I have just spoken at the Counter Terror Expo, an enormous exhibition and conference at Olympia.  I was standing in for Patrick Mercer who was apparently taken by surprise by the fact that there was going to be a General Election campaign going on when he agreed to speak.

My main theme was that we could envisage that we would be living in a much riskier society over the next twenty-five years.  The UK would be in a world:

“in which there will be greater political extremism and conflict and where radicalisers can flourish with a volatile and disaffected population in whose minds their ideas can take root.  This will be an environment in which international crime will be stronger and the restraints on it from the international community will be weaker.  There will be problems in building an international consensus as to what needs to be done as the current international certainties dissolve into a multi-polar future.

This will be a riskier society as state and city authority break down in many places and where international crime and terrorism can flourish and be nurtured in such lawless areas.

At the same time, society itself will become more vulnerable through its increasing reliance on ICT.”

I recognised the success of the Government’s CONTEST strategy with its four strands: Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare.  I pointed out that:

“This has been accompanied by substantial investment.  By next year, there will be £3.5 billion spent on counter-terrorism.  The number of  police engaged in CONTEST has risen by 70% and the Security Service has doubled in size.

The strategy has been effective.  Since 2001, 200 people have been convicted of terrorist related offences and over a dozen significant plots have been disrupted  In addition, in the last four years, some 250 people have been excluded from the country on national security grounds or on the basis of their activities.”

But went on to point out that in the future more will need to be done:

“to ensure that the CONTEST strategy builds in expecting the unexpected.  We must be ready to look beyond al Qaeda, recognising the developing picture of dissident republicans in Northern Ireland, other political and regional struggles elsewhere in the world (certain in the knowledge that the diaspora from those struggles will be here in London) and new challenges such as those holding extreme ecological views who may have come to believe that mankind is so bad for the future of the planet that that future would be improved if mankind’s population was dramatically reduced.

We must be constantly vigilant about symbolic and iconic sites, economic targets, and all places of mass resort.  We must recognise the risks posed by terrorist groups or individuals seeking to have access to CRBRN weapons or materials and the implications of both our greater cyber-dependence and the opportunities that that provides to an increasingly cyber-aware opposition.

And at the same time we must continue to work with all our communities to build support for and trust in the responses that are being made.”

And as I said:

“Whoever is responsible for taking counter-terrorism forward after 6^th May is going to have their hands full.”

I am just back from an inspirational rally in Hornsey and Wood Green, where a couple of hundred people packed into a school hall (in the centre of the ward I represented on Haringey Council for twenty-four years) to hear former Labour Party Leader, Lord Neil Kinnock, speak alongside the Labour candidate, Karen Jennings, and the excellent new-ish Leader of the Council, Claire Kober.

Neil was in swashbuckling form demolishing Cameron’s Conservatives:  “So, if after a hard day’s work, you come home and you’re not ready to run your local school, it’ll be your bloody fault.”

Karen was quietly authoritative and demonstrating why selecting this former nurse who expects to become a grandmother this week was exactly the right choice to win the seat back from LibDem, Lynne Featherstone.   (Interestingly, Lynne Featherstone has not dug in locally – in the way that other freshly elected LibDem MPs have tended to do elsewhere in the country – she seems to have been so captivated by the chance to strut the national stage that she has rather neglected her local constituents.)

Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, speaking in London today was clear:

“Labour will ensure that frontline policing is protected but the Conservatives won’t match this guarantee. The Conservative threat to frontline services is shown here in London where the future of local police teams is at risk from the Conservative mayor Boris Johnson. We are issuing a challenge to every Tory candidate in the capital today to say where they stand on Conservative Boris Johnson’s  failure to protect the neighbourhood police guarantee.”

The message was echoed by Labour’s London Minister, Tessa Jowell, who said:

“Every ward in London currently has a minimum Safer Neighbourhood Team of beat officers comprising one sergeant, two police constables and three PCSOs to patrol local streets. Boris Johnson is cutting police numbers and has quit as chair of the police authority. Londoners are entitled to know from every Conservative candidate in London whether they back our safer neighbourhood police teams. The Mayor refuses to guarantee they will continue to be based on their existing form. The Conservatives would threaten the safety of our streets by refusing to match our commitment to frontline policing.”

