CentreRight

Everyone likes the idea of a Swedish model, even in banking

Gordon Brown has been claiming the credit for the idea of Governments taking equity stakes in banks as a way out of their insolvency. He said in the Times on Friday that

"We must lead the world to financial stability"

and challenged other world leaders to follow his supposedly bold and innovative example. As other commentators have pointed out (like Nick Robinson), the model for this proposed solution actually comes from Sweden in the early 1990s.

Carl Bildt, who is now Swedish Foreign Minister (pictured here with me at last year's Swedish Moderaterna Party Conference in Gävle), was then the Prime Minister who devised a far-reaching solution. I worked on a trading floor in London in the early 1990s, and remember the Swedish banking bail-out quite well, although it was overshadowed ironically by the collapse of the ERM at about the same time in late 1992.

An important PMQs today

The accepted wisdom of the events of last October focuses heavily on a chain of events starting with Labour's election speculation, the George Osborne conference announcement on Inheritance Tax, David Cameron's own conference speech and Brown's Andrew Marr interview on the Saturday calling off the election. I remember one other key event in helping to define the renewed view that Brown was a disaster, and that was the first PMQs after the recess, where Brown was on the back foot from the beginning, and David Cameron's very first question was to effectively accuse Brown of not being truthful. The whole exchange is worth re-reading in full, as it defined the relationship of the two leaders with each other and in the eyes of the public for the rest of the year, and cemented Brown's image as a ditherer and a bottler, and Cameron's as the man in the ascendancy.

Some commentators might feel that the banking bail-out this morning will overshadow anything the party leaders might say to each other in the noon face-off. And, let's face it, in the two days since Parliament has re-assembled, the atmosphere in the House has been lethargic and off-beat, as Iain Martin and Jonathan Isaby have both pointed out. Nevertheless, David Cameron will face the choice today between being more low-key and consensual, or hammering Brown for his Government's part responsibility for the mess we are in, and particularly the Prime Minister's reputation for economic competence, which has been severely shaken but is not gone completely, at least according to the polls. Looking back to last October, and the lessons to be drawn from it, I hope and expect we will see David Cameron hit the PM hard this afternoon, despite the apparent consensus on the bailout package.

The Met needs a change in philosophy, not just leadership

Mark Field's post yesterday on the departure of Sir Ian Blair and the comments thread revealed one of politics' worst-kept secrets: that Sir Ian Blair was very unpopular amongst Conservatives. Nevertheless, I for one believe that there was no politics at all in Boris's desire to see change, and that complaints from Jacqui Smith and (God help us) Ken Livingstone simply show Labour's failure to realise that Boris really did win the election and that the London Mayor is the right democratically-accountable person to make the decision on who is in charge of the capital's policing.

More important than who is in charge, however, is how we change the Met's culture and philosophy of crime fighting.

Germany's take on the financial crisis - blame the U.S.

Further to Ruth Lea's excellent post, two speeches from European politicians in the last 48 hours on the credit crisis are worthy of note. Gordon Brown's speech in New York yesterday, as noted by Simon Chapman, called for an end to the "Era of Irresponsibility" - a strange way of describing the ten years when Brown was in charge of this country's public finances and was personally instrumental in setting up the "tripartite" regulatory regime of our banks.

Equally outrageous was the speech on Thursday by the German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück of the Leftist SPD. Germany has had some banking failures of its own, and Steinbrück put the blame squarely on the US.

Dramatic findings of the huge PoliticsHome marginals survey

YouGov on behalf of the PoliticsHome website has carried out the largest ever survey of electors in British marginal seats. The headline, nationwide figures for the poll of 35,000 electors were reported by ConHome over the weekend, and showed a Labour wipeout, and a Conservative majority of 146.

Yesterday, I received a copy of the document showing most of the findings, which I have linked to above, as it is now online.

The poll findings are almost too good to be true, and I refer in particular to the summary conclusions by Anthony Wells at the back of the volume. Conservative support across the marginals is pretty solid. 50% of our voters in these seats say there is no chance of them switching from us, and a further 36% say it is unlikely - far higher figures than for the other parties (remarkable, as they have far fewer voters). Conservative voters are also much more likely to turn out. This has been the case for 20 years or more, but these are new times, and one might have expected that as our vote share increases, their likelihood of turning out would fall, but it appears not.

