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JG has posted on the subject of Tony's legacy. This post started as a comment, and grew so large that I decided to post it separately.

I must see things through an inverting lens.

• Reagan: Never a buffoon in the eyes of those old enough to see through the Spitting Image caricature, and intelligent enough to understand the mess the Western economies were in in 1980. Heard an excellent example recently of how well Reagan "got it", better than any American president for a century, from a woman who worked in his administration. Her husband also worked for him, in the Department of Agriculture. Invited to see the President, he told Reagan how efficient he was going to make the Department. Reagan's reply: "Now listen, don't make it too efficient. Can you imagine if we got all the government we pay for?" That's a smart cookie.
• Thatcher: Cruel to whom? The British government had spent decades being cruel to those who wanted to improve their lot, and generous to those who just wanted a wage for a day's attendance or better still a wage for no attendance, regardless of whether they contributed to the economy. She reversed that, and although far more people benefited (then and now) than suffered at the time, all people talk about is how hard it was on the people who had been screwing the British economy for decades. I'm sorry, but they had it coming to them. And as for megalomania, her biggest mistakes were when she left people like Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson (and her European counterparts) to lead her up the garden path on the Single European Act and the ERM. I bet she regrets being too soft, not too hard.
• George W Bush: The good part - lower taxes. The bad part: bigger government. If he had managed to rein-in government spending to match the tax-cuts, he could have been remembered as another Reagan (domestically). Instead, he will be remembered as a contributor to one of the biggest economic imbalances the world has ever seen. Unless, that is, the intellectuals find a way to rewrite history to blame the coming collapse on something else (that better suits their view of the world, e.g. it was nothing to do with fiscal irresponsibility). Combine that with his failure in the clash with Islam (let's not call it a clash of civilizations, that is too good a word for the state of modern Islam), and he ought to go down as one of the worst presidents in their history. Not for what he wanted to do, a lot of which wasn't too bad, but for what he actually did, which was a lot worse.
• Blair: His principal legacy is the bureaucratization and re-socialization of Britain; the restoration and extension of the leviathan state - more layers, more powers, more employees and sub-contractors, more welfare-dependency, more intervention in business and charity, more intrusion into personal and family affairs, more central-planning and micro-management, more regulation, more taxation....
  

Having seen ex-Prime Minister, Tony Blair's final PMQs and the rest of the day’s events unfold, you can only conclude this has been the strangest of power handovers.  Not many PMs could claim to go out on a standing ovation from Parliament (not sure even Churchill got that treatment).  It also emphasises how this moment has been in the making since the last Labour conference (if not much longer).  A strange sense of the inevitable mixed with the unknown.  Tony Blair has this incredible ability to leave you with nothing but admiration for him when he delivers one his speeches, even if yo

Howard Davies is reported in Le Figaro as saying:

"On Europe, we do not yet know if Sarkozy is a friend or an enemy.... Selling the Brussels result will be arduous for Brown… It is crucial for him that Sarkozy continues to defend the idea that the new treaty does not mean much. The slightest suspicion that this treaty is the first step on a new federal adventure will be blown up out of all proportion. Any triumphalism about the withdrawal of the reference to competition will make Brown’s life very difficult. For the first time since the rejection by de Gaulle of our request for accession to the common market, a British government finds itself in the uncomfortable position of being liable to a French president. One false move, one word too many from the Elysée, and Prime Minister Brown will have big problems. Brown, who has waited so long and impatiently for his moment, is particularly frustrated at not being in charge on the European agenda. That means that he is condemned, whether he likes it or not, to keeping close relations with Sarkozy. Brown cannot let him leave his sight." (Hat-tip to OpenEurope for spotting this and translating it.)

Howard Davies is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), before which he was Chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), before which he was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, before which he was Director-General of the Confederation of British Industries (CBI). All roles in which he should have eschewed political partisanship. And all organizations (with the possible exception of the Bank) of which there is a strong whiff of Third-Way politicization. Now look at that statement again.

Goodbye Mr Blair. 10 years that started off with such promise and hope have ended with Britain and the world far less optimistic and settled. What could have really been the greatest premiership of post war Britain has ended in anticlimax. I take the view that it takes a few years before legacies are shaped and fully known and understood. When Thatcher left No.10 in 1990 it seemed her legacy would always be that of a cruel, almost megalomaniac type women. These views have mellowed, particularly in past couple of years and whilst she will never be forgiven by some, compared to the sly spin fuelled government of today, at least she was hard talking and straight forward. President Reagan was always seen as a buffoon type character but is looked back on far more fondly these days in America with George W Bush making him look like an economic genius. But what of Blair?

Whilst it can not be denied he has made many changes to Britain, it is hard to look past Iraq as being his lasting legacy. But domestically, I think Blair will always be synonymous with spin. He has used the media like no other PM before - with brilliant effect. But the longer term damage this has done to politics will only really be seen in the coming years. PR is now more important than substance and that can not be good for anyone. David Cameron is already mimicking this strategy and the days of straight talking politicians could well be over.

