite the contract' [para 86 of the judgment]. The court comprised Lord Justice Wall, Lord Justice Lawrence Collins, and the Lord Chief Justice, (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers.)”

There can be no doubt that the Government will plough on with its ill conceived “reform” of Legal Aid, regardless.  It knows that it is right and it just doesn’t care.  It would be wiser for the Government to take stock and listen to positive, informed criticism of its proposals rather than dismissing outright any opposition as being merely “vested interests”.  Of course, it will do no such thing.

It is a guiding principle in English Law that “Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done.”

R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy [1924] 1 KB 256 at 259

Since 1997, the Government has honoured this general principle frequently only in the breach when arranging or overseeing an inquiry or review following some ministerial or departmental debacle, or alleged misconduct or lack of competence on the part of someone holding an appointed Office.  The investigation into the HM Revenue & Customs lost data fiasco is to be conducted by the Chairman of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a company that undertakes sizeable projects on behalf of the Government.  Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair survived a no confidence vote by the Metropolitan Police Authority, a body that “exists to make sure that London's police are accountable for the services they provide to people in the capital”.  As it happens, it is a body where Government appointees outnumber the elected members.

Such inquiries might well be conducted with the utmost integrity and vigour, nevertheless the public's perception is just as likely to be that there has been a “fix”.  Any positive outcome for the Government or its placeman convinces few but more significantly does nothing to clear the air or settle the issue.  It is a simple matter for the Government to avoid such misperceptions by appointing patently independent inquiries or regulatory bodies, but it can do this only if it is fearless of the truth being outed.

The Government lost no time in responding to criticism by no less than five former Chiefs of Defence Staff concerning its under-resourcing of our Armed Forces.

Defence Minister Derek Twigg is reported to have said that there had been “the longest period of growth in defence spending since the 1980s.” However, the charge as I understood it was that, to quote Admiral Lord Boyce,

“The money that defence was given for its budget is not sufficient to meet the level of activities that the armed forces are currently engaged in.”

The crucial problem for this discredited Labour Government is that when not funding one of its pet projects (when bucket loads of taxpayers’ money is made available) it always expects to receive first class services at cut-down prices.  That the Labour Government should adopt this attitude concerning our Armed Forces who are fighting two wars to which they were committed by the very same Government, as well as peace-keeping elsewhere, is an utter disgrace.

Words fail me completely.

Reports James Kirkup in The Daily Telegraph today,

“Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, yesterday published plans to change the way people qualify for benefits on the grounds of being medically unable to work.  The Work Capability Assessment will be introduced in October 2008. It will assess what work new claimants are fit to do, replacing current tests that focus on what a claimant cannot do.  The Department of Work and Pensions said the new test would make it harder to qualify for incapacity benefit in the future.  Around 40,000 people apply each year for IB, which can be worth as much as £78 per week, and around half are expected the fail the new test when it is introduced…but the [Department of Work and Pensions] also admitted that the new test will only apply to new claimants, and will not affect the 2.7 million people currently claiming incapacity benefit.”

Oh dear, yet another example of Government mispresentation and misinformation.  When challenged by Chris Grayling, the Conservative Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Mr Hain retorted that,

“the scale of the IB roll was a legacy of the last Conservative government [which] preferred to put people on incapacity benefit where they were off the unemployment total instead of trying to find them a job because there weren't any jobs then.”

Lest anyone overlooks the fact, the last Conservative Government expired almost eleven years ago. Thus if the “last Conservative Government preferred to put people on incapacity benefit…” then successive Labour administrations did nothing to reverse the situation but in fact added hundreds of thousands more people to that particular benefits bill.  Those of a cynical disposition might conclude that Labour was more than very happy to retain the status quo for the same reason imputed to the Conservatives.  The more awkward point for Labour to explain is why the number of such claimants increased significantly during their watch.

This Government has been caught out being less than frank or not saying what it really meant on too many occasions now.  Even past instances when its word was accepted, are being revisited and different conclusions drawn.  The public no longer accepts uncritically what it is told by Labour.  The public’s irritation at being fed with endless misinformation is turning gradually to anger.  Fortuitously for the Opposition, most senior Labour politicians don’t seem to be able to change habits of a political lifetime.

Bejesus.  Forget Identity Cards. These are the guys who want our DNA data to be stored on a national data base.

UK's families put on fraud alert

Data on 25m benefits claimants lost in post

Personal details of every child in UK lost by Revenue & Customs

“The job of the security services is to propose to government what they think will make Britain as safe as the grave. The job of politicians is to put such proposals to the test of proportionality, value for money and civil liberty. It is now moot whether Britain’s politicians are up to that job.”

Simon Jenkins

“Meanwhile, terrorists continue to rely not on the bang but on the fear of the bang. Terrorists desperately want politics and the media to notice them. By showing we are so rattled that we will give up our cherished liberties, we are giving those with murderous jihadi dreams a gift. By pandering to the toxic fantasies of suburban wannabe warriors, by dignifying their delusions of global struggle with horrified headlines and constitutional change, we are debasing what we stand for.”

Rachel North

Says Jeff Randall in today’s The Daily Telegraph,

“The Rock’s “rescue”, presented initially as a cocktail of commercially priced loans from the Bank and some warm words from the Treasury, is morphing seamlessly into open-ended state aid with diminishing prospects for recompense. The sum involved has surpassed five per cent of the Chancellor's annual budget - and the drain continues. In effect, [Alistair] Darling failed to distinguish between protecting depositors' funds (the right thing to do) and bailing out shareholders and staff (a big mistake).  [Gordon] Brown is trying desperately to steer clear of the crime scene, while maintaining the fiction that taxpayers' interests are protected. He told the Commons on Wednesday that official loans are secured against the Rock's assets.”

However, it would appear that by 2010 the Northern Rock might still owe the Bank of England £6 billion.

The Northern Rock was a Labour sympathetic Bank based in a Labour heartland.  The Labour Government has broadcast a powerful message to all those who enjoy its largess.  A potential loss to the taxpayer of £6 billion? – for Labour, cheap at twice the cost.

The answer to the West Lothian Question is, you’ve guessed it, regional assemblies for England.

According to Professor Robert Hazell, Professor of Government and the Constitution at University College, London, “English votes for English laws” at Westminster seemed logical and fair, but there could be "huge technical difficulties in identifying what counted as an English law".  According to the Professor, another solution would involve handing powers to elected regional assemblies, which though overwhelmingly rejected by voters in the North-East, “should not be written-off forever.”

The BBC reports that whilst Professor Hazell agrees that the “closest to a complete answer” would be a separate English Parliament, he notes that there are not any mainstream politicians in favour of such an idea and considers there is no significant public support for it.

