Why I'm Saying No to AV

Blink and you will have missed it. It's almost gone unnoticed amidst the unexpected April sunshine but in just a few weeks we will have the opportunity to change our voting system. As someone who is on the left of politics, sometimes I feel compelled to support 'change' and be 'progressive'. Therefore, I was tempted to throw my support behind the Yes2AV campaign in the name of electoral reform and solidarity with nice people like Charles Kennedy and Caroline Lucas. On closer examination, however, I can't help but feel that the NO2AV folks have the stronger arguments, even though it means agreeing with nasty people like Michael Howard and Matthew Elliott.

Here are the main reasons I'm against the change:

1. AV is harder to understand than FPTP - while clever people like Mr Kennedy and Miss Lucas are clearly able to comprehend the nuances of AV, a lot of people in this country will not. For me, this is the stand out argument against change. Many people find politics boring and incomprehensible as it is. I reckon that a whole lot more will share this opinion if they have to sit down with a calculator to work out why the person who won the most votes in their constituency was not returned as their MP. Those who are discontented with politics are likely to be extremely turned off by a voting system that allows second and third placed candidates to win. This is not a good thing for civic engagement.

2. AV will weaken democratic accountability - my main argument here is that AV will lead to more hung parliaments and hung parliaments are bad for democracy. I'll be honest, this Lib-Con rose garden love-in has put me right off coalitions for life. Putting aside their political views, however, one can see how the mere fact of coalition has weakened trust in politics. During the tuition fee fiasco, it was all too easy for Clegg & Co to retreat to their standard defence of 'we couldn't help it, we're only in coalition' to justify trebling tuition fees after campaigning vociferously to abolish fees outright. I have written before about how stunts like this turn people away from politics. Allowing more hung parliaments will make people really question what is the point of voting when the party they vote for are liable to cave into their coalition partners and renege on their manifesto commitments.

3. AV will elect more fascist MPs - there is a running debate at the moment between the two campaigns about whether the BNP will stand to benefit from AV. Logic dictates that as AV is more favourable to smaller parties (which is why the Lib Dems, the Greens, the nationalists, and UKIP are all in favour), a small party like the BNP will have a greater chance of winning a seat. In particular, they are highly likely to take second and third preference votes from Labour in deprived areas. Whether or not AV does benefit the BNP and other extremist parties remains to be seen. What I do know, however, is that FPTP is no friend of fascists, with the BNP getting nowhere near winning any seat in UK general elections. When it comes to European elections, which are held under proportional representation, however, Nick Griffin and another one of his cronies were elected to represent our nation.

4. It gives the Liberal Democrats too much power - OK, I'll admit that this objection is partly based on my utter repulsion to the Lib Dems. Sorry. But there is a serious point here: if AV were used, there is a very real chance that the leader of this party would wield tremendous influence in deciding which government is formed after a general election. The Lib Dems have too few seats to be in a position where they could govern in their own right. They have just enough seats, though, to hold the balance when Labour and the Conservatives are tied. The more seats they gain, the more frequent compromises like last summer are likely to become. I'm not sure it's healthy to place such a large amount of political power in the hands of one man. Especially where that man is a little weasel like Nick Clegg.

So I urge my friends on the left to resist the temptation to play in the sunshine with Ed Miliband and Simon Hughes and invite them to join the real voices of fairness, William Hague and Norman Tebbit. Strange as it may seem, the only way of securing civic engagement, moderation and accountability is to vote no to AV. If not, Nick Clegg can look forward to a glorious future as the perpetual king maker of British politics.

Pain But No Gain

Today over 250,000 protesters descended on London. Their aim was to vent their anger at the Government's programme of dramatic spending cuts. Workers from all the main trade unions, students, and supporters came together to march against the coalition's plan to eliminate the entire structural deficit in just four years.

For some the grievances expressed today will be seen as the manifestation of an unreasonable sense of entitlement that has developed in the last few years. Public sector workers, they would say, must be turfed out as part of a fundamental economic re-structuring after years of dependence on the state. Many pro-cuts figures also reach for the statistics for how much the government spends on servicing debt interest in order to justify the government's cuts agenda.

Observing the protest at close quarters, it was clear to me that some of the marchers were in absolute denial about the need to reduce the fiscal deficit. Some people had banners calling for there to be no cuts at all. Others tried to explain their position by highlighting the amount spent on trident and the sums lost through tax avoidance. I would say, however, that the majority of people in attendance accepted the need for spending reductions. Their criticism would be that the coalition are going about it too far and too fast.

