Not Yet Out Of The Woods

Militancy resurrected!

2012-01-29T10:10:00.001Z

This is in response to Left Outside's post titled Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition should officially and unequivocally object, to everything, even good ideas, loudly and often

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I'm not a Labour partisan (not by any means), but I strongly disagree with this. Labour will never gain my support unless I can be persuaded it is credible on the issues.

Left Outside is entirely correct in recognising the 'game-changing' effect - overlooked by many on the left - which results from fixed-term parliaments. Rather than being forced to gamble on the prospective date of the next election, the leader of the opposition can now reassure himself that the cycle is fixed and can succeed by pacing the speed he pedals.

Activist commentators such as LO, The Third Estate and Sunny Hundal's crowd at Liberal Conspiracy are gradually coalescing around the strategic vision for a more militant opposition campaign of iron-clad stonewalling on policy. They are building fresh barricades.

For them no longer is politics about policy and the impact on the lives of ordinary people, but the impact of policy is about who is in charge of introducing it. There has been a subtle, imperceptable shift in opposition attitudes, radicalised by the expressions of populist disapproval seen during the past 20-or-so months, which has now reached the point of no return.

These bloggers formerly defined their concerns by their willingness to engage in more discussion of finer details of policy, and grew their reputations on the back of their ability to contribute. Now, however, they are increasingly making the transition to talking about partisan strategic concerns and in doing so are separating their contribution to political analysis from their assertive political conclusions.

It's a natural progression for the social climbers to change their behaviour while maintaining the same appearance - call it the anti-chameleon process.

I also disagree with Miliband. He won't gain my support if he says the problem with the coalition is a question of leadership - what does the man who gave his full backing to Brown and Brown know about leadership? Complaining about a lack of leadership is a perverse self-contradicting argument anyway - why issue a complaint whent you have the opportunity to set an example?

Yet where LO strikes out at Cameron's chameleon-like attempt to mollify floating voters holding the centre-ground by tacking left and

"trying to appear electable, trying to appear “in-touch” by visiting the arctic, liberal by hugging hoodies and as a better heir to Blair than Brown could ever be,"

he fires a corresponding volley out against the Labour leader for tacking right and appearing tough on fiscal choices, benefits claimants and offense caused by backbenchers as unnecessary - it almost seems the leftist grassroots are not so much complaining about the particular type of leadership offered by Labour's supposed Prime-ministerial candidate, but that he might be attempting to show any leadership at all!

Indeed, I previously discussed the background to Miliband's personal unpopularity (even leaving aside his impossibly unstatesman-like demeanour, appearance, voice and speaking-style) and have elsewhere described for former energy secretary as Labour's William Hague.

Just as Hague had not yet then developed into a politically-mature performer buoyed by the acknowledgement of his limitations as much as his capabilities, so too does Ed Miliband carry with him a schoolboyish air - in this he is about as realistic a contender for the country's top job as Michael Foot.

The issue for Labour is not policy, it is personality.

The question being put therefore is how can Labour lose the next election in order to detoxify after the damage done by Blair, Brown and Mandelson?

Can Yvette Cooper effectively represent a feminist take on financial prudence? Can Chuka Umunna throw off his multi-culturalist's link to social conservatism? Could David Miliband make a decisive return instead of dithering?

It seems unlikely with so many of Labour's prospective frontline figures trying to keep their heads just under the parapet as the 'difficult decisions' are made to deal with the current crisis. So perhaps LO's post is important for indicating onlookers' expectations should be prepared for the left's more extreme voices to be tasked with sticking the knife in (a la Michael Howard) and for more violent expressions of opposition over the coming period.

There is a more direct comparison in the rise of Militant Tendency in opposition to the Thatcherite agenda of the 1980's - which effectively scored an own-goal by presenting a political vacuum at the heart of debate as the radicals polarised debate through the prism of the Miner's strike, Section 28 and the Poll Tax riots etc.

So we might well ask if Labour are preparing for an extended stay in the wilderness.

As LO insightfully notes, it comes down to a matter of timing. It all depends whether the challenge for the Labour leadership comes in anticipation for the 2015 General Election, or after it.

And in acknowledging the significance of the electoral cycle he overlooks how every individual is already locked into their own cycle of growing political maturity - in other words when the challenge comes depends on the ability for the internal factions to align behind a winner.

Do budget cuts or balls-ups cause social unrest?

2012-01-20T10:55:00.002Z

I'm indebted to Ben Whitham for pointing me in the direction of this recent study (pdf) by Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Voth published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research entitled Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009.

Apart from the fascinating insight into politicised academia I found this a remarkable and timely account of the intellectual arguments put forward to support a pre-eminent left-wing position against cuts, which is popularly cited as evidence that blame for last summers riots rests with the coalition government - as Derek Thompson argues, "Austerity breeds Anarchy'.

Closer to the mark, however, is Eric Johnson's thoughtful analysis, as he distinguishes between the triggering events and the subsequent effects: "Social disorder is contagious."

While Ponticelli and Voth show a link between fiscal retrenchment and social instability, the jump to the conclusion that austerity causes unrest is actually unsupported by their somewhat clumsily presented statistical evidence (a less generous critic would surmise they are attempting to drown out the contradictions to their prefered political theory). However hard you may try correlation does not imply causation.

The authors immediately mark their card as sympathetic to the continental left-wing anarchist tradition by promoting the Marxist-Deleonist view that "The extension of the franchise in Western societies has been interpreted as an attempt to heed off the threat of revolution."

Supporters of liberty and democracy, on the other hand, defend the position that greater participation by the people in their own government creates a more robust, responsive and reliable system of government better suited to public needs and desires.

So voting can either be a way for traditional ruling classes to appease and passify otherwise revolutionary and rebellious tendencies or an effective means to measure and follow the will of the people by holding our representatives to account.

Obscured by their clunky handling of the data Jacopelli and Voth do however provide several highly significant contributions. Firstly they conclude countries with more constraints on the executive are less likely to see unrest as a result of austerity measures, while adding that the main factor determining the level and seriousness of unrest to occur is exacerbated under circumstances where these are not applied, and that media penetration within a country is largely neutral in both regards.

In other words unrest is not caused by cuts, but unrest is intensified when it is percieved to be legitimised by the action or inaction of political opposition.

Last summers riots which targetted consumer havens were the product of a general culture of protest cultivated by opposition to the coalition, which the official opposition were unable or uninterested in preventing. Labour organised the protests, the protests spawned the riots.

Following the Arab Spring, student protests and trade union strikes, the riots were a natural progression for those who wished to express their increasing frustration and dissatisfaction. The failure to produce any end-product despite the apparent momentum built up by a slew of anti-coalition headlines only redoubled the palpable sense of anger.

The violence of the rioting was caused by a combination of both the active failure of the opposition to stymie budget cuts (because they'd created the pre-election economic crisis) and the passive failure of the opposition to restrain agitators (who they didn't wish to discourage for political reasons).

So, contrary to popular wisdom, this summer's riots cannot be blamed on coalition policy of fiscal retrenchment, but the extent of the violence should be ascribed to the manner in which the opposition conducted their strategy.

Yet with this firmly in the rear-view mirror, Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls has clearly decided to go down the same path again.

His speech this week that 'We cannot reverse tax rises or spending cuts' was followed up with a more detailed video interview in which he criticises the current policy as failing and states his party will continue to oppose them.

Confused? You're not alone.

Although Ed Miliband's left-hand man was immediately attacked by union leader Len McLuskey for the public sector pay freeze he advocates, and some feel this tactic will suitably impress swing voters in marginal constituencies, their course has had 'a numbing predictability' about it which threatens to cause a split in their support by provoking the long-standing loyalty to Labour on the left into outright revolt.

If the combined smugness of the two Eds could be harnessed by linking them to the national grid there would be hardly any need for a green revolution, but the paucity of supportive comments seems they are intent on it come what may. One can only hope it is benign.

Speaking up for Scots - a referendum on independence needs democratic legitimacy

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000Z

All sorts of scare-stories surround a future Scottish referendum - from practical questions about the debt rating of an independent nation to more emotive fears of a new wave of Highland clearances.

Yet amidst all the manoeuvering by both the pro and anti-unionists seeking to define the framework under which the question will be answered (in particular whether it should be a straight in-out decision) the respective leaders at Westminster and Holyrood retain one glaring blindspot.

Scotsman columnist Bill Jamieson is entirely correct when identifying an "effective disenfranchisement which could undermine the referendum vote as envisaged," but perhaps not in exactly the way he intended.

According to the consultation paper on the draft referendum bill (pdf) regarding the mechanics of a vote, "eligibility to vote is based on that for Scottish Parliament and Scottish local government elections" - in other words normally-qualified and registered residents of Scotland will cast their ballots.

On this vital choice facing a nation, any Scots who take advantage of the British union to live in other parts of these isles will not have their voices heard - despite the unquestionable fact that they did so at least partly because a guarantee existed that their full political rights would be maintained. And that's before you even start to consider those who've taken advantage of the right to freedom of movement in our union with continental partners!

This not-insignificant number of people not only has the potential to change the outcome of a referendum, but could be more seriously affected by the most dramatic form of mooted constitutional change because of the potential effect on their ability to vote in parliamentary elections where they live, and therefore have a pointed interest in proceedings. Admittedly Irish citizens living on Merseyside, Anglesey or in Kent have a special exemption to vote in all UK elections, but this right is not reciprocated for Irish national elections and is by no means assured in the event of secession for citizens exiled across the northern border given persistent questions over the anomaly between citizenship and residence.

Just as not all people living in Scotland are Scots, not all Scots live in Scotland. In fact only 84% of Scottish-born people are resident in Scotland, and the remaining 16% will be excluded from expressing an opinion on the future of their birth-nation in any future referendum as things currently stand.

Of the c.800,000 Scots who live in other parts of the UK the largest group (over 1/4m) live in or around London and the smallest (24,387) live in Wales. We might well ask 'how do these groups feel about the advantages or disadvantages of Union?' So far nobody has, and until now it looks like nobody wants to.

So while we hear Scottish Nationalist leaders stubbornly fulminating that they 'will not be dictated to' by any English tories and we hear those same English tories privately gossiping with glee at the prospect of boosting their Westminster majority and prominent members of their number identifying with a rising tide of English nationalism in the Conservative party in order to further a different agenda, the rest of us might be forgiven for thinking the interests of both sides are aligned and there's been a secret stitch-up by these in-laws to arrange a divorce, even if or precisely because it excludes the very groups of people at the sharpest end of the deal.

Can Scottish independence give Scotland a real voice, if it is to be achieved by silencing Scots?

Current estimates put the total population of Scotland at 5.2m in 2011 (up 5.4% on the previous year), with maximum voter registration hovering about 4m (a rise of 1.5%). Meanwhile 1,991,051 people voted at the 2011 Scottish general election, representing a turnout of 50%, down from 51.8% in 2007 (historical stats can be found here), and spurring plans to add 3% to the electorate by lowering the age limit from 18 to 16.

Clearly there is a large and increasing body of scottish opinion going unrepresented. This creates a false balance which misrepresents Scots and reduces the legitimacy, credibility and sustainability of any decisions made in their name. Whichever way a referendum goes it should be because the full democratic rights of those concerned are respected, not in spite of them.

Whatever happens a rejigged mashup of the Hokey-Cokey cannot be on the cards.

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This is an amended version of an original post which can be found here (it got mangled in the drafting process).

The Open Society - Is it OK to be selfish if you are an oppressed minority?

2012-01-10T20:00:00.001Z

The debate about disability allowances simultaneously raises a vital question relating to different visions for society and masks how this is being distorted by popular attitudes to austerity.

While it is easy to empathise with groups of people who suffer through no fault of their own, the reaction of these same groups to current policy belies how different political approaches can serve to exacerbate or diminish suffering by promoting different social perceptions of what is acceptable and what is not.

Campaigners can be excused for focussing on their particular interests, but excessive reductivism promotes the view that every case is exceptional, ignoring the overall impact of the sum of the parts.

Lucy Brown provides some statistics showing the numbers of hate crimes against disabled people increased by almost 20% between 2009 and 2010 - from 1,294 to 1,569, or about 2-3% of the total number of reported incidents of crime motivated by 'hate'. She attributes this increase to government scaremongering based on ideologically right-wing desire to institute cuts.

Sue Marsh went further to launch a swinging partisan attack against LibDems for debating the issue of welfare payments based on unreliable assessments used to determine eligibility. According to her even debating the issue promotes ignorance by inciting criticism, which she says is proved by the statistics showing a rise in disability hate crimes.

Yet, as Scope proudly advertise, since they published their 2008 report, Getting Away With Murder (pdf), awareness of disability hate crime has ‘increased massively’. As we know from many similar awareness raising campaigns, the purpose to improve reporting of incidents is to tackle the issue by gaining more successful prosecutions and educate on effective techniques for problem avoidance - indeed, as the national coordinator of the Disability Hate Crime Network, Stephen Brookes, comments, "Hate Crime against disabled people is not generally increasing. Confidence in reporting it is!"

So why does increased reporting of incidents tend to lead to inferences of increased incidence? Well, that’s the problem with using search engines as a primary source for information gathering, you find links to organised campaigns and opinion supporting these but no reliable facts upon which to make a properly informed judgement: causal links between prevalence, incidence and reporting are unfairly and automatically assumed.

In fact there are strong similarities to the social shift in attitudes towards reporting of other crimes, particularly violent sexual offences, including rape. As the social issues surrounding reporting sexual crimes began to break down under the pressure of rising awareness of the problems, so it was natural that authorities would see an approaching tidal wave of cases, at least in hindsight. For some at the time, the rising case numbers indicated more crimes were being committed, for others it shone a light on a neglected social ill, but for practitioners it reflected methodological problems in measuing, evaluating and dealing with such crimes.

The feeling of being oppressed does create a seige mentality, however, which views all efforts to engage with wider issues as a harmful dilution of the original group cause, despite the self-perpetuating problems it creates. This applies equally with pressure groups now wishing to oppose welfare cuts in the interest of progressing disability rights, just as it did then with conservative institutions wishing to use all their ability to cling onto their patriachic positions of power.

Both 'broad' and 'narrow' protectionist outlooks are completely at odds with the vision of an Open Society. Protectionism depends on an inverted causal interaction based on a flawed conception of social relations in which the behaviour of individuals is controlled for good or otherwise by a mysterious puppetmaster constantly pulling our strings from somewhere in the shadows of the state, whereas the Open Society opposes the nagging nannying tendency of the Big Brother state.

Of course a period of austerity will never be plain sailing for those in need of assistance, but if disabled people wish to live in a truly equal society then they must stop habitually condescending to partisan opinion and begin taking greater ownership of their situation by suggesting more solutions for the economic plight we are all suffering.

If you wish to complain about the greed of the bankers (and their accomplices) who caused the financial crash, then it does no good to validate their moral position by refusing to accept any discussion of reforms which affect you because they can insulate themselves - it is simply, and massively, counterproductive.

So, no, emphatically NO, a sense of being victimised is absolutely no excuse for bad choices, especially when it leads to the perpetuation of victimhood.

Clegg and the 'open society' - an introduction

2012-01-07T10:00:00.001Z

LibDem leader Nick Clegg gave a welcome gift to party faithful before the festive break, giving speech to the think-tank DEMOS (full text). Remarkably it was both widely discussed (here, here and here) and well-recieved (here, here and here).

In it he laid out what liberalism means for him, and a compelling explanation of how the liberal tradition is different from what other parties have to offer.

He described liberalism as supportive of an 'open society', while conservativism and socialism respectively advocate a 'big society' and 'good society'.

And within a strangely-symmetrical format he identified five threads to this liberalism:

no unfair barriers
wide dispersal of power
sharing of knowledge and information
fair distribution of wealth
internationalism

These practical concepts translate into related ideas of social mobility, participation, transparency, prosperity and peace. And it does this by marrying meritocracy within a democratic system of pluralist politics.

In what came as a bit of a shock to some he argued that coherence requires these ideas do overlap in many areas with those of other parties, and are broadly compatible with different descriptions - the 'open society' stands against the 'closed society', not a big or good one. Rather than opposing the demonised partisan versions of opponents in a bitter axiomatic struggle, it is the manner of the struggle between different philosophies that plays it's effect on society - if the manner of engaging in debate is constructive then politics is constructive... but equally the reverse is also true.

So perhaps quoting Karl Popper may have been a less well-thought through idea than originally intended.

Nevertheless Clegg's emphasis on coalition cooperation while creating distinctions with his current partners and offering hints at a potential framework for shifting alliances in future made for some interesting politics.

Over on the LDV thread I noted that Clegg has promised to put some policy flesh on the theoretical bones of his analysis in the New Year to explain how it is possible to ‘rewiring social relations’ to ‘build a responsible capitalism’, so I asked whether the most productive thing would be to hold him to his word and try to influence him by offering a few suggestions (feel free to add your own).

For constitutional obsessives, wonks and nerds alike, the first matter returns to reform of the upper chamber of Parliament. But for economics obsessives, occupiers and tea-partiers alike, the culture of the market is paramount and this raises questions about city bonuses and the potential of a 'mansion tax'.

In more relevant terms the current Welfare Reform Bill is progressing through the Lords, while the forthcoming NHS Bill is causing anxiety among the grassroots as preparations are being made for the policy forum at Spring Conference.

Meanwhile Clegg himself appeared on the Today programme to open up discussions on the contemporary side of his 'open society'.

Well, responding to this call, I think it's worth taking up some of these issues and instigating a mini-series of blog-posts to examine the subject in a bit more detail. Stay posted!

Europe needs ERM-3 to solve the Eurozone crisis

2012-01-02T14:25:00.022Z

Prior to the New Year period the matter of the Eurozone went somewhat into hibernation as the resources supplied by Europe bought some breathing space, or, alternatively, as political commentators attention was distracted towards the acrimony and triumphalism which accompanied Cameron's veto/attempted veto.

Indeed Greece has sufficient funding from the 130bn Euro bailout to pay it's bills until March, when the matter will reach a head again. At which point Germany and France will have to decide if they can support lengthy subsidies for their peripheral partner.

More pointedly they'll be asking: 'is Greece a special case or basket case?' Let's hope they're making their minds up.

You can guarantee, however, that this will get entangled in French Presidential elections as opposition socialists demand fiscal solidarity is written into the continental pact in exchange for any concentration of financial powers and Angela Merkel is tempted to concede to the issue of Eurobonds.

The problem remains that Greece is headed in a different direction. The IMF reported a fortnight ago that sufficient reforms are not deep enough (pdf) while 'unnamed officials' expressed concern that even the 50% 'hair-cut' on privately-held government bonds may be insufficient.

This position has since been picked up and augmented by national media reporting tax revenues for the year-so-far have fallen behind expectations and 7.5bn from the Winter quarter is not achievable. The result will be that the target for the 2011-12 Greek deficit has been revised from 7.5% to 9%, and will probably exceed 10% when everything is added up.

This is no mean difference, with the contraction in the Greek economy adjusted from -3% to -5.5% in 2011 and continuing to shink 3% through 2012, projections for the elimination of the Greek deficit are being pushed back from 2020 till after 2022-23.

The IMF reports details one particular area where the country lags: tax evasion.

Ekathimerini perfectly expresses the challenge: "unless the government finds a way to contain tax evasion, there is no prospect for any improvement in state revenues."

Yet with on-going popular unrest at the era of austerity, and the prospect of no new dawn in sight this decade, Greeks are actually showing their displeasure by refusing to pay taxes which many see as being channelled to fund the extravagant lifestyles of the people who they blame for creating the mess in the first place.

It's a vicious circle and one which the rest of the EU may feel perfectly justified if they wish to wash the blood from their hands over the matter. However if markets take fright and see this as a prelude to collapse of the single currency this would amount to using a razor-blade for soap - which is like placing an accumulator bet when you're playing Russian Roulette!

The IMF predicts total Greek debt will peak at 187% of GDP in 2013, provided growth returns, although this is uncertain if the can't pay-won't pay attitude isn't addressed.

But while Costas Douzinas asks whether using austerity to treat the disease is worse on account of the pain caused to the vulnerable, Commerzbank's Peter Dixon asks whether the universal chaos caused by the alternative cure of leaving the Euro is the greater risk.

Although Greece only amounts to 2% of combined Eurozone GDP, the impact of contagion from the inevitable devaluation of any New Drachma will also, inevitably, depress global confidence and hinder growth.

Conversely, Standard Chartered's Peter Sands comments that the Eurosummit failed to provide the leadership on growth and this is actually hardening market opinion that the probability of Greek withdrawl is increasing, adding "ultimately, the current structure and shape and scope of the eurozone only works if the market believes it's worth supporting."

It is, he says, "a path-dependent problem."

With financiers gleefully pouring scorn on the confidence of politicians, a fresh battle is in the offing. If Greece does depart, traders will place their bets in turn "to test the resolve to defend the positions of Portugal, Spain, Italy and, ultimately, France." How much are tax-payers prepared to back the house?

So obviously the start of January marks the beginning of a new campaign of rhetoric between the anti-Europeans and the pro-Europeans. Can the Euro become the world's reserve currency? or can it even survive?

As is typical of these debates, Iceland, Noway and Switzerland are brought into the equation as counterweights to show how independent currencies can prosper within the European Economic Area but outside the Eurozone, nevertheless overlooking the question of real versus perceived sovereignty and the cultural difference between these prospering 'northern' countries and the 'southern' countries under threat.

Competitiveness and productivity are interlinked questions, so the answer you arrive at will depend on the premise you start with - is market power stronger than political will? do hundreds of millions of individual decisions outweigh the decisions of hundreds of millions of individuals?

For me, this is is a destructive question which helps nobody, and neither the future of the Euro nor the future prosperity of Europeans will be solved by asking it.

Previously, I examined this question in greater detail, noting that sovereignty and territorial integrity are a dual-principle - each demands the other in a mutually-dependent relationship. This is absolutely relevant for the issue of the Euro.

By tradition and history Greece has been isolated territorially, not only on the periphery, but also with no land border to the rest of the union (until Bulgaria became an EU member in 2007). For political integration such isolation can be overcome up to the point at which economic considerations take effect and the realisation that the transfer of fiscal competencies is made impractical by the impossibility of free trade while transiting additional borders and the inflexibility of centrally-designed rules undermine both growth and stability. This is the point we've reached - geography is proving an immovable object to overweening ambition.

Yet the concept of territorial integrity also offers a prospect of a real and lasting solution.

Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007, Croatia concluded negotiations in 2011 and is expected to accede on 1st July 2013. Of the remaining Balkan countries only Bosnia has not yet applied formally (though it would be fasttracked) - Serbia, Bosnia, Montenego, Kosovo and Albania could all join as early as 2015. Due to it's sizeable population and position neighbouring the Middle-east Turkey is a more difficult proposition, while Iceland looks to be heading for a referendum over full membership in the next few years.

Each new member is required by the Maastricht Treaty to accept legal obligations requiring the country to seek to join monetary union, upon the condition of meeting the defined criteria. These involve restrictions on government deficits and total debt, on interest rates and inflation, as well as on currency convergence.

Following the collapse of the ERM on Black Wednesday on 16 September 1992 a new mechanism for currency convergence was drawn up, officially coming into place at the end of 1998 - unimaginatively, it was called ERM 2.

Instead of the ERM's artificially restrictive 2.25% fluctuation rate (except Italy, for whom it was set at 6%) ERM 2 accepted the new reality that had been in effect since 1993 and allowed currencies to vary by plus or minus 15% compared to a rate fixed upon entry. This limit was set primarily to account for the Franc's volatility against the Deutschmark, and save them the embarassing losses created during the Bank of England's failed intervention to prop up Sterling which led to Black Wednesday and the ousting of Margaret Thatcher, just at the same time as European currency regulations were being liberalised to encourage the same types of speculation which gave rise to the practises of high-volume hedge funds.

When Greece was accepted into the Euro in 2001 only Denmark was left within this convergence group, but has since been joined by Latvia and Lithuania. Of the remaining members Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Sweden have accepted the obligation to join the Euro upon meeting the convergence criteria and provided they have completed two-years participation within ERM 2.

As the result of conflicting referenda in 1993 and 2004 Sweden chose for political reasons to stay out of ERM 2 in order to resist membership of the Euro. For newer members of the EU the ECB has indicated this is not an option and these countries are part-way along fulfillment of the requirements.

So looking forward to the end of Greek austerity in ten year's time the whole of Eastern Europe and the Balkans should expect to be Eurozone members - barring any further economic calamity.

Sweden, Denmark and Iceland have given themselves the option to join the Euro, the UK has the option not to do so, leaving just Noway, Switzerland and the countries of the former Soviet Union. It should be no surprise that the level of commitment to the process is directly related to the sense of a nation being integral to it.

But Sweden also went beyond simply meeting the convergence criteria to help promote them as the sensible economic rules which formed the basis of the same European Growth and Stability Pact that is now unravelling because they weren't applied to Greece.

Given that Greece leaving the Euro would be the cause of that economic calamity what steps can be taken in the next ten years to avoid it?

Well, here it's time to get a little bit imaginative and support calls for an equally-unimaginatively named ERM 3.
This would be designed specifically to introduce regional convergence as the stepping-stone to continental convergence - adding a gearing system to the currently stratified 'multi-speed' Europe to provide the capacity for acceleration and braking and sufficient flexibility to move policy without either causing any new market shocks or becoming subject to them.

ERM 3 would allow Athens to become a Balkan leader, speeding up integration with it's neighbours and softening any damage to continental unity caused by withdrawl from full monetary union, thereby reducing the social pressure created when politics and economics are pitted against each other. Instead of resurrecting the Drachma and failing to prevent the chaos caused by the volatility of a free-floating currency, setting up a pan-Balkan currency able to vary by up to 25%, or even 50%, would provide a more flexible resolution to innumerable conflicts.

The Balkans didn't give birth to the phrase 'Balkanisation' for no reason - in remembering that the European project was originally about ensuring Germany and France never go to war again, we should be inspired by their example and relate this lesson to more recent wars in Bosnia and Kosovo to understand that integrating individual parts of Europe such as the Balkan peninsular must be the stepping stone towards unifying Europe.

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NB The Vickers Commission suggests it might also be worth the EU and IMF having a look at the endemic culture of corporate tax evasion among northern European nations via opaque systems of dividend arbitrage. This $100bn share-dealing market is designed with the 'central purpose' of avoiding taxes.

Does financial responsibility imply fiscal conservatism?

2011-12-22T14:00:00.004Z

As policy-makers search for ways of sorting out western economies the term 'fiscal conservatism' has gained currency as a preferred synonym for financial responsibility; obviously by Conservatives themselves, but more surprisingly by many self-identifying progressives too.

While all sides agree that financial responsibility is a pre-requisite for good government there is less agreement about what this means in practise exactly and whether an economically right-wing approach is actually desirable for the economy.

Financial responsibility translates on the right as efficiency and plans to reduce state intervention and regulation, while on the left it means an effective policy on growth and stability with state welfare systems at it's heart.

For some, nostalgic for the boom years of the mid-1980s under Reagan and Thatcher, lower income taxes and axing wasteful policy totems are the incentive for investment and self-betterment. For others, nostalgic for the ka-boom years of the early and late-1980s under the same leaders, unemployment spikes, industrial strikes and the devastation done to state-dependent social infrastructure are the horrors they define themself in opposition to.

According to the IPPR's Adam Lent et al in their discussion paper, Labour faces a quandary, however, as uniform opposition to every spending cut allied to a determination to deficit reduction makes their aspiration for social justice through expansion of the welfare state incredible. The left's aim to 'protect living standards' therefore equates to their espousal of an ideological reversal.

Betrayal, you hear the cry!

But the battle passed its' boiling point when the public largely accepted the need for at least some austerity - whither the public, hence the politicians.

Co-author Hopi Sen picks up a selection of Labourite responses, most notably (and predictably) from Blue Labour's John Wilson - in which he self-conciously echoes Kinnockite mantra to specifically support the idea that "balanced budgets are a precondition for political radicalism."

Meanwhile, although several specific problems are quickly identified with the doctrinaire prescriptions these fresh converts deduced from their newly favoured ideological nostrums, the partisan spectacle of claims that "there is nothing right wing about fiscal conservatism" are almost too bizarre to be true!

So let's understand what we're talking about: fiscal conservatism means taxing less and spending less, or vice versa. Either way it means shrinking the state and shrinking state deficits, as one prong of conservative economic policy (which, we shouldn't forget, is designed to create a mutually-supportive relationship with conservative social policy).

Within that stricture variations between libertarians, supply-siders and deficit hawks can be found: libertarians profess a wish to 'starve the beast' of taxes as a form of crash diet for state spending; supply-siders argue for tax cuts as an economic stimulus which pays for itself; deficit hawks see spending cuts and tax rises as the best way to reduce deficits.

Yet this would hardly be of any interest if it weren't that the shift towards fiscal conservatism wasn't also a shift away from an opposing perspective.

The almost universal consensus which has existed since the depression of the 1930's that 'Keynesian' anti-cyclical deficit spending (ie on economic stabilisers and strategic infrastructure) is the way to boost growth is breaking down, while a similar consensus developed in the 1980s that stability could be ensured by gaining greater control over monetary policy has similarly been under attack.

Governments habitually integrate into their rhetoric some degree of supply-side reforms and Keynesian stimulus, offset by an undercurrent of raging war between the deficit hawks and doves according to conditions, while the economic libertarians tend to attach themselves to the supply-siders just as social democrats do to their Keynesian confreres in the hope of exerting a stronger influence. Their problem is that with huge monetary stimulus provided by recent tax-payer funded bailouts and quantative easing on top of already seemingly permanent deficits monetary policy tools have been largely exhausted thereby pushing the political focus back towards fiscal policy.

For LibDems traversing this policy challenge the shift has been painful. Not only did it mean forming a coalition with bitter rivals, but it meant trying to justify the change in approach. Though for me change provides the necessary counterpoint to the status quo of conservatism, the tenor of general opinion more accustomed to avoiding such paradoxes for the sake of maintaining perceptions of reassuring clarity was enough to create significant resistance at the polls.

Clegg and Cable have had their difficulties in defending the thrust of this new direction, but in one major factor they've proved their liberal credentials by rejecting outdated dogma irrelevant to the current needs.

Debts ballooned beyond the point of sustainability as conservative monetary policy allied to liberal fiscal policy under the delusion that unending growth had banished concern about stability, so as monetary policy was loosened by force in the face of the crisis fiscal policy required tightening to keep a handle on the deficit and prevent recession turning into depression: to be financially responsible did imply urgency for fiscal conservatism, but it certainly doesn't imply any necessity all other things being equal - it is merely one legitimate policy response useful under specific conditions.

