Back again! So much has been happening, I've got quite a backblog, but first a current one:
Will Hutton did a good job on last night's Dispatches in exposing the extraordinary arrogance, intransigence, insouciance and greed of the banking industry, but the programme didn't go far enough to close the loop and make clear the connections to the wider politico-economic machinations currently at work. It left an overall impression of the banking sector as a massively powerful, out-of-control engine that would wreak further havoc if it wasn't restrained. It implied almost that bankers are a separate, self-deluding breed, who need to be brought into line by others (politicians and regulators) with a more balanced and objective view of their economic role and value.
Yet as Hutton himself pointed out, the bankers, key politicians and regulators are by and large from the same select group of individuals, rooted in the City and effortlessly swapping positions and salaries in endless games of musical goverment/boardroom chairs and pass-the parcel. This was increasingly the case under Neutered Labour, but how much more so now Cleggameron are in charge. I forget how many of the new Tory MPs are from the financial sector, but I remember being shocked when I saw the figure, and despondent at the predictable lack of media attention to it at a time when bankers were generally regarded as the villains of the piece. It's a great pity Hutton didn't go on to show in more detail how many of these individuals come from the same group of elite private schools, went on to Oxbridge and inhabit the same social milieu, many being personal friends and exchanging pleasantries at the same exclusive clubs and holiday destinations*. Furthermore, and this is the crucial connection that is persistently ignored in the media, these same individuals are also key players in 'The Markets', the polymorphous idol before which they prostrate themselves in public, sacrifice the working poor in policy and reap astronomic bonuses and dividends from via arcane derivatives, hedge funds, offshore accounts etc in private. It's a complete con, aided and abetted by a sycophantic media.
Here are a few of the phrases used by various media commentators during the week immediately following the General Election: "The markets are demanding ...", "The markets will be turning their attention ...", "...desperate to avoid speculation by the so called 'wolf pack' ...", " ...the markets can turn against you quite quickly ..." This is a narrative of an essentially malevolent entity which is beyond rational dialogue or societal bonds. (We are in the domain of Greek myth!) Yet in reality these 'Markets' are constituted by the combined activities of the very same senior bankers, corporate magnates, fund managers and international oligarchs who are constantly in and out of government and media corridors, (plus a growing number of city minions who have cottoned on to how easy it is with contemporary technology to indulge in this newest form of gambling - check out http://www.tradingmarkets.com/ as an example of just one in hundreds of similar sites dedicated to an activity to which most of the world's poulation are probably entirely oblivious, despite its huge impact on the quality of their daily lives.) In other words, the hedge fund manager who comes on to Sky News to issue dire warnings about the scale of the UK deficit and the need for austerity, is quite possibly the very same person who the following day will authorise a massive sell-off of UK shares or currency (or both) before breakfast, attend a bank board meeting during the morning at which he will contribute ideas about strategies for subverting regulatory initiatives, have lunch with a government minister which he will use as an opportunity for some intense lobbying or, depending on the strength of his power, threats, and in the evening discuss with his senior personal accountant how best to avoid the forthcoming tightening of tax loopholes hinted at by the minister/adviser at lunch. It is the same individuals, no doubt, who give advice and feed insider information to the Credit Rating Agencies, the current newcomers on the economic narrative block; it is certainly the financial sector which pays their inflated salaries. Can any serious person believe that all these players in the current melodrama - the bankers, the key politicians, the investors, the regulators, the media magnates, the credit ratings agencies - have the welfare of ordinary working people as ther primary concern, let alone the unemployed and dispossessed? Every single one of them has made enormous financial gains from the deregulation initiated in the '80s and is part of the appalling statistics of the widening chasm between rich and poor, nationally and globally. Many of them feel completely justified in what they do. They believe in self-interest. They don't think anything else is real. Why would they behave otherwise? Those who retain some sort of ethical awareness or social conscience are pretty well forced by the collective pressure of their peers (in both senses of the word in some cases) to rationalise it into acquiescence.
The question that Hutton barely raised, but which needs to be urgently addressed, is how to divest this self-serving elite of their wealth and power intelligently. They are not going to give it back voluntarily. Until they lose it, they can use it. The world economy is now so weakened and destabilised by their monstrously unethical behaviour that countless lives and livelihoods could be at stake. Clearly this is a global problem requiring globally co-ordinated action, yet many if not all our global institutions are influenced and controlled by the people whom they need to be policing. When there is self-evident, endemic injustice, intense suffering and no practical means of redress, we are in the territory of insurgence. We are entering, surely, a time when only mass global revolution will bring about the scale of change required on this planet.