This is a position that has been advocated by the last two Nobel prize winners for economics. Leading economists on both sides of the Atlantic have argued that cutting back state support while the recovery remains fragile risks plunging us back into recession. The basic premise is that making more people unemployed through public sector redundancies will dampen demand in the economy. This will make it more difficult for firms to grow and it will harm business confidence. Those people who lose their job in the public sector are unlikely to be absorbed by the private sector given the perilous state of the economy.

It is in this context that the Chancellor produced his 'budget for growth' on Wednesday. The budget statement began with Mr Osborne downgrading his growth forecasts, blaming it largely on last year's snow and global instability. Afterwards, he pledged to cut corporation tax and tax on fuel (although this was clearly a political red herring as he increased VAT on fuel only a matter of months ago).

Until the recovery is in full-swing, these measures will be like moving deckchairs on the Titanic as long as they are accompanied by the government's cuts programme. I have never heard a convincing argument as to why the entire deficit has to be eliminated in four years. Why not 5? Or 6? Or 10? The markets will back a plan they view to be credible. This does not mean the deficit reduction plan has to be the most aggressive one available.

Surely the best plan is one that commits to deficit reduction but recognises the need for basic economic stability. The goal must be to put the economy back into a position where it can support people who lose their jobs in the public sector. Putting more people on the dole when the recovery is fragile just appears reckless to me. It seems like ideological nonsense spouted by a government that is obsessed with re-balancing the economy away from reliance on the state, whatever the consequences.

I hope that Mr Osborne listens to the concerns of ordinary people (and it was, by and large, ordinary people: families and all generations) put forward today about the dangers of his policy. Failing that, I hope he listens to the Nobel laureates and leading economists who have warned about the need for growth before there can be cuts. If he continues on his current course he may find that his obsession with deficit reduction leads to years of financial stagnation.

When Would You Pull The Trigger?

Thanks to the Inner Temple (easily the best of the four Inns of Court, incidentally, for any aspiring barristers) today I was able to gain a rare insight into how the police train with and use firearms. I visited the Metropolitan Police Specialist Training Centre down in Kent where I was shown the training officers go through and given the chance to step into their shoes by participating in simulated exercises.

Like many people, before the trip I regarded the police as somewhat trigger happy when given the chance to run around with guns. Having read about cases like the de Menezes debacle, and more recently the murky shooting of barrister Mark Saunders, it's fair to say I didn't have a great deal of faith in the police's ability to exercise restraint.

My pre-conceptions were turned on their head by some of the things I learned. Firstly, the police instructors demonstrated the rigorous testing firearms officers have to undertake in order to carry a gun and the equally demanding re-accreditation programme they must pass each year in order to maintain their license. The officers are all required to hit moving targets from large distances with all kinds of weapon, including pistols, and to do so with 80% accuracy. Some of the more specialist guys are required to hit targets in combat situations, being fired at and challenged by difficult circumstances. To think that cops in the US and most other countries carry guns as of right is unbelievable in comparison to the high standards of assessment UK officers are expected to meet. It certainly made me feel a new found sense of confidence in the Met's ability to handle firearms incidents.

Secondly, all the officers are put through a series of simulated firearms scenarios. These will involve situations like high-school shootings and domestic violence. The officers are examined on when they choose to fire and why. You might think this is relatively simple; surely they shoot the bad guys, and only when they are being shot at first? Well having taken part myself, I can assure you it's not so easy. I found that I was the most trigger-happy of the group, prepared to fire whenever I saw a person with a weapon.

Cases like the Stockwell shooting and the Saunders tragedy will be scrutinised by the media and the courts for years after the event. Experts will assess whether the officers made the right decision. Sometimes, inevitably, they will get it wrong. But when you have literally split-seconds to make hugely complicated judgment calls, you do not have the benefit of careful, considered analysis. You have to do what you think is right there and then, often on the basis of incomplete information. After taking part in some fake exercises with no real sense of pressure, I certainly will think twice before criticising the police for making mistakes in these situations.

Take the de Menezes case. Clearly there were serious flaws in the intelligence, which the Met has rightly been chastised for. Can anyone really blame the officers that fired though? They saw a man running into a Tube station days after the worst terrorist attack in recent British history. They had reason to believe that he was a suicide bomber, intent on blowing up the tube. Should they have (a) waited and done nothing; (b) shot him or engaged him in a non-fatal way; or (c) shot him in the head?

Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, option (a) was the right choice. That is easy for us now, six years after the event following a number of investigations. It wasn't so obvious to the officers at the time. They genuinely believed they had to disable a man in order to prevent him killing scores of men, women, and children. Those officers did not have the time to enter into such considered analysis.

If anyone disputes my point of view and believes that firearms officers should always know when to hold their fire, I challenge them to go down to Kent and take part in the simulation. They may just find that they are surprised by how eager they are to pull the trigger.

Is It Always Wrong to Ask?

The star of The Apprentice and Labour Party Peer, Lord Sugar, this week argued that employers should be allowed to ask prospective employees whether or not they plan to have children. This produced a storm of protest from feminists and successful women everywhere, who immediately branded Lord Sugar's view as unfair and unreasonable. Despite the law prohibiting employers questioning any potential employee about their childcare commitments, it is widely assumed that the candidates who would be asked this question most often would be female.

Lord Sugar justified his statement by pointing to the problems businesses (particularly small businesses) encounter when they hire women who then take maternity leave shortly after starting work. Running a small business would undoubtedly become more difficult when a significant part of the workforce chooses to leave with no guarantee of them coming back in the near future. The problems are surely more pressing given the dire economic climate in which small firms are required to operate.

Despite this, women are understandably worried about being asked such an intrusive and personal question. Many people would regard childcare to be a private matter and none of the employer's business. In addition, there is a fear that a person could be discriminated against merely for wishing to fulfil a human desire to raise children.

These objections are misguided, however. If a person is trying to run a business with four members of staff, they surely have a legitimate interest in wishing to know the time commitments of their employees. It's exactly the same as an employer asking whether they wish to take time out for any other reason, e.g. further study or holidays. The fact is that many businesses would simply fold if a key member of staff was absent for an extended period of time. Owners cannot be expected to gamble with recruitment in these situations.

Moreover, women surely encounter more discrimination under the present system. As Lord Sugar said, the fact that employers are not allowed to ask means that many simply fail to recruit as many women as they would otherwise do. If a woman says, 'I have absolutely no interest in having children in the immediate future', she would be in a more advantageous position than under the status quo, where the employer is none the wiser about her future plans. If she says 'Yes I wish to have children in the immediate future' then it's only fair for the employer to know this. There may be absolutely no issue, for example where it has been agreed that the woman's partner will take care of the children.

So rather than undermining female participation in the workplace, allowing employers to question prospective employees about their childcare commitments may actually enhance gender equality in this country. That would be a good thing for society in general but also for British business. Perhaps we should get away from this (forgive the pun) childish law that prevents employers talking to prospective employees about their ability to work for them.

The Big Society - Not Just a Harmless Gimmick

Every Government likes to have some sort of underlying theme. The motivation behind Margaret Thatcher's administration was always economic liberalism and the maximisation of individual freedom, even at the expense of social cohesion. Tony Blair wanted to govern from the 'radical centre' with the idea of making public services better by opening them up to competition and market forces. The central policy direction of this Government is undoubtedly David Cameron's idea of the 'Big Society'.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the 'Big Society' is that no-one really knows what it means. My interpretation of Mr Cameron's speeches is that it seems to refer to an emphasis on volunteer groups and individuals taking over public services. Indeed, one of the key intellectual contributors to the Big Society, Philip Blond, has often spoken of it encompassing worker co-operatives and other mutual means of ownership.

Not many people object to the goals of the Big Society. Everyone would like to see more people volunteering. The bonds of social commitment are inevitably strengthened where people willingly decide to give up their free time to help those less fortunate than themselves. Worker co-operatives would also be supported, especially on the left-of the political spectrum.

So why am I so uneasy about the Big Society?

My problem is that Mr Cameron is trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. The Comprehensive Spending Review resulted in a 28% cut in the local government budget. This represents a huge reduction in spending on local services. Councils are under a statutory duty to provide certain essential services, such as education and transport. In addition, many Councils are actively involved in the promotion of other projects, such as youth work and mental health support. They carry out these additional services by receiving modest central government funding. Given the whopping cut in the local government budget, the time is up for these extra facilities. There is simply no way in which a local authority will be able to maintain additional services in addition to their statutory commitments when faced with a 28% cut in funding.

This is why senior charity figures, such as Dame Suzi Leather, Chair of the Charity Commission, and Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, Chair of Community Service Volunteers, have argued so forcefully that Mr Cameron's Big Society agenda is a sham. How on Earth are people going to be able to effectively volunteer if the financial support is not there? For example, as a result of the Government's cuts, many libraries are being forced to close. As Dame Elisabeth asked, how are people supposed to volunteer in the local library if it is being closed down?