So where do the Conservatives stand?

Under questioning from the London Assembly, Mayor Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to guarantee the future of the minimum deployment of neighbourhood teams, saying ‘I have no intention of imposing a one-size-fits-all model across the whole of London’, and describing it as ‘a pointless piece of top-downery’.

When, as Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, I led the introduction of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams in 2004, I was adamant – as was Mayor Ken Livingstone – that all parts of London should be treated equally and fairly (A future fair for all?) and that the policy should be applied transparently – each local government ward in would have a Safer Neighbourhood Team made up of a Sergeant, two Police Constables and three Police Community Support Officers.

Safer Neighbourhoods Teams are dedicated to the needs of each specific neighbourhood. They are permanent and work at a grass roots level in addition to London’s other policing teams and specialist units.  The programme began its phased roll out in April 2004, and in April 2006 the remaining teams were put in place. All 624 neighbourhood wards across the capital now have their own dedicated Safer Neighbourhoods team – around 20 teams per borough.  

Under Boris Johnson police numbers in London are being cut by a total of 455 officers. Over his four budgets Boris Johnson will oversee a decline in the total number of police officers for London.

Borough commanders are being told to find 5% of savings. The Guardian reported on 3 February: One police borough commander told the Guardian they were trying to limit the cuts to civilian staff: “We are having to lose staff and that is a painful situation.”  But savings are not being used to protect police numbers, which will fall by 455. And At the 2010/11 budget-setting meeting on 10/2/10 he refused to use a council tax windfall of £5.7m to help protect police numbers.

It is not a surprise, given the Manifesto launch yesterday and the Leaders’ Debate later this week, that the prime Minister is not able to attend president Obama’s summit co0nference in Washington on nuclear security.  However, given the Prime Minister’s skill at brokering deals at international summits, it is a real pity that he is not able to be there.

There are real concerns about nuclear materials falling into the hands of international terrorists and the UK Government is one of those with a real commitment to trying to make progress on this issue.

A few weeks ago I asked specifically about the summit:

Nuclear Disarmament

Question

Asked by Lord Harris of Haringey

To ask Her Majesty’s Government who will be representing the United Kingdom at the United Nations nuclear security summit in Washington in April; and what outcomes they will be seeking at that summit. [HL2151]

Baroness Crawley: The Prime Minister plans to attend the nuclear security summit in Washington DC in April.

The Government set out their aspirations for nuclear security in last summer’s Road to 2010 White Paper. Consistent with that vision, the UK will be seeking to: increase international awareness of the threat posed by nuclear terrorism; agree a robust set of guiding principles for nuclear security that will set the tone for developing international norms over the coming decades; secure commitment by participating nations to undertake a wide range of actions, domestically and in collaboration with other states, to improve the security of fissile material and sensitive information, and to prevent them from falling into the hands of malicious actors.

And I had also asked about some of the other initiatives that were being pursued by the UK:

Nuclear Disarmament

Questions

Asked by Lord Harris of Haringey

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress is being made in establishing the United Kingdom’s nuclear centre of excellence. [HL2153]

1 Mar 2010 : Column WA328

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): The Road to 2010 White Paper (Cm7675) set out the Government’s commitment to establish a nuclear centre of excellence. Since publication of the White Paper the National Nuclear Centre of Excellence Steering Group, chaired by the Government’s chief scientific adviser, has overseen development of the centre, including the appointment of an interim director and agreement on the business model to be adopted. The project has strong support from key government, industry and academic stakeholders including the Technology Strategy Board, the National Nuclear Laboratory, the Nuclear Industries Association, UK research councils and universities. There has also been international interest in the centre of excellence.

