Lord Risby: The dogs barked for the Agricultural Wages Board...but Labour's caravan stubbornly refused to move on

By Lord Risby

A little bit of post-war British history has disappeared into the ether with the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board in the House of Lords.  Labour has never felt comfortable with the countryside, and has not the faintest idea as to how current farming practices are carried out. This was blindingly apparent as the proposal was debated.

 In 1948, a considerable number of wages boards were introduced. Gradually, they have been abolished, as they no longer served any purpose. The only one to remain was the Agricultural Wages Board, which set a minimum wage structure and various pay gradations on a higher scale. What was truly remarkable about the legislative proceedings in the House of Lords dealing with this proposed abolition was the sheer passion which its proposed removal provoked in Labour peers.

Since 1948, farming has changed beyond recognition. There is much greater stability in farming today with world food prices improving for producers and with technology having changed dramatically. Very sophisticated and expensive equipment is now being used, requiring wholly different skill sets from before. Many engaged in farming had come to regard the Agricultural Wages Board as wholly irrelevant, but were irritated by the inevitable mounting bureaucracy that surrounded it. It is true that seasonal picking is labour intensive, and poly tunnels have extended the overall picking season, but farm work patterns have become considerably more flexible. Many farmers simply nowadays bring in high technology machinery on hire for ploughing, ditching and harvesting. The overall number of farm workers has shrunk considerably. Over the years, we have also seen significant diversification by farmers, providing specialised farm shops, or cottages for holiday accommodation. Farm workers now frequently multi-task and are happy to do so, but the system has demanded differential pay scales for each of these tasks.

The dogs barked for the Agricultural Wages Board...but Labour's caravan stubbornly refused to move on

By Lord Risby

A little bit of post-war British history has disappeared into the ether with the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board in the House of Lords.  Labour has never felt comfortable with the countryside, and has not the faintest idea as to how current farming practices are carried out. This was blindingly apparent as the proposal was debated.

 In 1948, a considerable number of wages boards were introduced. Gradually, they have been abolished, as they no longer served any purpose. The only one to remain was the Agricultural Wages Board, which set a minimum wage structure and various pay gradations on a higher scale. What was truly remarkable about the legislative proceedings in the House of Lords dealing with this proposed abolition was the sheer passion which its proposed removal provoked in Labour peers.

Since 1948, farming has changed beyond recognition. There is much greater stability in farming today with world food prices improving for producers and with technology having changed dramatically. Very sophisticated and expensive equipment is now being used, requiring wholly different skill sets from before. Many engaged in farming had come to regard the Agricultural Wages Board as wholly irrelevant, but were irritated by the inevitable mounting bureaucracy that surrounded it. It is true that seasonal picking is labour intensive, and poly tunnels have extended the overall picking season, but farm work patterns have become considerably more flexible. Many farmers simply nowadays bring in high technology machinery on hire for ploughing, ditching and harvesting. The overall number of farm workers has shrunk considerably. Over the years, we have also seen significant diversification by farmers, providing specialised farm shops, or cottages for holiday accommodation. Farm workers now frequently multi-task and are happy to do so, but the system has demanded differential pay scales for each of these tasks.

Lord Risby: How Cameron's use of trade envoys is boosting business for Britain abroad

By Lord Risby

If we look at growth projections for Europe overall this year, they are at best anaemic. By contrast, the USA and many other countries seem to have much more promising outlooks. Our non-EU export performance has been good, but others have done better, and of course we have traditionally suffered from a substantial trade deficit.

Last year a cross-Party group of six peers and two MPs was appointed as unpaid Prime Ministerial Trade Envoys – the appellation securing the highest access. My role is in Algeria. It was just over a year ago I went there for the first time, having always been fascinated by its turbulent and at times tragic and violent history. It would be tactful to say that the Franco-Algerian relationship is complicated. Today the French language is increasingly giving way to Arabic and English, and Algeria has developed strong trade relationships with other European countries like Spain, Germany, Italy and Turkey. The country has been remarkably stable, scarred by its own Islamist insurrection over twenty years ago, and views current events in many other Arab countries with alarm.

