Back in the Commons

A lowering of tone, I know, but we really do need to have a look at the shenanigans proceedings in the House of Commons. As everyone knows there was an Amendment tabled during the debate on the Gracious Speech (as it used to be called in the days we had Members of Parliament and journalists who knew history) that "respectfully regret[ted] that an EU referendum bill was not included in the Gracious Speech". It was defeated [scroll down for voting list] but a respectable 114 Tory MPs voted for it, instantly earning the soubriquet rebels. Of course, one could argue that a rebellion that simply echoes what the Prime Minister and Leader of your party has announced is not a particularly significant one as the presence of such non-rebels as Ms Pritti Patel and Mr Simon Hart in the list shows. Never mind, a rebellion it was and a glorious time was had by one and all.

In my posting on the Draft Referendum Bill I wrote that, as the Bill is to be introduced as a Private Member's one,

Presumably, whoever wins the ballot (unless it is fixed) will be pressured into putting forward the Referendum Bill and government time will be found for it some time in the coming session.

What do you know? One of the "rebels", James Wharton, has won the ballot and is going to be introducing the Referendum Bill, over which the leadership of his party is nodding approvingly. How very convenient for all concerned. The Conservative Party, give or take Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine (yes, please, do take them) has been united on the "European issue".

Douglas Carswell MP, apparently tweeted that "God must be a Eurosceptic". That is one way of looking at the whole story.

Naturally, the Evening Standard thinks that the "Coalition is set for clash over Europe". Again.

Meanwhile in the House of Lords ...

The fuss about the Referendum Bill is continuing in the Commons and will, helpfully for the government, turn attention away from what matters and that is their doomed "renegotiations" with the EU, which, as I have pointed out many times is a logical nonsense. We are part of the EU and we cannot negotiate with it or have a relationship with it.

Meanwhile in the House of Lords a very different Bill has had its First Reading and been ordered to be printed: Lord Pearson of Rannoch has introduced a Bill "to make provision to repeal the European Communities Act 1972; and to make provision for the Secretary of State to repeal any enactment that has been a consequence of the European Communities Act 1972". That is not going to get anywhere very far either but some of the debates could be interesting.

Draft Referendum Bill to be published

In order to avoid a possible small rebellion in the Conservative ranks, we are told, David Cameron, acting as Leader of the Conservative Party is to publish a draft In/Out Referendum Bill. As before, the plan is to have a referendum in 2017, assuming the Conservatives are back in government by then. If they are not, there is not a great deal they can do.

It seems that "around 100" Tory MPs are so unhappy about the fact that the referendum was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech that

they will propose an amendment, expressing "regret" at the decision not to include an EU referendum bill in the government's plans for the next year.

There is little chance of this succeeding, as the Liberal Democrats, Labour and pro-European Tories oppose it, but a significant vote in favour would be an embarrassment for the prime minister.

Around 100 Conservative backbenchers and ministerial aides are expected to back the amendment or abstain, but the party leadership are hoping to reduce this number by publishing its own draft bill on Tuesday.

Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC that publishing the draft bill was a "demonstration of our commitment to a referendum".

The draft legislation is being published by the Conservatives with the idea that it could be brought to the Commons for debate by one of the party's backbench MPs in the form of a private member's bill, rather than one sponsored by the government.

The ballot to choose who can bring forward private members' bills will be held on Thursday and, although they have little chance of becoming law, there is non-government parliamentary time available for them to be debated.

Presumably, whoever wins the ballot (unless it is fixed) will be pressured into putting forward the Referendum Bill and government time will be found for it some time in the coming session.

As readers of this blog know, I am not in favour of a referendum and especially not in favour of an early referendum, partly because plebiscites are not political weapons I particularly support but, more importantly, because we are likely to lose one and the earlier it is held, the more likely we are to lose it.

ADDENDUM: Curiously enough I have received an e-mail from one David Cameron with his picture on the side, which tells me the following:

In January, I set out our party’s position on Europe. I made clear that the EU needed fundamental, far reaching change - and that Britain would lead the way in negotiating that reform.

I also promised an In-Out referendum once those negotiations were complete, and at any event by the end of 2017. That's the right time to have a vote - it is wrong to ask people whether to stay or go before we have had a chance to put the relationship right.

But make no mistake - my commitment to a referendum is absolute. If I am Prime Minister after the next election, there will be an In-Out referendum. No ifs, no buts. And before the 2015 election, we will do everything we can to make it the law.