Asked by Lord Harris of Haringey

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what other countries support the Global Threat Reduction Programme; and what are its achievements so far. [HL2154]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead): The Global Threat Reduction Programme delivers the UK contribution to the Global Partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction. The Global Partnership was established at the G8 summit in June 2002. The contributions made by other states are set out in the G8 Global Partnership Working Group 2009 annual report, annex A consolidated data sheets (http://www.g8italia2009.it/static/G8_Allegato/ GPWG-Report-2009-AnnexA-Consolidated-Data-Sheets,2.pdf)

Asked by Lord Harris of Haringey

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many countries have now ratified the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material; and what changes are being implemented in the United Kingdom following ratification. [HL2155]

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): Thirty-four countries have ratified the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM).

Left Foot Forward has launched a series of short videos that are pretty good too …

Catch the first three here.

And then pass them on …..

I know that I am biased but I have to admit to being highly impressed by Labour’s new Party Political Broadcast, “The Road Ahead”.

Watch it here.

And then send it to all your friends.

It is a quarter to one in the morning, but it is still Wednesday in the House of Lords.  The House is just concluding its debate on the first of 165 amendments to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill.

Since the House began sitting many hours ago (the ability to do simple arithmetic goes at this time of night), the House has completed its consideration of the Financial Services Bill,  the Crime and Security Bill, the Energy Bill, and the Children, Schools and Families Bill.  When we have been through another 164 amendments, we will be finished till 11am on Thursday (ie later today).

So far there have been five votes: all won by the Government with Conservative support.

It is all part of the wash-up ritual.

As Bismarck said: “Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.”

First, Grayling now Lansley.

How many Shadow Cabinet members will the Cameron machine have to brief against this week?

The weekend gave us Chris Grayling demonstrating that it’s the same-old-Tories after all and that their commitment to equalities is skin-deep opportunism.  So the briefing machine has to hint that Grayling may not be “up to the job”.

Now Andrew Lansley has started shooting from the hip with numbers (and a policy) that don’t add up, reinforcing the Tory insiders’ view that he too is dispensible as “he has gone native”.

The Shadow Health Secretary’s plan to allow more cancer drugs to be available to NHS patients at first sounds nice and caring – until you look at it more closely.

The problem is – as the respected independent think-tank, the Kings Fund, has pointed out – the numbers don’t add up.  The money just is not there.  It is typical George Osborne-style double-counting: it is to be funded from the “savings” from the National Insurance increase that Osborne wants to “cancel” (rather than getting on with reducing the budget deficit that is allegedly the Tories’ top priority).

In practice therefore Lansley is offering up the rest of the NHS for a double budget hit: first to fund the cancer drugs and second to cut the deficit (made larger by not proceeding with the National Insurance increase).

And that’s not all.

The cancer drugs that he wants to fund are those that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has ruled are either ineffective or far too expensive for the benefits they bring – so they are hardly a good efficient use of resources.

The key need in the treatment of cancer is early diagnosis – something that the Labour Government has prioritised.  By contrast, the Tories have opposed  giving people a guaranteed right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks if the GP suspects cancer.  And presumably it is those primary care and diagnostic services that will now be threatened by Lansley’s double budget hit.  And, of course, if patients are not diagnosed early they have a greater likelihood of needing more expensive drugs and treatment.

Opportunism, the desire for quick headlines and economic illiteracy are not a sound basis for policy formulation.

So which member of the Shadow Cabinet will be next?

Two months ago, I reported that there was a petition brought to the Metropolitan Police Authority asking for an extra 120 police officers for Waltham Forest.  The Police and the DCiC*, Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM, were clearly unhappy about the idea of unpicking the Resource Allocation Formula that determines local policing strength just for one Borough, but it was promised that Assistant Commissioner McPherson would visit the Borough to see for himself what the issues were (I am told that in fact he has visited the Borough twice since then).

Today, at a meeting of the MPA’s Strategic and Operational Policing Committee, I spotted some interesting performance statistics about policing in Waltham Forest.  In the year to end-February 2010, total notifiable offences in Waltham Forest have risen by 5.3% compared with the twelve months before – the second highest increase of any Borough in London.  Even more significantly, Waltham Forest features amongst the bottom three Boroughs for sanction detection rates (the standard crime “clear up” measure – the proportion of offences leading to a judicial sanction against the perpetrator) for most areas of crime: burglary (where Waltham Forest’s rate was a quarter of the best-performing Borough); motor vehicle crime (a tenth of the best-performer); robbery (a third of the best performer); knife crime (less than half of the best); and sexual offences (also less than half of the best).

