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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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Week 20 Sunday 18 May 2003 Short change 
I
do not regret the departure of Clare Short.
Given my own "managerialist" style,
I found her most
unsatisfactory as a Minister.
This Opinion was written in mid-March, for a learned legal journal. It deserves a much wider audience - and you have every word of it, right here. We must find a way of bringing this issue before the UK Courts. Blair's recent public soul-bearing and sickening religiosity cannot stand against this stern judgment, the judgment of his peers.
Weakening World Economy  The reason why
global economic prospects are poor is precisely that ordinary consumers - in
Europe, America and Japan - are genuinely
worried about the future,
and the monumental mess that Bush and Blair have created, in the Middle East. They may not all understand what is
going on, but they can pick up from TV coverage that all is not going well.
Global systemic uncertainty is now a prime
cause of weak consumer demand. I thought this was a very pithy
cartoon, from the business pages of The Guardian.
Coming to Terms
I love stamps...
IPPR Director in March 1993 was the redoubtable leftwing intellectual James Cornford, with whom I dined last week in London. Today's Director is Matthew Taylor of the Incisive Mind - you may recall how impressed I was with him, at the last Labour Party Conference. And Matthew Taylor, writing in this week's New Statesman, heralds "Baby Bonds" as the early signs of a profound socialist revolution. I say Yes, but...
T he InternationalOptimism Agenda Globalisation has one consequence which no UK political party has yet grasped. It is that we must now cast all our manifestoes, both on the Right and on the Left, in terms which make sense globally. “Politics in one country” is no longer enough. I have made my own attempt to shape such an international political agenda, which would bring hope to all the peoples of the world...
Public trading, a real third way The Government's "modernisation " of the welfare state is still seen in terms of " privatisation". The spectre of Margaret Thatcher looms, and that awful corrosive doubt about her motives. That is wrong. While there are indeed proper opportunities for conventional privatisation, the primary drive should be the shift to more flexible, more responsive, more local forms of dedicated public company.
The Euro is not an issue 
The Euro continues to grab the headlines. But the right course is for the Government to block any Referendum, and then call an early General Election (perhaps in Autumn 2004), putting the issue into the Labour Manifesto. Once this June deadline is passed, there is no continuing commitment to hold a referendum at all. And there are now no substantive issues raised by joining the Euro. It is the biggest non-issue of contemporary politics.
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
What are your thoughts? Drop me a line Try BBC News, the public service website for the best and quickest access to the news, as well as a huge political data resource, the BBC is unbeatable
Week 20 |
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Back from Llandudno ...where yesterday, on Saturday, we had a fantastic Fabian debating session - five Fabians, five topics - at the Llandudno Junction Labour Social Club. It was a great occasion with 15 Fabians turning up on a Saturday simply to talk politics. I am convinced that the dream of political "progress" is still alive - the drive to create a better world , a better system of society, has not been submerged the the welter of Western materialism and consumerism. But then again, I am an optimist... New Labour, 
Few of my fellow-citizens will understand the anguish
of being trapped, as a thinking, middle-o'-th-road leftwing radical,
within
today's Labour Party. The Party is going through a dark and
uncivilised period of its history, pandering to the very worst in public
opinion.
Euro, Euro Everywhere
Do you know who At the end of March
Law and lawyers To those who deride the profession of the law, Afghanistan and Iraq offer ample justification. Lawyers, and the Courts, have failed, over eighteen months, to penetrate the awful injustices of Guantanomo Bay. And they are failing now to "nail" the illegality of the Iraq War, in spite of the support of the overwhelming majority of informed legal opinion throughout the world. In defence of lawyers, I can only stress that "law" can do no more than reflect the ground-rules of some settled and authoritative form of "order", both within and between nation-states. The US/UK action in Iraq made mockery of any sense of international order except that of brute force.
Salariat Rules OK
Leave charities alone As a "natural" radical , I have ideas about changing most things about our civic order. But I shall be resisting the current fashion for "modernising" charity law. Leading commentator Malcolm Dean backs the cause of radical reform, writing in The Guardian.
Blair, revolutionary? Tony Blair commonly uses radical language, without true radical intent. In early 1997, Tribune published an article of mine, Blair is too old-fashioned for me. But there are certainly revolutionary changes now afoot, in the radical restructuring of "local government" - in the broadest sense of that term.
NB Some of my friends are puzzled by my seeming conversion to the Blairite Cause. Let me explain myself more fully.Spinning the Economy
I am so impressed with this excellent cartoon of Alan Greenspan and George Bush (from Nicola in The Guardian) that I retain it for a second week - albeit at the bottom of the page - as a piece of serious economic analysis.
Try BBC News, the public service website
Other recent topics
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) What are your thoughts? Drop me a line |
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Indeed, just over a year ago (you can tell from the folksy web-page
design), I strongly advised Tony Blair, on 3 May last year,
If correct then, why not now?
I am sure
you will want to
keep in touch with what Steve Bell is drawing, in
