Oliver Kamm

Poetry, please

I'm clearly lagging on this story, as I have only now discovered that The Standard published a poem by Paul Marsden MP earlier this week. As it was taken from Marsden's web site and read out in the House of Commons, I think we can take it that it's intended for public consumption. It is entitled 'She came in the night', and here it is in full:

She came in the night,

Dark hair, alive billowing as a trapped kite

Marching forward, confident and right,

Her hips swaying and her red lips tight

Then that smile so devastating in its might,

Tongue rippling across teeth so white.

Breasts rising as I feel the urge to bite.

Eyes stalking its prey, she's relishing the fight.

Who would mess with this amazing sight?

In awe of womanhood so sexual and bright,

A wondrous sweet smell exacerbates my plight,

Arching her back, stretched to its full height,

I am captured forever, dazzled by feminine light.

As she came in the night.

I prefer a more Skeltonian metre. I call this poem 'Paul Marsden MP':

His poetry's a fright.

The man can't write.

In skilful diction he is light,

And emotionally trite.

That's right.

Those Liberal Democrat feuds

A peculiar and delphic press release was issued this week by the Liberal Democrats. It is entitled (capitals in original) SHELLY MARSDEN/SANDRA GIDLEY STATEMENT. I was familiar with neither of these names, and I'm not especially better-informed in having read their statement. Here it is in full.

Commenting [on] the Daily Mail story today, Mrs Shelly Marsden said:

“I was appalled to read in a national newspaper today that the Liberal Democrat Shadow Women's and Older People Minister, Sandra Gidley has launched a deeply personal attack against my husband and I [sic].

“Without doubt we have had a difficult few days and we are trying to put the matter behind us and to move on with our lives. The savage attack from this spokeswoman at this time is deeply hurtful. Especially on an issue which is wholly personal. She should have been fully aware of her comments and of their impact.

“Despite all this my commitment to Paul and to my family is as strong as ever. We are looking forward to the future together. “It is with deep regret that I have been forced to reply to her comments."

Mrs Sandra Gidley said:

“The remarks attributed to me in The Mail did not reflect the overall tone of the interview I gave. I am particularly sorry for the offence they have caused to Paul and Shelly Marsden who have had a very difficult few days of serious media intrusion to endure.

“I must stress that I was speaking in a purely personal capacity and did not foresee the selective angle that the piece would take. I had absolutely no intention of adding to the pressures on the Marsden Family. With hindsight it would have been better not to have commented.

“We all do things which we later regret and I have every confidence that Paul will be recognised for his excellent political record and not judged on his private life.”

What's striking about this statement is that at no point does it indicate the subject matter. We learn neither the content of Mrs Gidley's remarks nor the nature of the Daily Mail story nor the identity of Mrs Shelly Marsden. But we are left to infer that her husband is called Paul and that they have suffered some recent difficulty in their family life.

I assume the Paul Marsden referred to is the Liberal Democrat politician of that name. He is a party spokesman on health. The Marsdens' family life is indeed strictly a matter for them, and Mrs Gidley is right to say that the only criteria for public judgement of Paul Marsden relate to his political record. So his political record is what I shall rehearse.

Between 1997 and 2001 Marsden was a Labour MP. He then defected to the Liberal Democrats in protest at Tony Blair's support for the overthrow of the despotic Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the routing of its terrorist controllers. He also opposed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein this year, and did so in rather distinctive terms. In an article dated 31 March and entitled 'How Many Years Before the Truth is Known?', he said this (go to his web site and scroll down):

The war is not going as planned.... The cheeky blighters in the Iraqi army and militia wont [sic] give up and are resorting to outrageous tricks such as refusing to come out into the open desert to be slaughtered. For armed forces that have boasted about its total air superiority and technological advantage, it is bizarre to hear the claims of unfairness on how the Iraqis are fighting.

These words are among the most indecent and repulsive to have been written during the Iraq war. Let us leave aside Marsden's abilities as a military analyst - for Baghdad fell a fortnight after his confident declaration that the war was 'not going as planned' - and concentrate on the character of his sentiments. As they progressively liberated Iraq, British and American forces encountered what can reasonably be described as war crimes: Baathist and Islamist terrorists hiding among a civilian population, whom they used as human shields while attacking our troops. Marsden's mocking reference to our side's 'total air superiority' demonstrates a shocking indifference to the urgency of protecting civilian life, for of course it was precisely to avoid endangering civilians that our troops did not bomb these terrorist cells from the air. Marsden depicts that quality - a willingness to undergo extreme personal danger in order to maintain the essential moral distinction between combatants and civilians - as weakness and failure, and he sneers at our armed forces for exemplifying it.