All of which leads to the unavoidable conclusion that in their haste to remain electorally relevant Labour is now making the case for the LibDems. Remembering the overt tactic to demonise LibDem leaders, calling them a 'human shield' (among less glamorous epithets), this makes Ed Miliband's position increasing untenable - at least in moral terms!

Labour's shifting sands - from general election to general strike

2011-12-14T22:00:00.050Z

Since the 2010 General Election delivered its' stunning no-result, commentators and strategists alike have been struggling to cope with the change this has wrought on British politics.

The outright dismay seen among LibDems at PM Cameron's schoolboy confusion between negotiating tactics and demands backed by a less-than-cast-iron veto is merely the latest episode of the reality saga - anti-europeans can continue to crow before the dawn of a closer Euro-state they perversely helped instigate, blind to the fact they will be left behind, weaker and more isolated as the economic storms rage about us.

But the main story remains as yet undisturbed - how is Labour coping with the fact of coalition?

In hindsight the seeds of this question were sown when Brown replaced Blair in an uncontested ballot to hammer the final nail in the coffin of 'big tent' politics and destroy the 'New Labour' coalition. Part-strategy, part-methodology, Blair's 'big tent' combined with his 'big conversation' to include dissenters and win votes - quite literally this helped the vibrant Blair reach the parts stale Brown couldn't.

So when Cameron and Clegg hatched the Conservative-LibDem coalition after Brown attempted to dictate terms to the junior party it was clear Labour's subsequent leadership run-off would need a real contest and a real debate. Instead, what the public got was the reassertion of the internal status quo distracted by sibling rivalry, as the real powers behind the party took their revenge, by fixing the nominations to purge the shadow cabinet of those they denounced as 'Blairites'.

During this period of the parliament the trade union-led opposition to cuts verged on extreme ideology, completely ignoring Labour's earlier 'Darling Plan' as the party turned inwards during the process. Even Roy Hattersley was quoted at the time criticising that "Too much time has been spent fighting the battles of the past and talking about the cuts."

Yet it wasn't until the attempted 'general strike' the day after Osborne's Pre-Budget Report this Autumn that commentators started to wake up to the fact Labour had sprung the political trap they'd set and had come away boasting a "tattered reputation for economic competence."

Labour's populist rhetoric on economic strategy has also run parallel with their stance towards LibDems. Ed Miliband effectively won the leadership as the figure most able to 'transcend the old factionalism', yet he did so by mutely echoing the unionist outrage at the new coalition occupying Downing Street and stating himself to be 'appalled by the Lib Dem surrender to the Tories', going so far as to state "They are a disgrace to the traditions of liberalism."

While he was correct insofar as liberals are a notoriously self-critical bunch and it was a simple task to play for sympathy along those lines, calling for members and ministers alike to jump ship and defect for the sake of progressivism, it was shocking for him to issue judgement on those terms considering he professes to believe in the fraternity of democratic socialism and he had only recently disposed of his own brother. Judge thyself, neighbour.

Such inconsistency was always liable to be unsustainable, and so it proved when opinion polls began solidifying showing Labour would require LibDem support in the event of a fresh election to hold a majority. Miliband's outright opposition began to be tempered by this reality, and rather than obsinate refusal to cooperate with LibDems because of apparent policy betrayals he conceded explorations of a future LabLib coalition, personalising his attacks and stating his demand for the resignation of Nick Clegg before a potential deal with LibDems in any future hung parliament.

This first shift in Miliband strategy was balanced by elevating Ed Balls to his shadow cabinet in order to press the argument that the coalition government was weak on economic growth because the coalition was dominated by 'ideological' voices determined to prosecute a policy of austerity and 'starve the beast' of state. But while the Eurozone crisis continued to grow so the threat of spreading contagion undercut internal Labour consensus as the spectre of the 'Darling Plan' returned to haunt them.

Now, with Europe dominating the meta-debate on the economy so a new shift in attitude towards the LibDems is becoming apparent as prominent figures see an opportunity to drive a wedge between Clegg-the-negotiator and Cameron-the-vetoer.

Seen in this light Douglas Alexander's 'genuine offer' to cooperate with LibDems represents a coded message that the balance of debate within Labour has moved away from Balls' political opportunism allied to trade union intransigence. The shadow Foreign Secretary's argument that "the public will reward politicians who show serious statesmanship, not shrill showmanship in the face of economic events" stakes his unspoken claim as a potential alternate leader, and Ed Miliband's appropriation of his line that "Cameron walked out having prevented nothing from happening and having failed to secure any of his demands; that is not called a veto - that is called defeat" is the perfect demonstration of who is really scripting those soundbites made at the despatch box.

Indeed, with the Labour leader's popularity among grassroots members collapsing since July due primarily to his position on the strikes and his tenure in the job increasingly being marred by his fundamental errors at a strategic level, questions are being openly raised about Ed Miliband's ability to take Labour through to 2015 and the next General Election - not least by brother David's comments that he may make another leadership bid to keep the rumour mill churning (albeit only in his home region), or from descriptions of his 'woeful performance' when offered an open goal at PMQs on Europe - from supposedly friendly sources!

Most jarring in Ed Miliband's lexicon is his insistence that his opposition "won't take lectures" on economics because he doesn't like who's giving them. It indicates the truthfulness of less-friendly reports that Miliband is overreliant on his shadow Chancellor: "Ed Balls is too stubborn or too vain to realise his strategy isn't working... The Labour Party is being sacrificed on the altar of his vanity." So say 'internal sources'.

Labour's underlying problem, however, is the longstanding division between their heartlands and their headlands - between voters who are predominantly northern and working-class and candidates who are predominantly southern metropolitan intelligensia. This tension is perfectly highlighted by the two siblings, progeny of Jewish emigre and Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband, and representatives for the relatively deprived and insular areas of Doncaster North and South Shields.

While these areas typify the still raw legacy of 80s Thatcherite social conflict the oft-quipped veritas that such constituencies would elect a donkey if it wore a rosette of the right colour remain true, although so too does the sad fate of 'lions led by donkeys' into the brutal hailstorm of political debate.

Striking for justice?

2011-12-01T11:00:00.004Z

After two days of political spectacle, what have we learnt?

Well, there's a number of things which are being said and several things which should be said in response, so if you're not sick of reading about it already, here's my take.

The strikes were not a demonstration of opposition to public sector pension cuts - the important facts are that strike votes were taken months ago before the first pension deal was offered and the strike occurred while discussions are still ongoing. In reality the strike was timed to coincide with the Chancellor's autumn PBR, and was designed as a political tool to express more general opposition to the coalition's austerity programme which George Osborne laid out in his statement to the House of Commons.

2m people think the country didn't vote for the coalition - in an electoral system under FPTP nobody votes for a coalition, yet it is certainly true that more people voted for the coalition parties than the opposition parties. The main question falls on whether LibDem supporters voted for austerity, but it would also be fair to ask whether Labour supporters voted for the disruption their backers have instigated when turnout among trade union members on the subject also suggested strong divisions. Polling bears out scepticism towards striking, indicating the political motive has overriden the economic motive.

The private sector debate does influence the public sector debate - while private sector workers have traded job security and benefits such as employer pension schemes for higher pay, public sector workers have traded higher pay for security and benefits. Equalising the status of one with the other sounds wonderful in theory, but the reality is that the conditions of each have created a divergent dynamic, and their respective status is already balanced: pension and benefit cuts for those in the public sector are being matched by pay cuts and increased job insecurity in private companies.

In a democracy you deserve the government you get - public sector workers have fooled themselves into the assumption that Government promises are worth anything more than promises made by parties in opposition: governments change and policies change with them, conditions change and parties adapt too. We know that state income has always been treated like a political slush fund to favour the latest interest group, and pensions are no different. If you make a demand for a promise which you know can't be kept, it makes no sense for you to then complain after those willing to tell you that it can find out that, actually, it can't.

The state pension has been under pressure since it was first conceived. While the bods in Downing Street sold us on their moral missions, those clever beancounters over at the Treasury did not concede to introduce it out of any moral compunction, but because they saw an ability to recycle cash and increase the nation's credit-worthiness to enable increased spending across the board according the the standard Keynesian model.

This model has broken down. It did so because where the additional spending could previously be justified on economic grounds to 'get things moving again' during declines, it began to be used during periods of relative economic health under Gordon Brown's Chancellorship from 1999, and increasingly so as he angled to become PM after 2003, thereby blunting any effect during the following downturn as the totals became unsustainable.

Keynesian economics uses the term 'anti-cyclical deficit spending' for a reason, it means spending on a rainy day and infers saving for it.

So if you haven't saved for it, there's nothing in the kitty when you need it.

Which is just as Liam Byrne explained.

While Callaghan was wrong in principle when he stated "it is no longer possible to spend our way out of recession" he was however correct in practice that this depends on your national credit rating - so we should be very wary about managing interest repayments by breaking the other of Brown's rules, to borrow only to invest.

Updating Berlin's 'Two Concepts of Liberty'

2011-11-21T08:50:00.001Z

This is written partly in response to Giles Fraser's questions "What is liberalism?" and "What is 'good' freedom?"

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When in 1958 liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin set out his epoch-defining argument of a dialectic between 'Positive Liberty' and 'Negative Liberty' he laid the theoretical foundations for the rebirth of liberal politics in the post-war period.

This perfectly-balanced rational understanding of human motivations spurred the regrowth of Britain's Liberal Party and consigned traditional duopolistic confrontation to irrelevance.

In fact, it was so successful that it broke the ideological deadlock between conservatism and socialism which had gradually brought Britain and the world to its' knees, through christian democracy and social democracy which threatened to, and offered the only effective route out of the seemingly inevitable social strife and economic decline.

The detente of the mid-1970s transformed the political arena when Margaret Thatcher successfully seized control of right-wing debate by replacing 'conservatism' with 'negative liberty'. Labour's subsequent internal revolution during the mid-1980s then enabled Neil Kinnock to replace his own party's 'socialism' with 'positive liberty', symbolically completed by Blair's Damascene 'Clause IV moment'.

For a while the fate of liberal politics hung in the balance as the swings between right and left appeared to be reasserting the oppositional style of debate, reflected by the mirror images of Thatcher and Blair's three election victories, Major and Brown's abject defeats and the transition between aggression and consensualism and back again which marked the styles of each premiership.

But throughout this period something interesting was happening to the true inheritors of Berlin's vision: first with the short-lived support for minority government, then with the defection of the 'Gang of Four' which resulted in the evolution towards a refounded 'Liberal Democrat' party just at the point in history when the Wall of Berlin's own nominative city fell and reconcilation affected the nations of Europe. Until finally, at home, with moves accepting the productive possibilities of coalition government in an oppositional format realised after the 2010 general election.

But as we've seen the path to establishing the supremacy of liberal ideas hasn't been smooth. Indeed liberal ideology continues to be used to divide liberals as the practical debate over application of principles leads to disagreement over the degree to which positive and negative ideals should be emphasised.

The same debate has remained to the fore as extreme examples are presented showing how these ideals can be abused when unbalanced. The street violence in the wake of the ongoing crisis and policies of austerity are a prime exhibit of this mis-matching of cause and effect.

Berlin himself indicated the solution to this theoretical dichotomy when he proposed a pragmatic stratagem of 'elective affinity'.

So how does the ability to analytically distinguish and make trade-offs between, rather than conflate, our understanding of liberties impact upon the terminology of political debate?

While supporters of liberalism pre-Berlin stood opposed in equal measure to supporters of conservatism and socialism, this no longer applies and Liberal Democrats must unite behind a common language or be subsumed by the inheritors of a state where personal responsibility and state intervention are incompatible and their interrelation lost.

I propose a three-fold format.

Firstly, we clearly identify the opponents of liberty, with whom cooperation is impossible. They are the illiberals.

Secondly, we must identify the unreliable supporters of liberty, with whom we must attempt to cooperate in order to advance our mutual interest in freedom wherever realistically possible. They are the mono-liberals.

Finally, we should ourselves agree that we belong to none of those groups and articulate it. We are the pluralists. We are the liberal democrats.

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It makes no sense to argue about whether liberals are 'classical' or 'social', either in political or campaigning terms. It simply divides us from ourselves and hinders our progess.

If the Liberal Democrats are to regain the initiative then the party must simply resist attempts by the other parties to conduct debate on their terms. If the party stands for anything then it must be liberal democracy.

5 Myths About Exceptionalism

2011-10-13T14:00:00.003+01:00

Myth 1
There Is Something Exceptional About Exceptionalism - well, maybe not yours, but definitely mine.

Myth 2

I Am Better Than Others Are - look, I can see all your blind spots, and I can also see I don't have any.

Myth 3
My Success Is Due to My Special Genius - from all the adversity I've suffered you'd wonder why I wasn't dead and buried long ago, so you can't blame my luck.

Myth 4
My Contribution Is Indispensible To The General Good Of The Outcome - without me it wouldn't be the same, and it certainly wouldn't have been as good.

Myth 5

God Is On My Side - just as I am on the side of angels.

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I'M LOUD THEREFORE IM RIGHT AND MY OPINION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO SAY.
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Culled and perverted from the exceptional SM Walt feature in FP

The Afghan Question

2011-10-08T12:50:00.008+01:00

Yesterday marked 10 years since Nato went into Afghanistan.

In this time British troops have officially suffered 382 deaths, and the direct cost of British involvement is estimated to be rising close to £10bn.

Has anything changed in this time?

The involvement was initiated because of links between the Al Qaeda's global terror threat and the Taliban. Afghanistan was under control of Islamic extremists, providing shelter, training and a focus for jihadi terrorists. The international community was outraged by human rights breaches and widespread persecution of minorities, women and almost any outside influence.

Then came the intervention. Nato teamed up with the Northern Alliance of pro-western tribal leaders and Mujahadeen, but wasted the opportunity to militarily destroy Bin Laden and co in battle when they were cornered in the Tora Bora region. Nevertheless we successfully installed Hamid Karzai, and democratic elections confirmed his status.

Conditions have largely improved for the people of the country, particularly with regard to health, education and cultural freedom. Electricity and clean water supply is no longer the exception in the towns. Poppy production has been removed from headlines as wheat prices have risen and productive trade has returned where order reigns under standardised market conditions. International relations are broadening, with the improving standards of the Afghani national cricket team a beacon for all.

However, ongoing lack of security and growing corruption are the cause of much concern among the population and foreign commentators alike.

Perhaps this is a sign of rising expectations resulting from the rebirth of civic institutions, but equally it represents the ever-present threat that a drawdown of forces would mean to Afghan society as the west struggles with mounting death-tolls and military costs associated with occupation while the global economy experiences a down-turn and the manoeuvering of internal factions in preparation for total withdrawl.

And this is the major problem of the ideological battle being fought out between the two sides.

Afghanistan exists at the furthermost reaches of civilisation and Afghani cultural history identifies with this border mentality. The land is at the crossroads of the routes which lead from the sub-continent, to the steppe, and from the orient to the occident. The people have seen everyone come and everyone go.

From Alexander the Great to Ashoka the Great, from Buddhist reconquest to Islamic reconquest, from Mongols to Mughals, to the British Empire and the Soviet Empire and pretty much everyone in between: Afghans have seen them all. The one thing which they know is that everyone leaves eventually.

This singular fact cannot be emphasised with sufficient strength.

It's not for nothing that the country is known as the graveyard of ambitions: it is strategically impossible to hold militarily for any protracted period without a supporting global political solution, simply due to its location and geography. Their land has been ruled by everyone, but it is still their land. They know all alliances are temporary, as a man's word is nothing without a knife at his throat - you simply cannot trust someone you cannot look in the eye. The only people you can really trust are those who stay by your side - whether they are your brothers, your cousins, or your guests.

Because it is a land at the limits of human survival and everything is subordinated to the ability to endure.

It doesn't matter whether that means taking the sides of people you disagree with for temporary advantage and doing their bidding today only to turn tomorrow, or practising utmost flexibility while promoting absolutism: Afghan society is the realisation of the influence of power politics, just as Afghanistan is the realisation of the influence of surrounding powers.

Ultimately Afghans must take charge of themselves and Nato efforts to build an Afghan National Army are the first vital step to achieving this. But the corollary is that Afghanistan must also be integrated into the international order for the same old independent and rebellious nature not to resurface and turn either inwards and devolve into another civil war or become infested with a deeper sickness and become entangled in a new 'Great Game' by seeking alliance with those of more sinister motives such as represented by Iranian nuclear ambitions.

The west would be wrong to indicate in any manner that 'we' are ever set to abandon them. We must convince them that they cannot settle for what they have, and we will not leave them to fight over what they've built until it is completely destroyed; we must convince them to join us on humanity's shared journey because we won't reach the destination without them. We must convince them and ourselves that our fates are intertwined.

But that doesn't mean that Afghanis should fear the prospect of a permanent occupation, on the contrary, it should allow them to reach a point of understanding in which various military installations can become a strategic bargaining chip in much the same way as former Kyrgyz President Bakiyev has used the Manas Air Base north of his capital Bishkek (a vital supply route into Afghanistan) to extract concessions from the international community, ensuring a basic level of political stability - and in return acknowledge that there are universal standards which are to their advantage to move towards.

Because the Afghan question is not so much 'what does the West do about Afghanistan?', it is more a matter of 'how do we find the means to explain to ordinary people in every corner of the world that our similarities are greater than our differences?'

It is a question of resolve. It is a question of political will. It is a question of humanity.

With Karzai promising to stand down in 2014, coinciding with Obama's promised withdrawl date, this question is being posed again. And Afghanistan once again stands at the crossroads.

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There is an interesting comparison to be drawn between British and American attitudes towards policy which leads to protracted intervention.

Every week at PMQs the Prime Minister and party leaders metronomically recite the names of military dead. Initially it was as if by rote, seemingly ordered by the military command to issue a budgetary reminder, but later as the list grew and the memory began to persist so the human investment began to dwarf any pecuniary measure. Meanwhile in the US, Congress and the President are silent, GOP candidates are silent and the debate revolves around bringing 'our troops' back and 'nation-building' at home.

But there is a problem with using Libya as a model for regime-change: it legitimises civil war as a tool of foreign policy, creating a global ballpark dynamic where smaller powers become fielders for a new 'great game' of international diplomacy, and thereby encourages destabilisation of weaker nations - the exact same thing Nato went into Afghanistan to put an end to in the first place. Flip-flopping from one extreme to the other does nothing but create a circular and self-fulfilling argument of greater destruction and greater polarisation.

Ultimately this is debate which can be reduced to the academic simplisms of liberty, authority and security - it is about finding the correct prescription for the correct diagnosis, not about emphasising one to the exclusion or neglect of another, but equally and more importantly it is also finding the means for the international alliance to agree and work in concert to the same ends.

Because if the world order cracks on the back of domestic politics then those ancient Afghan sages who are prepared to simply outwait outsiders will be proved right again; Nato will fracture into dissent, turn inwards and spend its time fighting against itself. And the futile adventure will resemble evermore closely the vanity project of its' critics descriptions.

Can't see the forest for the trees? Make kindling

2011-10-06T18:00:00.002+01:00

I love this sort of internet communication. It just brightens up my day.

Published by the overtly political 'news' organisation Newsmax the transcript of an interview promoting the 'Aftershock Survival Summit' is typical of a swathe of internet-based information sources. And it's precisely the kind of thing which gives the medium a bad name.

Forgetting completely that the company structure is specifically designed to promote a particular worldview it would be easy to get drawn in by all the button-pressing triggers it uses in its' attempt to convince the reader. But it's so professionally crude that a reader could almost be forgiven for not making the effort to resist rising to the bait.

The whole thing is beyond parody (though not satire, though I'll save that for another occasion, though I've already started thinking about it, though I can't really be bothered, though it'd really be quite easy, though my life is filled with enough useless crap as it is, though this could be the most important thing ever, EVER!).

Starting at the beginning, the edifice of respectability begins to be built up as soon as you reach the gateway - which should be the point at which your alarm bells start ringing, if you're not aware of the angle of entry before you reach the threshold then you really should be questioning what it is trying to reflect.

To the external air of respectability a measure of gravity is added with various sympathetic noises.

This stylistic technique breaks down the appearance of authoritarian barriers and is used to create a sense the report-producers and participant are on your side, and all of you together are fighting bravely against an undefined persecutor, who they can handily identify for you, although not really in so many words and at most indirectly. It sets a consumer up for instinctive responses which play to natural role formulations and thereby it lulls you into a state of passive complicity which is difficult to escape. Typically, feedback mechanisms such as discussion or commentary are separated from the source to devolve any question of reliability and remove the possibility of criticism (fair or otherwise), while simultaneously still benefitting from the measurable tornado of links that can be relied upon through the human tendency to gossip collegiately about half-understood ideas. So, even in the simple act of stimulating your solidarity, the method games you by deliberately setting you up so that they hold the keys and have all the means to keep you out. It's cynical propaganda at it's unobtrusive best - like a spider luring you closer into the centre of the web. It's trickle-up power accumulation. And you're left only wanting more.

The reader is swamped with information and baffled by allusions to 'facts' taken out of context.

'Crystal clear' distinctions are made and basic explanations emphasise a 'common sense' perspective - but common sense is not the same thing as good sense. Singular poll results are treated as objective gospel particularly if presented by ideological opponents (CNN says '48% Americans see a second Great Depression' - notwithstanding the 'Great' depression was less severe than the 'Long' depression), the basic maths allows distortions to grow beyond any sense (National debt measured in Trillions between 1900 and 2011 - not measured in adjusted per capita terms or as a proportion of GDP), while selected periods are provided without explanation specifically to justify the conclusion (Dow stock prices rose 300% from 1928-1982, and 1400% from 1982-2006 - which results in a comparison between peak-->trough and trough-->peak). It's pure populism preying on the petty-minded sensibility of the insecure masses.

It's commerce packaged as public interest news, wrapped up in free gifts.

While presenter and guest collude together in their own little world to discuss private obsessions (here market data and economics) the real motivating interest is assumed at all times and levels to be selfish (never mutual or altruistic, never enlightened and never balanced - how weak!). So long as you've already bought into the precept and been hooked by any one of the plausible peices of 'evidence' or their interpretations then you'll be content to seek any self-affirming post-rationalisation to reinforce the original false choice and deny your own culpability. Essentially the interview is an advert for a book produced by flavours of the month - the links to order free copies (shipping costs $4.95) is a simple data-mining exercise which reverse-engineers standard mass-marketing techniques and is easily cross-referenced with voter databases for targetting in campaign donations or for canvassing purposes. As they say, "No pressure - no gimmicks - no strings attached" - exactly, it's straight-up psychological blackmail, gimmicks and fraud (at least it would be in this country)!

It's not serious, it's very serious semi-serious, semi-entertainment.

To give them their due Newsmax and other political 'news machines' are relevant to the debate and they do fulfil a valid function, recognising and identifying concerned confusion at the state of the world. However the manner of expression fails at every level because it distorts perceptions by exaggerating and dramatising suitable aspects rather than reserving qualifications - failures of omission, not of commission. The very title foreshadows a revelatory 'final chapter they tried to ban', using shock tactics as a lure, building an irresistible anticipatory premonition with the prospect of access to 'valuable secrets' - yet if the logic of this pay-off were sound and would benefit wider society then wouldn't it be better if the insights were available to the widest audience possible? which makes any commercial restrictions look perverse or at least should arouse suspicion of their worth.

Some of the analysis in Aftershock is legitimate, but the doomsday scenario and shameless politicisation throughout destroys any vestige of objective credibility about it. Of course the mass market is not set up to easily consume answers with the complexity of unknown interactions between unknown numbers of factors, but it strikes me that by playing down to the demands of the consumer it becomes impossible to raise our expectations - or is that the deeper idea?

BTW Today saw the first public seminar as part of The Leveson Inquiry into media standards. Partisanship may be less high up the agenda on this side of the Atlantic, nevertheless according to Richard Peppiatt the matter of reporting facts to fit preconcieved conclusions is both pervasive and endemic.

Swapped at birth: Carlos Tevez and Peter Oborne

2011-10-01T10:05:00.125+01:00

Manchester City's £250k/week Argentine work-horse and goal-threat, Carlos Tevez, made backpages this week by deciding he preferred to stay on the bench when called upon to help fight back from a 2-0 deficit during a Uefa Champions League group stage match against Bayern Munich. The act has been described as 'selfish' and as 'a distraction from the teams shortcomings', increasing speculation of an impending transfer.

Carlos Tevez prefers to sit on the sidelines in Europe

Peter Oborne prefers to sit on the sidelines out of Europe

The Telegraph's flatulent Thatcherite political commentator and star columnist, Peter Oborne, made waves this week when he decided to gratuitously insult European Commission representatives as 'idiots' and the 'Guilty Men' who are responsible for the Eurozone crisis during a round of TV (Newsnight clip) and other media appearances, which coincided with the publication of his similarly-titled pamphlet, supporting calls to end European integration.

Two peas from the same self-serving pod!

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Obviously the Union of European Football Associations is completely immune to any form of administrative or institutional corruption whatsoever and operates absolutely perfect competitions with a completely level playing-field offering perfectly equal access and opportunity to all, and equally obviously the European Union is an evil unaccountable institution completely ridden with corruption and maladministration which is unsuited to the needs of the separate economies of 27 member states.

We get sweet FA, obviously

- It's like comparing apples and oranges.

Not like Europe, obviously

- See, even their logos are circle and square!

The continuing Eurozone crisis is an opportunity for LibDems to show leadership

2011-09-22T08:00:00.000+01:00

There are only two possible results to the Euro-crisis: 1) collapse of intra-European trade, or 2) greater European integration.

The first has far-reaching negative implications for Britain, Europe and the world. The second indicates a massive area for future growth in our shared economy.

While the current political challenge remains to deliver stability and growth at the same time it's up to Britain to choose to find the political will and lead on the issue because continual continental dithering and endless domestic bickering will mean economic conditions stay in the doldrums until the Eurozone countries wake up to the fact there are no other options and they forge ahead on integration without us, leaving Britain scrabbling for crumbs from their table as per usual. If we want to set the terms of agreement and see the full benefits then we must resolve to fully commit to the process. Which means the real question is how much of the former are we prepared to accept before we move on to the latter.

As the only committed pro-European leader at Westminster, Nick Clegg is smart enough and sensible enough to understand this, but his frankness in offering regular reminders won't help him win popularity contests any time soon. So perhaps he should be bolder in challenging public opinion in order to reap the political rewards later - after all there's still time to get this strategy to pay dividends before the next election and most commentators argue he doesn't have much left to lose. Having the courage of your convictions is a virtue which he - and we - can make the most of.

While the real possibility of Greek default grows ever nearer Clegg appeared to lay some foundations for giving the European project a vitally-needed boost during his widely-reported speech to the LSE by indicating his favorability towards shifting the British position to be more active on European integration:

"In terms of the Eurozone, the real failure has not been the original concept of monetary union. It’s that the rules were never applied stringently enough. The Stability and Growth Pact was actively watered down in 2005, allowing members to wriggle out of their fiscal commitments to each other. Now we are seeing the effects."

"The single-most important question, the urgent question is what role can we play in helping the Eurozone avoid further turmoil, creating the stability needed for prosperity and jobs – in the Eurozone and in the UK too."

With rising consensus that the coalition's deficit reduction plan has assured stability while restricting ability to boost growth there is no time like the present to use the LibDem reputation as a long-standing advocate of European integration to our advantage and strike the note of clear differentiation which members and potential supporters alike are desperate to hear. While Conservatives have forced themselves into a dead-end on growth, Labour lack credibility on stability, yet neither want to talk openly about Europe and the way their actions combined in tandem to undermine the Stability and Growth Pact.

As Clegg said, "we'll do whatever it takes to return our economy to health," but while we can pull all the right levers at home to provide a temporary demand stimulus it must also mean creating the conditions for sustainable growth by increasing cooperation abroad and driving ahead with integration to complete the single market and guarantee the four basic freedoms.

We cannot put stability at risk by loosening fiscal policy now, but neither can we avoid integration out of a misguided sense of patriotic pride when growth is at risk. Perpetual focus on stability results in stagnation, yet myopic focus on growth leads to escalating volatility – only the LibDems can successfully balance these twin impulses and therefore we must speak up more forcefully in the national interest both of Britain and each of our European partners.

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Crossposted at LibDemVoice

Don't discount the LibDems yet!

2011-09-21T09:00:00.003+01:00

Surprisingly, the Evening Standard keeps coming back and asking for my view on issues libdemmery. This time they obviously wanted to capture some dissent regarding an unusually smooth conference. Sorry, no joy there!

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This year's LibDem conference has been an extraordinary affair. Where media commentators travelled to Birmingham expecting discontent at poll ratings to spill over into widespread revolt against the leadership they've come out reporting the businesslike nature of a serious and professional agenda-setting event. The party has successfully positioned itself at the front and centre of policy debate tackling the full range of public concerns to give far-sighted and level-headed answers on everything from gender equality to energy issues.

A considerable resolve to resist any panic with a desire to get on with the job at hand has been on show. Throughout all the clamour for more right-wing influence on the coalition the clarity of LibDem purpose is enabling the party to grow up in the spotlight of public scrutiny. And despite all the apparent strength of opposition to the coalition's deficit reduction plan it is a remarkable fact that Nick Clegg's popularity and trust ratings are still higher than Ed Miliband's!

LibDems understandably feel squeezed between the twin forces of political choice and political reality, but in this the party experience perfectly reflects everything the country has gone through since the financial bubble burst. So any discomfort felt by activists and representatives alike offers a prime perspective to help find way to help dig the country out of the current predicament. Don't discount this peculiarly British underdog just yet!

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The real meaning of betrayal

2011-09-19T20:00:00.015+01:00

It was in watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy that I was struck by this thought.

As anyone who knows the story will be fully aware the betrayal of their nation and ideals by double-agents within MI6 was not related to circumstance but to the narrow self-advantage of temporary gain. The treasonous actions of the Cambridge group of sleepers and moles were so abhorrent because they were self-defeating - in allowing themselves to manipulated through unquestioning support of their ideals they ended up supporting a cause which stood against everything they initially claimed to believe in.

So le Carre's narrative becomes an allusion to the process of political debate as it was played out on the international post-war stage. And in this it becomes newly relevant in respect of the current debate about coalition politics in Britain.

But where the Bill Haydens set out with a polarised mindset of either being for or against their utopian vision it is the flawed and complicit George Smileys who ultimately prove their heroism by convincing his opposing spy-master Karla to defect through the means of uncovering the base corruption of values at the heart of all conflicted establishments and by seeking to set them right from within. He argues that only by acknowledging the individual as a morally ambiguous agent working within the restraints of reality can he or she triumph over the cynicism of corrupted ideals caused by the amplification of artificial differences, and thereby step closer towards a unifed universe. That all revolutions fail because they depend on the impossibility of imperfect humans achieving unobtainable absolutes is the natural corrollary which animates his enemies of civilisation.