Now, there are plenty of possible reasons for these figures.  It may not be that the Borough necessarily needs more police officers.  The statistics might reflect the poor management of the policing resources available or might be a consequence of poor partnership with the local council or might even just be a temporary statistical blip.  However, the figures do raise real concerns, which is no doubt why Assistant Commissioner McPherson is taking it so seriously and why Waltham Forest’s Labour Greoup was right to raise the issue in the first place.

*DCiC=Dog-Catcher-in-Chief

I have just spoken at a Smith Institute debate on whether the 2010 election will be the “IT” election.

The Smith Institute invite explains:

“This will be the first election campaign where ‘tweeting’, ‘social networking’ and ‘blogging’ will be in eveidence. But how much of a role will the new information technology play, and do the politicians really understand it? This debate will address these and other related issues concerning the use of new technology in election campaigning.”

I have to admit that when I heard the topic with IT shown as “IT”, my mind was inevitably drawn to the Wikipedia definition of an “IT” girl:

“An It girl or It-girl is a charming, sexy young woman who receives intense media coverage unrelated or disproportional to personal achievements. The reign of an “It girl” is usually temporary; some of the rising It girls will either become fully-fledged celebrities or their popularity will fade. The term “It boy”, much less frequently used, is the male equivalent. This term is unrelated to the abbreviation IT.”

I don’t know about IT or its proponents in the next election being charming or sexy, but they are certainly receiving intense media attention and in my view it is probably disproportionate to likely achievement.

And indeed my view is that 2010 is not going to be the General Election where the result will be determined by bloggers, Twitter or social media.  This opinion is no doubt a jaundiced one, but there were similar claims about the significance of IT before previous General Elections.  Some will remember the claims made for the Labour Party’s Excalibur system in the run up to the 1997 Election …..

My argument is that 95% of the electorate will cast their votes in blissful ignorance of what has been going on in the blogosphere and – as in previous Elections – their votes will be influenced by their past allegiances, their perceptions of what the Parties stand for in policy terms, and their assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the different Party leaderships.

So the question is what influences those perceptions and assessments – what creates the zeitgeist?  The answer is still predominantly television, radio and newspapers.

Over time this changes: television was not a factor in the elections of 1950 and 1951 and probably did not become really significant until 1964; newspapers are no longer decisive (The Sun may have boasted that it won it in 1992, but I doubt that the same will be plausible in 2010.).

People are increasingly getting their news and opinion in new ways.  However, the old media – at present, at least – are still central.  Nevertheless, politicians need to adapt to the changing media landscape and master the new ways of communicating – as Roosevelt did with radio in the 1930s and as Wilson and later Blair did with television in this country.

But – and it is a big but – even though the new media are not yet decisive and mastery of them is not yet obligatory for an effective politician, new media will have a significant indirect impact on the forthcoming Election.  This will be manifested in the way they impact on the terms of the debate reported by the traditional media.

Individual bloggers will from time to time set the agenda, rumours in hyperspace will eventually get reported, bloggers will subject policy statements from the main Parties to rigorous analysis and fact-checking, and the speed of the blogosphere and the rapidity with which material (particularly “gaffes”) can be spread on YouTube and via Twitter will challenge the traditional media and require a more fleet-of-foot response from the political parties and from politicians.

There will be a premium on seeding material in the blogosphere and on harvesting useful information or arguments that emerge there.  Political parties will be able to energise their supporters and communicate with them more rapidly.  And there will undoubtedly be benefits for those individual politicians who can communicate effectively in the new media, retaining their own authenticity whilst avoiding creating (too many)  hostages to fortune.

Are the political parties and our leading politicians going to be able to meet this challenge?  Well, we will soon find out.