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Friday 26th October 2012 | 14:02
Jeremy Hunt and Maria Miller’s recent comments on reducing the abortion limit sparked a fierce debate. The hysteria that ensued was typical of the entire abortion debate, where any discussion about reducing the time limit on abortion is decried as an attack on women’s reproductive rights. But this is just a politically convenient and simplistic view of a complex and highly emotive issue.
I am not anti-choice. In fact, I am strongly of the opinion that a woman should have the right to choose. However, I believe that there comes a point when society has a responsibility to balance this right against the rights of an unborn child. For me, and for many others, this point is at 20 weeks.
At 20 weeks a foetus does have a chance of survival outside the womb. In fact, a recent study from the Office of National Statistics has shown that one in 10 babies born under the abortion limit survives. But scientific evidence in this area is difficult because you cannot compare the viability of premature babies born between 20-24 weeks because of health problems with the likelihood of a healthy but aborted foetus surviving during the same period. This is not comparing like with like.
There is growing support in the medical community for the opinion that there needs to be a reduction in the time limits on abortion. According to Dr Max Pemberton writing in The Daily Telegraph, many doctors are “uncomfortable with the current cut-off point.” In his words, “It is not something we openly discuss, because we know it is a highly emotive area. But privately, many doctors will express discomfort that the current legislation is inherently illogical and inconsistent. In the same hospital where doctors are trying to save a premature baby born at, say, 23 weeks, a woman down the corridor is legally allowed to undergo a late-stage abortion on a foetus of the same gestation. So on the one hand we throw considerable money and resources to try to save a baby’s life, while on the other we sanction its destruction.”
Polls show that parliamentary opinion on abortion is out of touch with public opinion. A detailed ComRes poll found that 61% of the British public believe it is time to reduce the abortion limit compared to just 28% who want it to remain the same. Given that this demonstrates a clear majority of the public agree that the abortion limit should be reduced. Perhaps it is now time that parliamentarians started listening to their constituents about this important issue and begin to represent their views.
It is also important to recognise that it is women, not men, who are more in favour of reducing the time limit on abortion. The ComRes poll results show that 65% were women were in favour of lowering the abortion limit below 24 weeks compared to only 58%. Perhaps those on the left calling the current abortion debate a misogynistic Tory plot to reduce women’s rights should take a look at the facts and understand that it is actually women who are pushing for the reduction.
Times have changed and it is time for those on the left to catch-up. Abortion is an important issue and one that the public cares about and for this reason the debate must be had.
Backbench Business
Nadine Dorries puts forward her arguments for a backbench business debate on reducing the abortion limit
Jeremy Hunt and Maria Miller’s recent comments on reducing the abortion limit sparked a fierce debate. The hysteria that ensued was typical of the entire abortion debate, where any discussion about reducing the time limit on abortion is decried as an attack on women’s reproductive rights. But this is just a politically convenient and simplistic view of a complex and highly emotive issue.
I am not anti-choice. In fact, I am strongly of the opinion that a woman should have the right to choose. However, I believe that there comes a point when society has a responsibility to balance this right against the rights of an unborn child. For me, and for many others, this point is at 20 weeks.
At 20 weeks a foetus does have a chance of survival outside the womb. In fact, a recent study from the Office of National Statistics has shown that one in 10 babies born under the abortion limit survives. But scientific evidence in this area is difficult because you cannot compare the viability of premature babies born between 20-24 weeks because of health problems with the likelihood of a healthy but aborted foetus surviving during the same period. This is not comparing like with like.
There is growing support in the medical community for the opinion that there needs to be a reduction in the time limits on abortion. According to Dr Max Pemberton writing in The Daily Telegraph, many doctors are “uncomfortable with the current cut-off point.” In his words, “It is not something we openly discuss, because we know it is a highly emotive area. But privately, many doctors will express discomfort that the current legislation is inherently illogical and inconsistent. In the same hospital where doctors are trying to save a premature baby born at, say, 23 weeks, a woman down the corridor is legally allowed to undergo a late-stage abortion on a foetus of the same gestation. So on the one hand we throw considerable money and resources to try to save a baby’s life, while on the other we sanction its destruction.”
Polls show that parliamentary opinion on abortion is out of touch with public opinion. A detailed ComRes poll found that 61% of the British public believe it is time to reduce the abortion limit compared to just 28% who want it to remain the same. Given that this demonstrates a clear majority of the public agree that the abortion limit should be reduced. Perhaps it is now time that parliamentarians started listening to their constituents about this important issue and begin to represent their views.
It is also important to recognise that it is women, not men, who are more in favour of reducing the time limit on abortion. The ComRes poll results show that 65% were women were in favour of lowering the abortion limit below 24 weeks compared to only 58%. Perhaps those on the left calling the current abortion debate a misogynistic Tory plot to reduce women’s rights should take a look at the facts and understand that it is actually women who are pushing for the reduction.
Times have changed and it is time for those on the left to catch-up. Abortion is an important issue and one that the public cares about and for this reason the debate must be had.
Thursday 25th October 2012 | 20:01
WORDS: PAUL WAUGH AND SAM MACRORY
Sadiq Khan is a Red and proud. But although one of Ed Miliband’s key lieutenants is on the centre left, it’s not his politics that puts him most at odds with the new Justice Secretary.
Liverpool fan Khan puts it bluntly: “The additional bonus of having Chris Grayling as my opponent is that nothing gives me greater satisfaction than stuffing a ManU fan.”
The quote is typical Khan: cheeky, combative, demotic. The Shadow Justice Secretary and Shadow Lord Chancellor certainly likes mixing it with the Conservatives, punching above his weight (and height, especially when it comes to the 6ft Grayling).
Sitting in his office – aptly located in the Old Scotland Yard – he knows that the criminal justice system will get increasing prominence in the run up to the next election.
Yet there is one thing he and Grayling appear to have in common: a passion for the power of political ideas. Khan says Grayling arrived to his brief with the reputation of a no-nonsense right winger and someone with little time for the more liberal instincts of his predecessor.
However, he won’t rush to conclusions. “He’s not Ken Clarke. He really isn’t. [But] I think people who pigeon-hole him as being a right wing head-banger are doing him a disservice. He’s not. He’s thoughtful. I’m not going to prejudge him,” Khan says.
That said, he’s quick to note that “the rhetoric has changed”, particularly on prison policy, since Grayling’s appointment last month. The new ‘Tough Justice Secretary’ “opposed… straight away” Clarke’s target to reduce the prison population.
The Prime Minister used the issue as he tried to seize the political initiative earlier this week with his first law and order speech since he came to office. Like Grayling, David Cameron balanced his enthusiasm for rehabilitation with a tougher message on prison places, insisting that “the number of people behind bars will not be about bunks available, it will be about how many people have committed serious crimes”.
Yet, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said that if a rehabilitation revolution is to be delivered politicians have a choice: reduce the prison population or increase budgets. Where does Khan stand?
On Cameron’s ‘bunk promise’, Khan believes that “overcrowding is not conducive to rehabilitation”, arguing that with the prison population rising the Government made a mistake when it shut six prisons as part of the Ministry of Justice’s £2bn savings agenda.
