You are in the company of Roger Warren Evans, Welsh socialist lawyer and company director, on a journey to work out a new socialist order capable of generating equality and freedom for the world.  Nothing less will do.
    

 

 

 

  
 



New
Living Diary
Index

Renewing participatory democracy

"Tame the Corporations!"

My Little Red Book

A New Socialist Settlement

Globalise the Left!

Bevan
Re-visited 

Multiple Differential Uncertainty

Who am I? Biography  

 

       


0129  Make sure you have not missed the previous edition of LivePolitics  Check it out  
And the one before that?   
Other recent topics highlighted here

Week 31
Sunday 3 August 2003

I am proud of Rhyl

At the weekend, Rhyl, in North Wales, staged its second Festival of Filipino Culture, attended by over 4,000 local residents in one day, on the Saturday.  The initiative for the event came from the Filipino community, with 1,000 Filipino nurses and doctors living in Rhyl.

My ambition is to see such events organised by the host community, as a way of saying "welcome" to newcomers to our communities, to those from abroad who seek to make their home with us.  With four fellow Trustees, I am making initial progress with CROESO (Welsh for welcome) - a new charity which I have established to promote the development of a more welcoming society, in all its phases.  We are keen to hear from others who recognise the strength of this challenge to our society.

Record  month with
Metafilter

This July has been the best hit-month in the 18-month history of this website, generating the following number of hits -

682

Metafilter describes itself thus -

"MetaFilter is a community of over 17,000 users that find and discuss things on the web. The topics run the gamut, and tend to run intelligent and civil. If it's your first time here, hang out, and get a feel for the place."

The material is all from the western United States - plenty of local colour, comment, news.  Welcome guys!  Make sure you re-visit, sometime!  All our States-sides visitors were checking up on an Emmanuel Todd article, first published in Le Monde, re-published in Prospect, then transmitted here on this website.

back to top

BBC digs
a deeper hole

Friday's launch of the Hutton Inquiry has done nothing to change my view of this matter.  I remain appalled at the continuing sensationalism and poor editorial judgment of the BBC.

 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, probably beyond the reach of Lord Hutton.

 For me, it is Peter Preston, writing for the BBC News website itself who takes this analysis to its sticking-point.  The BBC has developed a hectoring, self-righteous, self-appointed, institutionally arrogant style of reportage and commentary: I am a deeply committed friend of the BBC, and I claim the right to criticise.  Peter Preston describes the events leading to Dr David 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.

back to top

Community
government 
The Potential

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 -

One year ago

Final instalment of "Thoughts from July 2002" - thanks for your positive response...

back to top

Rail: a tragic
Pantomime

The West Coast Line from London to Scotland is once again a candidate for cuts, as the rail system struggles to make £2bn cost reductions.  It should not merely be deferred for a year, as Regulator Winsor suggests: the entire line should be closed altogether, beyond Carlisle. 

It is absurd for a cash-strapped railway to provide TWO lines from London to Glasgow!  That reflected the market madness of the 19th Century, and we have not yet outgrown it.  London rail travellers to Glasgow should take the East Coast line, via Edinburgh.  Lancaster and Carlisle should retain their InterCity links – for them, direct air-linkage to London is not practicable, and it is a long haul by coach. 

  • I reckon that closing the West Coast line beyond Carlisle would itself save more than £2bn..

back to top

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.

back to top

Passionate Secrets Revealed

I eat beetroot every week.  A little vacuum-sealed pack of boiled, plain, unvinegared beetroot slips into my Sainsburys shopping-trolley every week. And I'm a sucker for borshcht, whenever it's on the menu.   A rationale for this obsessive behaviour has now emerged.  Beetroot is now revealed as a top aphrodisiac, strengthening the immune system and increasing brainpower...
British stamps do take some beating - a new series just starting on great British landscapes - launched with the wildernesses of Scotland - make sure you buy...

I am sure you will want to keep in touch with what Steve Bell is drawing, in The Guardian

back to top

 		     

 

New Left Majority  

Bill Hayes is the new General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union.  Writing in The Guardian, he claims that he and his fellow newly-elected TU leaders are part of a "New Left Majority" in the union movement that is determined to mount a systematic challenge against New Labour.

