Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

Just back from the bloggers’ round table with Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary and the "man of walking out greatness", as my girlfriend has dubbed him following yesterday’s little incident. Joining me were James Graham, Meral Ece, Linda Jack, Jonny Wright, James Schneider and, of course, the organiser and blogging legend, Millenium Elephant and Daddy Richard.

Whilst I would like to recount a tale somewhat approximating Jo’s Jottings earlier this evening, I unfortunately cannot. Ed Davey is down-to-earth, friendly* and clearly in charge of his brief. I won’t give a blow-by-blow account of the evening, mostly because my memory isn’t that good and nor are my notes, but pick out a few of the more interesting moments.

There were of course two elephants in the room tonight - one metaphorical and the other physical - and first was the topic of James Graham’s first question: the party’s position on Europe, which landed Ed Davey in a spot of bother with the Speaker. Ed disagreed with James that the government are at a disadvantage on the referendum issue which we should now be pressing home by switching our plebiscite call to the Lisbon Treaty. He believes that there are only around 18 Labour rebels* and so there is no advantage on our part to press. On top of this, it would be opportunistic of us to go for this alternative referendum, as on principled grounds we should oppose it: Lisbon is not of a constitutional nature in the same way Maastricht was and is more akin to Nice or Amsterdam. He called the arguments certain europhobics are making are "illogical, irrational, xenophobic" and generally all round crazy. He defended his actions in the Chamber yesterday and criticised those who thought his anger was synthetic - it certainly was real!

Jonny Wright asked a good question on the classic sovereignty versus universal human rights and it was refreshing to hear a politician say he hasn’t fully resolved his feelings on something. He called it the "most difficult philosophical question for liberal democrats" (with a small "l" and a small "d") and highlighted the problems of a neo-colonialist crusade for democracy (aka. White House foreign policy for the past eight years).

I then asked him a question, based on events in Uganda, about which he would prefer, if he had to choose, justice or peace. The answer he gave, again admitting that he wasn’t entirely sure where he should stand, centred around his own experience of voting for an amnesty for IRA murderers in order to secure peace in Northern Ireland. He confessed that he came away from that vote feeling conflicted - in the long term, this could be seen as justice and peace for many in ending the conflict, but at the expense of justice in specific cases.

I must admit at this point that my notes get a bit hazy, partly the drink, but partly because I was just drawn in to what he was saying, so you will have to wait for the other bloggers’ accounts.  A very interesting evening for all.

* Perhaps buying us all a drink tipped my judgment on this account.

** In the current Parliament the opposition need 30 or so rebels to defeat the Government