Britain May Need Its Own Clarity Act

David Cameron getting set to face separatists in Scotland

In Britain, citizens are getting ready to face a problem Canadians are by now quite familiar with: a regional government that wants to lead that region out of its political union.

In Canada, of course, it's Quebec. In Britain, it's Scotland.

In Scottish elections last month, Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party won and are now planning a sovereignty referendum.

In London, Prime Minister David Cameron is set to preempt Salmond. He may plan the referendum from London unless Salmond can allay fears that he may try to use a deceptive referendum question in order to secure a "yes" vote. Canadians are well-familiar with the deceptive tactics often used by separatists.

In 1995, the Parti Quebecois government used an ambiguous and confusing question on the referendum ballot. They also lied to Quebeckers by suggesting Quebec would not need to accept its share of the national debt.

Cameron has already rebuked suggestions that two referendums -- one organized by the Scottish Parliament and another organized by Westminster -- would be necessary for Scotland to separate from Britain. Only one referendum would be necessary.

But Cameron would be extremely wise in preempting any deceptive ballot questions by enacting a British version of the clarity act: one that ensure that any ballot question posed to the citizens of Scotland is clear, unambiguous, and not deceptive.

He shouldn't make the mistake Canadian leaders did, and wait until it's too late. If David Cameron is worried Alex Salmond may attempt to deceive Scottish voters, he should act to eliminate deception as an option.

British Tories Burying Their Coalition Partner?

Lib Dems to suffer in district re-draw

When Liberal Democratic Party leader Nick Clegg secured the Alternative Vote referendum -- already disastrous for his party -- as a condition of joining the Conservative Party in a governing coalition, there was one thing he himself had to give up:

He had to agree to the withdrawing of electoral boundaries, one in which the size of Parliament would be reduced by 50 seats.

After suffering an embarrassing defeat in the AV referendum, it seems the LDP may suffer further.

According to modelling conducted by Liverpool University's Lewis Baston, the Liberal Democrats stand to lose nearly 25% of their seats (14 of 67 seats). The Labour Party would lose 17 of 256 seats while the Tories would lose 16 of their 306 seats.

"The Liberal Democrats are likely to lose out more than the other main parties because their seats are yellow islands in a sea of red or blue," Baston explained. "Changing the boundaries is more likely to bring in hostile territories, their majorities tend to be smaller than Labour or Conservative MPs and their Lib Dems trade a lot on incumbency and constituency service. That is disrupted by a boundary review."

Yet Baston notes that nearly no seat would be safe under this proposed re-distribution. Among the Tory MPs who could face stronger challenges for their seats are Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady. Both are of vital importance to the party politically.

Unless Prime Minister David Cameron is committed enough to this re-distrubtion to attach Parliamentary confidence to it -- although it's hard to see why he would do such a thing -- it's entirely possible that worried Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs may team up to defeat the proposal.

In other words, it could be the Tories suffering their own versin of the Alternative Vote defeat. If enough disconcert is stirred up, it's not unthinkable this could be the end of the coalition altogether.

For the Liberal Democrats, it proposes them with what may very well be a distinct non-choice: either bury the electoral re-distribution, and the coalition with it, or risk being buried themselves.

"The Best Person For the Job", Redux

Is Lagarde, not Brown: Cameron, Osborne

With campaigning to replace the outgoing Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund mounting, many Britons are expecting their government to back a fellow Briton to fill that job.

For now, they will be disappointed.

Speculation has held that former Prime Minister and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has been quietly campaigning for his shot at the job. Yet current Prime Minister David Cameron and current Chancellor George Osborne seem to have made themselves fairly clear: Brown is not "the best person for the job".

Apparently, according to Cameron and Osborne, the best person for the job may be French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.

"I believe Christine is the outstanding candidate for the IMF – and that's why Britain will back her," Osborne declared. "I also personally think it would be a very good thing to see the first female managing director of the IMF in its 60-year history."

Lagarde's greatest strength, in Osborne's mind, is that she's in favour of developing countries bringing their budgets under control.

"She has been a strong advocate for countries tackling high budget deficits and living within their means," Osborne noted.

That applies to financial institutions just as much as it does to entire countries. While many western countries were rolling out fat bailout packages for banks, Lagarde was publicly taking them to task, particularly at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"The best way for the banking sector to say thank you would be to actually have good financing of the economy, sensible compensation systems in place and reinforcement of their capital," Lagarde told Barclay's Bank chief executive Bob Diamond.

As if to offer some substance to Osborne's remarks about a having a woman in charge of the IMF, Lagarde has suggested that the global economy could use a woman's touch, particularly in terms of stock trading.

"In gender-dominated environments, men have a tendency to show how hairy chested they are, compared with the man who's sitting next to them. I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room."

Brown himself has also taken a sticter stance toward banks. He, like Lagarde, backed an international bank tax.

Unlike Brown, however, Lagarde seems to understand that the best fix for the global economy is for sensible reform and regulation to begin within the board rooms of the institutions themselves. It's time for banks to cut back on their unsecured loans, cut back on the unjustifiably-lavish and self-serving compensation for their execs, and put sustainable profit at the forefront of their agendas.

As the mortgage crisis in the United States clearly demonstrates -- as banks took advantage of lax regulatory schemes put in place by George W Bush as a means to manage the impact of toxic loans mandated by the Bill Clinton administration -- no government can force financial institutions to regulate themselves, nor can they really do so in their place; those set on abusing the system for short-term and unsustainable profit will find a way.

