Across the opinion pages: the Master, technical schools, open spaces and prisoners

Nik Darlington 2.15pm

The Times (£) has a brilliant range of comment pieces published today, worth venturing behind the paywall to read. Opinion genuinely is one of the newspaper’s USPs, along with its beautiful and accessible multi-platform digital interface.

Tuesdays typically mean Rachel Sylvester’s unmissable column, and today she plays on a favourite theme, ‘the Master’. Often enough she has commented how Conservative party modernisers afford Tony Blair deified status, his autobiography a fixture of Tory bedside tables and playbook for the contemporary political scene. This week, however, it’s all about how everyone’s wrongly reading the Blairite tea leaves, including Ed Miliband.

The truth is that Mr Blair was authentically of the centre in a way that neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband is. He was an entryist who had taken control of his party, whereas the current Tory and Labour leaders are both, in background and beliefs, far more of their tribes. The success of new Labour was based on turning this reality into a political strategy that was pursued with ruthless efficiency and consistency. Everything that Mr Blair did and said - to begin with at least - was dedicated to demonstrating that he was more at home on the middle ground than in the Labour comfort zone…

Mr Blair took office promising new Labour would be the “servants of the people”. He lost power when the perception took hold that he wanted to be a Master of the Universe and his MPs turned on him. Neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband have yet shown whether they are the servants of the people or their parties.

Rough reading for both leaders, who feel the weight of the former prime minister on their shoulders in more ways than one. And a reminder, yesterday, of Mr Blair’s uncommon talents.

Meanwhile, Lord Baker, an honorary life member of the TRG, writes about “a new wave of university technical colleges”. The Government is nearly doubling the number of these colleges, which supported by universities provide technical training to pupils between 14 and 19-years-old. Britain’s school leavers need more technical nous to compete in a challenging global marketplace.

We had a few technical schools at the end of the war but these were killed off by English snobbery. Everyone wanted to go the grammar school on the hill, not the one in the town with dirty jobs and oily rags. Germany didn’t make the same mistake: they adopted and still have the 1944 English education system and it is one of the reasons why Angela Merkel is ruling the roost. These colleges are our chance to rectify that mistake.

Under the Labour government Lord Baker, a former Education Secretary himself, convinced Andrew Adonis to trial two of these UTCs. Their expansion was supported by the Conservative party at the last general election, a pledge that has been wholeheartedly fulfilled by the coalition government.

The outgoing Director-General of the National Trust, Dame Fiona Reynolds, eulogises on the centenary of Octavia Hill’s death. With a theme that I also used in an article earlier this year for the Richmond Magazine, Dame Fiona writes that the protection of open green spaces is a battle still being waged, and one still very much worth waging.

When [Octavia Hill] died in 1912, the National Trust had 713 members. We now have four million. While she would no doubt be impressed, she would not be surprised, and she would certainly not be complacent. She believed, as we do, that beauty, nature and heritage are fundamental to the human condition. She spoke of everlasting delight. If she were here now, she would describe the past hundred years of the Trust and what we stand for as one of enduring relevance; a cause which we must never cease to pursue.

Finally, the experienced barrister and chairman of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC, writes that Britain should give in to the European Court’s ruling to award the vote to prisoners.

Far from being harmless, giving prisoners the unqualified right to vote has positive values. How better to promote peaceful coexistence in society than to remove any sense in prisoners of second-class citizenship. It is precisely what the Government is preaching in its recent legislation on sentencing reform - namely, greater efforts to make the rehabilitation of prisoners more vigorous in penal institutions.

The right of every citizen to vote is acknowledged to be a constitutional right. It is in truth not a human right but it certainly is a civil liberty guaranteed by Article 3 of Protocol No 1 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom, which the UK ratified as long ago as 1952.

Egremont has long been favourable to the Government’s principled and correct stance on penal reform, and last year we published an excellent article by the Howard League’s Sophie Willett. The ‘bang them up and lock away the key’ school of justice is outmoded and discredited; Britain’s prisons are at bursting point. That much is true.

However, the right to vote is not God-given, as Sir Louis agrees. Nor should it be beholden on any sovereign government to afford certain constitutional rights to individuals who transgress this country’s laws and bring harm to fellow citizens.