Does Brown's Internet plan connect?

My initial reaction to Gordon Brown's plan to connect 1.4 million households with children to the internet is that the whole initiative begs more questions than it answers.

Superficially, he is right that an internet connection at home is an important tool for a child's learning. He is also doubtless correct that some parents, given the choice, would rather spend the money on themselves or some other capital investment in their homes, or on their mortgage, rent, or whatever else. I am sure that the inference that some children are disadvantaged compared to their classmates by not having a home internet connection is correct.

Michael Gove has been careful in his comments to not oppose the plan, but to state, correctly that this is actually a re-announced policy.

My concerns are these:

Whatever happened to our civil liberties debate?

One of the unfortunate casualties of the twin crises of Gordon Brown's leadership and Britain's public and private sector debt mountains has been the debate on civil liberties launched by David Davis in June.

At the time, of course, the impact of the Haltemprice by-election was diminished by Labour's refusal to contest it, and then dramatically overshadowed by the Glasgow East by-election shortly afterwards.

Nevertheless, this civil liberties debate needs to be continued. I have added some thoughts on CCTV (in favour) and the National DNA Database (sceptical) in the new Conference edition of Forward, the magazine of Conservative Way Forward.

Grateful for clear blue water on banking regulation

I was delighted to see David Cameron and George Osborne speaking out in defence of the financial services industry and global markets generally and against knee-jerk new regulations on banks.

This is not to suggest that no action is the best policy. Believe me, my years in the 1980s and 1990s on trading floors in the City and on Wall Street showed me many examples of unsavoury practices. Indeed, I spoke about some of my experiences recently in Parliament, ironically speaking against the Labour Government's proposal to itself act as an issuer of structured sharia-compliant bonds.

Give me back my DNA!

Last year, my uncle was tragically murdered. The purpose of this post is not to seek sympathy, not least as my cousins Peter and Stephanie are the ones who have really suffered. The crime, committed at my uncle's home in Walsall was perhaps a burglary gone wrong or some kind of mistaken identity and has not yet been solved, and I doubt ever will be. My uncle Les (pictured here in 1962) was a good man who certainly never deserved the fate that befell him.

This post is really about the national DNA database, which I am on as a result of Les's murder. A new report shows that I am one of more than a million entirely innocent people on the database, which also includes 100,000 children.

I am not an instinctive civil libertarian. Indeed, I have a great deal of sympathy with the Home Office argument made in the Independent press report linked to above that the database provides police with 3,500 DNA matches each month in solving crimes.

Why are guidebooks so left-wing?

Next month, I am going to Egypt for twelve days backpacking through the sights, although in the case of Egypt, "sites" might be more appropriate. In common with tens of thousands of Britons, I have bought a Lonely Planet guide to help me along the way. Twenty years ago, when I bought my first title, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides were in their infancy, but they have since exploded into big businesses. Their basis is perfectly sound - to provide travellers and ex-pats with useful, practical information to make getting around cities, regions, countries and even continents easier, quicker and cheaper. In this regard, they have been a huge success. A visit to your local general bookstore will probably reveal that the travel section is between 10 and 20% of the total storespace, and this seems to be growing. Lonely Planet and Rough Guides dominate the market.

Their only problem is this - the books are almost always written from a Leftist political stance. Wait a moment, readers might ask, how can a description of which bus route goes to Tutankhamun's tomb have any kind of political bias? Check out the "history" section of these books, however, and you will see what I mean. Liberal, "progressive" forces are invariably good, battling with the forces of conservatism, all around the world. Most Lonely Planets will give a 20 or so page history, Rough Guides slightly longer.

Conservatives setting the agenda on MP and MEP ethics - but we need to go further still

Three cheers for the Party for setting the agenda on MP and MEP ethics (by which I mean primarily pay and expenses) today. Two major moves were made today. The Conservatives in Opposition time held a three hour debate on MP expenses, and a resulting Commons vote to end the "John Lewis List", to try to end the practice of billing furniture and other household goods to the taxpayer, and to seek to declare the nature of family members employed by MPs was held. The package was regrettably only partly accepted by the Government. The John Lewis List is going, but Labour has accepted no new requirements on family members, and furniture and goods rules stay for the time being.