“Prison has its place, of course it does. What is the purpose of prison? If the purpose of prison is to give communities respite – it works. If the purpose is to punish, it works as well. But if it is also to reform, then there are question marks there. I think prison does serve a very important purpose, but actually for prison to work even better you need to aggressively intervene and help those reform whilst in prison if that’s the right place for them.”
However, he is unconvinced that Grayling can do little more than change tone.
“I think the problem he’s got, they’re now 29 months in, 30 months in, so the time for Chris Grayling to make a difference on the ground is limited, and his resources are limited, so that makes it difficult for Grayling to do anything of substance by 2015. What he can do is change the rhetoric and tone.”
Where Khan admits he “quite liked” Ken Clarke, with the pair enjoying “one to ones… discussing policies and stuff”, it doesn’t sound like the rapport has been replicated with his successor. Could that be because Clarke, like Khan, came to politics from the law, while Grayling enjoyed a career in the media before his election to Parliament?
“I’m not going to knock him for not being a lawyer” Khan interjects, preferring to focus on Grayling’s broader understanding of his brief. He adds that it is “healthy” that the Lord Chancellor is not a lawyer, pointing out it means he can tackle “producer interests” more easily. It’s more about his lack of experience on the ground, Khan says.
“I’m not suggesting at all that being the MP for Epsom and Ewell doesn’t give you a good grounding in some of the challenges we face in inner cities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,” he says, wryly. “But he’s not got the same coal face experience that any of his predecessors have had. What does he understand about some of the challenges we face? I think that’s where there are some question marks about him.”
Khan says that one area where Grayling needs to update his rhetoric is on a recent court decision which ordered a Christian B&B owner to pay £3,000 in compensation to a gay couple who she turned away in 2010.
Back then, Grayling had backed the owner’s right to refuse guests if it clashed with her beliefs. Khan says Grayling was “wrong to say what he did. If a politician who at the time wanted to be Home Secretary has those beliefs, then I think they’re wrong. Now that he’s the Justice Secretary, now that a court has agreed that it was against the law, he should apologise.”
Khan is no stranger to challenging orthodoxy. In the 2010 Labour leadership race, he was Ed Miliband’s campaign manager in the Commons, a risky move that has since paid off in spades. After two years of struggling, does the public now see the same Ed Miliband he backed so strongly two years ago? “What you’re seeing now is more and more of the Ed Miliband that those of us who know Ed know he’s like. One of the few good things about the Fixed Term Parliament Act is we know the date of the next election. So there’s a sense of calm and working backwards from that. We’ve got staging posts between now and the summit so there’s no sense of panic when things are less good and there’s no sense of silly euphoria when things go well. It’s that sense of calm that is most impressive about Ed. People caricature it as zen-like, but the guy has got an ability to compartmentalise and juggle many balls. Only those who’ve been a leader can know how difficult that must be. That sense of calm needs to spread out not just to his office and Shadow Cabinet and MPs but should spread to activists and voters.”
Constitutional reform is a key part of Khan’s brief . “House of Lords reform is unfinished business, but you can’t look at it piecemeal,” he says. “I would be far more ambitious. I’m fascinated by the idea of a convention of some kind, a People’s Convention, where you look at the whole area: issues of trust, votes at 16, what happens if the question goes the wrong way in Scotland, recall of MPs. There’s a serious issue, for example, that only English MPs get about many of our voters asking the question: ‘how come those guys get a say in what you guys do and you don’t in their stuff?’
“There’s our relationship with Europe too. The Conservatives say we need a British Bill of Rights. I agree, that’s why I support the Human Rights Act, which is a British Bill of Rights. But if it’s the case, for argument’s sake, that actually we should go further and beyond what’s in the Convention and HRA, that’s an interesting discussion and we need to discuss it coolly, calmly.”
Another area his People’s Convention would address is the whole idea of citizenship in the school curriculum. Khan explains: “One of the frustrations I have is I often meet people who have gone through the citizenship ceremony who are so excited and so enthused and then I’ll be canvassing in my area and there’ll be people who have lived in the same home for three or four or five generations who know bugger all about our country, about our heritage. It frustrates me that you’ve got new citizens who have an obligation to learn about our country but we aren’t doing enough to make sure everyone shares that knowledge.”
Khan has made British history himself, as the first Asian Privy Counsellor of modern times and the first Muslim to attend Cabinet. But even though he’s now part of the Establishment, does he still encounter casual, day-to-day racism? For the first time in the interview, he looks uncomfortable. “I’m always nervous about that question... I have spent my life trying to encourage people from diverse backgrounds into politics and before that into law, whether it’s in assemblies, mosques, community centres, temples, churches. I’m always nervous about telling some of my stories, because I have suffered challenging times, as it may discourage others to come forward. What I’d rather do is encourage people. There are still challenges, of course there are in 2012.”
But is it true, for example, that when he was a practising solicitor some judges presumed he was the defendant rather than the lawyer? “Yes,” he admits, before swiftly adding “but I don’t play the victim card. I’m uncomfortable about discouraging youngsters from coming forward to be lawyers, judges and journalists and politicians. What I tend to do is try to explain to young people ‘work hard, apply yourself and you can achieve this’. There weren’t role models when I was younger. They are out there now. So I’d rather talk about that than some of my horror stories.”
While he’s uneasy talking about his own experiences of racism, Khan has no reticence about backing black players unhappy with football’s attitude to the issue. He says Rio Ferdinand was right this week to boycott the Kick It Out anti-racism t-shirt. “[Sir Alex] Ferguson, who I admire (and I say that painfully as a Liverpool fan) was wrong to say that he would discipline Rio for not wearing it. What my values tell me is you should try and walk in somebody else’s shoes for while to understand what it’s like... Ferguson may have come from a humble background and he may be a thoroughly fantastic guy and a Labour supporter, but he can’t walk in Rio’s shoes. For him to have done what he did demonstrates an ignorance that surprises me for such a brilliant manager.”
Khan is also more at ease when asked how important his Muslim faith is to him.
“It dictates my life. From when I wake up until I sleep, it defines who I am. My attitude to other people, how I carry myself, my family, faith is very important as are other things. I’m married, I’m a father, I’m Asian, I’m a Londoner, all of those other things are important too but I was brought up to be a practising Muslim,” he says.
Does he find politics hard to fit in with the requirement to pray five times a day and fast?
“It’s difficult. We have this provision for late prayers, called Qasr, so very often I will try and combine a number of prayers into one which will no doubt get my lovely imam telling me off. Fasting is very difficult in summer. If Eid falls on a working day I’ve often had to go to early morning prayers and come and do a full day’s work. The kids [he has two daughters] miss out…It’s hard.”
Khan, who is proud that as a minister he oversaw the first breaking of the Ramadan at the British embassy in Washington, is keen to stress just how progressive the UK is on religious tolerance and opportunity.
It remains the fact that a boy of Pakistani heritage from a Tooting council estate can still rise to the highest ranks of politics over here. “Something my cousins in Pakistan and India say is ‘you know, we in our country of birth can’t imagine being in our Cabinet in India and Pakistan and yet there you are as a minority both racially and religiously and you’ve reached the heights you have’. It’s worth bearing that in mind.”
A Counsel of calm
Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan talks faith, prisons, and the sense of tranquillity emanating from Ed Miliband
WORDS: PAUL WAUGH AND SAM MACRORY
Sadiq Khan is a Red and proud. But although one of Ed Miliband’s key lieutenants is on the centre left, it’s not his politics that puts him most at odds with the new Justice Secretary.