Balancing the grimness and grit to find a way through the murk he treads a fine line, yet le Carre's artistic achievement is in how he successfully uncovers the reality of the secret world through his fictional account and thereby makes a profound exposition of the interwoven nature of political relationships in society without exposing his acquaintances in the world he knew so well. Unlike other more scandalous writers such as Peter Wright, le Carre ('the square') wrote a story of betrayal without betraying anyone - as he said in an interview "It's a matter of pride to me that nobody who knows the reality has so far accused me of revealing it."

For LibDems roundly accused of betraying students over the issue of tuition fees the story offers some subtler comforts.

It is in the difference between Smiley's slow, methodical and self-effacing approach and the enthusiasm of blind idealism transformed into ruthless murder and self-aggrandisement as represented by Hayden and his cohorts that we can start to understand real betrayal is not in changing what you say you'll do, but in changing the reasons why you do what you do.

In going against their pre-election pledge to students in order to form a coalition LibDems did not betray students and the party's commitment to education, even if the leadership did betray their word.

Whatever may be said about the advantages of ministerial cars in supporting an egotistical rump the concurrent slump in opinion polls should be enough evidence that Clegg & Co's choice to take action wasn't cynically or selfishly intended - indeed the party remains fully committed to a fairer form of financing higher education by eventually phasing out tuition fees altogether while ensuring people from poorer backgrounds are not disadvantaged by eliminating up-front fees and raising earnings thresholds for repayments.

The accusation of betrayal is a myth, and it is perpetrated by the same people who pushed the higher education system into crisis just as they pushed the economy of the country into crisis.

The accusers have sought to use the shock of disrepute against LibDems to their own narrow political advantage without explaining how widening access to Universities can be achieved via any alternative sets of financial reforms to HE funding.

The accusers have projected their own ideological betrayal onto LibDems by denying the requirement to balance idealism with reality and the need to find pragmatic solutions.

The true betrayal is theirs because the real meaning of betrayal does not depend on intentions, but on results.

Liberals against blogging? A response

2011-09-14T13:00:00.001+01:00

Recently a couple of respected liberals in the form of Lembit Opik and Howard Jacobson have declared their distaste for the freedom of speech enabled by the art form known as blogging.

Failed nominee for the LibDem London Mayoral candidateship and regular tabloid fodder, Lembit said: "the 'blogosphere' [is] a parallel universe where some people who've never been elected to public office feel qualified to pronounce on those who have."

A perfectly excecuted play from the book 'How to alienate potential supporters and lose elections'. He didn't read the book, but he saw the adapted film when he was invited to the premiere.

These are for you, Lembit. Enjoy.

Booker prize winner and columnist for The Independent, Jacobson said: "What you read is extreme ignorance and pure poison. It is a poisonous, poisonous medium. You can’t believe how malicious, how ignorant, how stupid…"

A perfectly excecuted play from the book 'The foolish vanity of a public intellectual who has to earn a living somehow'. It's a book he wrote, and then adapted repeatedly for his column so as not to lose his 'juice'.

These are for you Howie. Enjoy.

Well, if it's not one thing it's another. Right?

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What's with opinion polls? Did YouGov cause the riots?

2011-09-12T11:00:00.018+01:00

As a signed-up member of the YouGov polling panel I occasionally recieve a survey requesting my opinion. This morning I got the latest version delivered to my email in-box.

Now, opinion polls provide vital feedback on the broader political picture, but they also exist within the highly competitive world of the political economy where commentators constantly seek to provide sufficiently valuable content to 'go pro' and devote more time to their passion for politics as they seek to exert more influence over debate.

Polling organisations therefore become used for their ability to build up a reliable evidence bank for particular perspectives, with the accumulation of results establishing the mood of the nation with ever greater certainty.

Decades of refinement have enhanced the actual predictive capability of polls giving the term 'opinion poll' a measurable standing of some respect. Opinion polls have become a fact of life and now big decisions are rarely unleashed on the public without being tested on sub-sections first through various types of polls or consultations.

In the process this has elevated opinion to the rank that any and all views can be taken equally seriously - thereby stimulating the subordinate arguments that they should, must and deserve to be, without understanding the more complex point that the ends to which opinion works will depend on the means by which it is handled: we can be individually wise and collectively stupid, or we can be be individually stupid and collectively wise. And in this it raises the problem of how to seperate the two opposing dynamics when pollsters resist the means to differentiate between types of opinion.

With the advent of online polling their cost base has been slashed at the same time as the ability to ask more people more varied and detailed questions more regularly: while traditional doorstep and phone polls weigh samples of 1,000 people once per month, YouGov is able to compile and collate a similar-sized poll every day. Following its' launch in May 2000 YouGov has claimed these methods consistently produce more accurate results than traditional methods.

This view was given greater credence at the 2005 General Election when most traditional polls diverged from YouGov results by over-stating Labour support, albeit within the uppermost limits of margin-for-error. As it was Tony Blair's landslide majorities of 1997 and 2001 were massively reduced, and the traditional polling companies were shown that they failed to predict this. It has since been used as a powerful marketing concept for YouGov's methodology because the overall variability of differential swings in UK elections can easily be enough to produce completely different outcomes.

In more recent times polls which showed Cleggmania in full pomp (at one-third of respondees) after the pre-election leadership debates have rebounded showing LibDems in a seemingly endless slump (generally hovering at about one-tenth of respondees) - clearly some significant volatility of opinion is present. Although it would be foolish to try to seperate LibDem ratings from the seismic shift in politics which saw no overall majority in 2010 and the eventual creation of the first coalition government since wartime, it's worth considering other factors too, such as the difference in the polling methodologies.

I find it odd that monthly polls consistently diverge from daily polls (to the extent that LibDem results could vary by 100% between the two), so I asked Anthony Wells what effect the regularity of sampling may be having, citing my own example that I recall my earlier responses when answering. I have a lot of time for him, but I found his reply unconvincing.

My underlying point was whether the closed nature of their panel is combining with the regularity of questioning to create stale and unrepresentative results - have they 'overfished their pool'? Is YouGov reinforcing opinion rather than just measuring it?

Anthony answered that with about 350,000 registered members of the YouGov panel and a turnover of about 1,000 new members each month it is unlikely. Given his connection with the company he was never going to publicly concede the methods he depends upon are flawed, but nevertheless basic maths should raise some questions about YouGov's methodology over a long period compared to off-line methods.

YouGov's available panel is a self-selecting sample of about 1% of the voting population (other polling organisations select and weigh their samples according to demographic balance from the whole electorate), and YouGov produce political surveys about 20-times more regularly: I have had my opinion professionally surveyed by telephone and on the doorstep once each in my lifetime, whereas I am asked by YouGov for an online response approximately once every two months. As a respondent I am fully aware that I relate my latest answers to my recollection of previous answers rather than in isolation, so my YouGov replies become increasingly relative each time I am polled. And given that members of the YouGov panel can be assumed to be more politically engaged than average we are therefore more likely to be aware of result trends and more likely to be influenced by them.

The effects of this change may not be immediately obvious, but they could be powerful, particularly under conditions where social opinion is put under pressure (such as by a less than positive economy).

The simple fact that YouGov produces more results means it can effectively 'drown out' the competition and the social effect is to weigh YouGov more highly in political circles than, say, ICM, Ipsos-Mori or ComRes. YouGov is now the dominant force in the field, and perhaps this means it should be feared more than trusted.

By measuring a small sub-sample with such regularity YouGov has reversed the original dynamic of the polling project. It is no longer simply measuring opinion for the purposes of representative accuracy, but driving the polarisation of opinion for the purposes of conformity.

So it is potentially very damaging to the general political debate that political commentators are not distinguishing between the types of results produced by different types of polls. If I were tempted to take an extreme position I might suggest the correlation between polarisation of opinion towards the coalition government and the polarisation of opinion driven by YouGov's methodology was responsible for the increased level of protest seen in the rapid escalation of the violent riots.

That may seem a strange thing to say, but we saw how opinion treated as fact was the main instigator for flash mobs to spring up and cause violence beyond the control of the Police or beyond the natural restraint of a questioning conscience on behalf of those individuals who got involved. So it's entirely fair to conclude that where opinion replaces fact as a legitimate authority for action nobody should expect sanity to prevail.

As the high priests for the cult of opinion YouGov should be looking at themselves and the deeper psychological impact of their specific methodology on wider society - it's time to stop combining or conflating what YouGov's polls say with what other pollsters say.

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I tried a second time with AW, this time he offered a sceptical response to any obvious answers for the discrepancy between polls - perhaps he's being won over!

Stop rewarding irresponsibility - reform the MPC!

2011-09-10T10:15:00.005+01:00

There has been much talk about changing the 50p tax band (on income over £100,000) as a way to aid the economy, but this is in my view a completely artificial distraction from the underlying economic and political issues.

Arguments forwarded that the country needs to stimulate spending to reduce the deficit (on the basis that this will reduce the drain of wealthy consumer-investors to places like Switzerland) understate the risk of more new short-term solutions. Obviously the need exists among both coalition partners to succeed in creating a balanced budget by the time the next general election comes around, but the signal this measure would give to city institutions and the wider economy presents deeper risks.

From back in the mid-1970s when income taxes reached their zenith at 98%, the tendency to liberalise markets has seen a shift in fiscal policy towards indirect taxes on expenditure (ie through VAT) and a corresponding shift in employment from manufacturing towards retail services (including high street banking). And whenever government commitments overextended the consumer dollar was increasingly seen as a bottomless pit, the destination of first resort for the Treasury to squeeze by stimulating spending another notch.

Yet the banking and financial crashes of recent years indicate a tipping point has been reached as high levels of personal debt coupled with low levels of personal savings mean the public is almost squeezed dry.

I mean, how much worthless tat could you fill your Christmas stocking with anyway? How much turkey can you fill your obese belly with? Break all your toys before dinner time? Collapse in an intoxicated stupor over the toilet bowl after? Who cares, just enjoy the holidays!

Interest rates of 0.5% mean saving responsibly has been disincentivised in favour of borrowing up to and beyond the capacity to repay. Successive governments have virtually wiped out pensions and prudential investments by abusing inflation as valid economic tool in favour of the casino capitalism of risk creation, and now exceptional policies such as winter fuel payments are vital extra assistance because the money given to the state to pay for a standard retirement has been frittered away by transfering wealth to people demanding they have it all today. And let's not forget the policy challenge to public health and education systems funded by debt.

Economists are widely predicting a decade of stagnant growth and high inflation at or above 5% (currently 4.4%) will be required to sort out the current problems, and this has lead some to argue the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee has failed, since their primary responsibility is to keep it in the 2-2.5% range.

Back in 1997 it was one of the headline initiatives of the incoming Blairite government to give independence to the BoE on setting rates, justified on the ground that it depoliticised one of the primary policy tools available to government where the previous regime had patently failed by getting things spectacularly wrong during the ERM fiasco (raising rates from 10% to 15% in a single day to support the currency, thereby causing mass unrest in the housing market as 'negative equity' became a byword for political irresponsibility).

It had been a LibDem idea, and Labour's Gordon Brown over at No11 was sufficiently suspicious of it to use a succession of methods to maintain the control he'd publicly disavowed. Primary among these was the system of appointments to the board which ensured the political balance was favourable to the party in power (economists such as David Blanchflower - an MPC member from 2006-9 - could and can still be relied upon to defend the political aims of Labour), thereby exposing the lie and highlighting the effective non-independence of the MPC.

I was originally enthusiastic, but I've since grown critical of the naivety of thinking that economists are able to think independently of political motivations - indeed the more I learn the more I realise they are often among the most political people around. Since they've immersed themselves in a career of calculating research data to provide supporting evidence for the positions they assume economists uniformly tend to be the least open to logical argument, and they are psychologically incapable of denying themslves because of their doctrinaire adherence to whichever school of thought they were raised within or currently subscribe to. They irrationally avert attention from the role of their agency within the social forum of debate: economists are epistemological-empirical totalitarians.

In fact when we look at MPC predictions for inflation they consistently show two things, that all predictions for the future will bring inflation on target within two-to-three years, and that all previous predictions in the past have been wrong by increasing factors. In other words their decisions have increased inflationary volatility where their task was to do the exact opposite.

Returning to the tax issue, it strikes me as particularly odd that the coalition government (who's stated intention to rebalance the economy by encouraging export-led manufacturing) should be open to spending stimulus, even though more quantative easing was rejected by the MPC. It suggests either there is a budgetary problem on the timing of plans to eliminate the deficit, or that tories want some ideological meat to fill their conference boots, or both.

So it's understandable that the punative symbolism of the 50p rate has become a bone of contention as different sides each argue to optimise Treasury income at a maximal level, provide a boost to the wider economy and develop greater fairness in society.

But the politics of the 50p rate are a complete distraction.

As others before me have mentioned it is possible to keep a 50p rate by raising the level at which it is levied (eg from £100,000 to £1m), it is possible to increase fairness by raising the levels of personal allowances (the zero-rate) to £10,000 or higher and the level at which the basic and other rates are levied, just as it is more than within the scope of possibility to introduce intermediate 25p, 35p and 45p rates to improve Treasure balances. And there's absolutely no problem with doing all these at the same time - in fact differential impacts would be minimised by implenting all simultaneously as that would provide greater potential for flexibility. Alternatively it is also possible to do nothing about it and use a variety of indirect tools instead.

I've argued that resistance to raising the levels at which tax bands are levied to keep up with wage inflation since market liberalisation began at the end of the 1970's (tentatively under Callaghan, wholesale under Thatcher) coupled with exponential wage growth towards the top of the scale has been an effective 'double-whammy' for those towards the bottom of the society - something which has driven growth in economic inequality despite government efforts to compensate. Arguably the compensation methods themself have been counter-productive since they add complexity to the system and are therefore less cost-effective, driving the polarised tax policies of left and right which in turn requires greater efforts to reduce inequality - and the diminishing returns of successive policies increase the inevitability of confrontation with reality.

So the two-party system creates a vicious circle of political swings and roundabouts!

And efforts to reduce the deficit and restore some sanity now revolve round the issue of growth.

The range of policy options open to the Chancellor are limited. On monetary policy the Exchequer no longer directly controls interest rates, but they are at rock bottom and can't be reduced further anyway. Similarly, quantative easing has been rejected by the MPC because inflation is well above target. On fiscal policy personal debt levels mean VAT cuts would cost too much and would create additional risk of instability if wages remain depressed compared to inflation. So that leaves targetted income tax cuts with all their associated political baggage.

And this creates a massive quandry for policy-makers. Internationally the problems are virtually identical, yet Obama's desperate speech to the joint house session announcing wide-ranging measures leaving few options unexplored was in stark contrast with Berlusconi's declaration of political impotence. Both fear what unpopularity would mean for their chances of reelection, but where the US President worries about the consequence of inaction on his ratings the Italian Prime Minister sought to preemtively excuse any action whatsoever.

My solution in the UK would be to reverse my earlier position towards the MPC. While I support the concept of independence for the MPC and the effect of greater interest rate stability they have produced, they are neither fully independent nor accountable and this has resulted in them lowering interest rates too far. So I would make a one-off intervention to set rates at 2% and then set about reforming the way the MPC is constituted.

Oddly, my conclusion abut how to reform the MPC is inspired by the failure that lead to its creation.

The Exchange Rate Mechanism ran from 1979 when Sterling uncoupled from the Irish pound and a system of bilateral measures were introduced between European currencies to keep fluctuations within a 2.25% margin, thereby preparing the way for integration into a single European currency.

After having initially appreciated, Sterling then gradually fell back as trade between the participating nations grew during the 1980s, and the UK joined the ERM in 1990. By joining the party late in the day currency speculators were sceptical about the motivations of the then-tory government under Thatcher. So when prominent right-wingers including Norman Tebbit complained about spending billions to support the currency and prevent deepening of the recession speculators such as George Soros felt this confirmed the lack of commitment to the political cause of European integration and that Thatcher never intended to replace Sterling with the Euro (it's an ironic fact that Tebbit was considered an arch-proponent of Thatcherite ideology, yet his ill-considered words in her defence were the primary cause of her downfall).

Black Wednesday occurred because the Bank of England reversed it's policy to intervene in currency markets as the means to support Sterling when foreign currency reserves fell below safe levels and decided instead to take the desperate measure to use interest rates. The incident 'broke the Bank of England' and forced Thatcher from office because it showed the selfish self-interest of her and her cabinet in a way that previous campaigns hadn't (privatisation and the sale of council houses was defended as her democratising tendency, while her battles with trade unions was presented as ending harmful restrictive practises). John Major couldn't repair the damage and the separation of monetary and fiscal policy followed.

The margins of the ERM were expanded to 15% in 1993 when currency speculators began moving against the Franc, and when the Euro was introduced in 1998 the mechanism was replaced by a new system where non-members were required to stay within that range for two years before becoming eligible for entry to the Eurozone. So we can see that provided the level of variability is controlled within an acceptable level this does increase harmony and allow for greater integration.

However the jump from 15% variability to full membership within 24 months has allowed countries such as Greece to join the Eurozone single currency area and this hasn't been sufficiently strong to encourage internal reforms to develop fiscal sustainability, and the riots over current austerity plans are a direct result. Greece was not ready before joining and the lack of a physical border reduced trade benefits after joining, meaning membership was more a matter of political prestige for the nation than economic reality. Whether Greece can now retain her membership of the Euro hangs in the balance. Whether it's desirable is a matter of opinion. But when any changes occur will indicate the manner and form of union Europe will eventually take - leaving may set a precendent, while staying within the Eurozone will require a more direct form of centralised budget planning.

In hindsight a progressive reduction in variability would have provided greater motivation for reform and a better timescale for membership. How this relates to the UK picture on interest rates is in the tension that arises between centralision and decentralision.

A major part of the economic problem in Britain is precisely the same as in the Eurozone: divergent trends around different regions - what's good for the City is usually bad for the towns and shires; what's good for industry-led regions is not for service-led localities. So how is it possible to reconcile the effects of interest rates in the vibrant commuter stockbroker belts and the blighted urban cores and rural outposts where deindustrialisation has wrecked its effect? Can mega shopping malls effectively replace factories? Clearly some policy flexibility is necessary.

The principle of variability has already been adopted through the process of political devolution created for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by allowing for some revenue-raising powers to give a proportionate measure of tax variance (although these have yet to be used by nationalists for fear this would reduce any seperatist sentiment). I'd like to see this principle extended by the establishment of regional offices for the central bank, each with the corresponding competency for setting rates (within appropriate limits) and the establishment of regional bond markets (with proportionate volumes) - an Interest Rate Mechanism, for want of a better name.

It's always struck me as weird that interest rates are measured in quarters, but I think this gives ample means to allow the centralised national bank to coordinate decentralised regional offices within natural fractions. If the BoE is given additional flexibility to vary the central rate by tenths, then it's a simple matter to allow regional offices to vary this by up to one-tenth (ie by hundredths) - and, most importantly, the preponderance of the regional offices will provide a true indication of the correct direction for any national variation (ie if the vast majority of regional offices vary from the central rate in one direction, then this is incontravertible evidence in itself that the central bank should move the central rate in this direction, and equally by what amount).

The creation of such a competitive market therefore removes any ability to politicise the issues from the centre. It would reduce the abilty to obscure the political issues dividing debate. And it would provide meaningful independence within a coherent and stable structure - which can only be a healthy thing.

Obviously this would also reinvigorate the case for regional assemblies to provide political accountability for the spending of revenues in the interest of their regional economies, which carries it's own risks, but by doing so it would also reinvigorate political participation and remove the pressure on local government caused by the distribution by ministers of fixed formula grants - local people would be able to take responsibility for ourselves!

In an already over-stimulated land full of under-appreciated people struggling in a depressed economy, the last thing anyone wants or needs is fresh stimulation. What's needed is a bit of rehab.

Finally it's worth mentioning the corresponding effect on fiscal policy which would be caused by changes to monetary policy decision-making processes.

Simply by reversing the dynamic of monetary policy to be responsive to demands, rather than as a lever to control demand, it would simultaneously reduce the pressure on politicians to use tax policy as moral compensation for social inequality, thereby gradually reducing the overall tax burden by eliminating the artificial demands created by partisan lobbyists for the political choices (or failure, as they see it) of their opponents - which would in turn encourage less wasteful use of taxpayer's money.

Correspondingly, the reduction in the overall tax bill provides less incentive to company directors able to transfer their wealth between tax regimes and use other legal tax avoidance measures. Surely it is completely unacceptable and utterly perverse for anyone to simultaneously set both the level of their own income and the level of tax they pay on it, let alone for a small minority of super-rich to abdicate responsibility to their employees for the state of the country they live and operate in!

And here it worth drawing a link between criticism of the irresponsibility of the anti-social anonymous underclasses towards their communities and the irresponsiblility of the anti-economic celebrity overclasses towards their neighbours - there is a poetic symmetry in the reflection of one with the other, and the only way to resolve their opposing attacks on the general mass of ordinary people is for government to set an example by acknowledging its' own failures, and reform.

Reform thyself MPC!

'Broken Britain' is a broken analysis

2011-08-26T14:00:00.002+01:00

This is my requested response to the Evening Standard following Tim Montgomery's attack on LibDem influence on coalition social policy.

ConHome's Tim Montgomery is correct to worried about the waning influence of explicitly right-wing ideas within areas of the coalition government - but for the rest of the country and the LibDems this should be cause for celebration!

The delusion which seems to prevail among true-blue ranks that populist headline-grabbing initiatives are sufficient to resolve wide-ranging and deep-seated problems in society and the national economy if they appease enough anxious middle-class supporters in their heartlands of Tunbridge Wells or deepest Wiltshire by assigning ownership to friendly-faced party patriarchs is foundering on the rocks of Whitehall bureaucracy and on the streets of inner cities alike. Rather than complaining that due diligence into the viability of pet political projects is highlighting their specific weaknesses he would be far better advised to embrace coalition dialogue with a more cooperative mindset and understand how his doctrinal approach must be tempered to more practical effect by the reality of demands for consensual decisions with greater input from experts in the field and their partners in government.

Whilst Cameron's growing authority over Parliament continues to fail to transfer into opinion poll ratings tory loyalists are beginning to sense that coalition is damaging their chances of an overall majority at the next general election and an internal showdown at their upcoming annual conference may be beckoning.

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For another perspective here's Tom Papworth

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Wrestling with 'muscular' liberalism - a new 'global' sovereignty?

2011-08-23T11:00:00.264+01:00

So Mubarak is on trial, Gaddafi is on the run and the world is eyeballing Assad. The endgame of the Arab Spring is upon us. Now we will start to see where the direction of diplomatic policy is going to go.

When UK foreign minister William Hague visited Libya to hold talks with the anti-Gadaffi Transitional National Council after Nato extended it's mission in the country by another 3 months, it was significant as the first test of the new 'muscular liberal' foreign policy doctrine, building on the newly reaffirmed 'essential' bi-lateral UK-US relationship.

Yet all the while pro-Gaddafi forces denounced the visit as 'interference' in a sovereign nation, the ongoing violence and ensuing stalemate showed then as now that these matters are still hotly disputed.

As I ruminated earlier in relation to the Libyan situation, the difficulty in settling complex multi-faceted disagreements should be seen as a positive driving force of increasing modernity: acknowledgement of rival validities creates a competitive dynamic. From this interplay concessions can be won to raise higher and more robust standards on a wider and more secure foundation, although nobody should be fooled about the cost to be paid in terms of human life and the destruction of social infrastructure should validity be contended.

Nevertheless we should feel confident that the new constitution proposed by Libya's NTC explicitly accepts the impossibility of imposed solutions and recognises the benefit of dialogue as the most reliable means to reach lasting solutions. Rebuilding the physical fabric of the country will have to be in equal part to the redevelopment of the institutions of civic life for peace to take root, so in the meantime it's worth looking in more detail at how the doctrinal analysis shapes up.

Foundations of peace

The origins of the world order based on national sovereignty date back to the peace concluded after the first globalised war in the middle of the 17th Century - commonly known as 'the Peace of the Exhausted' (the invaluable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives an excellent - and recently revised - overview on the subject of sovereignty with an extensive bibliography).

Acceptance of the dual-principle of territorial integrity and supreme authority within a 'country' dealt the death-blow to the medeival wars of empire and religion in Europe and set the stage for a more relevant secular authority to replace the delegitimised system of perpetual squabbling over inheritances. The failure to export these principles then meant however that the European powers could export their squabbles as the peace created the conditions for industrial revolution and a consequent overwhelming military superiority over non-participating societies.

Now, as the age of globalisation is reaching its close, there is a new challenge, namely to moderate the absolute nature of national sovereignty in order to apply it equally and universally to uncover a new global sovereignty, or see the gains of modernity crumble as it is faced with a new combination of religious conviction and racial identity backed by modern military technology.

The case for a 'new sovereignty' was powerfully argued by Swedish former Prime Minister Carl Bildt in a lecture to Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of International Relations back in 2004. He drew on his experience of conflict in the former Yugoslavian states, somewhat underplaying the symbolism of the international community unifying to counteract the negative forces driving the tendency towards Balkanisation in the heart of that region in preference for stating the need for multi-layered sovereignties.

So there is a parabolic argument at the heart of this issue in that the internationalist alliance must marry successful justification for intervention with lasting solutions on the ground - a universal system of national sovereignty confers the friendly and indirect right to intervene against sovereign nations in the interests of equality by directing dirigiste policies of fairness aimed at establishing viable states capable of eventually buying into their own more egalitarian policies of freedom.

Neither UK nor US operates under the delusion that narrow self-interest alone would mandate sending ground troops into Libya or another country, but there is an overriding mutual interest in promoting peace and opportunity through global trade and the guarantee of access to essential commodities such as oil and gas energy products for wider consumption (note, not a resource-grab) as the means to promote common humanitarian concerns - the individual sovereignty of each participating ally is assured by agreement to, but only insofar as, they pool their individual powers to such shared ends.

And it is this irony which is the well-spring of continual criticism.

For instance Ivan Eland was happy that the election of Obama represented the end of neo-conservative 'jingoism', but worries this has been replaced by "an evil foreign policy ghoul... wearing the benign clothes of a compassionate angel".

He argues not only that there can never be any justification for war, but also that consistent application of such a policy during a time of economic austerity which previously landed the west in 'two intractable quagmires' will lead to strategic over-extension and will prove unsustainable as the convenient political coalition tears itself apart. For him, the mutual low regard between neo-cons and muscular liberals is not due to any practical considerations, but because they are so alike.

Peter Hoskin in The Spectator also highlighted the continuity in foreign policy theory to not sit idly by in an attempt to passively contain anti-western extremism, but to actively promote western liberal values - quoting Tony Blair in support,

"This is the battle that must be won, a battle not just about the terrorist methods but their views. Not just their barbaric acts, but their barbaric ideas. Not only what they do but what they think and the thinking they would impose on others."

Meanwhile Labourite Paul Evans doesn't seem to be able to answer his own question whether it is a right or an obligation to impose democracy on dictatorships - he just thinks we should go ahead whatever.

On the other side, for LibDems the expression of concern that such a forthright endorsement of a more assertive foreign policy which is "entirely indistinguishable from that of New Labour, or that which William Hague might exercise were he not in coalition" raises questions of the ethical basis upon which the decision to act can be taken and the morality of any means by which these values can be put in place.

Between these opposites lines can be drawn, along which we can see it's equally important to ensure the ethical means and ends of any chosen action, but similarly that events are ongoing and it's no good just sitting by - we must be actively involved. For this I have to give some credit that 'lessons have been learned' from previous interventions in setting down standards for the parameters of action based on humanitarian need and active international agreement.

When US President Obama gave his speech insisting the status quo is not acceptable, he built on his image as a leader of change outlining how the Arab Spring has highlighted the urgent need for a shift in policy to be more responsive to the popular expressions in favour of freedom and against the repressive measures used to maintain unpopular regimes (such as arbitrary arrest, denial of the right to trial, the standard use of torture, all the way through to massacring of demonstrators).

However he was also anxious to emphasise how a coherent and consistent foreign policy across the region will be determined by its application in the crucible of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Image via WikipediaObama clearly reiterated his desire for a negotiated 'two-state' solution which entailed a 'secure' Israel and a 'viable' Palestinian state - this was hardly a surprise, as it is the established consensual position among the international community. Not immediately considered an ideological ally, even Canadian foreign minister John Baird reaffirmed his backing for a return to 1967 borders.

But as Agnes Bertrand-Sanz explains, the region is in a period of political flux and the time for debate is over: the EU has a window of opportunity to exert influence over the future direction of multiple nations and western leaders cannot ignore the demands for positive change.

She criticises Sarkozy's stillborn conservative 'Union of the Mediterranean' for attempting to preserve the political status quo in countries like Tunisia by dropping 'sensitive' commitments on human rights and improvements to civil society in order to maintain movement on security, immigration and energy issues, and argues that it is necessary to apply Western liberal principles equally across the region - which means Israel must also comply with humanitarian law and show movement towards resolving the Palestinian stalemate peacefully.

However, the Middle-East peace process is already being overtaken by developments across the region which have convinced a number of commentators the two-state solution may have entered the last chance saloon.

Julia Pettengill explains Palestinian interests have always played second fiddle to the regional power-brokers.

While Syria has changed from direct confrontation to provocation by proxy in order to deflect from internal unrest, Egypt's long history of support for the Palestinian cause appears designed to exert pressure and gain their own economic concessions. By orchestrating the Fatah-Hamas unity deal to advance Palestinian claims for statehood Egypt's Supreme Military Council through the transitional national council is undermining peace negotiations because the Syrian-backed Hamas rejects the principles of negotiation and would be unlikely to respect subsequent democratic elections in a Palestinian state required to do so even in the unexpected event of maintaining its' majority.

Indeed, Glyn Secker details, this polarised solution is losing legitimacy now that the legacy of 'Cold War' perspectives is dissipating as the new liberal, democratising dynamic comes to the fore.

Settlements, settlements

Obama's departure wasn't exactly met with the warmest of welcomes within Israeli ranks either.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to warn such an approach retains limited appeal, despite growing pressure to reach a settlement, as it would leave several vocal interest groups unsatisfied. The resounding positive reception to this position among American Jews and Evangelicals gave a major boost to his own ratings in Israeli opinion polls.

Listening to right-wingers such as Charles Krauthammer starts to give a clearer indication of the reasons for this - he pointedly explains that a return to the 1967 borders cannot now be the starting point of any negotiations since this has already been rejected three times by Palestinian negotiators.

Or, in a diametric counterclaim, according to leaked documents known as The Palestine Papers, Israel has rejected outright every attempt at conciliation with their counterparts despite concessions on all the contentious issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees.