After the debate, the Party has published under new internal "Right to Know" rules a listing for Conservative MPs and what they have claimed since the start of the year. The files can be seen here.

This has been a brave effort by those in charge. I was in a European Scrutiny Committee for most of the debate, but from what I gather most of the voices in the debate - including some from our own side - were opposed to David Cameron's proposals. Taking this up was never going to popular with some senior backbenchers who have grown accustomed to the status quo.

David Cameron should publish a book

I started writing this post just before the London election, when I returned from my local Waterstone's where I was struck by a special display on books about the US Presidential candidates. There were books about, and crucially by, all three of the then candidates, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and they seemed to be selling well.

It set me thinking - should David Cameron publish a book, and if so, what about? It would need to be both sellable and sincere (unlike Brown's "Courage: Eight Portraits" or his "Britain's Everyday Heroes") . It should be both topical and likely to remain so for at least the next two years. It would also need to set out a clear policy vision and not be just about modernising the party (unlike Tony Blair's "New Britain: My Vision for a Young Country").

David Cameron might choose to write a general policy tract. If so, he should take a look at my favourite book, pictured here, Ronald Reagan's Call to Action, from his almost successful 1976 run for the Presidency. Costing just $1.75, it provided 173 pages of analysis and argument, all in a pocket-sized paperback, with chapters whose meaning has outlasted that campaign itself. The sections on "The Individual", "The Family", "Work", "Welfare" and even "Land Use and the Environment" still have real meaning and relevance today.

Nick Cohen is quite wrong on Tory internationalism

I must confess I was a little baffled to read this piece in today's Observer. Nick Cohen, a man I respect enormously for his independent approach, his reluctance to follow the standard leftist line on Iraq, his disdain for Livingstone and his politics, bizarrely paints a portrait of David Cameron and the Conservatives as a group of foreigner-hating isolationists. His piece is entitled "which foreigners DO you like, David?"

Cohen throws together an unlikely melange of evidence to make his case that Cameron might be a xenophobe. He rightly criticises British foreign policy in ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s (although this has precious little to do with Cameron, or even William Hague for that matter, who was Secretary of State for Wales at the time). He talks about the co-operation between Putin's Mother Russia Party and the Conservatives in the otherwise obscure Council of Europe. He then throws in last week's unfortunate comments by Lord Dixon-Smith and boorish anti-Italian rhetoric by candidate Alun Cairns. All told, not much of a case, and crucially none of it in any way linked to David Cameron. If my memory is correct, the only thing grouping this obscure set of charges is that they have almost all been raised by Labour's Denis MacShane in the House of Commons, who loves low-level mischief-making on Conservative foreign policy. MacShane is even quoted in the article - who knows, maybe he even prepared the materials?

More to the point, why is Northern Rock active in Zimbabwe?

Today's Independent on Sunday piece on Conservative MPs' owning shares in companies like Tesco which happen to have business links with Zimbabwe appears trivial compared with the question I have been asking in Parliament for some months now: why is Northern Rock active in Zimbabwe?

When Northern Rock was nationalised, we were told it was a domestic operation. But their Guernsey subsidiary's website not only invites business from Zimbabwe, it even makes an exceptional case for it, as one of only three African countries they will take deposits from.

The Government refuses to telll us why or how much money is involved. Members of the Government like John Mann MP are quoted in the Independent story condemning Conservative MPs for their business links - if he is that enraged, maybe he might have a word with Alistair Darling as to why our new state-owned bank is going out of its way to do business in Zimbabwe, and why the Government won't answer any questions about it?

The Government wasn't even able to confirm to me that Northern Rock was compliant with the financial sanctions regime in place against leading members of the Mugabe regime, opening up the terrifying possibility that the Government-owned bank is providing off-shore tax-free financial services to members of the regime, a tax haven for their ill-gotten gains.