He then compounds moral obtuseness with an analogy of such turpitude that one can only read and gasp:

The Iraqi people do not appear to be given any say what sort of reconstruction they would want. I wonder how the British would have felt in 1940 if Germany and Japan had argued about who should get the construction contracts as the battle for Britain was being fought?

He seriously speaks of British and American forces, noble in their aim and scrupulous in their methods, as comparable to the Axis powers in World War II. In the Liberal Democrats that is apparently what passes for 'an excellent political record'.

Party on

In its coverage of President Bush's state visit last week, The Guardian reported:

Last night the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, mobilised figures from showbusiness, politics and diplomacy to highlight his opposition to the state visit and the war on Iraq. He staged a Peace Reception on the top floor of City Hall, where a crowd of 200 heard speeches condemning Mr Bush and his administration.

The principal guest was Ron [K]ovic, the Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist whose experiences inspired the film Born on the Fourth of July.

Mingling with MPs such as George Galloway were outspoken figures such as Martin Bell, Beryl Bainbridge and the film director Ken Loach. Musician Damon Albarn and playwright Harold Pinter were also invited.

The Press Association divulged still more:

Pop stars St Etienne and Damon Alban of Blur were among those present at the reception.

They were joined by artist Peter Kennard, actor Roger Lloyd Pack, comedian Kevin Day and [former] MP Martin Bell.

I'm pleased to say that not all of these celebrity names are completely obscure to me, and one or two of them I even admire (Harold Pinter genuinely is an outstanding figure in modern English literature). Even in the case of those whose work I am unfamiliar with, it would be churlish of me to object to their enjoying themselves. But if they are to have a party, I should expect them either to enjoy the direct hospitality of their host or to pay for the entertainment themselves. In the case of this drinks party (or to give it its official euphemism, this 'mayoral reception'), the largesse was paid for by neither the mayor nor his guests.

The day after the party, I phoned the Public Relations department at City Hall to ask what I felt were two pressing questions. The conversation went like this (almost word for word):

How much did the reception cost and who paid for it?
'It was a few thousand.'

How many thousand?
'A few.'

Who paid this few thousand?
'It came from the Project Development Budget.'

Who finances the Project Development Budget?
'The Greater London Authority.'

Who finances the Greater London Authority?
'Well, you know the answer to that.'

Perhaps, but please remind me.
'I've answered your question.'

Who paid for this political reception at City Hall?
'It was a recognition of representative groups who…'

I understand, but who paid for it? The public?
'Well, that's your interpretation.'

And so it went on till my interlocutor exhausted what was undeniably an impressive stock of circumlocutions. He undertook to send me an official answer to my questions.

Unfortunately he didn't. I thus phoned him again yesterday. The conversation went like this.

How much did the reception cost and who paid for it?
'It was a few thousand, and the money came from the Project Development Budget.'

So it was the council taxpayer?
'Haven't you got anything better to do?'

My interlocutor, being dedicated to his work, then became commendably animated in expounding it, whereupon we were peremptorily cut off by some unexplained fault on the line.

I called back, and asked once more how much the event had cost, now that we had established it had been paid for by the public. It was 'a few thousand'. The original budget had been £8000, but there had been some 'sponsorship in kind'. I asked how much the commercial rate was for the hire of the room, as that revenue forgone ought to be entered into the calculation for the budget for the event. That was £5000, but the whole expenditure was all 'a drop in the ocean'.

So the expenditure of thousands of pounds' worth of council tax receipts isn't important?
'I didn't say that. You're misquoting me.'

So the expenditure of thousands of pounds' worth of council tax receipts is important?
'Haven't you got anything better to do?'

And there we left the matter.

I am perhaps old-fashioned, but I tend to the view that a politician who throws a party for his friends or holds a partisan political rally on matters wholly outwith his public duties, let alone organises an event that serves both purposes, ought to stump up the money himself out of his own pocket. If he doesn't - and this politician, in this case, didn't - then those invited ought not to accept the invitation, or ought to do so only on the understanding that they will reimburse the involuntary patrons of the event for the price of the ticket.

Let us suppose that the cost of the party really did fall well within the original budget of £8000. Let us also accept as probable, even if dispiriting, that the Mayor and his colleagues feel under no obligation to deploy the London assembly's assets in such a way as to generate returns (and thereby reduce future costs) for the council taxpayer, and that therefore the cost of this party should be assessed net of the commercial cost of hiring the room. That still leaves a total cost to the taxpayer of, say, £6000. With 200 guests, that amounts to a cost of £30 a head in order to break even. It's possible that some of the Mayor's guests were unaware that their drinks were being paid for by a large number of people neither present nor consulted last Thursday, and even that some would feel discomfort on learning this. I hope they will make their feelings known.

