The Obscurer

I picked a bad time to do the washing up this afternoon. It’s not a chore I usually mind doing on my days off; it can be a pleasant break from Cbeebies, and I get to listen to a bit of Radio 5 on my swish Pure Tempus-1 digital radio. Today, however, while doing the dishes I innocently blundered upon a live broadcast of Tony Blair’s speech to the Labour Party conference. Did he really walk on stage to Sham 69’s “If The Kids Are United”? Yes, I’m afraid he did.

So, how did it go? Well, surprisingly, quite well I thought. No major surprises, nothing to get worked up about, pretty average all in all. The only thing that really annoyed me was that once I had drained the water I realised that I had left two breakfast bowls in the living room, but not to worry; I’ve just placed them by the side of the sink and I will do them next time around.

Blair’s speech? Oh, fuck knows. I switched off; first mentally, and then, when I felt my blood start to boil at his mention of “a radical extension of summary powers to police and local authorities”, literally. I would rather wash the pots in silence. So I did.

Post Script: My favourite Labour conference was a couple of years ago. We were on holiday, staying in a cottage in Cornwall, our movements somewhat restricted by my then three-month old son. Blair’s speech that year was memorable for a hilarious, nonsensical line about the Tories being in danger of going “back where they’ve never been, in 100 years, ’til now”.

But that was trumped by a speech from a sycophantic party hack who praised Blair for having had the courage to remove Nasser Hussein from power; just a few weeks after Nasser had indeed resigned the England captaincy. If Blair really was behind that act then I’m surprised he doesn’t make more of it. After all, the England cricket team look in a far better shape than Iraq does right now, where I believe Blair had a hand in toppling that other Hussein fellow?

In a moving speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke declared

Our strengthening of human rights needs to acknowledge a truth which we should all accept, that the right to be protected from torture and ill-treatment must be considered side by side with the right to be protected from the death and destruction caused by indiscriminate terrorism, sometimes caused, instigated or fomented by nationals from countries outside the EU.

This is a difficult balance to get right and it requires us all as politicians to ask where our citizens – who elected all of us here – would expect us to draw the line.

Well, at least he is prepared to defer to the electorate, and you have got to hope that they will want to draw the line the right side of torture; but is he really saying that the very principle of torture is now up for grabs?

Unbe-fucking-lievable.

Update: NoseMonkey covers this better, and in far greater detail here.

Meanwhile, here in Cheadle, the by-election campaign is drawing to a close. I have survived it all fairly unscathed, having fortuitously avoided Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy on their sojourns to these parts. The nearest I have got to the party machines has been studying the ground as I walked past Conservative candidate (and former MP) Stephen Day in Massie Street car park, and having to cross the High Street while pushing my son in his pushchair because Liberal Democrat Mark Hunter and his entourage were blocking the pavement outside Hampson’s bakers. Thanks.

We have been fairly inundated with leaflets, however, up to five a day, including one from Les Leggett of Veritas (currently, unbelievably, having their own leadership squabble (via NoseMonkey)) and one from John Allman of Alliance For Change (who say they put “human rights, dignity and freedoms first”, which is nice of them). What of the three main parties, though? Well, a couple of weeks ago I wrote that the Conservatives were concentrating of this issue of whether the Lib Dem candidate was an outsider, and they have continued in this vein. I don’t know if they are incredibly insular or simply trying to deceive the electorate, but Marple, where Mark Hunter lives, is local enough for me (although I think the Stephen Day tag-line of “Living Here”, based on the Lib Dem slogan “Winning Here” is quite clever).

One leaflet from the Tories lists some “Lib Dem council failures”; a fair point as Mark Hunter is leader of the council. The three specific failures the Conservatives charge the Liberal Democrats with are

1.Schools Closed
2.Council Tax Rises
3.Pavement Disgrace

Pavement disgrace? And they say the great ideological battles have all been fought out! It’s not exactly “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” is it? But the state of the pavements is brought up again and again in the Conservative leaflets, even quoting “one pensioner from Gatley” as saying

The pavements are a death trap and if you survive them then the traffic has to be seen to be believed, it seems to have got worse in the last four years. On top of all this the Council Tax seems to go up and up under this Lib Dem Council.

Surprised she didn’t mention that the weather has been crap since we last had a Tory MP. The Conservative leaflets have been almost entirely negative and nasty, making some dubious claims (that Cheadle Hulme police station was closed “as a consequence” of council cuts in funding to the police authority, when it was actually closed because a new police station was opened at Cheadle Heath; that to tackle that “horrendous traffic” the Lib Dem council could introduce congestion charging that could cost an extra £2000 a year) and some horrible tactics (associating the “Shocking Crime record of Mark Hunter”, because of the council’s record on issuing ASBO’s, with a Stockport Express headline “Police Warning After Rape – woman attacked in Cheadle Hulme)”.

We have only received a few Labour leaflets; the first also concentrated on the ASBO issue, the front page including a four paragraph passage from candidate Martin Miller calling for the council to make more use of the legislation the Labour government has introduced. It seems this passage was so good that it was repeated in full on the reverse…and that was about all that leaflet said. Since then Labour have also joined in with the negative campaigning, calling Mark Hunter “unfit to be our MP” and “Wanted for Crimes Against Cheadle”, even that he is a “Grave Wrecker?” as he was council leader during the “Stockport cemeteries scandal” ( a scandal that I confess has passed me by; there’s nothing on Wikipedia). Stephen Day meanwhile escaped unscathed, which seems odd for those like me who still see politics largely in terms of being for or against the Conservatives (even if I acknowledge how silly it is to hold such a position).

The Liberal Democrats have issued by far the most leaflets, as is usually the case. They started off being more positive, concentrating on their own policies rather than just slagging off the opposition, but recently they have been issuing leaflets stating “Residents blast Tory ‘tactics’” as “Stephen Day’s Tories deployed negative American style campaign tactics”; which is, of course, just a negative campaign tactic itself. Some of the Lib Dem attacks seem fair enough – for example pointing out that Mark Hunter won the election in his council ward, rather than coming third as the Conservatives stated – but overall it is sad that they have appeared unable to just rise above it. The low point for me was when we received a letter from Clive Calton, widower of former MP Patsy Calton, urging support for Mark Hunter; I guess he is entitled – and may feel obliged – to get involved, but that left a pretty bad taste in the mouth.

I generally vote Liberal Democrat out of instinct, and I will do so again; whatever my criticisms of their campaign they are nothing compared to the Conservatives’ tactics. The shame is that during the years that Stephen Day was our MP, I generally though well of him. I figured if you had to have a Tory MP then he wasn’t all that bad; but I have changed my mind now. I want him to lose tomorrow, because of his shabby campaign that the Lib Dems and Labour seem to have responded to.

Most of all, though, I will be glad when it is all over. Today I got a letter from Charles Kennedy saying “You’re no doubt fed up with all the leaflets about the by-election following the tragic death of Patsy Calton six weeks ago”. You’re not wrong, Charlie; spot on.

Update 15/7/05: Lib Dems win Cheadle by-election