Rejection No 44

I was affronted by being forced to leave Sainsburys at 60 - "retirement" - in 1995. I have sought ever since to find myself public service employment as best I can.  My CV suggests I should be able to make myself useful, somewhere.

And I have applied for forty-four (yep! 44 No.) part-time public service positions, over the last eight years. In 42 of those cases, I did not reach any shortlist, and was never even interviewed.  And this week, I chalked up my 44th rejection in succession, having had the temerity to apply for the Chairmanship of the Education and Learning Council for Wales. No interview, again. 

The experience has given me real insight into the emotions of other forms of discrimination – gender, race, religion. I suppose it might not be "age" I tell myself, rather 44 quite specific, considered, personal rejections. When job-hunting, one has to develop a very thick skin indeed…

back to top

GM
Is the issue a religious one?

I have been searching the depths of my own mind, on GM issues. For I find that I am untouched by all the horrific Frankenstein food predictions. I rebel at the use of genetic engineering as a vehicle for corporate dominance, through the patenting of new species and genetic variations - and I am convinced we need new political strategies to counter the abuse of "private power" by this means.

But I do not fear "pollution" by GM crops.  The Friends of the Earth cut no ice with me. 

Rebuilding
Legitimacy

Hugo Young, as he so often does, puts his finger on the key problem . Professional politicians, he argues, face a corrosive loss of legitimacy, and must think of ways of rebuilding that legitimacy, if they are to retain power and position - he is well worth reading 

back to top

Here comes 'da Judge!

Lord Hutton is bad news for our political salariat.  For his appointment reflects the search for higher, more respected forms of authority.  As a society, we are increasingly turning to Judges, Arbitrators, Regulators, Commissioners, Magistrates. The popularity of arbitral institutions suggests that the electorate places greater credence in them than in senior politicians. 

In the Kelly case, the authority of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee barely registered on the political Richter Scale.  Following David Kelly's tragic death, Blair's immediate deployment of the judiciary, with the appointment of 72-year-old Lord Hutton, was a clear straw in the wind.

Bully for Charlie!

Lord Falconer has come into his own, since becoming "Lord Chancellor" - and I like what he is doing. I support the introduction of senior lay elements into the judicial process, and it should go further.  We ought to bring non-lawyers into the adjudication process on a far wider front - the lawyers should not be allowed to retain their monopoly of this key societal function. I welcome Falconer's attempts to bring professional services into the High Street, into Tesco and into Sainsburys.  But he must also address the underlying problem that market pressures have priced lawyers out of the High Street market.

back to top

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.

Weird, Web weird. I saw this photograph of myself for the first time when it was thrown up by a Google Image Search - it was apparently taken at a drugs reform conference in Norwich some three years ago, and had been published on an enthusiast's Weblog page.  But Google picked it up.  I saw it, for the first time, just a couple of days ago...

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

back to top

Other recent topics
  • Confidence is indivisible >>>
  • New legal Profession needed >>>
  • Rise of the Dicastocracy >>>
  • Using our political intellect >>>
  • "Communities in Control" >>>
  • Unions are rarely "socialist" >>>
  • BA abuse Concorde power >>>
  • The great Pensions Crisis >>>
  • What Gordon Brown must do >>>
  • Save Our Smokers! >>>
  • I back the para-Police >>>
  • BBC in the Dock >>>
  • Fabians: Dodgy Royal Priorities >>>
  • Creating "special electorates" >>>
  • I oppose "Share Options" >>>
  • Six-month Notice for all >>>
  •  
  • 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
back to top

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

Sunday
3 August 2003

back to top

  

 

 

 
                       
     
 

 
 Created by GMID Design & Communication

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
The originating content of this website is my own work, and subject to my copyright. But on one condition only, I hereby give my consent to its unrestricted reproduction for any purpose: the condition is that its source is subject to proper acknowledgment, giving my name, my assertion of copyright, and the name of this website as its source, namely: www.warrenevans.net - is that a deal?  Roger WE