Reform the nature of a criminal’s penance, certainly; but that penance must still be served.

Follow Nik on Twitter @NikDarlington

Inverse snobbery has undermined social mobility

Alexander Pannett 11.20am 

Yesterday, Michael Gove announced that “progressive” teaching had eroded social mobility in the UK.

This coincides with Nick Clegg’s claiming that income inequality does not determine social mobility and redistributive policies will not be a panacea for creating a more equal society.

At a time when a West End play, Posh, again raises the spotlight on the privileged, it seems that the eternal British fascination with class is as healthy as ever.

Class, privilege, equality, fairness. The lexicon is familiar to us all but conjures up a multitude of differing emotional responses.

I cannot help but feel that the concepts behind these words are rather empty. Their “truth” is less of what they rationally can be determined to refer to and more of their use as tools in pursuing a policy of subjugation and intimidation against any individuals or cultures that certain people feel entitled to misunderstand.

Whenever an individual is accused of being “posh”, has the accuser really sat down and analysed that person’s life to determine whether he or she has indeed had a life of comfort? Have they impartially evaluated whether all their achievements have been handed to that person on a “silver spoon”, without any effort on their part? Of course they haven’t.

When an individual is accused of being “posh” or “privileged”, they are having their identity removed from them. They are being categorised not by their own consciousness but by another’s subjective interpretation of the world. Such behavior is bigotry in the most cowardly fashion.

I do not know you so I shall label you. And in labeling, I shall bind your individuality to my language.  As this language is deemed “progressive”, it is therefore acceptable - even commendable in certain circles. As Rorty said, truth is what people let you get away with. And the truth here is that once an individual has been labeled “privileged” they can be abused at will and their achievements mocked and ignored as if they had been attained fraudulently.

Take David Cameron as a good example. He is now widely acclaimed to be the most privileged Prime Minister in recent decades. He has been accused of a “born to rule” attitude and “chillaxed” approach.

What utter nonsense. David Cameron is a member of the elite because he was bright enough to get a First from Oxford. From there he worked hard to attain the top job in the country, while facing vociferous competition. While in power he encounters the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, simultaneously attempting to manage the first coalition government in modern politics and the most ambitious reform programme in decades.

On top of this, Mr Cameron has had to endure the deaths of his son and father. And yet we begrudge him having some time off at the weekend to “relax” with his young family as everyone else does because he is “posh” and must suffer? How depressing our capricious society has become.

Such socially acceptable bigotry is particularly harmful in that it distracts genuinely progressive instincts from the real causes of social immobility in our country. Foremost amongst these causes is the lack of opportunity available to many due to inadequate education.

This brings me back to Michael Gove’s criticism of “progressive” education. Interestingly, Mr Gove does not call for a return to selective grammar schools, which I know having been to a grammar school myself, do determine an individual’s ability at far too young an age. Instead Mr Gove lambasts the equality-driven approach to teaching that has reduced standards since the 1960s. This has resulted in a two-tier system where the privately educated flourish while everyone else must bury their attributes.

In a globalised world, there is nothing progressive about consigning British students to mediocrity and blaming capitalism when British companies unsurprisingly look abroad for the skills they cannot find at home.

If we are genuinely going to improve social mobility, we should hold our tongue before we criticise another person’s perceived status and concentrate instead on seizing our opportunities. Opportunities that our education system is freed to provide to us and at a standard that we aspire and are encouraged to attain.

Instead of being seduced by the objective “posh” and “privilege”, we should subjectivise “success” and “elite”. Such personal ambition rather than resignation in an external social structure is what is truly progressive for the socially and economically disadvantaged.

Follow Alexander on Twitter @alpannet

PMQs review: A muttering idiot of a draw

Jack Blackburn 3.45pm

The last Prime Minister’s Questions for three weeks before a joint Jubilee and Whitsun recess was a distinctly bizarre scoreless draw.

It didn’t so much resemble the two most senior politicians in the land debating matters of policy, as it did two angry siblings who simply weren’t listening to each other. Oh, and there was an irritating cousin thrown into the mix.

Edward Miliband’s tactic today was divide and rule. It is one we can expect to see more of over the coming months. Seeking to exploit the evident antagonism between the Business Secretary and Adrian Beecroft, author of this week’s controversial report on employment reform, the Leader of the Opposition set about asking where the Prime Minister stood.

