The ThunderDragon

Last week, Gordon Brown invited Peter Mandelson back from the EU and into his Cabinet. But - hang on! - don’t you have to be a member of Parliament to be a Cabinet minister? Yes, you do. So Mandy is being given a peerage.

Yet why do they need to be in parliament? So that they are answerable to parliament and us. However, when they are sitting in the Lords they’re not directly accountable. We can’t vote them out.

The tendency to appoint Lords to Cabinet positions other than the necessary ones is new. And a reversal of the previous convention that only elected parliamentary representatives - ie. MPs - should take important roles. This appeared to start in 2003 when Baroness Amos was appointed Secretary of State for International Development, followed by Lord Falconer who held the position of Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and then Justice.

And now it is to be taken even further. Both Falconer and Amos had their titles prior to being given a Cabinet position - but Peter Mandelson, just appointed Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, doesn’t. Yet he is going to get given one because he has been given ministerial role.

Of course, the government aren’t the only people to take part in this. For example in the Conservative Shadow Cabinet, Sayeeda Warsi was made Baroness so that she could become Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action.

The only other people who have been appointed into the Cabinet without already being a member of either House of Parliament were Frank Cousins and Patrick Gordon Walker in Harold Wilson’s 1964 Cabinet - and they soon held by-elections to get them seats. But not for Mandelson, and certainly not now, when Labour can’t even hold on to a seat they had more than a 10,000 majority in.

What is happening is that our political system is turning more and more to the American model. Whilst there certainly can be benefits to bringing in people from outside parliament, it’s not exactly democratic. Our politicial system bases itself on parliament, and specifically the Commons, and this shouldn’t be thrown away for political expediency.

I object to people being given peerages for the sole reason that they can serve in the Cabinet - or indeed the Shadow version. If these people are wanted so much, an MP in a safe seat who is willing to resign in their favour should be found and a by-electon held. Otherwise, they should be no more than an advisor. It goes against our political system and, frankly, parliamentarty democracy itself.

Gordon Brown has reshuffled his front bench, as he had to do after losing Ruth Kelly [you can see his first Cabinet here]. It has been described as an “economic war cabinet” to deal with the current economic situation, but seems like really very little important change - after all Alistair Darling remains as Chancellor.

Lots of movement in the lower ranks, but none in the really important positions - Chancellor, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Health, neither Education positions. The two main changes are really Geoff Hoon going to Transport after the resignation of Ruth Kelly, and John Hutton moving to Defence after the resignation of Des Browne, who refused to take another position.

The other important change is the appointment of Ed Miliband as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change . This hasn’t been mentioned much in the media, but appears to me as a massive slap down for Hilary Benn. To take the topic of climate change from the Department of the Environment is really to remove it of much of its reason for existence.

There are two other returnees of note:

• Peter Mandelson returning from the EU for his “third time lucky” attempt at Cabinet office;
• Margaret Beckett returns as Housing Minister and Cabinet Enforcer.

Mandelson will be made a peer in order to enable him to take up his position as Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Rewarding a man who has had to be kicked out of government twice already for sleaze! Taking us back into the bad times of sleaze and spin, not exacting moving us forward into a new age.

Bringing a rat back to government and someone in order to keep order around his top table. That’s not the sign of a Prime Minister in charge of his government and his future.

Ruth Kelly’s resignation from the Cabinet to, as the old saying goes “spend more time with her family” - despite them having survived pretty well for the last eleven* years.

Whenever a politician quits to “spend more time with their family”, the automatic assumptions are usually one of the following:

(a) They have done something incredibly embarrasing or otherwise been caught out in some way that would force a humiliating resignation at a later date;

(b) They vehemently dislike or disagree with their party leader, but don’t have the balls to challenge them in public over it; or

(c) They need an excuse to jump before they are pushed.

With Ruth Kelly, I doubt that it is (a), and (c) seems unlikely, despite her continuing failure as a Cabinet minister - after all, Des Browne has managed to keep his job so far!

So (b) it is.

Of course, there’s always the idea that they could actually be resigning to spend more time with their family… but that’s just laughable.

So what are the effects of her resignation? The first thing it has done is damanged Brown, since a Cabinet minister resigning for any reason is pretty bad news for a Prime Minister - especially considering the way it was rushed out amidst rumours that there was a clutch of ministers ready to quit with her.

What it also did was push Brown’s conference speech right out of the news. Even though the speech still dominated the newspaper headlines, Ruth Kelly’s resignation has dominated the broadcast and online news, and any political discussion.