* (Added 17/06/10) A good many of them on show at The Mansion House last night as George Osborne dutifully delivers the script they've given him.
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Thursday, 20 May 2010
W(h)ither democracy?
It will be interesting to see what changes to the voting system, if any, we eventually get. Whatever transpires, that in itself won't be enough to reverse the cynicism and disengagement from politics that has increasingly come to characterise British (or perhaps I should say English, as there's a cultural issue here) social attitudes. It is fashionable to blame the expenses scandal for the current disenchantment with politicians, but that was a symptom, not a cause, of a malaise that has been steadily accruing over decades. As I've said before, I come from a politicised family, but the ethos of this election, with its almost total lack of posters in people's windows, dearth ofpublic meetings and stage-managed TV appearances is a far cry from the angry cut and thrust of live debate in town halls and meeting rooms up and down the land that I remember from my youth. This election was the first in which not a single canvasser knocked on our door the entire length of the campaign, despite there being everything to play for, the constituency being marginal enough to be deemed worthy of a visit by both David Cameron and
Gordon Brown. But even these visits, both happening with barely a soul within the city being aware of them and staged primarily for the national media rather than the local population, are a further indication of how bad things have got. It's not something a set of new faces is going to change.
A clue to what's needed lies in the fact that the constituencies that threw up the biggest surprises, and often the highest turnouts, were ones where one or more of the parties had fought a vigorous local campaign. Citizens on the streets in those constituencies would have known by the end of the campaign who their candidates were and what they stood for. All the political parties seem to have heeded this, but it is one thing to mouth platitudes on TV praising well-run campaigns, and another to unpick the increasingly centralised party apparatus so that the
footsoldiers who actually bring the results feel they are properly represented in its identity and policy direction.
There are some relatively simple civic innovations too that could be enacted straight away that would be likely to improve things at the next election, especially as from now on we all know when it will be. First, it should be mandatory for all parties fielding a candidate in a constituency to send out a leaflet at least a month before the election containing details of public meetings that their candidate will be attending, radio & TV appearances, even perhaps a skeleton itinerary for the coming weeks so people in different localities within the constituency would know where and when they had the best chance of some genuine interaction. How refreshing it would be to receive such genuinely useful information through one's door, rather than the standard fare full of half truths and mainly designed to slag off one's opponents. (The quality of election literature of course was featured briefly this time when Gordon Brown was accused of misrepresenting opponents in his own constituency, but it's such an ubiquitous phenomenon that maybe there needs to be some sort of watchdog or regulator to oversee the whole business of party propaganda.)
There's another opportunity for voter engagement missed when each household's polling cards arrive. As well as the minimal current information they carry of date, polling station, voter identity etc, why couldn't they have a list of the candidates, with their contact details, and information about where the count will be held, the approximate timing of the declaration, details of the returning officer, what to do in the event of suspected malpractice etc.? Indeed, since now we're to have fixed term parliaments, why not mark the start of the election campaign with local launch events, mirroring the declaration at the end. On the fourth Thursday evening before the poll all the candidates would gather at a suitable central location within the constituency, be introduced by the returning officer, have 15 minutes to make a pitch, field a few questions, then be available informally for further questions and discussion in designated
areas of the venue. Obviously local TV and press would be there to cover. Details of this event could also be on the polling cards.
Polling stations too, if they are to be retained on the current model, could be put to more use. There would be logistical problems as most of them have other functions and polling day must be a disruption to the routines of those who work in them. However, if the rooms where the ballot is held could be set aside not just on polling day but for the month before, they could be used as information centres and meeting places, where party activists could be available to answer questions and hold discussions with any member of the public who cared to drop in.
All these ideas are predicated of course on the belief that there is a significant proportion of the electorate who would be interested in availing themselves of such opportunities. Undobtedly there is, but it needs to be enlarged, and that requires other reforms that will be the subject of a future blog.
Gordon Brown. But even these visits, both happening with barely a soul within the city being aware of them and staged primarily for the national media rather than the local population, are a further indication of how bad things have got. It's not something a set of new faces is going to change.
A clue to what's needed lies in the fact that the constituencies that threw up the biggest surprises, and often the highest turnouts, were ones where one or more of the parties had fought a vigorous local campaign. Citizens on the streets in those constituencies would have known by the end of the campaign who their candidates were and what they stood for. All the political parties seem to have heeded this, but it is one thing to mouth platitudes on TV praising well-run campaigns, and another to unpick the increasingly centralised party apparatus so that the
footsoldiers who actually bring the results feel they are properly represented in its identity and policy direction.