Liverpool fan Khan puts it bluntly: “The additional bonus of having Chris Grayling as my opponent is that nothing gives me greater satisfaction than stuffing a ManU fan.”
The quote is typical Khan: cheeky, combative, demotic. The Shadow Justice Secretary and Shadow Lord Chancellor certainly likes mixing it with the Conservatives, punching above his weight (and height, especially when it comes to the 6ft Grayling).
Sitting in his office – aptly located in the Old Scotland Yard – he knows that the criminal justice system will get increasing prominence in the run up to the next election.
Yet there is one thing he and Grayling appear to have in common: a passion for the power of political ideas. Khan says Grayling arrived to his brief with the reputation of a no-nonsense right winger and someone with little time for the more liberal instincts of his predecessor.
However, he won’t rush to conclusions. “He’s not Ken Clarke. He really isn’t. [But] I think people who pigeon-hole him as being a right wing head-banger are doing him a disservice. He’s not. He’s thoughtful. I’m not going to prejudge him,” Khan says.
That said, he’s quick to note that “the rhetoric has changed”, particularly on prison policy, since Grayling’s appointment last month. The new ‘Tough Justice Secretary’ “opposed… straight away” Clarke’s target to reduce the prison population.
The Prime Minister used the issue as he tried to seize the political initiative earlier this week with his first law and order speech since he came to office. Like Grayling, David Cameron balanced his enthusiasm for rehabilitation with a tougher message on prison places, insisting that “the number of people behind bars will not be about bunks available, it will be about how many people have committed serious crimes”.
Yet, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said that if a rehabilitation revolution is to be delivered politicians have a choice: reduce the prison population or increase budgets. Where does Khan stand?
On Cameron’s ‘bunk promise’, Khan believes that “overcrowding is not conducive to rehabilitation”, arguing that with the prison population rising the Government made a mistake when it shut six prisons as part of the Ministry of Justice’s £2bn savings agenda.
“Prison has its place, of course it does. What is the purpose of prison? If the purpose of prison is to give communities respite – it works. If the purpose is to punish, it works as well. But if it is also to reform, then there are question marks there. I think prison does serve a very important purpose, but actually for prison to work even better you need to aggressively intervene and help those reform whilst in prison if that’s the right place for them.”
However, he is unconvinced that Grayling can do little more than change tone.
“I think the problem he’s got, they’re now 29 months in, 30 months in, so the time for Chris Grayling to make a difference on the ground is limited, and his resources are limited, so that makes it difficult for Grayling to do anything of substance by 2015. What he can do is change the rhetoric and tone.”
Where Khan admits he “quite liked” Ken Clarke, with the pair enjoying “one to ones… discussing policies and stuff”, it doesn’t sound like the rapport has been replicated with his successor. Could that be because Clarke, like Khan, came to politics from the law, while Grayling enjoyed a career in the media before his election to Parliament?
“I’m not going to knock him for not being a lawyer” Khan interjects, preferring to focus on Grayling’s broader understanding of his brief. He adds that it is “healthy” that the Lord Chancellor is not a lawyer, pointing out it means he can tackle “producer interests” more easily. It’s more about his lack of experience on the ground, Khan says.
“I’m not suggesting at all that being the MP for Epsom and Ewell doesn’t give you a good grounding in some of the challenges we face in inner cities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,” he says, wryly. “But he’s not got the same coal face experience that any of his predecessors have had. What does he understand about some of the challenges we face? I think that’s where there are some question marks about him.”
Khan says that one area where Grayling needs to update his rhetoric is on a recent court decision which ordered a Christian B&B owner to pay £3,000 in compensation to a gay couple who she turned away in 2010.
Back then, Grayling had backed the owner’s right to refuse guests if it clashed with her beliefs. Khan says Grayling was “wrong to say what he did. If a politician who at the time wanted to be Home Secretary has those beliefs, then I think they’re wrong. Now that he’s the Justice Secretary, now that a court has agreed that it was against the law, he should apologise.”
Khan is no stranger to challenging orthodoxy. In the 2010 Labour leadership race, he was Ed Miliband’s campaign manager in the Commons, a risky move that has since paid off in spades. After two years of struggling, does the public now see the same Ed Miliband he backed so strongly two years ago? “What you’re seeing now is more and more of the Ed Miliband that those of us who know Ed know he’s like. One of the few good things about the Fixed Term Parliament Act is we know the date of the next election. So there’s a sense of calm and working backwards from that. We’ve got staging posts between now and the summit so there’s no sense of panic when things are less good and there’s no sense of silly euphoria when things go well. It’s that sense of calm that is most impressive about Ed. People caricature it as zen-like, but the guy has got an ability to compartmentalise and juggle many balls. Only those who’ve been a leader can know how difficult that must be. That sense of calm needs to spread out not just to his office and Shadow Cabinet and MPs but should spread to activists and voters.”
Constitutional reform is a key part of Khan’s brief . “House of Lords reform is unfinished business, but you can’t look at it piecemeal,” he says. “I would be far more ambitious. I’m fascinated by the idea of a convention of some kind, a People’s Convention, where you look at the whole area: issues of trust, votes at 16, what happens if the question goes the wrong way in Scotland, recall of MPs. There’s a serious issue, for example, that only English MPs get about many of our voters asking the question: ‘how come those guys get a say in what you guys do and you don’t in their stuff?’
“There’s our relationship with Europe too. The Conservatives say we need a British Bill of Rights. I agree, that’s why I support the Human Rights Act, which is a British Bill of Rights. But if it’s the case, for argument’s sake, that actually we should go further and beyond what’s in the Convention and HRA, that’s an interesting discussion and we need to discuss it coolly, calmly.”
Another area his People’s Convention would address is the whole idea of citizenship in the school curriculum. Khan explains: “One of the frustrations I have is I often meet people who have gone through the citizenship ceremony who are so excited and so enthused and then I’ll be canvassing in my area and there’ll be people who have lived in the same home for three or four or five generations who know bugger all about our country, about our heritage. It frustrates me that you’ve got new citizens who have an obligation to learn about our country but we aren’t doing enough to make sure everyone shares that knowledge.”
Khan has made British history himself, as the first Asian Privy Counsellor of modern times and the first Muslim to attend Cabinet. But even though he’s now part of the Establishment, does he still encounter casual, day-to-day racism? For the first time in the interview, he looks uncomfortable. “I’m always nervous about that question... I have spent my life trying to encourage people from diverse backgrounds into politics and before that into law, whether it’s in assemblies, mosques, community centres, temples, churches. I’m always nervous about telling some of my stories, because I have suffered challenging times, as it may discourage others to come forward. What I’d rather do is encourage people. There are still challenges, of course there are in 2012.”
But is it true, for example, that when he was a practising solicitor some judges presumed he was the defendant rather than the lawyer? “Yes,” he admits, before swiftly adding “but I don’t play the victim card. I’m uncomfortable about discouraging youngsters from coming forward to be lawyers, judges and journalists and politicians. What I tend to do is try to explain to young people ‘work hard, apply yourself and you can achieve this’. There weren’t role models when I was younger. They are out there now. So I’d rather talk about that than some of my horror stories.”
