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320 7 July 2002
Creative Political Titbits
These are the days of Big Issues. Collapsing economies
- corporate reform - ID Cards - Europe and the Euro – regionalisation –
drugs law reform – these Big Issues
are eclipsing the more delectable political titbits. We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to dwell
on the reported decline in French annual per capita wine consumption from 91
litres-a-year (1980) to 53 litres (2001) - nor our own UK
rise, over the same period, from 8 litres-a-year to 22 litres. Or the disgraceful
attack on Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi (Pakistan) for playing Wimbledon
doubles with Amir Hadad (Israel). Or the silly spat over Gerald
Ratner’s use of the Ratner name for his new business venture. Or
disruption in the smooth operation of the UK export trade in
secondhand clothing to Eastern Europe. Or even the astounding UK
Government fallback guarantee for airline terrorism insurance, now
extended until Thursday 29 August 2002 (what happens then?)… I
love those titbits, because I find they trigger new thinking – my mind
works like that. But enough of that - regular readers are entitled to my
Thoughts on the Big Issues of the day…
Do you share
my fascination with the canapes of political life?
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321
7 July 2002
Collapsing Economies
With consumer confidence
weakening both in the US and the UK, and investor confidence weakening for
related reasons, the best chance of recovery is now Christmas – say, the
second-week of October, when the UK business Christmas starts. Too many City people are simply selling
after May, and going away. And the UK politicians are due leave
their posts on 24 July. If the start of Christmas is delayed, even by a
couple of weeks, that will not augur well. The economy, the great consumer
economy, remains fragile.
This is emphatically not a direct consequence of 11
September. It is the direct outcome of Government incompetence, in
their reactions to 11 September. The primary incompetence is that of the
Bush Administration, and that beggars belief. Even the trusting, patriotic
American public is coming to doubt the competence of the Bush Administration. But
our own Government is not far behind in the incompetence stakes. The
very-public “tightening of security” by dreaded double-act of Blunkett & Hoon is
increasing UK public anxiety levels. The Government’s promotion of ID-cards –
“to counter illegal immigration” – can only unsettle public confidence
still further. The DTI seems determined to avoid taking effective action
against the abuse of corporate power, for fear of annoying the City. On the
pensions front, Labour is also failing to counter profound public disquiet, by
continuing to flirt with private pension provision, when it should be
reinstating the state pension.
On the Continent, the position is slightly different,
because welfare state provisions tend to reduce public anxiety - certainly in
France and Germany, if not in Italy and Spain. The smaller countries also find
it easier to maintain public confidence, because of the greater proximity of
Government, and the absence of unrealistic public expectations. And Continental
stock-markets are far less developed, and far less sensitive. So any
“down-turn” is less dramatic. Increasing public anxiety is expressed, I
suggest, in the sluggishness of any return to a growth path. Consumers simply
lack the joie de vivre needed to pull the Continental economies round –
in spite of all that wine.
What would I do about all that? Now
that’s a very long story...
What is your
analysis?
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322
15 July 2002
Ireland: a corrupt
and unfair
state
by Vincent Browne Irish Times 10 July 2002
The shrill adolescent voices of the 1960s that proclaimed the system was
corrupt, that they were all at it, that the State was a conspiracy by the rich
against the poor - they were right after all. Solicitors, accountants,
bankers and business people, many of the great names of the wealthy Ireland of
the last several decades, were engaged in an elaborate tax scam.
Remember that class bemoaning the rising tide of crime, the
transgressions of the poor, and wondering what the world was coming to? At
least two banks were engaged in the fraud from an early stage and the banks,
corporately, got in on the act from the middle of the 1980s onwards and all
engaged in a massive tax fraud... And again, accountants aided and abetted
them....
And all during the time, the agency responsible for ensuring a modicum
of fairness in the distribution of the nation's resources, the Revenue
Commissioners, were playing dead. They knew all along that massive tax
evasion was going on, and offered excuse after excuse for doing damn all about
it....
And we have to write in these coy terms because they know we cannot
provide proof that will stand up in court (more...)
It is not that Ireland is uniquely corrupt: it is that it is grossly
unfair, in a way that most Western countries are unfair. Unfair in its
treatment of the crimes of the rich, compared with its treatment of the crimes
of the poor - unfair in the distribution of its resources, unfair in its
educational and health services, unfair in its legal system. The rich have
bought the political system, and we should not be surprised if the political
system delivers.
That is what, and where, it is all about. End
vbrowne@irish-times.ie
What is your
analysis?