I shall leave aside any argument about whether there are any really insurmountable difficulties in practice about the implementation of the Conservatives’ preferred option of “English votes for English laws”¹.  I am able to predict with absolute certainty that if there is any fudge of this issue, for instance by way of a continuance of the denial that there is any real democratic deficit as between England and those parts of the United Kingdom that enjoy devolved government (the view of the Labour Government) or the imposition of regional assemblies (the current preference of the Labour Government) there will arise an irresistible, overwhelming support for an English Parliament.

Scotland 'still has too many MPs'

_______________________________

1 I cannot see any great difficulties and would be pleased to hear of examples as to what they might be.

“[Sir Ian] Blair clings to office because he has the support of both Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, and that walkin’, talkin’ “systemic failure” Ken Livingstone, the London mayor. And this is because he is the most politicised copper this country has ever seen; he owes his survival to his willingness to follow every politically correct obsession dreamt up by the Labour party: show him a “hate crime” and he’ll be there with his truncheon. Show him a burglary, however, and he’ll explain to you why it didn’t happen, or wasn't important, or is a vanishingly rare occurrence. He has also adopted new Labour’s technique of spewing out disinformation to the media.”

Rod Liddle

Sir Ian Blair receives the support of the Prime Minister

Sir Ian Blair is cleared

“We are a talkative and opinionated society and not always good at listening.  The discourse of politics, media and academe is essentially adversarial.  While this is undoubtedly important in a democracy, it can mean that people are not really receptive to an opposing viewpoint.  It is often apparent during a parliamentary debate or a panel discussion on television that while their opponents are speaking, participants are simply thinking up the next clever thing that they are going to say.”

Karen Armstrong, The Bible - The Biography 

“It appears that those who troop through the division lobbies, heaping law upon law or rubber-stamping Brussels initiatives further to control our national life and regulate individual behaviour, have little sense of how those same laws are enforced.”

Iain Martin

“Projecting himself as Father of the Nation, espousing a 'new' style of politics has been central to [Gordon] Brown's plan. He was not content to outpoll the Tories; he wanted to make them obsolete. That was extraordinary hubris.”

Leader, The Observer

Reports Martin Ivens in The Sunday Times,

“Brown’s men know they are on the back foot. “Gordon was always cautious about holding it [an election]. But if we went now we would win on authority,” said a cabinet minister. “But we want a positive, a bigger mandate.” As for Cameron’s triumph, he sneered: “Iain Duncan Smith was seven points ahead after his conference speech in 2003. That was a few weeks before the Tories got rid of him.”

It is always important to put matters into context, so when assessing how good or bad things might be, it is only right to look for recent historical precedents.  Thus the sneering Labour cabinet minister infers that David Cameron’s current popularity will prove as ephemeral as Iain Duncan Smith’s fast evaporating post Conservative Conference “seven-point bounce” in 2003.

You might recall that this was the Conservative Conference when Andrew Rawnsley of The Guardian described Mr Duncan Smith as the “dead man talking” and contemporary opinion polls included such questions as,

 “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote Conservative at the next election if Iain Duncan Smith were to be replaced as leader by...?”

According to the opinion polls of the time, up to 52% of the people questioned were dissatisfied with Mr Duncan Smith's performance as Leader of the Official Opposition.  The ICM opinion poll published in The Guardian pre-conference in September 2003 indicated that Labour led the Conservatives by 35% to 30% and the ICM poll for following month, post conference, showed Labour’s lead to have remained steady - support for the two main parties being 38% to 33% respectively.

Mr Duncan Smith was ousted as the leader of the Conservative party because he did not seem to be making any significant, positive impact upon the electorate.  At no time did he ever enjoy a seven point poll lead over Labour, save perhaps amongst the members of Chingford and Woodford Green Conservative Association.

Big bang – the Tory tax bomb blowing Brown apart

According to The Times today

“…Labour ministers…say that delaying the election would give Mr Brown longer to attack Tory economic plans, which they say have been hugely undermined by the pledge to eliminate inheritance tax for all but millionaires and pay for it with a £25,000 annual charge on “nondomicile” residents.”

However yesterday, reported Gabriel Rozenberg, Economics Reporter for The Times,

“The attempts of Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, to discredit the Conservatives’ tax plans were sharply undermined yesterday by his own top civil servant. Nicholas Macpherson, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, admitted that his department’s costing of the Conservatives’ plans for a levy on nondomiciled taxpayers were based on incomplete data. Mr Darling had cited analysis by the Treasury which allegedly proved that the Conservatives could not raise £3.5 billion with their plans. He said the tax would only raise £650 million. But the detailed analysis, released yesterday by the the Treasury, revealed that this was based purely on a mathematical assumption, as the Government had no information on how much Britain’s nondomiciled taxpayers earn overseas, a figure crucial to the calculations. In a letter to George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, Mr Macpherson said that the assumptions used had been “clearly flagged” to his boss. Mr Osborne has called on Mr Darling to apologise.”

In the meantime, Jeff Randall of The Daily Telegraph explains why Labour’s carping on such points doesn’t add up to a convincing argument in any case.

Labour cannot tell the whoppers of old any more and get away with it.   Any spinful pronouncements and funny figures are likely to rebound with a vengeance, as in justice they should.

George Osborne and a sleight of hand by the BBC

...although The Sun would say that, wouldn't it?  I couldn't possibly say, one way or another.

It is understandable that the metropolitan elite which now dominates the upper echelons of Government and the BBC would see little purpose being served by engaging in any form of real, meaningful dialogue with the likes of us, the hoi polloi, given our well documented aversion to the use of deodorant and limited, Neanderthal grasp of the important issues.

Says The Sun,

“The BBC has virtually ignored the debate raging about the new [European] Treaty — despite uproar in all parties and on both sides of the argument.  The same self-censorship is applied to immigration — another enormous issue not to be discussed in front of the licence-payers. It is not just because many of its editors and producers are lefties — though many are. It is an arrogant, lazy assumption that they know best — and ignorant audiences should not be disturbed by matters beyond their ken.”

Indeed.  It is the sheer condescension, which is so offensive.

George Osborne and a sleight of hand by the BBC

The BBC: Soft Left, anti-American (and very pro-European Union)

The BBC and its “culture of bias”

Nobody mention the "Labour" word

Biased Beeb

In today’s Daily Telegraph Andrew Porter, the newspaper’s Political Editor, commenting upon the Conservative post-conference opinion poll surge and in particular the ICM poll in The Guardian which shows support for Labour and the Conservatives as even, says,

 “In addition, a Guardian poll by ICM - which tends to favour the Tories - is thought to have the Conservatives almost neck and neck with Labour.”

