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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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Week 12
America
First, what will the economic aftermath be? We know little about the impact modern war upon an advanced consumer economy. 
My Party position Europe, ahoy! I have just returned from Strasbourg
(via Paris, where we spent last Saturday evening, in the earnest pursuit
of political enlightenment...)
Radical change is essential. It is not merely a matter of scale. We must find new ways of doing European politics...
Today brings a new First - this is the first time I have brought you a classic Steve Bell cartoon, from New American Century Peter Kilfoyle, in his key Commons speech on Tuesday, referred to this website, the New American Century.
"Old" Federalism.. My mailbag, on returning from Strasbourg, contained a missive from the Federal Union, which had been alerted to this website, and thought you might be interested. Federal Union is an "old" political grouping, in that it dates from 1938, promoting the case ever since for the decentralisation of political power - check them out. I understand their scepticism about the concentration of power in the nation state, and I certainly favour internal devolution within each state. But I am not, on the other hand, "anti-Westminster".
Non-Executive Non-Sense Sir Stanley Kalms is not a a nice man. This pillar of the Thatcher business establishment is a nasty snarling right-wing character, contemptuous of others and insensitive to those around him. But I agree 100% with his onslaught on Derek Higgs and the strengthening non-Executive Directors. When it comes to company law, Sir Stanley and I share this starting-point. New voices of Europe European politics changed last week. The Brussels Commission had the idea of polling the entire European population last November, with a common set of political questions - about the role of America, and relations with Europe. Suddenly, there emerged a remarkably coherent picture of European public opinion - and the European majority sees the United States as a danger to world peace, rather than as a force for good - check it out in The Guardian.
Criminalising Parents These pantomime prosecutions continue, of parents with near-adult 15-year old children whom they cannot get to school: check out Guardian report. It is vital that we reduce the school-leaving age again to 15, thus ensuring that any child over 14 is in school only by consent, not by coercion of law. Huge gains would be made, in terms of school discipline and good order. The use of coercive laws against our children and their parents is counter-productive - Schools Wrongfully Coerce. Other recent topics
And read my own Big Theory itself, at
St Petersburg Novgorod Moscow Tallinn (2) 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 -
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Where will
What Liberal Socialism means to me..
My answer is YES. A deliberate move is needed to establish common ground between traditional socialist perceptions and the human rights agenda, informed by a deep respect for the sovereignty of the human spirit and a common perception of the primacy of social institutions.
Your responses to my thoughts about “liberal socialism” have been most informative – keep them coming! I have analysed with some care the first three responses (ages 26,32 and 52)
It’s my Party, I
can
The Labour Party is dwindling
numerically, down from its 440,000 peak at the time of the 1997 General
Election.
Wanton destruction
US companies I have found a new ally in the cause of radical company law reform. None other than my namesake Warren Buffett, the arch guru of US investment, the Sage of Omaha. WB is the ultimate "active shareholder", and he wants American shareholders to intervene more often to prevent the abuse of power and position by fat-cat Company Directors: read Julia Finch in The Guardian. 
Without radical changes in company law, however, he is whistling in the wind. He should sign up to my Newport Manifesto -
Democratic Details have now been published of Alan Milburn's proposals for new elected Boards to run our hospitals. In my view, the Labour Backbench revolt on this issue is wrongly focused, although I do acknowledge the depth of their concern. Like them, I consider it essential that the private-profit motive should not be unleashed in the NHS. But this is an initiative with great democratic potential, creating new options for the involvement of local people in running their local institutions. O am sad that the Welsh Assembly Government seems to have set the face of Welsh Labour against this initiative. I gave you my views, way back last November, and they have not changed.
New Dimensions I am satisfied that the innovative impetus has gone out of "representative" democracy. Its impetus has run its course. Its political authority is being sapped by the salarisation of the representatives.Elective, representative, democracy is not enough. Government by the people needs to be reasserted, in a new wave of institutional innovation. My 1996 constitutional analysis still stands, even if the language now sounds a little old-dated, post-Celtic devolution -
A mile too far.. The hapless White House
spokesman got his Biblical quotation seriously wrong. "The President will
go the very last mile, in search for peace", he burbled. It was a
telling mistake - surprising, though, for a Bible-thumping Administration. For
the expression "You should go the extra mile..." comes from the
Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was stressing the
importance of not accepting coercion,
of overcoming the use of force by the deployment of non-violence, by
willing compliance. Jesus knew that his listeners were familiar with
the requisitioning powers of the Roman soldiers, who were entitled by law
to require any citizen to
assist them by carrying material for one mile.
So Jesus said
"If you are required by a soldier to go with him
one mile, go with him two..". That would trump the
soldier's use of force and demonstrate the Christian's assertion of
non-violence over coercion. That became, over the years, "the
extra mile"... There is no such thing as "the
last mile..." It seems that my own
early Chapel education may have been more effective than the daily prayer-meetings,
now held for the White House staff...
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 New Discussion Group
Try BBC News - the public service website
Week 12
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Created by GMID Design & Communication COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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New
As
the troops move into Iraq, the
awesome violence of war excludes us. We are reduced to the status of
helpless spectators. My reaction is to use my
analytical power, in every way I can, to face up to the realities of what is
happening, and to confront the consequences. My brainpower is all that
I have. And my attention is
focusing on three sectors. 
Tony
Blair is losing all sense of his connection with the Labour Party, tenuous
though that always was. And when he goes, the Party will be faced with
the brutal challenge of re-grouping, of rallying to some other banner. 
Where
should
Labour take its stand? The status quo ante
(as they say, in legal circles) is not an option. Old Labour really did
run out of steam, with the Kinnock defeat. The Old Marxist Left has nothing
to offer. Tribune, Red Pepper, SWP, Tony Benn, the TU
leadership - none of them has two good ideas to rub
together. The barren, negative, "anti-capitalist" forces behind the StoptheWar
Coalition have no convincing forward agenda.
Liberal democracy is a busted flush, throughout Europe. So
is the murkier option, Christian Democracy...
Is a new focus thinkable, for the Labour
Party? 
Should
any company be entitled to
destroy the productive capacity of any community? That is the question
posed by the Corus dilemma - that is, the close-down of UK steel plants
by a Belgian company Board...
In my view, company law should be
reformed to permit the Courts to challenge the
reasonableness of any such wanton destruction. Check out my
radical agenda for -
One
of the great pleasures of surfing the Net is to be able to revert to
great cartoons - just to browse at will through the creativity and wit of
Steve Bell - I am relying on the good sense of the Guardian to go easy on
the damages claims for breach of copyright - I shall plead that the damages
should be
minimal, and that they should be abated by the simple fact that you will now
simply be unable to resist clicking through to check out