Richard Mascall's Weblog

Listening to Julia

I went to a dinner last night where the guest speaker was Julia Goldsworthy, the LibDem MP for Falmouth. Back in November 2006 we had a Pasta and Politics where Jo Swinson, the youngest MP in Scotland, was the guest so now we just have to have an event where Jenny Willott, the youngest MP in Wales, comes along and I shall be able to claim a clean sweep.

All three MPs are LibDems and all three are female. Julia noted that when she is patronised by MPs from other parties, she never knows whether it is because she is so young, or because she is LibDem, or because she is female - or perhaps all three.

An Evening With A Knight

This evening we held another of our "Pasta and Politics" evenings (see here for one just over a year ago). Our guest this time was Sir Alan Beith, who is now the longest serving LibDem (or Liberal) MP since Lloyd George. He won his seat up in Northumbria at a by-election back in November 1972. His majority was 57 but over the years he has raised it to over 8,600, and his vote at the last election was 52% of the turnout. He must be doing something right !

As usual, the format consisted of an initial chat of about 15 minutes on a subject of the speaker's choice followed by questions. Sir Alan's topic was the difference between the LibDem party and the other two main parties, his view being that the LibDems approach being based on a principle (namely the importance of Liberty) while the other two parties nowadays based their approaches more on pragmatic, case-by-case, "whatever seems to be a good idea" system. He illustrated this by describing how the primacy of Liberty leads to the LibDem policies on subjects as diverse as environment, defence, health, and home affairs.

The questions which followed ranged from the relationship between Vince Cable and Nick Clegg, the party's policy making process, and Sir Alan's opinion of how Chris Huhne handled the Gert Wilders affair.

Talking to people afterwards, I was struck by the universal enthusiasm for Sir Alan's talk and answers. He certainly proved to be an interesting and thought provoking guest.

Being Grilled on Question Time

Our local secondary school, Warlingham School, rang me up last night to say they were into the short list of the last 12 schools in the BBC Question Time for Schools contest but they were short of a panellist for the next stage, to be held tonight. Their panel consisted of a representative from the Conservative Party, another from the Labour Party, an Amnesty International campaigner, and a student. There had been a problem with the LibDem representative, though, and so could I be a last minute substitute ?

Daunting though the prospect was, I was unable to think of a plausible excuse not to take part. In the event it was a most enjoyable experience. The Conservative was a chap called Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, their PPC for Chippenham, whose self-allocated nickname was the Black Farmer. The Labour person was Emily Benn, PPC for East Shoreham and grand-daughter of Tony Benn. The chairman was Ian Woods, a Sky News man, and the show was introduced by the local MP, Peter Ainsworth.

The school organised a bit of a reception afterwards so Pam and I were able to talk to everyone involved. We had to apologise to Emily because we just had to ask her about her mother, Nita, someone who performed on David Bowie's "Space Oddity". It turned out that Pam must have seen her on stage back in 1969 when she went to see "Hair".

Alas, last week the BBC announced their final four and Warlingham was not on the list.

Last Parish Council ?

I do not usually put Parish Council entries in this blog but yesterday saw a special occasion : it was the last meeting of the current Council. All eleven councillors are elected every four years and our four years are up. After the elections on May 1st, who knows how many of us will be still on the Council.

And it was even more of a special occasion for me : the other councillors gave me a present to mark the end of my four years as chairman, a gavel. This was totally unexpected and I was quite speechless.

Huhne and Clegg - Similar and Different

Yesterday evening we had a LibDem Leadership Contest evening with two MPs each presenting the case for the candidate they are supporting.

Tom Brake, MP for Carshalton and Wallington, explained his support for Chris Huhne by claiming that the party needs to be bold in its actions and that Chris was the more prepared to take chances. He proposed that communication skills were increasingly important, pointing to Chris's years as a journalist as evidence of his superior abilities in this area. Finally, Tom said that the leader should ideally have a track record outside politics, and that Chris's success in creating and growing his own business was an effective demonstration of his strength here.

Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, countered that what was required was someone who would look good in three years, not six months, and that Nick Clegg was the more likely to do this. There were two reasons for this : first, Nick had an image that was more likely to find favour with Conservative voters and, second, he was a safe candidate. Norman's analogy was that the two candidates might end up at the same destination, but that Chris would take a rollercoaster route, while Nick would take the smoother, more direct path.

Both MPs agreed that would be perfectly happy serving under either candidate and stressed that there were no policy differences between the two, with the one exception of Trident, where Chris would consider its replacement in some years time by a home-grown, smaller deterrent, while Nick would continue with it or an American replacement.

While the lack of policy differences and the agreement that both candidates were top-notch possibilities meant there was a lack of fireworks during the evening, the session gave the 30-40 people attending a real insight into the thinking of MPs on the subject. Sharing an informal meal afterwards extended the opportunity to talk to the MPs and to gain further nuggets of information.

I gave Norman a lift to the station afterwards and chatted with him while we waited for his train. He told me about his recent book on the death of Dr David Kelly, which concludes that it was a murder rather than a suicide. It has proved very popular, with a third impression being printed.

Election Day

Well, this is why there haven't been many entries recently : it was local elections day yesterday and I have been sending most of my time doing things like delivering leaflets. The photo shows me in the committee rooms.

There will be quite a bit of post-election work too plus the forthcoming Parish Council meeting, not to mention the Parish Assembly ... so there will continue to be a bit of a lull for a while.

Lembit Opik MP

Pam and I had dinner with the anagrammer's favourite MP last night. Of course it wasn't just the three of us since there were 100 or so others attending the annual dinner of our local LibDems, at which Lembit was the guest speaker.

His talk after the meal was most entertaining but he did have some serious points to make and these were all the more effective because of the otherwise light-hearted tone. For example, he observed that the vast majority of people he encountered in politics were driven by a desire to see things changed for the better, even if often the way they thought that could be achieved would not be one that LibDems would agree with. He was also optimistic about the long-term prospects for Northern Ireland, although he was sure there would still be plenty of problems on the way.

One of his lighter observations related to the Queen and to Tony Blair (he acknowledged that the story might involve a bit of name-dropping.) Apparently he met the Queen during a visit she made to Estonia, Lembit's parents being Estonian. Two or three weeks later, as President of the Motor Neurone Disease Association he was at a meeting with Tony Blair. After the meeting finished, Tony said to him, "I hear you spoke to the Queen during her visit to Estonia." Puzzled as to how Tony might have heard this, Lembit asked "How did you know about that ?" to which Tony replied, "Oh, the Queen told me." As Lembit commented, they must be short of things to talk about at their weekly get-togethers.

Jo Swinson Visit

Jo Swinson MP
was the guest at the "Pasta and Politics" meeting I attended this evening in Warlingham. These meetings are held at someone's house, attended by 30 to 40 LibDem members or other supporters. The MP speaks for 15-20 minutes and then there are 40-60 minutes of questions. The "Pasta" is in the form of lasagne, eaten either before or after, depending on the MP's time constraints.

The beauty of these events is that the MP can talk without the usual fear of someone dissecting every word, looking for ways of twisting the meaning to something other than that intended. These means that the talk and answers to questions can be more direct and less hedged round by disclaimers. Also, the fact that in the audience you are very close to the speaker means that facial expressions and body language convey so much more.

Even by the usual high standards of such get-togethers, this particular evening was both interesting and informative. Jo is such an effective and intelligent speaker, precisely conveying her intended meaning. In talking about the need for greater diversity of our MPs, she asked the audience, "How many of the 656 MPs are under 30 ?" The answer is two, Jo at the age of 26 being one of them. (The 29 year old Sarah Teather is the other one.)