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Diary Note /0030
Sunday 3 March 2002
for yesterday's thoughts

Revolutionary
Doctors

An NHS revolution is heralded this week by proposals from none other than the mighty British Medical Association itself, the doctors' trade union. I found them tucked away as a minor report in Thursday's Guardian I am astonished that it has not made the top UK headlines. Because the BMA contemplates a veritable revolution in local surgeries.

All patients, says the BMA, should initially be seen by a nurse, who will make an initial assessment and determine next-steps. The nurse might refer the patient to a pharmacist, or welfare worker, or even benefits-advice officer - or of course, if required, to a Doctor. The nurse-run phone-line NHS Direct has been a great success, and I give Tony Blair full credit for having backed it strongly from the outset, in the face of professional opposition. But now the BMA itself has adopted the whole concept of a prior gateway, staffed by non-Doctors.

This is great news. Given this opportunity, Labour should be able to make the radical structural changes which the NHS needs. The quantum demand for doctors would be reduced, and GPs could be paid salaries fully-competitive with senior hospital doctors. The lives of thousands of nurses would be greatly enriched, and the status of the nursing profession immeasurably enhanced, as would the status of the pharmacist. It would be much easier to promote the shift from pathological to preventive medicine (see my earlier comments NHS should be about health, not illness). My sense is that a major systemic shift is in the offing. And remember: you (probably) read it here first..

Losing weight

Some of you have expressed interest (generous, if sceptical) in my weight-loss campaign. I progressed during February, albeit at a slower rate - so far, a loss of 23 lbs in 36 days -
Mon 31 Dec = 19st 6lbs
Mon 14 Jan = 19st 2lbs
Mon 28 Jan = 18st 7lbs
Mon 4 Feb = 18st 5lbs
Mon 18 Feb = 18st 3 lbs
Sat 2 March = 17st 11 lbs

Do you think it's the sign of a true intellectual that, before actually losing weight, I first had to propound a theory about weight-loss? I suspect it is. This is my theory - see Obesity and Me

Good Week
for Human Rights

Many seem to have a Life of Brian approach to Human Rights "Wot have the Romans ever done for us? HR-driven changes are often indirect rather the result of triumphant forensic victory. But this week brings two good examples of how human rights reasoning works, in particular the UK Human Rights Act 1998, and the HR Court at Strasbourg.

First, Strasbourg this week gave its verdict that the UK Courts Martial, with their powerful overtones of military discipline and autocratic officer-authority, failed to safeguard the "fair trial" rights of the accused. On three occasions, Parliament had changed UK courts-martial law, to bring it into line with the Article 6 right to a fair trial. This week, its third attempt was also found wanting. The UK Advocate General for the Services Judge James Rant, was forced to suspend all 21 pending Court Martial cases, while he lodged an appeal. The Army and the RAF hold 700 court-martials every year [for details see Daily Telegraph ]

The right course is for Labour to ensure that the Court Rules are amended yet again. Regrettably, the Tory Opposition immediately called for military proceedings to be wholly excluded from the Human Rights Act, which was an awful error of judgment. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen should enjoy the same right as everyone else does, to a fair trial. I am delighted that the Strasbourg Court is standing its ground.

This week's second judgment was more telling, even though it went against the homosexual appellant. A French citizen Philippe Frette, a 47-year-old Paris teacher and partner in a stable homosexual relationship, was refused consent to adopt by the French adoption authorities, on the ground of his homosexuality. All the Judges agreed that his Article 8 rights of privacy and of family had been infringed, and three judges (including the UK judge, and two others) backed the appellant and voted to allow the appeal.

The Court disallowed the appeal (by a close 4:3 majority) and upheld the French Government - though for perfectly sound HR reasons. For few human rights are absolute: there is always the need to balance the importance of competing political and social considerations. They concluded that the French Government should be given "a certain leeway" (marge d'appreciation). The Court held that the French Government was entitled to decide, as a matter of policy, that homosexual couples should not be permitted to adopt children, "for the protection of morals". That is one of the permitted heads of Government intervention under Article 8. It would be wrong, they said to impose too tight a straitjacket on the Government's political discretion.

My hope is that this civilised form of debate will become more widely understood, and appreciated. The 4:3 judgement shows that the issue was finely balanced. Philippe Frette is planning to appeal.

