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New
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Renewing
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"Tame
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A
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Globalise the Left!
Bevan
Re-visited
Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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0128 Make sure you have not missed the previous edition of LivePolitics
Check
it out
And the
one before
that?
Other recent topics
highlighted below
Week 30
Sunday 27 July 2003
AM Wednesday 23 July - Message to BBC Chatroom from Ibrahim
Uddin, from The Netherlands
"A handful of people in a building surrounded by 200 'highly'
trained US troops supported by helicopter gun ships - US took the easy way
by using overwhelming force to kill rather then take the harder but more
just way of arresting them, I think that it would have been better for the
Iraqi people if the sons of Saddam where brought to justice."
I agree. I am appalled by all
the "official" triumphalism surrounding this gung-ho assassination. And I
include the public reactions of both Tony Blair and Jack Straw. There seems
to have been no attempt by the
Americans to effect
an arrest. These are cowboy methods, neglecting the standards of civilised
society, and abandoning the rule of law.
- The world has
cause to be afraid.
Summer Doldrums
This is a unique July .
I can remember nothing like it. The Government has simply petered out. Instead of making good parliamentary use of the whole month of July,
Ministers have slipped
away early - with precious little to say to the waiting populace. For policy
wonks like me, there are no new radical proposals to ponder over the Summer. It is clear that the continuing trauma of the Iraq Affair is eating away at
Labour morale, displacing other concerns.
Mischievous, cruel, but...
.. with more than
a scintilla of truth, as Blair faces a searing, demoralising summer.
From
Sunday's Observer
Mumbles flexes muscle
 This may not seem a revolutionary picture.
But it is. This is the
first ever "working" employee of Mumbles Community Council, on which I
proudly serve. Community Councils (or "parish" councils, in
England), rarely employ anyone other than a Clerk.
This week
my Council, seeking to improve levels of street cleanliness throughout the
town, broke new ground. Our cleaner is a 29-year old Chinese MA student -
Economic Horizons are
limited for better or for worse
 "My text for today, is ...."
intoned the Chapel preacher of my youth. I still admire the oratorical
ability to start small, and to unfold a great theme, carrying listeners along.
Last week, in an international meeting at Birmingham, following a
false start, three highly focused young athletes failed to respond to three
rounds of cancellation shots, and pointlessly ran their whole race.
They were so wrapped up in their own sensory world that they did not hear
the explosive cannon.
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Goose sauce
Gander 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. Labour should extend to the many the manipulative advantages
of the
few.
British stamps do take some
beating - a new series just starting ongreat British landscapes- launched with the bare hills of Scotland - make sure you
buy...
One year ago
Thanks for your positive response to this new feature,
launched last week - here are a few more reminders of July 2002...
For real socialists!
In July 2002 I entered into a dialogue with Michael McCarthy about the evils of
private property ("Property is theft"..) and the
case for
a new UK Property Tax...
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Share Options
& me
 The payment of staff in "shares" or
favourable share-options has always spelt trouble. I have always disliked
the practice, although I have benefited personally from four or five share-option deals, over the
years. Our first house-deposit came from a Bovis share-option, in 1971. But
the whole ideology of "identifying workers with
shareholder interests" is superficial clap-trap.
 The latest M&S wheeze, with Chief Executive
Luc Vandervelde being wholly in shares, is just another insubstantial gimmick,
probably with hidden tax advantages. The beasts of
the corporate jungle are desperate for some favourable publicity, as
evidence of their sleaze and dishonesty proliferates.
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I am sure
you will want to
keep in touch with what Steve Bell is drawing, in
The
Guardian
 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. We must never lose sight of the
distinctive qualities, and unique potential, of public service institutions.
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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
Daily Telegraph
Independent
The Times
Financial Times
New York Times
Le Monde
Die Welt
Moscow Times
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BBC digs
a deeper hole
I am appalled by the continuing sensationalism
and poor judgment of the BBC, in
its pursuit of Alastair Campbell.
I confess I don't
like
Alastair Campbell, but I know a vindictive vendetta when I
see one. Greg Dyke,
by trying to convert the BBC into the electronic equivalent of
"Fleet Street" tabloid, has served the Corporation ill.
The
BBC holds the clue to the death of Dr David Kelly.
It is the
BBC, not the Government, that should be in the dock. Sambrook and Gilligan should not have used the fragile evidence
of David Kelly to construct its "sexing up" scoop.
He clearly needed protecting against himself.