There are some relatively simple civic innovations too that could be enacted straight away that would be likely to improve things at the next election, especially as from now on we all know when it will be. First, it should be mandatory for all parties fielding a candidate in a constituency to send out a leaflet at least a month before the election containing details of public meetings that their candidate will be attending, radio & TV appearances, even perhaps a skeleton itinerary for the coming weeks so people in different localities within the constituency would know where and when they had the best chance of some genuine interaction. How refreshing it would be to receive such genuinely useful information through one's door, rather than the standard fare full of half truths and mainly designed to slag off one's opponents. (The quality of election literature of course was featured briefly this time when Gordon Brown was accused of misrepresenting opponents in his own constituency, but it's such an ubiquitous phenomenon that maybe there needs to be some sort of watchdog or regulator to oversee the whole business of party propaganda.)
There's another opportunity for voter engagement missed when each household's polling cards arrive. As well as the minimal current information they carry of date, polling station, voter identity etc, why couldn't they have a list of the candidates, with their contact details, and information about where the count will be held, the approximate timing of the declaration, details of the returning officer, what to do in the event of suspected malpractice etc.? Indeed, since now we're to have fixed term parliaments, why not mark the start of the election campaign with local launch events, mirroring the declaration at the end. On the fourth Thursday evening before the poll all the candidates would gather at a suitable central location within the constituency, be introduced by the returning officer, have 15 minutes to make a pitch, field a few questions, then be available informally for further questions and discussion in designated
areas of the venue. Obviously local TV and press would be there to cover. Details of this event could also be on the polling cards.
Polling stations too, if they are to be retained on the current model, could be put to more use. There would be logistical problems as most of them have other functions and polling day must be a disruption to the routines of those who work in them. However, if the rooms where the ballot is held could be set aside not just on polling day but for the month before, they could be used as information centres and meeting places, where party activists could be available to answer questions and hold discussions with any member of the public who cared to drop in.
All these ideas are predicated of course on the belief that there is a significant proportion of the electorate who would be interested in availing themselves of such opportunities. Undobtedly there is, but it needs to be enlarged, and that requires other reforms that will be the subject of a future blog.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Write to your newly elected MP
This is what I've written to my MP, Conservative John Stevenson:
Dear Mr Stevenson
Congratulations on your election as MP to serve the people of Carlisle.
I'm writing to express my dismay at proposals put forward by the newly formed coalition government, in particular the intention to change the threshold at which loss of a Commons confidence vote could trigger a dissolution.This is a proposal that has come "out of the blue" since the election. It was in neither of the governing parties' manifestos and came as much as a surprise to seasoned Westminster pundits as it did to the electorate at large. Before the election, one of the consistent complaints about the Labour government made by your party was its
incremental accumulation of power to the executive and emasculation of the power and independence of Parliament. This proposal to change the no confidence threshold, crucial to the mechanics of Parliament's calling the executive to account, dramatically increases that process of executive domination. Furthermore, given the nature of our constitution, it sets dangerous precedents. I can imagine the outcry from your own party and its supporters in the press, had a Labour led coalition come about and made the same proposal.
The justification that has been put forward for this retrograde step is that it will ensure the necessary "strong and stable government" that has been repeated like a mantra over recent days and weeks. But I put it to you that this proposed change to the constitution signals exactly the opposite: the weakness of the new coalition government, which even before the new parliament has convened, is having to shore up its majority by tampering with fundamental parliamentary process. Members of the coalition negotiating teams have gone on record to admit that the realpolitik of this proposal was to deal with the lack of trust between the two parties: to ensure the Liberal Democrats would not abandon the coalition prematurely. The truth of the situation is that both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have little trust either in each other, or the electorate. It was pointed out by many commentators before the election that none of the three main parties were being honest with voters about the nature of the economic predicament or the specifcs of the necessary tax rises and spending cuts. While talking
glibly of "grown-up" politics, politicians of all persuasions continue to treat the electorate like children. Now the new government is complementing its paternalism with authoritarianism. So much for "change", so much for the "new politics"!
Furthermore, during the final days of the election campaign and during the coalition negotiations, members of your party, including some of your "elder statesmen" who should know better, were talking up the scenario of impending economic catastrophe, first in an attempt to scare voters into electing a majority Conservative government and, when that failed, to scare onlookers into accepting the coalition. Meanwhile anyone who took the trouble to actually watch the movements of sterling, stocks and shares and the bond market, could see that for the time being
investors were relatively relaxed about the UK situation. It seems to me that among experienced and well qualified economists there is a broad agreement that while the budget deficit is hugely daunting it is nonetheless manageable. If it were true that we face a crisis of the proportions put about by prominent Conservatives, surely the best way forward would have been some sort of economic council of national unity with representatives from all the main parties, as was proposed before the election by the Liberal Democrats, but has now been quietly dropped. Again one can't help the impression of narrow party political interest masquerading as the "national interest". Without the shibboleth of "national interest", the whole edifice of the current LibCon project looks decidedly self-interested, and to attempt to make it self-perpetuating by altering the means of its removal is bare-faced self- aggrandizement.
