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Renewing
participatory democracy
My Little Red Book
A
New
Socialist Settlement
Bevan
Re-visited
Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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060123 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 4 Monday
23 January
2006
Another
busted flush
 Ruth Kelly is not impressive. I have
tried to find her strong points, but without success. Perhaps
"those who know her well" could give different testimony, but I must
judge by the way she does her job.
And I confess that my Welsh non-conformity
probably stands in the way. In spite of all my best intentions, the
Opus Dei connection still concerns me. If she were really good,
I am sure I would overcome my inherited prejudices, which run deep in
all "Non-Conformity". But she is not.
She should not go just because
of the paedophile register: we are all at sixes-and-sevens on this
difficult issue, and there are major differences of perspective between
men and women. She has my sympathy, broadly, on that issue.
No - justice demands that she should leave
for having swallowed, hook-line-and-sinker, the shallow Blair
inegalitarian education agenda, abandoning the ideal of first-class schools for all,
and leaving school governance to an unholy alliance of professional
teachers and transient parents.
Selling the public-service grail for
£2m-a-throw plus-a-knighthood is a seedy gimmick, and ought to be
outlawed. Rich men should not be allowed to buy power at all,
certainly not influence over our children. And as Neil Kinnock pointed
out, we will pay dearly for that mistake, thirty years downstream.
- The socialist "Comprehensive" ideal is
not everywhere realised, and is perpetually undermined and derided by
those who should show greater understanding - but it is the right ideal.
We should commit ourselves to it, anew.
-
back to top
Dark
Green Horse
 I favour Chris Huhne, for the Liberal
leadership (though he now he now looks a little older than this
photo...) He is the rank outsider, but he would bring a breath of
fresh air to the Liberals. Ming would be a caretaker leader,
whatever he claims. Simon Hughes has enthusiasm, but lacks
gravitas. And Oaten has gone, with a vengeance.
Huhne has been in professional
politics for some years, as an MEP. And he is probably positioning
himself for a post-Ming challenge. But he would bring to the
leadership a powerful grasp of
international dimensions, including Europe. He has a firm grasp of
modern economics. And my sense is that he understands the
importance of civil and wider "human" rights, as a fundament of the
social and political order.
Arise
City Regions
I told you so.
If rumours are correct, the Government is planning to follow the French
constitution, strengthening city government and extending commune,
or neighbourhood. government.
If the Guardian leak
is correct, the news
could not be more welcome to me. I am Director of the inactive
City Region Campaign, founded by me in 1994 to further this constitutional
cause. In 1996, working with the
political analyst Simon Partridge, I wrote a paper arguing strongly for this position,
but our thinking was overwhelmed by the wave of enthusiasm for Celtic
"regional"
devolution: see
Building a New Britain.
But that devolution has left a huge
democratic deficit unresolved. The Government of Scotland Act did
not address the good governance of Glasgow or Edinburgh, nor did the
Welsh Act address the governance of Cardiff, Swansea, Newport. And
community government was disdained by Parliament.
 Are
David Miliband and his fellow Ministers really serious about building a new
democratic structure? If so, that would be good news indeed. No
more silly mayors. The creative potential of our cities unleashed. The
better democratic governance of our schools and hospitals. Far
greater involvement of ordinary citizens in the governance of their own
local communities. Can it possibly be true? Is it unfair of
me to be sceptical?
Shall we watch this space together?
back to top
 Never miss
Steve Bell! His cartoons, from
The Guardian
- his wit and perception illuminate the absurdities of the
political scene... Our political life is diminished by the absence, in
mainstream politics, of leaders with capacity to deliver the same punch.
back to top
"As long as drugs are illegal
the problem won't go
away"
This was Polly Toynbee's headline in
The
Guardian. Hers is a courageous and principled position.
If you want the opportunity to make your own public declaration in support
of the decriminalisation of drugs, check out and
sign in at the Angel Declaration.
- But when
did Polly Toynbee say this? On 7 December 2002.
We have not learnt the most obvious lesson of all...
Polly Toynbee is in good company,
the world over: many thousands of the world's leading citizens have
called for the decriminalisation of "drugs"...
check out
TRANSFORM.
back to top
Britishness?
No, thanks...
 Gordon
Brown did himself no favours,
when addressing the Fabians last week. His worthless and trivial idea of a British
Day was not worthy of someone claiming to succeed to the highest office.
