Deal or no deal?

There's a media strategy which says if you raise hopes too high you may end up disappointing people, but if you lower expectations you may be able to snatch success from the jaws of failure if things turn out better than you have led people to expect.

The messages put out before the Copenhagen summit - that a deal might be reached but it was expected to take more time to make it legally binding - reminded me of the latter. Several of Obama's big US policy shifts - including health reform - have gone right to the edge of possible failure before the decision-makers votes were counted and the reforms came in.

So - as the Copenhagen conference comes to an end - the prospect of a fragile accord on the longterm goal of stopping climate change, with no agreement on targets for 2020, feels like a let-down. In the world of politics, it will be easy for people to emphasise the negative uncertainties left lying on the table as the world leaders and negotiators pack their bags to go home.

I'm a natural optimist, but following the G20 I wrote about why it was going to be much more difficult to get agreement at Copenhagen. I would love to have been proved wrong. And yet, comparing where we are now to Kyoto, real progress has been made. At Copenhagen we have three things that weren't there at Kyoto: a scientific consensus on the need for action that withstood the climate change deniers best efforts to undermine the reasons for action; a US President at the conference calling for agreement and pledging an 80 per cent cut in his country's emissions by 2050; and perhaps most importantly, poorer countries with the confidence to bite the hands that partly feed them by demanding a further shift in their direction to achieve a fairer global deal, and prepared to walk from the negotiating table when it wasn't forthcoming.

The threat of climate change is the opportunity to utilise the growing necessity of climate justice to end global poverty. Creating a stable and prosperous world economy will not be easy - it will take much more than tinkering with the financial systems we make until they start up again. But the international dialogue in the past two weeks put the real issues out on the table, and it isn't really surprising the deal is still some way off.

Fighters and believers

Films seldom make me cry, but this video shown at Labour Party conference brought tears to my eyes. An elderly gentleman sitting near me in a wheelchair wiped a tear from his cheek. Young Labour supporter Ellie Gellard has also written about how it made her cry. The film was edited to become Labour's party political broadcast following the Queen's speech.

Politics is partly about debate, but there is nothing that anyone could ever say that would persuade me that it's purpose isn't to build social justice.

The Tories have no moral agenda, and the Liberal Democrats are prepared to back them. When I noted this previously, a local Liberal Democrat councillor suggested I read the Independent - well, I do, and the link I've added here is to their report. The logic of Clegg's morally vacuous argument is that if UKIP or the BNP ever got most votes (unlikely as that is given British common sense), the Liberal Democrats would be prepared to back them.

The Equality Bill had it's third reading in the Commons on 2 December 2009. The legal requirement for public authorities to close the gap between rich and poor, and increased protection against age discrimination outside the workplace, makes this more than consolidating legislation against inequality and discrimination; notwithstanding which, local disability and gay rights campaigners tell me they would like the Bill to go further in protection from harrassment.

After the Queen's speech, Cornwall's five MPs put out a press release saying it "contained none of the key measures necessary to help residents in Cornwall". Are they out of touch with the fact that Cornwall has an older and lower paid than average population, much affected by the gap between rich and poor? Everyone is entitled to protection from discrimination. In the event, three of Cornwall's Liberal Democrat MPs voted for the Equality Bill; and two didn't vote - including recent champion of a Cornish census tickbox, Dan Rogerson MP.

The political slogan 'action not words' was coined by suffragettes a century ago, when they were lobbying the three last Liberal governments to change the law so that women could vote. It took until 1918 - it may be a coincidence, but the Liberals haven't formed a government since women got the vote.

I'm Labour because we believe in and fight for change and social justice; and I personally will always do what I can to counter injustice and pull things forward.