I urge you to use every means available to you to help prevent the implementation of this proposal.
PS I will be publishing this letter on my blog.
Dear Mr Stevenson
Congratulations on your election as MP to serve the people of Carlisle.
I'm writing to express my dismay at proposals put forward by the newly formed coalition government, in particular the intention to change the threshold at which loss of a Commons confidence vote could trigger a dissolution.This is a proposal that has come "out of the blue" since the election. It was in neither of the governing parties' manifestos and came as much as a surprise to seasoned Westminster pundits as it did to the electorate at large. Before the election, one of the consistent complaints about the Labour government made by your party was its
incremental accumulation of power to the executive and emasculation of the power and independence of Parliament. This proposal to change the no confidence threshold, crucial to the mechanics of Parliament's calling the executive to account, dramatically increases that process of executive domination. Furthermore, given the nature of our constitution, it sets dangerous precedents. I can imagine the outcry from your own party and its supporters in the press, had a Labour led coalition come about and made the same proposal.
The justification that has been put forward for this retrograde step is that it will ensure the necessary "strong and stable government" that has been repeated like a mantra over recent days and weeks. But I put it to you that this proposed change to the constitution signals exactly the opposite: the weakness of the new coalition government, which even before the new parliament has convened, is having to shore up its majority by tampering with fundamental parliamentary process. Members of the coalition negotiating teams have gone on record to admit that the realpolitik of this proposal was to deal with the lack of trust between the two parties: to ensure the Liberal Democrats would not abandon the coalition prematurely. The truth of the situation is that both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have little trust either in each other, or the electorate. It was pointed out by many commentators before the election that none of the three main parties were being honest with voters about the nature of the economic predicament or the specifcs of the necessary tax rises and spending cuts. While talking
glibly of "grown-up" politics, politicians of all persuasions continue to treat the electorate like children. Now the new government is complementing its paternalism with authoritarianism. So much for "change", so much for the "new politics"!
Furthermore, during the final days of the election campaign and during the coalition negotiations, members of your party, including some of your "elder statesmen" who should know better, were talking up the scenario of impending economic catastrophe, first in an attempt to scare voters into electing a majority Conservative government and, when that failed, to scare onlookers into accepting the coalition. Meanwhile anyone who took the trouble to actually watch the movements of sterling, stocks and shares and the bond market, could see that for the time being
investors were relatively relaxed about the UK situation. It seems to me that among experienced and well qualified economists there is a broad agreement that while the budget deficit is hugely daunting it is nonetheless manageable. If it were true that we face a crisis of the proportions put about by prominent Conservatives, surely the best way forward would have been some sort of economic council of national unity with representatives from all the main parties, as was proposed before the election by the Liberal Democrats, but has now been quietly dropped. Again one can't help the impression of narrow party political interest masquerading as the "national interest". Without the shibboleth of "national interest", the whole edifice of the current LibCon project looks decidedly self-interested, and to attempt to make it self-perpetuating by altering the means of its removal is bare-faced self- aggrandizement.
I urge you to use every means available to you to help prevent the implementation of this proposal.
PS I will be publishing this letter on my blog.
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Is that it?
As the negotiations went on my admiration for Nick Clegg continued unabated and I thought the way he elicited, or seemed to elicit, major concessions from the Tories at the last minute by the dramatic switch-to-Labour feint was a smart move. (It would be fascinating to discover the real dynamic of those stalled Lib/Lab talks, but I suspect they may go down in the annals like the Granita agreement: always contested, the truth eluded. My hunch is that the Labour group could indeed have played it tetchily, as the Lib Dems claim, and I'd point the finger at the effervescent Mr Balls.) Be that as it may, my admiration for Clegg has taken a sharp knock as I assimilate the first indications of what he has actually achieved. Top of my list was a strictly limited term for this arrangement. Anything less than two years probably wouldn't have been realistic; the thought of every additional month with Cameron in No 10 is unbearable. And what do we get? A five-year fixed term parliament! Five years of this? I just hope the pundits who say it can't possibly last that long are right. The sooner it all ends in tears, the better.