I certainly do not
absolve Downing Street on the primary charge of exaggerating the
Iraqi threat, last February - and nobody should lose sight of
that pivotal issue. I certainly do not defend Alistair
Campbell against every charge. And the question "Who
outed Kelly?" is merely another peripheral issue,
in the search for scapegoats.
But the problem
runs much deeper.
For me, it is Peter Preston,
writing for the
BBC News website itself
who takes this analysis to its
sticking-point. He describes the events leading to Kelly's death as "a human
mess, not a contrived or malign mess"...
"But there's at least one nasty issue floating in behind. Is the
BBC, the giant of reporting rectitude and balance we all pay for, right
itself to hunger for more scoops and high profile controversies?"
- My answer to
that question is No.
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Search for legitimacy
 Lord
Hutton,
properly understood, is bad news for professional politicians. As the authority of the
political salariat weakens, the
search intensifies for higher, more respected forms of authority.
Judges, Arbitrators, Regulators, Commissioners, Magistrates - their popularity
suggests that the electors place greater credence in their verdicts that in the
judgments of politicians. After all, the verdict of the Commons Foreign Affairs
Committee barely registered, on the
political Richter Scale. Following David Kelly's death, Blair's
immediate deployment of the judiciary, with the appointment of 72-year-old
Lord Hutton, was a telling sign of the
Rise of a
Dicastocracy.
The Guardian's Hugo Young, whose
distaste for the Prime Minister is sharpening by the hour, turns his
attention to the systemic loss of authority by the
political salariat
-
well worth reading
J'accuse...
 I accuse the
august 120-year-old Fabian Society
(of which I am a proud and active member) of the
ultimate think-tank crime - namely, triviality.
The Society's much-trumpeted "Monarchy Commission" this week produced a tame
mouse of a pamphlet, which might equally have been penned by the Third Lesser
Left Footman of the Royal Bedchamber. I cannot find any single point
within it with which to disagree. I shall press the Fabian Society to spend its scarce
time and resources on -
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Top Cop, Top Reformer
 Former London Drug Squad Police Chief Eddie Ellison, now retired,
condemns the criminalisation of drug use, and calls for radical reform of UK
drugs laws. You will also find his name signed up to The Angel
Declaration.
Redesigning
Democracy
 From
Kidderminster Hospital to the Baghdad Souk, the problem is the same. How can
modern "statebuilders"
generate a sense of constitutional legitimacy? Conquest is no longer enough.The answer is "Only
by democratic election by universal suffrage".
There is no other way. Neither "appointment", nor indirect election, will do. And if the Government's new
Foundation Hospital Boards. Police Boards,
School Boards are to carry real political clout, their members must be
directly elected.
 These
are
the requirements for
legitimate "special elections".
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The politics
of insurance
 "Insurance" is creeping up the political agenda.
It has never been there before. For
the last century, the "private" insurance industry has thrived, an early
global business sector, from Lloyds to the Hamburg Re. The rich have
happily exploited the anxieties of the poor, with little State interference. And
"insurance" has come to play a key role in mankind's
management of anxiety.
Abdroid Evasion
Abdroids
are my personal, private obsession. I am fascinated by the arcane
world of artificial personality, and the consequences of humankind's belief in
its reality. It must surely rank as a religion of our times... Lawyers
attribute the same solidity to an abdroid
(an abstract legal person) as to you and me.
- This week, the UK Treasury was stung
by its incompetent handling of abdroids
- and lost hundreds of £'00m in tax
to a raft of European abdroids.
- The global management of abdroids
represents a key new socialist challenge - and nation states are
currently losing management control... check out
Tame the Corporations!
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My diary
Now up to date (well, more or less...)
I have re-structured my Diary to give you a day-to-day
means of looking back, throughout the year
just click
through
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Did you know that "The Monarchy" has its very own
promotional website? I wonder
who pays for that?
Other recent topics
-
Confidence is indivisible
>>>
-
America cannot afford war
>>>
Third Way Trading >>>
New legal Profession needed >>>
Follow De Gaulle, on housing >>>
Rise of the Dicastocracy >>>
Using our political intellect >>>
"Communities in
Control" >>>
Consumers are revolting
>>>
Mouthwash on my conscience
>>>
Unions are rarely
"socialist" >>>
BA abuse Concorde power >>>
The great Pensions Crisis >>>
Odds against
local coops
>>>
What
Gordon Brown
must do >>>
Save Our Smokers!
>>>
I back the para-Police
>>>
And read my Big Theory itself, at
Multiple
Differential Uncertainty
Also my more practical political thesis about the Corporate Sector and the Left
Coming to Terms
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 Sunday
27 July 2003 |
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