In it together

Once again, the UK is at war. Within a year of David Cameron's premiership, we see him delivering a sombre statement that confirms British troops are in action over foreign soil. All this whilst we are still figuring a way out of a near ten year old conflict in Afghanistan and where Iraq - invaded nearly eight years ago this month - is out of the headlines but has yet to fully stabilise.

It's clear that Gaddafi was brutalising his people. The rebel held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya was under severe threat of a house to house operation by Gaddafi's forces. After the wave of popular revolution swept - mostly peacefully - through Tunisia and Egypt, such a wave of revolution in Libya was always likely to meet an iron Gaddafi fist.

And so, after some weeks of delay whilst the US stood back and let the UK and those former cheese-eating French surrender monkeys lead the way, we have a UN resolution that authorises "all necessary steps" to deal with Gaddafi. Or, specifically, "all necessary steps" to protect civilians, freeze Gaddafi's assets and establish a no-fly zone over Libya. So far, so good, for the Arab League and for the Russians and Chinese who felt no need to wield their vetoes.

Resolution secured, David Cameron secured some deserved plaudits. He held firm, and dashed the doubters who scorned his flirtation with a no-fly zone in the face of American indifference. In truth, the United States have played a clever game. They've stood back, let other countries do the running, keen to avoid the perception of the United States once again deciding to meddle in an Arab nation's affairs.

But now the tough part starts. They may have held back diplomatically, but the bombs and missiles that began hitting Gaddafi targets over the weekend have, of course, been overwhelmingly from the United States. A spatter of European nations have joined in, including Britain, with a Tornado here and a Tomahawk missile there from Mediterranean submarines.

And where is it all going to lead? As a student, I remember defending Tony Blair's invasion of Iraq whilst the vast majority of my peers were marching in the streets of London. In favour of intervention then, perhaps I've learned a new scepticism on military action.

Libya in 2011 is not Iraq in 2003. But we still need to be sure we are getting this right. Dealing with maniac dictators isn't easy, and Gaddafi is right up there with the looniest. Once again, we've gone in without a clear idea of how we get out. Without a clear idea of whether we're up for regime change or whether we just want to keep the peace and get Gaddafi to back off for a bit. We've set off again without a clear sense of our objective.

Ministers are making confusing noises. Over the weekend, Liam Fox appeared to talk up the possibility that Gaddafi himself is a target, saying it would "potentially be a possibility" in very halting tones. Fox then clarified that "avoiding civilian casualties" would be the main consideration in that "possibility", not a view reflected by his Chief of Defence staff today who said clearly that it was "not allowed" under UN Resolution 1973.

This all reflections a confusion, once again, at the heart of another coalition set up to intervene in another Arab state as to what our goals are. We're only just getting them right in Afghanistan after ten years fighting. And once again, with Libya, we are clearer about the moral case for action that developing the action plan that will best deliver that moral cause. Getting the ethics right is a decision based on emotion, our hard planning for all outcomes is once again lacking. Protecting civilians is a short-term objective, we still need a long-term objective to deal with the effect of delivering that short-term objective. If we do bring security to civilians, what consequences - happy as they may be - does that security bring?

What do we do if there's a stalemate? If Gaddafi, after a week or so of uncomfortable bombing, backs off Benghazi and retreats. What do we do if Gaddafi concedes eastern Libya but hangs on in the west, effectively partitioning Libya? What do we do when (I say pessimistically) the civilian casualties reach a level that causes Arab countries to withdraw their support (the Arab League has already made sceptical noises about the military action being "different" to a no-fly zone), and perhaps even openly question our intervention... creating another running sore of Western military overstretch in another Arab nation?

The moral cause may be right, the UN Resolution may have been cleverly won - but noone really knows where we go from here. Minister don't even need to rule out the use of ground troops, because Gaddafi will know that no Western government will be up for that. The most likely outcome seems to be a rough equivalent to the air strikes against Saddam Hussein in the mid 1990s - Operation Desert Fox - an air campaign, the madman retreats, the West imposes sanctions, but the madman basically hangs on pretty effectively.