It's hard to say whether David Cameron and George Osborne are correct and Christine Lagarde really is the best person for the job. But one thing remains abundantly clear: she's much better for it than Gordon Brown.

"The Best Person For the Job"

Chancellor not a booster for Gordon Brown's IMF bid

With former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown seeking to assume the role of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, there may be one key obstacle in his path:

The British government.

In April, Prime Minister David Cameron questioned Brown's suitability for the job.

“If you have someone who didn’t think we had a debt problem [running the IMF] they may not be the best person to decide whether other countries have that problem," Cameron declared.

The decision over whether or not the British government will attempt to block Brown from becoming IMF Managing Director has not been made. For his own part, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne hasn't expressed any great preference regarding Brown and the IMF.

He's calling for the "best person for the job".

"If it comes to a decision about a replacement for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, what I will be motivated by and what the British Government will be motivated by is who is the best person for the job," Osborne declared. "Instead of 'Is it Buggins's turn?' or 'Should it be someone from a particular country or not', let's focus on getting the right person for the right job."

Brown hasn't yet asked Osborne for any kind of endorsement for assuming the role.

"As it happens, Gordon Brown has not asked me directly or indirectly to be considered for the job," Osborne said. "I'm at the moment focused on making sure we get the best person for the job."

So is Gordon Brown the best person for the job?

The Brown government's use of Private Finance Initiatives to conceal billions of Pounds Sterling in public debt has previously been explored here.

What has not been is Brown's "tripartite" system of Financial regulation.

When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown split regulatory powers between the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority, and the Treasury. This led to a breakdown of surveillance powers, leading to a state of affairs where two-thirds of bank lending in Britain was to other financial institutions.

In the opinion of Dr Sushil Wadhwani, a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, this led to a situation in which interest rates lagged far behind the rate required to return credit markets to equilibrium.

This led to British credit markets in which the incentives to borrow were overloaded. Eventually, Britain fell into the same credit collapse as the rest of the world.

Given the kind of havoc Gordon Brown wrought with Britain's finances and Britain's economy, the idea of giving him a surplus of power over the global economy should be a sobering thought indeed.

David Cameron is right. Gordon Brown is not the right person for the job.

Different Pictures on Each Side of the Pond

Aleeza Kahn compares Canada and Britain

Writing in The Tyee, British grad student Aleeza Kahn compares how the Prime Minister is elected in Canada and Britain -- in the process causing some serious concern about the future of journalism.

Drawing from the usual shrill voices of the far-left, she manages to offer some cogent and intriguing comparisons between Canada and Britain. She also manages to pass the far-left Kool-Aid largely undiluted.

The first conclusion that Kahn reaches is that in Britain, a federal election is largely a popularity contest.

"In England, we feel the need to like our prime minister," Kahn begins. "You apparently don't."

Kahn presents British Prime Minister David Cameron as too much of a try-hard.

"'Dave,' well he wants to be your friend -- your posh, privileged ex-Etonian friend, but a friend nonetheless -- who shares your beliefs and understands the modern society you both live in," Kahn muses. "This Cameron, the man who cares about his family and is just like you, is a walking, talking PR machine, and a good one at that. But he's too concerned with being liked and is scared of making a fool of himself, known to choose sweeping principles over hard policy."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on the other hand, is very different; all business, no nonsense.

"This is something that Harper doesn't seem worried about. His policies are strong and his position is firm," Kahn writes. "Maybe this is why, while he may only have the minority rule, he is still proven to be the most successful candidate in recent years. People in Canada don't seem to be put off by his non-PR'ed persona. And to be fair to Harper he's done well to hold on during the global economic crisis, something that Britain's Labour government in power at the time of the crisis had no hope of doing, especially since [Gordon] Brown's persona, even by his own admission, was decidedly charisma deficient."

Of course, an election is not just a popularity contest. If it is merely a popularity contest -- like the one that unfolded in the United States in 2008 -- something has gone deeply wrong.

Many will consider Canada far better off with Harper's strong and sound policy; although if Kahn is writing off David Cameron's policy, she will yet be surprised at how well Cameron continues to do.

Kahn goes on to offer her next conclusion: "In Canada, the prime minister says coalitions are evil," she writes. "In the UK, the prime minister owes his job to one."

This is, of course, pure rubbish. Even in the height of their historical-revisionist furor, individuals like Terry Milewski have only succeeded in demonstrating that Harper does not object to the idea of a coalition itself.

Even if they're being trotted out as "new discoveries" by the national press, Harper has been on the record several times in the past presenting a coalition government as a constitutional option.

What Harper has been on record opposing since 2008 is a little different: an irresponsible coalition government mortgaging the government of Canada to the Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party. Harper has never been on record opposing coalitions. He's on record opposing a very specific coalition.

Even with this in mind, the broadness of the political views presented in Kahn's article is underwhelming. She relies on UBC professor Michael Byers to present an image of Harper as single-mindedly focused on but a sliver of the Canadian population.

"Remember, he's never been the choice of more than 38 per cent of the electorate," Byers declares. "What has enabled him is that the centre left has been divided among four other parties. If this is the case that means the centre-right wing party who can secure 38 per cent will govern. Their campaign policies are directed at a fairly narrow segment of Canadian society."