Our historic links with them had been very limited until President Bouteflika initiated a closer relationship after a visit to Britain in 2006. When David Cameron went there last week, it was as the first British Prime Minister since Algerian independence in 1962. He was warmly received with immense enthusiasm. What has in consequence emerged is a strategic security partnership, a comprehensive commitment to both establishing English language learning facilities and to encouraging trade and investment opportunities. From the President downwards, there is a huge desire to spread the English language, and the British Council is now responding. We of course have had our own experiences of terrorism. Out of the recent tragic events at In Amenas, comes a much closer, stronger partnership on a sustained basis.

Lord Risby: Never, ever again must Tory differences on Europe pave a way for Labour

By Lord Risby

There were several reasons, not least the length of time in office, why the Conservatives lost so dramatically in 1997, but there was one word that affixed itself to the party – namely, disunited – which was routinely used by the media and commentators, based on internal differences about Europe, which was electorally very damaging.  It is a word which must now remain in the deep freeze.

We should also remind ourselves of Labour’s actual performance in Europe, which l was able to observe at first-hand for over three years.  When Tony Blair in 2000 launched the Lisbon agenda, the EU was set the strategic goal for the next decade of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.  What amazed our European neighbours was the total lack of any follow-through by the British Government: no diplomatic or political will or influence was brought to bear.

Lord Risby: A single phone call from Moscow to Damascus could topple Assad

By Lord Risby.

The most visited sites in Syria outside the cities are the magnificent Roman ruins at Palmyra and the vast crusader castle, the Krak des Chevaliers, part of a chain of such castles right across the country. One of the barely reported aspects of the country’s collapse is that some of their key heritage sites are reportedly under real threat, with no visitors, proper maintenance and even actual conflict damage.

It is clear that the unique Syrian tradition of religious co-existence is increasingly fracturing. It is ironic that the Assad regime sold itself as the protector of this culture of tolerance but will bequeath a much more religiously zealous country, and each day that President Assad remains in office, inter-communal tensions and violence grow.

It is undoubtedly true that the Assad regime will run out of money in months, but meanwhile the destruction escalates. Despite their acceptance of the Kofi Annan proposals, there is no evidence that the Syrian government will agree to the political track on offer. Sectarian passions will therefore take their course, and frankly there is little effectively being done to stop this.

Those who know President Assad believe that the Arab League, European countries, Turkey, the United States and others have failed to understand fully the President’s mindset. They argue that as long as he believes that his best chance of survival is to extinguish the insurrection by any means, the views of other countries are irrelevant. He knows that Russia will continue to offer sufficient protection at the United Nations to enable him to cling to this  policy.

Lord Risby: Economic collapse will finish the Assad regime

We are approaching one year since the uprisings in Syria began.  When it all erupted in Deraa, both President Assad and his wife tried to see some of the families who had been impacted, apparently to show some degree of humanitarian concern.  However, thereafter the military violence against the protesters increased exponentially leading to the horrific events which have so dramatically been shown around the world on our television screens.

Assad had allowed his Makhlouf cousins to control a huge portion of the economy.  It is essentially his Alawite family cabal which is spearheading the military onslaught and running the political show.  An early speech to the Syrian parliament blaming foreign agitators was the final flight from reality.  For two years the Turkish government had quietly sought to persuade Assad to begin a political reform process, and when demonstrations erupted in Tunisia, urgently tried to persuade him to act, to no avail.  For years, other Arab leaders had ceased to trust him.  The question of how a formerly London-based ophthalmologist, married to a beautiful, modern and highly intelligent woman, can willingly be at the epicentre of this process of national self-destruction, is frankly unanswerable.

Lord Risby: Grain, gas, and troubles with corruption - the future of the Ukraine

Lord Risby is Chairman of the British Ukrainian Society

Ukraine has not been enjoying favourable publicity of late. The trial and imprisonment of the charismatic former prime minister and Presidential candidate, Yulia Timoshenko, has in the eyes of western diplomats and commentators reflected significant shortcomings in the country’s judicial processes.

Ukraine recently celebrated twenty years of independence from the Soviet Union. Yet perhaps more than any other European part of the old Soviet empire, it has had at times a truly dreadful and at best fractious relationship with its huge northern neighbour. In the early 1930s a famine, the Holodomor, took the lives of millions of Ukrainians. Many believe it was a deliberate act by Stalin and was therefoe in effect genocide. Ukraine’s capital city, Kiev, is centrally important to the Russian Orthodox church.

