Much to reform

Scandals at the Home Office have ceased to shock. It emerged last month that 540 Britons who committed serious crimes abroad have been free to apply for jobs from which they should have been barred, 147 drugs traffickers have defied travel bans and 322 registered sex offenders have simply disappeared off the official radar, while Home Secretary John Reid predicts problems to get worse. There is a good case that recent scandals may be the result of individual rather than institutional failings. But something is clearly awry, and, at the least, Reid is right to assert that “there must be no sacred cows when it comes to protecting security and justice”. He takes the view that the very structure of his department must be overhauled, proposing a radical dissolution of the Home Office by dividing its powers and responsibilities between two new ministries, one responsible for prisons, probation and criminal justice and the other for counter-terrorism, policing, and immigration. But his plans have been attacked by, among others, his two most recent predecessors as Home Secretary - Charles Clarke and David Blunkett.

Clarke’s main concern, aired yesterday in an interview with Sky News, echoes previous Conservative critiques of Reid’s plans: dividing the Home Office risks exacerbating its main weakness, that of a worrying “lack of co-ordination between its various elements”. The scheme also has obvious implications for the separation of powers between the judiciary and the other branches of government, with the judicial administration of the Department for Constitutional Affairs subsumed within a broader ministry of Justice. But David Blunkett’s worries were of a different order. Alongside illiberal musings that Continental ministries of Justice entailed exaggerated clout for “the judiciary and those most concerned about protecting the perpetrator”, the Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside - Home Secretary from 2001 to 2004 - told ITV that defenestrating the Home Office would have serious implications for democracy in the UK. Within Cabinet, a powerful Home Secretary balances the posts of Prime Minister and Chancellor. Reform risks the “Balkanisation of government”, with multiple ministers inevitably concentrating power in the hands of the top two in Downing Street.

Individually, separated Justice and Security ministries would indeed be weaker than the current Home Office, while British government undoubtedly lacks checks on the power of Numbers 10 and 11. But it would be wrong to maintain a leviathan at the expense of efficient security and justice simply for the sake of balance. The dynamics of cabinet government have always shifted and evolved. Gordon Brown wields unprecedented influence as the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, while it was only in the 1960s and 1970s, with the growing politicisation of its security functions, that the Home Secretary came to challenge the precedence of the other Great Office of State, the Foreign Secretary. Today the current malaise of his department rather undermines the ability of the Home Secretary to impose himself in Cabinet, and it is to rewrite the past for Blunkett to claim he ever approached the power of Brown or Blair.

Several factors have led to a concentration of political power at the centre over the past quarter of a century. Modern politics is largely post-ideological and personality driven, with political parties inextricably intertwined with their leaders in the minds of the electorate. Important too has been the entrenched position of the then governing party, granting its leadership greater freedom and confidence. In the 6 elections from 1983, power has changed party hands only once, with the government enjoying majorities of over 100 for 17 of those 24 years (1983-1992 and again 1997-2005). In the previous six elections (1964-1979) the governing party was re-elected only when it called an early poll, in March 1966 after 17 months and in October 1974 after less than 8, while before 1983 no election had delivered a majority of over 100 since 1945’s Labour landslide. The British political system has long been a tyranny of the Commons, with an emasculated House of Lords and head of state, but we can no longer rely on the Commons itself to provide checks on the centre. Rather than propping up the Home Office beyond its useful lifespan, what are needed are alternative foci outside the lower house. Decentralisation and greater autonomy for local councils would be one effective means of achieving this. A largely elected upper chamber would create alternative leaders with the legitimacy to challenge the Prime Minister. So too would an elected head of state.

David Blunkett is right to fear such a concentration of power in the hands of so few, but John Reid’s plans for the Home Office should be judged only on their ability to improve its efficacy. Rather than looking a ailing department, those hoping for a balanced political system in Britain should seek to pluralize power beyond the Commons.

The environment resuscitated

In the run up to the 2005 general election, the New Statesman led with “how the greens were choked to death” - “why the environment isn’t an election issue”. Lacking vision and leadership, green groups had been compromised and marginalised within Labour’s “big tent” after throwing their lot in with the government in 1997. By 2005, only the Liberal Democrat's had a manifesto presenting green issues as fundamental to their platform - Labour gave the environment only a few paragraphs at the end of its ‘International policy’ and ‘Quality of life’ sections, while for the Conservatives it was buried within ‘Accountability’. But, since then, we have had the Stern Review and a growing acknowledgement of the potential impact of climate change, while the Tories have reinvented themselves as the party of the scribbled tree.

Green issues have accordingly risen in prominence on the major parties’ respective websites. Labour now place ‘Climate change and energy’ fourth on their list of policy areas, while the Lib Dems place the ‘Environment’ fifth. The Tories’ ‘Quality of Life Challenge’, which unlike Labour’s 2005 manifesto namesake is more or less exclusively devoted to environmental concerns, is second in its set of six key policy ‘challenges'. But don’t bank on the environment as a decisive factor in any future general election. As the parties gear up for this years’ polls in Scotland and Wales, the Welsh Conservatives may hope that emphasising ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’ gets them greater representation in the Senedd, but by burying their own track record on the environment the Scottish Labour party clearly doesn’t consider it crucial in determining whether they retain control of Holyrood. All parties want to talk tough on the environment, but none are going to feel particularly inclined to ask too many sacrifices of the electorate. The Conservatives at least seem likely to follow the Lib Dems in sweetening the pill of eco-taxes with tax reductions elsewhere. Labour are currently saying the least about climate change, but, after commisioning the Stern Report, expect Gordon Brown to make important announcements once Tony Blair steps down. 2006 was a year of environmental awakening, and it is hard to imagine a repeat of 2005’s electoral indifference to climate change. The main parties have accepted the prospect of global environmental catastrophe. But none yet seem ready to stake out a daring position to lead the electorate where they don't neccesarily want to go.