Of course Byers didn't seem to consider a very basic fundamental fact: 38% of Canadians is not, by any means, a narrow segment of Canadian society. It's in fact a rather broad segment of Canadian society.

The only way Byers can even justify that argument is with Kahn's third conclusion, but unfortunately they won't do any better a job here.

"In Great Britain, candidates want as many people as possible to vote," Kahn concludes. "Not in Canada."

This is where they resort to claims that Harper and the Tories have attempted to discourage people from voting. The evidence they offer? Their word. And their word alone.

"It has been a tactic to focus on turning people off politics," Byers insists. "If you can keep voter turn out down, which is clearly a strategy of Harper's, then you simply need a small but committed base that ensures you can become prime minister."

Byers' evidence? He offers none. Nothing but his own word.

"Right wing parties actually benefit from a depressed voter turnout," Insists University of Victoria professor Dennis Pilon. "The Conservatives are taking a leaf from the Republican playbook, driving people away from the political process by placing barriers in the way of people participating."

What obstacles does Pilon pretend the Conservatives have placed in the way of voters? He declines to name even a single one.

No need for Byers and Pilon to worry, though. Kahn seems to require no evidence from either professor in order to reach the same conclusion. Bias generally works that way.

Kahn sees fit -- quite fittingly -- to conclude her essay on a suitable note: the issue of youth involvement.

"Back in England, younger people are a lot more politically engaged than here in Canada," she concludes.

Kahn presents an image of David Cameron as appealing to young voters. He's in touch with the newest technology, chilling at home in his blue jeans. Meanwhile, the most informal Stephen Harper seems to get is a Christmas card with him holding a kitten.

Fair enough.

The youth vote has certainly been a hotly-debated issue in the federal election, but Kahn's argument doesn't seem to develop past the point that young people should vote -- and they should. A disinterest in the issues seems just as pertinent to why youths aren't voting as a disinterest in the leaders.

Although if blue jeans and whether or not a leader uses Twitter -- and how well -- is what it takes to attract the youth vote, it's fair to question how serious those voters are. For every youth voter creating a thoughtful "to get my vote" video, there are many more who seem more interested in the most recent Charlie Sheen meltdown.

Some may be tempted to give Aleeza Kahn an A for her effort, but while presenting a refreshing comparison between Canada and Britain, Kahn gets very little done in this essay.

This being said, Kahn's work at least presents a key question at all times for Canadians: would we like Canada to be more like Britain? Perhaps so.

(Information) Revolutionizing Politics

Presenting his very own TED talk a year ago, now-British Prime Minister David Cameron talks about a rapidly-changing world; one in which the role of government will never again be the same.

The driving force behind this change? Simply put, information.

Never before have citizens had as much information at their disposal -- at their bare fingertips -- as they do today. In Cameron's estimation, this is because of the continuous evolution of human society.

Cameron begins with the pre-bureaucratic age, a time when communication and travel was so costly and time-consuming that it was impossible for governments to organize and centralize across vast territories. This was followed by the industrial revolution and the bureaucratic era, in which emerging transportation and communication technology made that organization and centralization possible. Cameron's explanation ends with the rise of the information revolution, and the post-bureaucratic era.

Previously, Cameron explains, only government had access to the kind of information necessary to truly manage society. But with the continuous advent of public information technology, that power is coming more and more to rest in the hands of ordinary people.

Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams coined a phrase for this, and they made it the title of a best-selling book: wikinomics.

In short, the book argues that the electronic commons has enabled people to share more information and ideas than ever before, and that institutions that fail to adapt are bound to suffer and eventually fail.

In examining the record of the Tony Blair government it becomes clear that the greatest failure of that government was to take advantage of the emerging information commons, and to delegate the requisite power back to where it can be used best: in the hands of the citizenry.

For some within government, it's a harrowing prospect: a necessary step is that government data-keepers will need, to a certain extent, to let go. In other words, they'll need to stop trying to decide themselves which information is important, and instead let the people decide.

For those who live and die by the fantasy that the government will solve every problem they can imagine, and that they could play the role of the civic hero if only they had the resources and power of the government at their disposal, will need to find new delusions with which to comfort their egos.

Wherein Heather Mallick Makes a Stark Choice (For Britain)

Austerity or oblivion? Mallick chooses oblivion

As many of the world's advanced states trudge forward, economic reality is presenting them with a choice:

Austerity or oblivion.

Britain, who owes 64.6% of its Gross Domestic Product to foreign creditors is one of those countries that is facing some tough choices in terms of its budget.

Prime Minister David Cameron and his coalition government partner, Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, have responded to Britain's looming fiscal crisis in kind. They plan to cut as much as 40% of Britain's national budget in order to get things back under control there.

For her own part, Mallick objects entirely. She wishes to join her voices to those of thousands of Greek and French protesters who have made their decision between austerity or oblivion, and chosen oblivion.

Rather than pare back their demands on the public purse -- at least in the short term -- Mallick and her compatriots have decided to demand that the states in question stay the course toward economic disaster.

After this, there will be no more: an economic collapse that could raze the British economy to the ground. They don't care.

Not that they have no solutions of their own. It just so happens that their medicine would be far more harmful than the disease.

They imagine undercutting core functions of government that they don't care for in favour of maintaining spending to extraneous functions of government that they do. They imagine taxing the living hell out of banks and corporations, not seeming to care where the kind of economic growth necessary to ensure Britain's long-term prosperity will come from.

