More questions than answers...........

To many Thursday's County Council election results were a 'game changer,' as the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), seemed to come from virtually nowhere to win 147 councillors a gain of 136 on the same elections in 2009.

These gains were mainly at the expense of the Conservatives who were down 335 seats, although they remain the largest party in County Councils by some margin, having more than twice as many as the Labour Party.

These elections featured another poor performance by the Liberal Democrats, who lost around a quarter of their councillors. The Conservatives also lost about 25%, but they started from a much higher base, and so were always likely to suffer considerable losses.

The coalition partners then for the first time since forming the government in 2010 both suffered substantial losses, but is this just mid-term blues, or a taste of things to come?

Perhaps if the Labour Party had many more gains we could have read more into the results, but despite a gaining a very good 291 councillors, all that has happened is that Labour are back to where they were in 2009.

There were typical to and fros on Friday as both Conservative and Labour spokespeople each claimed the other had done terribly, trading figures back and forth, and really just generating more heat than light.

As a Labour Party supporter, I was pleased with the results on Thursday, especially as we made gains in areas where the party of often has difficulty making headway, such as the Sussex coastal area, the midlands and the west country. In the long run this may turn out to be more significant than whether or not Labour performed as well as they should have.

However, the real story of the 2013 County Council elections was the performance of UKIP, and whether  it heralds a sea-change in British politics (or perhaps more accurately English as UKIP's presence elsewhere is muted), or a protest vote against all the main parties, with whom the public have become increasingly disillusioned.

But UKIP have a number of problems to overcome before they could be said to have made a real impact on the political scene. True they have had candidates elected to the European Parliament for some time, but have never made much progress, until now, on the domestic scene, and still have got nowhere near having an MP elected.

In 2009's elections for the European Parliament, UKIP came second in the national vote, and many pundits are expecting that next year, they could well come out on top. But, until they have an MP elected under the UKIP banner, being taken seriously will be a problem for them.

There have been many rumours over the last year or so that a number of Conservative MP's might defect to UKIP, the principle issue being David Cameron's unwillingness to call a referendum on membership of the European Union. For Mr Cameron this is a delicate issue, as he too has problems with the EU, how it is administered and how much it costs. However, he is in the end, as is the Chancellor George Osborne, in favour of continued membership provided he can get the concessions he wants. Unfortunately for him, a substantial proportion of his own membership in including those MP's, want out altogether.

But, although a defection would cause the Prime Minister some embarrassment, losing a minor backbencher or two isn't an issue, until UKIP start to get members of Parliament elected under its own banner, advocating a UKIP manifesto.

On the face of it UKIP do present the greatest threat to the Conservative Party, but they can also affect the other main parties. Although Labour did not actually lose any councillors to UKIP on Thursday, inevitably some Labour supporters, for a number of reasons chose to vote for them, and almost certainly it cost Labour wins.

The UKIP performance also, probably, skews the performance of the Conservative party, as it is its supporters who switched here in the main, and without UKIP, the Tories losses would have been many fewer.

I think it would be dangerous to write off the UKIP performance as a mere protest vote, because politics has changed substantially over the last few years. The expenses scandal and the financial crisis has lowered people's opinion of politicians more than ever, and it's hard for leaders to make an impact. trust has gone, and UKIP leader's, Nigel Farage, bluff, bloke down the pub strategy is currently paying dividends.

As the elections drew closer, UKIP's candidates came under greater scrutiny, although not yet their policies, and demonstrated that they too have been caught out by their success, and have yet to put in place a proper candidate programme. Although as the other parties will vouch, that is no guarantee that the odd embarrassment won't slip through.

The General Election is two years away, and a lot will happen between now and then which could have a significant impact. The performance of the economy will be key, and the answers that each of the parties comes up with to deal with those issues.

Will the coalition hold together as they increasingly diverge in their approach? Will the Labour Party be able to come up with policies and rhetoric that enables the public to trust them again? Will the Conservative reaction to the UKIP threat be to lurch to the right, to allay that? Will the Liberal Democrats look to position themselves where they can benefit whichever of Conservative or Labour is the biggest party in 2015? Will UKIP make the breakthrough into Parliament they desire, and need, and become a new force in politics?