Taking the initiative after the Irish "No" Vote

The media reaction in Europe over the Irish 'no' vote is interesting. Contrary to expectations, there have been quite a few pieces like this one in Der Spiegel in Germany calling for a new direction for the EU, in favour of democracy:

"European governments are at their wits' end. It is time for them to admit it -- and let the public decide about the future of the European Union."

Yesterday in the House of Commons in a thinly attended debate, Bernard Jenkin and I each made the point that the Irish 'no' vote should be seen as an opportunity for radical change. David Heathcoat-Amory called for a return to the principles first laid out in the 2001 Laeken Declaration calling for a more open, democratic Europe, whilst Sir Malcolm Rifkind sought a solution in an 'a la carte Europe'. Different voices, all with a common theme - the Irish have given us an opportunity to change Europe fundamentally, but that opportunity must be seized now.

Compare this with the Government's depressingly passive and defeatist response, as set out by David Miliband on Monday:

"We should allow the ratification process to continue in all countries; we should then see what the Irish decide to do and plan our next moves after that."

This sounds depressingly like the "wait and see" of the 1990s. Surely we can do better than this?

Maybe Kevan Jones shouldn't throw stones

In recent months, I have been closely observing the sleaze allegations being thrown around between the two parties. Indeed, I have been involved in the investigation of Ken Livingstone's donations and in the investigation - still ongoing - into Gordon Brown subletting his taxpayer funded office to his local Labour Party.

Earlier this week I was genuinely shocked to discover some of the dubious practices of some MEPs, including, if not especially, from our own party (and here I need to mention how lucky we are in London that our re-selected MEPs, Charles Tannock and Syed Kamall, appear to be leading the way on transparency and probity). You develop a sense of which of these scandals are genuinely wrong, which are more likely to be oversights or genuine errors and which have little if anything to them at all.

With this background, to use one of Bill Clinton's expressions, the Spelman allegations "don't amount to a hill of beans". It's more than ten years ago now - to put it in context, it seems to have happened at about the same time as Bernie Ecclestone hit the headlines for his gifts to the Labour Party in return for Formula One being exempt from new tobacco advertising regulations. It happened four years before David Cameron became an MP, let alone Party Leader. The passing of time isn't on its own a reason not to pursue alleged wrongdoing, but in this case there is also no suggestion that Caroline Spelman entered into the nanny arrangement for personal financial gain.

Gordon Brown's Berlin Wall gaffe

Amongst all the criticism thrown at Gordon Brown in recent months, few have yet had reason to question his attention to detail, at least until now. I couldn't help but notice in today's Sunday Telegraph his speech to the Church of Scotland Assembly yesterday:

"If anyone had said 50 years ago that the people of our world would achieve black civil rights, tear down the Berlin Wall, end apartheid, no one would have believed it."

He's right. In 1958 nobody would have thought we could tear down the Berlin Wall - it wasn't built until 1961!

My wife, who was born and brought up in East Berlin, was distinctly unimpressed...

Brown's fingerprints all over Labour's 'disgusting' campaign in Crewe & Nantwich

Labour MP Steve McCabe is the one being vilified in The Guardian today for Labour's controversial "dogwhistle" campaign in Crewe and Nantwich, focusing on ID Cards for foreign nationals. The controversial leaflet was first featured by Guido Fawkes and here on CentreRight by Simon Chapman.

I am surprised that the national media hasn't picked up on this before, as Gordon Brown has regularly been trying to taunt David Cameron at PMQs, asking him why he won't support ID cards which are only for foreign nationals. See PMQs on 19th January, 19th March, and yesterday.

In fact, the "ID cards for foreign nationals" slogan is as much the PM's as the "British jobs for British workers" mantra. McCabe is merely echoing his master's voice.

Immigration chaos

Like every Monday, yesterday was surgery day for me, and waiting for me were nationals of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia and the West Bank/ Gaza, all hoping for news from the Home Office on their immigration cases. At the moment, I have just under 800 unresolved immigration cases with me, being the equivalent to about 1% of my adult constituents. In fact, the number is so large, I could devote myself as a Member of Parliament only to dealing with immigration casework.