While he’s uneasy talking about his own experiences of racism, Khan has no reticence about backing black players unhappy with football’s attitude to the issue. He says Rio Ferdinand was right this week to boycott the Kick It Out anti-racism t-shirt. “[Sir Alex] Ferguson, who I admire (and I say that painfully as a Liverpool fan) was wrong to say that he would discipline Rio for not wearing it. What my values tell me is you should try and walk in somebody else’s shoes for while to understand what it’s like... Ferguson may have come from a humble background and he may be a thoroughly fantastic guy and a Labour supporter, but he can’t walk in Rio’s shoes. For him to have done what he did demonstrates an ignorance that surprises me for such a brilliant manager.”
Khan is also more at ease when asked how important his Muslim faith is to him.
“It dictates my life. From when I wake up until I sleep, it defines who I am. My attitude to other people, how I carry myself, my family, faith is very important as are other things. I’m married, I’m a father, I’m Asian, I’m a Londoner, all of those other things are important too but I was brought up to be a practising Muslim,” he says.
Does he find politics hard to fit in with the requirement to pray five times a day and fast?
“It’s difficult. We have this provision for late prayers, called Qasr, so very often I will try and combine a number of prayers into one which will no doubt get my lovely imam telling me off. Fasting is very difficult in summer. If Eid falls on a working day I’ve often had to go to early morning prayers and come and do a full day’s work. The kids [he has two daughters] miss out…It’s hard.”
Khan, who is proud that as a minister he oversaw the first breaking of the Ramadan at the British embassy in Washington, is keen to stress just how progressive the UK is on religious tolerance and opportunity.
It remains the fact that a boy of Pakistani heritage from a Tooting council estate can still rise to the highest ranks of politics over here. “Something my cousins in Pakistan and India say is ‘you know, we in our country of birth can’t imagine being in our Cabinet in India and Pakistan and yet there you are as a minority both racially and religiously and you’ve reached the heights you have’. It’s worth bearing that in mind.”
Thursday 25th October 2012 | 20:00
WORDS: PAUL WAUGH
And so on it goes. From the Budget ‘omnishambles’ of six months ago to the ‘omnivoreshambles’ of this week, the most common advice for David Cameron these days is “Get a grip!”
But that’s not just a tired Labour propaganda line from an Opposition that sniffs blood in the water every time the Government’s competence is questioned. More worryingly for No.10, it’s also the message from some Tory backbenchers frustrated by repeated own goals.
In fact, as the Andrew Mitchell affair proved, the most ominous complaints come not from the ‘usual suspects’ but from the very loyalists any Government relies upon when times get sticky.
Most Conservatives simply want to focus on the big issues like turning the economy round and radical reforms of public services. Yet these dogged loyalists, who dutifully read out the ‘lines to take’ from CCHQ, are getting weary of looking rather daft whenever a new U-turn or cock-up happens. When you’ve spent months sticking to a line, it’s all the more galling when a minister suddenly tears up that line.
Of course, one man’s prevarication is another man’s evidence-based government and rational decision making. One of Mr Cameron’s most admired assets is his determination not to sack ministers at the mere whiff of a scandal or poor front page.
As he told us reporters this week, rather testily: “It’s the easiest thing in the world as Prime Minister to just sack someone at the drop of a hat when something goes wrong. Much easier, keeps all of you in the press very happy, you make your point, someone is fired. Never worry about the justice of it, just fire them.
“But that’s not the right way to behave as Prime Minister. The time it takes might be uncomfortable and difficult for politicians and governments...but in the end, government is about doing the right thing.”
He even expressed some sympathy for the BBC’s own problems, particularly the criticism that it delayed in setting up an inquiry and looked sluggish to respond. “As we were saying about the BBC, sometimes these things do take a bit of time...if someone has apologised you need to give them a chance to do their job...rather than just do the easy thing quick at the Lobby meeting at 11’o clock and have the person out the door which Tony Blair sometimes did…”
The PM has clearly read the Blair playbook and wants to avoid his mistakes. Yet some ministers think that he’s taken the reluctance to fire too far the other way.
The bigger fear of one minister I talked to this week is that the PM is actually indulging in one of Blair’s worst traits: making a political ‘cost-benefit’ analysis on a string of issues, guided by focus groups, rather than making up his mind and sticking to it. “The forests U-turn was the moment the rot set in,” the minister says. This was the first real volte-face, forced by vigorous lobbying. Backbenchers also point to Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove as the two most successful ministers and wonder if it is precisely because they have no truck with U-turns. IDS and Gove get an easier ride from a media that largely agrees with their school and welfare reforms, but neither can be called ‘timid’.
Politics can sometimes be more like a poker game than a scientific enterprise. Prime Ministers can’t dictate the cards they get, but at times David Cameron seems like the worst poker player at the table: failing to capitalise when he gets a good hand (as with the unemployment stats) and paying too heavy a price when he gets a terrible hand (as with Plebgate).
As I wrote a few months ago, the date that’s been pencilled in the No.10 and No.11 diary for a long time was October 25. If the PM fails to capitalise on the release of the Q3 2012 GDP figures and get the Big Mo he needs, it will ultimately be the voters who ‘grip’ him where it most hurts – in the ballots.
Pointing the way?
Tories want leadership not drift from David Cameron, writes Paul Waugh
WORDS: PAUL WAUGH
And so on it goes. From the Budget ‘omnishambles’ of six months ago to the ‘omnivoreshambles’ of this week, the most common advice for David Cameron these days is “Get a grip!”
But that’s not just a tired Labour propaganda line from an Opposition that sniffs blood in the water every time the Government’s competence is questioned. More worryingly for No.10, it’s also the message from some Tory backbenchers frustrated by repeated own goals.
In fact, as the Andrew Mitchell affair proved, the most ominous complaints come not from the ‘usual suspects’ but from the very loyalists any Government relies upon when times get sticky.
Most Conservatives simply want to focus on the big issues like turning the economy round and radical reforms of public services. Yet these dogged loyalists, who dutifully read out the ‘lines to take’ from CCHQ, are getting weary of looking rather daft whenever a new U-turn or cock-up happens. When you’ve spent months sticking to a line, it’s all the more galling when a minister suddenly tears up that line.
Of course, one man’s prevarication is another man’s evidence-based government and rational decision making. One of Mr Cameron’s most admired assets is his determination not to sack ministers at the mere whiff of a scandal or poor front page.
As he told us reporters this week, rather testily: “It’s the easiest thing in the world as Prime Minister to just sack someone at the drop of a hat when something goes wrong. Much easier, keeps all of you in the press very happy, you make your point, someone is fired. Never worry about the justice of it, just fire them.
“But that’s not the right way to behave as Prime Minister. The time it takes might be uncomfortable and difficult for politicians and governments...but in the end, government is about doing the right thing.”
He even expressed some sympathy for the BBC’s own problems, particularly the criticism that it delayed in setting up an inquiry and looked sluggish to respond. “As we were saying about the BBC, sometimes these things do take a bit of time...if someone has apologised you need to give them a chance to do their job...rather than just do the easy thing quick at the Lobby meeting at 11’o clock and have the person out the door which Tony Blair sometimes did…”
The PM has clearly read the Blair playbook and wants to avoid his mistakes. Yet some ministers think that he’s taken the reluctance to fire too far the other way.