As my post here shows, manifestly this is not the case. Where ICM opinion polls can be compared with election results since 2005, Conservative support is almost always underestimated in by a small amount and Labour overestimated by a larger margin. It might be the case that ICM consistently underestimates Conservative support less than the other opinion polls but this still does not add up to its polls “favouring” the Conservatives, merely that ICM is the most accurate amongst an inaccurate bunch.

Long gone are the days in the 1980’s when Gallup used to favour the Conservatives, in the sense that its opinion polls compared very well with actual election results, time after time.

Tories renew election call after poll

BBC bias is often so subtle (or is that subliminal?) that if you blink, you miss it.

That section of the printed media which is not inherently hostile to the Conservatives was to a man upbeat about Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s policy announcements yesterday.  It is interesting to note however, that in reporting on the BBC’s Politics webpage (the version updated at 08.40 BST on 2^nd October 2007) the links from “Other news sites” referred to less positive, “sub” reports and not the main press articles.  To take one example (and The Daily Telegraph is yet another) today's The Daily Mail contains pages of positive comment, but what did the BBC link to? Yes, you have guessed it, a small article by Benedict Brogan and James Chapman in a corner of page six of the newspaper, that largely regurgitates the hastily and as it will turn out, foolishly released HM Treasury spin  seeking to undermine the Conservative proposals.

The BBC fails to appreciate that there comes a time when listeners and viewers tire of having to constantly rebalance slanted reporting and stop listening or viewing altogether.

Osbourne relights the Tory Flame

Tories unleash attack dogs

From other news sites - The Daily Mail

Do the shadow chancellor's figures add up?

Julie Bindel reports in The Sunday Times today of the disinterest shown by the local Police and political authorities concerning the pimping of underage white girls by black and Asian gangs.  Apparently, cracking down upon such blatant criminality is seen as “contentious”, involving as it does, minority groups.  Says Aravinda Kosaraju, a researcher for the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (Crop),

“What we are dealing with is gross criminality that should be confronted whatever the race of the perpetrator.”

According to Julie Bindel,

“A number of families affected by Pakistani pimping gangs have said that Police inaction and the refusal of white liberals to acknowledge the problem has resulted in more girls being at risk than ever before” (My emphasis.)

Says Ms Kosaraju,

“We are battling to get recognition that what we are dealing with is organised crime against children.”

There is a word for treating one group (in this instance white girls) differently from another purely on racial grounds.  Racism.

Most seasoned commentators believe that Gordon Brown had intended to review whether to call a General Election no earlier than the spring of 2008.  It is most probable that he had always planned to tease the Conservatives with the faintest hint of an even earlier poll just to wrong foot them and probe their weaknesses.

In recent weeks, the teasing has gone too far with everyone outside the political world anticipating an early, autumn election.  Mr Brown has overplayed his hand.  If he now resorts to his original, carefully considered and planned timetable, he will look indecisive, but if he “goes for it”, he will find that his lead in the opinion polls is soft and he might well receive a bloody nose, securing a small majority vulnerable to a just a handful of by-election losses.

Far too much emphasis and reliance has been placed upon mere opinion polls  and too little upon real election results. Professor Colin Rallings, the Director of Plymouth University’s Elections Centre, has already drawn attention to the fact that in thirty-five council by-elections since Gordon Brown’s succession to the premiership, the Conservatives have recorded a nine percentage point lead over Labour.

One way or another, Gordon Brown is going to rue the day he allowed the “will-he-won’t-he-game” slip out of his control.

Quit stalling and call election, says David Cameron

It suits this Government to boast that our citizenry has easy access to free or low cost legal advice.  Unfortunately, it does not want to pay for it.  However, rather than adopting the honest course of explaining that because of budget constraints it is either legal aid or the NHS (or defence, or education) the Government always seeks to blame greedy lawyers for the expense of the legal aid scheme.  Legal aid practitioners undertaking routine family work are paid a little more than a third of the private, high street rate.  Criminal legal aid lawyers are paid a little over a quarter of the going private rate.  The new costs regime being introduced by the Government’s quango, the Legal Services Commission, will result in legal aid practitioners receiving a pay cut.  The propaganda peddled by the Government, to the effect that legal aid lawyers are well paid and will be even more handsomely remunerated by way of the new costs regime, is worthy of Dr Joseph Goebbels.

The comprehensive legal aid system that we have in this country is the envy of the world, but if the Government doesn’t want to pay for it then it should say so and desist from attacking underpaid legal aid practitioners who have been the backbone of the system these past thirty years or more.

Legal aid bill 'highest in world'

“The polls have been volatile this year. Pollsters and political professionals who swore in the spring that Brown's numbers were so ghastly that the best he could hope for was to cling to office and pray David Cameron was run over by Zac Goldsmith driving an eco-friendly hybrid car, now see no possibility other than a walk-over for Brown.”

 

Iain Martin

A surprisingly large number of political analysts, commentators and pundits appear to have forgotten that “a week is a long time in politics”.  They suffer the affliction of a “group-think” mentality, slavishly following the accepted consensus, until very belatedly something snaps them out of it.  I doubt that they know or understand any more than the electorate they seek to convince.

All the more reason not to pay much attention to anything they might say.

Don't panic! How the Tories can survive

Commenting upon developments in the Madeleine McCann case in Saturday’s edition of The Times, Professor David Cantor opines,

“It appears that the Portuguese police may have fallen into the trap of having first formed a view of who the guilty party is, then seeking out the evidence to support it. It is rare for people untrained in science deliberately to attempt to refute their own hypotheses: instead we tend to reinterpret anything that happens to fit in with the notion to which we have become increasingly committed.”

Lest the Portuguese Police take the rap all on their own, in all fairness it should be pointed out that this is a common failing of many Police investigations the world over, including those conducted by our own law enforcement agencies.

Why patterns of the past point to abduction by a stranger as most likely explanation

"The political atmosphere is that of a gathering storm: the current level of tension cannot be sustained for much longer. The combined weight of opinion polls and public expectation could force Mr Brown to go to the country earlier than he had intended. Like the Kaiser in 1914, he may not find it easy to demobilise a force that has been brought to a peak of readiness."

The Daily Telegraph

And we all know what happened to the Kaiser.

Should a General Election be called now, David Cameron and his Conservatives are destined for another crushing defeat, opine many Media soothsayers.  This prediction relies upon an ICM Poll published in The Guardian on 19^th September 2007, one of a number of polls showing an indifferent Conservative performance in the face of the “Brown Bounce”.  Inter alia, the poll indicates that amongst voters support for the Conservatives has fallen to 32%, whilst support for Labour has risen to 40%.

That such opinion poll results should cause such excitement amongst Labour supporters and fellow travellers in the media, whilst causing those of a Conservative persuasion much angst, is curious.  It is not as if we haven’t been here before.  In fact since 2005, we have been here no less than three times.