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323
7 July 2002
International Corporate Reform
The abuse of power is endemic to the corporate
sector. This has been understood for a very long time by socialists
working in the corporate sector (like Chris Haskins, and David
Sainsbury, and Clive Hollick, and Prem Sikka - and me) – but Labour has
never been willing to take us seriously.
When in 1993 I published
Coming
to Terms, the Labour gurus of IPPR (where I was invited to give a seminar)
laughed it out of court, as wildly radical and unrealistic. And although
my recent Fabian lectures have been better received
Taming the
Corporations there is no sign of any of these ideas being taken up by
Labour.
The core of my thesis is twofold. It is that company law must be
re-drawn with two primary objectives in mind –
-
To remove the cloak of secrecy from the affairs of all major corporations, with safeguards only for information of high commercial
confidentiality; such publicity is in the public interest, not merely the
interests of the shareholders.
-
To empower shareholders to participate in key management decision-making,
in particular remuneration decisions. We must put in place a new system of
checks-and-balances, because the old systems have atrophied.
Both principles have received a boost this week from the
American Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Economics Professor at Columbia
University, and author of the leading textbook Globalisation and its
Discontents. He stresses that current corporate problems arise essentially from
secrecy –
-
“With perfect information, shareholders would instantaneously have
realised that the books were being cooked, and would have roundly punished the
corporate officers Instead, because of tax advantages and inappropriate
accounting practices (which received support from the US Treasury under both
Republican and Democratic Administrations) firms were encouraged to reward their
executives handsomely with stock options… As the old saying goes, sunshine is
the strongest antiseptic..”
Read the full Stiglitz article, in
The Guardian The key
problems of the corporate sector are secrecy and autocracy – and they must both
be tackled. They are interrelated, for autocracy flourishes on secrecy – none
of the great crooks of the corporate sector could have succeeded, if their
misdeeds had been subject to routine public scrutiny. And do not accept the
grovelling self-serving City defence that total secrecy is necessary for the
successful conduct of an honest business. It is simply not true.
Ask Prem Sikka, the radical socialist Professor of
Accounting, now writing on accountancy reforms.
Or me.
How do you think corporate corruption should be tackled ?
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324 7 July 2002
Compulsory ID Cards
Since I wrote on this subject last week
Blunkett Defeated, again
the full horror of the Government’s “Consultation Paper” on Identity Cards
has been revealed. Blunkett’s capture by the Home Office is clearly
total.
Not a single convincing argument
for such a Card has been produced.
Does it counter terrorism? Have the German and French authorities (with the
advantage of ID-cards already) been better at the advance detection or
subsequent arrest of alleged terrorists? Are the Spanish Police
spectacularly successful in countering ETA, backed with ID-cards?
Does it counter illegal immigration?
The Police have said repeatedly that the problem with illegal
immigrants is not one of proving identity, once they are found. The
problem is to find them in the first place. And in any event, the only
satisfactory solution is to re-define this problem, to manage it differently,
and to dispense altogether with the concept of illegal immigrant see
Twin Track
State.
Does it counter
"identity theft"?
Credit card fraud is certainly increasing, and the insurance companies are
making a fortune selling defensive cover. The Banks are worried, true – but why
can this problem not continue to be dealt with as matter of insurance? Why
should the citizen’s freedom be jeopardised, simply to strengthen the Banks’
profit margins?
Does it help to run the NHS?
Would the sick and injured, upon arrival in hospital, be asked to produce their
"benefit card" - the British Medical Association itself has come out against the
idea, because it would erect a new barrier to the achievement of private and
public health objectives. I agree with the BMA.
Does it counter benefit fraud? Campaigns to counter fraud have already proved
successful, mobilising the forces of social opprobrium, and there is no reason
why they should not continue to be successful. It cannot be necessary to
infringe our civil liberties, just to save the Government money. And what
about City fraud? The authorities are wholly unable to take action against
the massive dishonesty which permeates the corporate sector, yet wish to
infringe our freedom in
order to imprison a few more desperate people fiddling their “social security”
in the black economy…
There is not a single solid argument which backs this
expensive and politically ruinous policy. It is disingenuous of Labour to plead
“opinion-poll popularity” to support the fragile Blunkett case. The same
is done by those seeking to reinstate the death penalty. Labour must
summon up the courage to lead, and not to follow the professional autocrats of
the Home Office.
I am apoplectic, about sheer insensitivity displayed by Blunkett, to
the elementary principles of human freedom - do you share my sense of
outrage ?