These are the uncomfortable questions about the Big Society that Mr Cameron cannot answer. The truth is that his destructive cuts package is wrecking any chance of a genuine culture of volunteering and civic engagement developing in this country.

Conservatives have sought to blame the need for the massive cuts in public spending on the last Labour Government. Here again, therefore, we see the great lie of British politics. I have argued against this before but just in case anyone is any doubt: Labour did not cause the banking crisis. The bankers caused the banking crisis.

The fact of the matter is that before 2007, when the financial meltdown began, Britain had the second lowest debt in the G7. So it's false to say that the Labour Government's reckless overspending created the deficit. Furthermore, up to this point, the Conservatives pledged to match Labour's spending plans. So they didn't think it was reckless overspending either. The other governing party, the Liberal Democrats, were actually in favour of increasing public spending. Any claim by the Government that the deficit is the product of years of Labour indulgence with the public finances is consequently (a) wrong, and (b) hypocritical.

Why did we end up with the largest debt after the financial crisis? The answer is simple. Britain was the most reliant on revenues from the financial services sector in the City of London. When the City went into sharp decline, so unfortunately did the entire British economy. The Government was forced to spend millions bailing out the banks while hundreds of businesses collapsed as a result of being unable to benefit from credit supplied by financial institutions. The Labour Government should take some blame for putting all our economic eggs in one basket by being so dependent on financial services. However, both main parties were to blame for this, none more so than the Tories who began diverting resources towards the City and away from manufacturing in the 1980s.

Mr Cameron is undermining his own Big Society by his massive cuts agenda. His ideological commitment to shrinking the state will always come before his desire to support civic engagement. He is seeking to convince people that he would love to see more volunteers but he has to clean up Labour's mess. Don't believe him.

Why We Need Strasbourg

Arrogant. Smug. Self-satisfied. These are all adjectives that could be used to describe John Hirst, the principal campaigner for the rights of convicted prisoners to vote in UK elections. Hirst was convicted of killing his landlady back in 1979 with an axe. Despite only receiving a 15 year tariff, Hirst went on to serve 25 years after committing a number of violent offences in jail. Following his release in 2004, he has made it his life's ambition to secure the right to vote for jailed offenders.

Anyone that has heard Hirst give interviews will no doubt be repulsed by his sense of entitlement. He is a man who has committed one of the most unconscionable crimes in society but nevertheless feels free to demand rights and privileges on the same basis as law-abiding citizens. Particular revulsion can be attributed to Hirst's description of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), ruling the UK's blanket ban on prisoners voting to be unlawful, as 'his' judgment. For all his cocky remarks, however, Hirst has made one solid point. Public opinion is absolutely irrelevant in upholding human rights.

If you talk to members of the judiciary, most will frankly admit that public opinion is a consideration when decisions are made. This is particularly so in sentencing in criminal justice, where many judges are afraid of being seen as 'soft on crime' by passing a lenient sentence. The extent to which public opinion should be a legitimate factor in ordinary judicial decision making is debatable. What is clear, however, is that the views of the majority should have no impact in the interpretation and application of human rights.

This is so because human rights are about the protection of the individual against the state. The very reason the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was founded in 1950 was to ensure that individuals had binding protection against the tyranny of the majority, which had been so clearly dominant in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Majoritarian views cannot and should not alter fundamental human rights. Accepting that principle sometimes involves taking unpopular decisions like letting suspected terrorists walk free on the streets, or allowing people like Hirst to visit the ballot box alongside decent citizens.

It is very difficult for domestic judges to remain insulated from public opinion. Lord Phillips, President of the Supreme Court, recently claimed that judges were totally detached from the political arena and made decisions entirely according to the law. This is clearly false, as a cursory glance of the law reports in the area of human rights will reveal to you. Judges of different political persuasions can differ markedly on issues of liberty and security. Whenever a significant ruling is made by the Supreme Court it is almost inevitable that the members of the court will have considered the front-page implications the next day. They are first and foremost British lawyers, who have grown up in British society with British morals and values.

Human rights, by their very nature, are universal. A person's right to a fair trial should be the same whether he is in England or Saudi Arabia. As a result, there cannot be any scope for the tailoring of human rights to particular national concerns. It is true that states, under the ECHR, have a 'margin of appreciation', within which they can make their own judgments on aspects of human rights law. However, this margin is clearly circumscribed so as to prevent individual states denying people fundamental liberties, such as the right to vote in elections.

