Barking and Dagenham Borough Liberal Democrats

Sarah's bulletin: 23 April 2010

Dear friends,

The Metro today says it all: 'Clegg bandwagon keeps on rolling: Nick Clegg fought off attacks from David Cameron and Gordon Brown in the second leaders' debate last night to keep his election bandwagon rolling'.

These live television debates have absolutely transformed this election and have injected a new energy into the LibDems. They have really given Nick (and Vince) an opportunity to shine, convince the public of the change our party has to offer and has made more and more people decide to vote Liberal Democrat. A window of opportunity has opened to make this country a better place.

Local parties are reporting that they are getting dozens if not hundreds of people coming forward wanting to help and on the doorstep people are saying that this time, they are going to vote LibDem. I have had passers-by come into my office asking if they can have a poster to put up in their window. Gordon Brown was desperate last night to renege on his "I agree with Nick!" catchphrase of last week, but too late, it's gone into the lexicon and onto posters and badges now! I have ordered a number of them and you can do the same here.

Labour and Tories are floundering from love-bombing to carpet-bombing, including on the Tory side a large dose of outrageous personal smears which will in any case rebound on them; this desperation shows just how strongly we are performing. So do we relax and rest on our laurels? Quite the opposite - there is absolutely everything to play for, but we will only achieve our best if we redouble our efforts - and yes, I have done my Bridget Fox (triple!) delivery this morning.

I was so pleased to see Nick defend our internationalist stance so well. We believe in a strong Britain at the heart of a strong Europe and in EU cooperation when it is necessary and appropriate. But we are also a 'critical friend', not hesitating to criticise the EU for its flaws and call for reform -- the ridiculous Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament is but an example. (You can read about my comments on that that in the Guardian and on the Euractiv website here and here.)

And how did the Tories prepare the debate? They promised yesterday that in July they will send their most prominent gay MP, Nick Herbert, to attend a gay rights march in Warsaw and help their allies on their "journey" away from homophobia. Some hope! Their homophobic voting record in the European Parliament speaks for itself.

Iceland's volcano and European travel chaos

The Icelandic volcano that erupted last Thursday and shut down European airspace left countless European travellers and holidaymakers stranded. Makes you realise just how frail our technology is when confronted with such unexpected and awesome forces of nature.

European air passenger rights though came into their own! Under EU law, when there are such severe delays and cancellations, EU-based airlines are required to offer passengers either a refund or food, drink, accommodation and re-routing. Thousands of desperate travellers were all of a sudden very grateful for their EU rights -- many of them were probably until now unaware that they even had them. Ryanair at first refused to pay, though I'm glad to say they have now climbed down. Although we understand that the natural disaster was not the airlines' fault, and the financial implications for them are severe, they are surely either insured for this or factor it into their business plans. It is hardly reasonable to blame regulators who rightly put safety first.

That said, there are 2 major lessons to be learned. One is that we need unified control of European airspace by making the current (non-EU) intergovernmental body which coordinates between national air traffic controllers (Eurocontrol) the linchpin of a new, single European sky. The European Parliament has long called for this, but Member States have been unwilling to cede national control. A pan-European authority would have been able to avoid much of the chaos and done a much better job at coordinating the response to the crisis. Secondly, much more research into the impact of ash on aircraft engines, which we seem to know precious little about.

I did a radio interview on these issues which you can download and listen to here.

Israel's anniversary

I'm pleased as a member of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel to be attending today a reception to mark the 62nd anniversary of the creation of an independent state of Israel. I have my own strong criticisms of the policy of the current government of Israel - and indeed of many previous ones, though I part company with the present one more than those before. The present government is failing to do anything like enough to promote a 2 - state solution and is indeed undermining it through its outrageous settlement and other policies.

But I separate government and state. I am consistent in my support for a secure Israel whose right to exist is universally recognised - which is not the case now - and that is why I will be there today to support and celebrate that existence.

Parliament debates new SWIFT agreement and Passenger Name Records

Despite votes being postponed this week in Strasbourg due to many MEPs not being able to attend this week's plenary session, debates went ahead nonetheless. One of the things we debated was the negotiations to put in place a new SWIFT agreement on transferring European bank data to the US for counter-terrorism purposes. European Justice and home affairs ministers now need to approve a mandate for

talks on a new deal - one we in the European Parliament insist must respect European privacy and data protection standards. The Parliament terminated the previous interim agreement in February due to serious concerns about this. On passenger name record (PNR) agreements with Australia and the US, the European Parliament will postpone judgement until we can see if a reasonable outcome is being achieved. If we are giving our personal details to "Uncle Sam" and "Auntie Oz", they have to respect our privacy as much as we do.

Know your Councils and your Courts when it comes to lap-dancing...

Pictured, left to right: The seat of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, the logo of the Council of Ministers (officially the Council of the European Union) and a photo from last year's European Council, the 6-monthly meeting of European heads of state.

The Guardian this week made the familiar mistake of confusing the 2 European courts. On the one hand there is the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, a body of the Council of Europe, a 47-country human rights organisation which oversees the European Convention of Human Rights, the genesis of our Human Rights Act. On the other there is the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, an institution of the EU and which enforces EU law.

I can assure you there is no EU law on lap-dancing clubs, but the Guardian said

"Strip clubs could use the Human Rights Act to oppose legislation allowing councils greater freedom to turn down lap-dancing licence applications, ... [and] take their appeals to the European Court of Justice". What they meant was the European Court of Human Rights, which the newspaper has now corrected on its website.

Elections damage hopes for Cypriot political settlement

Elections in northern Cyprus this week have dealt a heavy blow to hopes of reaching a political settlement between Greek southern Cyprus and Turkish northern Cyprus any time soon. The poll results give hard-line Dervis Eroglu almost certain victory at the expense of moderate Mehmet Ali Talat. Eroglu is vowing to resist any kind of compromise with the Greek half of the island on "territory, property and sovereignty", making a settlement almost impossible. I take a great interest in Cyprus and this is sad news indeed. I hope that despite the election the talks will continue and a reunification of the island will still take place in the not too distant future.

Whaling ban could be overturned after EU fails to reach consensus

The European Union's consensual decision-making system has I'm afraid failed us again with regards endangered species (remember CITES last month?) - this time with regards to whaling. The EU was unable to come to a decision on what position to take on whaling, given that the UK is anti-whaling but Denmark, whose dependent territories include Greenland and the Faroe Islands, is pro-whaling. This indecision sadly handed victory to Norway, Iceland and Japan which all voted for a resumption of whale hunting. The loser is the natural world and biodiversity, very disappointing.

Best regards,

Sarah Ludford