THE TORIES HAVEN'T CHANGED, PART 94

I was stunned into inaction this morning during the normal rush to deposit two children at school (i) dressed (ii) fed and watered (iii) provisioned for the exertions of the coming day with bags, lunch, coats etc. Stunned because of the return of perhaps the most oleaginous and disreputable politician of the late 20th century*, David Mellor. And if you think about the competition, that's saying something

This duplicitous wretch was on the Today programme (how many people had they rung before they settled on him, I wonder) defending - yep, defending - the King of Bahrain as a good friend of Britain and thus diminishing the importance of the crackdown which occurred early this morning in which at least 2 people were killed by the inappropriately named 'security forces'. His tone and his complete assurance had the ring of a 19th century nabob defending the local tribal chieftain for the massacre of a neighbouring village because it was good for Britain.

I was lucky enough to be in Wandsworth Town Hall in May 1997 when Mellor lost his Putney seat. It was a night of rare theatre and the thought remains that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.

I like David Cameron more and more as I think he's playing it straight but I think he still has the sheerest of mountains to climb in his ambitions to change the Tory Party when there remain individuals with the attitude of the hated Mellor within his ranks.

This must be time to repeat my regular assurance to anyone who will listen (shades of the drunk in the bus station, but who cares) that this Lib Dem will never enter into any formal electoral or other agreement with the Tories. I don't think Nickers will either but if he has a weak moment, I'm an independent from that moment.

*Editor's note: Tony Blair is of course utterly disreputable for his decision over the illegal and devastating Iraq war but that complete breakdown of the man's judgement and morality occurred in the 21st century.

HERE'S TO EGYPT

What a wonderful moment in Egypt and what a strange situation, with people celebrating a military takeover. Its a supremely optimistic moment which ranks alongside Europe in 1989. Let's hope the promise of the last 18 days can be sustained. This is a famous victory for people power in the most important country in the Middle East. There are a few moments when all the cards are thrown up in the air and this is one of them. As a student of international relations, I'm utterly enthralled.

For dictators in Libya, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and across the region this is a wake up call. The lesson is that you can't keep people down forever, even with the most vile repression. Let's hope there's more to come and let's cross everything that any further popular movements are as dignified and controlled as the Egyptian uprising was.

The big risk now comes from outside interference. Egyptians have shown themselves to be organised, peaceable, intelligent and perfectly able to change their country. Let's hope their 'friends' in powerful countries don't decide to 'help' them too much. Let's hope those friends do what the best friends do: leave them alone to sort themselves out with as much guidance and support as they ask for and no more.

And as for the inevitable blathering about an Islamic takeover, let's hope the bigots grow up and look at the individual country and the protesters, not just wikipedia. Egyptians aren't the bearded cave-dwelling maniacs who give Islam a bad name, they're people with jobs and families and bills to pay who want to get on with their lives, not conquer Europe in the name of a religion.

Finally, we must all hope that the innumerable commentators take home one simple fact: this has nothing to do with Israel. Nothing. It is a popular uprising in Egypt.

If I had a hat I'd take it off to the millions of Egyptians who have achieved an immense victory today.

GREAT HEADLINES OF THE INTERNET

I do like a good headline, regardless of the story beneath it and this one from the BBC website is a gem of the highest order:

'Malawi row over whether new law bans farting'

What's not to like?

EGYPT: LESSONS FROM HISTORY, RECENT AND ANCIENT

Steve Richards in the Independent offers a useful consideration of the Iraq Inquiry and the lessons it might hold for the situation in Egypt.

Most importantly, he concludes with a note about 'imperialist swagger', the assumption clearly held by one of our recent Prime Ministers that one can go in and change a country for the better by bombing its citizens to freedom.

The situation in Egypt is fascinating so far because this is a developed country with a long history and quite simply no one knows what is going to happen. Even the legendary Robert Fisk was wrong when he said he thought the whole revolution - let's call it that out of a cherished hope that it will turn out to be so - would fail because of Mubarak's power. Fisk wrote a weighty tome on the Middle East - 1300 pages of doom and gloom which I waded through a few years ago. His conclusion was stark, simple and it should be written on the moon for every leader to see every night as they go to bed. To paraphrase the great journo rather crudely, the lesson is that foreigners should butt out and let the Egyptians, Algerians, Tunisians - whoever - deal with their own problems.

There will be trouble, there will be bloodshed, there will be problems but it is a fair bet that those problems will be less than a couple of hundred thousand tons of American ordnance and a slapdash, shamefully unplanned occupation can offer.

Egypt is on the edge but it is for Egyptians to decide what happens. They've done brilliantly so far. I want my government to stand on one side and offer support to the decision made by Egyptians, not empire builders in countries with pretty abysmal recent records in intervention.