In the weekend before the General Election that took place on 5^th May 2005, an ICM poll published in The Sunday Telegraph put support for the Conservatives at 31% and for Labour at 38%.  A few days earlier, another ICM poll commissioned by The Guardian had indicated that support for Labour had reached as high as 40%.  On the day of the real McCoy, whilst the Conservatives achieved a relatively indifferent 32.3% of the national vote, Labour achieved only 35.3%, in other words between 2.7 to 4.7 percentage points less than predicted.  The ICM poll commissioned for and published by The Guardian immediately prior to the local elections in May 2006 showed support for the Conservatives at 34% and Labour at 32%.  Lest we forget, the result of the elections was 39%¹ of the vote for the Conservatives and a paltry 26% for Labour.  Similarly, for May 2007 the ICM poll published in the week immediately preceding the elections predicted support form the Conservatives at 38% and for Labour at 29%.  The actual result was 40% and 26%², respectively.  All of the pollsters have been off the mark, not just ICM.  In recent years, opinion polls have consistently and to a significant degree understated support for the Conservatives whereas Labour’s predicted share of the vote has been overgenerous, sometimes by a wide margin.

Each of the main parties needs to take a reality check.  In all likelihood, as matters stand at this very moment, the Labour Government is nowhere near as popular as it would like to believe and the Conservatives not so far adrift as their detractors would like us to think.

¹ Or 40% depending upon which psephologist’s analysis you prefer.

²  Or 27%, ditto.

"It is one of the wonders of the Brown "bounce" that no one any longer sees fit to point out the infamy of the West Lothian problem. We have a Scottish MP Prime Minister, promulgating measures on health and education and other matters that have no effect on his own constituents, and while Scottish MPs are able to vote on English schools and hospitals, English MPs have no corresponding say in Scotland."

 

Boris Johnson

It is not only the matter of the West Lothian Question.  Since Gordon Brown's accession to the Premiership, a large section of our supine, craven, fawning Media no longer sees fit to point out that he is missing various other pieces of attire or worse still, tries to draw our gaze from the spectacle.  Reality however, like Truth, will always out and this time around the electorate is not going to be so patient or forgiving.

End of Belgium should be a warning to Gordon

So, the Home Information Pack regime is now to be introduced for all homes and much earlier than had been expected.  As far as can be discerned all of the current, main players in the industry including Estate Agents, Surveyors and even Solicitors (whose governing body, The Law Society, has done so much to make the Government's HIPs scheme work) continue to have grave reservations as to the efficacy of the scheme.

According to The Times this morning,

"Earlier this week Ruth Kelly met representatives of the Home Information Pack industry, which warned the Communities Secretary that she faces a multi-billion claim if she scraps the scheme."

Doesn't that say it all.

Home pack extension sparks fears of slump

Let me be the first to admit that I was wrong.  After the Law Society won the greater part of the legal argument last week in its judicial review case against the Government's quango, the Legal Services Commission (LSC), I had expected there to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the media against the "reactionary, anti-progressive and over-paid" legal profession. But no, this has not happened. It seems the Legal Services Commission claims it won the case.  Says Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive of the Commission:

"I am obviously pleased that the Court has confirmed that it is lawful for the Legal Services Commission to amend the unified contract to introduce the new civil legal aid fee schemes from October 2007."

In fact the matter of fee schemes was an inconsequential legal side issue in the case.  As I understood matters, having been obliged to waste a part of my life reading legal aid materials, including the old legal aid contract and new Unified Contract, the Legal Services Commission (and its previous incarnation, the Legal Aid Board) had always possessed the means, one way or another, to introduce fee schemes, including fixed fees.  It had done so before - firstly by way of fixed fees for criminal work in the Magistrates' Court and later in 2001 for Counsel instructed in family cases, the so-called graduated fees scheme.  The main thrust of the Law Society's case, which was accepted by the Judge, was that some of the powers claimed by the Legal Services Commission to unilaterally amend the new Unified Contract were incompatible with current Law.

And yet Government seeks to convince us that the Age of Spin is over.  Perhaps it should tell its agencies.

The Law Society successfully challenges the Legal Services Commission

“Rather like that harbinger cat recently discovered in an American nursing home for the elderly (the creature’s habit being to curl up on the beds of those residents who are not far from their final hour) a group of right-wingers, reactionaries and xenophobes styling themselves as Tory columnists has been acting as a false friend to the party, drawn towards everything that is morbid within its body politic, sucking it towards its grave. Who knows (and I doubt) whether the voters take much notice, but the parliamentary Conservative Party does.”

Matthew Parris - The Times

Once again, Mr Parris tells it as it is.

So, today in the High Court Mr Justice Beatson has upheld The Law Society's challenge against the Legal Services Commission (LSC) for having imposed unilaterally upon legal aid practitioners the new (and grossly one-sided) "Unified Contract".  Says the Law Society,

"The judge said that the LSC has breached Public Contracts Regulations 2006 and European Law in its reform of legal aid. Most significantly, the judge said that changes to the contract should not be made if they would, 'alter the economic balance of the contract to the disadvantage of those who have entered into the Unified Contract or to the disadvantage of some of them.'  The judge also noted that any proposed changes should be restricted to those envisaged by the initial White Paper. It is not clear at this stage how this will affect the LSC's proposals on fees and the Judge has granted the Law Society permission to appeal on the basis of public interest on this point…"

Well, this is what happens when you try to introduce ill conceived, half-baked reforms at breakneck speed.  It will be interesting to see the Government and the majority of the mainstream media spin this into a victory by lawyers (including the Judge) against the common interest.

A Home Information Pack, anyone?

"If services are cut as a result of the legal aid reforms I don't think I'm being unduly cynical in expecting the vast majority of media comment to accuse overpaid lawyers of letting down the public because the Government has stopped the gravy train."

Kit O' Brien

It is worth fighting to save the least loved branch of the welfare state - Jonathan Freedland

“People throw the charge of “racist” around far too freely today and fail to separate inconsequential prejudice from all-consuming intolerance,”

writes Nick Cohen in his book, What’s Left? How Liberals lost their way.

Likewise for instance, charges such as “sexist” and “homophobe” are too freely made, most usually as a first resort by the feeble-minded in support of a lame argument.

