Blogs

So, Tony Blair doesn't like bloggers. He quite contemptuously dismissed people who write blogs as non-representative of the views of the population as a whole. Instead, he claimed he had a direct link with the people and knew exactly what they thought. He was equally dismissive of journalists.

Andrew Marr had to remind him that intermediaries - the media, in all its professional and amateur forms - necessarily stood between the PM and the people.

This exemplifies a problem that is a real one for everyone in public life. Politicians inevitably come under attack, and in order to maintain their mental equilibrium they do have to distance themselves from much of it. There are several strategies they can use - they can dismiss all opposition as worthless or unrepresentative, or they can simply not listen at all. They protect themselves with a wall of support, which becomes more and more solid as time goes on.

This is the real corruption of politics; the loss of perspective, and the self-perpetuating belief in their own innate rightness. (And I write that as someone who has experienced a little bit of the pressures and has had to consciously work to avoid listening only to those who agree with me.)

Tony Blair really didn't get the mood of the people, either just before or since the invasion of Iraq, but has convinced himself that he still does have the sympathetic support of most of the country.

This, of course, should have been his legacy:

(Just to prove that I was at Stormont at the weekend!)

The Good Friday Agreement was the highspot of his term as Prime Minister. I had nothing but praise for him and Mo Mowlem when they pulled it off.

Instead, his name will forever be linked with the illegal decision to invade Iraq and for the disastrous handling of the aftermath.

And that's before we consider the attacks on civil liberties at home - ID cards, 28 day detention, imprisonment of asylum seekers' children, RIP Act. He took New Labour so far away from its roots that it has become virtually unrecognisable as a socialist movement.

During the day a number of my Facebook friends have been reporting that they have taken the Votematch Labour Leadership quiz. You are given a series of policy statements to which you agree or disagree, and at the end you are told which of the five candidates you are closest to. The surprise has been that all my Lib Dem friends seem to match with Diane Abbott. So I tried the quiz myself, and, yes, I found that I agreed 86% with her policies.

What is going on here? Diane Abbott is, after all, the most leftwing and progressive of the candidates. It just seems to confirm the widely held view that the Labour Party has moved so far to the right that its leftmost members sit alongside the social liberal wing of the Lib Dems.

Diane - you are welcome to join us when your party, as redefined by Tony Blair, rejects you, as it inevitably will.

It's been a very special summer for us. Our older son Stuart was married on 21st August to Gwyneth McBride in Carnmoney Church, Belfast.

Both are professional musicians, as are most of their friends, so we began with half an hour of glorious music from a nine piece string ensemble (a nonet?). They were then joined by a band and singers during the service itself. Stu surprised Gwyn just as they were about to march down the aisle by singing 'Can't take my eyes off you' in a version that he had recorded earlier, and we all joined in 'I love you baby'. Aaah....

They held the reception in the stunning setting of Belfast Castle - and the weather was very kind to us, so we started off enjoying the beautiful grounds, playing arcane garden games like boules and croquet, and listening to a string quartet.

It didn't rain until we were all inside enjoying the meal, and then we were rewarded by a beautiful rainbow over Belfast. Finally, a scratch band made up of friends and relations gave us a great ceilidh through the evening.

I did say I was taking a break from blogging over August, but have come out of hiding to say something about Chessington Live.

This is a really interesting initiative of David Lindsell, a reporter with the Surrey Comet. Have a look around the site. There is a lot of local news and views, as you would expect from a community website.

But it goes further than that, because if you log in you can then leave comments or post an article. The idea is to encourage conversations about local issues - a micro version of the (national) Guardian's Comment is Free section. It's early days, but people have started writing posts and commenting on others.

Spread the word!

I should have mentioned earlier that I am taking my usual break from blogging over August. Back in September!

Some really major work is starting in Garrison Lane today. The whole road has to be reconstructed - not just a tarmac resurfacing but a full rebuild of the road's foundation.

This is going to cause some problems because it is a bus route. But then the problems have been partly caused by the buses anyway.

The best advice is to avoid the area if you can, but if not to read the information on traffic diversions etc on the Council website.

Seen in Finsbury Square today.

There are plenty of docking stations (as they are called) in the central area. You can find out how the scheme works and see a map of locations here.

It costs £1 per day, or £5 per week, or £45 per year, plus £3 for the key. Then every time you borrow a bike you get 30 minutes free but are charged for anything more. I'm not a cyclist but thought you ought to know.

I bumped into our Borough Commander Chief Superintendant Martin Geenslade yesterday at the Freedom Parade. He told me that the lease had, at last, been signed on the police base for the Chessington Safer Neighbourhood teams.

