EMA, WikiLeaks and the SDP

Today was depressing. I don't agree with the EMA cuts, unless the reforms mean that students end up with a better deal for poor students, but I resent it when Labour MPs use EMA to score political points in a completely unrelated speech. At the Afro Caribbean Trade and Commerce Launch, the Labour MP for Bristol East, did just that. Policies should not be used to score political points, it destroys any trust we might have in what politicians say they believe. I'm not saying only Labour does it, but there is a time and place - in the Chamber, not at a non partisan event.

Also I realised that although I value open politics and as little secrecy as possible: the Government should not keep things from the public, as Shirley Williams pointed out in her talk on Memoirs: Egoistical or Educational, we are in a Catch 22 situation. If all communication between Government Ministers had to be available for all to peruse at will, and Bush and Blair had to publish their correspondence to find out whether Blair said he would do whatever Bush did as far as Iraq was concerned, that would be a fantastic way for the public to receive justice for their actions. But, in the future, politicians would be far more cautious so that statements like those we suspect made between Bush and Blair would either not be made at all, which would be great in theory, although it might lead to poorer relations between Britain and other countries. Or politicians will begin to communicate in some nontraceable way: a private room with no tape recorder perhaps. Yes, it will be harder for politicians to cover their words up, and WikiLeaks will hopefully still be able to expose some hidden conversations, but a lot will be driven further into secrecy.

I wonder how Shirley feels having left the Labour Party, where she was in the Cabinet with Tony Benn under Wilson and Callaghan, to merge her SDP with the Liberals and form the Liberal Democrat Party in 1988, to watching her baby form a Coalition with the Conservatives. Sure, she is being pragmatic if she supports the Coalition. I too am of the conclusion that it is better to have a Tory government containing Lib Dems who are beavering away to put Lib Dem policies into practice and soften and amend Tory policies, than a Tory led government, which would undoubtedly be more right wing. But it must be a million miles away from what she originally anticipated thirty years ago, as one of the Labour "Gang of Four" rebels in 1981.