This strategy is brazen but flawed, not least because all the front bench Lib Dems were strangely absent, thereby not allowing for television shots of awkward Lib Dems.

However, Mr Cameron avoided fulsomely embracing the report, suggesting that some recommendations would be taken and others would not, before the major exchange descended into an unstructured melee.

Edward tried to score points on, well, just about anything: Hunt, Coulson, growth, tax cuts for millionaires -  they were all there, culminating in his claim that “the nasty party is back”. Dave started banging on about the trade unions influence on Labour policy. All of the questions and the answers seem to have been decided quite some time before the session. It was a total damp squib.

The meat of the session actually took place after the Leader of the Opposition had sat down. The Prime Minister was asked about the ECHR’s ruling on voting rights for prisoners. The Prime Minister said he would stand for the sovereignty of Parliament and his belief that going to prison meant you lost certain rights, including the right to vote. This is a story that shall keep on rolling.

However, the headlines were stolen by that irritating cousin, namely Ed Balls. He repeatedly asked the Prime Minister how many glasses of wine he’d had, and needled the Flashman in Dave, as is his desire. Finally, by now having “we’re in recession” chanted at him by Mr Balls, Dave could take no more and Flashman flipped. He described the Shadow Chancellor as a “muttering idiot”, causing uproar in the chamber.

Succumbing to goading as such an easy thing to do. It is also easy to wind someone up. However, both these important public figures should not be doing it. Mr Cameron was forced to withdraw his “unparliamenatry” comment. Mr Balls is not subject to sanction. Speaker Bercow, of the pseudo-Headmasterly air, should perhaps get in touch with that instinct now, because these two schoolboys could use some discipline.

Follow Jack on Twitter @BlackburnJA

PMQs review: Score draw but the Prime Minister’s arsenal is worryingly bare

Jack Blackburn 2.08pm

The Government’s fortunes and the composure of its ministers have crumbled over recent months, though it is worth noting that the Leader of the Opposition’s polling numbers have still not managed to match his party’s.

So as we arrived at the first PMQs since April we found a leadership vacuum, created by a Government in disarray, a Prime Minister under pressure from all sides, and a Labour party leader seemingly unable to act like a leader.

This PMQs also took place in a very different context to the last. Disastrous local election results (London’s Mayor aside) for the Coalition parties still sting. The national economy seems to have tumbled into a double-dip recession. We are being badly buffeted by continuing turmoil in the Eurozone, where an anti-austerity Frenchman has just taken up residence in the Élysée palace and Greece is crippled by political upheaval.

To use a recent (and for me painful) sporting illustration, the leaders were level on points going into today’s match, with Mr Miliband ahead on goal difference. This was a mid-term fixture rather than an end-of-season cliff-hanger, but it as was scrappy, messy and confused as the Premier League’s climax, if nowhere near as exciting too.

Mr Miliband has plenty of arsenal at his disposal at the moment. Dreadful growth figures, unhappy nurses, protesting police officers, the controversial Leveson Inquiry, electoral reverses and the seemingly changing political breeze in Europe should have meant that Mr Cameron was in for a torrid time at the Despatch Box. Nevertheless, there was a crumb of comfort for the Prime Minister today in the form of falling unemployment.

Mr Cameron began by using this to his advantage, welcoming a question from his own backbenches, but stressing (as all the Cabinet has done this morning) that the Government is not complacent. There is more to be done. Etcetera. And for once, Mr Miliband also welcomed good economic news, but was quick to try to press home some advantage by questioning what discussions the PM had taken part in with President Hollande about growth plans for France and Europe.

The answer could have simply been, “Well, haven’t really spoken to him since he was elected.” So Edward suggested a text message with “LOL” in it would probably be sufficient. Uncharacteristically funny, and well delivered.

In fact, Mr Miliband’s entire style of performance has improved immensely. He is calm, considered and no longer whiny. Nonetheless, Mr Cameron remains an adept performer himself, and responded strongly: “I may well have used my mobile phone too much, but at least as Prime Minister I know how to use one rather than just throw it at those who work with me”. The Rt Hon Member for Kirkcaldy was, as usual, nowhere to be seen.