Lord Risby: Egypt waits for the Muslim Brotherhood - a country in suspended animation

Lord Risby has recently returned from a visit to Egypt with the Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC).

Tahrir Square has achieved iconic status as the epicentre of the Arab spring in Egypt. Without milling crowds, it is really an oval central reservation surrounded by Cairo’s mind-boggling traffic. An air of nervous apprehension pervades the square with fears of violence next week, with mass demonstrations planned to commemorate one year of the initial protests.

All of this severely and very directly impacts the luxury hotels which overlook the Nile just a few hundred yards away. It is a desperate time for the Egyptian economy. In the recently completed parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood obtained 45% of the vote, but the real shock was the Salafists securing 25%. The divided, disorganised secular liberal groups managed only 16%, having allowed themselves to be portrayed as irresponsible, anti-Muslim and Western poodles.

The huge total Islamist vote arose out of increased religiosity, good organisation and communications and welfare support structures, in a country where economic growth and liberalisation have not touched those countless millions who live in grinding poverty. Since Mubarak was deposed, the military [SCAF] have run the country, and by universal agreement from a functional and managerial viewpoint, very poorly. For example, a vital $3.2 billion IMF loan on very favourable terms, was rejected for unfathomable reasons. Ditto the EU and World Bank. Meanwhile foreign reserves have collapsed and the deficit may reach 12% this year.

Every political grouping realises that economic revival is crucial: nobody favours statist solutions, all express determination to banish the wholesale corruption which marked the Mubarak regime. A constitutional commission is about to be formed, primarily with parliamentarians, to determine the powers of the upper house, and most particularly the President. They are in theory meant to report in the spring, with Presidential elections on 30th June. All political parties are at present holding back on presidential endorsements, but if the Muslim Brotherhood does endorse a candidate he will have an excellent chance.

Lord Risby: Algeria, our surprising new best friend

There are few countries so near to us which have had the gruesome and complex history of Algeria, which this year will celebrate fifty years of independence from France.  In 1830 the French removed Ottoman control largely for domestic reasons, to shore up the unpopular reign of Charles X.  In due course the white settler population grew to over a million and Algeria was administered as a département of France.  However, the colonial experience was not a happy one, and ended with extreme violence.

In the war which led to independence, grotesque cruelty was perpetrated on both sides.  By the late 1980s, a poor economic environment of rising inflation and unemployment led to the emergence of the Islamic Salvation Front (SIS) and in due course a civil war between militant Islamists and the army and security forces.  Horrific manifestations of militant Islam have left the deepest scars in the country, with 200,000 deaths, turbulence and destruction continuing beyond 2000.  Discrimination against the minority Berbers led to more bloodshed before concessions were eventually made to them too.

Lord Risby: I cry for you, Argentina

There is no doubt that incumbent governments in many countries currently have difficulty in securing re-election. A notable exception is the almost inevitable outcome in Argentina, where presidential and legislative elections take place on 23rd October. The President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is highly likely to romp home, leaving her rivals in the dust.

Next door the incumbent centre-right president Sebastian Pinera is massively unpopular – a juxtaposition that says much about the vicissitudes of politics. Chile is hugely successful and a model of corruption-free governance with a superb infrastructure, a trade and budgetary surplus, growth of 6.7% this year and inflation at around 3%. Radical free-market reforms have brought this all about. Yet President Pinera enjoys a mere 28% approval rating, with enthusiasm at low ebb even amongst his core supporters.

Lord Risby: Don't just blame MPs and bankers. Blame big government.

Recently the Chief Rabbi wrote an article in the Times of great depth and thoughtfulness. A call for the remoralisation of our national life was at the heart of his thinking.

There has been much fully justified criticism of bankers, MPs and journalists whose recent misdeeds to many  indicate moral decline. Undoubtedly also the extravagances of footballers and the constantly photographed and reported world of celebrities - and what they wear, where they travel, where they eat , where and what they buy - has added to the materialistic spirit of the age.

Lord Risby: Syria's P W Botha moment - how a misjudged Presidential speech sparked national revolt

Lord Risby is the former Conservative MP Richard Spring.