So what are the big prizes? Places in cabinet? Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister - oo how exciting! There's a poisoned chalice if ever there was one; or could it be there really is "personal chemistry" between these two men? Could the morph video on Facebook be the real thing? I'm beginning to suspect so. Clegg's first statement since the deal certainly points that way: "I hope this is the start of the new politics I have always believed in - diverse, plural, where politicians of different persuasions come together, overcome their differences in order to deliver good government for the sake of the whole country." Dream on, Mr Clegg! That will only start to come about with fundamental reform of the voting system, and all you've got on that front is the pathetic promise of a referendum on AV. The cynic in me wonders if the really secret talks in this affair were those between the Tories and Labour, agreeing neither would go beyond a pledge on AV, to ensure their duopoly could continue unchallenged.
So what else? The Tories have dropped their preposterous inheritance tax proposals, but in a quid pro quo the Lib Dems drop their mansion tax. Well, that's fair, isn't it! What about the £10k income tax threshold? No mention of the crucial £10k starting point and a mealy mouthed "work towards". Forget that one, then. And they've agreed to scrapping "part" of the planned NI rise, the propagandised "tax on jobs", meaning, as Vince Cable himself said during the campaign, VAT will have to go up, a regressive tax that hits the poor the hardest. What a champion of the underprivileged you are proving to be, Mr Clegg!
Before the election the LIb Dems were the only one of the three main parties who opposed the replacement of Trident, a no-brainer if ever there was one. They've dropped it! How courageous! Isn't it great this new spririt of co-operation and compromise! So in a time of economic privation, when the US president is working towards a nuclear weapon free planet, good old UK plc will be buying multi-billion dollar anachronistic weapons of mass destruction. I bet that makes you feel Britain will be great again!
And that's just about it ... no, sorry, I overlooked the cap on non-EU immigration! Well done, Mr Clegg, that's an amazing volte face: from an amnesty to a cap! I suppose this is all about pluralism, and bringing the Daily Mail readers on board.
On Monday night I was really quite optimistic when it was rumoured on Newsnight that in order to get their consent Cameron had had to make concessions to his right wing, entailing bringing the likes of Michael Howard and Ian Duncan Smith into the cabinet. That will go down well with the public, I thought: return of the Nasties! But with Hestletine spinning it the other way last night, I suspect it was just a rumour. Nonetheless, this is my one crumb of comfort: if Cameron really is intending to stake out a quasi progressive centre pitch, the Nasties won't stomach it. Expect bloody battles ahead. If I'm wrong, and Cameron succeeds, bye-bye Labour in government, for a very long time indeed. I'm glad I've got my exit strategy.
So what are the big prizes? Places in cabinet? Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister - oo how exciting! There's a poisoned chalice if ever there was one; or could it be there really is "personal chemistry" between these two men? Could the morph video on Facebook be the real thing? I'm beginning to suspect so. Clegg's first statement since the deal certainly points that way: "I hope this is the start of the new politics I have always believed in - diverse, plural, where politicians of different persuasions come together, overcome their differences in order to deliver good government for the sake of the whole country." Dream on, Mr Clegg! That will only start to come about with fundamental reform of the voting system, and all you've got on that front is the pathetic promise of a referendum on AV. The cynic in me wonders if the really secret talks in this affair were those between the Tories and Labour, agreeing neither would go beyond a pledge on AV, to ensure their duopoly could continue unchallenged.
So what else? The Tories have dropped their preposterous inheritance tax proposals, but in a quid pro quo the Lib Dems drop their mansion tax. Well, that's fair, isn't it! What about the £10k income tax threshold? No mention of the crucial £10k starting point and a mealy mouthed "work towards". Forget that one, then. And they've agreed to scrapping "part" of the planned NI rise, the propagandised "tax on jobs", meaning, as Vince Cable himself said during the campaign, VAT will have to go up, a regressive tax that hits the poor the hardest. What a champion of the underprivileged you are proving to be, Mr Clegg!
Before the election the LIb Dems were the only one of the three main parties who opposed the replacement of Trident, a no-brainer if ever there was one. They've dropped it! How courageous! Isn't it great this new spririt of co-operation and compromise! So in a time of economic privation, when the US president is working towards a nuclear weapon free planet, good old UK plc will be buying multi-billion dollar anachronistic weapons of mass destruction. I bet that makes you feel Britain will be great again!
And that's just about it ... no, sorry, I overlooked the cap on non-EU immigration! Well done, Mr Clegg, that's an amazing volte face: from an amnesty to a cap! I suppose this is all about pluralism, and bringing the Daily Mail readers on board.