The bigger fear of one minister I talked to this week is that the PM is actually indulging in one of Blair’s worst traits: making a political ‘cost-benefit’ analysis on a string of issues, guided by focus groups, rather than making up his mind and sticking to it. “The forests U-turn was the moment the rot set in,” the minister says. This was the first real volte-face, forced by vigorous lobbying. Backbenchers also point to Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove as the two most successful ministers and wonder if it is precisely because they have no truck with U-turns. IDS and Gove get an easier ride from a media that largely agrees with their school and welfare reforms, but neither can be called ‘timid’.
Politics can sometimes be more like a poker game than a scientific enterprise. Prime Ministers can’t dictate the cards they get, but at times David Cameron seems like the worst poker player at the table: failing to capitalise when he gets a good hand (as with the unemployment stats) and paying too heavy a price when he gets a terrible hand (as with Plebgate).
As I wrote a few months ago, the date that’s been pencilled in the No.10 and No.11 diary for a long time was October 25. If the PM fails to capitalise on the release of the Q3 2012 GDP figures and get the Big Mo he needs, it will ultimately be the voters who ‘grip’ him where it most hurts – in the ballots.
Thursday 25th October 2012 | 20:00
However, in a well-received lecture at the Conservative Party Conference, Lord Young, the Government’s enterprise tsar, told his audience that debates around the manufacturing industry were “sterile”, with manufacturing unlikely to be a big employer in the future. Chris White, Conservative MP and co-chairman of the All-Party Manufacturing Group, raises an eyebrow at Young’s intervention.
“Well…I’d say that was an unfortunate and, I’d probably go as far as saying unhelpful comment”, argues White, briefly pausing amid a busy schedule at the conference. “What is this Conference about? It’s about growth, the economy. How do we make sure that we can rebalance our economy? Talking about debates being ‘sterile’, I think it would be sterile to talk about a solution to our problems with the financial sector. We need to look at manufacturing, we need to look at, you know, industry in general, we need to look at research and development.”
So Lord Young is wrong and George Osborne is right – the ‘March of the Makers’ is underway?
“Discarding Lord Young’s comments...”, White begins with a smile. He insists that “a number of members are now talking about industrial strategy”, arguing that “a good way of filling the Commons is to have a debate on manufacturing.” In turn this has prompted the Government to realise that “it’s about time we paid some attention, [and] I think the Government is coming to realise that that is an opportunity that could become a theme ...an area that deserves some sunshine and attention. It’s an area where there’s some rich fruit.”
Chris White’s pre-Parliamentary career at Rover’s Longbridge plant put him on the side of the makers, and having been born into the type of family which held “discussions around the table rather than watching the television”, a political approach was shaped at a young age. His father was a teacher at the same local comprehensive school where White studied. He doesn’t make a big deal out of his schooling history, so what does he think of Ed Miliband’s boasts of his comprehensive education? “I think somebody has said [that] it’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re going which is important” he replies with a smile.
Margaret Thatcher’s historic victory speech outside 10 Downing Street in 1979 resonated, and White can remember his father pinning up a copy of the Francis Assisi quote read by Thatcher on that day.
However, it was only after graduating from university and finding work as an engineer that he decided to dial up his local Conservative association. “I remember saying, ‘I’m interested in becoming a member of the party’, and the agent saying, ‘would you like to stand for council?’ That was amazing in the first conversation that we had, not actually having the opportunity to meet each other.”
A series of local and national election campaigns followed over the next 15 years, with White humorously cantering through a succession of failures. “I stood in Chester – 1994. Got the bug for knocking on doors, speaking to people, trying to help with people’s issues. I didn’t win. I fought again in Chester. I didn’t win. My work moved to Bristol. I fought again. Didn’t win. I thought I’d done a good enough job to go for the national party. Fought Birmingham Hall Green in 2001. Didn’t win. I went and fought in Warwick and Leamington in 2005. Didn’t win that. Fought again in 2010…”
At last, White won, overturning a nominal 5000 plus Labour majority to enter Parliament, a victory for persistence in the face of adversity.
“I remember a, sort of, long dark night… I’d start walking up and down the garden thinking, you know, can I do it again?”, White admits, but, having taken voluntary redundancy from Rover in 2004 and losing Warwick and Leamington by just 266 votes in 2005, he wisely decided – despite a boundary review shifting the seat further in Labour’s favour – to try once again.
“I thought, I thought it could be done. I’ve got a great campaign team…[we] really threw the kitchen sink at it. I won a 3500 majority. The advantage of not winning, I suppose, was it gave me a really good time to, you know, move into the constituency and, I suppose, seven years of becoming part of its, part of its life. Using its shops, eating in its restaurants, drinking in its bars.”
After such a long campaign to enter Parliament, White has wasted little time in the two and a half years since his election. His Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill is now an Act, to be implemented at the start of the next year.
In a nutshell, the Act will require public bodies to take into account ‘social value’ when they put a contract out to tender. White describes his Bill as legislation “where you try and create something based on where your interests lie, something which would do something not only for my own constituency, but on a national level, something that would win cross-party support. It’s a modest approach but it’s also an approach that could deliver, deliver big gains I think.”
White is clearly passionate about levelling the playing failed to help smaller community organisations. “[It’s] where you can deliver for the community; where the local authority can respond to a community’s needs; where you look not just at the financial value but at the social value, which is, in effect, the same thing,” he argues, before offering the example of “keeping that youth centre open – where you’re also teaching young people about teenage pregnancy, talking about addictions and helping people write their CVs. It’s very easy to quantify how much it would save you if you close that youth club down. But, if you looked at the medium-term or the longer-term, you could save considerably more to a handful of people.”
His Bill’s progress is proof that a backbencher with a bright idea can make themselves heard – as White now hopes to be on manufacturing. He is a keen advocate of a more proactive industrial strategy, one which looks at sectors and is willing to cooperate.
“In Warwick and Leamington, we’ve got somewhere between 1000 and 2000 people employed in the video games industry. That is an enormous industry. They need the breaks to do the export, to take on international competition. Government has to have a part to play in that.”
But something which White definitely does not want to see built is HS2 – which on current proposals would hurtle though his Warwickshire constituency. “I’ll oppose it if it ever comes to a vote. I try not to think about it in terms of the constituency alone. We’re very proud of our Warwickshire countryside, our environment. That being said, I think there are other ways you can spend £34bn. I think we can invest in many more infrastructure projects. We should be careful that we’re not putting so many opportunities into one basket. It will not fix everything.”
Given his willingness to vote against the Government if the time comes, it’s not surprising that all White is thinking about in terms of personal ambition is holding his constituency in 2015. They all say that, of course, but after his long haul to win the seat White’s passion for Warwick and Leamington seems a genuine one. So Does he think his constituents will have been following the Conference?
White laughs again. “I don’t know, I suppose not as avidly as we do. They’re a sensible bunch.” And, it seems, with a sensible Member of Parliament. Chris White is showing how backbenchers can make a difference. Marching, if you will, like a maker should.
Making it count
From manufacturing to social enterprise, Chris White is determined to make a difference after his long journey to Parliament
WORDS: SAM MACRORY
Can you hear the March of the Makers heading your way? According to George Osborne, who coined the phrase in his 2011 Budget, its relentless progress has begun. Or have you felt a rebalancing in the British economy? If most ministers are to believed, a renewed focus on the manufacturing industry should be levelling things out away from an over-dependence on the City.