Canadians already know well the kind of pressure David Cameron and his government are under. When Canada was on the brink of fiscal insolvency in the 1990s, the Canadian government was forced to make some hard decisions as well.

The Jean Chretien government chose to cut things such as education, health care, and provincial transfers. It may have never happened if not for the pressures applied by the Reform Party and individuals such as Andrew Coyne, but the important detail is that it did happen.

15 years later Canada has the fiscal strength to weather what some have described as a perfect economic storm.

In time, Britain may be able to boast the same strength. But not if Heather Mallick has her way. In her own mind, she's chosen for Britain. Fortunately for her, she doesn't have to live there.

Cracks in the Coalition?

Tory backbenchers beginning to grumble

As the British Conservative Party's convention continues, Prime Minister David Cameron must be looking forward to (hopefully), a peaceful conference.

Unfortunately for Cameron, it's a little too much to ask right now.

With the party readying itself to face acrimonious protests to planned cuts to the public budget, Cameron also has to face discontent within his own party, over how many concessions the Tories have made to their coalition partners.

"It seems as if the Coalition is proceeding on a basis of continuous appeasement without consulting the backbenches," complained long-time Tory MP Christopher Chope.

"Ministers are effectively being held to ransom by a small group of Liberal Democrats, who are in a sense the tail wagging the dog on too many occasions," he continued. "I have spoken to Conservative ministers and I know a number of them share those frustrations."

But if Ministers are feeling the pressure, Chope said that backbenchers are feeling it even more intensely.

"The whips are being heavy handed beyond anything I can recall in threatening the termination of political careers before they have even started," he fumed.

1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady, who is responsible for representing the views of backbench MPs to the party leadership, suggested (more diplomatically) that being so ham-fisted with backbench MPs is not a wise move, and that party leadership needs to be constructively engaged with backbenchers.

"We will be more effective in holding the party together and making sure that we function as a team if we have that very good process of communication in both directions," Brady said.

This will certainly be a challenge for Cameron with more and more of his MPs seemingly beginning to feel that they're holding the short end of the coalition stick.

Oddly enough, they aren't.

Many observers have expressed marvel at the amount of the cuts outlined by their election platform that they'll be able to implement. Considering that the Conservatives are very much relying on the Lib Dems for their survival, it's remarkable that they haven't had to offer more concessions than they already have.

It would be difficult for Cameron to elicit any more concessions out of the Liberal Democrats. Even with their suffering polling numbers giving them a clear incentive to ensure the coalition's survival, they have to draw the line somewhere if they're going to survive at all.

Christopher Chope and Graham Brady have every right -- and responsibility -- to voice their concerns. They'd just better be careful about demanding that David Cameron bite off more than he can chew.

The Softer, Gentler... David Cameron?

David Davis questions scale of cutting agenda

If the 2005 Conservative Party leadership campaign had gone differently, it could have been David Davis, not David Cameron, who ultimately wound up ascending to the role of Prime Minister.

In the wake of any election -- particularly one as indecisive as the 2010 campaign -- there's great risk in assuming that the result was inevitable. History will never know if David Davis could have been the one to defeat Gordon Brown.

But if he had, Davis seems to want Britons to believe he would have led the Tories in administering a more nuanced economic program than simply cutting Britain's hefty deficit.

"We cannot be defined by a purely cuts agenda," Davis declared. "If the only message the public takes away from the events of the next few months is one of retrenchment and loss of services, politically at least, we will have failed."

"We need to rediscover the case for growth — and make it loud and clear across the land," he continued.

In Davis' mind, publicizing a growth agenda was where Margaret Thatcher's government largely failed -- and where Cameron's government needs to do better, lest he fall into the same pitfalls as the Iron Lady.

"The Thatcher Government of the Eighties was demonised for simply restraining the growth in spending," Davis explained. "This one will face even more ­hysterical opposition."

Not that Cameron can afford to allow mass political panic to deter him from his party's course. Gordon Brown and the Labour Party left Britain on the brink of fiscal disaster. But David is right in noting that programming cuts alone won't navigate the UK out of trouble. Rather, these cuts have to be accompanied by strong economic growth.

"We have to get the structural ­deficit down and eradicate it or the country will be crippled," Davis admitted. "But we have to allow the private sector to take off as well. There has to be a growth agenda."

This isn't the first time Davis has offered criticism -- constructive or otherwise -- of his own government. Earlier this year he fought hard against an increase in capital gains taxes. Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats wanted a hefty increase in the tax. After Davis' intervention, Osbourne reduced the hike.

"This was about our ­people -- about people who have retired; people who have saved money all their lives, who have invested in a second home or bought their ­children a flat when they were at university," Davis explained. "These were our people who had been robbed of their future by the last government which destroyed their pension. We could not let them be hit again by a big increase in ­Capital Gains Tax."

While Davis has frequently been critical of the concessions made by Cameron to Clegg and the LDP, he also recognizes a key benefit in having them on board: the ability to take on the public sector.

"We could not take some of the more unpalatable decisions that will involve cutting the public sector and reforming welfare ­without the support of the Lib Dems," he admitted.

Admittedly, it's a little late for David Davis to be giving Britons a sense of what a Davis-led government would look like. The time for that was in 2005. But if David Cameron possesses the kind of acumen necessary to be successful as Prime Minister, he'll take Davis' advice, take it quickly, and figure out some way to lure Davis into his cabinet.

