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You are in the company of
Roger Warren Evans
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Last week was one of dramatic events,
although little of strategic political importance - most important of
all, the US and UK consumers seem to be starting on their Christmas spend...
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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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And make sure you have not missed the previous edition
of this Weblog
Check it out
Editorial Note Stand by for changes - having studied your visiting-habits, it's clear that the Monday-to-Wednesday period is the most popular, tailing off towards the weekend - therefore I propose - a New Editorial Strategy - I plan to focus on one major Monday Edition per week, with subsequent additions (no deletions) in the course of the week, as the news dictates - starting this coming Monday.. Roger WE This is why employers should leave the pensions stage 
This was Friday evening
25 October 2002 at Paddington Station. It
was a joyful occasion. I was on my back from Ashford to Swansea, waiting
for the cheap Supersaver trains to leave, from 8.00 pm onwards. The trains suffered all the
usual delays of a Friday rush-hour, but everyone
was in a marvellous mood.
What does this have to do with pensions policy? (I
hear you cry)... The answer is this: the very long-term
employment relationships which generated bands like these are no more - indeed,
most of the musicians looked like pensioners themselves. Employers cannot any
longer be relied upon to deliver on long-term commitments - certainly not on pensions,
the longest-term commitment of all. This is
one of the sectors in which, like education and health,
only the State can
reliably
provide.
What do you think?
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Beneficial
Bravo!
The Government has decided to reform the Tory system of
Housing Benefit,
introduced in the 1980s, which was simply a form of outdoor relief for the
rentier class. Reform has
defeated previous Governments, while even the seediest private slum
landlords have rejoiced. Now Labour is proposing a
fundamental change of course. Perpetual
Innovation What is wealth? I have an
unconventional view. I say that “wealth” is simply a
reflection of the capacity of a society to keep all its people
Keeping busy Writing in this week's newstatesman, John Gray explores the preoccupations of a bored, affluent society - see "Ulrika is a sign that we've got it all". This is closely related to my point (above) about Perpetual Innovation. Bored citizens in the affluent society, he argues, become obsessed with matters of celebrity, fame, public preeminence of all kinds. And the thesis is difficult to deny. I agree that the challenge to the world's leading affluent societies is to chart a way ahead for the human spirit. Materialist consumerism is certainly not enough. After affluence, what? And although technological innovation will remain important, its relative value will decline. My view is that we shall all put more and more of our time and energies into governing ourselves. New worlds of personal interest will open up, in the governance of our own communities - their schools, their roads and pavements, their parks, their libraries, their cleanliness, their ecological richness, their overall amenity for work and residence.
What do you think? back to top A-Level Crisis The Education spat this weekend has revived the debate about A-Levels and "what went wrong". My view is that the problem lies with our lazy Universities. Each University should fill 90% of its vacancies by way of advance binding offers (decided in the light of teachers' assessments, interview and if necessary Entrance Examination), and should stop using the specific A-Level results, subject-by-subject, as arbiters of admission. That is, after all, what creates all the tensions. The option of exclusion should be retained in the case of gross exam failure, but that is very rare.
What do you think? back to top Wrongful Closure The Government is guilty of the abuse of power, by simply closing, 3,000 sub-post-offices, taking only the economics of the Post Office into account.
Corporations are justly criticised by the Left for the arbitrary closure of factories, destroying jobs and communities. Yet the Labour Government is doing precisely the same thing, to 3,000 neighbourhoods across the country. This has been handled very badly. Socialists - keep in touch with my latest attempt to track the course of contemporary socialism - unfinished, but the thinking continues - a long way to go, but c'est le premier pas qui compte - you can track my thoughts at the Newton Agenda. Inspector Monbiot
For how could it be otherwise? Both democracy and the consumer economy tend in the same direction - indeed, Governments have come to be seen as the guarantors of last resort of the very goods and services in which the corporate sector trades. The consumerate and the electorate are one and the same. Governments and the Corporations are destined to be partners, Inspector.