I have previously written about how I have more immigration casework than any other Conservative MP (according to Home Office stats), and some of the awful stories I have uncovered - both of cases where the person is genuinely fleeing violence and has been let down by the Home Office, or, as is more often the case, hundreds of people who shouldn't be here, are told they shouldn't be here, but nonetheless aren't being evicted. In that case, the Home Office even apologised to one Hammersmith resident for the delays caused in considering his case, but the slowness was caused by him being "on the United Nations list of those belonging to or associated with the Al-Qaida organisation" and MI5 said he had been "involved in terrorism at the highest level."

Nick Clegg's Tory past

Nick Clegg was in the same Cambridge college as I (Robinson), in the year below me, and almost needless to say I have taken a number of calls in recent days looking for secrets from the past.

Nick was and is a good guy, and actually I don't have any secrets of past behavioural indiscretions anyway. My only real recollection of him was that he was a member of the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA). Robinson was a small college, and not very sympathetic to the Conservatives, and CUCA only had around 40 members in a College of around 300 undergraduates.

I checked my membership records, which I show opposite. I was the Chairman of CUCA in the Lent Term 1988.

Please bear with me, as I take you through the details, neccessary as Nick is denying having been a member.

It's cold up North

Last week, I spent 3 nights in the Arctic as a guest of the Norwegian Government.

My main motivation for going - with temperatures as low as minus 18 it wasn't an obvious choice - was the itinerary including a lot of meetings with experts on relations with Russia in the region. Norway is trying, with some success, to engage with Russia, whilst remaining firm on important issues like democratisation and human rights.

One other aspect turned out more gripping than I expected, and that was the impact of climate change on the Arctic, an aspect brought to international attention by David Cameron two years ago.

In praise of Andrew Gilligan

I was delighted to see that Andrew Gilligan won the Journalist of the Year award last night. The man is often controversial, and he is certainly no Conservative, but he is relentless and addicted to journalistic investigation.

Characteristically, in the middle of the event to receive his own award, he still took my call to discuss the latest on Ken Livingstone's disgraceful efforts to avoid telling the people of London who is funding his campaign. Other winners might have rested on their laurels - but Andrew came up with this splash in today's Standard, the day after the ceremony.

Today, I'm feeling like Gordon Brown

I am off sick today with a painful ear infection. This means I can talk, but am unable to listen. So, for hopefully no more than a day or two, I can experience what it is like to be Gordon Brown.

The Prime Minister is, of course, famous for talking and not listening. He used to infuriate fellow EU finance ministers by having his say and then refusing to put his headphones on to hear any other arguments through simultaneous translation.

A number of us have been observing his peculiar intonation and pronunciation, and have drawn the conclusion that he has only ever read the words, and never heard them pronounced.

No wonder Livingstone's campaign can't take off

No wonder Ken Livingstone's campaign isn't getting lift off - he has hired BAA's communications agency, Karian and Box to produce his leaflets.

This seems odd from a Mayor who is pledged to fight Heathrow expansion. Livingstone has previously said he is against his Labour Government's colleagues' plans to expand Heathrow - but in his London Plan, he "recognises that further runway capacity in the South East will be required to meet London’s needs".

Karian and Box (logo pictured), which is run by two obscure former Labour Councillors, tell us that they were brought in as "the BAA internal communications team needed to review their focus and activity." Let's hope they have the same rate of success with Livingstone as they so clearly have had with BAA!

Ken Livingstone - more fiction

According to Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard Ken Livingstone is appealing to Lib Dem voters to put him as their second preference. As we know, second preference votes on 1st May could be crucial. However, Livingstone claims that in 2004

"he liked Simon Hughes so much that he recommended that Labour voters use their second preferences for the Libs."

There's a small problem with that - it isn't true. I attach here the actual advice that Ken Livingstone sent out in letters signed by him, to London postal voters. He said then "You have a second preference vote: you can cast this for another candidate or not use it". So, in fact, Livingstone preferred Simon Hughes as a second choice no more than Steve Norris, nor even the BNP candidate. I keep meticulous records of previous elections - every now and then, they come in very useful.