Mr Miliband was indeed more impressive today, though still blew it by failing once again to capitalise effectively on the Prime Minister’s all-too-evident woes. He left the economy debate too quickly, so eager was he to cram in questions on policing and nurses, while also failing to pose a question on his sixth time of coming. The eyes were bigger than his abilities.

Yet Mr Cameron also fumbled the ball today, particularly with his final response to his opponent, when he attempted to criticise Labour’s new policy supremo John Cruddas as someone too close to the trades unions. At moments such as those, one realises just how little ammunition the Prime Minister has at his disposal.

European Parliament must find a bigger voice amidst the chaos

Nik Darlington 11.08am

The European Parliament is vast, its shiny superstructure reflecting the functional surroundings of Brussels back on itself. Yet when the citizens of Europe glance proverbially in its direction, it is not a reflection of themselves that they see - a reflection of their current plight - but a remote and faceless edifice.

However once inside, the Parliament shows itself for what it is. Or at least it offers a glimpse of what it could be.

Much happens here, but few follow it, fewer truly understand it, and even fewer, maybe, genuinely care about it. Whatever one’s views about the European Union, this is something to be regretted.

What we think of as the “European Union” is in fact a smorgasbord of not always complementary (nor complimentary) institutions.

Briefly, the Council consists of ministers passing laws, coordinating policies, and generally representing individual governments depending on the subject matter (e.g. agriculture or transport). Note that this is not the European Council we read of David Cameron attending with other heads of government. That irregular grouping sets the EU’s political direction and has no power to make laws.

The European Commission comprises nominees from individual member states who are assigned a portfolio (Lord Mandelson was a trade commissioner, for instance), and represent the interests of the EU as a whole.

Then there is the European Parliament, a body of more than 700 directly elected representatives from throughout the EU. Members (MEPs) serve Europe’s citizens in a similar way to how our MPs operate in Westminster - in essence holding the executive to account, scrutinising legislation, acting on behalf of constituents, and voting on new laws. MEPs typically stand for office as candidates of traditional political parties - e.g. the Conservatives, Labour, or France’s UMP - which subsequently coalesce with other European parties under like-minded umbrella labels.

As Europe lurches from one crisis to another, I believe it is the European Parliament that has to take the lead.

At a seminar for senior editors yesterday in Brussels, an Italian socialist MEP, Roberto Gualtieri, said: “Non è una problema economica, non è una problema tecnocratica, ma è una problema democratica”. Europe is on the brink because it is suffering a crisis of democracy, above all else. While Rome, Athens, or elsewhere burns, unaccountable placemen fiddle at the fringes. Or so the narrative goes.

The response of Europe’s leaders has been politically anaemic and economically heavy-handed. Throughout the continent in recent years, failed governments have been thrown out by voters. Largely in favour of rightist or centre-right alternatives, although the Left’s renewal is gaining traction. And while politicians have scarcely been so reviled, the political process has scarcely so mattered.

At the same time, euroscepticism has probably never been as strong. And not only in Britain. Why? Because at a time of public frustration, citizens are demanding a greater voice - maybe not their voice, necessarily, but a voice that represents their hopes and fears. The European Union, however, is seen to be inimical to that visceral democratic desire.

It needn’t be. A more self-confident and, crucially, better understood European Parliament can be that voice. Its members do, after all, have a democratic mandate. Of course, European elections in Britain typically attract few voters, but apathy is as much the fault of the electors as the elected.

The European Parliament also has, in the experienced German politician Martin Schulz, a president (akin to the Speaker of the House of Commons but with more political power) with strong opinions about the current crisis, and opinions that diverge from the inflexibly austere forces that have led the EU’s response to date. Brussels sources point out that President Schulz’s strong opinions are not weakly held, not shall they be meekly guarded.

In Britain, the public seems to prize that certain sort of parliamentarian who stands tall, is independent and speaks out “for the people”. Europe’s problems are indeed largely economic, but the solutions must be political. And those solutions must be seen to be legitimate in the eyes of Europeans.

There is only one European institution that can achieve this, and therein lies the European Parliament’s unenviable, but also unmissable, opportunity. And, some might add, its duty.

