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| You are in the company of Roger Warren Evans, Welsh socialist lawyer and company director, on a journey to work out a new socialist order capable of generating equality and freedom for the world. Nothing less will do. |
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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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Week 08 We are I had hoped not to write this.
But I must. As a sober, middle-of-the-road middle-class Labour Party member, I accuse our leaders of profound misjudgement, and self-serving exaggeration. I have a powerful sense that our political leaders are exploiting the present anxieties for their own ends.These are politicians caught in positions of great "power", and they are conscious that their democratic legitimacy is ebbing away. Voter-turnout is falling, public cynicism and lack of respect for "Government" is accumulating - not only in the UK, but throughout the Western world. Their power-base is at risk. My accusation lies against George Bush with as much force as against Tony Blair and those of his Cabinet colleagues who have sadly allowed themselves to become implicated. These leaders can no longer turn to religion or to aristocracy or to the legitimacy of military conquest, to bolster their failing authority. Democratic legitimacy, upon which they have hitherto relied, is failing them. What are they to do? They are turning to the systematic inculcation of panic. States of emergency suppress dissent, and enhance the status, the legitimacy, and the powers of "the authorities" - Police, judiciary, Armed Forces, Government Ministers. Political opposition is easily finessed into disloyalty. While I have no doubt that there are real threats in our political environment, the UK Government response is unbalanced, disproportionate, self-important, alarmist - and conveniently self-serving. It constitutes an abuse of power, with far-reaching ramifications.
The One Million March
Last September, I marched with gusto although without really believing in the imminence of global war. My fellow marchers were "the usual suspects", the radical trade unions, the Marxist Left, pacifists, anguished activists.
I was one of those who did reach Hyde Park in time - starting at Westminster at 12.00 noon, and arriving at 3.00 pm, during Mo Mowlam's speech. I deeply resented the weasel words of Blair in Scotland, trying to preempt public judgement of the March, and to spin the blame for inhumanity upon the shoulders of the marchers themselves. I deeply resented the action of the Police helicopter that positioned itself immediately above the podium and completely drowned out Ken Livingstone and Jesse Jackson - that was an outrage. But somehow, the details did not matter - the event was everything. For to use military aggression against Iraq would not be the strong, humane option, as our hapless leaders pretend. It would be the weak, unimaginative, bully-boy option, discrediting its advocates..
PS I made the front-page of our local Swansea daily the Evening Post this Monday, as the organiser of the Quaker Anti-War Vigil in Swansea - we have been standing since the end September 2001, every Saturday morning... 
"New Localism" neither new nor local Labour is said to be embracing a new strategy of redistributing power. The “New Localism”, that’s what the label says. But sadly, it is disingenuous. We must rediscover real local democracy, and redesign the institutions of our representative democracy to suit our own times. This is my position, and my commitment.We
should focus on
The current demonisation of “asylum-seekers” is tragic. And my Government is, I regret to say, complicit. Blair’s campaign to “halve claimant numbers" by September is misconceived, cheaply playing to the gallery… Blunkett’s tone and language are unforgivable, in a holder of such high public office. The Tories are far worse, now that Oliver Letwin has been silenced. And there is no sign of the LibDems taking the lead on this issue. The public domain is barren, aggressive, xenophobic, unwelcoming.
Green Belt a class deceit Do you believe in the Green Belt? If so, I ask you to reexamine your own own thinking. The expansion of housebuilding in the South East, now a high necessity, is bound to challenge Green Belt dogma. Labour cannot continue to submit to the middle-class stranglehold on housing land and house-prices (see May 2002...) Labour must risk the wrath of Middle England and confront the self-serving shibboleth known as the Green Belt...Old Dogs, New Tricks
Judge Ettore Favara
I send my congratulations to Judge Favara of Naples, who this week released
28 Pakistani traders unjustly imprisoned by the Italian Police on suspicion
of involvement in an Al-Quaida plot, just because "incriminating evidence" was found
in a house which they were renting. Other recent topics And read my own Big Theory itself, at 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) 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 |
Now I understand...
But I have always been puzzled by the preoccupation of the Authorities with electronic surveillance for the management of congestion charging, when a simple paper-based ticketing system would have been sufficient. Only now is the truth coming out. The system has been upgraded as a means of police detection, capable of photographing the faces of the drivers, as well as the number-plates of their cars. Sinister purposes could be behind this new revelation, explored last Sunday in The Observer.