David Cameron vs The Vested Interests

Cameron prepares to fight rhetorical war with labour unions

As British Prime Minister David Cameron prepares to roll out his government's austerity program, Cameron has declared his intent to take on Britain's "vested interests".

Roughly translated: unions.

"They got us into this mess and they haven't got any idea how to clear it up," Cameron insisted.

Across Britain, labour unions are lining up against the coming austerity program. Brendan Barber of the Trades Union Congress has warned of "social unrest" over government cuts.

"We have a duty to reflect the real worries and fears, and real anger that will grow as people see the impact of government policy," Barber insisted. "The Government has invested a lot of effort in trying to persuade people there is no option. That's not the case. The risks of going down this track are enormous and will make the situation worse."

"There is an alternative," he continued. "Don't be fooled by the barrage of propaganda by the Government, that all of this is simply unavoidable and there are no choices. There are real choices. These are not decisions made out of necessity. They are made out of political principle and choice."

Of course, the history of the actions of labour unions during times of fiscal crisis in Britain shouldn't fill anyone with a wealth of confidence in them.

As in almost all western countries, labour unions have proven to be especially ham-fisted when negotiating with governments. In Britain, labour unions have deliberately attempted to destroy governments that don't cave into their demands, no matter how arduous they may be.

For Barber, the "other option" is for government to stay the course, and continue spending itself into a Greek fiscal quagmire.

If anything reminds ordinary Britons that labour unions simply don't have Britain's best interests at heart, it should be this. Rather, British labour unions have their own interests at heart, and no one else's.

David Cameron needs to do more than simply battle these vested interests. He needs to reach into the Margaret Thatcher playbook, and find a way to defeat them.

Labour Party Needs Its Civil Society Fix

Labour Party addicted to big government

As British Prime Minsiter David Cameron continues to slowly roll out his Big Society policy package, the Labour Party has evidently found itself at odds with the new government's views on civil society.

Following a party audit of the to-date relesed or promised Big Society policies, the Labour party claims the policy is undermining civil society in Britain.

Labour has identified what they believe are core policy areas for the Big Society, and have pointed out that the Tories have cut 6% of the funding to these areas. Among these cuts are:

-370 million Pounds for the Future Jobs program, which had pledged to create 200,000 jobs, including 120,000 job grants for civil society organizations.
-95 million Pounds from affordable housing.
-14 million Pounds from the Youth Commnity Action programme.
-7 million Pounds from the Prevent programme -- designed to combat violent political extremism.
-4 million Pounds from the Cohesion programme -- a program to do pretty much the same thing as Prevent.

"What people want is not the vacuous promise of a big society but a good society where everybody does their bit and is helped to do so to improve their community and create benefits for everyone," said Tessa Jowell, Labour's shadow Cabinet Office minister insisted. "But a big society that cuts people loose, leaving them to stand on their own, will never work."

The detail that Labour lost the 2010 election, and so can hardly claim to know what Britons want, is one thing.

Labour's clear big government vision of civil society is entirely another.

Each of Labour's criticisms can easily be answered in kind:

-First off, a civil society organization that is funded by the government is not really a civil society organization: it's a QUANGO.
-Many communities, such as Crosby Ravensowrth, are funding their own affordable housing projects.
-The Prevent Programme was a particularly troubled one that had been caught spying within the communities in which it was active.
-The Cohesion Programme seems to have been a duplication in efforts from the Prevent Programme.

The Labour party has made its view on civil society quite clear: it prefers a big government approach so thorough that arms of its so-called civil society policy can even justify espionage against the communities in which they operate.

If Prime Minister Cameron were to embrace that particular vision, it would ultimately be self-defeating toward the goals of the Big Society programme.

Fortunately, David Cameron doesn't seem to share Labour's addiction to big government.

Smaller Governments = Bigger Societies

David Cameron prepares to deal a staggering blow to statism

David Cameron has made more than his share of mistakes since assuming the office of Prime Minister of Britain.

There is, however, one thing Cameron is unquestionably doing right: he is pushing back against Britain's encroaching statism, and confronting it with a challenge that will prove enduring if successful.

Cameron calls it the "big society", and Britain is responding.

As the government prepares to referse the over-bureaucratization of British society that was fostered by the scientific over-governmenment techniques adopted by Tony Blair -- wherein "indexes" were used to apply a government mandate to nearly everything under the sun -- Britons are embracing the empowerment of the Big Society, doing everything from starting and funding their own affordable housing developments to starting their own schools.

Even the London School of Economics seems excited.

"For those in the United States who would like to see smaller government, you've got to believe that David Cameron is their kind of politician," gushes LSE economist Tony Travers.

And Cameron is prepared to deliver on a very fundamental level.

"The Big Society is about a huge culture change, where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighborhoods, in their workplace, don't always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face," Cameron has publicly explained.

Not all of Cameron's proposals are perfect at face value. Allowing "free schools" to set their own curriculum could be fraught with difficult issues -- some limits will remain necessary on what such schools can add to or remove from the curriculum.

But provided that these details are addressed, the Big Society promises to strike a staggering blow against statism -- and many Britons seem perfectly content to help him do it.

Not all Britons are prepared to abandon statism. Many opponents of the Big Society denounce it as a Margaret Thatcher-esque attack on government.

Supporters respond: why, yes it is.

What opponents of the Big Society have forgotten is that governments don't build societies -- communities do. Communities that are formed when individuals come to together, whether by birth or choice, and stay together by choice.

