Human Rights were very much at the forefront of my busy schedule as I attended the week long Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg last week. I will now sit on the Assembly’s Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons committee this session. The week was punctuated on the Wednesday with a visit from the UK Prime Minister David Cameron. The last British Prime Minister to address the Assembly was Winston Churchill, so he knew he had to be more statesman than Euro sceptic. The PM had jetted from his PMQ’s in the House of Commons which he ended at 12.30 UK time to speak in Strasbourg three hours later.

Test:

 The big test for the Prime Minister was to mask his anti Europe persona as he proposed reforms to the Court of Human Rights. His task was to gather support of the 47 member Assembly to his cause and not alienate them. At the end of his hour long speech and question time the PM thanked the Assembly and spoke in glowing terms of the Assembly’s hemicycle format saying the comparison with the bear pit that is the House of Commons was quite stark.

I am writing this week from Strasbourg where I am attending the First part of the 2012 Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Prime Minister is coming out to address the Assembly on Wednesday as President of the Council of Ministers to the Assembly. The reception he receives from the 47 member countries has potential for a collective discord following his earlier demands put on him from his own backbenches to reform the European Convention of Human Rights or take the UK out of it.

KGB

Political allies/friends of the Prime Minister may be few and far between inside the Assembly. How he struts the divide between Statesman and Conservative leader will be closely followed by the red EU sceptic tabloids back home along with his rebelling ring wing MPs, marking his card and watching for any signs of “Clegg wavering” moments. His modus operandi in Europe since becoming Conservative leader has been to remove his Party from the mainstream conservative right in Europe. On Wednesday he will speak to the Assembly as a Conservative leader sitting in the same political group with former KGB spies from President Putin’s Party.

David Cameron has nobody to blame but himself for the chaos that resulted from his final acknowledgement last week that the chicanery that has been evolving from Alex Salmond’s nationalist government in Hollyrood since their election victory last May, had to be confronted. He previously had foolishly chosen appeasement, soft peddling and backslapping to ingratiate himself with Salmond’s SNP government. We should not forget where the SNP government were going before his intervention. Alex Salmond intended to hold a multi questioned referendum, where like the each way bet at the bookies, he would claim victory if his Independence punt came in third out of a three horse race. Even Jim Sillars, a former Deputy leader to Alex Salmond had cautioned him that he had no legal base or powers in the Scottish Parliament for this multi option each way gamble.

The Sulking Six

The banshee howling and hectoring that took place during the Scottish Secretary’s statement by the six SNP MP’s did not bode well for any balanced and constructive debate on Scotland’s constitutional future. The “sulking six” displayed a collective contempt that exposed an uncomfortable face of Nationalism that all Scots should be very wary of.

Trying to catch up on my reading during the Christmas recess I came across an article in the Washington Post about the pending 2012 US Presidential Election. The report prefaced the article with a quote from C.P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian, 1921 where he wrote, “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”. The Washington Post is better known for its investigation into the 1972 Watergate scandal which resulted in the resignation of US President Richard Nixon in 1974. 

US Presidential Election:

For the 2012 Presidential election the Post has already setup what I would describe a “Pinocchio” checker of all the Presidential candidates. They will judge the contents of their press releases, statements and campaign rhetoric against all known verifiable facts and will publish their findings regularly and where appropriate expose where they find shading of facts; selective telling of truth, omissions, exaggerations and outright lies.

UK Pinocchio Checker:

In the last days of the auld year the Coalition released a statement suggesting that “lie detector tests” should be used for criminal investigations. What scrutiny and investigation Governments want for others they should accept for themselves. There would be some long noses in the Cabinet.

As we see the auld 2011 year out and the new 2012 year in this weekend it is difficult to imagine that the next twelve months could be as bad as the last. But bad and worse is very much on the cards. This year we’ve had national disasters in Japan, New Zealand, Philippines etc; Revolutions in Africa and the Middle East in Tunisia, Yemen, Somalia, Egypt, Libya, Iran and Syria; the global economy with America and Europe again looking over the abyss of another economic meltdown, which could go beyond the worse experiences of the 2008 global recession.

New Year

My thoughts and prayers are with all those who have suffered loss through bereavement or separation from their loved ones; our armed forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere away from their families; Our Emergency and other public services at home who keep us safe and the many thousands of unsung heroes in the voluntary services who selflessly make a difference to all our lives. From me and mine to you and yours a Happy New Year.