The fixing of borders, settlements and right of return are essentially transient questions of practise and are therefore 'mere' stumbling blocks to hinder the reaching of agreement rather than serious barricades of principle preventing ultimate passage, so the real issue returns to another spiritual metaphor, this time represented by the historical sites where the actual events of many founding myths and prophecies relating to Islam and Judaism are located and are identified with as constituent to each claim.

Carlo Strenger also settles on Jerusalem as the greatest problem for negotiations, albeit from a more sceptical perspective, worrying that any situation which leaves the Western Wall outside Jewish control is inconceivable.

He notes how Obama's private strategy is inevitably predicated on reelection in 2012 and is therefore liable to be more hands-off in public until that point. By encouraging Europe (UK, France) to do more of the diplomatic dog-work (such as providing UN recognition for a Palestinian state) Obama can safely delegate responsibility for negotiating territorial demands, whereupon it will be possible to return with a reinvigorated mandate to deal with the more troublesome issue of 'right of return'.

Yet with ongoing house-building deep in the West Bank, such as the recently completed Ma'aleh Zeitim community, Israelis are at least equally as engaged in this game of brinkmanship as Americans, each trying to buy time in which to influence events ahead of that coming juncture in September.

Worse still for advocates of the 'two-state' solution, the lack of any prospective quid pro quo means this is a literal non-starter since a final settlement on those terms would lead to the worst possible consequences, as Louis Rene Beres bewails with some frightening hyperbole.

He argues if a 'two-state' solution becomes a 'two-stage' solution where the return of Palestinian refugees creates demographic pressures to overturn the inbuilt Jewish domination of democratic control within Israeli borders then the great fear of xenophobic proclamations promising the destruction of Israel could be matched by the spectre of renewed genocide on home territory and the hoped-for final settlement could transform into a new 'final solution', though Carlo Strenger suggests this would easily be averted by simply including the renunciation of additional territorial claims as a part of recognition of agreed borders along 1967 lines.

Nevertheless the prophetic voices murmuring about a new Islamic Caliphate are given credence by nascent signs of a reborn pan-Arabist trend emerging from the uprisings across the region (albeit on a basis of emphasising social justice rather than ethnic, linguistic or cultural similarity) and notwithstanding the plurality of national and tribal Imams this could easily transform under the guidance of an Islamic Pope-figure imbued with supreme spiritual authority and significant financial and military muscle.

Although expressed with more typical chutzpah, the 'one-state solution' preferred by some pro-Israeli conservatives has some solid rationality when presented from the Jewish perspective - an argument which may actually gain traction were the values of religious freedom applied equally on all sides.

It appeals to Ruth Wisse, who remembers the assertive establishment of the Israeli state came about as a result of concerted resistance to 'malevolent' political forces in the aftermath of the holocaust when "there was a sense that evil in the world meant political evil" and Jews therefore became representative of 'a kind of liberal democracy'.

Yonatan Touval also takes up the debate to attack Netanyahu's assertion of the Zionist belief that Israel is a 'Jewish state' and the conflict only exists because Arabs resist the concept of a Jewish sovereignty. In particular he argues there is an inherent contradiction in a system where Rabbis determine the identity of Jews and the use of their rulings is accepted as a legitimate basis for the citizenry of a national polity.

And, as Aluf Benn describes, Netanyahu's opposition towards movement on negotiating positions for the four key points risks a diplomatic 'fiasco' by placing his insistence of Israel's 'Jewish character' at odds with growing consensus on separation of powers between church and state both regionally and across the world.

A strong push for Palestinian statehood at the UN's annual congress in September may prove successful, yet the underlying conflict between global religion and nation-states still remains and is therefore unlikely to immediately resolve all potential for hostilities.

Keys to the peace

So, returning to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the 'friendly and indirect right to intervene' in internal affairs replaced a direct imperial presence and mutual devastation was replaced by mediation directed toward forgiveness of past actions and economic policies for reconstruction expressly for 'the benefit of the other'. And at a geographical level the mystical attachment to particular locations gradually dissipated as the state was secured through greater democratic legitimacy allowing wide-ranging flexibility on territorial disputes (for instance compare the Westphalia of the 17th Century with the region of the same name today).

According to the European example, state sovereignty gradually superceded the personal inheritance of classical dualistic authority over church and military.

From Charlemagne onwards (particularly under the Ottonians from 962) the elected 'King of the Romans' - typically the commander of the strongest army among eligible candidates - had been formally required to be crowned by the 'Bishop of Rome' in Rome in order to become Holy Roman Emperor, but as religious authority waned with the introduction of more tangible forms of legitimacy among earthly rulers Church power eventually became limited to the micro-state of the Papal See in the Vatican, and within these confines the Pope now holds responsibility for diplomatic relations of the 'universal government of the Catholic Church' - this according to both the British Ambassador and the US State Department.

In effect this religious micro-state is the physical and practical embodiment of Western secularism. It offers a partial model for framing realistic resolutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict - whether or not efforts to gain Palestinian statehood succeed this autumn, or the potential for escalating violence spills over from the process of democratisation in neighbouring states.

From my point-of-view foundation of a new micro-state to represent 'the universal government of the Jewish faith' (as opposed to the current national homeland for Jewish people) wouldn't mean the abolition of Israel or any reduction in Jewish involvement in their own political affairs, but it would remove the fundamental complaint that Israel cannot represent people of all and no faiths equally which is maintained because the pressure for a state protector of Jews is irresistible.

European countries may be criticised by extreme multi-culturalists of different shades as unequal and biased against non-Christian minorities, but if it is true (and I'm prepared to dispute it) this is a product of history and no longer a cause of it because Christians can now look to the Vatican - significantly the USA only established full diplomatic relations with John Paul II in 1984, to all intents and purposes the moment when the Cold War was effectively won leading to the point where national sovereignty within Europe was regained.

It was that archetypal muscular liberal Macchiavelli who originally made the case that the Papal States were too weak to unify either Italy or Europe, yet too strong to allow unification from any other source - and that the failure to unify had been the cause of continual strife and economic divergence. Similar to Bildt he was drawing on a lifetime's hard diplomatic experience, although where Bildt opposed the struggles of racial and religious claims to reestablish a universal meaning of 'Europe' Macchiavelli navigated between the civil conflicts of the Guelfs and Ghibellines (Papal and Imperial supporters respectively) to make an as-yet unchallenged case for the secular polity of modernity which could appeal to all sides equally within the European family of nations.

This exact same argument does, but has not yet been applied to the current Middle Eastern questions. Should we do so we could see that the same logic carries us to the same conclusion. Israel is too weak to project power over the whole region, yet because her existence as a lone flame is to be protected at whatever cost she stays too strong to allow any other contender to make a serious challenge and therefore the region remains fractured, violent and home to some of the greatest disparities in wealth, health, happiness and well-being on the planet.

Condensing those 336 years of western secular development into any shortened timeframe would be certain to cause a string of other problems, but there are perhaps a few shortcuts to be made by pointing out corresponding requirements beyond the territorial integrity and supreme authority within it of the nation-state.

The most obvious of these may be the most difficult to implement: simple demarkation of the Old City of Jerusalem as an independent ecclesiastical entity, comparable to the Vatican City, effectively removing the single fundamental barrier to peace and thereby enhancing security and ensuring greater access to the disputed holy sites - to all sides.

But as with Solomon's parable, so too his city: the people cannot decide among themselves, and the moment of truth is fast arriving.

Ongoing mutual suspicion between the parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict is preventing agreement on potential forms of common interest, causing wholesale restraints on sovereign action with the result that violence is increasingly divorced from the real concerns of the people and self-determination is made nigh-on impossible. While global support networks of expatriates, compatriots, sympathisers and interested onlookers continue to remit their aid to each side the conflagration will never lack for fresh fuel, and even the faint hopes for either a 'peace of the exhausted' or a true liberation will remain extinguished.

With pressure for recognition of Palestinian statehood growing the threat of destabilisation created by the Arab Spring meant Nato has been forced to set a timescale to complete the decapitation of Gaddafi before September and enable redeployment of diplomatic force towards the more difficult problem of removing Assad from Syria and the particular strategic flashpoint of the Golan Heights.

In the worst case the terror organisations sponsored by the Egyptian, Libyan and Syrian states under Mubarak, Gaddafi and Assad would have combined with the global jihadist movement in a post-Arab Spring scenario. Add in lingering discontent from an unrecognised Palestine and the collapse of any roadmap to peace then all the ingredients are there to merge into a resurgent intifada with their sights set directly on Netanyahu's 'Jewish' Israel.

Under those conditions what liberal or democrat would ever risk trying to flex enough muscle to make the necessarily decisive intervention to win peace? Nothing less than a ruthlessly calculated certainty from a completely self-sacrificing idealist would do, and even then the nuclear option looms over the horizon ready to kick-start it all again - something which would certainly bring about devastation along with immediate exhaustion!

As I urged above:

"there is a new challenge, namely to moderate the absolute nature of national sovereignty in order to apply it equally and universally to uncover a new global sovereignty, or see the gains of modernity crumble as it is faced with a new combination of religious conviction and racial identity backed by modern military technology."

It is a challenge that must be met or risk turning back history to before the enlightenment - and September isn't that far away!

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Wrestling with 'muscular' liberalism - pt1

The long, cold summer

2011-08-12T09:00:00.013+01:00

Watching recent news unfurling a blanket of media coverage I'm struck by a typical bank holiday mix of anxiety and glee.

There's a fairground of attempts to rationalise events while we worry about where the next explosion will occur, yet also revelry in the simple fact of visceral combinations of shock and excitement. Dodgems in one direction, a Helter Skelter in the other. Freak shows and fortune tellers standing apart.

It doesn't matter which tent people gravitate towards there is a pervading mood ennervated by the certainty that something is happening. We may not know what that something is, but there is a sense that it is heading somewhere - and where that may be is inspiring a mixture of fear, trepidation, anticipation and agitiation. Only one thing is for certain: the momentum is irresistible. Just roll up and jump on the ride - it'll keep you on the edge of your seat.

In the big top are our representatives in Parliament, driven onwards by the circulations around and about.

The strong men have immediately diagnosed a 'sickness' in society, clowns express the outpourings of pain and tragedy while jugglers try to keep as many arguments in the air at one time as possible. But if you're now arguing about missing the performace the signs were there if you knew and cared where to look.

Even the plain fact that Parliament has now been recalled from recess twice in a matter of weeks should give an hint of the underlying carousel, even stepping back to the general election debate the over-reliance on security concerns were clearly exposed.

All that restraint and repression could only lead in one direction.

Media commentators and activists of all sorts were enthused about the prospects of social media technologies to aid engagement and enable us to break out of the chains, fueled by growing public competence in the ability to harness developing techniches for their usage. Cyber-warfare in Georgia was followed by protesters in Tehran using technology to organise and the first seedlings of innovation began to germinate.

A second idealistic stage marked by spring uprisings against Arab dictatorships and dissent at the official responses to the global financial crisis has now been struck by the growing reality that the situation on the ground isn't changed by warm words and consensus among the savvier classes possessing the vital commodity in this new media age - access.

And we could have realised this when the vultures began to circle over the breathing corpse of the old politics during the expenses scandal.

Perhaps we were correct that an unaccountable political culture using allowances to boost incomes was indicative of a tired and out-of-touch elite whose irresponsible complacency had allowed a combination of crises in banking and finance to balloon, but perhaps also we were able to use this to distract ourselves from the urgent requirement for effective solutions. From Barings Bank and Enron to credit default swaps and debt-financing the crumbling edifice masking corrupt and unsustainable practises could no longer be denied, but how could we prevent major collapses without storing up bigger problems?

When the rumbling phone-hacking scandal reached its' more recent zenith we saw how corporate and institutional elites became interwoven as narrow personal interests subsumed any wider public interests and treated individuals as fodder for the all-consuming machine. From Ant & Dec's profiteering to the scurrilous 'investigative' methods of reporters the true sensation was that and in how commercial imperatives were able to trump all else. And now the anger at those incidents which found no meaningful expression to channel itself has trickled its' way down to street level.

We might condemn or celebrate the criminality and attempts at bringing the return of order, but in doing so we are manipulating ourselves and allowing ourselves to be manipulated at every stage of the way by those more cynical and aware of the potential. So unless the public take the shock as a general wake-up call about the political impacts of every single choice and action then it won't end here; these few nights will be reviewed as a mild precursor of the devastating frosts ahead.

In classic British style, the situation is like a schoolyard scrap where even impassive observers are whisked into the baying crowd, egging-on the expression of animal impulses by chosen victims until the spectacle of confrontation satisfies the hunger of the impoverished powers that be. If we can't be patient for tomorrow's circus, then they'll tell us to amuse ourselves by fighting over the availability of cake while they amuse themselves by admonishing those who do!

There's nothing better than the milling around on the pier expectantly hoping to taste the possibility of a life less ordinary... or so we've been told. The thrill of the exclusive; the fantasy of the unbelievable; the yearning for the unobtainable - it's what makes us pliable, able to tolerate the moment... and willing to pay almost any price.

But this year rain on St Swithin's Day was followed in accordance with the prophecy by a drab and dreary summer - so no wonder then the lure of recuperation by the seaside was less appealling than a swift return to the Westminster hearth this year. What ambitious politico would want to huddle in their deckchair as they watch the incoming tide under a setting sun and fail to hold it back? It's chilling!

'Cat and Mouse' politics: encapsulating the riots

2011-08-10T14:00:00.002+01:00

In reality it was quite easy to predict a riot, and in fact at least one group did!

You might consider that a bit of a fatuous levity, but it goes further than the superficial.

Let me explain.

These things are always just over the horizon so the more dispassionate among society will hold their breath until the smoke starts to clear and the potential reasons and causes can be examined more clearly.

Which thread you chose to emphasise depends on which side you butter your bread - some identify the alienation and resentment of an urban youth underclass exacerbated by economic policy, some claim it is a battle for social morality in which individuals recklessly choose the 'sheer criminality' of wanton actions such as looting and vandalism, whereas others describe a rising stampede of powerless individuals disinhibited by the crowd mentality and swept along on the exhilarating ride of the immediacy of the moment.

While a simmering discontent has long prevailed at the institutional relationships with life on the streets and decades of rising wealth has been accompanied by rising inequality, the recent legitimisation of protest culture has allowed the two to merge and give voice to a sense that sections of society are being left behind and scapegoated for it - repressed in order to be oppressed.

Add in to this the potency of social media technology where a newly apparent class divide between the open networks of facebook, twitter and flickr and the closed networks of rolling news broadcasts, official communications and BlackBerry messaging networks is driving the ability to control mass choices at an instantaneous rate and we can see that almost all sponaneity and original thought is eradicated.

But if the on-going phone-hacking scandal has done anything to lift the lid on the murky and often dubious nature of connections between politicians, media, police and criminals then perhaps we would be less cynical if we applied these same lessons to the riots.

The two rules to bear in mind when evaluating potential players is to separate the coincidences from any conspiracy, and to ask 'who benefits?'

With regard to the political beneficiaries Cameron scores big by insisting commentators link the unrest and the communal resistance to it to his 'broken Britain' and 'Big Society' narratives, while Labour scores on a technicality simply by dint of being in opposition. Meanwhile Her Majesty's forces of Law and Order prove the invaluability of the services they provide - all the more urgent considering the risk to national confidence and reputation which would be caused by any disturbance to tarnish the prestige of the 2012 Olympics - right at the time when public service pay and pensions have have animated the debate over finances and in a far more forthright manner than any strike could.

As far as precise timing is concerned Parliament's summer recess is not known as 'silly season' for no reason - with all 5 major relevant figures (Prime Minister, Deputy PM, Home Secretary, Mayor of London and Leader of the Opposition) all out of the country a dearth of news and leadership stories allows for media companies to concentrate greater resources, preferably closer to their doorsteps, and subjects of normally lesser significance suddenly attract more attention from us chattering amateurs at large among the wider public.

But most damning is the repeated underlying implication from a succession of heavy-handed hints scattered through reports. Many of the arrestees were already well-known to authorities, the gangs of rioters were divided into groups numbering around a hundred-or-so, directed by what seem to be organising capos, and that the pattern of activities were not only sufficiently profuse as to avoid concentrating either in any single location or on any single source of inspiration - but spreading.

Indeed, looking at a map of the incidents in combination with hearing education secretary Michael Gove MP talk on Newsnight and elsewhere about how the postcode rivalries between street gangs have been set aside to take advantage of the opportunity and the picture of rioting begins to bear the hallmarks of the traditional underworld 'manors' reacting to the call. Equally community residents have banded together to take the place of social protectors and some evidence of violence by the established criminals towards these groups develops the picture of gang warfare, and althought the description that 'the Police are the biggest gang in the country' is a flat comparison of manners it is only inaccurate insofar as the Police are backed by the legitimacy of the law.

As we know from the insights into COBRA arrangements, political leadership does not have operational control of ground units, and cannot leverage any statutory tools due to the oversight imposed by democratic accountability. By considered this model of power as the prime method of influencing the public policy debate for those in position in the trenches as it is for those behind the lines in government the crisis created by the rioting doesn't just look predictable, but wholly inevitable and actively desirable from the perspective of reasserting the legitimacy of authority.

What I'm trying to describe is no simple conspiracy, but a nexus of interests which knot themselves around events with increasing tensions until they can be 'nudged' by whomsoever has the imagination, the determination and the contacts to take a decisive lead on the issues.

We know the ongoing Operation Trident into the capital's gun crime has a focus out of the 'fortress' of Tottenham High Road Police Station, we know that the victim of the Police shooting had a gun in his possession at the time and we know the vigil of rememberance was advertised to local politicians and media and that Police maintained a presence nearby having been warned that it could be used as a sparking point.

We also know Police tactics during the rioting were to contain the outbreaks of violence rather than to prevent it, and we know everyone from ordinary ranks to PCSOs were drafted in by Police leadership in a show of strength.

What we don't exactly know is who is the cat and who is the mouse.

And we don't yet know how to get the cat back in the bag at the end of it all.

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As Gove argued, it would be wrong to draw connections between social class and criminality: criminals exist at all levels of society - although the type and scale of their crimes vary accordingly.

It seems a big debate is growing up about the causes of the riots. Let's hope those participating can show a bit more maturity than the norm, eh?

Songs of the summer

2011-08-04T09:00:00.008+01:00

It's summer and I've been sweating on how to fill this space, so why not with some music?

Nah, you can take that one away and overload on the freakbeat's visuals instead.

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more music

Wrestling with 'muscular' liberalism - pt1

2011-06-02T11:00:00.004+01:00

"if you have a final answer, no sacrifice is too great for it... and then there is the temptation, if you think you have it, to do awful things."
Isaiah Berlin

20th Century politics and the Cold War in particular were shaped by the ideological divide between positive and negative liberties Berlin described, just as 20th Century events and the Cold war in particular were shaped by decisions made in and over Berlin. The political failure which led politicians to argue for, agitate for, and undertake those atrocities now cited as justification for current policy decisions means how we understand the intellectual issues at the heart of this matter determines how we frame the policy choices facing us to this day.

In simple terms it was, according to Berlin, the over-emphasis on either of these tendencies which resulted in the horrific failures by those political leaders who held the city in their grasp - positive liberty caused coercion on the individual, while negative liberty had to be imposed upon the state to prevent those same coercive policies (just think Chile and Vietnam).

But for thinkers like Berlin meaningful questions are those which would necessarily produce different results under different circumstances rather than this endless merry-go-round. Was it, for example, that some countries (such as Britain) saw less dramatic scenes because the politicians were more moderate, or were the politicians less extreme because the public were more conscious of historical precedents and therefore more cautious of radical promises?

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Here, I want to take this up in discussion about LibDem strategic policy direction (how this relates to Obama's recent announcements relating to the Arab world in the aftermath of the 'Arab Spring' and its impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I'll take up in another post).

As the third party in UK politics, the LibDems are often caught between the two stools of positive and negative liberty, and unsympathetic opponents on either side are naturally enough given an open goal to attack on the grounds of unrealistic idealism or a betrayal of principles. However much it hurts to admit it there will necessarily be an element of truth to both arguments which are impossible to ignore when considering recent election results, but so long as these critiques remain equally valid there is still hope that thinkers such as Berlin may offer a route to electoral salvation.

Twas ever thus. The LibDems emerged just as Berlin's ideological Cold War came to a close with the fall of the eponymous Wall, but as the traditional LibDem baiter Simon Jenkins regularly points out with such relish the party suffers from 'The Liberal Paradox' of existing within a polarised oppositional parliamentary system and this diminishes prospects of power - as he says their best hope of influence only amounts to "power for an hour".

Jenkins obviously considers LibDems as a block on his poralised knock-about style of politics. Even back in 2007 he was calling for LibDems to disband, asking the rhetorically magnificent question "What are the LibDems for?" - it wouldn't matter how this was answered, it was designed to divide.

And Jenkins has clearly arrived at a final solution to all our problems, so it's worth mentioning in this context that one of Berlin's potentially 'awful things' would be the final demise of the LibDem party without any corresponding implementation of Liberalism (preferably with a big dose of Democracy thrown in).

All the same this question is, as James Graham successfully argued, one that is peculiarly required of LibDems. Nobody really asks what Labour or Conservative parties are for because we don't need to ask, we already know who they are for. But in the battle to write a coherent narrative LibDems can't simply accede to Lab-Con wishes and state broad-brush favoritism for whatever section of society the other parties can't or won't digest, the LibDems must be able to set out their own agenda.

So Nick Clegg's speech to mark the first anniversary of the coalition government which came in the wake of a bad set of local election results (notable for the unrelenting attacks from either wing on the grounds of unrealistic idealism the betrayal of principles) is interesting for the way in which he (somewhat bashfully) announced a more assertive style of 'muscular liberalism'.

As Glen Oglaza reports, Clegg acknowledges both the need to have a distinctive voice and for it to be heard more widely.

For those LibDems dismayed that Jenkin's prediction of a slow and tortured demise may be coming true this was a timely intervention, but as I asked Simon Goldie, could 'muscular liberalism' create a unifying narrative to drive LibDem party fortunes forward and help further the advance of more liberal policies?

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First a quick recap.

The Guardian's Michael White notes the origins of the phrase date back to the 1850s when Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes are credited with inventing 'muscular Christianity' to revitalise the established Church of England in the face of numerous threats, such as evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, anarchists and atheists. This strategic doctrine fostered the zeal of several generations of imperial missionaries who carried the message of the British Empire to all the corners of the planet.

More recently, in 2003 The Economist recorded the promotion of a group of assertive liberal voices to the frontbench of the LibDems under Charles Kennedy to 'beef up' their credentials within those portfolios where the party was traditionally seen as weak - these included Vince Cable, David Laws and Mark Oaten.

And in February earlier this year David Cameron used his speech the the Munich Security Conference to attack 'the doctrine of state multiculturism' by couching it in terms of liberal values which must be actively promoted. These included freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law and equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality.

Right-winger John Derbyshire couldn't be more scathing as he percieves further loss of control to the state, "Could any notion be more contrary to the classic Tory ideal than 'muscular liberalism'?"

Meanwhile, from the opposite side of the debate, Maahwish Mirza objects to the suggestion that "multiculturalism itself is destructive and leads to segregation in society," tellingly concluding that "a strand of liberalism that works to force liberalism on to a society or hold a monopoly over culture sounds like a paradoxical idea."

In a lengthy conversation regarding the political situation of Jews in America in Standpoint magazine (I'll refer to this again when dealing with Obama's foreign policy shift) Ruth Wisse and Jack Wertheimer conclude western civilisation is itself founded on liberal values, but that it "must speak with the voice of moral confidence" in order to uphold and spread those cultural and political values.

As Wisse says, the post-war period was when muscular liberalism was at it's height,

"One had just fought the war and one knew what the war had been fought over and for and there was a sense that evil in the world meant political evil. The worst forces, the most malevolent political forces, were ranged against the Jews - Jews as representatives of a kind of liberal democracy."

Elsewhere Sunder Katwala of the left-leaning Fabian Society gives space to examine the right-leaning Demos' 'interpretion' of the doctrine.

Max Wind-Cowie argues it always serves political, economic and strategic interests to create a link with open and democratic liberal values because this ensures security and prosperity.

In an interesting twist (and in more considered language) Katwala thoroughly slams this 'impractical' ideology for failing to engage with the "real and legitimately contested debates" of the precise content of these liberal values and how they can be successfully advanced in practise.

Sunder complains that the tonal emphasis on interventionist gunboat diplomacy and a more 'muscular' approach to security is upsetting to defenders of civil liberties. While he argues because it is more reminiscent of the macho neo-conservatism of recent years (which shares his own 'robust' 'social democratic defence of human rights and democracy) that there is potential for wider appeal, he claims this raises so-far unanswered questions about the means to be used to pursue these mainstream values.

I, for one, cannot validate the criticisms in his commentary: as a philosophic starting point providing an outline of specific values also provides an implicit direction.

Overwhelming concern for welfare spending without regard for the actual impact creates distrust against partisan opponents which makes it all too easy for welfare doves to overlook the basic precept that all means must be means-tested (or at least they will be when put into action) or it allows welfare hawks to ignore the self-imposed judgement inherent in espousal of liberal over conservative tradition - undermining the left's claims to robustness and the right's claims to reliability.

But equally I cannot uphold Wind-Cowie's lack of consistency on putting principle into practise.

While Max can convince on foreign policy and geo-political analysis in rejecting both 'old-left' and 'old-right' (on the cultural relativism which tolerates intolerance out of misplaced cultural sensitivity and the amorality resulting from any constant battle for dominance), he can't bring himself to apply this outlook equally to party political judgement, exposing a wide gap between strategy and tactics.

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Which brings me back to Nick Clegg's hesitancy to adopt the phrase 'muscular liberalism' as his personal LibDem narrative.

As we can see above there is much baggage associated with the term, and although it accords more closely with his position it is awkward for Clegg that Cameron got there first to appropriate it in the media mind. Yet it is a big feather in his cap to see the enthusiasm his coalition partner lavishes upon it, even if this was just a passing fad (Wind-Cowie's muscularliberalism.com blog has significantly declined in output as Cameron's Munich speech fades in the memory and attempts to replace multi-culturalism with a 'big society' fails to gain traction) and perhaps it's smarter to allow the term to fade gradually into the background, assimilated by opponents or as an example of how he is actually exerting influence over them.

So while 'muscular liberalism' could be a good banner for Clegg to hoist, and because he'd create a hostage to fortune by being forced to further deliniate the lines of difference between the coalition parties, perhaps he doesn't need to and would be well advised not to try - that is, if other alternative desriptions can be found to fulfil the same purpose which compensate for the gaps in Cameron's interpretation.

In this case it's helpful to return to his earlier speeches and articles where he offers his arguments in favour of his liberal narrative - you can read the archive of his political columns for yourself.

Back in 2004, before the financial crisis and whilst still an MEP, Clegg asserted his party's guiding values,

"changes in British society have created a natural convergence with much of what Lib Dems aspire to: political pluralism, internationalism, liberal on moral issues, environmentally aware, attentive to local needs, hostile to overcentralised power, keen on individual choice... A future LibDem government is now no longer a laughable proposition."

He followed this up in 2007 with his emotional victory speech on accepting leadership of the party by placing his personal narrative within the framework of Berlin's 20th century conflicts:

"I was taught from an early age that Britain was a place of tolerance and pluralism, with a history steeping in democracy and the rule of law. I believe that liberalism is the thread that holds together everything that this country stands for. Pull out that thread and the fabric of our nation unravels."

He continued,

"We're a people with a strong sense of fair-play and social justice; an instinct to protect the environment for future generations. We're suspicious of arbitrary power, wary of government interference. We want to play an active, enlightened role in the wider world. And we have always put our faith in the ability of ordinary people to change things for the better... I have one simple ambition: to change Britain; to make it the liberal country I believe the British people want it to be."

And in one of his original answers further back in 2002 Clegg makes clear that he campaigns for a reacknowledgement of those 'tried and tested' principles and values which won the battles throughout the period when we needed them most.

If anything strikes you from this it's that he isn't happy to play the Westminster game of relaunching himself every other month with a new soundbite and a couple of awfully expensive, ineffective and ill-considered initiatives cooked up for consumption by media consultants and focus groups and he sees no need to confuse the real issues: "Left, right? Neither. Just plain, old fashioned Liberalism. It's got a lot going for it."

Less meh, more yeah - you can't get much more distinctive than that!

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Update: Malcolm Gladwell scratches his head over the rhetorical questions of asking if government policy is being influenced by LibDem thinking - if it isn't then what would be the point of being in coalition, but then how can you be sure unless differences are exposed?

Elsewhere Libertarian fullabeanz hopes the LibDems can replace Labour on the left of the political spectrum, but by flexing some 'steroid enhanced muscles' to put a block on the government agenda on areas like Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms, as he says, "they will show they have muscle but no balls".

Different visions of progressive politics - the central issue?

2011-05-18T08:00:00.005+01:00

It's now an annual occurrence. You can mark it in your diary with unerring accuracy.

Immediately after every election Labour declares an open-door policy towards disaffected LibDems to fight against the right-wing policies of tory ideology, by forming a 'progressive alliance' against conservatism.

Compass director Neal Lawson supports this tactic as he makes the case that for Labour the choice is now one between progressive tribalism, or progressive pluralism. He argues LibDems must work with Labour to prevent Conservatives from dictating the terms of government. And to this end the Compass think-tank recently opened up it's membership to other parties.

So either Labour must accept the claims of other parties to progressivism and work together on this basis, which he says will pave the way for a future coalition between Labour and LibDems, or the future will not be progressive.

It's a stark choice, but it is not a choice for the LibDems.

Lawson's approach has clear appeal to people with traditionally centre-left backgrounds. Using his attendance at a Fabian 'progressive fightback' conference Vince Cable warned that conservatives would be the beneficiaries of a return to a more polarised and tribal political discourse.

But George Eaton notes in the New Statesman how Nick Clegg dismissed the idea of any electoral pact between LibDems and Labour as he is determined that his party will stand their ground 'in the liberal centre of British politics.'

LibDem activist Alex Marsh explains that although Nick Clegg has identified himself as a radical and a 'centre progressive', Labour's choice between tribalism and pluralism has been an on-going and unresolved theme since the days when Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair were leaders of their respective parties.

That was when, lest we forget, their secret agreement to tacitly support the practice of tactical voting in exchange for commitments on specific policy pledges resulted in their dramatic election success of 1997. For a moment it was patently obvious to all and sundry that the drubbing given to Major's tired and divided tories indicated a real will for a 'progressive' change in British political life.

That moment lasted only as long as it started to dawn on Blair that the size of his majority meant he could willfully disregard any policy commitments made to factions he was no longer purely dependant upon. Blair correctly - and cynically - calculated that he could occupy Downing Street as long as he could continue throwing crumbs of comfort in their direction.

Labour got into power, LibDems got a few extra seats and the public credited Labour for stealing a few headline-grabbing LibDem policies (such as independence for the Bank of England).