Ultimately, successful political decisions arise out of personal judgment, most especially if you lead a country. No matter what advice you are given, in the end the decision is yours alone. Sometimes it may appear easier to remain in a comfort zone which in reality is a mirage, with dramatic and unexpected consequences.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall six thousand miles away removed one of the few remaining props of Afrikaner nationalism, which had successfully played on the fear of links between Black nationalist groups and Soviet Communism. South Africa had found itself at war in Namibia and Angola, as it tried to hold back radical independence movements. However for some years before, dissent had been growing within South Africa, apartheid was being sustained with increasing brutality, and political and economic isolation was on the rise.

Lord Risby: Universal Jurisdiction is being abused, so its operation must be changed in order to stop it being exploited for political purposes

Lord Risby is the former Conservative MP Richard Spring.

Arising originally out of the Geneva Conventions, we have witnessed the internationalisation of criminal law, with tyrants now running a greater risk of capture, trial and imprisonment. The sight of some truly grotesque individuals in the dock in The Hague is a salutary warning lesson to such people. Justice is now more effectively being meted out for  "universal jurisdiction" offences, such as war crimes, torture and mass murder.

Nonetheless, the Government is seeking to change the operation of universal jurisdiction here with its Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. The reason is simple. Under our present arrangements, the process has been exploited for political purposes which is potentially damaging to our relations with other countries and our ability to pursue those relationships in our national interest.

Currently, the Crown Prosecution Service must decide - based on a report from the Metropolitan Police - whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction. The possibility of seeking prosecution then goes to the Attorney General. Incredibly enough, under the existing arrangements, a private prosecution can actually be sought ahead of the Attorney General’s consent to obtain an arrest warrant.

Lord Risby: The Muslim Brotherhood is on the rise in Egypt

If we were to score nature’s life forces, then the Nile, with its majestic length and width, must rank very high. But unlike its inevitable flow into the Mediterranean, the word inevitable does not apply to the political, economic, social or religious confusion which characterises Egypt today, as I witnessed so clearly during a visit last week.

There are meant to be parliamentary elections at the end of September.  But they may now be postponed. The Army, which is held in high esteem, wants to be relieved of its currently intense and daunting responsibility of overseeing the political reform process. All political groupings other than the Muslim Brotherhood are disorganised, disunited and leaderless, so that many Egyptians are pleading with the Army to delay the vote.

Thus far, the attempts of the more liberal and secular minded to come together have yielded nothing. Business leaders feel that any inordinate electoral delay will further undermine consumer and investment confidence. All Egyptians lament the evaporation of a more visible police presence and worry about security, whether they are private citizens or shopkeepers. The shining new hotels built to accommodate the burgeoning tourist industry are underutilised and unloved. In a country where in 50 years the headscarf has moved from being a rarity to being virtually universal, the Christian minority is both fearful and assertive, and secular Muslims echo this sense of foreboding.

Lord Risby: Israel must grasp the mood for change

Lord Risby is the former Conservative MP Richard Spring.

As a student I visited Israel when the collectivist culture of the founding fathers 63 years ago was still in evidence. The ethos of kibbutz life was a source of considerable national satisfaction. Today as one looks at Israel, it has been transformed into one of the most successful economies in the world. From science to medicine, from IT to bio-technology, Israel continues to produce both brilliant individuals and world-beating businesses of the highest quality.

When Binyamin Netanyahu addresses the US Congress later this month he can feel very proud of his country’s accomplishments. He will be rapturously received by the representatives of a country to which Israel is joined at the hip. Israel’s democratic credentials and its ferociously independent judiciary are complemented, in the American view, by its being on the front line against terrorism, and the threats to its very existence expressed by theocratic Iran.

Yet surely this is precisely the time for Israel to be bold and counter-intuitive, to grasp the mood for change sweeping through its neighbours and embrace it, to set out a new and different geo-political compact for the region. Yet the country’s response to the seismic changes in the Arab world has been muted and cautious. Israel now faces the possibility of a successful Hamas-Fatah alliance, internationally recognised statehood for the Palestinians, a less predictable Egyptian government and an unknown ultimate outcome in Syria.