That is probably the best outcome we can hope for. But whatever happens, we've thrown our lot in decisively with the Libyan people. We'd better get it right, and learn the lessons of the past. And we'd better not create another recruitment video for Al-Qaeda.

A bit simple

It's clear that, across the Middle East, we're seeing a wave of revolution on a scale similar to the 1989 collapse of the Soviet republics of Eastern Europe. Tunisia, then Egypt and now Libya. And the British Government has struggled to keep up.

The Libya crisis has tested the Government the most. The Foreign Office failed to see it coming, with diplomats reportedly saying - as President Mubarak of Egypt fell - that Gaddaffi would be safe. And the crisis coincided horribly with David Cameron popping up on a tour of the Middle East to sell arms (part of Britain's mercantilist foreign policy - trade missions to woo India here, selling arms to the Middle East there), when Colonel Gaddaffi began to point British-sold arms at his own people as they rallied against him and for their democratic rights.

Since then, Cameron and Hague have been floundering. Cameron was this week cut loose by the United States on the idea of a no-fly zone over Libya. Hawkish in a statement to Parliament on Monday, he was toning down any military rhetoric at PMQs on Wednesday. There are reportedly splits in the Cabinet, with Hague and Clegg having to fend off interventionist aspirations from Fox, Gove and Osborne. Cameron, meanwhile, is stuck in the middle.

All of this smacks of the Government having not quite become used to being a Government. Its handling of the crisis has consisted of statements one might expect of an Opposition, where it doesn't in the end bear responsibility. Talking up a no-fly zone without checking whether the United States was up for it was inept and damaging for British foreign policy. And the Government has seemed flat-footed on its recently completed strategic defence review - flirting with the idea of a no-fly zone in the same few weeks as decommissioning one of Britain's few aircraft carriers and laying off a hundred or so pilots in the middle of their training. They say that the UK's defence review doesn't need a rethink, that we're not cutting our Armed Forces too far and too fast.

I'm not sure I belive them. And here's why. The Libya handling reflects one of the most troubling aspects about the Government that Nick Clegg's Lib Dems have allied themselves too. It's all a bit simplistic. Economic policy is about cuts. Foreign policy is about trade and national security. Domestic policy is about... cuts and the Big Society, a good idea in dire need of some detail and leadership. The Government needs a deeper sense of what it is trying to do for Britain and where it is taking us. Simple messages are good, but not if the policies behind them are simplistic.

That, I believe, is the real issue that should worry Liberal Democrats worried about the Coalition Government that we have joined.

Cameron's "muscular liberalism"

David Cameron’s speech in Munich yesterday has grabbed headlines. The Prime Minister stating that the “state doctrine of multiculturalism” has “failed” provides a memorable and thought-provoking strap-line for his speech. It should provoke a lot of soul-searching.

Declaring multiculturalism as having failed would not always have been this easy. Tolerant Brits – and there are many of us – would have seen criticising multiculturalism as in itself some kind of attack on Britain, akin to bashing the NHS or the BBC. The multiculturalism that Cameron claims is now harming Britain, was once seen as a very British trait – of treading a careful and tolerant middle ground, not wishing to offend or be extreme.

Now, Cameron says this British trait is a threat to Britain. His remarks prioritised combating Islamist violent extremism as the driver for a re-think. But, in what was a short speech, the link between different cultures leading separate lives and extremists who threaten our national security was not sufficiently clear. Cameron said we should do more to tackle hate preachers. He said we should do more to tackle forced marriages, where the weakness of our challenge “reinforces a feeling that not enough is shared”.

It was a short speech in which Cameron dashed quickly across a political minefield. The basic summary of the speech – that we need to find a more cohesive approach to glue our society together – is right. And we probably do the “muscular liberalism” that he spoke of – arguing strongly for the liberal values that are part of British society.

This is still a problem in search of a solution. The most pressing need is for there to be a higher quality debate. Less polarised. Less defensive both within the Muslim community and outside it. But I can’t help feeling that arguing for greater community integration in the context of tackling violent Islamist extremism, will only make that task harder. It is broader than that. It involves isolating extremists on both sides – including the thousands of English Defence League activists who crowded the streets of Luton yesterday.