There is one other issue that may yet have an effect, and that's the referendum on Scottish independence due in 2014, only eight months before the General Election. A yes vote would create problems, as independence itself would not become a fact until around March 2016.

Would Scotland still send MP's to the House, only to have them leave once independence became a fact? If they did, and there were enough Labour MP's (Conservatives currently being weaker in Scotland than elsewhere in Great Britain) to either make them the biggest party, or even give them a big majority?

Alternatively, the Conservatives could move from being the biggest party to becoming a majority one, having once again been in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Would they dump their junior partners, and form a new government on their own?

Anyway, having strayed off the point a bit here, what does the County Council elections of 2013 tell us about the British political scene?

Not much in the end, the main parties both did pretty much as expected, UKIP did better than expected, but now they have entered the mainstream they will come under greater scrutiny. But with two years to go until a General Election, and European Elections and a Scottish independence referendum in between, there are a lot more questions than answers at the moment, so making predictions is a fool's game.

1984 rebuffed or postponed?

Earlier this year I wrote a very critical blog on the coalition government's draft Communications Data Bill which was being scrutinised by a joint committee of the Commons and the Lords. Finally the committee's report was published in early December 2012, and it was very critical of not only the bill itself, but also of the way it was written.

Right from the beginning the report gives a hint of how importantly it took its job, and its view on the government's role in security, of balancing, 'the safety and security of its citizens,' but with a duty to respect their rights, 'without avoidable intrusions on their privacy.'

The committee then get straight into their core criticism, and it is one that demonstrates why this bill should alarm us all: 

we believe that the draft Bill pays insufficient attention to the duty to respect the right to privacy, and goes much further than it need or should for the purpose of providing necessary and justifiable official access to communications data. Clause 1 would give the Secretary of State sweeping powers to issue secret notices to communications service providers (CSPs) requiring them to retain and disclose potentially limitless categories of data.

The committee is also very doubtful of the claims by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, that she would not use the powers in ways that would be considered overly intrusive and so recommends, 'that her powers should be limited to those categories of data for which a case can be made.' Indeed later on they say explicitly that current safeguards actually work better than is believed, and so prefer to see a strengthening of the roles of the Interception of Communications Commissioner and the Information Commissioner.

As I wrote in my original blog, the police and security services already have sufficient powers to investigate possible criminal and terrorist activities, and the committee is saying that is enough. Indeed they go on to say that if a case can be made for a future increase in powers then proper Parliamentary scrutiny would be required, and it should also apply if powers were to be extended beyond the many agencies, as well as the police, who already have access to the data already available.

The committee, unlike the government, seeks to enable the necessary agencies to properly investigate activities, without, 'the risk of intrusion into the privacy of the vast majority of honest citizens.'

Until 1984 who had access to communications data and what could be done with it was not protected by law, but it was in 2000 and the passing of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), that an attempt to regulate who could access what data and what they could do with it was made. But unlike the new bill it did not dictate which information should be retained, but dealt only with acquisition and disclosure. The new bill, on the other hand, expects data to be stored that is of no use to the service provider, and as I said previously, if the government don't want to access what is being said, why keep it?

I was equally critical in my previous blog of the Labour government which had a similar bill, but dropped it following protests from civil liberties groups, and the opposition in the House from all sides, including the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties and the Information Commissioner was not convinced as he wrote, "that the case has yet to be made for the collection and processing of additional communications data for the population as a whole being relevant and not excessive." Eventually the proposals were dropped due to the amount of opposition, and the impending General Election in 2010.

When the coalition was created in May 2010, the agreement stated, 'We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason,' but as we see it hasn't taken them long to go back on that. This is despite the Liberal democrats long, and creditable record in opposing such legislation, and the Conservatives own document published in 2009 Reversing the Rise of the Surveillance State.

The report includes a large number of examples of what it calls, 'a major encroachment into individual liberty,' which is quoted in the annual report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner. These include things like there being 1.85 million CCTV cameras in the UK (1.7 million being privately owned), the DNA Database, the ELMER database of suspicious activities, the National Pupil Database, and this is all in addition to the trail we leave in our electronic communications.

There are also examples of how communications data was used to prevent a terrorist bombing in 2002 or to catch the murderer of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. It has also been used in uncovering major cases of tax evasion, but as we can see, these already be done using the current legislation, so again I ask, why do they need to store more unless they intend to use it?