The other startling conclusion Fisk made in his book was that pretty much every international trouble spot across the world has its origin in a single year: 1918. The end of the First World War and the start of a conference at which European 'statesmen' decided the fate of the world. Well, let's reflect on how that turned out for Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Ireland, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, even Germany, for whom the settlement led directly to the rise of a madman who plunged the world into darkness.

Just as Tony Blair's gravestone should bear the single, damning word - 'Iraq', so politicians minded to 'help' the Egyptians should have a single date handed to them on a piece of paper - 1918.

Egypt goes back thousands of years. How many other countries can say that? Let's trust them to make the right decisions for themselves.

[NB: Fiskophile pedants who shared a similar trawl through those 1300 pages, please don't pick my simplistic summation apart. Go for a walk or de-scale the kettle: it will be more rewarding.]

THE CONTROL ORDER IS DEAD, LONG LIVE, ER, THE CONTROL ORDER

There are many cliches in politics but sometimes a cliche is what is needed. Government plans for reforming control orders mean the end of curfews and their replacement with 'overnight residence requirements'. They will also no longer be unlimited, instead they will have a two year duration. So that's all right then. The new rules will be similar to the old control orders in that they continue to ride roughshod over existing legal standards in this country, like the right to trial, the presumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty and, dare I say it in my humble lay position, even habeas corpus (with apologies if that is misspelt).

I realise Nick's in an impossible position on this, so why not just say so. And here's that cliche: if it looks like a repressive throwback to the bad old days of Labour's assault on civil liberties and sounds like a a repressive throwback to the bad old days of Labour's assault on civil liberties, its a repressive throwback to the bad old days of Labour's assault on civil liberties.

Come on Lib Dems, this is a cornerstone of our beliefs being assailed here. Must do better on such a fundamental issue.

NOT DOING ANYTHING IN GOVERNMENT, HUH?

So you think the Lib Dems have lost their way? The Independent reports today that the government will announce plans to reform the daft control orders and that it will cut the time terror suspects can be kept in custody without charge from 28 to 14 days.

Before the bluster starts about woolly minded Liberalism, in the so-called 'Land of the Free' (where guns don't killl people, people kill people - but that's another story...) terror suspects have to be charged within 24 hours - unless, of course, they are hauled off to Cuba to ensure they are beyond the USA's very strict constitution.

The plain fact which demolishes Labour's anti-freedom policies assembled in the wake of the so-called 'war on terror' is that if the police or the security series suspect someone of wrongdoing they must assemble evidence and charge them. This is still a free society, after all and that's the way the law works.

What is often forgotten is that freedom isn't easy: its a daily struggle but reducing freedom doesn't protect it. Comedian Patrick Kielty made the point very well when he contrasted the scare tactics of the previous government with 30 years of living with almost daily violence in Northern Ireland. He dismissed the current fear - not by saying there wasn't a problem but by making it clear that life must go on. Shopping must be done, kids must go to school, meals must be cooked and if something dreadful happens it must be dealt with but life cannot stop and everyone can't be locked up for their own safety. That isn't freedom.

Is it just my fervent prayer that Tony Blair is one day forced to atone for his crimes against us all..?

If you've made it this far, my apologies that this has become a bit of a rant but this announcement is at the heart of what the Lib Dems are for. Lib Dems in government are making a difference and they are working to improve your lives. If you don't believe me, drown your sorrows in April with the extra £200 in tax you will receive over the coming year.

COME ON NICKERS!

Nickers was on the radio this morning and he's finding his stride more and more. What is encouraging is that the media has reduced its bleating ('Politician "unpopular" shock') and is increasingly listening to his measured comments about where we are. Headlines included the very pertinent point that we came third in the last election so of course we can't call the shots but we can achieve a lot in coalition.

On tuition fees, Nickers made the once again excellent points that Labour introduced them and Labour commissioned the Browne Report which recommended unlimited fees. I haven't heard the Labour leader giving his view on these facts. Nickers could also have pointed out that Labour introduced upfront fees for students - opposed by the Lib Dems, not the Tories - putting a tax at the front door of higher education. They also never removed the upfront requirement to pay fees for part-time students, which these new proposals do.

If you're a student reading this, remember that you would have been paying substantially higher fees under Labour and if they say otherwise they are lying. What the coalition has done is to be honest with you and make it clear that students have to pay for their education these days and this is the least painful way to do it. There is no question that a bill of £27,000+ is a horrible thing to start work but that is unfortunately the world we live in.

I hope the next LD manifesto outlines plans to cut or reduce these fees, as the last one did - uniquely for any party. I'd love to see a LD government elected so that it could reduce or abolish fees. If you think that's a daft idea, remember that a vote for the Tories or Labour is categorically a vote for fees. A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for a party which wants to abolish fees and which hopefully will in future, even if we couldn't this time round.