But it is now all over.  And the man who struck the right political note was the Fabian General Secretary Michael Jacobs, writing in the Independent on Sunday   He forecasts constitutional change, but of a very sophisticated kind.  The monarchy should not be abolished, he argues, but it must be modernised.

• "The monarchy is an amalgam of two different things, and modernisation will involve separating them out.. At present the monarch's role combines the ceremonial functions common in other democracies with a set of extremely unusual political powers and duties".

Those political powers Jacobs would transfer elsewhere, leaving the monarch as the hereditary titular head of state, like a hereditary Lord Mayor of the City of London. Jacobs writes -

• "Allegiance to the Constitution would replace the Oath of Allegiance in Parliament.  The Queen's Speech would be replaced by "the Government's Programme" announced in the Commons, not the Lords.  The Commons Speaker could take over the Monarch's power to adjudicate in the event of unclear General Election results, and to assent formally to legislation. Prerogative powers should pass to Ministers in Parliament.  There could even be a new national anthem.  In this way, the modernisation of the monarchy should be seen as part of the existing project of constitutional reform".

All that is very sensible.  The monarchy would be hollowed out, leaving just its ceremonial shell.  I agree with that.  I would be content for the House of Windsor to retain its present hereditary role, if the family so wished, following these reforms. Many people value  that hereditary continuity, and I respect the views and feelings of my fellow-citizens.  My hope would be that, with this key retention, both monarchists and republicans might both support reform.  

Unlike Michael Jacobs, however, I would not presuppose prior agreement on a full written Constitution - I think that's a gimmick, which clouds other issues.  We has shown, with the Scots, Welsh and Irish devolution legislation, that we are perfectly capable of legislating for constitutional reform, even though our primary Constitution is said to be "unwritten".

New Refugee
Management Option

Political insights can come suddenly, as with other flashes of inspiration.  And I have had a flash of political inspiration.  I was not in my bath, but reading Tuesday's Guardian, Jonathan Steele's report from the Pacific island of Nauru, where the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has been processing 529 Afghan applications for political asylum, among them the 301 who tried to reach Australia in the Norwegian freighter the Tampa, which sank in August last year.  Read Jonathan's full story, see 

Most of the applicants will now be sent back to Afghanistan, on the ground that since the fall of the Taliban they can have no well-founded fear of persecution.   Another 126 applicants from Iraq were successful, and UNHCR will now seek host-states for them.

Let's pause there.  For does not that UN procedure offer a satisfactory way of processing all asylum applications?  Why should an asylum application ever be heard by any specific state, merely because the asylum-seeker has merely submitted an application to that State?  The initial question, which was considered in Nauru by UNHCR officials, is simply -

• "Does the applicant asylum seeker have a well-founded fear of persecution in his home state, such that he should be offered asylum elsewhere?" 

That is the key question.  If the answer were Yes, then the placement proceedings would begin - as they have indeed begun, with the Iraqi refugees whose applications were upheld in Nauru.  Every UN member-state would be expected to accept a common proportion of "asylum refugees", at a sensible annual rate, having regard to its resident population.  I would suggest 0.5% - that is, half of 1%.  

Immediately, the problem would be  neutralised in Party terms, and rendered the subject of sensible political debate.  In a Letter to the Guardian, Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International, argued for migration policy to be taken out of day-to-day politics - check out her Guardian Letter   Would this not be way of doing that?  The task should be, by negotiation within the United Nations, to extend the remit of UNHCR, and to secure agreement on a common international "host percentage".  That would head off resentment that any single country was "bearing more than its fair share" of the burden of accommodating asylum-seekers.

This idea comes to me, just one day before Thursday 11 April 2002, when the International Criminal Court will finally be ratified and come  into formal existence, after over a century of negotiation.  The Court was first proposed in 1872 by the man who went on to found the International Red Cross, Gustave Moynier.  This time, it would not take 130 years - I would say the new UN Asylum Convention could be agreed and ratified within five years.

Who's for tennis?  Shall we make a start?

Bevan Revisited

"In Place of Fear" - that was the title of Aneurin Bevan's 1952 personal manifesto.  I am re-working that Bevanite perception, namely that socialism is about removing fear from the lives of ordinary people.  For me, given my comfortable middle-class background, fear has never been a motivating factor.  But I recognise that for millions upon millions of my fellow-citizens, it is a debilitating factor in their daily lives.

I am working on the proposition that there are now five key fears which ought to steer contemporary socialism - fear of -

• civil disorder and crime
  ill-heath 
  unemployment
  parenthood 
  old age

Other traditional anxieties, though still troubling for some, no longer occupy the primary political agenda.  I have in mind anxieties about having insufficient food to eat, inadequate clothing to wear, or of not having a roof over ones head.  While public transport constraints are serious for some, the overwhelming majority are content with their carborne existence.  From time to time, concerns emerge about the diet of the young and the old, but they usually resolve themselves into problems of poverty. Inadequate clothing may similarly be problems, for some poor children and poor pensioners.  For homeless families, delay in the provision of suitable accommodation can still cause great distress, as the scandal of “B&B hostels” continues to testify. But these concerns are, I suggest, of lesser overall importance - when compared with the Big Five fears.

But Council tenants are right to be sceptical about the options currently on offer.  LA tenants should be offered a secure public-service off-balance-sheet alternative, such as that offered by my idea for the Public Interest Company, soon to be adjudicated upon by the Downing Street PI Unit - more at www.publicinterestcompany.co.uk  The PIC would offer the same legal security and permanence as a charity, without the need to qualify as a charity, and without any of a charity's tax advantages.  A cobbled-together version of the PIC will be used by the Government for the new Network Rail company, to succeed Railtrack.  The whole concept should be streamlined, properly drafted, and made available to all public service entrepreneurs.

What do you think? Drop me a line.