However, although the report cites many reasons as to how communications data is invaluable in catching perpetrators, this is to put it all in context, and is not to defend the intentions of the bill.

The committee spent a lot of time, and heard and read evidence from many sources on both sides of the argument. Much of the written and oral evidence can be found here on the committee's web page, although some of it remains secret.

Part of the government's defence is that some 25% of communications data is unavailable to investigators, and will increase with technological progress. But it is unclear where this figure comes from and the committee deems it to an 'unhelpful and potentially misleading' figure as there has not been a 25% drop in the amount of data available. Indeed they say that with in arrival of social networking since the passing of RIPA in 2000, the amount of available data has actually increased.

The service provider London Internet Exchange (LINX) wrote:

Certainly, as people make ever greater use of Internet‐based services, there is an ever greater quantity of data that either exists, or could be brought into existence by statutory requirement. However to say that this “is no longer always retained by communications providers” is highly misleading: communications providers are retaining more communications data than ever before and making it available to public authorities under existing law. The mere fact that even more data could be created, collected and made available hardly constitutes a loss.

However, the committee says that the real issue is not missing data, but 'a lack of ability on behalf of law enforcement agencies to make effective use of the data that is available.' That does not need new legislation to address this problem, but training and resources.

Although many service providers from the United Kingdom and overseas were invited to ask the Home Office questions, they were not consulted on the proposals, although the Home Office claims that they would have been aware of their thinking from the discussions had over time. But, and this is damning, the committee then more or less accuses the Home Office representative of lying and that the Home office were giving a different version to that of the CSPs and that 'On the face of it, there is an inconsistency between these two accounts.'

In the end the first view the CSPs had of the draft bill was under embargo, just a week before its publication. This is despicable behaviour by the government in my opinion, as they have sought to present Parliament and the service providers with a fait accompli and prevent proper scrutiny. 

The committee condemns the government's actions and attitude:

The evidence we received shows that United Kingdom CSPs were not given any details about the possible content of notices before the draft Bill was published, overseas CSPs were not consulted about the draft Bill at all, nor was there any further public consultation.

I think it is becoming plain that what the government is trying to do is predict what may happen in the future, and as we've seen with weather and economic forecasts over the centuries, these are notoriously inaccurate. The committee rightly comes to the conclusion that there is no good reason for granting such wide powers at this time, or that Parliament should do so on a 'precautionary principle.'

The committee, however, whilst aware of the dangers does seem a little complacent on the threat to web logs believing the safeguards in the bill as well as their recommendations would be sufficient. But they do go on to suggest that the Home Office investigate the technological, operational and financial implications of asking CSPs to only keep web logs on services that enable communications between individuals.

There are additional concerns which the report highlights, such as cases where information access has been self-authorised, which means that within the system abuse is possible. Another case was where it was used to track whether or not an applicant for a school place actually lived in the area, which is a ridiculous use of data supposed to prevent criminal activity.

These cases demonstrate just how easy it is for this information to be abused, and that if more data is stored then the opportunities for incorrect use will increase and that's without it being used for obviously criminal activity.

Then we come to the issue of which reasons data is accessible; national security, preventing crime and disorder, illegal financial activities, public safety, or to assist in identifying a deceased person. Now these by and large are areas where we might consider some limited access reasonable.

But then there are also a number of reasons for accessing data I find of great concern; 'interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom,' protecting public health, to assess or collect taxes and duties due. These seem to me to far beyond interest of national security, and although they might be in the public interest, that does not mean they should fall within the auspices of a bill such as this and are open to wide interpretation and would just be abused.

The bill does not come without an intense sense of irony, if unintended, there being an annex that links the bill to the European Convention on Human Rights which expressly says, 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.' 

So once again government shows it has a different interpretation of this from the rest of us. The committee has further concerns with the reasons listed earlier and in the chapter's summary state:

We are concerned that the long list of permitted purposes for which communications data can be requested adds to public disquiet about the breadth of the Bill. While we do not make specific recommendations about how this list could be shortened, we recommend that the Government should consult on whether all the permitted purposes are really necessary.