On Monday night I was really quite optimistic when it was rumoured on Newsnight that in order to get their consent Cameron had had to make concessions to his right wing, entailing bringing the likes of Michael Howard and Ian Duncan Smith into the cabinet. That will go down well with the public, I thought: return of the Nasties! But with Hestletine spinning it the other way last night, I suspect it was just a rumour. Nonetheless, this is my one crumb of comfort: if Cameron really is intending to stake out a quasi progressive centre pitch, the Nasties won't stomach it. Expect bloody battles ahead. If I'm wrong, and Cameron succeeds, bye-bye Labour in government, for a very long time indeed. I'm glad I've got my exit strategy.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Tectonic shifts?
Will Hutton was right to say it doesn't get much bigger than this. He was referring to the Lib Dem power brokering and the issues at stake, specifically the possibility of the biggest reform of the electoral system in almost a century. And as Clegg and the LIb Dems ponder the options before them, it's fascinating to see the sweat break out on the brows of those who've had it their own way for so long. The mantra trotted out by a succession of grandees that all the party leaders acted in a statesmanlike way simply doesn't fit for Cameron, who came across to me as strident, arrogant and hugely out of tune with the prevailing public mood. And he is in a very weak position. The collapse of the Lib Dem vote was due, as Clegg rightly and gracefully acknowledged, to the pressures voters felt from the gravity of what is at stake, which drove them back to the "safety" of the ConLab duopoly. But this squeezing of the Lib Dem vote didn't deliver Cameron the votes he needed. In other words, his frantic appeals in the run-up to polling day for voters not to go to the Lib Dems, were largely heeded, but he still didn't get a majority! His failure to do so is entirely, therefore, his own failure, and he has demonstrably failed to win an authoritative mandate for his political agenda. This is not lost, of course, on his own party careerists and by yesterday afternoon there were the first public signs of the knives being sharpened. While the media still obsesses with its dislike of Brown and the jockeying for power continues, Cameron is relatively safe, but if the premiership eludes him, as is still possible, his demise is likely to be far less dignified, and bloodier, than Brown's. The other factors contributing to Cameron's weakness are his lack of experience, compared to both Clegg and Brown, in conducting hard and complex negotiations behind closed doors and the fact that over the coming days (weeks?) the competing narratives will be largely played out on tv, where Clegg has already demonstrated his supremacy. Add to this the fact that of all three main parties the Lib Dems have the most rigorously democratic process for validating major policy decisions, whereas Cameron appears to be relying on blunt and misplaced assumptions of holding the upper hand, and we have a recipe for talks that could well break down.
Which is why, of course, the big guns are being wheeled out by those who really fear the changes electoral reform would bring. Did you happen to catch the brief appearance of David Owen on yesterday's BBC election coverage? No, I'm not suggesting he's a big gun, rather their mouthpiece, speaking the apocaliptic language adopted in more measured tones later by John Major and most chillingly by the hedge fund manager interviewed by Kirsty Wark on Newsnight (get it on BBC iPlayer if you missed it: one of those rare moments when the mask slips and the brute disdain of naked power is revealed - this is the future, baby!). The real brokers of power on our planet, the unelected oligarchs, billionaires and corporate magnates who fuel the global financial markets, are feeling threatened by the possibility of a few upstart politicians daring to insist on fundamental re-adjustments to a political system that has kept them free of accountability for decades. They will do all in their considerable power to clamp down. Hence the apocalyptic talk and the very real turbulence in the markets. This is their pitch, and Greece their visual aid. The old guard will line up to endorse them: the priority is the deficit; elecoral reform will have to wait! It will be fascinating to see which way the Lib Dems go on this, a battle between expediency and ideology. For them, the ideology of course is mainly parochial, entrenched in their liberal heritage and focused on the specific issue of electoral reform, but it's by now so bound up with their identity within our current political system, that to abandon it, even in the face of so much pressure, could be political suicide. (On the other hand, I suspect they lack the ideology, or the will to deploy it if they have it, to refute head on that of the Markets.) But if they hold to their principles, they could be in a position to begin the long process of restoring our archaic political infrastructure, without which, social, political and economic renewal can be little more than an idle dream as we flip between multiple channels all offering the same.
The most important event of this election, given arrogantly condescending minimalist treatment by the BBC, was the election of Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion as the UK's first Green MP. A small but vital conduit for alternative ideas to enter the mainstream. A little beacon of hope for thousands, if not millions, of citizens who feel utterly unrepresented by the mainstream parties. Good luck, Caroline!