Another legacy could also be the end of ideological politics. The centre ground is where we are all told politics is fought today – an imaginary area I think of as nothingness. It is legislating for legislation's sake with no real direction. Pleasing the masses without inspiring them. Back in 1997 we all thought Blair was on a mission, it turns out it was a mission to apathy. The electorate are so uninspired and bored with the spin they seem to have rolled over and just let the parties get on with it. The feeling that voting makes no difference has never been stronger. The irony being, back in 1997 it was the power to make a difference that got Blair his landslide. Brown will continue with the New Labour project, whatever that means now, and he will no doubt have a few surprises up his sleeve in the next 100 days. But what is the alternative? The Tories offer nothing radical enough to offer change other than a Cameron grin (and if Brown's dour grimace puts us off, it maybe enough to win the next election – hardly inspiring though!). The Lib Dems are even less inspiring than they were 5 years ago. Blair was a brilliant politician but as the decade of his premiership went on, the realisation that his vision wasn't what we thought it was became more and more apparent.

We still talk of Thaterism today - as Andrew Marr said, like it or not we are all Thatcher's children. I do not know if the term Blairism will be used in twenty years time or not, but if it is it will probably be used in the context of disappointment and unfulfilled potential with a whole lot of spin thrown in.

There is an extraordinary article in today's Times about the Public Health Minister Caroline Flint, aka Supernanny. It seems to be justifying some of the more draconian and nannying legislation that this government has put upon us. Those not familiar with Flint will be with her proposals. She is responsible for patronising campaigns such as the labelling of wine bottles and specifically telling middle-class wine drinkers that they should moderate their drinking.

Government

Government 

It is no secret that I rate the Tories chances of winning the next election, on current form, at next to zero.  It seems Quentin Davies MP for Grantham feels the same.  He has defected from the Conservatives to Labour via an open letter to David Cameron.  Ironic, maybe, that Grantham was the birthplace of Baroness Thatcher.  In his letter he stated that the Conservative party "appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything". 

In what follows, I want to strike the right balance. I am not a sceptic of the anthropogenic global-warming (AGW) theory, in the sense of one who says that man definitely has no measurable impact on the climate. We ought to take account of the risk and continue to try to understand it. But neither am I an alarmist who is convinced that the science is done and dusted. I think we also ought to take account of alternative (or complementary) theories of why our climate is changing. What I say below does not mean that I have now joined the ranks of those sceptics. It is a criticism of the worst kind of credulous, proselytizing alarmist. It says, we should represent the facts accurately, and keep our eyes and our minds open to all possibilities.

A reporter on BBC Radio 5Live has just said something like "Of course, no one could have forecast the recent downpours, but experts say that extreme weather events like this will become more common if climate-change theories are correct." This was echoed by that other peddler of received wisdom, The Independent. Michael McCarty writes:

"Even though yesterday's remarkable downpours seem very much out of the ordinary, no scientist is going to say that in themselves they prove the climate is changing. There have always been floods; there have always been severe floods. The natural variability of the climate has always included extremes. However, if the predictions of supercomputer climate models are correct, rain of the unusual intensity experienced in many places yesterday is going to become a much more commonplace feature of the weather in Britain as the century progresses."

A couple of problems:

1. Every AGW model forecasts lower rainfall in England in summers. It is in winters that rainfall (and therefore flooding) is expected to increase. This event is contrary to the models, not evidence of them.
2. Someone did predict the downpours. His name is Piers Corbyn. His company is WeatherAction Long-Range Forecasters. He forecast on the 30th May the downpours of both the 12-14th and the 24-26th June. In the case of the 12-14th, he forecast the downpours six months previously. Piers is an astrophysicist, and a leading AGW sceptic, whose weather-forecasting models are based on the same principles that lead him to contest the AGW theories. I have asked him for permission to publish his 30th May forecast, and will put them up on this site if he agrees.

This is not probitive. But it is illustrative. The attempts by the AGW alarmists to shoehorn, by implication and innuendo, the recent events into their view of the world was entirely predictable. And thoroughly dishonest.

UPDATE: Piers has allowed me to make his 30th May forecast available. I have attached the Acrobat file (PDF) containing the detailed forecast to this post (click "Read more" if you are viewing this from the home page and can't see the link), and have copied the relevant parts of his accompanying email in the Comment below.

If you want to drive fast, stay out of Wales and London and head to Surrey. The Department for Transport has released figures on the amount of money it has raised from speeding tickets over the last year. Surprisingly, there were fewer tickets issued last year than on the previous year. Good news I hear you say. You would have thought - but good news for you is not good news for the chancellor's coffers. Less speeding tickets issued means less fines means less money to plough back in to society (ahem!). Wrong.

Government procurement is controlled and restricted by bureaucratic and lengthy procedures that have been passed down from the EU to ensure a level playing field across Europe when competing for business and also to ensure corruption is stamped out.  Unfortunately, these procedures are so lengthy and arduous; they just end up adding costs to the contract rather than saving money.  The Commons public accounts committee believes that the public sector wasted £400m on unnecessary procurement costs last year - though I suspect this is a very conservative estimate. 