Follow Nik on Twitter @NikDarlington

The Tories’ Historic Problem

Giles Marshall 10.00am

The Conservative Party returned to form in the wake of the local election results. The always fragile veneer of unity, that has been cracking regularly pretty well since the last general election, took a few more seismic hits.

Back out of their holes were the right-wing backbenchers and leader writers prescribing another dose of rightism, or “authentic conservatism” to use its current parlance, as a solution to the Tories’ electoral ills. 

Most laughable of all was the elevation of Boris Johnson – the one bright spot in the Tories’ election misery – as the champion of this authenticity.  Yes indeed, the Gay Pride marcher, serial adulterer and bike fanatic is, apparently, just the man to return us to those stoical social values of old.  Get thee behind us, evil modernising Dave Cameron and make way for Boris!

Well, Boris’ election victory as the triumph of personality over politics has been well commented on elsewhere – entertainingly by Jerry Hayes on Dale and Company, and perceptively and eloquently by Matthew D’Ancona in the Sunday Telegraph – while Craig has had his say on these pages.

What is worth looking at, if only because it offers us a useful perspective, is the historic problem of Tory election performance.

Go back far enough, to the halcyon days of the 1950s and 1960s, and the Tory election graph always seemed to be a source of optimism. Often victorious, certainly nation-encompassing, its occasional blips almost always a precursor to a return to power. 

This remarkable trend seemed to be further enhanced after Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory, and two successive triumphs in which she thumped the opposition.  Even John Major, in 1992, carried the party through adverse polls to victory. So what has happened since and where did the malaise set in? 

The reality is that the Tory election problem has been a long time coming, and can be traced back to the very point of its triumph, under Margaret Thatcher herself. What Mrs Thatcher’s election victories disguised with their scale was the retreat of Toryism across too many regions of the UK. The gradual reduction of Tory representation in the northern cities and Celtic lands continued apace under her stewardship, leaving the party as essentially the vehicle of the prosperous south and east of England. 

Perhaps this was the necessary price to pay for the polarising policies of the 1980s, policies that some would argue were unavoidable if Britain’s decline was to be averted.

But when the party was finally kicked out in 1997 many of its members – and certainly the majority of its MPs – refused to comprehend the message being delivered by the electorate. Ordinary voters had had their fill of Thatcherism. 

The Conservative party, however, seemed to have barely got going, as it embraced the Thatcherite agenda with even more vigour, turning its light towards Europe and social issues. The reason for this misunderstanding was down to the way in which Mrs Thatcher had been removed. 

The coup of 1990 was a rough and ready response to the poll tax problem and the arguably more serious destabilisation of her Cabinet over Europe.

After ten years in power, the leader herself was unable to provide any obvious solution to this twin-peaked volcano and was rudely removed, in a way suffered by no Tory leader before her.

The electorate was deprived of its chance to deliver a final verdict on the leaderene, while Tory MPs and members could forever after claim – correctly – that she had never suffered an election defeat as leader.

Had Margaret Thatcher been allowed to continue the course of her leadership and take her party into the 1992 (or it might have been 1991) election, the Thatcherite bubble would have been punctured and the Conservatives might just have been able to embark on a proper period of reconstitution, untroubled by the poison of an improper coup. As it is, too many Conservatives continue to prescribe the wrong medicine at times of electoral vulnerability. 

David Cameron managed to get the party as far as he did in 2010 because he had understood the need to speak to a non-Thatcherite electorate. Some of that modernising strategy may have thrown up a few red herrings, notably same-sex marriage, but it remains emphatically the right approach for a party that still needs to prove it can connect with the electorate at large.  

It is not even clear that full-blown austerity is either the right approach or the one that engenders the confidence of British people. Somewhere out there is a careful balance of cuts without economic pain. It may well be what we are seeking.

Until the Conservative party truly gets over its Thatcher moment, it will never genuinely start to become a national party once again. The Thatcherite agenda is not some sort of holy writ version of ‘authentic conservatism’. It was a controversial panacea for its time (drawn as much from nostrums of classical liberalism as anything else) that found its place in a pragmatic party of broader principles. 

It is time to embrace the 21^st century.

Can democracy save us from Pakistan?

Aaron Ellis 7.30am

British foreign policy in Central and South Asia is in a bit of a bind.