Governments can't make people work together by choice. The only way to accomplish this is to put power in the hands of citizens.

Smaller governments make bigger societies, espeically when citizens buy in.

And Now a Social Mobility Tsar?

Tory/Lib-Dem coaliton looking more and more like Labour

British Prime Minister David Cameron is a man with a problem.

A recent poll has the majority of Britons rating his government's performance as disappointing. In all, 57% of respondants are disappointed in Cameron's government.

Only 23% of Britons seem to think that Britain is better off with a coalition government.

The fair question may be: how could Britain be better off under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition when it seems so much like Labour?

Case in point: Cameron's government has added to its stable of policy-advisory Tsars with the addition of former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn, who will serve as Cameron's social mobility Tsar.

It's important to remember that Cameron's government was expected to be different from its predecessor. While Britain still waits to find out how deep cuts to public services will be, Cameron continually subjects the populace to the parading of these Tsars.

No one would argue that the coalition shouldn't be concerned with social mobility. But the introduction of a policy Tsar is a clear indication of the means they are leading towards: less toward free markets and more toward state action.

This certainly isn't what British conservatives expected when they cast their ballot in favour of the Tories.

The problem seems to be even worse for Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, who have seen their share of popular support cut from 23% on election day to only 16% now.

In the same poll, the Tories' own share of public support has dropped from 29% from 36% on May 5.

For the Lib-Dems, the matter is simple: their supporters are set to revolt against them for their role in the coming cuts. For the Tories, this drop in support comes from having disappointed their supportrs and -- to date -- governing too much like Labour.

Their fortunes may change as budget cuts are implimented -- but won't expand beyond their own base if they target such programs as milk for pre-schoolers.

In other words, Cameron's government is suffering because they have not yet governed like conservatives -- except on issues on which they cannot prevail.

It's Called "Tough Love", Pakistan. Get Used To It

Emotional blackmail is bad diplomacy -- Pakistan has a problem

British Prime Minister David Cameron has been under diplomatic fire from Pakistan of late over some "frank" comments about Pakistan's relationship with terrorism.

"We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world," Cameron asserted. "Democratic states that want to be part of the developed world cannot do that. The message to Pakistan from the US and the UK is very clear on that point."

Pakistan has not responded well.

Pakistani President Asif Zardani has declared that coalition forces are losing the war against the Taliban.

Unfortunately for Zardani, if coalition forces are losing the war against the Taliban it's largely because of the support elements within his country's military provide to both the Taliban specifically, and to Islamic militancy in general.

The anti-India agenda pursued by many of those within Pakistan's military is particularly problematic.

Former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan Chris Alexander stated that General Ashaq Kayani had prepared a plan to destroy Indian consolates and their embassy in Kabul.

According to OneIndia, Kayani has, in the past, told President Karzai that he could negotiate peace with the Taliban if only he would expel Pakistan's diplomats from the country and close their embassy and consolates.

General Kayani is said to be dedicated to fighting Islamic militancy. But his evident obsession with India only takes much-needed focus away from that problem.

David Cameron needs to remind Asif Zardani that he has two options: the first is to address the problems within his country that contribute aid and comfort to the Taliban, or he can decide to not do so.

Should he decide not to do so, he has no place complaining about any criticisms he may face for that decision.

David Cameron, on the other hand, needs to continue to focus international pressure on Pakistan to address these problems. If this means confronting Pakistan with the prospects of diplomatic and economic isolation, this is what simply has to be done.

It's called "tough love". Until it starts living up to its international responsibilities, Pakistan needs to get used to it.

Drawn Together

Tories, Liberal Democrats may be stuck together

Any British conservatives looking forward to the next general election as an opportunity to ride themselves of their Liberal Democrat coalition partners may be disappointed at some recent comments by Prime Minister David Cameron -- he suggests the coalition may continue after the next election.

"That will depend on how things feel at the time, but I'm enthusiastic about what we're doing because I think we are delivering good government at a difficult time," Cameron announced. "I think if we can succeed we can demonstrate that these two parties can work well together for the good of the country –- that I think does reshape politics."

Cameron steadfastly insists that the coalition has been good for conservatives, and that his government is poised to deliver 80% of its election manifesto.

"This is a government that wants to roll up its sleeves and get on with the job and deal with the big challenges we face," Cameron remarked. "I think this government is delivering. I know people worry, isn't a coalition government going to be a lowest-commondenominator government? I think we have demonstrated we are not."

"It's important that the Lib Dems feel and are seen to feel that some of the things they care about are being delivered on and they are making a real contribution," he continued. "I don't hide that, I celebrate it."

Based on this, it seems that Cameron is willing to consider the possibility of continuing the coalition partnership after the next British election -- which will be set via fixed election date legislation.

While this prospect may seem troubling both for Tories and for Liberal Democrats, it shouldn't be considered all that surprising.

After all, if the Conservatives and Lib Dems didn't intend to be successful with their coalition, there would have been no point in establishing it at all. If the Tories and Lib Dem coalition is successful, the two parties will have a common record to run on. Neither party could criticize the other without effectively criticizing themselves at the same time.

This shouldn't be mistaken for suggesting that the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition is an untroubled relationship. Cameron recognizes the challenges of maintaining it.

"The coalition is a relationship that has to be worked on," Cameron admitted. "It's a bit like a seesaw – there will be some times it feels the Conservatives are making the running, there will be some times it feels like the Lib Dems are making the running."

