- Observer.co.uk,
- Sunday June 1, 2003
'Reform of the House of Lords is going to have to be persisted with. People do say to me "come and join us and help us change it", but people have been saying that for a hell of a long time. Therefore to paraphrase I can say I'm definitely uncertain.'
On the Labour party
'The Labour party never loses its heart and soul. Occasionally it loses its head, sometimes the heart has prevailed over the brains - not very often. I think it would be presumptuous for anybody to suggest that there was cardiac surgery to be performed or some kind of psychiatric treatment to be given.'
On single-issue activism
'You see the thing is I'm not making any criticisms of people in NGOs or voluntary organisations or full-time politicians, but you know, assertive polemical argument is necessary always without any evident organisational cause to plead.
It so happens - it's totally by coincidence really - that we're seeing the development of new kinds of activism across the planet. And it varies in its nature according to the traditions of democracies and the presence or absence of democracy. In many respects that's how I feel except that I think responsibility in democracies at least ought to go with the right to speak and organise and agitate. And the problem is that a lot of the activism is depoliticised and it's single interest stuff which is unfortunate because I think it weakens the strength of any single given cause and it means that all political authorities or commercial interests have to do is to outlive the protestors, whereas the purpose of having a democratic political process is to get the power, by election, to make the change.
The problem with cause activism is frequently that it is self-appointed, which doesn't reduce its sincerity, but does make it less politically and democratically accountable and activism needs to be. It's important to have that argument without making it overly philosophical. Because I hate throwing stones in the dark.'
On why he supports compulsory voting in Britain
'I've been thinking a hell of a lot since the last general election, indeed before that in the last EU election, of campaigning for compulsory voting in the UK. I think the argument really needs to be had.
'We could gradually slide into the situation that prevails in the USA that John Kenneth Galbraith calls "the culture of contentment" where the level of turnout falls to such a point under 50% that most of the people voting represent the vested interest, and those vested interests generally tend to get served because politicians only have to appeal to something less than half the population because the others have voluntarily cut themselves off from exerting any real influence on the democratic process. It would be appalling, if accidentally, casually, we were to slip and slide into that situation. So I think compulsory voting is an antidote to that.
But a partial antidote is merely stirring up the arguments about whether we should retain the voluntary vote or not. But with compulsory voting the absolute right to go and spoil the ballot paper would have to be sustained. But the physical effort of voting, whether you do it online or you do it at the ballot box, and vote, or you arrange for proxy or by post or whatever, that fundamental and very elementary sense of citizens? obligations must be reasserted. Must be. Because it's dangerous if it isn't.'
On the euro
'That's going to happen' [Britain's entry into the euro].
'Neither he [Gordon Brown] nor Tony Blair are motivated on that by cynicism. It's just that it's a big question. Profoundly to me it is primarily an economic question but with huge political implications obviously. Now the government wouldn't just be risking itself [by opting for a referendum now]. More importantly it would be a bit casual if it just ran a referendum for the hell of it.'
On the new EU constitution being drafted by the European Convention
'It's substantial tidying up and it's the sensible thing to do.'
'The reality is that states should not relinquish the right to veto over changes in the treaty or radical alterations in the taxation or social security system. The straightforward reason is that elected governments who have the primary responsibility for collecting taxes should be primarily accountable for the way those taxes are spent.'
'I would never say never but at the same time there is virtually no ambition for and even less prospect of the loss of veto on fundamental issues like that.'