Can you hear the March of the Makers heading your way? According to George Osborne, who coined the phrase in his 2011 Budget, its relentless progress has begun. Or have you felt a rebalancing in the British economy? If most ministers are to believed, a renewed focus on the manufacturing industry should be levelling things out away from an over-dependence on the City.
However, in a well-received lecture at the Conservative Party Conference, Lord Young, the Government’s enterprise tsar, told his audience that debates around the manufacturing industry were “sterile”, with manufacturing unlikely to be a big employer in the future. Chris White, Conservative MP and co-chairman of the All-Party Manufacturing Group, raises an eyebrow at Young’s intervention.
“Well…I’d say that was an unfortunate and, I’d probably go as far as saying unhelpful comment”, argues White, briefly pausing amid a busy schedule at the conference. “What is this Conference about? It’s about growth, the economy. How do we make sure that we can rebalance our economy? Talking about debates being ‘sterile’, I think it would be sterile to talk about a solution to our problems with the financial sector. We need to look at manufacturing, we need to look at, you know, industry in general, we need to look at research and development.”
So Lord Young is wrong and George Osborne is right – the ‘March of the Makers’ is underway?
“Discarding Lord Young’s comments...”, White begins with a smile. He insists that “a number of members are now talking about industrial strategy”, arguing that “a good way of filling the Commons is to have a debate on manufacturing.” In turn this has prompted the Government to realise that “it’s about time we paid some attention, [and] I think the Government is coming to realise that that is an opportunity that could become a theme ...an area that deserves some sunshine and attention. It’s an area where there’s some rich fruit.”
Chris White’s pre-Parliamentary career at Rover’s Longbridge plant put him on the side of the makers, and having been born into the type of family which held “discussions around the table rather than watching the television”, a political approach was shaped at a young age. His father was a teacher at the same local comprehensive school where White studied. He doesn’t make a big deal out of his schooling history, so what does he think of Ed Miliband’s boasts of his comprehensive education? “I think somebody has said [that] it’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re going which is important” he replies with a smile.
Margaret Thatcher’s historic victory speech outside 10 Downing Street in 1979 resonated, and White can remember his father pinning up a copy of the Francis Assisi quote read by Thatcher on that day.
However, it was only after graduating from university and finding work as an engineer that he decided to dial up his local Conservative association. “I remember saying, ‘I’m interested in becoming a member of the party’, and the agent saying, ‘would you like to stand for council?’ That was amazing in the first conversation that we had, not actually having the opportunity to meet each other.”
A series of local and national election campaigns followed over the next 15 years, with White humorously cantering through a succession of failures. “I stood in Chester – 1994. Got the bug for knocking on doors, speaking to people, trying to help with people’s issues. I didn’t win. I fought again in Chester. I didn’t win. My work moved to Bristol. I fought again. Didn’t win. I thought I’d done a good enough job to go for the national party. Fought Birmingham Hall Green in 2001. Didn’t win. I went and fought in Warwick and Leamington in 2005. Didn’t win that. Fought again in 2010…”
At last, White won, overturning a nominal 5000 plus Labour majority to enter Parliament, a victory for persistence in the face of adversity.
“I remember a, sort of, long dark night… I’d start walking up and down the garden thinking, you know, can I do it again?”, White admits, but, having taken voluntary redundancy from Rover in 2004 and losing Warwick and Leamington by just 266 votes in 2005, he wisely decided – despite a boundary review shifting the seat further in Labour’s favour – to try once again.
“I thought, I thought it could be done. I’ve got a great campaign team…[we] really threw the kitchen sink at it. I won a 3500 majority. The advantage of not winning, I suppose, was it gave me a really good time to, you know, move into the constituency and, I suppose, seven years of becoming part of its, part of its life. Using its shops, eating in its restaurants, drinking in its bars.”
After such a long campaign to enter Parliament, White has wasted little time in the two and a half years since his election. His Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill is now an Act, to be implemented at the start of the next year.
In a nutshell, the Act will require public bodies to take into account ‘social value’ when they put a contract out to tender. White describes his Bill as legislation “where you try and create something based on where your interests lie, something which would do something not only for my own constituency, but on a national level, something that would win cross-party support. It’s a modest approach but it’s also an approach that could deliver, deliver big gains I think.”
White is clearly passionate about levelling the playing failed to help smaller community organisations. “[It’s] where you can deliver for the community; where the local authority can respond to a community’s needs; where you look not just at the financial value but at the social value, which is, in effect, the same thing,” he argues, before offering the example of “keeping that youth centre open – where you’re also teaching young people about teenage pregnancy, talking about addictions and helping people write their CVs. It’s very easy to quantify how much it would save you if you close that youth club down. But, if you looked at the medium-term or the longer-term, you could save considerably more to a handful of people.”
His Bill’s progress is proof that a backbencher with a bright idea can make themselves heard – as White now hopes to be on manufacturing. He is a keen advocate of a more proactive industrial strategy, one which looks at sectors and is willing to cooperate.
“In Warwick and Leamington, we’ve got somewhere between 1000 and 2000 people employed in the video games industry. That is an enormous industry. They need the breaks to do the export, to take on international competition. Government has to have a part to play in that.”
But something which White definitely does not want to see built is HS2 – which on current proposals would hurtle though his Warwickshire constituency. “I’ll oppose it if it ever comes to a vote. I try not to think about it in terms of the constituency alone. We’re very proud of our Warwickshire countryside, our environment. That being said, I think there are other ways you can spend £34bn. I think we can invest in many more infrastructure projects. We should be careful that we’re not putting so many opportunities into one basket. It will not fix everything.”
Given his willingness to vote against the Government if the time comes, it’s not surprising that all White is thinking about in terms of personal ambition is holding his constituency in 2015. They all say that, of course, but after his long haul to win the seat White’s passion for Warwick and Leamington seems a genuine one. So Does he think his constituents will have been following the Conference?
White laughs again. “I don’t know, I suppose not as avidly as we do. They’re a sensible bunch.” And, it seems, with a sensible Member of Parliament. Chris White is showing how backbenchers can make a difference. Marching, if you will, like a maker should.
Thursday 25th October 2012 | 20:00
WORDS: SAM MACRORY
With a full time parish to attend to and legislative responsibilities in the House of Lords to fit in, the 26 Lordly bishops lead busy lives.
For the last few years, Bishop James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool, stretched his diary demands a little further, taking on invitations to chair independent panels into both the future of Britain’s forests and, more recently and dramatically, the Hillsborough tragedy. Given such a tough schedule, physically and emotionally, it’s not surprising that his body lodged a complaint.
“I was asking a question in the House about the future of the Community Justice Centre in Liverpool. As I sat down, my heart was pumping and I felt this pain in my chest. I’d felt a niggle before – I thought it was muscular…”, recalls the Bishop of a debate in the House of Lords last June. A test the following day revealed that the Bishop needed urgent surgery. “I remember distinctly, I said to the nurse, ‘This won’t stop me doing Hillsborough, will it?’ He then said, ‘You need an angiogram’, I said, ‘Right, well in a month’s time?’ He said, ‘No. Tomorrow.’”
