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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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Week 24 Fudge Fudge Day
I mean the absence of any Government commitment to hold a referendum at all. True, there will be a referendum paving Bill, to give the Government the option of holding a referendum. But I have combed the small-print, and there is no undertaking (this time around) to hold a referendum at all. That leaves the field open for my own conspiracy theory to flourish.
comrades in conflictI would not ordinarily trouble you with Welsh tea-cup storms. But this one exposes a key faultline in Labour's devolution of power to Scotland and Wales. In neither country did New Labour take proper account of the country's great cities - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Swansea. Relations between these cities and their new masters are fraught with tension and apprehension. 
As the superior planning authority, the Welsh Assembly has decided to intervene in the process of developing Swansea Airport, now the subject of increased attention as a secondary "spoke" airport, within developing European networks. The City Council has been assiduous to welcome commercial investment. But the most recent commercial planning applications, due to be decided by the City Council next week, have been "called in" - for decision by the Assembly itself. I've had enough..
..
enough, that is, of the fruitless harrowing of Tony Blair over Iraq.
I shall not be writing any more on the subject, for a long time. Because it is
now quite clear (at least to me) what happened. Blair did not
in my view lie, in any ordinary
sense of the term: there was no deception, either deliberate or
gratuitous. There was recklessness in argument, certainly, but many
advocates take such risks.
Not so harmless... Artist James Cauty is threatened with legal action if he does not remove this picture from his Brighton art gallery. It was his protest against the War in Iraq, but the Royal Mail claims it is a breach of "their" copyright! Look at it very carefully... 
What pompous, vicious intolerance! Cauty says that the bronze bust is his own (and you will see that it is embellished with skulls and crossbones...). I say that it is a perfectly proper protest, published here with acknowledgment to the Daily Telegraph. The Royal Mail is making itself ridiculous.
Too
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 -
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 unbeatableCreative Satisfaction
The sale of post-sale maintenance contracts is a seedy business. Dixons, as one of the UK's seediest companies, has made untold £-millions from this shady practice. It consists of persuading unwary customers to pay for "cover" which they already enjoy, as of right... Blair's Poodle Bites...
 Lord Goldsmith QC, Blair's friend and Attorney General, duly legitimated Blair's reckless adventurism in Iraq. I have not found one single other lawyer who agreed with his whitewashing Counsel's Opinion (see Rabinder Singh QC’s reasoning).
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Para-Legals Needed
Yet that very demand has priced these two professions out of the reach of ordinary people. Crisis after crisis strikes the Legal Aid Fund, and services are being withdrawn from those who desperately need representation and advice, often of the most basic kind. I advocate the creation of a third, less highly-qualified profession, that of public advocate. The accountancy, medical and teaching professions are all developing ancillary professions. Friday was a fateful day
busted flush. Labour should do the minimum necessary for rail, and shift policy focus to public transport - in the air and on the roads. My longer-term forecasts are coming true. Cities should The over-centralised UK Government is desperate for competent constitutional partners. Yet they have none, except the "mirror Westminsters" of Holyrood and Cardiff Bay. The signs of structural stress are all around. Ministers plead the self-evident truth - "We cannot change society on our own". Yet it is the very same political cadre that has sown the wind of centralisation, now to reap the whirl-wind. Central government simply isn't working. In the NHS, in childcare, in school administration, in managing the Police, in town-and-country planning, in urban regeneration and housing, in library and recreational provision - new structures are desperately needed. New de-centralisation options must be found. Labour should begin to take our great cities and large towns seriously, and start to fashion new city-based units of regional government.
Keep nationality Things have gone ominously quiet on the Home Office front - those who are preparing Blunkett's new naturalisation ceremonies. We will presumably have to await the next Parliamentary session to get the details. If we are to retain our precious heritage of tolerance, neutrality and equality in constitutional matters, it is vital that this new rite de passage should avoid any jingoistic declarations of Britishness, or Royalist commitment. This was my concern in March 2002, when the issue arose in a different context.
Royalty should stay firmly on the postage
stamps, and be brought out for ritual occasions. This is no
insignificant constitutional role. I do believe that public
"ritual" is important, as a means of expressing very broad inchoate issues
of loyalty and identity.Labour’s Do you share my revulsion at Labour’s New Barbarism? At every turn, Labour Ministers demonstrate that they are out of touch, losing all sense of what a liberal democracy means.
Wales and Europe Wales
Church 1 State 0
Other recent topics
Multiple Differential Uncertainty My diary 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 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) |
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New
The Glorious Fudge was duly delivered, last
Monday. I do not mean the Gordon Brown verdict on the Euro. That was
predictable, and universally predicted. Indeed, whether we join the Euro or no
remains a matter of 
I am sure
you will want to
keep in touch with what Steve Bell is drawing, in
I love stamps...
I experienced
creative
satisfaction last Wednesday.
It was last April (2002) that I came up with the idea of creating a new
"company kit", for use in the third sector, which would make it easier for
non-charitable projects to get established and to develop - the "public
interest company". And last Wednesday I
attended a consultative seminar in Cardiff, where the DTI was
taking soundings
about its implementation!
Just imagine
that! And
they have an excellent website on the subject, 
My first choice of profession was that of
advocate - as a Barrister, a profession which was in 1961 quite small, some
3,500 souls. They worked with 35,000 Solicitors. Today, these
professions have expanded massively to meet growing demand, particularly in
the corporate and commercial sectors. 
The
Royal Mail drove a stake, on Friday 6 June, through the heart of rail-freight
in the UK. The rejection was brutal, but justified. "Rail"
is no longer sufficiently reliable, or sufficiently competitive in cost
terms, to carry the mail. Road and air transport, neither of which had been
invented when Rail was King, have superseded it. 
I
spent Tuesday afternoon finalising the arrangement for receiving the
Archbishop of Canterbury, here in my home-town of Mumbles.
He is coming on 21 June to receive the Freedom of the Community of Mumbles,
which is the gift of the Community Council. My own radical distaste
for the Council's decision to give all the credit to the Church does not
prevent my taking responsibility for the other, practical, aspects of the
visit. As a way of voicing my civic protest, I shall not be attending the
Church service, but I am content to ensure that all the refuse is collected
afterwards, and all the other practical arrangements are in place...
I love stamps...