"A paedophile who raped a ten-year-old girl will be free in just four months after a judge said his young victim had dressed provocatively. Window cleaner Keith Fenn, 24, could have been jailed for life after twice attacking the girl in a riverside park,"

screams The Daily Mail this morning.  Mr Fenn it transpires, had pleaded guilty to two counts of rape involving a ten year old girl.   His co defendant Darren Wright, who had encouraged the commission of the offences, received a prison sentence of nine months after pleaded guilty to inciting the girl to engage in sex acts.  Paedophile, rape and attack are very emotive words.  One can imagine that even at this moment some dark shadow in government will be moved to draw plans to impose obligatory life-sentences for anyone convicted of rape involving a child under the age of sixteen years.  No doubt a stiffening of the law in such a manner would please Dr Michele Elliott of Kidscape who is reported by The Daily Mail as saying,

 "This sentencing is beyond pathetic, it is utterly derisory. For the judge to say that the way she was dressed in any way excuses a 24-year-old man having sex with her is disgraceful and ridiculous."

The NSPCC is reported to have added its two-pennies' worth,

"There's no excuse for having sex with a ten-year-old, no matter how she dresses."

Even the most cursory examination of the facts related by The Daily Mail  (and better still the original Oxford Mail report) show why the Judge was entitled, indeed obliged by justice to impose a short, rather than long, term of imprisonment. The defendants thought that the girl was sixteen years old.  It appears that the Crown accepted that presumption as being not unreasonable.  Mr Fenn was guilty of rape because as a ten year old, the Law deems the young girl involved as not being able to consent to sexual activity, thus notwithstanding that her involvement was consensual and not forced (in the true sense of the word) upon her, it was illegal.  The defendants did not realise that they were committing criminal offences. Nevertheless, that illegality has resulted in the defendants being sentenced to terms of imprisonment.  Harsher sentences would have been unfair.  His Honour Judge Julian Hall did justice to the case.

Oxford Mail - Judge claims paedophile victim 'dressed provocatively' - George Gaynor

Judge's mercy for the man who raped 'provocatively dressed' girl of ten

It is self evident that in matters appertaining to law and order, the Government has tended to dance (or rather, knee jerk) to the tune of the media.  It is frequently overlooked however, that a more insidious influence upon Government has been exerted by favoured focus and pressure groups.  Using their privileged access to Government, these groups have been able to set agendas and outmanoeuvre opponents. Presented with cogent argument and evidence refuting the efficacy of following a particular course of action, the Government chooses its moment and then ploughs on regardless. The Government’s desire to amend the law so as to ensure rape convictions are more easily secured is a classic example. Today, Clare Dyer, legal editor of The Guardian reports,

“The government is to press ahead with plans to reform the rape laws in an attempt to increase the low conviction rate, despite strong opposition from the judges who will have to put them into effect.”

The new devices that are thought will be effective include,

“a power for expert witnesses to give general evidence, not about the specific case, but about how rape victims generally behave, to dispel “myths” that might affect the jury's reactions and an automatic right to use the alleged victim's videotaped interview with the police in place of her main evidence at the trial.”

It is all going to end in tears.  Judges and advocates will all be painfully aware of their duty to ensure that the defendant has a fair trial.  Accordingly the worst excesses of the reforms will be mitigated.  Juries will suspect (rightly) that the legal system is bending over backwards to ensure a conviction and will react accordingly.  Thus the conviction rate will continue to hover at the current rate (between 5% and 6%) and the whipping boys, the judges and barristers, will again be described as “ignorant” and “devious”, respectively.

What the “reformers” fail to understand, is that action and reaction are equal and opposite.  The more they weight the system against the defendant, the more likely it is that the jury will smell a fit up and throw the case out.  Pressure groups have a skewed view of the world and can be forgiven their myopia, but Government must be more rational and must legislate on principle and compelling evidence alone.

Ministers defy judges on rape law reforms

Lovesick lesbian cried rape to frame an innocent

She cried rape, he must be guilty, right?

Barristers oppose 'dangerous' plans to reform rape law

Professor Jennifer Temkin rides again: devious barristers and ignorant judges

Government to load dice even further against fair trial

More nonsense from this partial New Labour Government

Richard Brooks and Dipesh Gadher report today in The Sunday Times that an official report commissioned by the BBC will confirm that amongst other things the Corporation is partial in its treatment of single-issue politics such as climate change, poverty, race and religion.  The bias has extended across drama, comedy and entertainment, with the corporation pandering to politically motivated celebrities and trendy causes.

We have been here before, of course.  In January 2005 another report commissioned by the BBC came to the conclusion that the Corporation was unintentionally, but nevertheless too well disposed towards the European Union.  Another report commissioned for internal consumption alone (the “Balen Report”) is widely thought to have been critical of the BBC’s Middle East reporting, which is perceived in most quarters to be pro-Arab and unsympathetic towards Israel.

In the latest report it is acknowledged that,

“[there is] the danger of BBC programmes being undermined by the liberal culture of its staff, who need to challenge their own assumptions more,”

and,

“there is a tendency to ‘group think’ with too many staff inhabiting a shared space and comfort zone.”

So far, so good.  The real issue is that the BBC will not address the problem because it cannot.  Those people within the Corporation who should challenge the current “liberal” mindset do not have the critical mass to ensure that there is any real, significant change.  There are too few of them.  Their minority view is considered quaint, wrongheaded, dangerous or just downright bad and in consequence is ignored. The Sunday Times leader identifies the only course open to the BBC if it truly wishes to avoid being unnecessarily partial in its outlook.

“That the BBC should investigate itself is perhaps admirable, but only if it acts on the conclusions. The likelihood is that it will lament its shortcomings, pledge to do something and carry on much as before. Changing its cosy culture will take more than a report; some who have worked there say it would require a small neutron bomb. The BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club. Recruitment is the key. It needs to employ more nonconformist journalists whose paper of choice is not The Guardian.”

So will the BBC now seek to spread its net wider when recruiting staff?  Don’t hold your breath.

BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’

Bias at the Beeb - official

The BBC: Soft Left, anti-American (and very pro-European Union)

Nobody mention the "Labour" word

How many Divisions has the BBC?

BBC wins Balen report battle

The Editors – Both Sides

BBC news coverage of the European Union - Independent Panel Report

Whilst only serious conspiracy theorists would allege something sinister about the building housing Hazel Blears' campaign offices mysteriously collapsing a day or so ago, The Guardian helpfully putting another spanner in the works of her deputy leader campaign, is something else.

You might have heard that Ms Blears had accepted recently a £10,000 campaign donation from a company specialising in employment law and related services, namely Peninsula Business Services Ltd.  This company “helps companies fight employment tribunal claims” splutters The Guardian with barely concealed rage. This donation has infuriated Labour MPs, we are told.  Kevan Jones, Labour MP for Durham North is reported as saying,

“It is absolutely disgraceful that Hazel Blears has taken money from a firm that boasts it can cut compensation claims from workers. She should give the money back and not use it as part of her campaign”

and for good measure Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, took the view that,

“It is up to trade unionists voting in the election to make their own judgment on Hazel Blears' lack of judgment.”