It was, the Bishop admits, “Very, very scary”, but after a two-month recuperation period he was back at his desk by the end of August after missing just three of the Hillsborough panel’s 40 meetings.
Today, over a cup of tea in the soothing surroundings of the House of Lords, he looks to back to full health, his positive mood shared in his adopted city. The report, he says has seen “a cloud lifted in Liverpool – they feel they’re no longer alone, they’re not ‘walking alone’ anymore, because the rest of the world knows that this isn’t a grey issue – the documents, without anybody making any judgements, the documents tell the story”.
This Monday, MPs once again debated the report’s findings and what it meant for the next stage of what David Cameron has called the quest to address the “double injustice” of Hillsborough. Parliamentarians are still shocked by what they have learned. But not the Bishop. “Having been Bishop of the city all these years and knowing the people and knowing that their questions were genuine, when information began to be disclosed that confirmed what they were saying, it wasn’t a shock for me, it was that they were right all along.”
He praises the Prime Minister, who, he says, “coined the phrase ‘double justice’ – it wasn’t something that was given to him by a speechwriter” – and the Labour leader Ed Miliband, as well as the Merseyside MPs whose long campaigns showed the “pastoral dimension of the work of a Member of Parliament, which many people don’t ever recognise or value”.
His panel and the Civil Service support team are also spoken of in generous terms, but Jones is keen to stress the importance of a religious figure on the Panel, arguing that “because we cover the whole country, there isn’t an inch that isn’t covered by a parish of the Church of England. And unlike social workers and doctors, we don’t actually come in and out each day, we live there – 24/7. It gives us an authority to speak about where Britain is today”.
It helped that he doesn’t support either Liverpool or arch-city rivals Everton – when asked by fans whether he was a “’a red or blue?’… I thought ‘no, actually, that’s why I wear a purple shirt...” – but, more seriously, he believes that when the role of politicians, the press, and the police are called into question, it was “to use a very 21st century word, ‘appropriate’ to ask a bishop” to chair the Hillsborough Panel”.
A bishop, he adds, is “one of the leaders in the city and, by virtue of membership of the House of Lords, one of the leaders in the nation.” Constitutional reformers will flinch at that last sentence, but perhaps, beyond the immediate response to the report, the panel’s work has given them reason to think about whether our men – and women – of the cloth should automatically add ‘lawmaker’ to their duties?
“My own view is that the political class, important though it is, forms too narrow a base from which to draw both chambers in Parliament”, Jones argues. “What we need to do, in the debate about the future of Parliament, is to recover the sense of the unity of Parliament with two Houses that are complementary and not competitive, with the last word going to the elected, directly elected house – the House of Commons. And, what you need in the upper chamber is a collection of people, an assembly of people who are, in effect, the elders of society. They’re not elected but they have been elected in the sense that they’ve got to the top of their profession.”
And bishops, in particular?
“Bishops are a part of that because the Church of England is woven into the fabric of our nation historically, culturally, and if you look at our landscape, our language, our literature, our leisure, our learning, our laws, our liberty – it’s all intertwined with the Church of England and the Christian faith. And that’s not to say that we are to be monolithic, and it’s not to deny the plural nature of our society, but it’s to acknowledge our history and our cultural heritage. Something like Hillsborough shows, actually, there still is a role in our society for such a body to contribute to our sort of common life and build up a sort of common good.”
For a country increasingly diverse in its choice of faith, some might also argue that a bishop has no more right to be there than an imam or rabbi.
Jones admits that this is an area which “can be scrutinised further and that can be nuanced”, but argues that the “difficulty with, say, Islam, is that it’s less hierarchical religion and therefore it’s difficult to identify the leaders on a permanent basis. So you do it by finding leading politicians who are Muslims, or would you find people leading in the field of, law and justice, who are maybe Sikhs or Hindus? It’s slightly different for the Church of England because it’s the religion that’s our passport in, whereas with the others it’s usually a different profession, and if you want to choose the religion as a passport in, that’s going to need quite careful attention as to how you do that.”
He insists that his fellow peers hold “huge respect” for the bishops, adding that “our sense is that our contribution is valued and certainly, when it comes to both the government and the opposition, we’ve had assurances that there is a place for bishops in a future house.”
What about a place for religion? After all, the Parliamentary day still begins with prayers in the Chambers of both Houses, a behind-closed-doors ritual which some Parliamentarians argue is outmoded.
The Bishop insists that “a lot of people – we’re talking benches”, come in for prayers, but offers a recent example of an always evolving process.
“The prayers are set and you can’t deviate from them, but, at the end of prayers we have what’s called ‘The Grace’, and that used to be said only by the bishop. Now, all the peers are joining in saying that prayer. It’s typical of the British constitution – unwritten – that it evolves, and you can actually see it in the prayers.”
However, the Bishop is sympathetic to politicians who distance themselves from religion, whatever their private views, arguing that “you’ve got to be very careful when you stand up and claim God for your political reasoning, because it doesn’t give any space to somebody on the other side of the argument who may also believe in God.”
The panel looking into the future of Britain’s forests, which followed the Government’s botched attempted sell-off, worked on a far less emotionally-charged subject, but as a vocal green campaigner, James Jones took the work no less seriously. He believes the government needs a green agenda like “letters through a stick of rock, that’s how we’ve got to get the environment – not as the sugary glaze on the outside that you lick off and then doesn’t have any permanence”, and he admits to “disappointment” that the environment seems to have fallen off the political agenda.
As for reports that Owen Paterson, the new Environment Secretary, is an arch-climate change sceptic, Jones lays down a – mischievous-sounding – challenge.
“I think the onus of responsibility is upon him in the light of those comments. But he’s a farmer, isn’t he, by background? All farmers know that you cannot destroy the earth. No farmer will destroy the earth, because that’s their very means of livelihood. If it is for a farmer, it certainly is for the planet. The Earth is not a limitless larder that you can plunder with impunity.”
Having played a prominent role in two of the key moments of this Parliament, the Bishop of Liverpool – who years ago was described as “Blair’s bishop” after winning the admiration of the former Prime Minister – is becoming a well-known figure in political circles. Some say he is an outsider contender to succeed Rowan Williams as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, but for now the Bishop is counting down to a holiday at the end of this month. David Cameron has asked him to stay on as an advisor to the Home Secretary, leaving Jones “still in the mode of being geared up to do Hillsborough”, but the time off, he says, gives him the chance to “work through my own emotions” after the trauma of the report’s findings.
And then? “If, in the future, I’m asked to do something else I’ll obviously consider it in the way that I considered this. But I don’t think I’m open for business just yet.”
Be it in Liverpool, London, or beyond, Bishop James Jones will soon be in demand again soon.
Keeping the faith
James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool talks to Sam Macrory about chairing the Hillsborough Panel, the environment, and the place of rel...
WORDS: SAM MACRORY
With a full time parish to attend to and legislative responsibilities in the House of Lords to fit in, the 26 Lordly bishops lead busy lives.
For the last few years, Bishop James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool, stretched his diary demands a little further, taking on invitations to chair independent panels into both the future of Britain’s forests and, more recently and dramatically, the Hillsborough tragedy. Given such a tough schedule, physically and emotionally, it’s not surprising that his body lodged a complaint.