Which is why, of course, the big guns are being wheeled out by those who really fear the changes electoral reform would bring. Did you happen to catch the brief appearance of David Owen on yesterday's BBC election coverage? No, I'm not suggesting he's a big gun, rather their mouthpiece, speaking the apocaliptic language adopted in more measured tones later by John Major and most chillingly by the hedge fund manager interviewed by Kirsty Wark on Newsnight (get it on BBC iPlayer if you missed it: one of those rare moments when the mask slips and the brute disdain of naked power is revealed - this is the future, baby!). The real brokers of power on our planet, the unelected oligarchs, billionaires and corporate magnates who fuel the global financial markets, are feeling threatened by the possibility of a few upstart politicians daring to insist on fundamental re-adjustments to a political system that has kept them free of accountability for decades. They will do all in their considerable power to clamp down. Hence the apocalyptic talk and the very real turbulence in the markets. This is their pitch, and Greece their visual aid. The old guard will line up to endorse them: the priority is the deficit; elecoral reform will have to wait! It will be fascinating to see which way the Lib Dems go on this, a battle between expediency and ideology. For them, the ideology of course is mainly parochial, entrenched in their liberal heritage and focused on the specific issue of electoral reform, but it's by now so bound up with their identity within our current political system, that to abandon it, even in the face of so much pressure, could be political suicide. (On the other hand, I suspect they lack the ideology, or the will to deploy it if they have it, to refute head on that of the Markets.) But if they hold to their principles, they could be in a position to begin the long process of restoring our archaic political infrastructure, without which, social, political and economic renewal can be little more than an idle dream as we flip between multiple channels all offering the same.
The most important event of this election, given arrogantly condescending minimalist treatment by the BBC, was the election of Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion as the UK's first Green MP. A small but vital conduit for alternative ideas to enter the mainstream. A little beacon of hope for thousands, if not millions, of citizens who feel utterly unrepresented by the mainstream parties. Good luck, Caroline!
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
"And yet it moves ..."
While playing with digital boxes last night I caught a few minutes about Galileo on BBC2. From time to time in recent years I’ve noted parallels between contemporary events and historical periods – the development of the internet and the conquest of the ‘New World’ as a few explorers are quickly followed by voracious commercial interests determined to carve out territory to exploit for gain; the emergence of the new international super-rich who have amassed wealth and power equivalent to the great emperors of the past – and it strikes me that the stranglehold of neo-liberal economic dogma on our contemporary world is not unlike the stranglehold of the Catholic Church on matters of cosmology in Galileo’s time.
The orthodoxy of the sixteenth century was that the Earth was the centre of the universe and the sun and all the planets and stars moved round it. When Galileo’s observations and calculations proved otherwise, he had the Inquisition on his back and was forced to recant. (The Inquisition was a bit like a combination of the best of our contemporary spin doctors with the best of our torturers.) The orthodoxy of our own time is that ‘the markets’ (no capital letter yet, but watch this space) determine what everything is worth, from the gold ring on your finger to entire countries like
This has a striking resemblance to the domino theory, an idea dreamed up by US strategists in the 1960s to justify their attempts to wipe out the hugely popular insurgents in Vietnam who were trying to rid their country of the last vestiges of Western colonialism: it was all part of the advance of communism and if one country succumbed, others would soon follow. Now it’s not the advance of communism that we have to fear, but the judgement of ‘the markets’: jobs have to go, services have to be cut, wages frozen, otherwise we’ll be next and in no time the country will be in ruins! Drink up your fiscal medicine and realise it’s doing you good!
What utter bullshit! Yes, there are markets, (just as there are communists, and of course the two are not unrelated), but they are not supra-human entities and they are not beyond the control of global citizens with sufficient understanding and determination to make them serve collective need, as opposed to individual and corporate greed. To most people this is self-evident, yet despite the banking meltdown, national bankruptcies, fraudsters and gangsters in the highest offices, the neo-liberal dogma is rarely questioned in our public conversations.
We need our Galileo, I hear you say. Well, actually, he’s been around for quite a while: the name’s Marx, Karl Marx. Perhaps it’s time a few more of us checked out what he really had to say.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Lib Dem surge?
When Jeanette Winterson said on Newsnight last night that she thought the LibDems would win an outright majority, I let out a spontaneous cheer … but I’m not supporting them. I cheered because here at last was someone both intelligent and in touch who was saying what none of the professional pundits are prepared to say – the slightly embarrassed, slightly incredulous response from Paxman said it all. Although I think the chances are lower now than they were immediately after the first TV debate, I still believe Winterson could be right and I said so at the time. If it were to happen, I’d be delighted. It would be a result I would prefer to any other, yet I’m still not supporting the Lib Dems or intending to vote for them in my constituency.