If “muscular liberalism” is to work, it cannot point the finger at one part of society. To do so risks entrenching separate communities further. They are defensive. They are polarised. We must criticise where criticism is necessary, but as Cameron says “we are all in this together”. So, Cameron’s approach of saying “to belong here is to believe in these things” needs to apply to everyone – including the dinner party Islamophobes identified by Baroness Warsi who polarise the debate further by failing to separate religion from political ideology.

And if we are to flex our liberal muscles more – it needs to be as much about what values we believe in, as the values we put into practice. It is no coincidence that the majority of areas in which there are racial tensions are deprived areas, where the fight for public services and jobs is more acute. We need a wide debate, but actions will be as important as words.

A positive step, but don't forget the hacking

The Home Secretary's announcement last week on counter-terrorism powers was a step in the right direction. It was also another step in the right direction for the Liberal Democrats as a serious party of government.

Of course they had pledged to get rid of control orders. And they haven't. Control orders have been re-badged - but they still remain. But they have been softened - and the government should be applauded for finding a middle ground between protecting the fundamental liberty of living in peace and security and finding a more liberal way of dealing with the small number of terrorist suspects who it is not possible to deal with through the normal procedures of the criminal justice system.

Many will be disappointed. Liberty accused the Government of "bottling it" on control orders. Maybe. But the Government actually deserves real credit here for marking a step change since the Labour days of complacently trampling over civil liberties. There was never a need to detain suspects before charge for in excess of forty days. The previous control orders regime was excessively restrictive. And in doing so, they created a grievance that is felt as much on the streets of Afghanistan and Pakistan as it is in the UK.

The Home Secretary's announcement was an important step in Britain moving in a more liberal direction. During the same week, we also saw more politicians and celebrities come out and say that they believed their voicemails had been hacked into by the News of the World. During the same week that the Government made it harder for councils to spy on ordinary people. But the News of the World investigation has focussed too much on issues of personality and vanity around Andy Coulson. Guilty or not guilty of knowing what was going on under his editorship, I don't think the liberal argument against the phone hacking scandal has been vociferous enough. It is completely unacceptable for there to have been any phone hacking by a major tabloid newspaper. Celebrities are not fair game. It is not okay.

And, call me an "establishment" liberal, but I have far less confidence in a tabloid newspaper wielding that power than I do over the difficult decisions that sometimes have to be made to restrict the liberties of a terrorist suspect (where, let's be honest, there is often considerable inadmissible evidence) in favour of protecting the freedom of a majority to live in peace and security.

And this is precisely the kind of liberal journey that the Liberal Democrats need to - and, to their great credit, are going on - in Government. A brave week. More progress. The coalition has taken a significant step in moving Britain in a more liberal direction than Labour had ever thought possible.

Two Ed's better than one?

So, Ed Balls is the new Shadow Chancellor. There appear to be rather sad personal reasons behind Alan Johnson's hasty departure. But whatever the reasons, it allows Ed Miliband the opportunity for a bit of a re-launch and a bit of a re-think. He desperately needs one. His first hundred days, always scrutinised by the pundits, were uninspiring and very forgettable. The media is labelling Ed as a man with nothing to say - there were brutally funny cartoons of Ed surrounded by students waving placards. Tellingly, Ed's placard was blank.

And this has been the mark of Ed's first few month's as leader. Labour has struggled to define itself as the coalition has charged around with reforms on welfare, health and education and the sheer scale of the cuts outlined in October's comprehensive spending review. But it really is about the economy, stupid, and Labour's position on the deficit and on spending cuts was fatally weakened by Alan Johnson's nice guy approach - he was a nice guy, but failed to land any blows on George Osborne because it was clear he didn't really do the numbers.

Ed Balls will surely be different. He has one of the most formidable ecomomic brains in Parliament today. For too long in this Parliament, Labour has struggled to be a credible and effective opposition. Balls, like Brown in his wait for the Premiership, has waited a long time for this. He wanted to be Chancellor of course, and lost out to Alistair Darling. He wanted to be Shadow Chancellor and was disappointed to be appointed Shadow Home Secretary. Whilst Ed Miliband has placed Balls in his own office and under his own media team, we can expect Ed Balls to bring much greater clarity to Labour's attacks on the economy. Ed Miliband has a chance to beef up his Opposition with Ball's talent deployed where it can make a real difference.