NB BBC News - most of my best pictures are picked up from the BBC News website, generously without complaint from them - if you are not familiar with their marvellous public service coverage, try them out.. Anxiety is the normal condition of mankind I never did progress to a Ph.D. But I did belatedly, in 1992, write a "thesis", which in today's circumstances has a prophetic ring about it. I argued that the distinctive intellectual abilities of mankind, as the world's most successful species to date, laid the human species peculiarly open to anxiety as a normal condition of existence.
Evolution has equipped mankind, I argue, to counter those anxieties successfully, so as to be able to get on with furthering the species. If you can spare a moment, take a look at it. I offer an explanation for the relatively minor subjective impact of even the most awful terrorist atrocities - give it a whirl...
How can we As an inveterate political activist, that was the first question that came into my mind, as the two marching columns, from North and South, joined forces at Piccadilly Circus, and flowed down towards Hyde Park. 
How can the progressive forces of the Left engage the enthusiasm of those who have turned out to march, from every corner of the country? The revolutionary Left, with all its bitterness and destructiveness, clearly offers no rallying-point - however good they are at printing and distributing placards (and the March was brilliantly organised, by them..).
The wrong U-Turn O dear o dear – it seems that I may be more Blairite than Blair, in some respects... Because I think the Government was wrong to accept the Trade Union case against so-called “two-tier” workforces in privatised services. We should pay once-for-all compensation to public servants for their loss of public status, and then allow the labour market to operate according to its own criteria.
Exaggerating Our media are suddenly crowded-out by a new raft of consultants, all cashing in on the state of emergency. New fees to be earned, new anxieties to promote and to analyse. As our tabloids well understand, anxiety is a saleable commodity - like horror films. But the bogy of generic "terrorism" is a false enemy, conjured up by the political and military authorities, and their commercial counterparts, to keep themselves at the forefront of the public agenda. New stars in formation May I suggest you keep an eye out for the exciting emergence of new international institutions, and jurisdictions?
Not bad for one week. My mental image is of the beginning of the Universe, when stars agglomerated from the cosmic mists. These new jurisdictions are similarly growing, by gradual accretion. The cause of human rights is destined to change the face of international politics. It is my judgment that, little by little, these jurisdictions will come to play a key role in the generation of a new, and peaceful, world order. I s Carlile enough?Lord Carlile of Harrow, QC is a fine fellow. The former LibDem MP is now making himself very useful, in various public roles. In particular, he is the Adjudicator under the provisions of Part IV of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime & Security Act 2001, monitoring the imprisonment without trial of asylum-seekers suspected of terrorism, imprisoned without rights, upon direction of the Home Secretary. And Lord Carlile has just published his first, convincing report. But is that the end of the matter? Corporate turmoil continues Corporate chaos and corruption is difficult to see. That is part of the political problem. For me, the business news contains a constant flow of reports which betray the chaos of our underlying company law, arguing for radical reform. Take a look at the world through my eyes.
Betrayal Private property The founders of the World Trade Organisation cannot have believed it would be like this. This week, WTO chief Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi warned that a failure to agree a deal on cheap medicines for developing countries could threaten the whole new round of global trade negotiations. This issue epitomises the titanic struggle between private and public power..
Special Footnote I love the online newspapers, which are my access to the world - share them with me - click through to their Homepages from here - back to top
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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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Created by GMID Design & Communication COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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New
This time it was different.
All around me was the sombre,
silent bewilderment of ordinary citizens - Why, o Why
were our leaders committing us to this madness? What was the true explanation?
The pleadings of Bush and Blair were so obviously insubstantial,
disingenuous, weak and adventurist - they
simply could
not be the whole story. 
But
Labour has now imposed upon private firms the
impossible task of managing a two-tier workforce
within each company, merely sweeping the problem under the
carpet, rather than solving it. This is merely an example of the lack
of commercial understanding which characterises so many New Labour
Ministers.. I do not
recall, on any previous occasion, having lined up with the awful Digby-Jones,
of the CBI...
We
betray our children
by allowing the US-led "war on drugs" to
dominate our lives and our laws. This historic error was made by the
UK, giving in to US pressures, at a time when the great Welshman David Lloyd
George was Prime Minister in 1920. And I feel an almost personal
responsibility to put right