The goals we pursue are incompatible due to the geopolitical rivalry of India and Pakistan.

Rather than recognise this and make tough choices about our regional priorities, ministers either deny a problem exists or offer democratic politics as a solution to geopolitics.

David Cameron and William Hague believe they can achieve their goals in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan if the cause of the enmity between the three – Pakistan – becomes a genuine democracy. She should end her support for the Taliban, as well as her decades-old conflict with India. Thus Britain, the former colonial power, would not have to make tough choices and pick sides in Central and South Asia, as everyone would inevitably be on the same side.

If they really want Pakistan to become a genuine democracy, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary must resolve Pakistan’s disputes with her neighbours, as these have often been a catalyst for her lurches from democracy to military rule and back again.

This is especially important for regional and global security, as both civilian and military governments in Islamabad have traditionally used insurgents and terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir as legitimate means of resolving these disputes in their favour.

Yet it is unlikely that Mr Cameron and Mr Hague will try to resolve them because it would mean doing what they specifically do not want to do: make tough choices and pick sides. This reluctance stems from their lack of a grand strategic vision for Britain’s role in Central and South Asia. Unless they come up with one soon, they will not achieve any of their goals in the region, as its geopolitical rivalries will continue to undermine them.

Britain wants a stable Afghanistan, a special relationship with India, and has signed up to a strategic partnership with Pakistan. Individually these goals make sense, but it is hard to fit them together into a single regional policy, especially when it comes to Afghanistan. Both Islamabad and New Delhi believe that stability in Afghanistan comes at the expense of either one or the other and that the price of their cooperation is helping to restrict their rivals’ presence in the country.

Just a few months before Afghanistan and India signed a strategic partnership last October, a survey of Pakistan’s foreign policy elite showed many worry that India’s involvement in the country goes beyond economic development, and has become a real security concern.

“Pakistan wants the international community to set certain limits on India’s involvement”, regional expert Farzana Shaikh has said. It is the “minimum that [it] might be prepared to settle for to ensure its co-operation” in ending the war in Afghanistan.

Yet acquiescing to India’s involvement may be necessary for a “special relationship” with New Delhi.

In an email exchange with a former Indian intelligence chief, I asked what the UK would need to do for India vis-à-vis Afghanistan to help build the kind of relationship that David Cameron envisages between our two countries. “Accept India has a role [there], encourage this and not let Pakistan have a veto”.

Thus British policy in Central and South Asia is in a bit of a bind.

Ministers are denying a problem exists. When I put it to Philip Hammond in December that India and Pakistan regard stability in Afghanistan as coming at the expense of either one or the other, the Defence Secretary rejected my assertion.

The Prime Minister, on the other hand, believes that democracy can save us from Pakistan. If the civilians truly directed national security policy, not the military, they would not support the Taliban or terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), because democracies just don’t do that sort of thing.

Mr Cameron has always drawn this contrast between a democratic Pakistan that is a peaceful actor in the region and an authoritarian, terrorist-supporting Pakistan. “We have to make sure that [they] are not looking two ways” about exporting terrorism to their neighbours, he once said. “They should only look one way, and that is to a democratic and stable Pakistan.”

His faith in the power of democracy to resolve great power rivalry is a manifestation of the Liberal half of his self-described “Liberal Conservative” approach to foreign policy. Speaking in Pakistan just weeks after the country’s dictator Pervez Musharraf was forced from office, Mr Cameron stated that democracies “tend not to go to war with each other” - an old Liberal belief.

This faith is misplaced as far as Pakistan is concerned, as successive civilian governments have used insurgents and terrorists to further their goals in Central and South Asia.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of the late Benazir Bhutto, waged a proxy war against Afghanistan in 1975 using Afghan exiles. Ms Bhutto herself helped the Taliban to take over the country in the mid-1990s. Her successor as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, shielded them from American pressure to hand over Osama bin Laden because of the al-Qa’ida leader’s help in fighting the Indians in Kashmir.