So the two police teams for Chessington North & Hook and for Chessington South will eventually be moving into the shop next to the Debra charity shop in Hook Parade. They were given planning permission for the work some time ago, so are hoping to be ready to move before the end of the year.

It's been a long ride, but I'm pleased that finally our local police teams will be based where they should be, within their own area.

I don't usually do military, but I always make an exception for the Territorial Army, and particularly for Kingston's own TA unit.

They are the 256 (City of London) Field Hospital Volunteers - all medics who, amazingly, volunteer their services on top of their demanding professional lives as doctors, surgeons, nurses, physios etc. Last year they were deployed to the field hospital at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. That is a tough placement for anyone, so I am full of admiration for them all.

Back in March 2009 a special meeting of the Council was called to agree to confer the Freedom of the Borough on the unit. This gave them the right to parade through Kingston, which they did today, led by the band of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

First, there was a civic ceremony outside the Guildhall, when the Mayor (no doubt, very warm in her full regalia) inspected the troops.

We held a minute's silence for the victims of war, during which there was perfect quiet - quite extraordinary for a Saturday morning in the town centre.

After the National Anthem, they marched off to claim their right, all round the Market Square and back to their base on the Portsmouth Road.

Then we all met up again in the Guildhall for an awards ceremony and a chance to mingle.

One of the pleasant consequences of having been Mayor is that I do get invited to civic events like this. It was good to catch up with the only two living Honorary Freemen of the Borough - Robert Smith (former Vice Chancellor of the University) and David Jacobs (former Deputy Lieutenant of the Borough) - both of whom received the honour when Ian was Mayor.

"There's no such thing as society" said Thatcher.

Ah, the irony that her successor is bigging up society - and giving it capital letters.

The Big Society is an attractive proposition, and I was quite taken aback when Cameron started using the phrase before the election.

Society is already a lot bigger and of greater significance than politicians, of all colours, seem to believe. Encased in the inward looking worlds of politics and government, it is all to easy for them to adopt a world-view which assumes that government is the main driving force in people's lives.

In practice, when we think about the lives we lead, we all know that the things that make us happiest, give us greatest fulfilment and generally enrich our lives are the relationships and interactions that we have with family, friends and the wider community. Government hardly comes into play, except perhaps to provide some necessary underpinning services.

Society is already big, and government is really relatively small. Maybe Cameron is simply recognising something that most other citizens always knew.

But there is more to the rhetoric than an apology for Maggie. Cameron bases his argument on the premise that Britain is broken. At one time that kind of talk was code for an attack on single mothers, working mothers, inadequate parents (usually mothers) and the high levels of divorce (again, usually blamed on mothers feeling dissatisfied with their lot). Women's liberation had damaged society and a man in shining armour was needed to mend it again. I'm not suggesting that Cameron shares those views but their faint echo can be heard in the language he chooses to use.

Britain is not broken in any meaningful way. So the Big Society does not need that kind of justification - even though Cameron may feel he needs to use it in order to win round Middle England, and his own right wing.

Of course, the question that is being asked is whether the Conservatives would have adopted the concept of Big Society if there were no pressing need to cut public services and expand the voluntary sector. I do get the impression that he genuinely wants to support and endorse those unselfish acts of kindness that make our communities work. It's a view that grows out of a centrist liberal tradition, which he shares, to a certain extent, with Liberal Democrats. With the coalition constraining the wilder elements in his party, he may now be grasping the opportunity to develop a strand of Conservatism that has been rather muted in the past.

From my position, as a social liberal, I do welcome the focus on the voluntary sector, and even more on something that doesn't really fit into a sector at all - good neighbourliness. I am not averse to some services being taken away from government, local or national, and given back to communities. I have always supported the idea of community management of local resources (Dinton Fields, for example, for which I can claim some credit).

In principle - John Stuart Mill's in fact - a person's liberty to behave as they wish should only be restricted by government if there is danger of harm to others, and the restrictions should always be proportionate to the risk.

The 'but' in all this - and I expect you could see it coming - is that we always need to temper liberty with equality. Liberty on its own does not ensure that everyone's needs will be met, whatever the free-marketeers may say. A society founded on the principles of liberty and community must also protect the weak and vulnerable. Equality is essentially about empowering every citizen with the skills and confidence they need to exercise their liberty and take advantage of what society has to offer.

That is why, for me, Big Society has to be coupled with compassionate government, led by strong elected representatives, particularly in local government, who have a specific duty to support the weak and speak for the silent. That is, in fact, why I am a Liberal Democrat and not a Conservative.