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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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Week 29 BBC in the dock
The BBC must come clean. We must be told whether or not there was indeed a second Gilligan MoD-contact, in addition to David Kelly. If there was, and if it was the second source which underpinned the Campbell "scoop", the BBC may be exonerated. But if not, and if David Kelly was indeed the sole source, Andrew Gilligan will stand accused of incompetent, and deadly, embellishment.
Goose sauce
The TUC is wrong
to attack the principle of extended notice periods for management, arguing
that they are undesirable in principle, and should be limited to a maximum of three
months. In my view, every worker should be entitled to a
six-month notice-period,
i.e. a maximum six-months without pay reduction, to find a new job. If
a job were secured earlier, this
adjustment pay
would cease. This would replace the present outmoded "Redundancy
Payments" system, and would also eliminate thousands upon thousands of
Industrial Tribunal proceedings.
The TUC is looking a gift argument in the mouth.
Fiddling the money Our obsession with the "official" interest rate is astonishing. How can anyone believe that a tiny change in the price of money will affect the real economy? Not even the new Bank of England Governor Mervyn King can possibly believe that. The success of modern economies turns on one thing alone - our "domestic" confidence to consume. Such confidence can be delivered only by Governments.
I love
stamps, this time from Ireland
Sometimes the old editorial ideas are the best. And it has just occurred to me that you might be interested in my talking points of one year ago, in July 2002 - the downloading process, however, takes a little longer than later records..
For real socialists!
Last July I entered into a dialogue with Michael McCarthy about the evils of
private property ("Property is theft"..) and the
case for Mischievous Police
And there are signs that the Force may be trying to discredit one of the Government's great recent initiatives - the introduction of Community Support Officers. The mainstream Police have always opposed these CSOs - "cheap labour" is the predictable jibe. And now the fault-finding is starting.
Share Options & me
But I share the conventional TU view that such transactions are merely "funny wages", commonly deceiving shareholders that they are cost-free. There has been extensive misrepresentation, in reporting them to shareholders. I have always cashed-in my options at the very first opportunity, and used the money to get on with life. In psychological terms, they are patently nonsense. The whole ideology of "identifying workers with shareholder interests" is superficial clap-trap.
Corporations 
Hold the front page! The biggest "news story" of our age turns out to be too big for the Meeja to address. It is the grave systemic disarray of the international corporate sector - in short, the structures of modern capitalism. I
do claim to be one of the few people
to understand the true gravity of the situation.
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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This following item has provoked reaction -19 July - an old Labour friend (and fellow City region enthusiast ) Colin Farlow writes from Exeter "Brownites!
If David Blunkett could make this U-turn himself, it would be all the more effective. And you can make your own supportive mark, by signing up on-line to... 
More hot weather on the way! This Welsh beach, at Rhossili
at the tip of the Gower Peninsula, is just a few minutes from me, at home.
Will you keep the secret?
Save Our Smokers
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 The Salariat 
Salaried politicians are inordinately concerned with occupying the centre of the public stage - because success in that endeavour that is what determines their future earning power. So when Welsh politicians discovered they were being ignored by 80% of the country's youth, they were right to be worried... 
Did you know that "The Monarchy" has its very own
promotional website? I wonder Diversifying the State I believe that Ministers are showing a genuine interest in diversifying and renewing the State. Just consider the range of constitutional experiments that are in prospect -
"foundation" hospitals, community interest companies, local Police Boards,
local school "clustering", and plans to extend the remit of "micro-councils"
(parish, town and community councils). The success of all these
initiatives would shift power away from conventional
governmental
institutions, particularly of the "Local
Council State"...
 I am sure you will want to keep in touch with what Steve Bell is drawing, in The Guardian 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 Other recent topics
Multiple Differential Uncertainty Sunday |
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New
The
BBC holds the clue to the death of Dr Kelly. It is the
BBC, not the Government, that should be in the dock. I certainly
do not absolve Downing Street on the primary issue of exaggeration of the
Iraqi threat, last February - and nobody should lose sight of
that pivotal issue. But on the side-issue of the
BBC's attack on Alistair Campbell, I believe Campbell.
I mistrust the "scoop journalism" of the BBC.
Policemen
can be mischievous, self-seeking and unimaginative,
just like the rest of us.
The payment of staff in "shares" or
favourable share-options has always spelt trouble. I have always disliked
it, although I have benefited from four or five share-option deals, over the
years. Our first house-deposit came from a Bovis share-option, in 1971.
The latest M&S wheeze, with Chief Executive
Luc Vandervelde being wholly in shares, is just another insubstantial gimmick. The beasts of
the corporate sector are desperate for some favourable publicity, as
evidence of their sleaze and dishonesty proliferates. 
Family
Favourites is a gentle, populist TV programme, which I much enjoy,
thanks to the easy-going character of Les Dennis. And the
rules give a chance-to-win to the underdogs, if the leading-team should
falter before reaching the finishing post.
"Fotheringales!
Get ready to steal"
- exclaims Les Dennis with genuine enthusiasm and real energy - as the
leaders threaten to falter.
Former London
Drug Squad Police Chief Eddie Ellison, now retired,
condemns the criminalisation of drug use, and calls for 
I
do not like the illiberalism
of the Chief
Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson. The medical establishment is one with
illiberal tendencies - doctors bedevil drugs reform, inflame opinion against
fat people, promote fluoridation, favour the detention of problem
psychiatric patients, and intensify prejudice against smokers.
Advances in genetic engineering are adding fuel to this interventionist
fire. The price of liberty, I would tritely observe, is eternal
vigilance. We
must be wary of our doctors.