The first task will be to figure out a strategy to blunt Tory attacks that Labour are "deficit deniers". Balls and Miliband will need to craft a more credible line than they have so far where Labour went wrong on the economy. Of course, the bank bail-outs triggered a huge rise in borrowing. But Labour will need to be more honest about the role it played in the banks getting to that stage in the first place. When it comes to the economy, it's all about trust - and the Tory line that Labour are in denial is one that is sticking and needs to be addressed.

A further task will be for Labour to ensure that two Ed's really are better than one. There is great potential here for Ed Balls to undermine and overshadow Ed Miliband who has, thus far, been uninspiring. Ed Balls ran a superb leadership campaign over the summer - he has softened his image and shows great capacity for re-inventing himself. He reminds me of Michael Portillo, the Thatcherite villain of the left, who came back as Shadow Chancellor under William Hague's leadership and took the party in a bold direction, reversing - for example - Tory opposition to the minimum wage. Ed Balls has the capacity to make the same kind of break with Labour's past and, in doing so, escape the Brownite villain status that still hangs round his neck.

He's been waiting for this for so long - you have to expect Ed Balls to make the most of his chance. And if he does well and Miliband continues to falter, he may just have an eye on the leadership too.

Change that works for you?

The Lib Dems began 2011 with a dreadful poll. Just one poll admittedly, but it was the worst poll rating for the party since it was formed. Just 8% in a YouGov tracker poll for 2011. Another snapshot poll put them at 11%.

Whichever way you look at it, the Lib Dems are facing probably their most testing year since they were formed in 1988. They campaigned in the 2010 General Election with the slogan "Change that Works for You". Well, the country certainly got change. 2010 brought about the most dramatic change in British politics since the Second World War. A full coalition government; not the half-way house of the Lib-Lab pact in the 1970s.

Doing things radically differently in politics opens politicians open to huge political risk. That risk is harder to manage if the risk has, essentially, never been tried before. Britain's unfair electoral system delivers governments that make the public unused to parties working in partnership together. And with that lack of understanding comes the risk that the junior partner is seen as an annex to a larger party, irrelevant in its own status and purpose.

I don't think it is overdramatic to say that in 2011, the Liberal Democrats face a battle for survival. It is one they may well emerge from successfully, but the battle is there nonetheless. Nick Clegg took a gamble - and it's not yet clear whether the "Change that Works for You" that Nick Clegg has delivered for his own party will indeed be a change that works for the Lib Dems. Has he delivered his party into a fatal bear hug from David Cameron, in which the Conservatives can simply swallow up the Liberal Democrats? Would it matter if Cameron does swallow up the Lib Dems - can the Conservative Party safeguard the values that the Liberal Democrats have fought for since their formation in 1988 and in their various iterations before that? I believe it does matter that the Lib Dems survive.

I am in favour of the Lib Dems being serious partners in full coalition government. Nick Clegg promised on his first day as leader that he would be driven by a desire for "ambition and change". He has delivered both of those. Under his leadership, the party has grown in ambition and seriousness. The 2010 manifesto - notwithstanding a foolish promise on tuition fees - was the party's most credible manifesto promoted by a credible leader (gone were the wooly press conferences of the Charles Kennedy era when he struggled through a hangover to explain a local income tax).

Joining the coalition government was a necessary step in proving the value of three party politics in Britain. But the trouble with it is that three party politics does not exist yet. Britain still has a voting system that delivers two strong parties and leaves the smaller parties with a share of Westminster seats that barely does justice to their national support (how is it right that a party with 25% of the vote receives less than 10% of the seats in Parliament?). Clegg has gambled that he can create three party politics and win the voting reforms needed to make the Lib Dems more relevant and more powerful in the long term, by adopting a strategy which risks making the Lib Dems more irrelevant in the short term.