Just for the record, let us remind ourselves that neither Kevan Jones nor Tom Watson can be considered supporters of Hazel Blears, so their righteous indignation is a little hollow.  It is also right to point out that Peninsula Business Services Ltd is not the heinous monster that its detractors make out.  One would assume that believing in fair play and justice, Labour supporters would see it as only reasonable that when faced with a claimant employee backed by a Trade Union with all its resources and ready access to legal advice, the employer should also be similarly represented.  It is a matter of equality of arms.

Ms Blears’ own riposte to the criticism says all that need to be said,

“Peninsula is a reputable company, providing advice on health & safety and good employment systems to small organisations, helping them stay on the right side of the law. They are a Salford-based firm, employing over 400 people in Salford, and 700 in total. Their donation to the Hazel Blears for Deputy campaign has been declared to the Electoral Commission in an open and transparent way, alongside other donations, including £12,000 from the shopworkers' union Usdaw.”

So why all the stirring, who is behind it and why?

Blears criticised over campaign backers

Is someone trying to de-rail Hazel Blears’ deputy leadership campaign?

Hazel Blears' campaign to be Deputy Leader gains momentum

Our senior politicians might reflect how their headline catching pronouncements are interpreted abroad, as today’s article in Pravda about paedophiles and chemical castration shows.  One cannot help but suspect that something has been lost in translation.

Having discussed the purported success of chemical castration in Europe and some states in the USA, the Pravda article then continues incongruously about male pattern baldness:

“[Physical] castration prevents male pattern baldness if it is done before hair is lost, however, castration will not restore hair growth after hair has already been lost due to male pattern baldness...[and it] eliminates the risk of testicular cancer, and it may even reduce prostate cancer”

…nevertheless I’m minded to persevere with scalp massage and drinking cranberry juice, thank you very much.

Paedophiles will be castrated for their crimes in Britain

Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor of The Daily Telegraph, reports today of the response to the comments of Miss Barbara Hewson, a barrister, in the Bar Council's magazine Counsel regarding guidance issued to judges earlier this year by the Judicial Studies Board, which accepted the possibility that female judges, magistrates or tribunal members might wear the niqab, or veil, in Court.  Miss Hewson professed concern that the guidelines contemplated veiled judges and were “astonishing and subversive”, adding “the United Kingdom is not a sharia state.”

Responding, Fatim Kurji argued that,

“As for veiled judges and the suggestion that the “United Kingdom is not a sharia state”, this is what I call “the BNP argument”. It implies a woman who wears a niqab comes at the erosion of British values. Such an astonishingly offensive remark undermines the long-enduring libertarian values.”

I have always considered the question of female advocates or judges wearing a veil in Court as a non-issue, largely because so few would avail themselves of the opportunity.  From a practical point of view, the wearing of a veil by one party potentially limits the degree of interaction that would otherwise take place between judge and advocate.  Being able to see someone’s face greatly assists communication.  In Court, the quality of communication is frequently decisive. The wearing of a veil in Court would certainly be a significant departure from previously accepted practise.

Where I take issue with Miss Kurji is that Miss Hewson is perfectly entitled to make the points she has and by doing so has not presented “the BNP argument.”  It is not acceptable that anyone who challenges the orthodoxy of a minority group is accused routinely of prejudice or worse, branded as a bigot.

BNP jibe at lawyer who opposed veiled judges

So, the BBC reports today that David Phythian, a Councillor of the West Lancashire District Council, has been prohibited from attending football matches for three years and fined £250 by the Wigan and Leigh Magistrates' Court after pleaded guilty to using racially aggravated threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards Tottenham Hotspurs' Pascal Chimbonda, a black footballer, during the Wigan v. Spurs match that took place in April 2007.  The local Labour group at the Council has now suspended Mr Phythian.

The BBC report contained most of the salient facts, but I could not help but notice that one additional fact, which I should have expected from a BBC report, had not been included in the title emblazoned, "Racist abuse councillor suspended".  Of course, the word Tory was missing.  Wigan Today, the newspaper that broke the story on 1st June 2007, was not so timid.  However, it transpires that the problem faced by the BBC was that Mr Phythian was a Labour, not Conservative politician. Only by reading the BBC's full report could we deduce that he was not a Conservative.  Most people would have gleaned all they wanted to know from the first few lines of the report and assumed the rest.

The BBC is often coy concerning the political affiliation of an individual involved in "minor, local difficulties", save when it is a Conservative.  In the matter of local issues, political affiliation is almost invariably irrelevant to the misdeed committed. As such it is not necessary to highlight or headline such a fact.  The BBC should exercise such restraint even-handedly when reporting "small town" misdeeds.

Racist abuse councillor suspended

Councillor gets football ban

Race-jibe councillor banned by Labour

Recently The Times reported that the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) had created a team called Road Safety Support, to help the Police deal with the increasing number of drivers seeking to contest speeding tickets by citing “legal technicalities”. The legal technicalities included challenging whether a speed camera was properly calibrated, that speed signs were obscured or cameras had given false readings.  In many cases the Police have failed to secure convictions because they failed to comply with certain aspects of the law when enforcing speed limits.

It is curious that the Police find it exceptional that they must comply with the law when seeking to secure a conviction.  In this country, for centuries it has been incumbent upon prosecuting authorities to prove their case by presenting to the Court sufficient evidence of a defendant’s guilt.  Should radar equipment not be calibrated properly so that it records a speed of 33 mph for a vehicle travelling at 29 mph in a 30 mph limit, the driver is clearly not guilty of speeding.  Where a speed sign is obscured, natural justice requires that a driver unfamiliar with the area should not be prosecuted.

The setting up of this new unit is tantamount to the Police admitting that they were not exercising due diligence when presenting some of these cases to the Court and were failing to ensure that they possessed solid, reliable evidence.  It is nothing to do with “loopholes” and everything to do with competent evidence gathering and prosecution.

The Times - Speeding drivers with loophole lawyers

Tough on Liberty, tough on the causes of Liberty

According to Andrew Keen in his book The Cult of the Amateur, Web 2.0 is “killing our culture, assaulting our economy and destroying time-honoured codes of conduct” with amateurs creating an “endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels.”  It is, “undermining truth, souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience and talent.”  Wikipedia is identified as a particular villain, being riddled with “mistakes, half truths and misunderstandings” but yet being more popular than Britannica.com, thereby threatening the latter’s financial viability. What Wikipedia has done to reference books, bloggers will do to traditional news media, believes Mr Keen.