Surfers Strike Back

Your responses are becoming more direct, which I greatly appreciate. I have been taken to task this week for inconsistency, in my approach to "national identity" [ in particular Down with Britishness 28-02-02 ] A friend writes -
"The quite vitriolic scorn you pour on the idea of the importance of national identity is at odds with your references to the importance of your Welshness, and the ramifications of that - the Archbishop of Wales being up for Canterbury is a good thing because he's Welsh - and those who don't speak 'the language of heaven' are 'benighted'. To anyone who doesn't know you this does appear completely contradictory - frankly it does to me too - and as an English-speaking Welsh person myself, some of your proclamations have certainly made me feel uncomfortable."
This is a perceptive comment, but I think it is wrongly targeted. Let me explain myself. For mine is a political position, reflecting a constitutional proposition.

Personally, I delight in cultural diversity - all forms of national and cultural identities are to be celebrated - it is my hope that Scotland will succeed in reviving Gaelic (though I am not optimistic) - it is true that I have become a real enthusiast for the Welsh language, just as I am for French and German, which have always enriched my life. They are part of me. I am proud to be a Welsh European.

But "identities" and allegiances of this kind should be kept firmly away from citizenship law and entitlement. That is my position. I am implacably opposed to their incorporation into tests of citizenship. That's why I do not like the new Blunkett naturalisation requirements. And that is why I am so opposed to Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists - the Party has a nasty preoccupation with Welsh linguistic identity and its political reification .

No ethnic group has any lien on any part of this globe, whatever the record of history. State and citizenship concepts should be founded unambiguously on territory, coupled with a commitment to obey territorial laws - and nothing else. That is the only viable option for the modern world: keep the principles simple, and universal in their application. In constitutional matters, the concept of "national identity" is wholly destructive, and has no proper place. That is where I intend my vitriol to be focused.

This week, for example, the German Socialist Government ran into strong Right-wing opposition to its further attempts to reform German immigration law, which is strongly oriented towards concepts of Deutsche Kultur, German cultural identity [ see Financial Times ]. I wish Gerhard Schroder well.

I hope that you will think that I have drawn the sting of inconsistency, both to Welsh friends and otherwise. If you think I have not, will you let me know? Drop me a line.

P.S. I also confess to being delighted that Saturday's Guardian leader came out in support of the Welshman Rowan Williams for Canterbury, just ahead of Richard Chartres, Bishop of London - check out The Guardian

Back to top 		  I back Byers > as the Sunday press pursues Byers, in defence of "their own" Sixsmith, check out my diagnosis, my prescription
Our Civil Service : the way ahead

"Globalise the Left"

Red Pepper is firmly on my weekly reading list, although I dislike its persistent undermining of "my" Labour Government. The Old Left continues to snipe at Labour, from behind its columns. But I recognise the force its critique of the Blair Government - I am no New Labour groupie. And this week, Red Pepper Editor Hilary Wainright has launched a powerful campaign, which has been brewing for some time.

"Globalise the Left" is the title of a ringing leader by Hilary Wainwright - her theme is the need for politicians on the Left to formulate a coherent critique of corporate power, unregulated free trade, and the global abuse of human rights. It is not enough to organise street protests and to cripple "capitalist" conferences. The search is for a coherent socialist framework which can focus and drive the energies of the Left - Check out Hilary Wainwright and Red Pepper ]

Libdems moving right

Deja vu can be spooky. When last month (13 February) I speculated on the prospect of a 2005 Tory/LibDem electoral pact Oligarchy v. Democracy several of you dismissed the idea as absurd. Imagine my surprise, therefore to read the Guardian headline this week - "LibDems ponder shift to the right" - broadly exploring the ground of my 13-02 commentary. Curiouser and curiouser.

Fireworks over fireworks

This week, Parliament debated a Private Members' Fireworks Bill (from Joan Ryan, Labour Member for Enfield North) to ban the sale of fireworks to the general public. Mumbles Community Council had already debated the subject. As a Council, we ourselves sponsor two or three major fireworks displays each year, and we will be putting on a show for the Jubilee on Monday 3 June 2002 - read all about us in The Mumbles Book . And it is true that there is mounting public concern about the unregulated use of fireworks, and the disruptive impact on residents, pets and other animals. In Northern Ireland, we were reminded by campaigners, all fireworks are forbidden, because the gun-fire-like explosions induce anxiety among local residents.