There are ways in which the risk can be managed. Supporting tuition fees was the right thing to do; it was wrong to have courted the student vote so transparently when it appears Lib Dem Ministers were always more open-minded than they suggested on the campaign trail. But they can't afford many more compromises - the decision on control orders, for example, needs to decide against them as a result of Lib Dem influence. It is, alongside tuition fees, one of the totemic Lib Dem policies that they need to be seen to deliver on in government. Otherwise, Lib Dem Ministers really are just window-dressing. Nick Clegg cannot afford another defeat on a core Lib Dem policy. Noone will vote for more pluralist voting systems if the coalition governments they produce are seen to be indistinguishable from a government where one party was in power.

But Clegg should also be given credit for what the Lib Dems have achieved, and tell that story more effectively. Many parts of the Lib Dem manifesto got into the Coalition Agreement and are now being implemented. But who knows how much of it? 65% of it is, and that should be part of the core narrative of the Lib Dems in government - otherwise they will keep being bashed for the compromises they will inevitably have to make rather than taking credit for steering the Tories in a more liberal direction in many cases.

In short, 2011 needs to be the year that the Lib Dems make this change work for them. Bold in standing up for core Lib Dem beliefs. Bold in telling a proud story of Lib Dems delivering and influencing change as a credible part of government.

A free vote on fees is the only way forward

I don't usually blog on the same topic so regularly. But the tuition fees "dilemma" for the Liberal Democrats is becoming a touchstone issue for the coalition and its junior partner. It is a key test of whether power sharing is workable, an argument crucial to winning next May's referendum on a fairer voting system. Yet today, there is still uncertainty over how Lib Dem Ministers and backbench Lib Dem MPs will vote on tuition fees - in short whether Government Ministers will back Government policy. Shouldn't be up for debate, should it?

I've uncovered a bit more of what the Secretary of State responsible for Universities, Vince Cable actually said yesterday - and it's pretty shocking. Asked how he would vote, Cable said:

"If we all abstain, then that is the position I am happy to go along with... there is an option that we all abstain together and we are considering that. My own personal instincts, partly because I am the Secretary of State responsible for universities and partly because I think the policy is right are very much to vote for it. But we have got to vote as a group, collectively, and we are discussing how we do that".

Not good enough. This is not the kind of grown up, decisive leadership you would expect of a Government Minister in charge of delivering a key policy reform. If you adopt something as policy, you believe in it. If you believe in it, you argue passionately to persuade those who do not and to bring them on board. Every day that passes with senior Lib Dems hedging their bets, the more it sounds as if Lib Dems have reluctantly gone along with a policy they do not really support. You only need to look at Gordon Brown's premiership to see how damaging it is to dither whilst you wait to see which way the political wind is blowing.

Thankfully, some Lib Dems are talking sense. Lord Willis, former Higher Education spokesperson for the party, today said this on the Today programme:

"The reality is that either we bite the bullet and believe that the proposals are the ones to take us forward in terms of higher education or we don't. They do take us forward and it's time the Liberal Democrats now simply got on board and said, 'Well, let us back them; let us sell them'".

This is absolutely right. But a decision needs to be made fast. Looking at the detail of the Coalition Agreement, abstention does not seem to be an option. It says that Lib Dems can abstain "if the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept". But the response to the Government is one that Liberal Democrat Ministers have accepted, so they cannot exercise any right to abstain.

It's a moment for decisive leadership. Lib Dem Ministers need to say they wholeheartedly endorse the proposals and will vote in favour. They then need to say that they will offer a free vote, as some sources are suggesting, for Lib Dem backbench MPs. And then strongly sell the policy to get as many to vote for it as possible. There is no point whipping the party into a ridiculous position that then requires an act of political contortionism to maintain, as Nick Clegg did on the Lib Dem position on the EU constitution referendum.

Mass abstention will be seen as a cowardly derelection of duty by the already disenfranchised students and by the wider public who expect Lib Dems to be constructive partners in coalition government. The only way forward is for a free vote on fees - and for Lib Dem MPs to at least vote boldly as decision-makers. For or against. I believe they should vote for the fees package. But they should at least make a decision - sitting on the fence is not an option.