I believe Mr Keen is being alarmist, because ultimately, quality matters.  The laws of natural selection apply in the virtual, as well as the real world.  The very best survives and the rest fade away.  Britannica.com will live on because it is acknowledged as being authoritative whilst Wikipedia is not. The mainstream media cannot be seriously challenged by citizen bloggery and will remain ascendant because of its inherent professionalism and quality in depth.  Web logs are a passing fad and the current intense activity will pass leaving only a small number of the most committed.

Part of Mr Keen’s hypothesis relies also upon a premise that the average punter cannot differentiate between different sources of information with the result that the good will fall and the bad will prevail.  Yet we know that anything free is unlikely to be as good as something paid for.  Free, net-based sources of information are just a convenient, useful point of first reference before turning to, for example, the trusted newspaper, news magazine, or reference book.

Much on the net is trashy and ephemeral but the important point is that we all know it and when we don’t want monkeys, we avoid paying peanuts.

John-Paul Flintoff - The Sunday Times

David Smith - The Observer

Malaysia is a forward-looking, democratic country that abides by the rule of law.  It happens also to be a Muslim country.

According to the New Straits Times, at the High Court Registry in Shah Alam, the state capital of Selangor, on 14^th May 2007 a Hindu man, Mr V. Suresh, applied for a writ of habeas corpus seeking the release of his wife Siti Fatimah Abdul Karim (who I shall refer to, wrongly, as Mrs Suresh) from detention at the Baitul Aman Faith Rehabilitation Centre, where she had been sent by the Malacca Syariah High Court on 8^th January 2007.

Mr Suresh had married his wife according to Hindu rites on 10^th March 2004 at a Hindu temple in Malacca.  They lived together in Malacca and together had a daughter Diviya Dharshini, born on 19^th December 2005. The daughter was raised according to the Hindu religion.  By all accounts (and unsurprisingly) Mrs Suresh had professed the Hindu faith and had changed her name.  Following the marriage, she had attempted to formally change her name and religious status from Islam to Hindu and was advised by the Melaka Islamic Religious Department to make a formal application in this respect to the Malacca Syariah High Court.  The application was filed in late 2006 and the first hearing took place on 8^th January 2007.  Upon attending the hearing, Syariah Court officials detained Mrs Suresh and placed her in the Baitul Aman Faith Rehabilitation Centre.

You might think that my righteous indignation arises from the knowledge that this poor woman could be incarcerated simply for choosing to convert and practise the "wrong" religion. Whilst it is another example of how religious courts established to protect and advance the interests of their own faith cannot be trusted to apply justice without fear or favour, affection or ill will, in fact my ire is raised because in Malaysia, unlike the United Kingdom, its citizens still have an unrestricted right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus.

No one expects Hazel Blears to win the race to be deputy leader of the Labour Party, or even come second.  She is confidently expected to be an also-ran, merely unnecessarily making up the numbers.  It is a shame that the cards are stacked against her, because unlike some of her rivals, she is not “establishment” and inspite of her abilities and obvious success in her political career, she is still refreshingly “ordinary”, remaining indistinguishable in many respects from those constituents who elected her, an authentic representative of the people.

Why then, has her campaign become so accident prone?  First we had the “T-shirt” spanner and now her special adviser Paul Richards, who has been assisting with her campaign, is alleged to have breached rules by, in effect, working on her campaign using “day job” tools and time.

These “minor distractions” did not fall into the public domain by themselves.  Someone pushed them there, deliberately.  One ponders why, if Hazel Blears’ campaign is so doomed to failure, someone believes that it needs a helping hand down the pan?  Perhaps Miss Blears has more support in the Labour Party than is generally supposed.  I hope so.

The Daily Mirror

Hazel Blears' campaign to be Deputy Leader gains momentum

So, the Conservatives did not achieve any increase in their share of the vote in the 3^rd May 2007 elections as compared to the local elections in May 2006, according to most commentators.

As a matter of fact, they have.  Following last year’s local election results,  when the Conservatives appeared to have garnered the all important 40% of the vote, Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher showed that in fact the share was 39%.  This was seized upon by the media, immediately. I can still recall clearly a Conservative MP appearing on a television programme where he expressed pleasure that the Conservatives had attained the all important 40% share of the vote, only to be slapped down by the BBC interviewer who pointed out that the share was only 39%.  How quickly the 39% has been forgotten.  Now, the uncorrected 40% figure has been resurrected to prove that the Conservatives have not made any progress since this time last year.  Unfortunately for the mainstream media, some of us have long memories.

It is interesting to note that in The Times of 5^th May 2007, Professors Rallings and Thrasher are reported to have confirmed that the Conservatives did achieve an increase in share of the vote as against last year, but more importantly that Labour did not increase their share by the full percentage point claimed and still languish at 26%.  Is it not strange that a large section of the media has not adjusted down Labour’s share of the vote as they did with the Conservatives last year?  On reflection, not really, I suppose.

Cameron ‘on course’ for No 10

Focus: A real pummelling for bruiser Brown

On 2^nd May 2007 a twenty-nine-year-old married female teacher, Jenine Saville-King, was found not guilty of eight charges involving alleged sex offences against one of her fifteen-year-old male pupils, at the conclusion of her trial at the St Albans Crown Court. Seven of the charges related to alleged sexual activity with a child and one, abuse of trust.

The Crown’s evidence involved not only the “victim’s” evidence, usually the only evidence available in a large number of cases involving sexual offences, but also Mrs Saville-King’s admissions of “having strong feelings for the boy” and of having sent six thousand text messages to him over a six-month period, including one hundred and thirty-one messages in a single day.  The Crown was able to produce records of these text messages as well hundreds of pages of MSN messages between the two.  Mrs Saville-King denied there had been any sexual relationship between her and the boy and claimed there had been only an emotional bond.  In effect, the defence attacked the boy’s character and called him a liar.  The jury duly deliberated upon the evidence and dismissed the charges.  I have no doubt that their decision was right.  Twelve of Mrs Saville-King’s peers weighed the evidence and found it wanting.  Anyone who read the lurid details of the trial published in the national press might raise an eyebrow, but bear in mind that press reports are supposed to entertain and juicy summaries never do justice to what is actually said in the court room. Every day the jury quietly made their notes, digested and balanced the evidence, gave all due consideration to what had been said, used their judgment and did their duty in reaching a just and fair verdict based upon all of the facts. At the end of the day, they preferred the account of Mrs Saville-King over the boy’s.

With good reason, there will not be any cry that justice has not been done, that young boys are being abused by teachers who are getting away with it.  Nor will there be any demand for a change in the law making it easier to convict defendants in cases of this nature.  How very different when the offence is one of rape by a male against a female.

After the trial, Mrs Saville-King described the allegations against her as “boastful fantasies and dishonest, spiteful untruths.”  Judges and juries sitting in Criminal Courts regularly face witnesses who give dishonest and untruthful testimony.  That these witnesses are found out depends upon allowing advocates to vigorously challenge their version of events, including putting to them matters appertaining to their character.  Humans tell lies, sometimes.