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325
7
July 2002
Regionalisation
the dispersal of power
“Regionalisation” is a misnomer.
The big regions of existing Government administration, chosen by John Prescott for
the current regionalisation process, should be called Provinces.
That was the term used in the great Redcliffe-Maud Commission Report of 1969, and that is how we should think of them.
They were, after all, designed hurriedly in 1939 as the primary units
of central control into which the Civil Service would divide in the event
of London's being captured by the Germans...
Paradoxically, only Northern Ireland
by common political
usage bears the name Province. But Wales and Scotland would also, in any proper
constitutional framework, be designated Provinces, meaning major legal
entities within a
unitary State The Welsh have a word for it In this sense, the NorthEast of England clearly qualifies as a
Province, so does the NorthWest, the West Midlands, East Anglia,
the East Midlands, and the West Country (perhaps even Cornwall, in its own right…) And if London were to
have it boundaries drawn a little more widely, as it should, it would make a very convincing and dominant
capital Province. That would allow the term region to be deployed for the many important units of
local government that are clearly evident within each Province.
I mention this, because the Boundary Commission
has this week been asked by
Nick Raynsford (now Labour’s Local Government Minister) to define the boundaries of
the new unitary councils which will replace the county/district system - and
which will then
go to make up each Province. Those boundary definitions will be at
the heart of this great reform, because Westminster has the chance to reform
local government generally.
And Prescott should heed the Welsh example. In
Wales. we still have (for a population less than half that of London) no
fewer than
twenty-two
(yes, 22...) local authorities, the Tories having
reformed local government before the introduction of a provincial Assembly.
It's a mess.
The English should learn
from the mistakes of the Scots
and the Welsh. They should drastically reduce the number of local authorities. In Wales, I would now like to drop from 22 to 3 yes - just
three local
authorities, three new Regional Councils with fully professional elected
representatives – see my Cardiff Fabian lecture Devolution within Wales.
Community councils would be expanded to provide the citizens' first-tier
neighbourhood-level contact with government, without remunerated councillors.
rebuilding conventions of voluntary public service at neighbourhood level. The entire constitutional structure for such a change is
already in place.
If the Boundary Commission is encouraged to think big, this
“regionalisation” could be a great, liberating devolutionary reform, capable of
reinvigorating public life – and the whole of civil society.
Those are glittering prizes.
It would be good to hear from other kindred spirits, who take
constitutional reform seriously! there are not many of us about...
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326
7 July 2002
Drugs Law Reform
My intellectual cup flowed over this week. I
listened to the Birkbeck College philosopher Anthony Grayling set out the case for
full drugs legalisation, at a very well-attended old-fashioned public lecture at Cardiff
Law School.
It was a unique pleasure to hear a philosopher with a
well-filled, well-structured mind expounding the irrefutable case for the
liberal reform of our repressive drugs laws. He pulled no punches. He
minced no words. The criminalisation of “psychotropic substances” (as he
insisted on calling them) was wrong in principle, ineffective in practice,
and unwise - as an exercise of human judgment. The case for maintaining the
failed status quo, the barren Woodrow Wilson-inspired “prohibition”
of the 1920s, is impoverished spiritually, and in tatters politically and
legally.
The question is – just how long can this shabby bit of American right-wing
religiosity hold on? Not long, he reckoned...
I became an immediate fan! I bought his new book The
Reason of Things - on the spot - and queued like a groupie to have him sign it for me, to mark the occasion. He was
keenly interested in legalisation stance of the Angel Action group, and promised
to check out (as you can, from here) the
Angel Declaration. The 500-strong
Angel Signatory List makes fascinating reading, well worth a browse – check it out.
It would be good to welcome you as an online Angel Signatory, adding
your weight to the public case for legalisation - will you consider
signing?
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327
7 July 2002
Labour and the Trade Unions
Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain
is an enterprising
politician. He is seemingly the only Minister willing to engage publicly
in matters of Labour’s longer-term political foundations. In this week’s
New Statesman he warns against the threatened break between
the Party and some of the left-wing union leaders, notably the new RMT
leader Bob Crow, and the GMB General Secretary John Edmonds.
Like Peter Hain, I am a member of John Edmonds’ GMB . I
have always been attracted by his brand of principled socialism, his clear
perception of the public interest, and his keen interest in building a better
society. John Edmonds has always been an inspiration to me. But he has been
hi-jacked, it seems to me, by a narrow preoccupation with the PFI issue, and the
“protection” of public sector employment and function, whatever they happen to
be for the time being.. He seems to have passed from principled socialist to
narrow TU apparatchik – with nothing in between – and I regret that transition.