“I was asking a question in the House about the future of the Community Justice Centre in Liverpool. As I sat down, my heart was pumping and I felt this pain in my chest. I’d felt a niggle before – I thought it was muscular…”, recalls the Bishop of a debate in the House of Lords last June. A test the following day revealed that the Bishop needed urgent surgery. “I remember distinctly, I said to the nurse, ‘This won’t stop me doing Hillsborough, will it?’ He then said, ‘You need an angiogram’, I said, ‘Right, well in a month’s time?’ He said, ‘No. Tomorrow.’”
It was, the Bishop admits, “Very, very scary”, but after a two-month recuperation period he was back at his desk by the end of August after missing just three of the Hillsborough panel’s 40 meetings.
Today, over a cup of tea in the soothing surroundings of the House of Lords, he looks to back to full health, his positive mood shared in his adopted city. The report, he says has seen “a cloud lifted in Liverpool – they feel they’re no longer alone, they’re not ‘walking alone’ anymore, because the rest of the world knows that this isn’t a grey issue – the documents, without anybody making any judgements, the documents tell the story”.
This Monday, MPs once again debated the report’s findings and what it meant for the next stage of what David Cameron has called the quest to address the “double injustice” of Hillsborough. Parliamentarians are still shocked by what they have learned. But not the Bishop. “Having been Bishop of the city all these years and knowing the people and knowing that their questions were genuine, when information began to be disclosed that confirmed what they were saying, it wasn’t a shock for me, it was that they were right all along.”
He praises the Prime Minister, who, he says, “coined the phrase ‘double justice’ – it wasn’t something that was given to him by a speechwriter” – and the Labour leader Ed Miliband, as well as the Merseyside MPs whose long campaigns showed the “pastoral dimension of the work of a Member of Parliament, which many people don’t ever recognise or value”.
His panel and the Civil Service support team are also spoken of in generous terms, but Jones is keen to stress the importance of a religious figure on the Panel, arguing that “because we cover the whole country, there isn’t an inch that isn’t covered by a parish of the Church of England. And unlike social workers and doctors, we don’t actually come in and out each day, we live there – 24/7. It gives us an authority to speak about where Britain is today”.
It helped that he doesn’t support either Liverpool or arch-city rivals Everton – when asked by fans whether he was a “’a red or blue?’… I thought ‘no, actually, that’s why I wear a purple shirt...” – but, more seriously, he believes that when the role of politicians, the press, and the police are called into question, it was “to use a very 21st century word, ‘appropriate’ to ask a bishop” to chair the Hillsborough Panel”.
A bishop, he adds, is “one of the leaders in the city and, by virtue of membership of the House of Lords, one of the leaders in the nation.” Constitutional reformers will flinch at that last sentence, but perhaps, beyond the immediate response to the report, the panel’s work has given them reason to think about whether our men – and women – of the cloth should automatically add ‘lawmaker’ to their duties?
“My own view is that the political class, important though it is, forms too narrow a base from which to draw both chambers in Parliament”, Jones argues. “What we need to do, in the debate about the future of Parliament, is to recover the sense of the unity of Parliament with two Houses that are complementary and not competitive, with the last word going to the elected, directly elected house – the House of Commons. And, what you need in the upper chamber is a collection of people, an assembly of people who are, in effect, the elders of society. They’re not elected but they have been elected in the sense that they’ve got to the top of their profession.”
And bishops, in particular?
“Bishops are a part of that because the Church of England is woven into the fabric of our nation historically, culturally, and if you look at our landscape, our language, our literature, our leisure, our learning, our laws, our liberty – it’s all intertwined with the Church of England and the Christian faith. And that’s not to say that we are to be monolithic, and it’s not to deny the plural nature of our society, but it’s to acknowledge our history and our cultural heritage. Something like Hillsborough shows, actually, there still is a role in our society for such a body to contribute to our sort of common life and build up a sort of common good.”
For a country increasingly diverse in its choice of faith, some might also argue that a bishop has no more right to be there than an imam or rabbi.
Jones admits that this is an area which “can be scrutinised further and that can be nuanced”, but argues that the “difficulty with, say, Islam, is that it’s less hierarchical religion and therefore it’s difficult to identify the leaders on a permanent basis. So you do it by finding leading politicians who are Muslims, or would you find people leading in the field of, law and justice, who are maybe Sikhs or Hindus? It’s slightly different for the Church of England because it’s the religion that’s our passport in, whereas with the others it’s usually a different profession, and if you want to choose the religion as a passport in, that’s going to need quite careful attention as to how you do that.”
He insists that his fellow peers hold “huge respect” for the bishops, adding that “our sense is that our contribution is valued and certainly, when it comes to both the government and the opposition, we’ve had assurances that there is a place for bishops in a future house.”
What about a place for religion? After all, the Parliamentary day still begins with prayers in the Chambers of both Houses, a behind-closed-doors ritual which some Parliamentarians argue is outmoded.
The Bishop insists that “a lot of people – we’re talking benches”, come in for prayers, but offers a recent example of an always evolving process.
“The prayers are set and you can’t deviate from them, but, at the end of prayers we have what’s called ‘The Grace’, and that used to be said only by the bishop. Now, all the peers are joining in saying that prayer. It’s typical of the British constitution – unwritten – that it evolves, and you can actually see it in the prayers.”
However, the Bishop is sympathetic to politicians who distance themselves from religion, whatever their private views, arguing that “you’ve got to be very careful when you stand up and claim God for your political reasoning, because it doesn’t give any space to somebody on the other side of the argument who may also believe in God.”
The panel looking into the future of Britain’s forests, which followed the Government’s botched attempted sell-off, worked on a far less emotionally-charged subject, but as a vocal green campaigner, James Jones took the work no less seriously. He believes the government needs a green agenda like “letters through a stick of rock, that’s how we’ve got to get the environment – not as the sugary glaze on the outside that you lick off and then doesn’t have any permanence”, and he admits to “disappointment” that the environment seems to have fallen off the political agenda.
As for reports that Owen Paterson, the new Environment Secretary, is an arch-climate change sceptic, Jones lays down a – mischievous-sounding – challenge.
“I think the onus of responsibility is upon him in the light of those comments. But he’s a farmer, isn’t he, by background? All farmers know that you cannot destroy the earth. No farmer will destroy the earth, because that’s their very means of livelihood. If it is for a farmer, it certainly is for the planet. The Earth is not a limitless larder that you can plunder with impunity.”
Having played a prominent role in two of the key moments of this Parliament, the Bishop of Liverpool – who years ago was described as “Blair’s bishop” after winning the admiration of the former Prime Minister – is becoming a well-known figure in political circles. Some say he is an outsider contender to succeed Rowan Williams as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, but for now the Bishop is counting down to a holiday at the end of this month. David Cameron has asked him to stay on as an advisor to the Home Secretary, leaving Jones “still in the mode of being geared up to do Hillsborough”, but the time off, he says, gives him the chance to “work through my own emotions” after the trauma of the report’s findings.
And then? “If, in the future, I’m asked to do something else I’ll obviously consider it in the way that I considered this. But I don’t think I’m open for business just yet.”
Be it in Liverpool, London, or beyond, Bishop James Jones will soon be in demand again soon.
Also in this edition
- Friday 17th May 2013
17th May 2013
17th May 2013