A seventeen-year-old teenager who made false allegations of rape against an Asian taxi driver, Aftab Ahmed, told her lies not “out of malice, but naivety and immaturity.”  Mr Ahmed did not suffer the ignominy of charge, remand in custody and the stress of standing trial, but he did lose his home, livelihood, reputation and found his family relationships and marriage under strain in the fourteen months it took for the lies of his accuser to be exposed in Court. The young lady in question received a four-month detention and training order from the Bradford Youth Court after admitting (very belatedly) a charge of perverting the course of justice.

Teacher cleared of having sex with pupil

Girl’s rape lie destroyed taxi driver’s life

The pundits' attempt to put a noose around the neck of the Conservative Party in the months immediately preceding the local elections in May 2006, by "talking up" council seat gains which, according to their analysis, would have to be achieved, were confounded by the Party's success in those elections.  Undeterred, the Media is now having a second bite at the cherry even though on this occasion the cards are even more heavily stacked against the Conservatives, for various reasons.

In the north, particularly in the conurbations, any Conservative advance has to contend with a Liberal Democrat challenge.  An unpopular Labour administration no longer leads to marginal council seats "going" Conservative because of floating voters changing allegiance and/or Labour core support remaining at home.  The Liberal Democrats are ever present to accept votes against which ever of the main parties is the most unpopular. For many years it has been a three horse race in local elections. The Liberal Democrats are going to win sack loads of seats in the north generally and in northern conurbations in particular.  The Conservatives on the other hand, will increase their vote but win few seats. At local level at the very least, the political landscape has changed and the lack of an obvious Conservative advance must be seen in that light.

In the south, the Conservatives already control a majority of the councils and have either reached or nearly reached their high-tide mark. The electorate often votes against incumbent councils.  Since the Conservatives suffered a local election meltdown in 1995, in successive local elections they have been recovering gradually their natural strongholds such that in many areas they are the incumbents. In this way Conservative seats are vulnerable.  The Liberal Democrats' ability to target seats in which they concentrate upon a very "localised" local issue, must not be lost sight of. An example is Woking Borough Council, where the Conservatives polled a significantly higher percentage of the overall vote in May 2006, but lost councillors in certain, targeted wards. The remaining Labour-held wards are now being targeted by the Liberal Democrats, so they will consolidate their control of Woking Borough Council on 3^rd May, with the Conservatives being mere onlookers, unable to affect the outcome.

UKIP's impact on the Conservative vote must not be overlooked either. In numerous councils where the Conservatives are defending against the Liberal Democrats, just a few score votes transferring from the Conservative to UKIP candidate in marginal wards would hand seats to the Liberal Democrats.

Polls indicate that support for the Conservatives nationwide stands at about 38%, the same as the best poll result published immediately before the local elections in May 2006. The actual poll result in 2006 was just short of 40%, underlining the fact that polls tend to underestimate actual support for the Conservatives by between 1% and 2%. On a 38% vote, Rallings and Thrasher calculate that the Conservatives would achieve 300-400 seat gains. I would venture that support for the Conservatives has reached 40% though certainly not the 42% required for a clear election victory.  I would suggest also that factoring in for instance, the manner in which the Liberal Democrat challenge functions "on the ground", the UKIP diversion and the aversion of disaffected, northern Labour voters to switch direct from Labour to Conservative, even with 40% of the vote, the Conservatives will still secure about 400 extra councillors only.  It is reported that privately the aim of the Conservatives is to gain at least 800 seats. One can conjecture the source of this private briefing, which appears mischievous. Whilst nationwide the Conservatives are challenging for more seats than both Labour and the Liberal Democrats and might be hotly contesting thousands of marginal seats, this is not the same as expecting to win all of them.  Even Labour strategists, who are expecting a hiding, calculate that they will lose between 400 to 500 seats. An ineffective showing by UKIP (possible) or the Liberal Democrats (highly implausible) and the Labour core vote remaining at home would hand eight hundred seats to the Conservatives, but the prerequisites for such a result are just not present.

That attempts will be made to extrapolate the results of the May 2007 local elections to show that the Conservative advance has stalled and that David Cameron will not win the 2009/10 election, should not trouble the Conseravtives.  Following the defeat at the General election of 1997, most commentators agreed that the Conservatives would not be able to overturn the Labour majority in just one election. The Party could not even start to do so whilst its deep unpopularity remained, as evidenced by the result of the 2001 General Election.  Whilst being still unpopular in some quarters, the 2005 election result was further distorted by the Liberal Democrats still being on a roll (largely achieved by the injection of funds from the now disgraced Michael Brown) which meant the Conservatives were often watching their backs whilst at the same time trying to attack Labour.  The General Election in 2009/10 will be the first when Conservative fortunes are in the ascendency but yet commentators now seek to convince us that only spectacular success in the forecoming local elections and outright success at the next general Election will do, otherwise (it will be argued) the Conservatives are in a desperate position where, goes the inference, recovery becomes less and less likely.  It is not so.  It took four consecutive election defeats before the Labour Party rejuvenated. During that rejuvenation it did not have to contend with the Liberal Democrats bleeding a part of its core vote.  Whilst it is correct that for a brief period the Social Democratic Party purported to be an alternative to Labour, the SDP realised quickly that there were more votes to be had from instinctively Conservative electors, hence the merger with the Liberal Party and the splitting of the non-Labour vote in every General Election since.

The Conservatives will not achieve any breakthrough until the Liberal Democrats are seen to be patently receding as a political force.  The Conservatives, through eighteen years of Government and eight years of drift in opposition, enabled the Liberal Democrats to thrive and entrench themselves.  In consequence the Liberal Democrats will not be dislodged in just one or two local elections. That the Liberal Democrats failed to make any impact during the local elections in 2006 was significant, but that lack of success could be (and was) brushed under the carpet before the Public absorbed what had happened.  On 4^th May 2007, after taking many Labour councillors' scalps (and a few from the Conservatives too) the Liberal Democrats will be crowing from the roof tops.  The Media will echo the Liberal Democrat triumph.  Commentators will burble and chatter about the Conservatives' lack of serious progress in "the north", the cities and elsewhere.  Whatever is said, the Conservatives will possess a significant number of new councillors following the May 2007 local elections. Their advance will not have stalled.  For their part, the Liberal Democrats still have to reap the whirlwind that they sowed by accepting the donation from Michael Brown, the donation that enabled them to so inflate their prospects in the 2005 General Election.  The future is bright - and still blue.

New Labour’s local election plans are going pear shaped

Labour strolling to "victory" in the local elections in May 2006

The Sunday Times