As such, it is essential that there is some checking mechanism to ensure that individual countries respect the key principles of the ECHR. A right-leaning think tank recently called for the UK to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the ECtHR, claiming that it was unable to understand the particular morals and norms of the UK in certain areas. However, the peculiar characteristics of nation states should be an irrelevant factor in applying human rights law. In order to guarantee compliance with the Convention it is necessary, therefore, to have an independent tribunal in place to consider a case without all the pressure and scrutiny involved in domestic proceedings.

Judges in Strasbourg are far less likely to take into account the views of the British public when making rulings about the provisions of the ECHR. Jack Straw, writing in The Times, has used this is an argument for refusing to abide by the ECtHR's judgment on votes for prisoners. By contrast, this is exactly why we should submit to its jurisdiction and accept its rulings with good grace. Domestic judges, for all their independence and intelligence, are inevitably more liable to be swayed by majoritarian tendencies than those from different countries, backgrounds and cultures. This is an invaluable safeguard in human rights cases, where the only bulwark between tyranny and freedom may be a person in a gown sitting in a court.

Law, Love and Marriage

The most senior family judge in England and Wales this week called for unmarried co-habiting couples to be given the same rights on separation as divorcing spouses. Sir Nicholas Wall, President of the Family Division of the High Court, argued that those who have lived together in a relationship should have entrenched legal rights governing the distribution of property when they break up. His intervention is the latest contribution in a debate that has vexed family and property lawyers for some time now.

When married couples get divorced, both parties are entitled to a share of the marital assets. Usually, this will involve taking a percentage of the value of the family home. Each party's share is based on a number of complex factors but the general rule is that both are entitled to equal division.

The historical position in relation to unmarried co-habitees is that there has been no rights for either party to make claims on the other following separation. This has changed in recent years following the ruling of the House of Lords in Stack v Dowden (2007). In this case, the House of Lords held that when co-habiting partners are the joint legal owners of the family home, but have not made any express declaration in relation to their beneficial interests, there is a presumption that both parties own the house in equal shares.

Therefore, if you register property in joint names, the starting point is you both have 50% ownership. This is the case even if one person has bought the house outright. That party would need to show that he or she had made an exceptionally high contribution in order to justify departing from the equal division principle.

As a result of this, I was surprised to see Sir Nicholas making the case for more rights for co-habiting couples. In his view, the current state of the law, despite the ruling in Stack, does not do enough to help the weaker party (usually the woman) when a relationship comes to an end. In support of this view two points can be made. Firstly, the ruling only applies to situations where the home is registered in the parties' joint names. As such, if the other co-habiting partner is not a joint owner, there is a presumption that they are entitled to 0% of the beneficial interest. Secondly, in order to enforce rights under Stack, the co-habitee would have to resort to the complex law of trusts, rather than the more sensitive provisions of family law.

As someone who profoundly disagrees with the decision in Stack, I simply cannot see the justification for imposing yet more obligations on couples who have expressly declined to enter into marriage with all the legal responsibilities that entails. In my view, where two people choose to live together in a house purchased in joint names, it should not be automatically presumed that they intend to be joint beneficial owners. It is true that if property is purchased in joint names, it is often the intention of the parties to consider themselves to have the property on equal terms. However, this surely only applies during the relationship itself. Once that relationship has come to an end, the very fact of joint registration should not give rise to a presumption of 50% ownership.

It is open to the parties at any time during the relationship to expressly declare themselves to be joint beneficial owners. If they do this, that will be conclusive. The fact that the parties have chosen not to do this should be regarded as compelling evidence that they intend to share the property in some other way. In the absence of such a declaration and marriage, the state has no right to impose these obligations on two adults.

Critics of this view would perhaps claim that such an approach pays insufficient attention to the needs of children of co-habiting partners. However, courts must consider the needs of the children under Schedule 1 to the Children Act 1989, which allows judges to make a number of orders in relation to property where there are young children involved. Indeed, Baroness Deech, Chairman of the Bar Standards Board and senior family lawyer, made this point when responding to Sir Nicholas' comments during the week.

Whatever way one views the debate, it cannot be disputed that if Sir Nicholas' suggestions were implemented, the distinction between marriage and co-habitation would be sharply eroded. If two people wish to enter into a marriage and put their relationship on a firm, legal footing they should be free to do so. If, however, they don't want the legal and social implications that come with marriage, they should be free to live without it. The different regimes involved in the classification of property rights guarantees a significant degree of individual freedom for people to dictate the terms of their family life. It would be wrong of the state to take away this liberty.