I suspect the Guardian's Steve Bell, whose cartoon this is, thought so
too. It diminished Brown greatly, in my eyes. The glory of Britishness is
that it has always been minimalist in content - until, that is, the
embarrassing trivialities of the Blunkett "citizenship tests". The
classic sparseness of the definition has been the secret to its success:
no nation has yet come up with such a brilliant success - yet it seems
that short-sighted Ministers are prepared to sacrifice it, in a bid for
passing popularity.
I find
current preoccupations with collective identities, whether cultural or
political agglomerations, both misplaced and dangerous. For the
truth is that I want to be me. My passport should not interfere
with that. And you want to be you, first
and foremost. I want no truck with
Britishness, or Welshness, or Frenchness, or Whatever-ness. Every
inclusion excludes millions more.
Identity is a matter of individuality, an attribute of the natural
person, a matter of precious human experience. It is not some
compendium of collective generalisations which in the end apply to
nobody. In race relations too, community is a fallacy - all the
paraphernalia of multi-culturalism (or any culturalism) is destructive
and distracting. When it comes to citizenship and nationality, the
less defined these concepts are, the better: that way, everyone who
really wants to join, can join.
Every individual seeks to be valued on a personal, individual basis -
that is a constant affirmation of personal identity, and we all need that. That
is our human birthright, the essence of the Human Rights philosophy (or religion...).
There is no such thing (pace Durkheim) as a collective
consciousness, une conscience collective - that way lies
dictatorship, even fascism.
- The Fabian search for "Britishness" is
fundamentally misconceived. The Fabians should grapple with something more
serious and
constructive, like international company law reform.
back to top
 The Fabians are a great,
enlightened left-wing political community some 7,000-strong - and we have
many skills among our number.
 Would
you like to be added to the monthly Fabian Update e-mail list? Just
e-mail
Fabian Research
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I love the online newspapers, which are my access to the world -
share them with me - click through to their here - they are all just a
click away from your desk..
Morning Star
Independent
The Times
New
York Times
Le
Monde
Die
Welt
Moscow
Times
China Daily
The Hindu
back to top
 Having
discovered this remarkable NASA website, linked with the Hubble Telescope
and the NASA Mars exploration vehicles, with its current photographs from
outer space, I am reluctant
to let it go
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"Respect" means lowering the
School Leaving Age
 Why are the social structures of teenage
maturation weakening? Because we do not show our children real respect.
All innovation is experimental, and our society took a wrong turning some
fifty years ago when we increased our reliance upon compulsion in the
expansion of school education. In Victorian times, using compulsion
to age 10 caused no ripples: indeed, you could leave earlier, if you
proved you could read and write. Compulsion up to age 12 seemed OK
too, as those landmarks came and went.
But when it went to 15 (1944, I think,
can anyone remind me?)
and then 16 (I seem to remember RoSLA in the 1960s)
we went too far. And the
Americans, in using compulsion to age 18, have gone far too far, with
Police now patrolling schools and school playgrounds.
I say that school indiscipline is fuelled
by the wrongful use of force against our children and their parents.
I suggest that disruptive behaviour comes principally from children who
resent being at school in the first place, and being forced to attend.
Coercion breeds reprisal. We have learnt that in our political
lives, why not in school management?
I suggest that every child should be
allowed to leave school at the end of the school-year in which his/her
14th birthday falls. Teachers and parents should have to
persuade children to stay on,
not rely on the criminal law to do it for them. Discipline would be transformed,
throughout all schools, and much Police and "truanting-officer time saved.
Those staying on after that age should be paid attendance allowances,
along the lines of those pioneered for Sixth Formers. But that
should be without
means-testing: "middle class" children need independence from their
parents, as much as everyone. They should not be tied to their
parents' professional purse-strings.
Secondary education should become
voluntary. Is that such a revolutionary
idea? We should respect our children, and stop using coercion
against them, in a futile attempt to influence their behaviour.
Prime
busted flush
 I do, quite genuinely, feel sorry for
Tony Blair. He has overplayed the talents God gave him, overstayed
his welcome, exhausted any natural creativity he may have had. His
moral authority has been definitively destroyed by his disastrous error
over Iraq, and the duplicitous manner of its delivery. He has
nothing left in the personal tank. He is
the actor who has played is last big part. He is the artist who has painted his last picture, anguished that his late works
no longer sell.