The somewhat overlooked consequence of that period was the way the language of this debate was effectively appropriated by the jubilant Labour spin-doctors with their presentation of 'progressive vs conservative' as an axiomatic divide. Such a view remains common, but it is by far the dominant view anywhere except on the left: so much does Labour style itself as holding values encompassed by progressivism that Blairite 'progressive values' have almost completely replaced the 'Labour values' so enthusiastically advocated by his predecessor and mentor, Neil Kinnock (such as in his conference address at Brighton in 1985 when he publicly denounced Derek Hatton).

So a 'progressive alliance' can be either an electoral strategy to win public support, or it can be a way to work together and advance a set of desirable policies.

If it is the former it leads to tactical votes or electoral pacts and the implicit deception of the public built into the blind assumption that specific progressive policies will be enacted since there are no formal arrangements, but where it is the latter it can lead to coalitions promising at least some concessions will be made to help the disadvantaged in society. A gamble or a guarantee.

Labour leader Ed Miliband is a clear advocate of the former, but LibDem leader Nick Clegg supports the latter.

Compass member and Labour voter Ed Paton-Williams provides an interesting insight into the thoughts of the 'progressive' left. Ed cites the defensiveness of LibDem hostility towards cooperation with Labour:

"it makes [LibDems] feel uncomfortable about their alliance with the Tories. Like considering the prospect of a progressive coalition makes them think about what could have been."

He adds his own scepticism about the commitment of LibDems to the progressive cause, stating,

"it’s difficult to comment on the extent to which Clegg, Cable and Alexander are following their hearts when it comes to the cuts. It’s certainly not a big leap from some of the Orange Book’s proposals."

Yet in the whole period since the general election from the point when the coalition discussions were being undertaken and it became clear Brown would not step aside, the leadership campaign and throughout Miliband-the-younger's time in the job, Labour has shown precious little inclination to accept any responsibility for the massive failings it oversaw (for example exclusively blaming bankers for the financial crisis, the massive assault on civil liberties under the guise of defending rights, even denying earlier support for unpopular foreign military adventures), and even less intention to offer any alternative except a return to that system which collapsed under them (as indicated by retaining and promoting the same individuals - Miliband, Balls, Cooper etc - who were architects of it).

All of this simply allows the argument to be forwarded that the Cameron-Clegg coalition is actually a more progressive alliance than anything involving the current Labour leadership, and therefore that this wasn't just the only realistic choice, rather in fact that it was the best choice on offer at the time.

Meanwhile Simon Kovar provides a heavyweight riposte writing in The Liberal magazine. He examines criticisms from the left that the so-called 'Orange Book' tendency is anti-progressive, noting that

"Progressivism has proved a slippery political concept. In historical terms, it has no anchorage in any one political tradition."

Simon highlights "the nourishment of individuality, a critique of political and economic privilege and monopoly, and the fostering of [active] citizenship" starting with a commitment to education as the basic tenets of liberalism exhibited in the Orange Book essays, which all self-describing progressives would automatically subscribe to under any normal circumstances.

Jonny Thakkar adds some intellectual firepower to this perspective in The Point magazine.

He states that "Leftists are already more conservative than they like to admit," - at least as far as the pace of change is concerned!

Certainly this is the basis of Labour's opposition to the coalition strategy for cutting the deficit and the opposition to voting reform in the AV referendum - which many left-wing figures believe would undermine their tribal voting bloc.

Furthermore, when we compare the basic issues of progressive politics we can see how it pans out in practice.

After 1997, the tactical votes which gave Blair an overwhelming parliamentary majority allowed him to deny his private pledge to put in place a constitutional convention for electoral reform, whereas the Cameron-Clegg coalition ensured the public a real choice in the ill-fated referendum on AV. Although neither case actually brought about change at least now a process of elimination has begun rather than simply maintaining the status quo as by right.

On the fundamental topic of fairness in fiscal policy a similar contrast is apparent. Under the Balls-Miliband axis Brown's Labour moved to abolish the 10p tax band as a way to show favour to the middle-classes, while the Clegg-Cable axis convinced Cameron to raise personal allowances as a way to incentivise employment and assist lower-income sections of society.

And even where Labour could boast depoliticising monetary policy in the national interest by giving the responsibility for setting interest rates to the MPC, their success was fatally undermined by a tendency towards controlling technocratic micro-management.

This produced a dangerous political bias among the appointed members of the committee which encouraged excessive private and public debt levels by keeping interest rates too low for too long and led to the unaccountable tri-partite regulatory system for banking which created a boom in speculation and allowed Treasury finances to grow overly-dependent on taxes from the city and equity trading (including house prices) as the means for funding for a range of politically-desirable, if overly-complex and inefficient, minority interest initiatives (such as tax credits).

So we can see the different interpretations of what a progressive alliance can be: it can be about political control, or it can be about the purposes political control is used for.

If you're prepared to ask yourself which is the more progressive then it is clear Labour has much work to do to regain any credibility on progressivism.

And this is what makes Labour's expressions of openness to cooperation in the interests of progressive politics not just dubious, but almost offensive. Labour in government sent a wrecking ball through any vestiges of credibility the current leadership pretends to maintain.

So the issue returns to the question of 'tribal or plural?'

Speaking in the self-proclaiming voicepiece of progressivism, Progress magazine, Labour's Douglas Alexander tentatively agrees with Vince Cable that progressives should fix their sights on ideological opponents, although the shadow foreign secretary appears more than happy to encourage party tribalism at the same time.

Alexander uses the example of SNP success in Scotland to highlight the fact that nobody has a monopoly on ideas and makes an indirect but nonetheless powerful attack on the current 'traditional' Labour leadership. But perhaps he is viewing the political scenery from the distorted perspective of a Scottish dynamic and coming up with a paradoxic conclusion: he argues that a return to the centre-ground of British politics is the best way to advance Labour's electoral fortunes and thereby the progressive cause.

His denial of any Conservative claim to being progressive will come as a surprise to many grassroots supporters - people such as Adam Collyer, who promotes the view that the Conservative Party is built on progressive values (though the repeal of the Corn Laws may be gradually fading into complete obscurity).

It is also irksome for LibDems such as Nick Thornsby, who argues his party are the only consistent defender of progressive values.

All this reminds me of a profound pre-election comment from the defunct Letters From a Tory, who asked:

"Why is everyone so obsessed with being seen as progressive? Surely the whole point of politics is to be progressive and make long-lasting, fundamental and effective changes when faced with new challenges in government?"

Which means this argument is really about finding a deeper understanding of what politics is, and implies some real attempts to redefine the nature of contemporary political debate are happening before our eyes.

So, right-wingers are satisfied Cameron has detoxified their brand by using the coalition to move to the centre, and at the same time those on the left are upset LibDems have also moved towards the centre, suggesting this has made Nick Clegg 'toxic'.

I cannot disagree strongly enough with these two opposing extremes.

Left and right may define themselves as relative antitheses of each other, but centrism (if that's what we want to call liberal progressivism) cannot allow itself to be positioned as equidistant between each pole - these different visions of progressivism are the central issue over which the political battle is to be fought and centrism must be the synthesis of the two or it is nothing.

The most strident and rigorous Marxists, such as Ed Miliband's father, certainly understood that. It's a shame he doesn't.

The story of the LibDem identity crisis

2011-05-09T11:00:00.014+01:00

In the search for reasons to explain the LibDem humbling at the polls in last weeks elections a 'long-brewing' identity crisis has been forced to the surface, according to James Langdale.

For years, he says, the party has benefitted from attracting a wide variety of support, "many of whom have had vastly differing ideas of what the party is about and for."

For some it was a protest party (think Iraq and tuition fees) and for others it was a single-issue party (civil liberties and constitutional reform). Then there are the 'respectable centrists' who can be swayed with inducements.

So when it came to the crunch and a real decision had to be made - in this case for Nick Clegg to take the party into coalition - it was almost inevitable that much of the half-hearted next-best support would evaporate when faced with the reality of a programme for government.

Even before the general election there were plenty of people willing to express their wishes for a return to two-party politics with a split in LibDem support.

First there was the libertarian wave who abhorred any restraint on personal freedom, even if state impositions were to be used to the lighten economic restrictions of the less fortunate and vulnerable members of society and this could increase the overall sum total of freedom. Then a deep-rooted class identity attempted to cleave open differences between activists and the leadership. Both focussed their attacks on the LibDems, but only had limited success in peeling off support.

Neil Stockley addressed these points at the turn of the year in an excellent and detailed post. He points to various vague descriptions of the LibDems as the 'nicest' party, with 'decent' people, but whose policies 'don't really add up'. Despite a boost to the party's credentials by taking on the responsibility of power "the public is finding it ever harder to get a handle on [the party]."

All in all the LibDem identity is somewhat fuzzy, he suggests, and somewhat presciently states that this in itself presents real risks for the party's future election hopes. Nick Clegg faces an uphill challenge in creating a distinctive narrative to tell the LibDem story which the public can engage with.

So just prior to last Thursday, what do we find?

The redoubtable LibDem Voice publishes confirmation of exactly the split personality which goes to the heart of the matter. According to an internal poll of members own description of their political identity there seems to be little agreement on who they are, other than being 'liberal' (and even that isn't unanimous).

Quite clearly the party leadership needs to pin their colours to the mast more uneqivocally - but in ways and on subjects which can become rallying points around which to unify.

Nick Clegg has been successful on many different issues, from the Gurkhas to the day-to-day practise of coalition, but it is difficult to see a single thread running through all of it. And until he is able to start knitting together all these ideas into a semblence of ideology all the effort which has gone into reaching this point will unravel in accusations of a stitch-up.

When he was first elected leader I was optimistic that the party membership would finally be able to overcome their old SDP/Liberal party differences, but although the divide between social/modern liberal and economic/classical liberal factions is not so riven it hasn't yet transformed into a clearly defined liberal and democratic identity for the LibDem party: the LibDem story has yet to be fully told.

In some ways the split personality of the LibDems is less of a problem than might be imagined, provided it can be embraced as the source of the creative and imaginitive dynamic (though this isn't the natural default position of the majority of politically conscious voters and commentators).

Because the traditional criticism of democracy from classical Greece through to the modern revolutionary period was always that divergent trends mitigated against unity and therefore that in-fighting descended into rampant disorder, it was argued that the democratic impulse should be suppressed. However the development of an effective system of checks and balances to restrain excessive influences has been achieved through the integration of greater representative diversity at official level.

This means the modern political system can be largely self-moderating and requires less top-down intervention to institute needed reforms, making it much more stable as a result, and thereby stimulates the renewed desire for expression.

We may still have a monarch, but the constitutional underpinning of the crown prevents rule according to whim both by any ambitious royalist or jumped-up parliamentarian. Regular elections provide a legitimate mandate for decision-making, and prevent mob-rule at the same time.

The simple existence of such institutional counterweights increases the social discourse to enable more accurate, relevant and timely analysis.

And it in is this form of liberal, open democracy which Nick Clegg should reaffirm his faith - because Liberal Democrats are neither one thing nor the other, not left-wing or right-wing, but something altogether completely different...

The LibDem approach to politics is a point of distinction.

Elsewhere Bruce Anderson makes some interesting points about rediscovering conviction in order to renew one's political fortunes, although he cannot see beyond his own biased Europhobia to expose his own 'respectable centrism' by describing Clegg's supporters with the unbridled zeal of a convert as "a strange coalition of political obsessives" - like he thinks there's something wrong in being aware of the world around you!

Nevertheless I find it difficult to disagree with his rejection of rejectionism - as he says, to survive as a serious political force, you need to work out what you believe in: "negatives are not enough." And in the aftermath of such black and white election results thoughts must turn to survival.

Should ideology be a dirty word?

2011-05-03T22:00:00.001+01:00

Inspiration can come from any quarter, and this antipodean post makes for an interesting starting point for a subject I've been thinking about for some time.

The author, Tessa Keane, uses a visit to a Melbourne theatre production of the political satire Not Quite Out Of The Woods to make the case that Australian national politics has become blander and less relevant to the public because politicians are becoming less ideological, and therefore that more ideology is required.

Tessa is obvious disillusioned at a situation in which

"a Bible thumping, hypocritical, snide, arrogant, former Minister for Health under John Howard (when public dental had a seven year wait list) and who doesn’t believe in climate change, [could] possibly be considered a potential leader in this county."

For her, however, the choice between this Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott (a "neo-conservative megalomaniac"), and Labour's 'mild-mannered, middle-of-the-road' Julia Gillard (who has failed to take advantage of her 'unique' position as the first female leader of the country to create any 'real, meaningful and much needed' political change) is a choice to be envied only in the undesirability of its' options.

This isn't just because the resultant government policies are less than ideal, but because the process of government has been reduced to a sporting spectacle where the attendant sideshows of regular scandal combine with an entertaining soap-opera of personal ambitions and intrigues that the content of debate no longer serves to enlighten the issues. Finally, members of the public are unable to reconcile themselves to the inevitable and ensuing compromises, and confidence in the system of government is diminished.

On the face of it this seems like a strange argument to make - two power-hungry leaders representing two different approaches with clear policy alternatives engaging in white-hot competition to sit in the box seat is a perfect reflection of political contrast, yet when this contrast begins to be interpreted as 'radical mania' vs 'incompetence' something is seriously wrong.

Tessa states, "Once upon a time political parties represented an ideology which you could stand behind, knowing their decisions would be in line with that ideology." Extending this line of reasoning, you would make your choice and you could automatically satisfy yourself that this was all the involvement you need make until the next time your opinion was sought in a ballot.

Yes, that is certainly the mythology parties in a two-party system would have you believe, but reality has a way of creeping up on fixed preconceptions and upsetting that apple-cart.

What is, after all, ideology? Is it a set of outcomes which one should always strive towards? Or is it a set of principles which should be dogmatically adhered to?

The former mind-set creates the impulse for spin-doctors and other paid or unpaid acolytes to selectively present favorable results and retrospectively define the nature of the ideology, while the latter leads to endless divisive reinterpretion and cavilling on the way forward as if they can't read which way is up on their roadmap.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to ideology per se, but it really does depend on what we mean by it.

For some different ideologies are equally valid and political questions are a matter of choice, but for me this political choice is a matter of which party represents the most coherent set of ideas - and that ain't quite so simple. For them power is legitimated by adherence to principle and the simple fact that they can, while for me mandates come and go according to the office-holders ability to remain effective and relevant. For them all political opponents retain ownership of a disliked ideological foundation. I refuse to accept this: the only set of beliefs which can sustain definition as ideology is that single set which consistently creates lasting solutions to conflicts and resolves outstanding problems. In the battle of ideas there are some which prove themself time and again, yet no party has a monopoly on any idea.

At first this leads to a confusing paradox where different approaches can be taken in different situations and as circumstances change (for example in acknowledging the existence of local, national or global communities we also acknowledge a different emphasis on their types of interrelationships, and this can be seen in how institutions are structured, what duties they are supposed to perform and the ways in which democratic accountability makes its effects felt). At other times political cross-dressing can see the opposition criticise the government for enacting a plan it came up with, yet it is society's fluid nature which requires constant adjustment by government. There really is no 'one size fits all' solution.

But laws set in stone always come tumbling down as exceptional cases are made: at a very basic level Obama's 'assassination' of Osama demonstrated the wheedling of America's 'moral' majority and even their equivocation on basic support for the 'Thou shalt not kill' of their primary creed.

All this means we must look again at what we mean by 'ideology'.

Good ideas are often praised for the principles they're based on, even if that was the last of any reason they were picked. And especially if nobody can quite explain the link in rational terms then ideology suddenly strides forward as partisans attempt to draw theoretical lessons.

All ideas have their own logic, but not all are sound. Just try to follow the logic of any idea back to its origins or to its ultimate conclusion and see where it takes you. How often do we see people justifying the unjustifiable on the grounds that it follows the principles of their doctrine? Sometimes irrespective of the outcome, sometimes irrespective of any deliberate or systematic reasoning, ideology comes with a health warning for how it is used to force our hand.

A good example is provided by the Dutch, who took neutrality to such extremes in 1940 that it was lost when the flawed concept of absolute impartiality collapsed in the face of an uncompromising foe, one whose atrocities we should remember so many on all sides were happy to turn a blind eye to while it favored them to do so.

And now current British Labourites argue LibDems betrayed their principles by forming a coalition with Cameron's Conservatives and this has forced their unwilling support for unwanted policies (such as for the referendum on the Alternative Vote - is half a loaf better than none?). LibDem supporters respond that coalition is a good way over overcoming disagreement even if, or maybe because, it enables temporary compromises to be reached. Meanwhile Conservative grassroots are frustrated for the time being, but console themselves that they can use power to their advantage.

The juxtaposition between these two situations provides an interesting contrast.

In the latter there are several forms of analysis at play. One which is based on fixing outcomes, another on fixing processes and the last which is based on fixing who holds the reins of power. The outcomes-based argument states that the ends justify the means, the process-based argument states that the ends are determined by the means while the power-argument posits all that matters is having sufficient means.

Each perspective can be applied to any situation, and through the inter-relating discourse a correct approach emerges.

So, as regards my Dutch example, they failed on all levels as far as the outcome in 1940 was concerned because they refused themselves any diplomatic or military means to defend themselves, nor were any deliberate moves towards a northern 'anschluss' made. The horrors of earlier wars they hoped to avoid were revisited (in some places far worse), and they proved themselves in many cases both susceptible and complicit in committing them.

On each level assumptions of neutrality developed into irrelevant orthodoxy and dogma as the ideological connections between ideas and actions were lost. The outcome was unwanted, the process was painful and at no point did they have sufficient means to prevent outside forces overwhelming them. The purely ideological policy was, and is, unsustainable - it is nothing more than thin air; Swiss neutrality was and is conceived on a far more practical basis.

In a separate piece from US academia Daniel Klein argues we should like to know where speakers stand, rather than "fall into simplistic ideals of neutrality and objectivity."

For him, as a classical liberal, 'ideology' is not a dirty word, and his complaint isn't that colleagues aren't ideological, but that they subscribe to what are in his opinion less-enlightened varieties of ideology. He says it is far better to be open and honest about what your ideology is because it is impossible to prevent ideological commitment from informing judgement and concepts of 'truth' implicitly depend on interpretation and qualification.

In this he is being slightly disingenuous - it's not that he opposes neutrality and objectivity, but that the process by which it can be found is by openness and honesty, and that a level playing field between the different ways of thinking will achieve this result (and consequently the desired impartial agreement which should satisfy all equally).

In other words he believes openness and honesty are ideological concepts themselves and that it is only through these that a correct 'enlightened' ideology will present itself - because such ideas suggest a specific way of doing things. The ideological concepts (such as openness and honesty) are those which take precedence and their acknowledgement indicates the development of subordinate concepts (such as neutrality and objectivity) which cannot hold together alone: all ideas may have their own logic, but not all ideas are equal.

Returning to British politics, the major criticism by the opposition is two-fold. Firstly that the junior coalition partner betrayed their ideology, and secondly not that they disagree with the government on points of ideology, but that it is motivated by ideology at all!

I'm not alone in finding this wholly incoherent. If Labour thought all ideology is bad, or that their ideology was, then surely they should applaud any perceived LibDem betrayal. Yet the main consequence of the opposition's anti-ideology claim is that they have now denied themselves a distinctive and coherent basis for any respectabile policy alternative. Something far more worrying.

Yet this two-faced opposition exposes a political reality - we desperately want to see our politicians have some rational method behind their grand plans but we just don't like the way any of the ideologies on offer seem to us: ideology was turned into a dirty word, but by those people who see how their previous adherence to an ideology collapse with its failure.

From a historical perspective this may suggest the end of an age of ideology, and the time when political programmes could be summed up in single words and simple slogans (ie Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite; Blut und Boden; Working for a Better Wherever) is no longer, but I prefer to argue it shows the battle between ideas is being won and that all the primary concepts mentioned throughout (competence, coherence, soundness, validity, relevance, legitimacy, accountability, openness, honesty etc) are reasserting themselves over the subsidiary concepts (such as neutrality and objectivity).

These primary concepts are the more tangible building blocks of the one, true, good ideology which modern political voices should be grasping more forcefully.

Political parties which turn themselves into consumer brands are simply following this trend. They quietly distance themselves from the former hot ideological topics which used to put fire into the bellies of their hardcore as they try to attract the next generation who've grown up seeing the weaknesses of their former doctrinaire approach: when Tony Blair had his Clause IV moment he signalled the end of Labour's contribution to the privatisation/nationalisation debate even though it has since required clarification by the take-over of struggling banks at the height of the credit crunch, similarly Cameron's decontamination plan bubbles under as 'the nasty party' tag continues to haunt them.

But don't confuse this with some sort of a march to the middle - blander the better. No, it is the gradual establishment of higher standards through a dynamic self-moderating system of public and private discourse as the wrong-headed idealists simply implode under the ruthless logic of events. It is the development of greater precedent in the public mind and more modern political case-law showing that and how the broad brushstroke and the sweeping political gesture is, under most normal conditions, bad politics. It is political debate.

No ideology can survive on a bookshelf or in a museum, untouchable behind a glass screen; ideology depends on passing the reality test. Ideology must be put into action.

Yet such an ideology of 'realism', or 'pragmatism', seems to be the description of choice by those who wish to castigate the lack of principle which they see motivating politicians in this 'post-ideological age'.

Let's be clear here, there is a world of difference between pragmatism and expediency even if opponents deliberately choose to blur it for their own partisan ends. As such Libertarianism is a natural reactionary product of bi-partisan stitch-ups which stem back to the corrupt practices of Tammany Hall and pork barrels, but the possible emergence of an effective third partisan force in any political sphere is something any pluralist should support.

Lack of consistency is not the same thing as lack of coherence, and it is on such paper-thin distinctions that relief and infuriation are inspired in equal measure. So we must ask how is it possible to define an ideological stance in a way which stands out except by reverse-engineering it in the way libertarians have?

Firstly, the out-moded axiomatic left-right spectrum must be consigned to the wastebin of history.

At the point when 'left' and 'right' became the accepted standard (thanks, France!) political positioning became a purely relative matter divorced from all reality and individuals took on a negative political identity defined by who and what they're against rather than anything more positive or tangible. If you didn't tend to the polar extremes then you would eventually be swept asunder by the waves of reactionary fervour as a wishy-washy, potentially corrupt, self-centred centrist who wouldn't make up their mind.

Thus to be a 'centrist' became the the term of derision to dirty the beliefs of ideological non-extremists (as well as the non-ideological extremists) just as 'ideological' became the jealous insult of those who'd seen their own suffer the ignomony and humiliation of complete defeat.

It is exactly this 'definition by opposition' which marks you out as a follower rather than a leader, and it suits so many of the vested power bases to encourage this attitude in a democracy. In some ways the democratisation of definitions made it inevitable that the cut-and-paste variety of ideology would supercede and debase any agreed understanding of it, but language goes in cycles just as societies do, so it's possible that the rejection of it as political motivation by certain trends of thought may indeed be that they're conceding defeat in the ideological stakes and we may in fact be one step nearer a return to the truer reunderstanding of what we should've known all along!

Enough with the political science and speculation, political parties are the groupings of multiple people and personalities reflecting and embodying mulitple and divergent traditions and trends, so are probably the worst at representing any single ideology. Instead, the best we can hope for is that their members are better at standing up for what they believe in to provide the real examples we hope our politics will produce.

Just as ideology must breathe to survive, so politics must be able to breathe ideology to live. Neither exists in a vacuum however and each must only be judged according to their results. It's no good just saying why all the time, or just how or what, you've also got to be able to say how to and what for to be worth a vote.

And that's why it's not just no good, but decidedly bad when the mythology of self-satisfied occasional choosing at election time begins to be seen as enough - when our political consciousness falls asleep it allows our primal animal instincts to take over and it changes the political landscape from the enlightened concrete jungle of civilisation and takes us back to the dark heart of the wild woods.

Of revolutions, royal weddings and referenda

2011-04-29T10:00:00.002+01:00

Having managed to get away from the hurly-burly of the hype-mill associated with everything media-oriented for a while my return to the grind brings with it a fresh sense of perspective on what we're looking at.

Just a few months ago a wave of popular disorder disgraced the protest marches which wended their way through Britain's national and provincial capitals, with sporadic outbreaks following all the way down to more recent weeks. Orthodox wisdom credited new communication methods as providing the means for a practical innovation which could help build a new activist political movement - Tehrani flashmobs were cited as examples where an autonomous anti-establishment mood could flourish and bloom despite dictatorial controls and pervasive censorship, which in turn helped stimulate the so-called Arab Spring across that region.

Rather than being instituted by dubious politicians in dusty statutes riddled with dirty caveats freedom of information is instead carrying the masses and is being confirmed as a perennial necessity equivalent to any chartered right.

But the fightback has already begun.

The News of the World phone-hacking scandal and the subsequent furore over super-injunctions should suggest that the failure to provide any sense of standards transformed the cherished liberty to know into a peculiarly British bun fight, one which just coincidentally happened to explode in time for the Easter holidays... with a hot cross (mildly embarrassed) scottie.

Well, at least it heated up just long enough for the debate over changing from crosses to numbered preferences to be pushed completely from the front pages, and again just in time to be relegated by the more traditional tabloid fare of the original uber-celebrities doing what they do best: holding a right royal knees-up.

Whilst our national culture seemingly gets evermore dominated by and saturated with footballers and comedians it can sometimes come as a bit of a surprise that this ingrained ritual is still capable of replacing more practised spontaneity, but it is and it's a sign we're such masters of it in this country that we can swing further faster from one extreme to the other; from satire and shock at 10 o'clock, to satin and silk at 11 o'clock. Who can distinguish between actually massively popular and actively massively promoted any more?

In a sense this question is the same as that facing voters when it comes to how we wish to vote in future.

The difference between Britain and, say, Syria, is a matter of openness.You might get carsick stuck in a tailback as you attempt to reach Stonehenge for dawn at the solstice each year, but your first glimpse of Palmyra through the twilight from the camel caravan will be a once-in-a-lifetime never-to-be-repeated capture-the-goosepimples pilgrimage. Where radicalised Syrians are pitching themselves into a violent existential struggle, us more phlegmatic Britons are trying to muster the energy to get our knickers in a twist over how we'll decide what to get disappointed over next.

It's the same underlying questions of liberty and authority, but it's the completely opposite way of handling the situation; communicating back and forth about it and quantifying opinion to a level where a legitimate mandate can be used to reinforce the effective mandate which state power could (or at least can try to) enforce.

And this is where the role of intermediaries becomes significant. Even having a blog to express an opinion becomes a location which creates a duty to do exactly that. Organised media functions through a veil of connections, and though you shouldn't ever call it propaganda you can be sure someone is still pulling the strings in an attempt to influence you.

I'll admit I'd recently got out of the habit of watching, listening or reading casually to anything which could attach itself to a 'News' category - for the simple reason none of it was new, all of it was highly predictable and where the adverts were less interesting than the real thing I started to get distracted by looking for the bias. All too often the art of influence is as much in what you exclude from comment as what you include, and this creates an ambivalent atmosphere where even if it's a slow news day and you end up blatantly manufacturing gossipy headlines or spinning the same political hook the skill in catching and netting opinion can be found in manipulating running orders and juxtapositions more commonly than in any typically emotive languange. It's hypnotic. It's osmotic. It's pure contextualised understatement which gets you without realising.

'Mere coincidence', they disclaim - so you can bet there won't be many documentaries on how the Charles and Diana spectacular in 1981 distracted patriotic attention from the inner-city race riots and steepling unemployment of that time. And again they'll disclaim that this is 'only proper' since Wills and Kate should be freed from the ever-present spectre of that previous farcical romance to prevent besmirching the occasion ...the undercurrent which dare not speak its name!

This does all create a sort of balance if you think about it. Neither do they shout boastfully about what they are actually doing, nor do they tip any wink to what they hope they can avoid mentioning.

Yet at the same time the mood of the crowd before, during and after will be decisive in shaping attitudes. The intensity of focus on the event will be huge (and it will be because a sunny May morning to do a live OB from St James' is both plum and a peachy pick), but, unfortunately for those in Syria, Libya and elsewhere, unrivalled.

The vast array of sideshows and spin-offs will provide ample opportunity for individual and reflected social self-expression. And this will all be formulated in the ceremonialised format for widespread public discourse - like the biggest village fete you ever saw. With millions on the streets and congregating out in the open, nudging and barging through the crowds you won't be able to hide your hints (and you'll be lucky to hang on to your cocktail sausage on a stick).

Each of the choices, from the guestlist and the seating arrangements to the music and their manners will be pored and agonised over. Will you say she looks just wonderful? or will you weigh up whether you prefer her dress to the 30-year-old ivory and pearl extravaganza? Will you keep your eyes open for and scream at any gaffe, quickly acknowledge any occasion before moving on, or just revel in the spectacle?

And will you remember that the eyes on you make you part of the feedback system and capable of changing minds too?

Whatever you do decide consider how you made your mind up, and while you do, maybe you can spare a second for all those people elsewhere seeking shelter from the tanks and bombs which restrict their ability to speak out.

On the road to Tripoli and the limits of 'liberal' intervention

2011-04-12T11:25:00.002+01:00

Back and forth they go, where they 'll stop nobody knows.

With each swing of the pendulum towns such as Misrata, Ras Lanuf, Brega and Ajdabiya are becoming ever more familiar - helped not least by the caravans of journalists who follow so fast in their own footsteps that they're almost waving at their own shadows.

Reports are that the Libyan anti-Gadaffi faction have recaptured Sirte, again. It is the third time they've held the town, so far. And they will expect soon to be driven back.

So they're not holding the ground, they're engaging in an ongoing cut-and-thrust over the heads and under the feet of the ordinary population who are both the supporters and potential victims of whichever occupier is current.

As the fluid situation is prolonged and drags out with no end in sight so more eyes turn to Libya as symbolic of something deeper.

Image via WikipediaThe land is the meeting point of three distinct historical tribal regions - Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east and the Fezzan desert confederacy in the south - each of which can trace separate and distinct political cultures back to pre-history and the populations who lived along the ancient trade routes.

So ultimately how this internal confrontation between the three factions plays out reflects a wider political and philosophical battle which will only be decided by the context imposed by the international community.

In many ways for the Security Council to reach agreement on implementation of UN resolution 1973 was a triumph for Britain's David Cameron, however it's vague and general nature is a marked change from previous legal justifications for intervention in essentially internal affairs. Those were clear and clearly broken in equal amounts, a paradox which heralded fears of a renewed imperial age.

Humanitarian intervention in the modern era has undergone a succession of shifts dictated by the global power balance of the times.

As the imperial order collapsed it became clear the established powers could no long justify the capacity to maintain colonies and the ideological superblocs of capitalism and communism stepped into the breach - each arguing they provided a greater common good, but neither attained hegemonic status.