The Stupid Party

The Liberal Democrat education spokesman (or as he grandiloquently styles himself, 'Shadow Education Secretary'), Phil Willis MP, declares:

Labour makes access to higher education dependent on the ability to pay, not on the ability to learn. This Bill will widen the social divide and makes it less likely that students from poorer backgrounds will access Britain's top universities.

He's referring to the proposal contained in the Queen's Speech that universities be able to charge top-up fees. The quality of thinking he exhibits is appropriate to one who believes 'access' is a verb. Students from poor families are not charged fees and never have been. They are moreover hardly representative of the student population. As Alison Wolf, Professor of Education at London University, noted in Prospect last year:

[T]he middle classes are the major beneficiaries of mass higher education. They are the ones who meet the entry criteria in vast numbers. They obtain their higher education overwhelmingly at taxpayers' expense. They benefit from it over a whole lifetime, through far higher salaries and far lower risks of unemployment.

In opposing tuition fees, the Liberal Democrats, and for that matter the Conservatives, are thus demanding a state-administered subsidy and entitlement for the middle classes. I cannot think of a single plausible economic or ethical argument for that stance. Higher education is of immense benefit to those who receive it; those who receive it should pay for it. Higher education is not obviously a public good (in economists' jargon, a good that has positive externalities and that cannot be provided in individual amounts); attempts to argue that it is generally have little economic logic behind them. The common argument that an educated workforce is essential to British competitiveness manages to misunderstand 'competitiveness' (see the post before this one), eschew empirical evidence (I know of none in support of the proposition) and misconstrue the rationale of education (the cultivation of the life of the mind is valuable independent of any economic benefit whatever; the proper, as opposed to common, criticism of almost any academic discipline that includes the word 'Studies' in its title is not that it is vocationally worthless but that it is intellectually vapid).

Reactionary, regressive and incoherent, representing sectional interests at the expense of the public good: what a policy; what a party; what a dismal reflection of the state of modern Liberalism.

Those Liberal Democrat economic principles

With EU enlargement imminent, the Government must act to ensure British investment and competitiveness is enhanced.

Malcolm Bruce MP, Liberal Democrat spokesman on Trade and Industry, press release, 'Set business free to make Britain competitive', 17 November 2003

There are erroneous beliefs that are often regarded as common sense but which are really self serving convictions, which I sometimes dignify by the name of businessmen's economics... [An] example is the cult of competitiveness in ministerial and business speeches. Competitiveness applies to individuals or companies, not to nations. Perhaps the best way to see this is to realise that not every country can be more competitive against every other. Against whom should the world be more competitive? The Moon? Or Mars?

The tiny vestige of truth in this kind of talk applies only if a country has an overvalued exchange rate. Nearly all so-called competitiveness problems arise from misconceived attempts to peg a country's exchange rate.

Sir Samuel Brittan, Financial Times economics columnist, speech, 'Maybe I need an economist to tell me that', 13 October 2003

Coincidentally, one of the political parties does advance a misconceived proposal to peg this country's exchange rate....

Those Liberal Democrat predictions

The risk of global recession is staring us in the face. Some analysts are even starting to warn of the risk of an economic 'ice age' where markets stagnate and growth disappears. They speak of the risk of a system failure.

Matthew Taylor MP, Liberal Democrat Treasury Treasury spokesman, speech to Liberal Democrat conference, Torquay, 15 March 2003

The economy roared ahead at an even faster pace this summer than previously thought, spurred by powerful business and consumer spending. Gross domestic product was revised to an 8.2% annual rate for the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

That was a full percentage point higher than the 7.2% initial estimate from the government, and even higher than the strong 8% growth economists had forecast, according to a survey by Dow Jones and CNBC. The economy's blistering run in the third quarter marked its best quarterly performance since a 9% surge in the first three months of 1984.

Wall Street Journal, 'GDP Is Revised Upward To 8.2% for 3rd Quarter', 25 November 2003

Scoundrel Time II

I have in front of me also a booklet entitled The Communist Party of Great Britain: A Historical Analysis to 1941. It was published in the mid-90s by a short-lived group of hard-line former members of the recently-disbanded Communist Party entitled Communist Liaison. Here's the author's own analysis of the party's attitude to Stalinist terror (page 74):

Over the whole period of the CPGB's existence, its relation to the USSR has been probably the most controversial issue, both within and without the Party. The Party has clearly paid a price for its defence of the first Socialist state in the world, particularly when it has subsequently been proved that that defence was based on misinformation and misjudgments. Yet the party could only judge on the information it had, and even that had to be handled in the context of the international class struggle in which the USSR was seen as playing (and actually did play) the most important role on the side of anti-fascism, anti-imperialism and social progress. That things happened in the USSR which were inexcusable and which ultimately prejudiced Socialism's whole prospect is today undeniable. Whether Communists in the capitalist world could or should have done more than they did is much more contentious. [emphasis added]

Why do I bother to quote this crazed, pitiful apologetic for complicity in barbarism? Because the author of the booklet is a man called Andrew Murray. Murray is chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, which last week organised the demonstrations against the state visit of President Bush. It isn't exactly obscure why Murray should so strongly disapprove of political leaders who overthrow murderous tyrants.

Scoundrel Time

The Telegraph reports:

A long-dead apologist for Stalin and one of the most notorious foreign correspondents in American history is to keep his Pulitzer Prize despite calls for the award to be revoked.

The board that administers the most prestigious awards in American journalism said Walter Duranty would keep the 1932 prize but admitted that his work fell far short of "today's standards for foreign reporting".

I'm not sure that Duranty's apologetics are that far short of today's standards of foreign reporting - in which the bombers of Jerusalem buses are habitually referred to as 'militants' while their apologists are called 'peace activists' - but it's true that Duranty's journalism is now notorious, and for that we should be thankful. Nonetheless, and though it grates to say it, the Pulitzer Prize board has probably made the right decision (and not only because the noun from which 'prestigious' derives is not 'prestige' but 'prestidigitation', or sleight-of-hand). Duranty was a scoundrel but he was also a product of his time. His reports had a receptive audience, and we rewrite the history of the 1930s if we suppose that we may exculpate that generation by blaming the messenger of shameless lies. He was guilty of falsification, and his audience was guilty of wilful obtuseness in believing him.

I am reminded of this dismal episode by a recent book, Free Radical: New Century Essays (Continuum, 2003) - a self-congratulatory title for a collection of columns by former Labour minister Tony Benn in the Communist daily Morning Star. Benn's column for 12 April 2001 (on page 5 of the book) is entitled - really - 'A tribute to British Communists'. It includes the following observation:

It is true that the British party made a mistake in 1939 when it opposed the British declaration of war against Germany and only changed its policy when Hitler invaded Russia in 1941. But the charge that it uncritically supported all the excesses during the Stalinist period conveniently ignores the fact that those excesses were not widely known, even in the Soviet Union, until Khrus[h]chev's famous speech which disclosed them.

It's difficult to credit, but some people regard Benn as a man of principle if occasional eccentricity. That passage ought to disabuse them of the notion. Walter Duranty was a man of pellucid integrity in comparison.

The Communist Party of Great Britain didn't merely 'oppose the British declaration of war', as if it were a Norman Thomas-style group of pacifists: it supported the Nazi-Soviet pact. It assuredly did 'uncritically support' the - excuse me while I handle gingerly this disgusting Orwellian euphemism - 'excesses' of Soviet rule in the 1930s: the Moscow Trials, the destruction of the kulaks, the Great Terror, the Gulag. That's what democratic centralism entails: the unquestioning public support of the centrally-determined line. That's what the party's ideologist, R. Palme Dutt did without qualm or scruple. To suggest that the truth was unknown in the west till Khrushchev's secret speech 'conveniently ignores the fact' that every reader of the Reader's Digest was familiar in the 1930s with the reality of Soviet tyranny. I have in front of me a recent imprint of the memoir of the Soviet defector and former spy Walter Krivitsky. In it, Krivitsky clinically details Stalin's brutality and mendacity with such observations (page 164) as:

Some of those who confessed [in the Moscow Trials] to the plotting of Kirov's death had been in solitary confinement for several years before his assassination.

Krivitsky's work was not hidden away in some secret archive awaiting discovery by Soviet specialists a generation later. It was published in regular instalments in 1939 in the Saturday Evening Post.

Is it not astonishing that Benn can write such evasive and arrant nonsense about the history of Soviet tyranny and its apologists in the west? Or does he perhaps have a congenital inability to utter harsh judgements about dictators?

Those mass protests

The BBC reports:

Hundreds of protesters have charged down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace in a day of protests against US President George Bush... The crowd of up to 600 was held back from the palace by police.

"Up to 600"? What sort of protest movement is that?

With commendable dispassion, The Guardian notes:

London's Bush Protests Make Little Impact

I passed Buckingham Palace early this evening, when there were at most 100 demonstrators congregating outside. How opportune: an entire mass movement within earshot all at one time.

Channel 4 News gave me a brief spot last night to explain why we on the British Left support the man who overthrew the most despotic regime on the planet. The Guardian/ICM poll the same day showed the strength of that support in Britain, especially among Labour voters. We are the majority, and should not be shy of saying so.

Those thoughtful protests

The BBC reports:

Scottish Socialist Party MSP Rosie Kane is among those due to address the Edinburgh protest [against President Bush's visit].

She said: "This state visit was organised about a year ago and I wonder if they thought they were going to come to some sort of jubilant victory parade with confetti and the streets lined with people waving Union Jacks."

In fact, the flag of the United States is not the Union flag (though Mrs Kane has the colours approximately right).