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Pupils
should ...but those assessments should play no part in determining a teacher's remuneration. Every teacher privately acknowledges that it is the pupils and students who really know who the good teachers are. I am in favour of bringing them into the process of assessment. I remain firmly opposed, however, to "performance-related pay" for all teachers and lecturers, if performance is claimed to relate to the classroom. I favour special-responsibility payments, out-of-school commitment payments and other ways of remunerating the above-average teacher. I like the idea of developing a cadre of specialist teacher-examiners, those with the ability and temperament to assume such responsibilities.
But not
"super-teacher super-pay" systems.
Pupil/student assessments would enrich our educational system. Inspections
would be better informed, school profiles and reputations enhanced, and
new elements added to teaching careers. But ill-judged
"performance pay" would impoverish it, sowing new tensions and
unnecessary stress.
What do you think?
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Mrs
Blackadder I shared a drugs reform platform last Friday with one Mrs Blackadder, from Middle England. She was the mother of a heroin-addicted son, and deeply sympathetic to the cause of radical reform. She shared the anger of my speech to the Conference (Text, follow..) Like most of those with personal experience of the issues, she understood completely that the morally-bankrupt UN policy of prohibition was wrong on all counts - medical, social, political, human rights. Her son had lived his life as a victim of this bankrupt legal regime.
I am angry that my Government sets its face against any
substantive reform - the hapless Home Office "Drugs Minister" Bob
Ainsworth MP came to the Conference last Friday and gave a very fragile performance,
trying to defend the indefensible.
Drugs legalisation is a priority, on an international scale.
We have handed a huge and profitable trade to the criminals and terrorists by our own misguided actions – and
we are now reaping the whirlwind.
We must start the process of legalising the drugs trade and bringing it
under effective and responsible public control.
Read again the
Angel Declaration.
Check out the Signatory List, read it carefully. And think again about
joining us, in our plea for humanity, sanity, and a decent liberal
society.
Estelle The departure of Estelle Morris from the Department of Education generated few real ripples, albeit generating considerable Press comment. I do not share the general hubbub, about "women" and "Press aggression".
What do you think? back to top 
A Knight's Tale... As the Granada/Carlton merger proceeds, unitary national TV images will suppress the older ITV regional identities. Forty years on, the Anglian Knight, will disappear. It was under the Knight's aegis that I first broadcast, in 1962. Also where I was first sacked, for a political indiscretion...
My own I do not believe in the war on "terrorism" - but I am sure there should be waged a war on terrorists. The campaign is global, and that is why I seek international approaches to the pillars of my campaign. I want to declare war on legalised secrecy, illegal trading, and the appalling illegal traffic in human life. Given success, this would make great inroads into global terrorism. What do you think? back to top
Firemen, Teachers I have little sympathy with either the firemen, or the teachers. Check the arguments back to topFollow my Russian Tour Diary, now unfolding in splendid technicolor Recent topics And read my own Big Theory itself, at Special Footnote I love the online newspapers, which are my access to the world - share them with me - click through to their Homepages from here -
back to top MEETING NOTICES
Organisers! Let me know if you have any notices of meetings which might be interesting to readers like you - I'll be happy to give publicity to radical gatherings of the Left... Diary 2002 Now up to date! I have re-structured my Diary to give you a day-to-day means of looking back, throughout the year just click through Check out previous Diary Page Drop me a line back to top >> back to today's Home Page |
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Created by GMID Design & Communication COPYRIGHT NOTICEThe originating content of this website is my own work, and subject to my copyright. But on one condition only, I hereby give my consent to its unrestricted reproduction for any purpose: the condition is that its source is subject to proper acknowledgment, giving my name, my assertion of copyright, and the name of this website as it source, namely: www.warrenevans.net - is that a deal? Roger WE
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Why? It was the
music. Because the Great Western Railway
Paddington Band was playing on the great Paddington piazza.
It was a wind band - clarinets, piccolos, horns, flutes, tubas and
flugelhorns - a great and popular noise, traditional airs and songs from
the shows.
I like George Monbiot.
With acknowledgment to the Financial Times - as a mediaeval historian by trade, this tickles my fancy...