Our debate was mature and well-informed, held at the request of a local resident, and conducted in public with the Press present. We are eighteen councillors (for a resident population of 17,000) and we all meet, in public, on the second Tuesday of every month.  In taking a position on the Bill, we did not favour any outright ban on retail sale, which we thought would be unnecessarily restrictive. We took the view that the real mischief lay not in fireworks as such, but in "bangers" and their deployment in the hands of the general public, particularly teenage boys.

Council fireworks displays are of course professionally operated, without amateur intervention, but the problem of loud explosions persists. We decided to review the banger-content of our Jubilee display, and to minimise the bangs. And we decided to "call for" the reduction in the incidence of explosive fireworks.

The debate was first-class, a credit to small community governance. It convinced me that I should oppose the sale and deployment of all fireworks designed principally for their noise effect.

Some explosive element is likely to be necessary, even for visual-display fireworks, I recognise that. And I would certainly not expect a fireworks display to be an entirely silent occasion. But of a summer evening, here in Mumbles, I hear too many explosions from my attic study window. They are let off just for the hellavit, performing no entertainment function. It would be sensible to intervene to limit those explosions.

Pensions
The storm clouds gather

Budget Day will be 17 April. And the subject will not be pensions reform, of that we can be sure. Next year, however, pensions will have fought their way up the public agenda, and they could loom large in the next Election. That's what I think.

For our pension systems are threatened from all sides. And the middle-generations are getting worried, which is a sure sign that the situation is serious. The State Old Age Pension continues to erode in relative value, year by year. Tragically, the Government has followed Thatcher's 1981 example, and refused to contemplate any revival of the state pension. Labour's much-hyped "Stakeholder Pension" has been a flop, ill-judged, unattractive to savers. True, means-tested help for today's elderly poor has been decisively improved by Gordon Brown, but perversely that has only served to erode still further the will-to-save, among the middle-aged. If state handouts will pay the poor more handsomely than a pension, why save? The logic is telling, and tells against the Government.

Employers are abandoning private pension provision, or switching from the traditional earnings-related pension to the payment of a lump-sum upon retirement, which the pensioner must invest for himself. Even the trade unions (traditionally cool about pensions, because of their divisive implications) are increasingly concerned. The nation's sense of long-term security is being further eroded. And even the laudable accounting-standards drive (the new FRS17) to force employers to account openly and honestly for their pensions liabilities has run into trouble: employers are finding that honesty is not always the best policy, if those liabilities force their shares to be down-valued. It's all becoming very messy indeed.

The Government will, sooner or later, have to pay a political price for this growing turmoil. For it is a mess of Labour's making. New Labour had a chance to get it right, and did try (remember Frank Field, being told to "think the unthinkable"?) If health and education are the lead-issues of 2002, pensions will be the lead-issue of 2004. Public confidence in private pension schemes is rapidly eroding. And Labour has left the Thatcherite knee firmly in the groin of the State Old Age Pension.

We must think again

Brittan on Lakshmi

The FT's Sam Brittan, now in retirement, remains a top-flight, right-wing free-market pundit. He weighed in this week with a valuable further insight into the Lakshmi affair, the Romanian steel episode so unwisely dubbed "Garbagegate" by Tony Blair. Brittan's line is the purist one -
"The true issue is whether it is the Government's job to promote national businesses, or whether it should adopt a more arm's-length approach. There are always going to be alleged scandals and conflicts of interest so long as the business promotion view prevails".
Brittan argues that the practice is pointless and misconceived The mercantilist fallacy that traps Tony Blair . My own February commentary Tony & Lakshmi made the connection between the routine mercantilism of the 1970s (when as an Under-Secretary, I was drafting supportive business commendations as if there was no tomorrow) and current practice. Sam Brittan says - "Tony Blair is deeply conventional: because previous Prime Ministers, and heads of other Governments, have wasted their time promoting national corporate champions, he thinks he has to do the same".

That rings true, to me. My own advice to Blair, you may remember, was not to get personally involved, and leave the signing to other Ministers. But the better advice would be for the Government not to do it all.

I'm with Sam Brittan.

What do you think? Drop me a line.

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