In the spring of 2010 the current president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, allegedly told senior Taliban prisoners: “You are our people, we are friends, and after your release we will of course support you to do your operations.” A few months later, his government angrily rejected Mr Cameron’s claim that their country “looked both ways” on terrorism in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

It is not the constitutional make-up of the Pakistani government that determines its use of terrorism therefore, but its geopolitical rivalries, and it is only by resolving them can we hope to bring about a true change in the country’s behaviour. Yet the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are unlikely to do this, as they are reluctant to pick sides and have no grand strategic vision to guide them.

Soon after becoming Foreign Secretary, William Hague ruled out involving Britain in Indian-Pakistani disputes. “It will not be our approach to lecture other countries on how they should conduct their bilateral relations,” unlike his Labour predecessor David Miliband, who upset the Indians by bringing up the Kashmir dispute the year before.

Mr Hague’s approach may help build a special relationship with New Delhi, but at the expense of our relations with Islamabad, which he also regards highly. In September, the Foreign Secretary said:

We will stand by Pakistan as it addresses the challenges it faces and build a durable relationship that we know will stand the test of time. We can be confident of doing so because ours is not a new relationship founded on a narrow set of interests.

Britain wants to have her cake in Central and South Asia and to eat it too, yet this policy is unsustainable in the current geopolitical climate.

David Cameron and William Hague must decide which of their goals are important and which of them must be discarded. If they do not do so, they will not achieve anything in the region.

Follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronHEllis

Lords reform: time for a fresh approach to an old problem

Craig Prescott 10.17am

Some people think a referendum is necessary, others don’t. Both sides are correct but they miss the fundamental issue.

Nick Clegg has argued that reform should not be dependent on a referendum because all three main parties support reform, and further, they committed themselves to reform at the last general election.

David Cameron, while still open to the idea of a referendum, also believes there are many arguments against holding one.

Both positions are untenable as far as the draft Bill is concerned, or the recommendations proposed by the majority of the Joint Committee for the Bill.

As all three main parties were in favour if reform at the last election, voters were presented with Hobson’s choice and couldn’t express their views either way on the issue. Furthermore, the Labour party included a commitment to a referendum in their 2010 manifesto.

Significant constitutional change should be as inclusive as possible, whereby the agenda is not wholly dominated by a section of the political class. This is why in many written constitutions around the world you would not now be reading this article, as it would be legally required for such proposals to go before an electorate in a referendum (the Australian Constitution is such an example).

Furthermore, it would be odd if a referendum was required to change the method of composition for the Lower House (the AV referendum) but not for a more radical alteration of the Upper House.

On a more principled level, it seems strange to attempt to introduce democracy to the House of Lords in an undemocratic way by refusing to hold a referendum. In this respect, the view of a majority of the Joint Draft Bill Committee in strongly suggesting a referendum is to be commended.

However, those who argue against a referendum are also correct. It all depends on what one means by ‘reform’. At the risk of criticising the Bill committee in the way you might criticise a lemon for not being an orange, they have not considered other proposals for reforming the House of Lords.

Incremental reform, for instance, would not require a referendum. This is the line taken in the Alternative Report, published independently by a minority of the membership of the Bill committee. This report proposes to harness the momentum for reform to propose legislation that could readily be included in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech. It should remove the remaining hereditary peers, permit peers to take permanent leaves of absence, introduce a minimal attendance requirement, and allow for the retirement of peers. Such legislation would be more politically acceptable to all members of all parties. It contains nothing controversial and could be a basis for more long-term reform.

Which according to the Alternative Report should be the responsibility of a Constitutional Convention. This is a common process elsewhere in the world, such as in Australia and certain federal states in the USA. The convention would consider the issue fully and in a broader manner than the current Bill committee has been able to do. Its membership would comprise constitutional experts, current Westminster politicians and representatives of devolved assemblies, local government, businesses and faith groups. It must operate apart from the political cycle. Ultimately, the convention’s proposals would be put to the electorate in a referendum, for the reasons offered above.

The fundamental issue missed by participants in the present debate about a referendum is that it is no longer sufficient for the ordinary political process to dominate the debate. It has dominated for a century, over two Royal Commissions, innumerable policy papers, inconclusive parliamentary debates and votes and, today, a draft Bill with a split committee and two diverging reports.

It is time for a fresh approach to an old problem.

Craig Prescott teaches Constitutional & Administrative Law at the University of Manchester.

Follow Craig on Twitter @craigprescott