He can no longer be relied upon for a principled socialist perspective. the GMB
anti-PFI advertising campaign represents an abuse of TU funds. So I share Peter Hain’s exasperation with this emerging TU obstructionism, which is doing Labour
no good at all.
Also, like Peter Hain, I favour the state funding of
political parties , so that dependence on both “sides of industry” can be
reduced. The trade unions are wrong to oppose that development, even though it
may seem to threaten their pre-eminence within the Party. I am
convinced that Labour should, as a matter of high priority, retain its distinctive link with the trade unions and
their intimate day-to-day understanding of the realities of workers’ lives.
Labour would be the great loser, if the Party were to become decoupled from its TU roots. It was only the arrival of the trade unions on the political stage,
with the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, which gave UK socialism its
distinctive drive and flavour. And Labour theorists need the trade unions,
to help them keep their feet on the ground.
This was present to my mind
last week I was in Bridgend,
addressing a Labour Womens’ Forum on the history of the Fabian Society. The
occasion brought home to me just how pivotal the English TU movement had been in
the Party’s political emergence. Unlike the French TU movement, the English
chose the path of parliamentary action, in spite of all its frustrations. That
has proved to be an invaluable asset to the Labour Party. The essential democratic
content of the Party is closely allied to its TU origins, as is its distinctive
respect for human dignity, and its primal sense of the equality of all mankind.
These all need constant renewal, each working day, every new week. The alliance
with the trade unions will be vital, in keeping the Party in touch with the
reality of citizens’ working lives.
Should the Party now de-couple from the Unions? Are there strong
arguments in favour of divorce?
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328
7 July 2002
Trouble on the line ahead
This week Alistair Darling, by putting a massive
£21bn price-tag on the Railtrack issue,
tried to “move on” and put the rail issue behind him, and behind Labour.
It was the right thing to do,
although the price-tag is likely to rise much higher than £21bn. He must
now use all his political skills to keep rail issues out of the political
limelight, and use the time to engineer a decisive shift towards highway
investment and improved highway transportation. It must be clear that rail
is in systemic decline, and that in the long run we will be able to afford only
a fraction of the present network, just to service our big cities. He must
also focus the new investment on the primary highway network, and lay the ground
for replacing rail by improved public road transport over large swathes of the
country.
He may be able to swerve
out of the limelight for a time, but he is bound to be back – hopefully in
charge, firmly behind the wheel of the bus, and not tripping up in front of it…
Has the penny dropped yet, for you? Do you realise yet that we
are all being taken for a ride by nostalgic, unrealistic, middle-class commuters
seeking to preserve their subsidised rail privileges?
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329
7 July 2002
Do
children have no rights?
We all abuse children. As I
develop a stronger Human Rights perspective in my own thinking, I come to see children differently.
In some respects, we are of course right to adopt a distinctive approach
to children, who have yet to mature to full adulthood. As compared
with adults, they are entitled to special understanding, special
facilities, special protection.
Yet there are strict limits to the differentiation which adults are
entitled to make, between children and themselves. Children are
entitled to the enjoyment of their own civil and human rights, except
where a derogation is justified either by a compelling
public interest (i.e. exactly as with an adult) or by
the requirements of maturation. Viewed in this way, a number of
current issues take on a different aspect.
Are we entitled to interfere with the supply of tobacco, alcohol and
other psychotropic substances to children?
Yes, we are. There
is compelling evidence that these substances are particularly damaging to
immature physiological systems, and that addictions acquired when young
are peculiarly difficult to control or eliminate. It is also difficult
for the immature mind, the evidence suggests, to make a balanced judgment
of the implications and risks of such consumption.
Are we entitled to require school
children to wear uniform, in a
"State" school? Some interference may be functionally or ethically
justified, but within very strict limits. At my own Quaker
boarding-school, Leighton Park School in Reading, they required
some form
of brown-ish sports
jackets and
some form
of grey-ish trousers, short or long. The Quaker rationale
(as with their strict regimentation of single-size plain headstones, for
Quaker graves..) was the elimination of flamboyancy in dress, and the
gratuitous display of personal wealth. That seemed sound to me (at any
rate, that was a private school, genuinely chosen as a matter of
"contract", therefore with contractually legitimate requirements..) But the
current attempt, by a
State school, to prevent schoolgirls wearing trousers is completely out-of-order.