The prospect of continuing the Tory/Lib Dem coalition after the next electio shouldn't be confused for a merger between the two parties -- far from it.

"Of course I expect Conservatives and Liberals will fight elections separately," Cameron said. "We have different underlying philosophies and differences in approach and policy. But obviously if we are fighting a separate election after a successful five-year government, I hope we will be relatively polite about each other."

If Britons judge the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government to be a successful one, there may be a strong prospect that they may be compelled to continue after the next election (the other possibility being a Conservative majority).

The Conservatie Party and the Liberal Democrats have been drawn together. Depending on the judgement of the British citizenry, they may be stuck together for a while yet.

Electoral Reform in the Eye of the Storm

Former Tory leadership contender leads fight against electoral reform

When David Cameron successfully negotiated the coalition accord that made him Prime Minister of Britain, one of the key concessions he had to offer was a referendum on electoral reform.

In the end, not only did Cameron give Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg control over drafting the proposition for electoral reform, but he also placed him in charge of reviewing electoral boundaries -- effectively giving Clegg the power to, if he should so choose, gerrymander right under Cameron's nose.

Last but not least, Cameron announced that he would decline to lead a "no" campaign against the Alternative Vote system Clegg will likely champion, although he has solidly come out against it, and will campaign against it.

While no formal leader for the "no" campaign has, to date, emerged, the man whom Cameron defeated for the Tory leadership has begun to lead an insurgency against it within the Conservative Party.

David Davis has described AV as "ant-Tory", and declared that he will oppose the referendum itself.

"With AV, in times of trouble, you get oscillations of government rather than stability," Davis insisted. "You would have got [Margaret] Thatcher then Michael Foot, Thatcher then Neil Kinnock."

"Our current system almost always delivers a clear result," he continued. "It pretty much always reflects the mood of the country. You don’t want to replace that, as a result of some electoral deal, with something that may give us permanent instability."

The trouble with this argument is that it depends on how any one individual interprets "the mood of the country". People of differing ideological perspectives will always interpret this differently -- and the most demagogic amongst them will always seek ways to spin the available information to suit the end they desire.

Davis may have lost the 2005 Conservative leadership campaign, but a great many Tories are feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the amount of power Nick Clegg has been given to shape Britain's electoral system, with a minimum of Tory input.

David Cameron would be wise to take this entire affair back to the drawing board, and at the very least impart a stronger voice to his own party on the form that Alternative Vote will ultimately take.

It may not be enough to placate David Davis, but it's just the responsible thing to do.

David Cameron Takes Hands-Off Approach to British Democracy

PM to stay out of electoral reform referendum

No sooner has British Prime Minister David Cameron given responsibility for a referendum on electoral reform to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg than Cameron has announced he'll be keeping his hands out of the matter.

While he will likely work with Clegg to decide the date of said referendum, Cameron has already stated that he won't lead the "no" campaign.

He merely wishes the matter to be debated promptly and constructively.

“I see the case for getting on with this in relatively reasonable order,” Cameron announced. “This is one of the issues where we are going to have a healthy debate.”

Cameron is on record as being a supporter of the current first-past-the-post voting system.

“I will not change my view that the alternative vote is not an improvement to first-past- the-post, so I will make that clear at the time,” he announced.

Underlying all the discussion of this referendum is a disagreement within Britain's two coalition parties over when the coalition should be held. The Liberal Democrats seem to feel that their best opportunity for a "yes" vote would be May 2011. The Conservatives, who seem for the most part to oppose changing the system prefer that the vote would be held later than that.

Many Tories believe that changing the voting system will cost them seats. Others think that the party will be just fine, so long as electoral boundaries are changed accordingly.

Unfortuantely for the latter, Clegg is also in charge of reviewing electoral boundaries.

So Cameron understands fully that he's taking a risk in giving so much power to decide this issue to Clegg -- who has yet to announce whether or not he'll be involved in the "yes" campaign. (It's probably safe to assume he will.)

“This was one of the very important planks of the coalition. It is something the Liberal Democrats are passionately in favour of," Cameron explained. "The Conservatives are more sceptical about it."

But Cameron recognizes that this is just part of the price of keeping his coalition government alive.

“You have to understand things from your coalition partner’s point of view to understand the pressures from the party," Cameron explained. “I try to explain these to him. He tries to explain them to me. Soon we will be able to write essays about these things."

It will be up to David Cameron and his party to decide if the price of keeping Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats happy has been too steep. If Clegg is successful in sculpting political reforms to benefit his party, they may wind up paying through the nose.

A Conservative Government With a Poverty Tsar

David Cameron appoints Labour MP to combat poverty

When one considers that the British Conservative Party holds the lion's share of the seats occupied by the current government of Britain -- 306 seats to 57 for their partner Liberal Democrats -- one would expect that the coalition government would behave more like a conservative government and less like a socialist government.

Many conservatives would question whether or not this has actually been the case. One Prime Minister David Cameron's most recent announcements is that he has recruited Labour MP Frank Field to chair a committee examining poverty in Great Britain and making recommendations on how to fight it.

A particular focus will be paid to child poverty.

In political terms, Field is actually a natural choice to work with Cameron's coalition government. Field briefly served as Minister responsible for welfare reform under Tony Blair before subsequently resigning from Gordon Brown's government over policy issues.