Government

One of the things that made me laugh in the BBC's typically-rigorous reporting (I think in last night's Newsnight) of the proposed EU reform treaty was the claim that the extension of Qualified Majority Voting would bring benefits such as the opportunity to force the break-up of national energy monopolies. Isn't that already required under existing agreements on deregulation of European energy markets? QMV is more likely to enable the majority of our partners who would rather protect their "national champions" at all cost to backtrack on this sort of requirement.

Those who think that Britain's interests are best served by going along with this latest extension of EU powers (and even Tony Blair admitted that this is an extension of those powers) need to consider this:

I don't like referenda. But it is perfectly obvious that the majority in the country does not believe that the "Reform Treaty" is not the Constitutional Treaty dressed up, and that they want a referendum on the subject as promised. And yet Tony and Gordon seem inclined to push on with ratification without allowing the public to have a say. The question is, what are people going to do about it?

If we leave it to the parliamentary process, Gordon will be able to ram it through despite opposition. People need to demonstrate their strength of feeling on this issue, to force him and his MPs to consider the electoral consequences.

The Telegraph has the right idea, but is botching the implementation. They have launched an online "petition" for a referendum on the subject. Except, it's not a petition, it's a poll (and as such will be accused, rightly, of not being based on a representative sample). And you have to register with their site in order to vote. Currently, 58 people have voted. I wonder how many clicked on the "Yes" button, but then, like me, gave up when they were asked to register with the site before their vote could be registered? This isn't going to work, and will be used by the Government to argue that opposition is negligible.

Even without these obstacles, the Telegraph website is the wrong place to do this. The Times, Mail, Express and Sun have all called for the Government to honour its commitment to a referendum. In this age of modern media, we ought also to consider the readership of the various blogs, and those who get their news from the TV, radio, or from one of the pro-Treaty papers (The Mirror, Guardian, and, to some extent, The Independent) but disagree with their stance on this issue. Most of these people are not going to go to the Telegraph website to register and vote.

What is needed is neutral territory, where all the papers, bloggers etc can point their readership to register their call for a referendum. There is one obvious location. The road-pricing protest showed its power. It is the No.10 petition site.

There are already a number of petitions on there on this subject, but none of them expresses the issue clearly and in a way that is likely to find the greatest common ground amongst the public. And the existence of several alternatives dilutes the message if people don't know which one to vote for.

We need a new petition, carefully worded to attract a range of opinion, from those who want a complete withdrawal, to those who support the European project but feel that there is a point of principle at stake here - for the Government to honour its commitment. Once we have a good form of words, a new petition should be created, and all the papers, pundits and other members of the media and the blogosphere (is the blogosphere part of the media? I'm never quite sure) who support the call for a referendum should run campaigns to point their readers, listeners or viewers to the petition to vote.

This must be concerted action. A half-cocked campaign that did not garner substantial support would be thrown back at opponents of the Treaty as evidence that the country does not feel strongly on the issue. But if the five papers mentioned, the blogosphere and independent TV and radio (e.g. TalkSport) threw their weight behind a petition, I am confident that they could comfortably beat the number of signatures garnered for the road-pricing petition.

So what should the precise wording be? Something along the lines of:

That Her Majesty's Government should not ratify the so-called Reform Treaty without putting it to a referendum of the people of the United Kingdom.

How would you change/improve this? Drop the "so-called"? I put it in, because I didn't want to imply acceptance that this was a fundamentally different treaty to the Constitutional Treaty by appearing to accept the alternative designation, but it is probably unnecessary. Will everyone know what is being referred to by the "Reform Treaty" or does it need more clarification? Should it refer to "honouring their promise to put it to a referendum", rather than simply "putting it to a referendum"? I kept it simple, because it offers less wiggle room for the Government to cavil about whether this Treaty is sufficiently similar to the Constitutional Treaty for their promise to be relevant.

Does this offer the option for the Government to hold a referendum and then ignore the outcome, and still be able to say that they complied with the terms of the petition? I reckon that would be a sophism too far, even for this Government, and that they would be destroyed at the next election if they tried it on. But if you think it needs tightening up, how would you clarify that the results of the referendum should be binding? Have I just answered my own question? If I make that "...putting it to a binding referendum...", does that do the trick?

Or is this whole suggestion barking up the wrong tree?

Government 

Surprisingly, maybe, over two thirds of you were against the smoking ban on the principle that the government should not be able to intervene on our actions on private property. I suspect the figure would have been even higher if I had not mentioned smoking in the question... I do fear that this is just the start - the trend this government shows is to legislate and legislate and legislate. Until they have stamped out just about everything that can risk the slightest bit of harm to ourselves or others, they will continue to pass laws.

Will one of Gordon's first acts of his premiership be to put behind him the scandal and sleaze of the Blair years and do a symbolic act and abolish all talk of freedom of information exemptions for MPs?  The Constitutional Affairs Select Committee is certainly for the abandonment of the "unnecessary, unpopular and undesirable" reforms.  Their report even concludes that "There is no objective evidence that any change is necessary.