Another issue to me is that are seven different Commissioners proposed for communications data oversight in the United Kingdom, and surely this is too many? Indeed the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, has said something similar, 'that there ought to be either a single privacy commissioner or a sort of primus inter pares,' and that not much thought had been given to whether these roles could be carried out by existing commissioners without creating others, and the committee supports this by calling for rationalisation of the offices.

There also appears to be a lack of thought going into how those who misuse data (see examples above) should be treated, as the committee actually feels the need to call for imprisonment as a punishment where serious cases occur. This strikes me as either incredibly complacent or evidence of sloppy drafting and the bill should be rejected on those grounds alone.

The report condemns the government even more  when it comes to costs and benefits describing them as, 'misleading and fanciful,' and a new cost benefit analysis included with a new draft bill. Wider and proper consultation should be undertaken and most importantly, the impact assessment should be more detailed and not used to basically try and delude Parliament into passing the bill.

The committee's overall conclusion is:

that there is a case for legislation which will provide the law enforcement authorities with some further access to communications data, but that the current draft Bill is too sweeping, and goes further than it need or should.

Whilst it is acknowledged that technological advances over time will change the nature of communications data, I am concerned that any bill of this nature will be the government's wedge into ever expanding intrusion, and they will be wanting to actually read our communications in the future.

The Conservative chair of the committee has said there should be a 'substantial rewriting' before the bill is presented to Parliament, and the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has agreed with the findings of the report saying:

This detailed and thoughtful report shows the Government is making a complete mess of a very important issue...It is important that the police and security services can keep up-to-date with modern technology, but this bill is too widely drawn... and gives far too much power to the Home Secretary without proper safeguards,... provides too little protection for people’s privacy...  The Government have been slipshod with this bill from the word go...the Home Secretary needs to urgently rethink this legislation and get her approach right so that the police can do their job in fighting crime whilst the public have confidence their privacy is well protected too.

Although how this will translate when or if the bill is presented in the House I don't know. The Labour Party could either go down the road of outright opposition, (and as I've said previously I would rather be hypocritical for opposing this bill when we had something similar in mind, than for proposing it when we had been against in the past) or, and more likely I would think, proposing amendments along the lines recommended by the committee.

I am unable to find an official  government response to the report as yet, but David Cameron has said it will be rewritten, but he still insists that he is committed to giving the police and security services new powers to monitor internet activity, pointing out that the committee had said that there was a justification for doing something.

Still, it became an opportunity for Nick Clegg to show just how different the Liberal Democrats are from the Conservatives by threatening to 'block' it unless there was a 'rethink.' This in effect is a repeat of what committee member Julian Huppert said early in the committee's scrutiny, 'If, at the end of the process, the Home Office cannot come up with a bill that is acceptable to Liberal Democrats, then there will be no bill.'

That is a real danger that this bill, in whatever form it is presented to the House will become about politics rather than security or public safety and catching paedophiles and other criminals. The Conservatives want to be seen to living up to their reputation as the strong party on law and order, the Liberal Democrats as the defenders of civil liberties, and Labour as standing up for freedom but needing to be seen as strong on crime and the causes thereof.

The debates will generate a lot of heat, and will not about deciding which is the best way forward, but who can score the most points off each other.  My own preference is for there to not be a bill at all, as the principle of wanting to be able store and potentially read our communications is of itself wrongheaded.

The powers to investigate all these crimes exist now, we don't need to do anything other than clarify the definitions of what is communications data, and I'm sure there is a simple way of doing that without bringing in such a bad and over reaching bill.

The report is probably one of the most critical a Parliamentary committee has ever produced regarding a proposed piece of legislation, and the rigour with which they approached the task, shows that this is an approach that should be taken to more legislation.

The weaknesses in the draft are plain to see, and this is in addition to the basic problem of the government seeking to have our communications data stored 'just in case.' I hope that there is enough support in Parliament on all sides to vote this down when the government eventually gets round to presenting the rewritten bill, though I suspect they will await the outcome of the next General Election first.

Into the Valley of Death?

Thursday is going to be a big day in the coalition's short history, as the debate and vote on raising university tuition fees is held. Perhaps there is a certain irony in that December 9th will be the anniversary of the first publication of the Alfred Lord Tennyson's 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.'

There may only be 57 Liberal Democrat MPs, but the 'valley of death,' if only electorally awaits them. The guns they are charging on this occasion are those of the students of the future who will be paying these fees.