It was only following the emergence of the non-alligned movement in 1961 at the height of the Cold War and the Cuban crisis (coup, corruption, revolution, failed invasion and de-escalation of the nuclear threat) that a progressive way forward became a possibility by re-establishing the principles of self-determination, multi-lateral cooperation, support for human rights and sustainable economic development - and it was this which gradually paved the way for the collapse of the regimes behind the Iron Curtain.

So it is interesting to note the response of the NAM which both condemns the no-fly zone while simultaneously 'silently justifying' it on the basis that internationally-recognised human rights and freedoms are being flouted by Gaddafi.

To critics on both right and left this sounds suspiciously like either a messy compromise or a dirty betrayal, and worse still it suggests a spineless lack of moral leadership on the specific issue of who should be in charge and how government should be organised.

Control is, however, a temporary deceit. For a more profound understanding of the direction of this conflict it's necessary to look beyond the two adversaries to see not just where they are coming from but also what they are really fighting over.

Typically this crisis is mediated for simplification into a battle between the authoritarian militarism of one man and his lineage and the democratic freedoms of the masses, with each side advancing and retreating along the coastal motorway in turn. They say you can't stop the spread of ideas, and it would seem to be borne out by the circumstance, though we have yet to find out whether the ideas that fill the heart to face the tanks or those which fill the tanks to crush hearts and minds will be the ones which prevail. This is the debate which occupies the minds of commentators the world over.

But I beg to differ - except for the violence being committed by both sides I am glad neither is gaining the whip hand with which they would be certain to wreck their revenge with worse reprisals once western and eastern eyes alike are averted. When lives are lost, nobody wins.

The ongoing confusion is forcing the debate to be played out in the open court of public opinion, requiring the eventual victor to concede greater fairness, and implicitly creating a dependence on the widest possible form of participation.

So we return to the fundamental question: what are each side fighting over?

In the political sense they are fighting for protection afforded by a civil order, for economic well-being, for opportunity and jobs.

But in a real sense they are fighting over the roads.

The roads are the physical infrastructure on and along which people, ideas, goods and services are transported. The same ancient routes which were the foundation of Libyan cultures are the cornerstone of modern Libyan society.

Throughout the colonial period to the post-colonial period Africa has traditionally had a poor track-record of cooperation as outside powers discouraged contact between their spheres.

It is only relatively recently that the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank together with the burgeoning African Union and regional communities accepted infrastructural development underpins economic development and trade as the only reliable way to alleviate poverty.

And it is only because the political argument against border restrictions and economic restrictions as a way of aiding mobility, providing choice and combatting corruption has built sufficient political will for greater levels of integration to enable paved roads to be built across the continent.

As the map shows the battle for Libya is being fought along Route 1.

We can only wonder which route it will take next.

If this is to explain anything it is as a criticism of the grand gesture of interventionism: historic routes are the roots of modernity, and it is only by maintaining them to the highest modern standard that civilisation can be prevented from getting stuck in the mire of barbarity - roads are not built overnight, so the relationships which are fostered along them must be continuously cultivated to keep them fresh and relevant.

Instead of aiding Africa to permanently fix political and economic inequality, we should encourage Africa to develop respect for improvements that last. Too often satisfaction at one job done turns to complacency, neglect and corruption: Africans and westerners share the blame for allowing new nations to be born into a vacuum, and now the consequences are catching up with the solutions

Though this is a typically British failing it's not a uniquely British failing. What's not needed is rejection of the temporary occupations which follow military action.What is needed is to head off any need before it happens: integration, not intervention.

And just like the residents along the coast road to Tripoli who see them come and see them go, people in Libya, as everywhere from Afghanistan and Burma to Yemen and Zimbabwe, need to know that their well-being is our security just as our well-being is their security.

Little Ed and the titanic TUC tactics

2011-04-04T10:00:00.009+01:00

I find it completely bizarre that the 'March for the Alternative' was held on the Saturday after the budget.

Normally one would think if you are trying to influence events you exert pressure beforehand, not after.

The budget is a standing event in the Westminster calendar and organisers will have prepared their tactics well in advance - they have to seeing as nowadays Police must be informed of any demonstrations and everything down to the babysitter requires booking.

So you'd only hold a march after the budget if the event you're trying to influence was not the budget.

And with other regular marches and demonstrations planned to reenergise the previously demoralised activist base this is something they are obviously trying to build from, not to - they wanted to make a splash and they had to be bold to fit into the news agenda seeing how earthquakes and tsunamis and civil wars and massacres were squeezing space from the headlines.

And nobody can possibly blame little Ed's Labour and his Trades Unions for the violence in Piccadilly after they successfully ponied up to 500,000 people to the capital, can they?

But if you start to consider the organisers deliberately planned to coordinated a massive expression of frustration which could never have any retrospective effect on votes in the Commons which had already taken place then you have to wonder if they couldn't have done more to dampen potential anger, or if they were only interested in stoking it.

Well, you have to applaud Ed Miliband - he certainly doesn't do anything to rouse a crowd!

Or maybe - upon reading Boris Johnson's own analysis of little Ed's speech - you can start to understand that it was intellectually dishonest of him to even take the podium in the first place and the march organisers were twisting his arm to adopt an even more revisionary set of policies which reversed any commitment to cut of the deficit, and they had deceitfully manipulated him into a position where all he could do was drown out his pious mumbling about the dull details of an economic policy which almost completely agrees with the government by juxtaposing it with hollow overblown comparisons to heroic social campaigners.

This is because Labour don't represent any alternative whatsoever, Labour represent the opposition (well, the official one at any rate). What alternatives they do propose amounts to a hodge-podge of hastily hatched disagreements with each individual aspect of policy in turn to allow them to pander to whichever oppositional gallery they're playing to that day - not any coherent programme, as they readily admit, they're 4 years out from the next general election.

I have to say I get angry when I hear little Ed and his rivals assert something is wrong with the coalition policy. It may well be (and there are plenty of specifics which you could identify), but that's not the point - if anything at all is right with the coalition then little Ed's position is wholly delegitimised by his (and that of his shadow chancellor's) position as Gordon Brown's two main henchmen who are responsible for what went wrong.

It doesn't matter whether they were the direct cause of the problems or not, it happened on their watch so they must take responsibility. Until they do they are tarnished bads and unelectable anchors weighing their party down.

They may say the coalition is shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic, but they were pilot and navigator when it hit the iceberg.

They may say the design of the ship was considered state-of-the-art, but they were sailing too far to the north in unseasonal weather conditions under pressure from the line operator in full knowledge of the potential, and with satellite GPS tracking, virtualised sonar, every digital age gizmo and gadget and a whole army of pointy-headed prophets at their disposal - none of which they used and all of whom they denounced for talking out of turn when they spoke up of their own accord.

They may condemn the unpleasant events which surrounded the public appearance, but it was set up for his benefit and if he is happy to be publicly unhappy then he needs to look in the mirror.

He may be married to a reputable musician, but she certainly hasn't taught him to hit the right note or cover-up his tendency to sound tone-deaf - music to my ears he certainly isn't.

The 'Greenest Government Ever'?

2011-03-18T21:25:00.000Z

LibDem environment minister Chris Huhne recently announced the government's new energy agenda.

It was hailed by Prime Minister David Cameron as a sign that the coalition would be 'the greenest government ever'.

OK, so let's look at these claims in a bit closer detail.

Image by David Spender via FlickrYou can read Chris Huhne's speech in full here.

Highlights included a green investment bank, introduction of floor rates for carbon trading, funding for 1000 'green deal' apprenticeships, zero-carbon housing standards, introduction of a strategy for electric car infrastructure, reforms to home generation feed-in tariffs and additional departmental measures to allow NGO's to monitor government progress.

Huhne's main line of argument was to reduce dependency on oil and fossil fuel consumption, on the one side to prevent economic insecurity stemming from near-term price spikes in the wake of geo-political uncertainty (such as in Libya) and the longer term concern of limited supplies, while on the other to reduce carbon output and be seen as good environmental guardians.

However only a few days later and with the Japanese earthquake causing ruptures in nuclear reactors he was forced to address Britain's continuing support for nuclear fuel and answer why he hadn't followed the lead of Germany where immediate shut-downs were made and a 3-month moratorium on nuclear power was called (though the electoral strength of the anti-atomic lobby heading into elections probably had more to do with that given Germany's distance from active tectonic boundaries).

According to one analysis Huhne's explanation to party activists at last weekend's LibDem spring conference in Sheffield showed he is responding positively to concerns. As he said, "safety is absolutely the top priority for us in all our energy sources. Safety is the nuclear industry's first priority."

Most LibDems tend to be cautiously realistic about nuclear power (and weapons), arguing any hasty or unilateral pull-out is undesirable as it would destabilise the supply chain relationships and have wide-reaching consequences, although thit should remain the medium-to-long term ambition. For the time being, at least, nuclear remains part of the mix.

Despite the good proposals they are perhaps more modest than they might have been.

On the private side subsidies for solar microgenerators below 50 kilowatts have been cut (primarily because minimal incentive is required and the current scheme was proving too successful). Some specialist environmental advisory services have also been merged.

On the business side the Green Investment Bank has had some of it's envisaged functions peeled off, while the government decided not to compel greater provision of information to consumers through better labelling - something the CBI is now encouraging voluntarily.

And Huhne hit the headlines with the declaration that 250,000 new jobs would be created by 2030 through greening the economy.

This is somewhat more difficult to measure, although the left-leaning Work Foundation suggests 3 scenarios how this could happen, including a low-carbon implementation sector, manufacturing-led growth in low carbon activities and a low carbon services-led sector.

But stronger criticism of the claims were made regarding efforts regarding house-building, an area dominated by large corporate insterests.

Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors president Robert Peto spoke out against the overcomplicated and inconsistent nature of environmental legislation which many found off-putting and easily became subbordinated into wider government spending plans.

As Michael McCarthy explains in The Independent, responsibility for environment is split between climate policy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change under LibDem Chris Huhne and other policy at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs under Conservative Caroline Spellman.

The effect of this can be more clearly seen when we remember Caroline Spellman was responsible for the botched and widely derrided consultation to privatise Forestry Commision woodlands.

So clearly this government isn't as friendly to the environment as it could be, or indeed claims, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of positives to be taken out of the recent proposals.

Maybe Cameron simply lapsed into an error of language when he said his would be 'the greenest government ever', and he should really have said it was 'the greenest government yet' - because activists in opposing parties certainly won't be passified if he remains there in perpetuity!

Of potential banana skins and splits

2011-03-14T14:00:00.004Z

This is my requested response to the Evening Standard about Nick Clegg's speech to the LibDem Spring Conference in which he vowed to protect his party's 'soul' despite being forced to make compromises as part of the deal to be in coalition.

Protests are, he said, "the price of power" (and any classical scholars among you may like to consider the Milian Dialogue on exactly this point) - suggesting that if you want to any some influence on the world then you'd better learn sooner than later that 'you can't please all of the the people all of the time'.

It's a cliche, but it is because it's about as close to the truth as it's possible to get.

You can watch a clip of him speaking here.

And here is a full transcript of his speech.

100-150 words is a good rule of thumb for providing a comment, but I enjoy playing with formats to mess with people's minds, so I wrote double and split it into two parts to make a wider point.

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I think it works best as one combined, but you can feel free to choose either depending on how they complement other viewpoints. Your choice will be an indicator of which side of the debate you're on.

1) Every LibDem leader is habitually criticised for a percieved inability to stage-manage the appearance of unity, but it is this openness about any real differences which keeps the LibDems such a vibrant force in British politics. It is a refreshing change from the old left-right axis and is the well-spring of constant revitalisation, though at times it can feel like a queasy rollercoaster ride.

The 'soul' of the LibDem party and what distinguishes it from other parties is that it is driven by the membership rather than the leadership, so Nick Clegg's ability to demonstrate that he enagages in active debate and actually reflects the majority view is more important than his immediate poll ratings in one the top jobs. His performance in Sheffield showed he is a master at tempering idealism without becoming overly-pragmatic, but good politics doesn't always make for good headlines.

2) Contrary to claims that vocal dissent over specific priorities indicates a split in support, this is in fact nothing more than par for the course. Nick Clegg knows LibDem politics isn't about him, he knows it's about doing politics in a way which produces effective and positive policy, but he also knows his opponents are trying to personalise things in order to distract from the underlying issues.

Where determined resolution to enact principles shapes events reactionary opinion always lags idly behind, so despite any current concerns about his popularity levels Clegg can stand tall as the most successful LibDem leader of the modern era and he can be sure this will stand his party in good stead. And as the economy starts to pick up again you can be confident that he will have earnt his electoral bonus - though whether that can come soon enough for this May is another matter.

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I think the basic point I'm trying to get across is the need for balance in any debate.

The scenes of angry protesters directed at the LibDem leader is a big change from days when Charlie Kennedy lead protests over the misconceived invasion of Iraq, but it's not a new experience for a party with a strong grassroots activist membership who won their spurs mixing it for decades against the 'hang em and flog em' brigade, racists, militant pro-lifers and a whole host of blinkered utopian opportunists and absolute cynics for whom being human isn't good enough for a potential government-in-waiting.

The hard lesson that there is rarely any quick fix to perceived or real problems and those that there are aren't easily transferred to subsequent generations who are rightly impatient for improvement.

However impatience can also easily spill over to cause the hasty presumption which leads to unfair and damaging favoritism and is prime amongst the evils to the liberal tradition.

So having made the decision to join the coalition, Clegg and his party are forced to tough it out and prove themselves all over again, or provide a perfect demonstration of flakiness to give their critics all the evidence they need.

So it may not be just about whether LibDem MPs can keep hold of their soul, but whether they have the stomach to stick it out and also the good sense to chart a sustainable strategy in this delicate and volatile situation when events beyond control could have seismic consequences - literally.

With the Nikkei predicted to fall by up to 20% as insurance losses from the massive 8.9 quake and Tsunami are expected to top $35bn, European markets have shuddered just when the return of market confidence was beginning to be felt in the real economy.

Add to this the possibility of the explosive Libyan situation and there are clear and immediate triggers for impending global disaster - on a timescale which even the most doom-laden climate fearmonger would avoid like the plague.

Watch out for those banana skins.

100-word letter: A stolen heart

2011-03-10T14:00:00.001Z

I don't tend to do much personal blogging, as I'm pretty enigmatic and I just don't like talking about myself.

Breaking this rule for once, I was moved to quickly stream off an entry to a bloggers' 100-word letter competition (I like letters, me, see). The object is to write 100 words to someone, anyone of your choosing - so go on, you know you want to try it too!

Mine was inspired by a real incident which happened about a month ago and I've been bottling up since.

I hope you like it... and hopefully it will uncork that rare elixir of blogging again.

To my mystery man,
Though I never caught your name, still you conjure images of transient romance and a life lived on the edge.
I won't ever forget those few snatched moments for they are etched into my memory.
You didn't ask my name, yet that wouldn't change a thing.
Your caring nature was immediately evident just as your concern for animal welfare was obvious.
Your rough hands were passionate with desire and your eyes pulsated with a sense of destiny.
Nobody could resist the deep urging you instilled.
It was primal.
It was pure.
It was intense.
But it was fleeting.
Now give me back my wallet.

A bigger picture of a better society

2011-02-14T22:00:00.005Z

David Cameron has today staked much of his personal credibility by relaunching his sometimes derided, often misunderstood vision for decentralising the state with his 'Big Society' policy initiative.

In his attempts to drum up publicity and enthusiasm for the announcement he rallied his pre-emptive defence against claims that the policy was a 'mask' for budget cuts being overseen as part of deficit reduction plans.

Almost on cue opposition voices did just that.

But this polarised debate obscures both the reality and the real potential of the initiative.

Firstly it's worth highlighting the way Labour's discourse stubbornly attempts to link Cameron to his Conservative predecessors in an unbroken singular ideological chain which infers causality behind the proposals rather than effect.

Although we might say it's convenient for him in some respects for his own base to identify with thatcherism, it is a foolish politician who fails to recognise society is always moving forward, and never quite accurate to describe any Prime Minister as a fool.

So it is unfair on several levels, but it also misreads the warmth and attachment Cameron has to his pet project, calling it his 'burning mission'. He is obviously genuine and heart-felt in thinking it can make a positive difference in allowing greater localism and 'subsidiarity' (a unfortunate term from the lexicon of eurocracy, unlikely ever to ever be uttered from his own mouth), even if he may be misguided. He calculates people do want to exercise some power to influence the direction of the services we use, and for all the money government spends on consultations it's an obvious conclusion that there is at least some official recognition of the benefits of good customer service there too.

So it should be a goer then, right?

Well, no, not quite.

The problem is that it fits all too neatly into the gap created by cuts as required by his own deficit reduction plan, and in many cases is being seen as a way to sack committed civic-minded workers then count on them to continue their jobs without pay after being made redundant.

But these typically low-paid altruistic types with their own crippling financial commitments weren't in it for the money in the first place, so they don't have the means to continue with what was more of a vocational choice. They need to work. In the end it's a double-whammy of stopping their income and disregarding their personal investment - if it was only one or other it wouldn't inspire quite the same bitterness.

So the opposition has a tailor-made critique - namely that he wants to slash the public sector by screwing over the people at the coal-face.

But this isn't quite the full story.

Under successive governments a whole unproductive professional industry of charity and volunteer organisations have mushroomed to take up the slack in the system caused by an eternity of state-sponsored social inequality and exclusion.

More recently an explosion of consumer-oriented credit and retail services filled the economic vacuum in the never-ending 24-hr consumer society of New Labour's then-future. Monumental retail parks and shopping centres sprouted while independent retailers were squeezed out between the proliferating branded chain stores and the bottom-end of the scale where neglected shopping streets were taken over by Age Concern and Sue Ryder thrift shops.

Big Issue sellers and chuggers still loiter in the gap between the point where private security firms prevent them from enteringthe former and BID funding refuses to pay for community street patrols beyond the latter. These are middle-class beggars pushed out onto commission, caught in the snakes and ladders game of saving for the new norm of debt-laden student years and the all-too common extreme of a homeless and dependant aftermath - they subsist by guilt-tripping hard-pressed office monkey's like me and you to commit to a minor direct debit with the promise of saving the the world and everything in it... they were your moral boot-polishers in the porch outside the modern-day shrines to Gok Wan and Elton John-type shopping excess.

For all the salve they provide to our post-industrial conscience they're also no more than a sticking plaster to the ills of an uncompetitive and unproductive economy: the craze for not-for-profit organisations as ethical and responsible businesses has proven unsustainable.

Meanwhile everything from waste collection to rent collection was competitively tendered by local authorities, and those which weren't ('essential' services including fire and ambulances, NHS PCTs, LEAs etc) became increasingly separated from the public by continuous restructuring.

Councils which initially encouraged social enterprises quickly became addicted to their electoral and executive popularity, while national government enthused over the ability of the quango state to deflect potential political damage. Freed from the day-to-day political pressures of direct oversight these organisations could invest and they could innovate, but all to often this involved cutting corners and putting commercial spin on the truth by manipulating top-down targets at the expense of the masses.

Many new layers of management jobs were created running departments where standard cost savings would divert into their salaries rather than as rewards for investors risk or reductions in the publicly-funded contracts - which also had the knock-on effect of inflating competitive rates for equivalent council and civil service grades. In addition to this a lack of accountability developed, as the specialised and enclosed nature of their work often meant single providers had an effective monopoly in localised anti-market conditions - once the management or service contract was signed there was an in-built disincentive to change providers (for instance insisting on 20+ year contracts).

Now, following the tanking of the economy, amidst widespread resistance where all sides are facing cuts and each are defending their corner Cameron clearly doesn't have sufficient will or deep-seated support to attack the real problem bureaucrats in card-shuffling positions and instead he's forced to accept he's powerless to prevent them from passing on the cuts to those less able to absorb them, but who are still most in need of them.

Consequently his idea of a 'big society' begins to look less like a glorious 'vision' or a vicious 'mask' and more like a desperate 'stop-gap' - and that's an analysis equally unpalatable for both the PM and the leader of the opposition.

Under Blair's New Labour growth in these areas of the economy made for a nicer, more ethical society, now Cameron's old-nation tory party is hoping to translate this into a more civil, bigger society. Sadly, because left and right can't reconcile their ideological feuding to marry their opposing perspectives it's only by fits and starts that each inch us forward to a better society, when real strides can and need to be made.

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Bagehot on The Big Society

Song of the day

2011-02-14T10:45:00.002Z

Not much to say about this one. Just watch and listen.

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more music

The state of the Unions

2011-01-29T12:00:00.001Z

So trade unions are positioning themselves to be the organising force behind the opposition to spending cuts.

In my view this is a major strategic error as trade unions are still officially and practically affilliated to Labour, so their opposition cannot be considered non-partisan and one therefore has to question the basis for their opposition.

While I'm perfectly happy that unions exists and value much of the work they do in improving the conditions of employment in the country their party affiliation does create an explicit conflict of interest when people such as Mark Sewotka speak up ostensibly on behalf of workers.

It also plays directly into the hands of Conservative hard-liners who are arguing that union resistance to efforts to balance the budget is turning them into "forces of stagnation" - a neat reversal that!

As a case in point the LFA conflict (or Boris vs Ken rematch, as others would have it) proposes a showdown between 'over-mighty' trade unions in the red corner and 'bullying' employers employers in the blue corner - a situation which is exacerbated, not helped, by the association with political (rather than real) interests on either side.

I find it frankly ridiculous that it can be claimed as coherent or sustainable to be trenchantly opposed to every point of analysis offered, whether as a matter of principle or otherwise.

So I find myself strangely in agreement with this Guardian editorial that

"the public does not want an unreformed welfare state, a lame duck industrial sector or trade unions that seem more concerned with overthrowing governments than representing workers' interests democratically."

If that's what trades unions represent today then they don't represent me.

Curfew over Cairo

2011-01-28T21:00:00.000Z

It might be a revolution taking place in Egypt, but it's caused excitement, fear and trepidation in different quarters.

Egypt matters as it is the most populous Arab state, and it is a close ally of the US (remember Obama's speech in Cairo?), so what happens there will set a trend for the whole region and could determine the direction of events for the next generation.

Protesters across the region (Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen) are encouraged by the success of the Tunisian 'Jasmine Revolution', and many commentators are hinting at a 'domino effect' aided by pan-Arabic news and information sources including social networks like Twitter and news channels like Al Jazeera.

But amidst the enthusiasm for progressive change and an end to corruption there lurks concern about the potential for the protests to result not in a blossoming of democracy and free speech, but in increasing confrontation, violence and radicalisation of the forces involved.

It should be noted that the last period of concerted opposition protests against an Islamic autocrat resulted in a crackdown by the Shah of Persia's military against the protesters, which instilled a reactive surge in support for the Islamist movement under the figurehead of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Egypt has a comparable military and security infrastructure, having been used over several decades in dealing with fundamentalist terrorism (from the assasination of Sadat, to regular bombings of tourists at the historical monuments), but equally as a result of similar neo-liberal economic policies has seen the enrichment of a superclass with more to lose, but also the means to hang on.

Consequently the resistance of President Mubarak will be much greater than was possible or likely by Ben Ali in Tunisia and the test of the protesters to gain sufficient support will be that much sterner, therefore the likelihood that the anti-government movement will turn to more violent measures is increased.

Moreover it's worth remembering that Alexandria is the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist/political organisation, which has strong links to Tehran.

In the worst case a violent revolution could easily see Egypt break with the US, ally with Iran and result in another conflict over Israel, but one where nuclear weapons are held on both sides.

Additionally the effect on international trade (given the oil price instability caused as a knock-on from security issues surrounding the Suez canal) at a precarious moment for the global economy would necessitate major commitment by the developed nations to prevent major price rises and prevent collapse, let alone ensure a recovery.

So as darkness sleeps the future of the world certainly, if for one night, hangs precariously in the balance. Much will depend upon how Obama is able to mediate a peaceful transition.

But the episode also has implications for events closer to home. 2010/11 is turning into the year of protests of a generation, similar to 1989 or 1968 - how the protesters here choose their tactics will also determine their outcome, but not just in success or failure, in direction too.

Considering RCRE Cuts

2011-01-28T14:07:00.004Z

I want to talk about a particularly local example of the budgetary challenges in politics.

On the face of it the £90,000 cut in council funding to the Reading Council for Racial Equality sends out exactly the sort of signal the borough's new opposition Labour councillors have stoked fears about - a cut to RCRE could lead to heightened tensions on the streets and communities of the town.

RCRE has been a leading force in promoting community cohesion in the past four decades, and provided the platform to make a nationally-supported declaration on race equality in the aftermath of the tragic murder of Steven Lawrence (the tenth anniversary of this event was marked recently).

Their work mainly consists of running an advice shop to deal with and ease concerns of immigrants and providing a one-stop clearing house for Reading's different communities to connect and engage with one another, providing support on various issues from supplying language specialists to coordinating relief efforts for victims of disaster (such as the Pakistan floods). In effect it functions as a sort of non-native and second-generation cultural union.

RCRE has also given weight to the campaign against prospective BNP activists, who've sporadically turned up on some of the more deprived estates in the town - notably while Reading has a similar number of BME residents as Oldham (14%) the isolation rate of BME residents is 1.5 compared to 8, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The comparatively high integration rate in Reading goes a long way to explain the electoral failure of racial politics in Reading, which in turn begs the question why fear of racial politics is used as an electoral tool by Labour in the town.

So it is this political role which is clearly angering Reading's new Conservative/LibDem coalition.

In many ways the RCRE is a body which supports many civic-minded aims, but successive generations have seen it's executive organs more closely followed a Trade Union model as posts became dominated by Labour party activists - in many quarters RCRE has become increasingly seen as an academy for identifying and training potential Labour candidates, also providing a highly visible public platform in a emotive area of identity politics for those groups to rally around at community meetings.

Notwithstanding their obvious mandate the partisanship within RCRE has become increasingly noticable in recent years - for instance taking a less active role in promoting Gurkha claims for residency than it might otherwise have done, despite many living in the area (the Gurkhas are stubbornly above party-politicking, a factor which makes them all the more formidible).

So Labour is obviously aggrieved at the cut, but possibly not so much from altruistic motives as from self-interest - they don't have a counter argument that these sums can be better channelled through other more apolitical organisations such as Reading CAB Reading Voluntary Action and Thames Valley Police.

No, Labour are angry that carefully constructed and nurtured institutional support structures for their party are being eroded. Separately it's worth pointing out how Labour also uses tax-payer's money as a piggybank from which to subsidise their election machinery (see here).

None of this is to say that more balanced representation hasn't been enabled by RCRE. On the contrary, as backed up by the JRF data, different national and religious communities are certainly more represented on Reading Borough Council - however this was designed to entrench the political balance, which it managed for almost three decades.

It is, therefore, worth questioning whether true equality can be found by promoting one form to the exclusion of other forms of equality, such as gender or age.

If it were me, I'd argue instead of cutting the funding for dropping 'Race' from their title and instead using it as an acronym - 'Reading Council for Equality'.

Jared Loughner, Laurie Penny, El Hadji Diouf, Anonymous of Stevenage and Derren Brown

2011-01-11T12:00:00.002Z

What's the connection?

First it's worth considering who each are and what they represent.

Jared Loughner has been arrested for shooting Arizona Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords. He is described as a "troubled" and "mentally unstable person" who is known to have made 'rambling' and 'incoherent' comments on various social networking media.

Laurie Pennie is a prominent blogger/twitterer and New Statesman columnist. She has made a name for herself as a campaigning luminary with strong views on left-wing and feminist issues, recently tweeting from inside the police 'kettle' during student protests outside Parliament.

El Hadji Diouf is a Senegalese attacking footballer who plays for Blackburn Rovers. He is known as a tempestuous and tempramental talent capable of playing at the highest level. He made headlines this weekend by unloading a diatribe of vitriol against a seriously injured opponent. Although he did not cause the injury Mr Diouf does have a track record of belligerent behaviour.

Anonymous of Stevenage was also involved in events surrounding the FA Cup as he invaded the pitch after the final whistle to punch a player on his own team after completing the biggest upset of the round. Stevenage beat Newcastle 3-1. It's not known what songs this person sang on the terraces.

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Amidst all the soul-searching as to why a 'lone-gunman' would wish to assassinate a politician acknowledged as a 'rising star', debate has emerged about the tone of political debate in the age of social media (discussed separately earlier).

As Mark Mardell notes, "While we don't know if the motive behind the shooting was political, it is very clear that it was immediately politicised, at least on the internet."

Except this debate has been mirrored in the op-eds of respectable newspapers almost as quickly.

Popular sports, on the other hand, are a manifestation of the political culture in which they exist. It is a stage where all the underlying tensions of a society are exposed to scrutiny as they are tested in a condensed and immediate physical format.

The objective measures which drive sporting results stand in direct contrast to the endless contention and subjective standards of all onlookers. Yet the inter-relationship between players and fans is there for all to experience and enjoy. Opinion swirls around and the context is forever changing, but what counts is still what happens on the pitch... for all their similarities politics remains somewhat different.

So when the globe-trotting Premiership multi-millionaires use the passion and compassion of English fans as reasons to move to some of the most deprived areas of the UK the potential reward of emotional and financial fulfillment is obvious, but the flipside of a more tumultuous pressure-cooker environment can also lead to more explosive and unacceptable reactions - as was evident in this FA Cup weekend.

It would be going way too far to suggest Mr Diouf has psychic powers which allowed him to control the mind of the unknown assailant several hundred miles away, but it is nevertheless blindingly apparent that they are both conditioned by the culture which holds them spellbound - either in contractual or tribal allegiance - and demands ever greater commitment.

Similarly it would be completely ridiculous to suggest any direct connection between Ms Penny (or any other political figure for that matter) and the assailant of the US Congresswoman who were separated by several thousand miles at the time.

Ms Penny has gained popularity and prominence from her incisive insights, such as this recent gem from inside Saturday's left-wing Netroots online campaigning conference which quickly topped retweet charts (a handy alibi):

"We’re listening politely whilst appointed arbiters of the centre-left mow the grassroots into a neat, acceptable bourgeois lawn."

In this she clearly and succinctly expresses the same desire to be heard as Jared Loughner, and she gives voice to the same anger at the figures seen as standing in her way.

It's not to my personal taste, and it's striking for a lack of self-depreciation or irony (commenters elsewhere note Ms Panny's relative privilege of an Oxbridge background, as a paid-for social media activist with an iPad... among other things). Yet while the politicisation of the issues take on a partisan flavour with the choice of metaphor and allusion by the author the choice of wording can draw us in with the effect of distracting us from our complicity or allow us to overlook the implications by alienating out sympathies - it's only when viewed with non-plussed dispassion that it begins to look like an attention-seeker seeking a cause and a following.

