Iraq, Regret and Responsibility

Last week saw the re-appearance of Tony Blair in public life for a few hours. The former Prime Minister was answering questions put to him by the members of the Iraq Inquiry, who required him to 'clarify' some of his evidence given last year. Mr Blair's presence before the committee brought out the usual coalition of Islamists, Trots, and Guardian readers, all of whom expressed their disgust at Mr Blair's belated remorse for the war.

Many people felt Mr Blair did not do enough when he first gave evidence to get across how sorry he was for Iraq. Some people want a full and frank apology for his role in the conflict, citing the thousands of Iraqis who 'unnecessarily' died as a result of his actions. Others go further and demand Mr Blair's indictment before the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

One such individual is the former Respect MP, George Galloway. Mr Galloway has consistently opposed the war in Iraq. This is perhaps unsurprising given his previous support for Sadaam Hussein - on one visit to Baghdad Mr Galloway told Sadaam that he 'saluted' his 'strength, courage and indefatigability'.

I'm sure many Iraqis would agree with the description of Sadaam as 'indefatigable'. He was a man who reigned over his people for over 20 years and never for a moment relaxed his repressive grasp on power. Moreover, he led a brutal regime in its persecution of Shi'a Muslims and Kurdish minorities. During the Al-Anfal campaign against the Kurds, Sadaam's Government murdered over 180,000 people. Sadaam's victims could pay testament to his indefatigability.

This brings me back to the issue of Mr Blair and his regret for the Iraq war. Should it ever be necessary to regret the overthrow of a fascist, genocidal maniac? There should be a distinction here between the means and the end. Obviously everyone regrets the number of people who died in order to effect regime change in Iraq. Thousands of innocent people were killed as a result of poor planning on behalf of coalition forces; thousands more as a result of poor implementation. Those mistakes should never be forgotten and should always be regretted. However, how can anyone regret the forcing out of one of the world's most repressive, vile dictators?

Not many Guardian columnists stood up to oppose Mr Blair's interventions in Sierra Leone and Kosovo, where British forces saved the lives of thousands of people. So why the difference with Iraq? Surely Sierra Leone and Yugoslavia were sovereign states too? Why should the Iraqi people deserve less protection from genocidal rulers than people in those countries? These are all questions neither Mr Galloway nor Guardian leader writers would be able to answer.

When Mr Galloway appeared on Question Time last week, one of his fellow panellists was the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, who most people now acknowledge to be the slipperiest man in British politics. Mr Hughes was asked the question I posed a few paragraphs above, namely why we should regret the overthrow of a brutal dictator. His reply was that we shouldn't, but only where that overthrow has been sanctioned by international law. This was a response utterly devoid of thought.

Anyone who has ever stumbled across international law will know that it doesn't really work. Jurisprudential scholars agree that in order for something to be a law, it must be clear and socially effective. Neither of these things can be said about international law. Where is my proof? Firstly, no-one really knows whether it was necessary to obtain a second UN resolution before invading Iraq. Lawyers of the most senior stature disagree. Therefore, it can hardly be said that international law is clear. Secondly, the UN Security Council system allows any one of five (yes five) countries to veto military action. These countries include China and Russia, neither of whom are exactly beacons of tolerance, democracy and freedom. As a result, there is a very real chance that intervention in countries where there has been genocide or crimes against humanity will fall foul of international law. This being the case, how can it be said that international law is socially effective?

If you were to take Mr Hughes' view through to its logical conclusion, the international community could be faced with a situation where it is illegal to take action against states who perpetually murder and violate the dignity of their people. I'm not too keen on this. In my view, whenever a country has the economic and military means to effect regime change in countries that follow such a course of conduct, it should do so, 'legally' or 'illegally'. International law did not serve the people of Iraq, Rwanda or Bosnia that well.

So in conclusion, it is right that Mr Blair should have regrets about the Iraq war. However, those regrets should be about the planning and implementation of the campaign. They should never be about the outcome of the war: the overthrow of a menacing, vile, murderous dictator. The day that civilised people demand such regrets is the day we lose all sense of morality and principle.

Why Prisoners Must Get the Vote

David Cameron has described the thought of prisoners being able to vote in UK General Elections as making him 'physically ill'. No doubt a lot of people would share his disgust. The thought does not exactly fill me with joy either. Despite this, there are very important reasons why the franchise should be extended to those behind bars.

The first is based on the concept of human rights. Human rights are by definition universal. They apply to all human beings. They are non-delegable and they cannot be waived. Why not? Because you can't stop being human. The fact that you may have committed the most serious, violent criminal offence does not disqualify you from being a human. It might disqualify you from being a decent human, but it doesn't change the basic fact.

Therefore, everyone is entitled to human rights, even criminals. We accept that criminals cannot be tortured. Furthermore, we accept that prisoners are entitled to fair trials. We allow offenders to get married and to practise freedom of religion. The big question, then, is whether the right to vote should properly be seen as a 'human right'.

This is a matter of debate. It is arguable that voting should be viewed as a civil or constitutional right, extended by law by a state to its citizens. The effect of this would be to say that the North Korean Government does not violate the human rights of its people when it denies them the opportunity to elect their leaders. One would be suggesting that the North Korean Government merely violates civil or political rights.

The opposite view is that the right to elect a government is a basic human right. In support of this, it is possible to argue that without democratic freedom, a person cannot truly be 'free' at all. If one is not given the opportunity to vote in elections, one remains in a state of perpetual subjugation. The social contract an individual is born into with society involves an implicit understanding that when the government of the day takes decisions with public resources that proves to be unacceptable, that individual has the ability to replace the government. If this were not so, the social contract would be an illegitimate tool of oppression by the political classes.

It is to this view that I subscribe. The right to vote in elections should be considered to be a fundamental, unalienable human right. That is why I, like many others, find it so disturbing when I see the wishes of people in places like Zimbabwe, China, Iran, and North Korea continuously treated with contempt.

Once the right to vote in elections has been established as a human right, the case for allowing prisoners to access the ballot box is unanswerable. Public opinion is irrelevant. That is why human rights are enshrined in law. If there was no binding protection for human rights in the UK, the government of the day could pick and choose which freedoms to guarantee and which to abandon. This is plainly incompatible with the notion of 'human rights' and justifies the position of unelected judges upholding such rights in a democratic society.

The other, more practical, reason why prisoners must get the vote is cost. Every day the UK Government fails to pay prisoners who have brought claims under the European Convention on Human Rights, the taxpayer incurs serious financial penalties. Given the precarious position of the public purse, this is a mounting debt the Exchequer can ill afford. The bill for claims currently stands at £35 million. As troubling as the thought of prisoners voting is, it is arguably less problematic than the prospect of convicted offenders enriching themselves at the expense of law-abiding UK citizens.

So for these reasons, it is imperative that Parliament complies with the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights and changes the law. The UK is one of the only countries in Europe that has a blanket ban on prisoners voting. If we have any respect for human rights and the rule of law in general, we should grit our teeth and bite the bullet.

VAT and all that

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, decided to give the economy the new year's boost it needs today by raising the rate of VAT by 2.5%. In doing so he proved his coalition colleague, Nick Clegg, correct when he warned before the election of a Tory 'VAT Bombshell' if they were returned to office.

Mr Osborne, like Mr Clegg has on so many occasions in the past few months, attempted to justify this seemingly regressive, unhelpful, policy by pointing to its 'progressive' qualities, saying it would be a fairer alternative to other measures. In doing so he was partly supported by research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which highlighted the fact that those with the most limited means tend to spend less on the majority of items subject to VAT.

The problem with a rise in VAT, however, is that it reduces the purchasing power of those on lower incomes. Research clearly demonstrates that the poorest bracket of the population in terms of household income will lose disproportionately more from this policy. When it comes to decisions as to whether or not to buy certain consumer goods, those struggling to make ends meet will increasingly decline to take the plunge. This is bad for the poor, whose quality of living decreases further.

Moreover, it is bad for the economy as a whole. Every time people spend money on things like televisions and computers, the shop they buy them from makes money. The more money the shop makes, the more employees they can afford to hire. The more employees they hire, the more those employees spend in other shops. And so on. Discouraging people from purchasing is not good economics. It's especially damaging given the weak growth projections for the UK economy following Osborne's cuts package.

If it has any sense, the coalition will execute one of its now famous U-turns before the rise starts to pour further misery on British retailers. Given the unfortunate timing of this tax rise, coinciding with the start of the Oldham by-election campaign, Mr Clegg may well have a word in Mr Cameron's ear.