As the Liberal Democrats ride headlong into the guns, the cannons left and right are constantly bombarding them. Students, and school pupils, the ones who will be hit by the fees, are protesting on the streets. Students are sitting in on university campuses, lecturers are offering them their support. University funding is being dramatically cut, and humanities subjects will receive no funding whatsoever.

However, there is also a fair amount of 'friendly fire' coming from behind. Many of the ordinary Liberal Democrat members are against this, and a number of their MPs, Bob Russell and Simon Wright have said they will vote against. But even more damaging, two of their previous commanders, Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy, have also indicated they will abide by the pledge they signed. These are men who have the respect of people inside and outside politics, and across all parties. They stood up for their beliefs, and didn't just rush unthinking, into the arms someone whispering sweet words in their ears.

The original charge was led by a reckless commander, looking for glory. Poor leadership was the primary cause of the brigade's demise, and so it may well be for the Liberal Democrats.

Nick Clegg was looking for glory. The title of Deputy Prime Minister is one he wears with pride. The uniform of ministerial cars, red boxes, meetings with important international figures, he wears with a sense of entitlement, as though he had worked for them.

Yet, only a few short months ago, his career seemed so promising. His performance in the Prime Ministerial debates took people by surprise, and he especially made a connection with young people. The Liberal Democrats had long advocated free access to higher education for all, and although their policy had changed from immediate abolition of fees, to phasing out, they still had the same basic aim.

Clegg, along with many Liberal Democrat, Labour and four Conservatives candidates, pledged to vote against a rise in tuition fees. Students turned out in droves to elect Liberal Democrats MPs, yet now they feel totally betrayed. Clegg made much of this pledge, and indeed, it became a part of the party's campaign that they were attracting young people, many who would vote for the first time, into politics.

Well, he has certainly done that, though not the way he envisaged. There have been big protests on the streets of London, and other cities and towns around England (this rise does not apply to Scottish students, and the Welsh Assembly has voted to maintain fees at current levels). In fact, my own conversations with students show that many are not actually against the principle of fees in general. They accept that a contribution is inevitable these days, but believe that the trebling of fees, will greatly restrict access for those from less well off backgrounds.

What Clegg has done however, is motivate the young people of England, including school children who will, probably, face even larger increases in future, if the current government is maintained, and get them out on the streets. These are not easy protests either. They are coming as Britain enters a very cold spell. So they are not coming out just because it is easy to do so, and to enjoy the sunshine. They're facing snow and ice, as well as the kettling tactics of the police, which try to hem them into confined areas. They are out because they believe in the cause, and are prepared to put up with much to make their voices heard.

The Conservative majority of the coalition have cleverly turned the entire focus onto the Liberal Democrats. It is effigies of Clegg that are being burned, and although I do not agree with other tactics being used, such as dog mess being out through his letterbox, and it is all self-inflicted.

We've also had the preposterous position of not only Clegg, but Business Secretary Vince Cable, spinning like tops as they work out their stance on this for Thursday's vote. It now seems they have both decided to vote in favour of the rise, which at least for Cable is the only tenable position, being the man responsible for pushing it through.

Since they joined the coalition, the Liberal Democrat standing has fallen dramatically, as they stand anywhere between 9 and 14% in the polls. Next May they seem to be heading towards electoral massacre in the local and devolved elections. They may well also lose their referendum on changing the electoral system, such a change from that warm spring Saturday, when he stood before the fairer vores flash mob, pedging that he would only join a coalition with the Tories, if they gave way on a referendum. How long ago that must all seem now. When Nick Clegg was the most popular politician in Britain, to being the most hated. Harold Wilson was right that a week is a long time, but six months is now a career.

The Liberal Democrats will now decide on Thursday which way to vote. They are a fatally divided band, with those in jobs, and those who want jobs, supporting the rise. Those who want to stay in the favour of the leadership, abstaining, whilst those who still have a semblence of honiur, voting against the rise.

So as they ride into the 'valley of death' the Liberal Democrats will reflect on how it all went so badly wrong. Huge promise dashed on the ambitions of a few. How their commanders lied and prevaricated to get them on board, then threw them at the guns. Their's was not not reason why, but now they will do and die, and I leave them with a suitable epitaph, right from the pen of Tennyson;

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered