The latest incarnation is perfectly timed to counter Labour’s nicked campaign slogan (we were fair first!). People will apportion far more of their attention to a bit of scandal than to a plain vanilla campaign launch. The timing is being followed up by the story being divided into tasty, bite-size portions, ready for thorough digestion by the media (new and old alike).

Anyway, it’s just speculation with no solid evidence, but is this the first shot in a negative campaign running up ’til the election? Isn’t politics nice.

I like Article 11, paragraph 4, but I’m annoyed with it as well. Why am I annoyed? I’m annoyed because I signed a petition calling for the EU to raise its carbon emissions reduction targets from 20% to 30%; while that’s all well and good (why not head on over to the petition yourself?), it could be so much better if I was signing the form of petition found in Article 11: a citizens’ initiative.

A bit of digging revealed that the European Commission has consulted on implementing the initiative, and will be drawing up a regulation this year, before actually unleashing this little bit of direct democracy in 2011. I know it takes time to make laws, and it isn’t a job to rush, but Lisbon has been around for ages, surely the fleshing out of the text of the article* could have happened sooner?

*4. Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.

Article 11, paragraph 4, Treaty on European Union

The problem with a referendum is that it doesn’t work unless the voters are accurately informed about what they are voting on. It works for issues such as devolution, where people are familiar with the question; it doesn’t work with arcane, indecipherable, and soporific matters like electoral reform.

Oh well, it was nice for a while to think we might get an ever so slightly better system.

Frankly, if he does go, I’d say good riddance. The government has lost any appetite for politics based on improving the UK and tackling the big global challenges. Instead it has opted for—or been co-opted to—the politics of power and survival. The problem is, even with a new prime minister, there will be no change or revitalisation in policy.

It is almost inevitable that we will end up with a Conservative government for at least one term of office, but the Labour Party need that time if they’re to have hope of reassuming power again in future. It would be interesting to think what Democrat government in the United States instead of George Bush could have meant for Barrack Obama’s chances of becoming President. I’m not an expert on US politics, but I think there’d be less chance of his election if Gore had won in 2000. He was able to use the discontent with the sitting government to present a coherent set of policies for his presidency, and differentiate himself from past Democrat administrations. Labour need to do the same. They need to reconnect with their grass-root activists, find an ideology of some form, and present that to the country with a new leader, showing that they can be a fresh force on the centre-left.

Of course, a Green government would be ideal, and what I really want is for our policies to be the ones which people want for the country, but in the electoral system that we’re stuck with, it’s Labour or Tory, and I’d probably always prefer Labour as the best of a bad pair.

The ‘Green’ Green New Deal as proposed by the New Economic Foundation calls for a “carbon-army” of people employed to construct the new infrastructure that is needed to convert from fossil-fuel based power generation to renewables. Brown’s new deal is too broad. It only tags investment in measures against climate change on as a part of an overall wider plan. Even within this limited part of the proposal, it doesn’t exactly look to do very much. Investment in environmental technologies includes investment in nuclear power, which I’m guessing will gobble up a fair chunk of the funding. A proper green new deal would give Britain the infrastructure needed to ditch fossil fuels, put the country in a better state to weather the rest of the century, and create far more than just 100,000 jobs. I look forward to hearing more details of this policy, to see if there is actually any hope for it to achieve its ambitions. Somehow I doubt it though.

Image from (nz)dave on Flickr.