The Prime Minister started the week basking in the glory of his Tory backbenchers who were overjoyed at his outflanking of his Lib/Dem Coalition partners when he invoked an EU veto at the European Council in Brussels the previous weekend. Nick Clegg immediately took the huff even refusing to sit with the PM during his statement to the Commons. His “huff” was supported by all his 56 MPs, when they refused to vote for a Commons motion tabled by the Ulster Unionist congratulating David Cameron on using his veto. The political conspiracy theorists are at work forecasting doom and gloom for the survival of Cameron and Clegg’s political marriage. There are as many theories as there are theorists on the survival of this coalition. The end is Nye or so some think. Mr Huffy came out of the week badly, foolishly bolstering the Tory right who would dump him and the Lib/Dems tomorrow. Cameron will only end the coalition if he thinks he can win the General election. Ironically therefore, Clegg’s survival could be down to the successes of Labour, such as last Thursday’s Feltham and Heston by-election victory with 8% swing to Labour from Cameron’s Tories.

 If you are ever lost in Glasgow and ask for directions; nine times out of ten you will be greeted with the warm words of, “If I was you I wouldn’t start from here”.  If Cameron had used a little of Glaswegian savvy he could have taken a better direction of travel last week and avoided the isolation in Europe and represented the true national interest. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg admitted that contrary to earlier reports, he was not consulted about Cameron’s decision to veto in the early hours of Friday morning. Heady days from the June 2010 Downing Street Rose Garden Party, when the Prime Minister and Deputy boasted of their collegial leadership.

Isolated:

Nick Clegg told BBC Andrew Marr show that Cameron’s veto left the United Kingdom marginalised 27 to 1 in Europe and has damaged relationships with America. So we can ignore the Downing Street guff about National interests and conclude the political reality for Cameron last Friday was that he never intended agreeing to anything that needed Parliamentary approval, because he could not deliver a parliamentary majority in his own party. In answer to the question what would Labour have done? We would never have started from where Cameron did.

When Jeremy Clarkson insulted Gordon Brown describing him as a one eyed Scottish idiot he was hailed as a hero by the Toffs inside David Cameron’s inner circle, of which Clarkson is one. Mocking anybody because of their disability tells me more about the offender than the offended. I normally find his impropriety of language repugnant so last week when he called for public servants i.e., teachers, nurses, and care assistants etc to be shot in front of their children I was fuming. Not so David Cameron who earlier had described the Day of Action as a damp squib. The PM when challenged on Clarkson’s comment wimpishly rebuffed his friend saying, “He was a bit silly”. A rather mild euphemistic description of the man who also said that people who commit suicide by jumping in front of trains should be left on the tracks for wild animals to scavenge on their remains as a punishment for the travel disruption they cause. I resent my TV license fee funding the likes of Clarkson on a £6M per year BBC contract; who mocks the disabled; attacks the mentally ill and berates public servants most of whom earn less in a year than he spends on a dinner party with the Prime Minister.

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement to the House of Commons this week will expose the calamitous state of UK economy, compounded by the catastrophic failure of his deficit reduction plan. Public service workers will hold a 24 hour strike supported by their Unions including School Head Teachers unions; Royal College of Nursing; top and middle ranking Civil service unions (Not quite the irresponsible militants the Government describe them as). The belligerence and bullying of the government has known no bounds throughout this year long dispute on pensions. The day of action was avoidable but the government chose to go for imposition instead of negotiation; conflict before conciliation. If the strike goes ahead it will be because of their intransigence and not the public service Unions.

The big lie:

Chancellor Osborne told us it was about pension reform; we were told that all public service pension schemes were low in funds and unsustainable (not true). He then demanded by imposition a 3% tax increase on all public service workers; none of that tax will go into their pension funds, but all of it directly into the Treasury deficit reduction pot. This Chancellor fawns at the feet of bankers with their £Million bonuses; promises he will soon cut their 50% top rate tax band whilst punishing public service workers with tax increases.

The capture of Saif Gaddafi was greeted with great jubilation by the conquering Rebel Council of Libya. The man who called them rats to be hunted down and killed was caught trying to sneak into Niger disguised as a camel herder.  The new Libyan Prime Minister immediately announced to the world that Saif Gaddafi would not be sent to the International Court in the Hague where he has been indicted for War crimes, but would receive a fair trial in Libya. The Americans and the Brits will certainly not want him to testify in an open court in the Hague. Within minutes of his capture William Hague and Cameron were talking of the right of the new Libya to try him. The British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary may even find an ally for their position in Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, who may not want made public Saif Gaddafi’s testimony detailing how he negotiated the release of  Abdel-baset al-Megrahi from his Greenock prison cell.

Changed days

Saif Gadaffi will have time in his prison cell whilst considering his fate to reflect on his former globetrotting playboy lifestyle. After all it is only two years since he was yachting of Greek islands in the company of George Osborne, Nat Rothschild and Peter Mandelson.