- The Muse, his friends should tell him, does not stay
forever.
"Choice"
is not a right-wing word
 I
resent the childish hi-jacking of jargon, the gimmick which lies at the
heart of the lightweight Blair Legacy Project. Two of
those hi-jacked words are "choice" and "respect".
It is not the shibboleth of "choice" that
matters. Opportunities for "choice" characterise public service systems,
as well as private - they are no trigger for privatisation, or the
adoption of market mechanisms. Neither in education nor in health
does "greater choice" necessarily mean greater private-profit domination.
To offer "choice" is an honourable objective of all systems, both private
and public.
My
first-ever political battle was on the Hackney Borough Housing Management
Committee, in 1971. As a new Councillor, I was appalled at the
Council's dictatorial take-it-or-leave it methods of allocating Council
housing, Two single-option offers were made to waiting-list families
- if they turned down the second, they did not get a third chance, but
went to the bottom of the List.
I argued
that each family should always be offered a choice of at least two options
simultaneously, preferably three. A dominant bureaucracy, I argued, should
not call the shots in this vital domestic matter. The practice
crushed families into dumb acceptance, when their dignity (and indeed,
"respect") argued for a different system of public service
administration. "Choice" is not a right-wing word, as Tony Blair
fancies it is.
back to top
Asylum
"failures"
New strategy
 Remarkable developments this week, on the
asylum front. The Government is clearly reluctant to increase the
rate of forcible removal, for failed asylum seekers, and has opted for a
carrot-and-stick campaign to induce voluntary return on a much larger
scale.
 We have had the sticks for some time:
unnecessary "dawn raids" with armed officers, Police-station reporting for
everyone, a stream of threatening Home Office letters inducing a growing sense of
terror and anguish, and the aggressive withdrawal of financial support,
deliberately creating destitution.
This week, the carrot has appeared.
For those deciding to leave "voluntarily", between 1 January and 30 June
2006
this year, the re-settlement payment will increase from £500 for each
adult to £3,000. This is a commercial,
time-limited offer.
This will be a huge sum for the younger
single asylum-seekers, and I suspect many will accept the offer. For
many, it could be the chance of a lifetime. For
families, the inducement is less attractive, because their interests lie
in the education of their children, and they know that every month in the
UK constitutes a lifelong advantage which is otherwise beyond their reach.
These £3,000 offers were received this
week by every relevant household in the UK. It is clearly the start
of a new six-month drive. This "high" sum is small, compared with the
costs of forcible repatriation (est £11,000 per person). The deal makes good economic sense for
Charles Clarke. But I have a sense of foreboding
that the popular
Press will attack the scheme, as favouring "illegal immigrants" before UK
citizens.
- I hope Clarke has his "speech for
the defence" carefully prepared.
back to top
-
NCADC,
the active campaigners against the deportation
and removal of asylum seekers,
are on high alert. If you have any interest in the
awful saga that is now unfolding in the UK, right under your eyes,
please check out with them. And keep coming here. Thanks.
New
History
What were we thinking about, at the
turning of the year - last year, two years ago, three years ago - FOUR
years ago? With modern web-logging, you can check that out - a new
form of modern history becomes possible. These extracts are
newly-mined on New Year's Day 2006. This is how the world looked to me, at this time of year,
in
-
2002 -
2003
-
2004 -
2005
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*Recent
topics
My opportunistic
web-editing >>>
Wanna be happy? Avoid anxiety
>>>
Ministries should not be
"spun" >>>
Asylum Management
my reforms
>>>
Turkey should
join Europe
>>>
What New Orleans
means for UK
>>>
Josef Stalin
and Flat Tax >>>
Corporate Theft
by Proxy >>>
What do interest rates
mean? >>>
Labour Party
my resignation
>>>
New principle
Public Primacy >>>
The Power of
Private Property >>>
Drop the
school-leaving age
>>>
Against
Unreasonable
Inequality
>>>
Abolish
Wrongful Dismissal
>>>
Adjustment Pay
for every worker
>>>
Pay
Guardianship Allowance
>>>
And read my Big Theory itself, at
Multiple Differential Uncertainty... Or try my snappier and
more practical analysis of the Corporations and the Left
Coming to Terms
060123 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 4 Monday
23 January
2006
|
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