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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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Week 05 
Ice Cool Blix Nobody can avoid the Iraq issue. With immigration, it dominates every headline. And the coming week has been orchestrated to promote the war game, by George Bush and Tony Blair. We are clearly in the grip of a fundamentalist "Christian" duo - Yes, both are no doubt keen to find a way out of the impasse which their misjudgments have created, but both are willing if necessary to gamble their political futures on war. They are both gamblers, risk-takers. Bush has little to lose. Blair has everything to lose.. 
The question is not whether Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Even if he has, should we coolly and rationally unleash the dogs of Middle Eastern war to "solve the problem"? That is the question.
First Anniversary Hit Count My first-year tally of hits was 2,720 at the witching hour last Saturday at 1.00 pm - total "actual" hits were 7,134, but my Counter program rejects multiple contacts on the same day, recording them as one-hit only - the E-record also shows that 6% were inadvertent hits from my own browser, in spite of my care with the self-disabling button - and so the real first-year hit-count was - 2,559 ... and I am quite proud of that figure - many thanks for your support and interest - what will 2003 bring? Blair & I agree, It is important for me to define the point at which I part company with the Blair Project. In his general defence of his domestic strategy, enunciated last week, I agreed with him - I cannot fault Blair's broad, high-level principles.
University Fees fatal distortion  The
dismal story of the Government compromise on University fees is a telling
one.
Having allowed the issue to creep up on them, and to now to require an "urgent"
solution, they have minimised Treasury commitments by placing the full burden
of additional funding upon the shoulders of students themselves. Poor students will effectively face a life-time of income-tax bills
higher
than their fellow graduates from wealthier families. This is a seedy,
pragmatic and unprincipled compromise...
Let Judges decide I am dismayed by the current euthanasia debate, triggered by the enabled suicide in Switzerland of Howard Crew. Why should this issue not be decided by a Judge? I agree that it would be wrong to permit relatives and doctors to decide these matters, and many commentators are apprehensive about their intervention. But jurisdiction could be given to a High Court judge to visit and interview each person requesting the "right to die". The Judge would be asked to determine whether or not the request was well-founded, well-informed, and genuine. Responsibility would be taken away from the doctors and the relatives. The High Court already has to intervene in disputed matters of patient consent, and this would be an entirely sensible new jurisdiction. Migration new thinking needed Blunkett is right. Public confidence in Governments' handling of international migration is at an all-time low. Community relations could yet worsen significantly. Nor can the Tories teach Labour any lessons in managing international migration generally, or asylum in particular. And the tragedy is that David Blunkett, far from grasping the necessary radical solutions, is rapidly becoming part of the problem. Part of the solution is emerging within the EU context, with the idea that every Member State should prepare to accept, by way of immigration, a common "treaty percentage" of its population each year, although for many countries, improved population statistics would be needed to give such a scheme public credibility. A second good idea is that of a host grouping "sponsoring" migrants. One could further defuse the asylum decisions by vesting the jurisdiction in an international body, preferably the UNHCR. These ideas are all canvassed in my own proposals - see DOMUS. Salariat v Proletariat The emergence of a well-paid political salariat has generated a new gulf between our political leaders and their followers. Within the Labour Party, the fissures are between the politicians and the Party’s foot-soldiers, its paying members.My Great- prizefighter A New-Year family clear-out unearthed a 1962 BBC report of one Abraham Cann, Devon prize wrestler, of 1826 - definitely an ancestor of mine..Other recent topics And read my own Big Theory itself, at For aficionados of the Constitution - I have dusted own my city-region proposals of 1996 - we are still woefully failing to mobilise the vitality, the cultural and economic strength of our great cities - see Building a Better Britain. And our political salariat continues to ignore the huge democratic potential of effective neighbourhood government...
Follow my August 2002 Russian Tour Diary, now unfolding in splendid technicolor - capacity problems have so far limited the scale of how much I can E-publish, but there is still plenty to read - St Petersburg Novgorod Moscow Tallinn (2)
Week 05
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Just in case you should think I am jumping on a bandwagon - this was a headline of mine last June, well before the militarist hysteria of the November Congressional Elections..
Our January
"If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq"Most Internet doggerel is awful, rarely worth repeating. But this song is in a different league - do you know who might have written it? Peace wreaks Will "war" be submerged My nose tells me that the forces of peaceful materialism will work, through the Stock Markets and collapse of the propensity-to-consume, to procure the avoidance of war. War hysteria may win one Election - but it will never win two.
A Right Balance
Identity Cards wrong time to legislate Cabinet momentum is building, for the introduction of ID cards. Blair and Blunkett are both committed, brushing aside contemptuously the civil liberties case against the change. To legislate now would be to exacerbate a public wave of anger and paranoia, and to get it wrong. There is no evidence that the continental countries, with their long-standing and oppressive ID-card systems, are faring any better in the "fight against terrorism" or the management of migration. Labour should have the wisdom to hold its hand. says NO to ID cards see SoCLA Beware Blunkett 
I have pulled no punches, in my criticism of the Home Secretary David Blunkett Blunkett should go October 2002. I have showed you the paucity his entry in Who's Who. He is woefully ill-equipped for his high Office. He is a Little Englander, without cosmopolitan perceptions. He is by nature authoritarian, without wider perceptions of a liberal polity. He is a bully, without political subtlety. His style is confrontational, his language intemperate. His latest attack on his own civil servants, for mishandling his new "induction hotel" project, is inept. His own character, and his language, are inflaming UK racism, not calming or countering these nasty trends.
Political Party funding I understand Tony Blair's reluctance to propose the state funding of political parties, without cross-Party agreement, fearing electoral disapproval in 2005 And I regret that such support is not forthcoming, from the Tories. But Blair nevertheless wrong to avoid the issue. A professionalised Party system, which we now have, demands properly controlled public-service funding. That would be preferable to the unregulated introduction of private wealth, on the US model. And I am equally apprehensive about the £40m five-year "funding deal" reported to be under discussion between the Labour Party and its affiliated trade unions. Paradoxically, that could prove even more of an electoral disadvantage.... "Tame the Corporations!" 
Protest groups focused on the abuse of corporate power, when protesting at the World Economic Forum, in Davos last week. The abuse of corporate power now represents a greater threat to world order than the abuse of state power, which is increasingly hedged about by restrictive political conventions. When it comes to the corporate sector, we have not begun to get to grips with the underlying legal and political issues. That is what I try to do at Tame the Corporations!
Not in my name... "We are the ally of the US," said the Prime minister, addressing UK ambassadors gathered in London, "not because they are powerful, but because we share their values". Well, Tony, you can count me out. I am much more at ease with other Europeans - in particular North Europeans, whose societies I know better, the French, Germans, Scandinavians.
Special Footnote I love the online newspapers, which are my access to the world - share them with me - click through to their Homepages from here -
Diary 2002 Now up to date! I have re-structured my Diary to give you a day-to-day means of looking back, throughout the year just click through
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 Footnote to history, and to my
fascination with stamps - I found these stamps, on a New Year clear-out of
an old cupboard, strangely moving.. |
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