Field was told to "think the unthinkable" by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. According to now-Prime Minister David Cameron, there is much more to Field than merely that.

"For a long time Frank has been willing to say the unsayable," Cameron remarked, noting that Field's approach to poverty is one that carries distinct conservative overtones. "He has argued that the welfare state should be more than a money-redistribution system but rather 'openly reward good behaviour and ...be used to enhance those roles which the country values'."

"He has drawn the link between family breakdown and more instability, more crime, greater pressure on housing and social benefits, arguing that a fundamental principle of the welfare state should be to support families and children," Cameron continued. "Understanding the real causes of poverty - both financial and non financial, including the importance of families and the pre-school years - is vital if we are going to make Britain a fairer society in which opportunity is more equal."

Many conservatives would think that Cameron has appointed a poverty tsar at all is discouraging, regardless of how palatable that individual's ideas should be to them.

But that isn't all. Cameron has also appointed left-wing media pundit Will Hutton to serve as his "fair pay tsar".

Hutton will lead Cameron's promised inquiry into pay inequities in the private sector. It should be unthinkable to conservatives that they would legislate how highly corporate executives should be paid, instead of adopting a superior conservative approach: empowering shareholders to claw back extraneous executive salaries through internal measures within such companies, and lawsuits outside the companies when executives have not acted in the best interests of the shareholders.

Yet under Hutton's influence it seems that something more like the former may happen.

And while the notion of fighting child poverty is something that any proper conservative should find emotionally appealing, it should be remembered that impoverished children are members of impoverished families. The key to eliminating child poverty is not single-minded government action, but economic growth that will provide well-paying jobs for said families.

David Cameron clearly has a difficult task before him -- trying to keep his own Tory caucus satisfied, while satisfying enough of his partners' demands to keep the coalition government alive.

But this should by no means be treated as a good enough reason to give the store away. Some conservatives may be concerned that this is precisely what David Cameron is doing.

Where Nick Clegg Fits in the Coalition Puzzle

Political reforms on the agenda for Deputy PM

A coalition drawn from as disparate partners as the British Conservative Party and the Liberal Democratic Party was certain to be quite the puzzle.

Sometimes, it's difficult to know where all the pieces fit -- particularly when a piece like chief Treasury Secretary David Laws disappears from the picture. Laws, a committed Liberal Democrat, had long been sought by the Tories. It must be disappointing to see him resign over an expenses scandal.

David Cameron likely had Laws' office pegged from the very beginning of the coalition. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg must have been another matter entirely.

For those who were wondering where Clegg would fit into into the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, they recently found out.

Clegg's primary task as Deputy Prime Minister will be electoral reform. He will be responsible for introducing legislation to fix the term of Parliament, further reforms of party funding, the establishment of a lobbyist registry, and to hold a referendum on reform of the electoral system.

He will also consider introducing a primary election system for the selection of candidates.

Clegg will also be handed responsibility for the Electoral Commission, Boundaries Commission, and Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Not only will Clegg wield tremendous power over the establishment of new electoral boundaries, but he will also be responsible for helping establish the expenses rules that will prevent the disgracing of MPs such as David Laws.

The road ahead for David Cameron's and Nick Clegg's coalition will not be an easy one. But with Clegg himself in charge of satisfying some of the Liberal Democrats' premier demands, the road should be made a little easier -- provided that Clegg remains satisfied if his referendum fails.

The Antidote to Front-Bench Domination

Graham Brady wins chairmanship of 1922 Committee

For those concerned about the dominance of Parliamentary caucuses by the front bench -- Cabinet Ministers and Opposition Critics -- the British Conservative Party offers a fantastic solution.

Since 1923, the 1922 Committee -- so named after the 1922 election in which the Tories won a massive landslide after terminating a coalition government with the National Liberal party of David Lloyd George, at the demand of Conservative backbenchers -- has consisted of Conservative backbenchers, and has often served as a means by whcih backbench MPs can hold the party leadership to account.

"My colleagues have done me a great honour and placed a great responsibility on me to work to help to make our arrangements a success in these difficult circumstances," Brady announced. "My priority will be to spend as much time as I can talking and listening to all of my colleagues across the parliamentary party, especially the new intake who make up such a large part of it."

Brady is a known critic of Prime Minister David Cameron, who recently attempted to talk the 1922 Committee into allowing front-benchers to join the committee. The committee understandably declined.

But Brady is more than a simple rabble rouser.

Daniel Hannan knows well that difference. Hannan himself has been known to be a critic of Cameron, particularly over Cameron's decision to abandon promises to hold a referendum on the European Union.

"Graham grasps the distinction between sticking to your principles and making trouble for the sake of it," Hannan writes in an op/ed. "He resigned from the front bench unfussily over his support for grammar schools, and remained loyal and polite thereafter. It was his example I had in mind when I left the European front bench in protest at the dropping of the referendum commitment."

That Daniel Hannan followed Brady's example clearly gives Cameron reason for pause. That's actually the best reason for him to be the chairman of the 1922 Committee.

Cameron's government is one that has already been born out of an act of compromise. There's nothing wrong with compromise, but there can be such a thing as too much compromise. Too much compromise can very quickly become a complete betrayal of a party's principles.

The amount of power wielded by the 1922 Committee can prevent any such wholesale betrayal.

Organizations such as the 1922 Committee could prove to be beneficiary for conservative political parties in any number of Parliamentary democracies.