In a global society where digital communication enables interconnectivity on an unprecedented mass scale the same tendencies are shown to be common among all of human-kind, so political disagreements (such as over the legitimate use of force) become played out beyond our own literal and conceptual horizons with a profuse variety of contribution. But opinion becomes amplified within the echo chambers of interactive media as people listen to what they want to hear until it creates a self-fulfilling directive: the more something is repeated, so the more true it becomes and the more urgent it feels.

When representatives of a cause make decisions which cross the line of acceptability and descend into negativity they should save their indignant outrage at others who follow in the same path because it is they who have helped create the monster they vilify. They have set an example and legitimised all interpretations of it.

And given the pressure-cooker environment of Arizona politics where immigration, gun-control, economics and religion are characterised by diametrically opposed groups with intractable and resolute positions and there is a respected charismatic moderate prospering while being demonised by fundamentalist insurgents it should have been predictable that this was a fertile breeding ground for a loose cannon to eventually go pop.

The incoherent reasoning of Jared Loughner's attacks and his bizarre array of targets (both regarding his focus on bad grammar and gold-backed currency, as well as his shooting of a liberal Democrat politician, a conservative Judge, a 'face of hope' and others) appear to suggest a randomness to his approach which would allow us to discount the significance of his action, but this would be wrong.

It is instead a reflection of the situation he found himself in and the skills he had to comprehend it and deal with it. His overwhelming confusion about these issues carried over into how he channelled his energies - the single grand gesture was the obvious move.

By comparison the fan of Stevenage Borough who attacked his own player on a day of triumph is also something of a headscratcher on the face of things, but for anybody who's ever been there when the red mist comes down and all your concentration and energies are focussed on a single target there is only a single option and it is the most logical one in the world: the fan's reaction was a perfect reflection of a testosterone-fuelled victor in the confused post-match melee with the uncomprehending nature of what unbelieving fans had witnessed, suddenly released from the intensity of the match. Add in lingering anger at various disparities or percieved injustices and inexperience at appropriate responses and in any crowd of several thousand you can find one or two who will lose their minds.

But perhaps the development of a deeper cultural awareness and understand the cultural conditioning we each experience is not simply something to be taken for granted, but that knowledge of our own and the differences with others is something which can and will identify likely problems and likely solutions before they ever even occur.

And perhaps the shock of recent events can be taken as a positive influence to knock us out of the complacency of some of our collective assumptions.

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Talking of which, I almost forgot Derren Brown... do you remember the episode 'The Heist'?

What I'd like to ask is how did all of the participants feel so flattered that they completely let their guards down to be manipulated by him so easily?

Didn't the fact that it was Derren Brown start to make them suspicious?

Progressing the VAT debate

2011-01-06T13:05:00.008Z

Is VAT progressive or regressive, that is the question?

Well, it largely depends on who you ask.

VAT is defined in the public consciousness as a 'flat-rate' tax, so the rise from 17.5% to 20% is seen as a reduction in spending power, but more contentiously as one which will hit those who can least afford it more.

Mmm, possibly.

There's a big problem with this argument as people in lower income brackets do not experience VAT in the same way as those in higher brackets - precisely because VAT is not designed as an entirely flat-rate tax.

Indeed, because VAT change impacts are measured as a proportion of expenditure, rather than as a proportion of income (and there are basic exemptions such as food and drink which are considered universally necessary) the balance of calculations are tipped slightly in favour of poorer sections of society.

Stephanie Flanders looks at Deloitte's analysis which shows poorer families losing 0.8% of income, middle income groups 0.96% and higher income groups 'just over 1%'.

This does disproportionately impact the discretionary portion of spending among lower income groups, but nevertheless that doesn't change the fundamental 'progressivity' of the change.

However the real distortion of the debate is not in whether higher sales taxes is better or worse for any different section of society, or that it is the easiest way for the state to gain cashflow, but in perception gap between the partially progressive nature of the tax and the public understanding of it.

VAT is actually applied at 0% (zero, or exempted rates), 5% (reduced rate) or 20% (standard rate).

And this depends on various considerations, such as who's providing them or buying them, where they're provided, how they're presented for sale, the precise nature of the goods or services, among other things, as measured against the universal need for them.

But there is insufficient flexibility in this tax system.

The sector I find provides the best illumination of the problem is accommodation.

We all accept that shelter is a basic human requirement in a country like the UK, so we can clearly see affordability and purpose provide a mutual balance in each individual choice we make.

If you are on the breadline and homeless a temporary hostel might be appropriate, if you're going on honeymoon you're obviously seeking something special, but if you're simply going away for a business conference it's unlikely you will justify the expense of a 5-star hotel.

So it's obviously perverse that the tax system doesn't take this into account.

My solution would be to introduce a new higher band rate.

The introduction of a 'luxury' rate of VAT would provide a greater amount of options for politicians to rebalance the economy while dealing with the deficit and this would do much to reduce public anger over the issue.

Placing a premium on top-quality products will give them a new exclusivity which adds value to their market sector - exactly what 'value-added tax' was designed around in the first place.

There may be howls of outrage from some borderline cases, but The Dorchester wouldn't be The Dorchester if it were found on every High Street in the country, now would it?

There's something deeply worrying when Labour Leader Ed Miliband and right-wing think-tank The Institute of Economic Affairs both reach the same conclusions (albeit for different reasons), and this should indicate to any reasoned commentator that it may not be the right policy solution, but also that neither opponents are correct and a new alternative approach should be found.

The end of blogging as we know it...

2011-01-02T18:00:00.001Z

Some media attention has been garnered by the likes of Labour MP Paul Flynn and the BBC's Andrew Marr as a 'backlash' against the blogosphere gathers pace, perhaps because there's a general concensus that blogging in the UK has never been so influential as it is now.

Some authors go so far as to describe the medium as "one of the great democratic transformations of our generation," while others view it as an extension of existing forms, albeit with much fewer restrictions on entry.

Indeed, the 2010 general election was the first general election where a significant body of opinion was formed and expressed online, and slow-burning news stories such as the expenses scandal were kept alive by the wealth of writers who contributed their 'two cents' with every successive revelation.

But there's something ironic about Flynn and Marr's criticisms of democracy where every opinion can be equally valid and yet in which disagreement is somehow expected to evaporate. Instead we could ask, was 2010 actually the high-water mark for blogging?

Nevertheless recent events have highlighted the changing face of the blogosphere and the way media stories develop.

Where the main body of the 'democratic' multitude previously acted as independant agents, the voluntary infrastructure has gradually been stripped away by the regular retirements of prominent and influential bloggers on various sides - many of whom performed vital services in creating connections in debate by listing links and using their reputations to shine lights on other recommended writers with a valuable or interesting perspective to put forward.

People such as Devil's Kitchen, Letters from a Tory, Mark Reckons, Tory Bear, Tom Harris and Iain Dale were popular not just for what they had to say, but because they had built up a level of trust with their audiences based on the fact they also read other writers and were prepared to publish sign-posts with links to help readers navigate their ways to more obscure parts based on their recommendations.

The consequence of the loss of these community-minded bloggers (for all their verbal restraint, or lack thereof) is the associated rise of the group blogs and otherwise coordinated new media strategies which have subverted the initial idealism into more directed purposes and more purposeful directions.

In effect we've seen a transition from mutualism to corporatism before our very eyes.

Where once you could gain an significant audience by producing consistent levels of quality, now it's about fitting with an established agenda. Where once it was about what you said, now it's about who you know. Where once it was about your ability to create an angle or an argument, now it's about which side of the debate you're on.

The blogosphere is getting increasingly partisan, and this in turn reflects a wider media trend as people react to the reality of coalition government.

Roy Greenslade pins the turning-point down. He argues that the first election leadership debate gave the traditional media an opportunity to synthesise the public outpourings of the e-sphere as the means to regain their 'clout' (notably the blogosphere reaction was one of the best - and final - posts I managed from my digest of local blogs, read here) - and was one which the old hands didn't fail to seize.

With newspaper sales nudging an 'eye-popping' 15m, in addition to burgeoning online viewership, he says, "The power of the British press is not an illusion, and it is obviously not a thing of the past."

So perhaps it was always a fantasy that the blogosphere could stay as it was.

This trend first began to become apparent during the CSR debate, particularly when the IFS intervened in a politically-charged analysis which drew distinctions between definions of 'progressive' and 'fair'. And the glaringly obvious truth has been undeniable since the final day of the pre-Christmas Westminster session when the Daily Telegraph published a Vince Cable expose (supposedly a gaffe) that there are internal tensions within the two-party cabinet.

These controversies were entertaining to watch unfold, primarily for what they had to say about the way that the corporatist-media complex was flexing its' muscles to reassert its' dominance as the preeminent opinion-former (and the knock-on effect of the ability to direct the shaping of society), rather than how they informed the public about the way our new government was functioning.

Yet they were two storms on the peripheries which assumed greater importance to the media organisations precisely because their value could be measured in the monetized terms of additional sales rather than any effect they had on voting patterns and policy.

So what happened to bloggers?

Steve Richards helpfully notes the 'daunting' nature of the modern multi-media landscape, but reassures us opinion will always have its' place, even though he hints that this is, will, and should remain, at the bottom of the food-chain.

As Will Heaven discusses, twitter didn't kill the blogosphere, but the best commentators got absorbed into the professional ranks.

On the other side Jon Worth makes a similar point, although with more regret and less wistfulness - he suggests your position as a top blogger is nowadays a consequence of your position inside the mainstream, rather than the means by which you can enter it.

Which brings me back to mentioning Tim Montgomerie's insight about how the churn reflects the growing divergence between the industrial blogs capable of regular quality-controlled output and those independents involved in movement politics.

So it's easy to see how this shift in emphasis has had an impact for the way each new communication medium is used and that there are obvious interests involved which must be considered more fully in understanding how they can be best used.

Put alongside this the obvious costs of news-gathering and associated benefits of the peer-review enabled by a committee room full of editorial staff (on conference call, obviously) and it's clear the drive for reliability and consistency has been at the expense of greater vitality and vibrancy, but is not necessarily bad for all that.

It remains a truism that to live is to choose, and that trade-offs are unavoidable, but the pendulum is there to swing and swing again it will.

The year ahead will certainly see a fightback...

...so maybe I should think about taking some of the advice I find in these links and be a bit more focussed myself - there are definitely lots of niches still to be carved out and filled!

Cable Conducts Storm

2010-12-23T18:59:00.003Z

this is my requested response on the subject to the Evening Standard

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Vince Cable is clearly still the lightning rod capable of conducting the flow of political events!

The Business Sec's remarks can be considered to have damaged his internal standing within the coalition and reduced his influence, but by stating the obvious he has regained some sympathy at large within the country for his party too - which will certainly help in the forthcoming Oldham by-election where a strong LibDem showing is vital to maintaining membership confidence in party leaders.

Image by Steve Punter via FlickrDr Cable has demonstrated in essence that LibDems are engaging in heavy-weight policy discussions behind the scenes with all the voluable disagreements one should expect in any serious grown-up discussion. This will reassure many that policies are being decided on their merits, despite ongoing anxiety about the speed of announcements. The fact that the differences between the parties have been kept under wraps until now is a testament to the determination of both sides to make the coalition work in the national interest.

LibDem ministers have made their point that they aren't attached to power for its own sake, but they can no longer bluff their way through vital upcoming discussions - and this will also satisfy right-wingers that their own concerns are not being completely overlooked.

In particular Vince Cable's public exhortation against Rupert Murdoch is evidence of ruthless calculation, not a gaffe.

It is common knowledge LibDems are worried about the imbalance in media power represented by NewsCorp, but the tide has been against preventing a takeover of the BSkyB (it is already effectively under Murdoch's control with a 39% holding, and has long been treated as such by government departments) since the precedent set by the last government with its decision on ITV. So the handover of the decision-making power to the prominent Murdoch cheerleader and tory Culture Sec Jeremy Hunt MP can be considered a concession with an obvious outcome.

However the manner in which this give and take was made was a matter of delicate manoeuvering and Cable's only real option was to disqualify himself from the task by whatever means he had at his disposal so as to avoid the political booby-trap of further angering his own supporter base. With Tuition Fees it was the lesser of two evils, but BSkyB was Hobson's Choice.

The trade-off between Cable's personal and public standing somewhat neutralises his 'nuclear option' by setting out some much needed boundaries (such as on certain totemic welfare measures) which bolsters the Cameron-Clegg partnership by giving each side a bit of what they want. As a result the separate identities in the interdependent coalition relationship are more clearly defined.

And LibDems certainly aren't displeased to see Ed Miliband make a complete reversal of his strategy overnight - one day LibDems were shielding ideological tories, the next their attacks on the hardliners are impotent. That's the man who leads the official opposition and hopes to replace the coalition, and he can't even hold a consistent line with himself!

Song of the Day

2010-12-20T20:00:00.001Z

The sun has set for today, but tomorrow morning - for the first time in 6 centuries - a full lunar eclipse will coincide with the Winter Solstice.

It will be visible over the north and west of Europe, but for best viewing (weather permitting) make your way to the outer Hebrides.

Due to the refraction of the solar rays the moon will appear a beautiful blood red.

It's the turning of the seasons.

And it's my birthday.

Enjoy!

The song was written about the Solidarity movement, and Bono said, "It would be stupid to start drawing up battle lines," suggesting the unconventional song's success indicated a sense of popular disillusionment regarding contemporary music... and politicians.

There's something hauntingly apt about the tonality of this song, which was set against a backdrop of increasing militancy and political conflict of the early 1980s.

But where U2's development of greater harmony as a musical response to their environment and paved their way to unifying the market and become the accepted global behemoth they now are divergence and stratification among and between musical styles is preventing the emergence of spokespeople for new generations who can synthesise the thoughts of the masses.

Where are the modern bards?

It's illuminating that the names put forward to offer commentary on the implications of the recent X-Factor phenomenon include Elton John, Paul Weller, Seal, Suggs, Alice Cooper, Bernard Sumner, Brett Anderson and Damon Albarn.

Perhaps JLS and Alison Goldfrapp still have time to create greater popular resonance with their art, but is it me or are contemporary musicians not making the same impact?

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more music

A Prize Less Nobel

2010-12-11T11:42:00.005Z

Those crazy Norwegians have done it again - last year the Nobel Institute awarded their premier annual honorarium to Barack Obama, now this year they've stirred controversy again by deeming Liu Xiaobo (profile) as worthy of placing in their exclusive pantheon of peace campaigners.

On several levels this is a bad decision, but it is also indicative of a deeper trend within the establishment institute.

First of all the list of nations boycotting the ceremonial proceeedings has grown to include Vietnam, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan - in addition to China.

While this may comprise a list of most of the less desirable national regimes in the world it strikes me as odd for the institute to wish to unify them in opposition to the supposed aim of world peace, and it can only increase friction and lead to greater global instability - thereby undermining the efforts of individuals for greater harmony.

This is summed up for the BBC by Chatham House's Kerry Brown,

"the dialogue is now hardening into precisely the kind of 'clash of civilisations' that former elite leaders in China like Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s did their best to avoid."

So whatever the actual merits of Mr Liu as a peace campaigner, the recognition of him by the Nobel Institute is contrary to their near-term intentions.

In one particular way this is indicative of the politicisation involved in the process and it highlights the dominant tendency in those parts for a more confrontational approach to high politics. Under these prevailing conditions polarisation escalates until a clash is inevitable. And that prospect is a cause for major concern.

But regarding Mr Liu, his Nobel citation states that the award is "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

In other words the institute is aligning itself not for any successful achievements, but for being on the frontline of a struggle which it wishes to show its support for.

As Francis Sejested, chair of the awarding committee from 1991-1999, wrote in 2001, the prize has had a distinct and sometimes uncomfortable history. He explains:

"Some [laureates] won the prize for their non-violent struggle against racial discrimination, and some for their efforts to establish international human rights organizations, but most were given the award for peaceful but effective struggles for civil and political rights in their own countries."

Clearly not all laureates are given the award on equal merit, and just as clearly Mr Liu falls into the first category.

So it obviously wasn't a year where there was an outstanding candidate, though it was nevertheless a marked improvement on the grounds provided for handing it to Obama last year shortly after he obtained office.

As I said then, this comes down to the arbitrary and artificial nature of an award given on an annual basis and reflecting contemporary circumstances rather than as something objective which will stand the test of time - after all real peace is not a transient state of affairs.

And equally this raises some challenging questions about what we mean by 'fundamental rights' or freedoms, human, civil or otherwise.

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Which brings me to asking you, who you think has been the most/least deserving recipient of the Peace Prize and why?

Gandhi would be a common favorite candidate, but he was never given it. Henry Kissinger and Anwar Sadat would be less fovourable for what transpired after their respective 'successful' peace negotiations.

For me the #1 is an often overlooked figure - Fridtjof Nansen - who was a polar explorer, scientist and diplomat.

His life's work can't easily be summed up, but his advances to oceanography, zoology and as a pioneer in neurology alone would be sufficient for one lifetime.

However he did this all while pushing back the boundaries of human endurance in the 'race for the pole' (think Shackleton crossed with Darwin), before then being a principle mover in the establishment of a stable and independent Norway and founding the precursor to UNHCR when millions of people were displaced after the end of World War One and their national statuses were in limbo after partition of the defeated empires (a similar situation three decades later when independence for India resulted in partition couldn't prevent the deaths of millions in mass outbreaks of civil violence even with the intervention of the aforesaid Gandhi).

Nansen's very real and lasting achievements epitomise the worthy contribution to all humanity evisioned by Alfred Nobel when he wrote in his Will that the peace prize should be given for whoever made "the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses," and the memory of Nansen is something his countrymen shouldn't diminish in their zeal to progress their subjective vision of a global ideology.

More thoughts on the Fifa vote

2010-12-04T09:12:00.003Z

Shorter than previously, but worth adding anyway.

I've just read the sympathetic and balanced view from the Beeb, and the acting Chairman declares he will will reverse his reversed decision to apply for the job on a permanent basis explaining that in his liason role it is necessary to build relationships of trust.

The unspoken truth is blinding - Fifa's decision-making process was highly politicised.

Qatar may seem like a strange choice, even when the expansionary argument that it will 'grow the game' is put on the table (it's a country with less than 1m permanent residents). But this is about the machinations of power.

This bidding event was Sepp Blatter's apotheosis - it was his last great opportunity to influence and shape the world in his image, before he is replaced by his anointed successor... the Qatari President of the Asian Football Confederation Mohammed bin Hamman.

Collusion? Nepotism? Corruption? It's the world on a plate.

Or, as Pele said, 'Football is a metaphor for life'.

And as Shakespeare almost certainly didn't say, 'All the world isn't a level playing field'.

It strikes me as an unwise politics which fails to recognise all decisions are inherently and necessarily political. And any politician who fails to maximise their strengths and who then complains about their opponents tactics is simply not worthy - we should be warned about where they will lead us.

This reality is a truth played out on the green spaces (or white this weekend) where we play our games every time the threshold is crossed.

Be it the Ashes, Wimbledon, your Saturday local league or any friendly kick-about: you know the ground rules, they are established before you start.

Unfairness is unsporting and will cause rancor.

Everyone has an opinion on what is most fair, but your opinion is always a reflection of the view from your seat and we should understand therefore that true fairness is a gift.

So the bidding process wasn't objectively objective and only three of the exectutive committee members read all of the 500-page documents with supporting appendices made by each bid. So England's FA spent between £15m and £50m on it. So the technical and commercial sides of the England's bid should have put it in pole position.

We wuz robbed.

"We played all the football and created the better chances." The other teams dived and fouled and cheated and won off a lucky deflected shot which the 'keeper should've had covered after the ref disallowed one for us which was blatantly onside and, anyway, we definitely should've been given us a penalty after a stonewaller in the box...

As is also said - the table stands up because never lies. After all the dust dies down and all the recrimination is buried in the hope it isn't dragged up next time we will see what we've learnt and how we will be able to improve.

We praise the powerful when they show us favour, but we criticise when they turn away from us.

Such is, but should not be. Take note students.

Coe's colossal miscalculation

2010-12-03T18:00:00.003Z

The fallout from England's failed bid to host the World Cup has been everywhere to see following yesterday's Fifa vote.

With bitter grapes over 'corrupt' members of the executive committee exposed by Britain's free press, anger at the 'reward' given to the racism shown by football fans in the Russian 'mafia-state', confusion over the misleading feedback provided in the technical report fingers are being pointed in all directions. Everyone is asking how it could possibly be that the FA weren't the most deserving.

In this nobody comes out well. Not any of the politicians who hitched their status to the prestige bandwagon, unrealistic levels of expectancy fed to and lapped up by a baying public and commercial interests willing a multi-billion pound economic boon during times of uncertainty.

In all the haste to divvy out blame real understanding why the English bid failed is entirely lacking.

Enthusiasm to mount a successful bid grew in the wake of the victory to host the 2012 Olympics.

When London surprised commentators in Singapore to overturn the long-time favorite Paris there was a feeling of momentum that Britain had the wherewithal to upset any odds and finally bring football home.

Credit was duly given to bid leader Sebastian Coe for putting together a deliverable package which held sufficient appeal to the 200+ IOC voters, but appointing him to a similar position reflected a complete failure to recognise Fifa's 24-man committee is an entirely different beast.

Where the Olympic Games are a sporting event treated as an almost cult-like spectacle, football is the game of the people. Where the IOC are the guardians of absolutist performance between the best of the best, Fifa oversees the relative interdependent competition imbued in matchplay. Where races and demonstrations between top individuals comprise athletics, gymnastics, swimming, cycling and the rest, football is mass participation with a primarily team-based ethic.

The Olympics is the showcase and for every Corinthian fringe activity, but football is the singular zenith of mass-participation regular routine: Olympic success inspires transient shock and awe, World Cup success inspires universal and eternal passion and despair.

The two greatest sporting events in the world calendar are positioned at the opposite ends of the modern political spectrum.

It may seem perverse that we shouldn't treat these two impostors just the same, but with hindsight fresh in our mirrors it should be obvious that the philosophy which goes into a successful bidding process for an Olympic Games and the World Cup must not replicate each other.

These opposing psychologies are reflected in the interests represented by the members of each voting committee. So while London won by presenting itself as the secure option and Paris lost with an emotional appeal it was almost a guarantee that England (and the Iberian or US bids for that matter) would lose out by characterising themselves as the less risky (read more profitable) option in the face of the opportunity proffered by a more vibrant alternative however far out of leftfield it came.

Tony Blair's inherent consensualism was credited as decisive when it came to making vital last-minute converts in Singapore, but the interminable schmoozing and inevitable backbiting during the run-up to the decision made yesterday in Zurich only reinforced the likelihood of a choice more controversial to establishment figureheads associated with it (such as Lord Triesman, Prince William and David Cameron).

And for me it was this fundamental political miscalculation at the heart of the England World Cup bid that almost certainly doomed the outcome from the very start.

If the finger of blame must be pointed then it can only be directed at the principle names associated with both. And there is only one. Sebastian Coe.

In his active athletic career Seb Coe rose to prominence as an Olympic great from outside the establishment circles. He rejected standard training methods and ruffled many feathers by refusing to attend meetings when it didn't fit with his schedule in order that he could peak at the right moment.

During the early 80s the prodigious Coe set a pattern which is now copied by most elite performers and risked non-selection for it. In the latter part of the decade he became more of a money athlete, knowing that he had been surpassed as others adopted a more radical regime and he could trade on his gold-medal-winning reputation to maximise his earning potential.

And his career as an administrator has followed a similar trajectory - the radical outsider broke into the establishment becoming favoured with official responsibility in recognition for his successes and knighted in the process, but declining in his overall performance and less able to deliver excellence as it has been demanded with ever-more consistency after the powers-that-be turned to him on the basis of his track record.

He can be forgiven - even applauded - the first time round, as he was doing it for its own rewards. But after he had accepted the duty to serve others and represent the interests of his country to then fail to understand his requirement to learn how the circumstances are different would lead to certain failure of the shared enterprise.

So if people are looking for reasons and to scapegoat individuals then in Lord Sebastian Coe a better candidate couldn't be found. His is a cautionary political fable.

Wild scenes as man of his lifetime dies

2010-11-29T20:18:00.014Z

Leslie Neilsen has died. He was 84. It was pneumonia. In Florida.

Amidst all the weepingly funny moments provided by the man of no mirth I haven't yet seen a fully appropriate tribute to the comic career made from unflinchingly inappropriate reactions to disaster.

The son of welsh-danish immigrants to Sasketchawan who later in life fulfilled his all-Canadian dream of becoming a Mountie (at least on-screen in Due North), he came from an unlikely family, but one which was destined for bigger things.

While his elder brother, Erik, became deputy PM in Canada during the 1980s, his uncle, Jean Hersholt, became the president of burgeoning Academy of Motion Pictures during its post-WW2 propagandist heyday (1945-49), and it was this which undoubtedly spurred his course into the acting firmament.

While studying at a radio college in Toronto he recieved a scholarship to New York's Neighbourhood Playhouse where he gained a foothold in aspiring acting circles, studying alongside names like Charlton Heston.

This was the world of serious dramaticians where new media forms of television and reporting were taking their first baby steps. Henry Miller and Marlon Brando etched a scar into every word they composed or delivered, but the reading populace was hooked on sci-fi comics and true crime, each in their own way reflecting the political threats of the looming cold war and the baby-boomer generation.

It was a world epitomised by Alexander MacKendrick's 'Sweet Smell of Success', where the unethical and unscrupulous compete in a demi-monde of tyrrants just to survive. Such a backdrop of self-interest and self-promotion inevitably descends into the corruption of ideals, but grows more vital for all that.

But stage-work held less appeal for his rugged middle-class Scandinavian good-looks. In 1950 alone Leslie Nielsen appeared in over 50 live TV dramas. He made it as the pulp actor.

Nielsen then went from live action television to 'B' movie respectability with notable performances such as in 'Forbidden Planet' (which is attributed as the inspiration for Star Trek, perhaps directly enabled by Hersholt's cultivation of Gene Roddenberry as a writer). He continued to ply his trade until he failed to brace himself for the tidal wave which would hit him after accepting the role as captain of the doomed ship in 'The Poseidon Adventure'.

This mid-70s establishment schlockbuster was a staple of church homilies for decades (until it was replaced by Dan Brown's epic credulity-stretcher), but Nielsen's ability to play a serious character equally oblivious and complicit in his fate caught the attention of tentative spoof-artists and paved the way for his latter comedic triumph.

In between, Nielsen was regularly on the fringes of mainstream success with try-outs for everything from Ben-Hur to Hawaii Five-O... parodies which would have written themselves, how different our popular consciousness could have been!

Homage

News announcers have attempted to pin him as a master of the dead-pan one-liner, but if anything their narrow focus and short memory is their loss.

Leslie Nielsen was the master at maintaining a running accumulation of absurdity.

Quelle d'hommage

Outside his screen persona the ability to deliver classic links unbeknownst by simply 'acting natural' just began to fall into his lap, and he developed this character art into a dedicated brand as unique and profound as other comedy greats.

Homme de l'age

It wasn't so much that he could carry-off the ridiculous with equanimity, rather it was how his stock character highlighted the ridiculousness of any given situation and our attitudes towards it.

In his transition from doomed commander of space ships and cruise ships to the hapless huckster who somehow wins out through incompetent toil Leslie Nielsen mirrored the change in public appreciation of high-level politics from one of deference to one of scepticism.

And it all happened in one inoccuous line delivered as the supporting lead half-way through a derivative rehash.

He was serious, and luckily for us we saw the moment he turned!

But for a final word I'll leave you with some suitable words from suitable people, the Kings of the Ring, with whom he gave Frank Drebin one last drubbing and closed the case of 'The Undertaker'.

Insensitive, offensive and just plain wrong - Lord Young proves he's an old codger

2010-11-19T12:00:00.001Z

In an interview with the true-blue Telegraph Tory peer Lord Young said "the vast majority of people in the country today... have never had it so good," but the choice of words by this particular individual couldn't have been worse if he'd tried.

As an unpaid advisor to the coalition Government he obviously has sufficient private means to insulate himself from the government cuts. He is also in a position to be able to watch from the comfortable inside of Whitehall as large numbers of paid workers dependant on state employment are sent into the insecurity of the outside world.

With experience as a former Trade and Industry minister during Margaret Thatcher's tenure in Downing Street he is of a select vintage harking back to a period in history which political folklore has memorialised in thousands of urban regeneration projects up and down the country to compensate for the damage caused. And His Dotage clearly recalls Harold Macmillan's era-defining comment when post-war stability allied to the burgeoning welfare state certainly did make it appear all was well with the world.

But now is not then and neither has the future decided whether the current economic circumstances are merely a blip on the chart of history or a tipping point at which a slide into catastrophe became inevitable.

That Bank of England interest rates are at historic lows certainly does mean mortgage repayments are well below where they might have been given different reactions by decision-makers - 0.5% is a long way off 15% - yet with the home-owning democracy of his former bosses now underpinning the credit ratings of millions and the freedom of mobility enabled by a continuous upwards trend in house prices under threat the general sense of security and well-being is nowhere near where he imagines for the 'vast majority' he spoke of.

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It's difficult to guess whether the appearance of such a dinosaur trotting out on the stage with this selection of stereotypical lines will help or hinder the coalition in the longer term, but the damage limitation exercise by Number Ten's PR department will hope the swift retraction and full apology proves sufficient.

LibDems ministers on the other hand must be seething that they may be tarred by this blue brush (especially with their first public test of the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election getting nearer by the day), and they could be tempted to insist that an example is made of him. Such a move would certainly demonstrate a difference in tone between the parties and show they are still an independent force, although an orchestrated move by backbenchers would cause some friction with colleagues in the cabinet.

So new LibDem President Tim Farron has an immediate opportunity to flex his freshly-mandated muscles as the spokesman for the membership and he would make a definite impression in his own progress towards a future leadership contest against Danny Alexander.

The episode provides ample grounds for restating the long-standing LibDem position that although the country has consistently made tangible gains these have been unequally distributed across different sectors of society.

As the furore of definitions of 'fairness' brought to light, the burden of the cuts does have a proportionately larger effect on those at the bottom of the ladder, but significantly the ONS measures also show there is a growing underclass of people who were getting left behind as inequality has continued to rise throughout periods of cuts as well as during phases when growth in government spending has dominated.

So while Labour and Conservatives direct their political messages at business and the aspirant middle-classes of professional and subsistence workers there is a still-untapped constituency of outsiders who LibDems have traditional attempted to appeal to and for.

This messy underclass of NEETs and others remain largely beyond the scope of government intervention. Despite all the efforts and money directed at them these are people who are disillusioned and disenfranchised by the state.