What compelling public purpose can possibly be said to be in issue?
Are skirts a necessary part of the maturation process? Neither can
possibly be the case. The Equal Opportunities Commission is right to reject that requirement,
and to challenge its legality.
Are we entitled to dictate a
pupil's length of hair?
Of course not. There may of
course be proper functional constraints, as with an engineering student
using a lathe. But otherwise, no restriction upon a child's personal
freedom can possibly be justified. In the days when I was a parent of
teenagers, in 1986 to be precise, my son Owen faced the threat of
expulsion from his Swansea State school for refusing to cut off his
pony-tail (worn just like David Seaman...) I had to go into
battle, with a personal confrontation with the hapless Headmaster in his
Study, before the threat was withdrawn - and glorious auburn pony-tail
saved from the barber's shears.
Are we entitled to breach a child's
confidentiality, and betray secrets conveyed in strict confidence?
This is more difficult, I
acknowledge - the question has recently arisen in
connection with the Government's plans to make condoms available free to
under-16 children, without necessarily informing parents.
The starting-point must be clear,
namely that a child is entitled to confidentiality unless some overriding
public or personal interest justifies interference with that right.
NB Catholic priests must encounter these problems
all the time, but I
do not know
any Catholic priests whom I could ask -
can anybody help? There could clearly be overriding
public interests (for example, if the confidence disclosed evidence of
crime or its concealment) or overriding private interest (if the child
were concealing evidence of a fatal infection, damaging either to
him/herself or to others). But the presumption of confidentiality
should as a matter of principle be asserted, and the exceptions put to
strict test. There is no such thing as a parent's right to
know, as is currently being argued in the media. In respect
of children, parents should be assigned responsibilities, but given
no rights.
Are entitled to chastise children,
beat them and smack them?
Regular readers will know that I completely reject the right to smack.
The Victorian defence of "reasonable chastisement" is a stain upon our
society, and should be removed (March '02
Smacking Children, a barbaric
practice) It is a gross infringement of their civil rights.
Finally, are we entitled to coerce
children to go to school at all? Are we entitled to roam the
streets arresting them, setting the Police upon them, and frog-marching
them back to school? No we are not.
Was Frances Amos justly imprsoned? No
she was not.
What we are entitled to do is to
create a civil obligation, binding on all "guardians" to secure the proper
education of all minors in their charge. And it is true that such a
civic duty might in extremis be enforced by imprisonment, as with any other
disobedience of a Court order or requirement.
But that is all. The
deployment of the criminal law is inappropriate, and should cease.
We should keep the Police well away from our schools. Ours is an
increasingly repressive and punitive society, and "my" Labour Government
is tragically making its own repressive contribution to that process.
The good society (as my Hero of the Week philosopher Anthony Grayling
puts it) is one in which individuals are free to pursue their own
image of a creative and fulfilling life.
Good for Grayling!
I am keenly aware that this is highly contentious territory, and that
many other views are held, even on the Left - what do you think?
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The Welsh have a word for it. In Welsh, the word for
"province" is the same word as for a component “state” - i.e. within a overall sovereign
state. The word talaith serves both purposes, which is a
significant fusion of meaning, perhaps ambiguity. Unol Daleithiau means the United States. And
“the
Provinces of Canada” would be Taleithiau Canada – similarly,
it is perfectly acceptable to talk about Wales as a talaith of the United
Kingdom...
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My own theory is…
...that the Government will now embark
on a number of high-profile debates, to engage public opinion and distract
attention from its up-coming decision not to hold a Euro
Referendum after all. Let's face it, to hold a Referendum next year, on the very narrow
and insubstantial issue of the Euro, with the public in a high state of
anxiety about the future of the civic order as we know it, would be
an act of political madness.
Labour
would simply create a platform for all the nastiest nationalist and
xenophobic elements in our society, while running the very real risk of
defeat. Why do that? My view is that Gordon Brown will help out Tony Blair by taking
responsibility for “cancelling” the Referendum, asserting UK
independence of judgment in the process, thus laying firm ground for a
2005 Labour victory. Labour would win that Election, on a pro-Euro
manifesto, and Tony Blair would take us into the Euro in the following
year, on the back of that "mandate".... He would then hand over to Gordon
Brown, giving him a three-year run at
winning the 2009/10 Election. And Blair would be ideally placed to become
the first President of Europe. Clever, huh?
Unless you know different...
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