The fall of Eden

Britain’s Prime Minister, discredited by a foreign policy disaster in the Middle East, is manoeuvred into resignation by an ambitious Chancellor of the Exchequer who goes on to replace him in the top job. 50 years ago today Sir Anthony Eden left office after a period in power judged by a 2004 MORI survey to have been the least successful of the 20th century. The legacy of a Prime Minister in similar straits, the current incumbent Tony Blair, is perhaps more secure, but then he has had a decade to nurture it rather than a bare twenty months. Blair’s New Year message set out his personal vision of the past decade, citing improving public services, falling crime, and winning the right to host the Olympics in 2012 as among his proudest achievements while in number ten. But in truth, if he is to be remembered for anything other than misadventures in Iraq, it will be for his demonstration that accommodating the market is a prerequisite of sustained power for the British centre-left. Blair used his New Year message to urge his party to stay ‘New Labour’, a warning to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor set to succeed him, not to tinker with the winning formula which has thus far granted Labour an unprecedented three terms of government. Harold Macmillan, the Chancellor who succeeded Eden, went on to increase his party’s majority to over 100 seats at the 1959 general election despite a significant Labour lead in the opinion polls when he took power in 1957. Whether Brown can pull off a similar feat will of course depend on how he handles the legacy of Blair.

Brown's election choices

Amid rumours of a snap election to give the next Labour leader a mandate as Prime Minister, the other main parties have been bullish about their readiness and willingness to fight one. Their brash confidence perhaps stems less from assured self-belief than the near certainty that they won’t in fact have to - even if the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats could afford an election in the next year or so, Labour as we know it might implode if it tried.

So it probably won’t bother, especially since Gordon Brown, the prime-minister-in-waiting, won’t necessarily feel obliged to seek a fresh mandate at all. The current incumbent, Tony Blair, might have promised before the last election to remain in office for a full third term, but few believed that Brown would not at some point take over, and the government has long been a partnership, at least in presentation, between the two great men.

If Brown does call an early election before 2010, therefore, it will be a tactical choice to exploit weaknesses in the Conservative position. The Tories might have secured a lead in opinion polls, but their Leader, David Cameron, faces a trickier twelve months ahead than he did this time last year. While 2006 was a year of reinvigorating a damaged brand, the future will be full of tough policy choices aimed at keeping both his own party and moderate public opinion on board project Cameron.

Alongside speculations concerning snap polls, there has been much talk of a swath of new policies in the early days of a Brown premiership, and it would clear up much of the cloud currently hanging over British politics if these included party finance reform. In order to be seen to be both transparent and fair, comprehensive reform would require the patient building up of consensus and compromise between the main parties, but it might well suit Brown to get it over with quickly, thus allowing him to exploit any downturn in Tory fortunes by calling a fresh poll, as Blair did in 2001 and 2005, the year before one is due, and once the parties have (as seems likely) been partially bailed out by the state. For Labour and thus Brown himself, however, elections in the next 18 months might be suicidally too soon.

Scotland's gain, Gordon's bain

This month saw an explosion of interest in Scotland's constitutional position within the union, sparked by an ICM-Scotsman poll of 27th-30th October which showed that 51% of Scots favoured independence and that the Scottish National Party was leading Labour in the race to become the biggest party in Holyrood in May's Scottish Assembly elections, a lead which had grown to 5% by the more recent ICM-Scotsman poll of 22nd-23rd November. Cue the emanation of increasingly shrill noises from senior Labour figures seriously concerned about a rout north of the border. In speeches over the past week, Gordon Brown has warned of the economic and cultural damage - and even the passports - that independence would supposedly entail, John Reid has sought to paint the SNP as helpless "in the face of the environment, international crime and terrorism, and mass migration", while Tony Blair has urged Labour activists to redouble their efforts to avoid the "constitutional nightmare" of "narrow" Scottish nationalism in power. All of which suggests that Labour itself believes it is set for a mauling in May, and that Westminster's highest echelons are terrified of what an SNP-dominated Holyrood might mean.

Whatever happens in the coming months, full Scottish independence is still a long way off. Anything shy of what remains an unlikely majority would force SNP leader Alex Salmond into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a condition of which looks certain to be the stymieing of the proposed independence-referendum. Even if the SNP were to secure such a plebiscite and then go on to win it, it would take years to renegotiate and untangle 300 years of union. Nevertheless, a good result puts question marks over the medium term future of a united Britain, and this in turn inevitably puts question marks over the British premiership of a Scottish politician. Just as Gordon Brown ascends to the long-coveted post of Prime Minister - which few now doubt he will - he would indeed be faced with a nightmare, not so much over the constitution, but over his own credibility in power.

As Scotland decides it would really rather not send MPs to London, does the most powerful of those it currently does send seek to re-convince the Scottish electorate of the merits of union and risk alienating so-called 'middle' England? Does he appoint an English-dominated Cabinet, to hide from the inevitable efflorescence of the West Lothian Question? Or does Brown continue with his promotion of ‘Britishness’, a strategy which looks ever more impotent in the face of even higher English than Scottish support for the partial dissolution of Britain in the above-quoted November ICM poll. It would be a deeply destabilising situation for the Chancellor-cum-Prime Minister to endure, which of course explains the terror projected SNP gains engender among a Labour elite which has all but reconciled itself to an annointed succession in the Labour leadership. The prospect of SNP probing at the fundamental weakness of a Brown premiership has the potential to crucially buttress a credible Stop-Gordon candidate's support. But then no such candidate seems to exist.