That’s why today the Conservative Party is publishing a draft bill that would legislate for a referendum by the end of 2017. We understand that we are in a Coalition government - but we are going to examine every opportunity to bring it before Parliament and try to get it on the statute book.

For too long the British people have had no say about their future in Europe. I am absolutely determined to put that right. Our action today is further proof we’re serious.

It then asks me to pledge my support for the Bill. I cannot quitte see what difference that would make to anything.

On another subject

I seem to have missed John Paul Athanasourelis's book Raymond Chandler' Philip Marlowe: The Hard-Boiled Detective Transformed and probably just as well. The argument that Marlowe is really a Deweyan radical democrat with a social conscience and one who pays a great deal of attention to his social conscience is so bizarre as to make one wonder what the author might have been smoking.

This review of the book is sheer delight (except for Mr Athanasourelis, naturally enough) and is by Stefano Tani, author of an interesting sounding book, The Doomed Detective, which I shall read. How can one possibly not try to read an author who can start a devastating review with the following paragraph:

There are at least four detectable stages in that specific genre named criticism of a novelist. The first is the one of the forerunner, the critic who discovers the forgotten author; in the second stage the author reassessed is studied and written about by a substantial number of scholars and journalists (very good, good and less than good contributions); if steps one and two work, the writer is canonized (edition in the most prestigious series of the country). At this point, everything on him has been truly said and done at least for a while, and here comes the fourth stage, the one of surreal criticism: the author is no longer the one studied so far, he is a figment of the critic's imagination – a critic who, in order “to open new paths,” invents a writer that never existed.

I wish I had written that.

Europe Day? Pshaw!

This is what we need to celebrate: День Победы or Victory Day. I dare you!

Already past its sell-by date?

The big news of the last couple of days in Britain was that Lord Lawson, the man who as Chancellor of the Exchequer insisted on shadowing the DM thus taking Britain towards the disastrous ERM and the Conservative Party towards a number of disastrous decisions, has had a Damascene conversion. Not only is he now against the single currency, he now thinks Britain would be considerably better off outside the EU.

We then had a great deal of entertainment as we always do when the Deputy Prime Minister (how did that come about?) enters into the fray. Nick Clegg produced the usual canard about 3 million jobs depending on our membership of the EU. (It is true, that some jobs do depend on that, in particular the sort of jobs Mr Clegg had before his meteoric rise in the Lib-Dim party.)

Lord Lawson made short shrift of that. Nick Clegg, he said accurately enough, talks "poppycock". Robert Peston has been stirred into looking at both sides of the question from the point of view of business and admitting that

maybe Lord Lawson can be seen as kicking off an important debate, which is whether the UK will find it easier to start paying its way in the world on the inside - or the outside - of the EU.

As it happens, the debate has been going on for some time and very vociferously, too, but one cannot expect important hacks to notice that. If Lord Lawson's statement made the BBC notice the debate, that is all to the good.

However, nobody is asking the obvious question: has this development pushed Business for Britain with its plan to "renegotiate our terms of membership" past its sell-by date already?

Private Eye gives us those UKIP policies in full

UKIP is not a liberal/libertarian party and not a particularly authoritarian; it has stopped talking about the EU and has been talking about being the other lot, not the three main ones, representing ordinary people. All piffle. What they really want is a kind of rose-coloured version of the 1950s as it never existed.

The reality was rather grim with rationing in place for the first half of the decade and large numbers emigrating to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I suppose narrowness of outlook can seem to be security and happiness as viewed from a distance.

There is also the problem that the fifties ended with an economy that stopped functioning, a growing national debt, an ever more powerful grip on the country by the unions and ... yes, the sixties. But this time, they will get it right and the new and more glorious 1950s will turn into a kind of Brigadoon.

Anyway, here are those policies in full, as published by Private Eye:

1.      Smoking to be allowed in pubs.

2.      Waxed jackets to be made mandatory.

3.      Chaps not obliged to help with the washing up.

4.      VAT on beards.

5.      Massive investment in golf club construction.

6.      Driving gloves to be worn in cars at all times.

7.      Bring back Robertson's Golly on marmalade jars.

8.      Police permitted to give young offenders a clip round the ear.

9.      Black and white TV to return.

10.     Johnny foreigner to get marching orders .... whoops.

You think this is not right? Then you have not been paying attention.