I come from a politicised family. As a lad of 15 in the 1964 general election, while my dad was running the local Tory campaign as chair of the local association, I was bunking off school to deliver leaflets for Labour. I’ve always liked to think I did my bit to get Harold Wilson elected, and of course it’s been disillusion all the way since then: support for US butchery in Vietnam, Callaghan through unbelievable complacency allowing Thatcher to romp to power in ’79, then the hijacking and emasculation of the Labour Party under the Blair/Brown project. I’ve lost count of the number of times during the last ten years when I’ve said categorically that I’ll never vote Labour again; one of the most recent was after reading about the way the party hierarchy have been ‘parachuting’ candidates into local constituencies, reflecting factional favouritisms and divisions in the leadership while cynically ignoring the views of the local party activists. This is not a party one can trust for renewal; it is tribal, it is inward-looking and it is definitely past its sell-by date. This is a hard truth to face, especially for those on the left of the party who have hung in there all their political lives, doggedly working away in the hope of bringing the party back to its roots and repossession of its soul; but I’m sorry, guys, it ain’t going to happen, not now, not ever. As for the Tories, I had to go to school with the likes of Cameron and his boy-band and I know from first hand experience what they’re like. Even when they’re at their most earnest you realise that fundamentally it’s just a game to them: they can always fall back on their wealth, their inbred belief in their own decency, and there’s a level of experience and understanding that’s completely missing. And with this particular bunch, they’re so underwhelming in their levels of intelligence and competence that one fears deeply for one’s fellow citizens should they indeed end up in government. But I’m still not supporting the Lib Dems. Of course Clegg is a breath of fresh air, and Cable does seem to know and believe what he’s talking about. Yes, their policies are and always have been more green than the other two, and their politics more grassroots and activist. And, despite the attempted smears of the other two parties, their policies are coherent and they are perfectly capable of government…
But they’re still part of the mainstream, old politics. If they do well enough this time, presumably they will be able to bring in electoral reform and a slightly fairer tax system, but let’s be honest, we’re talking moderate adjustments to the status quo at the very most. There’s no way they’ll embark on the sort of truly radical agenda that would begin to seriously address the problems that have been building steadily in the
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Election 2010
David Cameron's attempt to blame Gordon Brown for the record deficit is fundamentally dishonest. Why?
Remember back in the autumn of 2007 when Brown backed off from calling a snap election? Suppose he had called that election, and lost, David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.
Would David Cameron being Prime Minister in the UK have made any difference to the financial meltdown that occurred a year later?
Yes ...... I beg your pardon! How? Don't forget at the time he and his friends in the financial industry were arguing for less regulation of the banks, not more, and it was his party, under Margaret Thatcher, who deregulated the financial industry, allowing all the mergers and international takeovers in the name of "free markets".
No ...... OK, so when the crisis came, do you think David Cameron would have been able to respond with the speed, overarching understanding and international clout that Gordon Brown was able to muster?
Yes .... You're obviously a Tory tribalist! I challenge you to find a single serious commentator or political/economic historian who agrees with you.
No .... Nobody can be sure what might have happened if the international response which Brown led had taken longer or been less decisive. There can be little doubt we in the UK would have been in a far weaker economic state than we are now. Would David Cameron have bailed out the banks?
No .... Well he didn't object at the time. In the heat of the crisis both the opposition parties were supporting the action the government was taking, agreeing that it was necessary to prevent an even worse scenario.
Yes .... So how would he have funded the bail-out, if not through increased borrowing? Perhaps all his millionaire friends would have dug deep into their pockets? When the extent of the banks' bad debts became clear and the City establishment started to get jittery about the scale of refinancing required, would David Cameron have kept his nerve and insisted on the appropriate level of recapitalisation?
No .... then he would almost certainly have done too little too late, the crisis would have deepened and the recovery which now at last seems to be happening would still be a long way off.
Yes .... OK; I don't believe he would, but if he did, then he would have to borrow to find the cash, and the deficit created by that borrowing would be exactly as it is now.
Conclusion: the record deficit is a "lesser of two evils" and was the right choice of strategy. It is a necessary cost of securing recovery and we should be thankful we had a serving Prime Minister with the acumen and courage to implement it. Brown deserves praise, not blame. In his heart of hearts, I'm sure Cameron recognises this, but in his desperation to seize power he ignores it, instead trying to exploit the sheer size of the deficit in a gross simplification of the economic context. I think this is fundamentally dishonest. I rest my case.
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