These are the neglected and unrecognised groups who prefer to avoid means tests and the stench of pencil-pushing bueaucrats. They may be non-voters, they may have mental illness or depression, they may be drug-users, probationers or homeless or simply people who see the media construction of state and other people as irrelevant to their own enclosed lives.

They are people who drift in and out of formal society or who've dropped-out completely and live a casual meandering existence. You won't find them if you're looking for them because their art is in avoiding you.

They live on the fringes of political consciousness because they won't ask for help and would refuse it if offered: the state isn't providing solutions for this underclass and I don't think it can provide any direct solutions - instead the state must be reformed.

And this is where only the LibDem belief in freedom can be transformative.

They need to be able to say that their way doesn't have to be the same as your way, and that this is OK if you are prepared to accept the consequences.

For starters it would help if they said Lord Young should be sent on his way.

Over to you, Mr Farron.

Songs of the Day

2010-11-05T13:00:00.006Z

Boom, Boom, Boom.

Bombs go boom.

It's been a week in which news headlines have been dominated by bombs.

Apparently the printer bomb sent by cargo plane from Yemen and destined never to reach their intended recipients at Jewish institutions in Chicago was defused with only 17 minutes to spare and the implications for the air freight industry has got(ten) the international media wound up with excitement.

In such circumstances intelligence - and especially the calmness to use it when under pressure - comes at a premium and a balance must be struck between the twin imperatives of security and liberty to continue business as usual.

However industry body IATA has warned that this will have a major impact which they won't be able to compress alone.

Unsurprisingly questions have been raised about efficacy of scanning machines - none more eloquently than by the delightfully-if-unfortunately-appropriately-named Geneva airport spokesman, Bertrand Stämpfli, who said without any trace of world-weariness, "Every time there is a crisis we get an incredible number of calls from lobby groups all trying to sell the best possible detection machine," although I'm less confident of his assertion that "Everyone is suspicious of 'the magic detection machine'."

Nevertheless I completely agree with Swiss aviation expert Sepp Moser's comment, "There is no absolute security and it can never be achieved."

Meanwhile 14 parcel bombs have been sent to various embassies and political offices across Europe this week - there's nothing like priming a pump to make sure your story detonates with sufficient resonance.

Well, Al-Jazeera is equally right to show balance by pointing out that Europe is under constant threat of internal terrorism in order to show that the phenomena can't simply be written off as the fundamentalist extremism of outsiders - the West does have some very real problems which won't just go away if we ignore them... the rest of the world can't ignore them - just like any powerful expansion the vacuum it grows to fill is only relative.

Anyway in this excursion into the explosive world of medialand I found this fantastic article by Nicola Simpson in which she details how the establishment of 'a successful equilibrium' comes from recognising that one side simply cannot exist without the other as it is in fact defined by the other.

Ms Simpson quotes Franklin's inalienable 'essential liberty' and remarks on Montesquieu's argument that the general political reality has a marked influence on specific individual conceptions of where the balance will be struck.

She suggests complacency about security "will inevitably mean a seismic shift in our attitudes concerning what liberty or liberties we might consider essential."

The big modern example cited is 9/11. And clearly this event informs both the Yemeni ink-jet bomber and Al-Jazeera's giving weight to a campaign of anti-establishment anarchists sending bombs through the post to Berlusconi, Sarkozy and Merkel.

But more interestingly she notes another notorious instance where an unbalanced media enabled the political swing to be pushed: The Reichstag fire in 1933.

It occurred only 4 weeks after the new Chancellor took office and was used as an example of exactly the sort of threat which government should intervene to prevent.

It is easy to compare the conspiracy theories which grew into the information gap in both 1933 and 2001 as examples of apparent coincidence mounted up, but to do so would require a final judgement on the precise details of the full events and this is something we should refrain from as history has a habit of letting the facts speak for themself.

For me at least the lesson is that we can't neglect the potential for distortions in hindsight even when we assume we have 20/20 vision, and the only reliable method to maintain as close an approximation is to seek the widest balance possible.

Although I reject the accusation that I'm a conspiracy theorist I do find it an ironic coincidence to recall the first weeks of the previous Prime Minister's tenure, when a pathetically incompetent series of bombers lined up to undermine the new regime - first there was the Tiger, Tiger incident and then there was a gas bomb attack on Glasgow Airport which resulted in fingers being pointed at an active cell linked to Al-Qaeda.

Bombs are tediously predictable if you've ever seen one explode. They are designed with a single purpose in mind. To cause sufficient impact to make a breakthrough.

All the way back to the original fireworks night when Guido Fawkes (no, not that one) attempted to blow up the pomposity of parliament (yes, the very same one) the results are the same: bombs do not and never have changed the underlying requirement to ensure the essence of liberty is maintained through regularised parameters of behaviour. Bombs are beyond the bounds. They are evidence of an argument backed by force at the expense of right.

So ignore the convenience of a shocking bombing campaign launched during Halloween week and forget who could be trying to manipulate the agenda.

Oh, did I mention 28-day control orders are under consideration?

As Bagehot wraps up, it's an issue which unites LibDems - a curate's egg at the best of times, least of all while being scapegoated for sweetening the economic medicine in straightened times.

But as Andrew Rawnsley points out in his usual muscular editorial voice, this partisan unity is not only a glue which keeps the internal coalition locked within the government coalition, but it is also the charge which is driving the government forwards.

Boom, boom, pow.

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more music

The IFS, the buts and the maybes - questions of fairness and the CSR

2010-11-02T10:12:00.000Z

This is a cross-posting. It was originally published on 27th October here and was based on my previous couple of posts here and here.

I'll offer some thoughts on the discussion it raised (50 comments) below.

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Last week Nick Clegg and the Institute of Fiscal studies squared up over the issue of whether the cuts proposed in the Comprehensive Spending Review are fair.

It is a debate which strikes at the heart of Lib Dems in the coalition government and it will determine the shape of politics in this country for next decade.

For the first time ever the Treasury included an impact analysis of the announced changes within the CSR, the effect of pressure from Lib Dems. These were calculated according to the sections of society that will bear the burden of the changes (ie how ‘progressive’ it is).

But it is a question subsequent events show it has singularly failed to settle.

It came after years of urging from left-wing think-tanks (such as the Fabian Society) that the Office of National Statistics annual evaluation of the effects of taxes and benefits on household income [pdf report June2010] was insufficient.

The controversy begs two questions:
1) why didn’t Labour force the Treasury to include an impact assessment in 13 years of government under Brown or Blair?
2) if the established measures didn’t enjoy support, why wasn’t a review of the impact analysis methodology introduced earlier?

After the election the IFS attempted to do just that with a report timed to coincide with the coalition’s post-election emergency budget. The IFS argued that “assessing the impact of government activity on the distribution of household living standards is essential to the evaluation of public service provision,” but offered the warning that this “raises challenging conceptual issues” and cited sources claiming that the then current methodology provided by the ONS was too simplistic [pdf report July2010].

The IFS were then charged with developing new criteria to determine a more accurate impact analysis. Their new calculations informed the basis of Chancellor George Osbourne’s speeches to the House of Commons on the spending cuts which the Government could recommend on the basis that the cuts were indeed ‘progressive’.

Following the Chancellor’s speeches on the Budget and CSR, the IFS gave their widely reported counter-briefings arguing a diametrically opposed conclusion [pdf press release August2010, pdf opening remarks October2010].

This is the corresponding graph presented by the IFS:

Can you spot the difference?

The former shows a representation of the impact measured as a percentage of net income by decile. The latter includes a representation measured as a percentage of net expenditure, using projections from two years later to exaggerate the effect. The former explains that the cuts are generally progressive, but the latter that the cuts are massively regressive.

So when Nick Clegg intervened to denounce the IFS briefing as ‘distorted nonsense’, besides the attack the more astute reader would notice that this supported the July review of the need for more accurate assessment of fairness, as written by none other than the IFS.

Clegg stated that he “fundamentally disagreed” with this month’s IFS analysis of the biggest losers in the welfare spending cuts, arguing for a more accurate analysis including welfare spending inputs from services such as childcare and social care which are targetted and taken up by more the most vulnerable lower-income groups and families with children, but who the IFS said would be hit hardest in cash-only terms by the changes to tax and benefits.

As it was the IFS had effectively rewitten the sums devised by the ONS without challenging the ‘conceptual issues’ they had identified – and the standard bearers of the left (Labour, Trade Unions, Fabian Society et al) have swallowed their conclusions whole!

So why the turnaround by the IFS on the issue of fairness?

At last December’s pre-budget report the IFS recommended 13% cuts to departmental budgets to deal with the budget deficit problems, a view which was subsequently taken up as Labour policy on the grounds that deeper cuts risked a double-dip recession. This which was followed by 25% cuts proposed in the budget and angrily rejected by the IFS.

Advocates of a smaller-state might argue that a respected, impartial and independent think-tank actively tendering for projects formerly undertaken by a government quango is a good example of encouragement the private sector needs to make the desired productivity gains and fill the gap left by government cuts.

A sceptic, however, might point out that the IFS report was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, which is staffed by appointments made under the previous government, is itself dealing with cuts and agreed to ‘strongly communicate’ the implications of any changes to its financial allocation which it recieves from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. Consequently ESRC board members decided it would “quickly respond to questions raised by rapid changes of events” and this may have mitigated against deeper investigation into measures of fairness, possibly causing the IFS to rely too heavily on the previous sums devised by the ONS and which critics had deemed ‘insufficient’.

The coalition has now revised the cuts to departmental budgets down by a quarter to 19%. It has done this by making additional savings elsewhere, such as by postponing capital spending, and it has done it in order to reach its stated aim of reaching budget stability by bringing nominal growth in budget growth back into line with longer trends in 4-5 years. Yet the vehemence of the IFS opposition is undiminished and appears to be growing as they get drawn into the political arena.

It should be no surprise that this timescale coincides precisely with the period Nick Clegg and David Cameron have promised to remain in coalition before going to the country for the next general election.

Were the total cuts to be smaller this would take longer and therefore require a new mandate to complete the programme, but for the governing coalition to survive until a point after the next election it would demand some form of electoral pact between LibDems and tories – something activists in both parties see as poison – and especially with the prospect of a positive referendum on proportional votes looming, which should be a given as Ed Miliband has stated his support for AV on the grounds of fairness (what else!) and must back to the hilt the item in the coalition agreement LibDems have described as a ‘deal-breaker’ and a ‘game-changer’.

So Labour strategy to attack LibDems over fairness in cuts is three-fold.

The easy solution for them is to undermine LibDems sufficiently to break the coalition and force an early election before government by coalition is effectively locked in by an AV referendum.

Labour’s second option is to weaken resolution within the coalition in order to delay the point at which it can be dissolved amicably in preparation for an AV election where an electoral pact would paint LibDems as ‘tories in disguise’.

And thirdly it deflects from Labour’s own cuts agenda which it needs to maintain any economic credibility.

Maybe this explains why Labour must stoke an argument over fairness to stand any chance of returning to power within the foreseeable future.

But if anyone is in any doubt about Labour’s commitment to fairness, we only need to consider their track record and how growth in economic inequality under Labour carried over from the 1980s and 90s throughout their 13 years in office, according to the Equalities Office [pdf report Jan2010] (this is particularly important here as continuing growth in inequality suggests any calculation of the impact of tax and welfare changes on income or expenditure by decile becomes less relevant over time as the effect of spending on services increases in relevance).

Maybe we should ask, “where were you in the Labour government, Mr Miliband?”

And therefore maybe we should also question the emphasis given to the opinion of the ‘respected’ IFS regarding the progressiveness of cuts when it is only the most well-known of a range of equally respected bodies producing reports into fairness.

A balanced and pluralist perspective undoubtedly gives a fuller picture than a single independent view, however impartial the people giving it – and surely you can’t say fairer than that!

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Regular readers will know how I enjoy occasionally entering into controversial territory, and on a fundamental current debate such as this it was to be expected that my piece would draw the usual selection of opposing views.

I originally hoped this article would simply challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, following the model of media narratives thriving on confrontation to dramatise their subject.

Yet it initially seemed several of the readers refused to get drawn into contemplating the complexity of the issues.

As a consequence it was somewhat inevitable that there were strongly positive and negative reactions - the content was disregarded, supported and generally misunderstood; I was blamed and held responsible for making 'dangerous' and 'odious' implications bordering on a conspiracy theory - all within the first handful of responses!

While it may be obvious that those who can least afford it will suffer most from the cuts in the CSR I think the strength of the responses indicate that I was at least partially successful in opening up some daylight between what is meant by 'progressive' and 'fair'.

Indeed, I don't think they are the same thing at all, even where they overlap.

So the problem, as Ian Sanderson rightly explains, is the lack of an accepted definition for 'fairness'.

But in the course of the discussion my main thread - that there is a political and electoral reality which must be accounted for - all too quickly became smothered.

And this is particularly marked where Anthony Aloysius St says, "It’s entirely the government’s decision how fast the deficit is reduced."

As much as the opposition is seeking to paint it as one single stripe, the fact of coalition has forced all practical economic planning in the CSR to be encompassed within the timeframe of the current parliament.

Equally this has a bearing on my supposed attack on the ESRC, where the reality of an interlinking and fluid state of human relationships and interests quickly becomes misrepresented as supposition of bias.

Anyway, after I entered the comments thread it strikes me that the tone changed and the commenters accepted we each have to have a perspective in order to be able to give an opinion.

I can admit here that I do tend to adopt a somewhat provocative stance, but life would be boring if everyone simply agreed all the time, so it is at this point that the discussion enters more interesting territory as Sen and others consider where they are coming from (thereby tacitly accepting the post had a particular intent, even if it was obscured by my spaghetti-like weaving of ideas).

So you can imagine that I was almost dumbstruck (I know!) with George Kendall's comment:

"I can’t think of another debate on LDV where serious discussion has led me from disagreement to agreement. If only this kind of civilised discussion were more common on the internet!"

And when Chris Riley pops up to enthuse that mature political debate should avoid tribal sniping
because the full picture must involve the contributions of all sides despite the "caricatures and imperfect information" we form our impressions under, I started to feel more confident that my mischief-making had actually drawn some real light onto the matter.

So, if you've already made your mind up about the government, the CSR, or even this humble author, I'll recommend you read through the full contributions.

Easy-peasy, LibDem squeezy

2010-10-24T17:59:00.009+01:00

LibDems always suffer from squeezes, but they've never been knocked out despite the rush to paint all issues as either-or questions. So we shouldn't count them out just yet, despite current opinion polls putting them at the lowest for a generation.

There is a simple reason the LibDems are consistently squeezed before mounting a fightback – false arguments are habitually employed against them.

This may be done sincerely or as deliberate politically-motivated scare tactics, but the truth has a way of fighting back.

Labour is currently scaring people that the cuts are a callous ideological-based attempt to hit the poor, and this clearly has some traction, but while some thatcherites may wish this the doubling of the long-term growth rates in public spending since 2000 from 3% to 6% simply can’t be sustained – especially during an economic downturn.

In fact this is one of the major contributory factors in spurring the downturn, and until spending is put right the national economy risks spiralling out of control.

The thatcherites want to see the trend fall below inflation. LibDems are arguing that current spending growth should return to trend.

Cameron has overseen the formation of a coalition between these two different arguments and this enabled him to gain power – it is interesting that he has diplomatically avoided a full declaration of his intentions, which is why he is regarded with suspicion by both thatcherites and LibDems (and outright contempt by left-wingers), but that is how he was successful in becoming PM – he holds the key to maintaining the tenuous balance of power.

Which is also why the left is remorseless in attacking Clegg’s use of ‘fairness’.

According to forecasts the cuts will see the country return to trend in 4-5 years, or about the time the coalition has stated they will call the next general election.

If LibDems didn’t support the proposed level of cuts the point at which their arguments diverge from the thatcherites would occur after the next election and this would necessitate an electoral pact – which is against LibDem interests and runs against all instincts of activists in both LibDem and Conservative parties.

So Labour’s hopes of returning to government within the next decade depend upon either an early election caused by LibDem withdrawl from the coalition, or upon a lower rate of cuts to enable them to paint LibDems as tories in disguise.

Labour is making a big political gamble, but then so too is the coalition gambling that the private sector is able and willing to grow at the same rate as the state will contract - and 120,000 jobs per year would be more possible if it weren't being done at the same time as raising the retirement age.

A Tale of Two Graphs

2010-10-23T08:30:00.007+01:00

It was the best of graphs, it was the worst of graphs...

...and both were prepared according to the same formula by the prominent think-tank, the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

The first was given much weight by the Treasury during the Comprehensive Spending Review (full document pdf).

The second was published as a slide to accompany the IFS' own post-CSR briefing (text pdf).

As Sunder Katwala confirms it was the first time ever that the Treasury had published a distribution of spending annexe, but only after some urging from groups such as his own Fabian Society.

The point of interest is the difference between the two: the official document omits the two lines indicating the totals as a proportion of income (white line) and as a proportion of expenditure (yellow line).

As we shall see below these illustrations are at the heart of a storm which encapsulates the whole debate over the current agenda of cuts dominating current politics and which provides the backdrop for the current parliament and the coalition government.

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When Chancellor George Osborne declared that the CSR "sets out a new vision of fairness for Britain," he determined that an acceptable definition of fairness now meant one which prioritises social mobility, on the grounds that "the existing system of support for the poorest has failed to deliver."

During his speech he used the word 'fairness' 24 times.

Socially-minded Trade Unions were quick to denounce this new definition, while economically-minded voices of business offered staunch resistance.

Fairness has been the watchword of the LibDem contingent in the coalition government ('putting fairness at the heart of the LibDem manifesto', speech to conference announcing the £7bn 'fairness premium', email to party members following the CSR, ) and attacks on their definition of fairness have been a continuous theme of opposition to the coalition - as ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomery pointed out during the conference season the strategy is designed to get LibDems to pull out of the government, and force a neutered minority government to limp on or force a new election.

Even local LibDem councillors are highly conscious that fairness is a dangerously subjective concept which allows Ed Miliband to practise divide-and-conquer tactics by focussing in remorselessly on individual policies.

And in an influential article Julian Glover notes how "LibDems are making a poor job of defending themselves."

Clearly Nick Clegg's party are vulnerable to this line of attack and Labour scent blood.

But in one sense Mr Clegg handed his opponents a recipe for his destruction by setting fairness as a test for the coalition's implementation of the promised cuts in the spending review.

Well he's certainly being tested now!

The public guillotine and the baying crowd

While strikes p aralyse Paris and her provinces, in England the watchers wait and wonder where the chop will come.

The Guardian was first to splash how 'the UK's most respected independent tax and spend monitor' IFS exposed a fairness gap in the spending review cuts during their post-CSR briefing, using the proffered graph as the prime illustration of their calculations.

While admitting the difficulty in calculating accurately the full impact, acting IFS director Carl Emmerson announced unequivocally that the impact (as shown by the yellow line graph) was "regressive, not progressive," before prudently adding the rider (with which they would later absolve themselves) that this did not reflect on the fairness of the plan, since fairness is 'in the eye of the beholder'.

But by then the dirty deed had been done and editors everywhere had written their prepared headlines. It was a call to arms. They intended to claim their latest victim and reassert the power of the press over a politician who had shut them out during 5 ravenous days of coalition discussions.

Like a merry dance the press had been primed for this briefing session well in advance - they'd even had a practise run after the budget when Mr Clegg slammed the 'partial' IFS report against it.

Guardian Liveblogger Andrew Sparrow even noted how there was a neat symmetry between the IFS briefing and a simultaneous joint Q&A session with David Cameron and Nick Clegg on the subject, bemoaning the lack of cameras at the IFS which would have enabled 24-hr news channels to show both on split-screens.

And C4's economics editor Faisal Islam tweeted at the laughter in the IFS briefing which greeted "the most regressive graph in history".

What everyone seems to have overlooked in the course of this choreographed entertainment was the partner to the yellow line in the IFS' presentation: the white line.

Or at least everyone except Nick Clegg was conveniently hoodwinked. The Deputy Prime Minister actively grabbed at it, using it to contradict the IFS' assertive conclusions, knowing how he was the prey in their sights he attempted to use the weapon they'd provided for his defence.

Almost immediately an interview with the Guardian was arranged, which he used to accuse the IFS of 'distorted nonsense'.

The Guardian was the obvious title for the job as the repository of opinion formers and readers most likely to be swayed by any controversy over 'fairness'.

Lifting itself up on it's legs, the story now ran.

Reuters boasted 'Clegg rejects IFS austerity criticism'; The Daily Telegraph reported Nick Clegg says IFS claims poor will be hardest hit are 'nonsense'; The FT offered some balance Clegg hits back at criticism of UK cuts.

And that was the friendly treatment!

If you want to check through the pack of laughing hyenas in nearly 5,000 stories (so far) you are more than welcome.

So although Nick Clegg was using conclusions constructed by the IFS, the IFS had pulled the rug from under his feet.

The IFS may be an acknowledged expert in policy analysis, but there are many of those. The IFS has gained its' hard-won tiger stripes as a canny operator within the Westminster jungle - respect is due for its' ability to successfully bait chosen targets... and feared for it.

Even by head-hunting the former top honcho at the IFS, Robert Chote, and installing him in the newly created Office of Budget Responsibility the coalition hasn't blunted the teeth of the IFS.

Clegg had been manoeveured into the trap, which was now sprung.

politics.co.uk wrote Clegg faces IFS 'trashing' backlash and the flurry of post-spending review opinion polls now announced LibDem support down to 10%, less than a third of the pre-election high.

Perhaps he knew better, but was powerless against the magic of these dark arts - as Mehdi Hassan in the Labour-leaning New Statesman intimates Mr Clegg was happy to give self-congratulatory praise the IFS during the election leadership debates which saw him briefly become the most popular politician in the country. Some coincidence.

With ironic gall Mehdi Hassan signs off, "And then our politicians wonder why the media and the public are so cynical and distrusting..."

Do they indeed?

On it rumbles, Mr Clegg looks wounded, the coalition may be teetering - even ranking hard-liners fear Labour will succeed in toppling the government.

ConservativeHome took up the baton.

It may not be natural territory for them but a quiver of reasons why the coalition is compassionate and good for the poor was hastily stocked, quickly increasing in number from 5 to 20 arrows.

But they were distracted by gains made at the expense of their partner - as Jonathan Isaby hazily admits with a hint of disinterest, the issue does have traction.

Words put in the mouths of the public confirm the pollsters conclusions that the soft underbelly of the LibDems was ripe for a hit, just as perceptions that the vulnerable and 'squeezed middle' would suffer from the 'savagery' of the deficit clawback.

Finally, the till-now conveniently absent Labour leader, Ed Miliband can be watched swooping down from his eerie in order to make the kill assiduously prepared for him by his cohorts.

"Instead of trashing the IFS, [Clegg] should be owning up to the truth that the spending review hits the lower and middle income families hardest."

"The unedifying spectacle of Mr Clegg rubbishing the IFS will convince nobody of the government's case."

If you say so Mr Miliband!

Alighting from her bough as she wings her way to the rescue, Ms Flanders cuts to the chase in order to avoid being pinned down, explaining," it comes down to whether you measure the impact of spending cuts on individuals as a share of their income, or as a share of the overall benefits they receive from the state."

...in other words whether you follow the IFS' yellow line or the IFS' white line.

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previous thoughts

IFS – independent and impartial experts on the economy, or Labour astroturf? You decide

2010-10-22T09:00:00.010+01:00

In a controversial briefing the IFS has launched an attack on the 'fairness' of the cuts proposed by the coalition government.

Well, not the 'fairness', they say that's in the eye of the beholder, rather they contradict the coalition view that the cuts are 'progressive'.

But according to Nick Clegg, the IFS are guilty of a ‘cavalier misrepresentation’ of the truth, which he explains stems from their continuing adherence to the Gordon Brown’s own analysis of fairness based solely on the tax and benefits system.

He says this is not right and it is frightening people – which appears to be supported by the evidence of commenters in this thread.

Anyway here's the relevant graph from the original Treasury document.

Compare and contrast with the relevant one from the IFS.

The Guardian describes it as a highly unusual step to attack a think-tank in this way, but Clegg argues any calculation of fairness should also include access to public services, and points out that even after the cuts take hold public spending will still be 5% higher as a proportion of GDP than when Labour came to power.

It seems the debate has come a long way from thatcherite ideology if people are now complaining that the growth of the state is not fast enough!

Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph describes the IFS presentation as a traditional post-match hatchet job.

Ah well - everyone's got a newspaper to flog!

If we take 1997 as the baseline and consider the spending review cuts as a rollback of Labour decisions I’d like to know who exactly do people think is still getting that extra 5% of taxpayer (mine and yours) money?

Obviously increased debt levels means higher repayments, in which case Labour has been taking money out of the pockets of working families to hand it over to the bankers.

Taking into account their own £20m overdraft, Labour have an ongoing interest in keeping unscrupulous city loan sharks happy – which means the basis of their opposition to the coalition looks more and more like a massive fraud and that they are the real con-artists.

The public is not stupid – when the next election comes around they will appreciate LibDem pragmatism, even if that includes giving temporary support to the dogma of others up to a point.

It will be interesting to see where that point is.

With a referendum on AV scheduled, and backed by Labour leader Ed Miliband, it strikes me as a short-sighted and counterproductive strategy for Labour to have already put distance between themselves and any prospective coalition partners - perhaps that's why their proxies at the IFS were given the job of getting their hands dirty, so Miliband could be starting their decontamination project by making a show of retreat from favouring them to the extent that Brown did.

If so he's planning on a Lab-Lib coalition.

Which means we can watch to see if any Labour denunciation of the IFS the next step in the orchestration.

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Update: Something interesting is definitely going on.

Traditional supporters of a Lab-Lib coalition, The Fabian Society, have hit back at the criticism with a seemingly robust defence of their brethren IFS, suggesting some selectivity in the Treasury presentation - a standard, if strong, oppositional tactic.

Perhaps it is piqued pride at having their preparations thrown out of the window by the coalition, or maybe it's selective emphasis and an inability to take criticism on their behalf.

Still it's a solid point that Robert Chote, the director of the newly created Office of Budget Responsibility (it's still a bizarrely portentous name) and only recently departed from the IFS, hasn't been more prominent in the process.

For one it would defuse some of the more partisan criticism, and for two it would show the OBR is a serious creation which takes its' responsibilities seriously.

I can't imagine Mr Chote isn't busy behind the scenes, although it does make me wonder what he's doing... and then there's the matter of who pushed the particular quote from Nick Clegg at the post-CSR Q&A to Andrew Sparrow for Sunder Katwala to pick over and selectively emphasise (umm, 'take out of context').

But back to the IFS, Faisal Islam's tweet of the laughter which greeted their presentation showing "the most regressive graph in history" is perhaps most informative of all.

Possibly it may have something to do with Robert Chote's prescient departure, but somehow I suspect the IFS' days as the most respected economic think-tank in town are numbered!

The spending review document

2010-10-22T07:15:00.002+01:00

Find it here

Read it at your leisure. Then demand hasty repentance.

The housing market is a mess because the housing debate is a mess

2010-10-21T11:30:00.000+01:00

Proposals by the coalition government to remove or reduce security of tenure for council housing residents has kicked off a pretty storm of reaction.

Much of the anger is directed towards the agenda of cuts which left-wing commentators argue is designed to hit the poorest hardest.

But though this may seem justified it is completely unfair.

Over at LDV the well-meaning LibDems identify the problems:

"Millions on waiting lists. An affordability crisis pushing up the average age of the first time buyer to 38. Housebuilding completions falling off a cliff. Empty homes in areas where there are no jobs and scarcity where people want to live."

But the nub of the matter has yet to be fully grasped.

The political problem is all about the term 'affordable housing'.

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My stamping ground in Reading has been at the forefront of developing an effective housing policy - for a more detailed look into the background you can read a range of local stories I compiled here.

The town has experienced massive growth in the past 15 years as a hub of the new information economy, helped by good communication links, but boundary problems mean the borough has long been overcrowded as neighbouring authorities tacked their housing requirements onto growing suburbs and even they are now struggling to find space - currently around half of people living in the Reading urban zone live outside the Reading local authority.

Cllr Daisy Benson (who chairs the RBC housing scrutiny panel) reflecting on the Home Truths 2010 report issued by the National Housing Federation, said, "The fact is there is a shortage of affordable housing and because housing is not affordable it puts pressure on social housing."

Everyone agrees on the need for more 'affordable housing', but nobody knows how this can be delivered.

Is it a matter of planning? of locations? of finance and wider economic issues?

There are three interlinking, yet distinct issues conflated into the deceptively simple term - and in my view this is the cause of all the confusion: it's about quantity of supply, quality of supply and the price of the stock.

'Affordable housing' has insidiously penetrated the political vocabulary to become the new default term for all these things together - it is used interchangably to cover everything including council-owned and housing association stock, social and sheltered housing and low-end private rental property as well as average prices and general affordability.

And that's where things start to go wrong.

'Affordable housing' simply can't mean all those things simultaneously and retain any relevance. The term has poisoned the debate and prevents any advance.

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Let's go back and cull a few stats from those links:

average house prices in Reading are nine-times average incomes (£213,346 compared to £24,487)
832 affordable homes are needed every year, but only 270 are being delivered (32% delivery rate)
6,000 people live in council-run social housing in Reading (including 368 sheltered homes) with another 1,300 in south Reading in privately-run social housing
4,834 households are on the waiting list for social housing (an increase of 41 per cent in five years)
the waiting list for social housing in Reading is 7.38 years
90% of increases in housing capacity in Reading are flats and house conversions

Pressures include internal migration to the town attracted by relatively high employment and income rates related to Reading's status as a growth area, helped by a variety of banner social and cultural amenities which make it a more attractive destination (university, sports clubs, retail and entertainment centre, festival etc).

All this helps explain why despite an outward image of success and growth there are a number of pockets of persistent deprivation (8 out of 93 domains in RBC boundaries are among the bottom 20% of most deprived areas in the country) and there has been growing levels of inequality among residents of the borough.

15,558 people, or 11% of Reading's 141,897 population, live in areas of most deprivation - yet this is despite being consistently ranked as the second least deprived city in the country as a whole!

More light can be thrown on this by comparing Reading's council tax bands - although each band is priced at almost 3% higher than the national average [1] the actual average paid by each household at £1,236.00, is over 3% lower than the average paid in England at £1,278.93 [2].

Reading is simply a prime example of the challenges facing the country at this time.

Divergent demographic trends have enabled politicians to ignore the underlying structural problems for too long, but while the public debate remains mired in muddled language I don't see any swift resolution to the issues.

So we must tackle the term 'affordable housing'.

This means getting back to the real issues of quantity of housing stock, quality of housing stock and the prices of the stock.

It means having the foresight to have enough of the right type of housing in the right areas.

It means ensuring cheap stop-gap solutions are not the standard.

And that means government must work together at local, national and intermediate levels in order to coordinate in the public interest.