What little breathing space that speech won for him has now all but been wiped out. So the Glenrothes by-election - as reports set the date at 6th November - becomes an even greater game of survival than before. If Brown loses it, he may well still be able to hold on - so long as it is close. If Labour lose in a landslide, Brown’s days will almost certainly be numbered.

Needless to say, I hope he stays in position.

* Both the age of her oldest child and the length of time she has been an MP.

The Sun points out that just two out of 21 Cabinet ministers have constituencies south of Watford - the most heavily populated part of Britain. Double that number of Cabinet Ministers represent Scottish constituencies, whose population is less than that of London. The excessive Northern bias of Labour’s Cabinet is unacceptable.

To be fair, as Kerron Cross points out, there are only nine Shadow Cabinet members north of Watford. But since this far greater reflects the population distribution of Britain - and nine is significantly greater than two in anyone’s money. There may be a Southern bias in the Shadow Cabinet - but there is also a Southern bias in the country demographically.

Of course there should probably be more of an equal distribution of all front-bench teams, but you can either have a fully equal representation or those who are [at least supposedly] the best/most talented of the MPs of that party. You can’t have both.

But Labour does have an excessive Northern bias in it’s Cabinet. No-one can deny that fact. That the Tories have a slight Southern bias - far more in line with the country - is hardly much of a problem, certainly in comparison.

Source: The Sun

The revelations are coming thick and fast today on cabinet ministers and their “youthful” drug use. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary started this off by admitting that, when asked whether or not she had ever smoked cannabis, saying:

“I have. I did when I was at university. I think it was wrong that I smoked it when I did. I have not done for 25 years.”

This has now been followed by revelations from Alistair Darling that he had smoked cannabis “occasionally in my youth”, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andy Burnham, who had smoked it “once or twice at university”, Hazel Blears who tried cannabis “once or twice when very young,” and, surprisingly, Ruth Kelly as well.

And my comment, as I said when David Cameron was accused of smoking cannabis, is: So what? Who cares? So you smoked cannabis when you were at university? Many people do. Politicians can have pasts too! It may have mattered in the past, but not any more.

It is all due to the government wanting to reclassify cannabis back to a Class B drug, and being able to point the finger at David Cameron for not having answered whether or not he has smoked cannabis in his past. This sort of mass “coming out” will protect them all from any negative repercussions from these “revelations”, but also makes them wide open to the sort of joke I have used as the title of this post. By doing this, they don’t necessarily win or lose anything, except for maybe a bit of disgruntlement from some especially anti-drug campaigners.

It is amusing that all the politicians who admit having tried cannabis also all say that they didn’t enjoy it, or that it didn’t do anything for them. What a load of bollocks they’re talking! People wouldn’t do it if it had no effect, and be refusing to admit that they liked it even the tiniest bit gains them no points back from the anti-drugs squad or wins them any from those who have or do smoke cannabis.

Reclassifying cannabis back up to Class B isn’t going to work very well, and their justifications for it on the grounds of fears that its use is linked to psychotic illness, depression and suicide among young people are pretty slim. I’ve pretty much come round to thinking that cannabis should be legal, since it barely seems to have any worse effects than drinking alcohol or cigarette smoking, and being legal would cut down the extent to which it is a “gateway drug”.

As we are waiting for Gordon Brown to announce his new Cabinet - he has apparently promised the BBC the name of the new Chancellor by 6pm - it would be nice to remind ourselves who is currently doing what:

Prime Minister: Tony Blair
Deputy Prime Minister: John Prescott
Chancellor: Gordon Brown
Foreign Secretary: Margaret Beckett
Home Secretary: John Reid
Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor: Lord Falconer
Chief Whip: Jacqui Smith
Party Chairman: Hazel Blears
Commons Leader: Jack Straw
Culture, Media and Sport: Tessa Jowell
Defence: Des Browne
International Development: Hilary Benn
Education: Alan Johnson
Environment: David Miliband
Health: Patricia Hewitt
Trade and Industry: Alistair Darling
Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Amos
Transport [and Scotland]: Douglas Alexander
Work and Pensions: John Hutton
Communities and Local Government: Ruth Kelly
Northern Ireland [and Wales]: Peter Hain
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster/Cabinet Office: Hilary Armstrong
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Stephen Timms

What will happen to them? Several we already know are leaving - obviously Blair and Prescott, but also Reid and Armstrong - but who else is to get the chop? The rumour mill has be active, and when Brown starts to announce his new Cabinet, we will see how accurate it was!