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 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
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0140 Make sure you have not missed the previous edition
Check
it out
And the one
before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 43 Sunday
26 October 2003
Housing
Troubles ahead
for Labour
John Prescott understands the depths of
the UK's housing failure. Yet sadly, he
is riding for a fall. We have the oldest, most
decrepit housing stock in Europe, with no recovery strategy.
Labour has uncritically continued the laissez-faire policies of
Nicholas Ridley, John Gummer et al - remember them? Part of
the problem lies with the failures of the
land-use planning system.
But the critical failure lies in the failure
of successive Governments (and the Civil Service) to understand the
fundamental
differences between the "building industry" and the "development
industry". I should know:
for two years in the 1970s I was a senior civil servant, working as Industrial Adviser on Construction to the
Labour Government.
- And the lessons of the 1970s
have
still not been learnt...
Vive la Commune!
I'm back! Je suis de
retour! Back from a diplomatic mission to Hennebont in South Brittany, to forge new
twinning links between Wales and the Breton homeland. I seek your
help and advice, if you have had any experience of the European "twinning movement".
Property
Development
Blowing the
Whistle
This political sermon
all started at a wedding. A chartered surveyor friend of mine,
Alistair Gibson, and I were discussing the parlous state of the housing
industry - as you do, at
weddings. And we
shared a common anger, as denizens of the property development world, at
three great lies
- deceits, dishonesties - which
plague the UK development process.
Alistair challenged to me to try and
explain these wrongs. This is my attempt. Each of
these represents a grave distortion of our planning system. And in each case, I am ashamed
that my Labour colleagues reinforce Tory misjudgments. I confess
that it is heavy going - it would be easier for you to turn the other way.
Are you up for it?
-
Deceitful Green Belts
-
Dishonest Planning Agreements
-
Devious "affordable housing".
Global campaigning
Watch out for a new form of
political action. The new move against the small-arms trade,
by a network of UK and international charities, seeks to launch a
new
international negotiating round, for presentation to a UN
Conference in 2006. The "lobby" is initiating a long process of international
negotiation. Their plan is to replicate the international campaign
against landmines, which culminated in the 1997 Ottawa landmines treaty.
- The same
approach is needed to a new Corporate Control
Treaty, to bring the corporate sector under global democratic political
control. We will be starting that process, in however small a way,
at LSE on
on 1 November.
back
to top
Remember
my chat
with TB?
My imaginary
chat with TB struck a chord
with my old leftwing friend and sparring-partner Michael McCarthy -
but
not the right one! He accuses me of failing to
understand the true issues between Labour and the Meeja, of being gullible
and naive - at least that's how I feel,
when confronted by those, like Michael, who perceive political strategems in every corner, in every shadow. I think I favour cock-up
theories, bumbling incompetence, ill-considered half-baked strategies -
they seem to me to be the norm...
back
to top
November Revolution
My
political obsession is not with "analysis".
It is with action
- the hard grind of finding practical political ways ahead, in a
gradualist, non-revolutionary manner. My November Saturdays will be taken
up with with political experimentation.
Everybody is welcome to join in! What
are you doing with your
November Saturdays?
1
November: Confer with Labour colleagues in London to plan
international lobby for a new Corporate Control Treaty, furthering the
theme of Tame the Corporations.
8
November: Work with Cardiff Labour colleague to draft amendments to the
the Labour Party Constitution, to create new Party structures, new roles
for the
"Party in the country".
22 November:
Founding Meeting, back home in Swansea, for the creation of a new, third, legal
profession, the Public Advocates.
You are invited to join the
Launch public meeting of the new Public Advocate
para-legal profession -
at the Mumbles Village Hall at 11.00 am on Saturday 22 November 2003. Come
and enjoy a day at the seaside!
29 November
In Cardiff - All-Wales Fabian Conference - experimental
member-involvement format, with ten participating speakers from Fabian
rank-and-file - I am committed to the re-invigoration of ordinary
political discourse.
back
to top
 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.
One year ago
 Memories
of October 2002 - then, as now, I had attended the Labour Party Conference
at Blackpool - and looked forward to the recommencement of the political
joust at Westminster, for all its disappointments...
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 - I have
added the English-language China Daily ... and I now offer you the leading
English-language Indian paper The Hindu.
They are all
just a click away.
China
Daily
The Hindu
back
to top
I
enjoy dipping into informed US West Coast chat, always
up to the minute, which can be found at
www.metafilter.com.
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Blair's Palpitations
Truth to
tell, I felt a bit
guilty, as the news of Blair's hospitalisation rolled in, on that fateful Sunday
evening. Because last June, I had speculated about the awesome
pressures to which Blair was subject...
Smacking
our Children
 The Government’s failure to outlaw the use of parental force against children
blackens Labour’s record. Blair’s motive
can only be electoral
cowardice - he must fear the ballot-box consequences of giving to our
children the same rights as we accord to adults.
He fears the parental
backlash.
Yet to
retain the old
Victorian defence of
reasonable chastisement represents a
straightforward failure of leadership, both moral and political.
To
legitimise smacking is to legitimise child violence. That is
my position, and I still long for Labour to take a
principled stand – siding with our children...
back
to top
Sunday circles
I return, after a refreshing three days in France, to find
the Sunday papers still running around in circles over Blair and IDS -
Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer ponders on the dominance of independent
arbiters (Hutton, Mawer) in determining both politicians' futures.
His perception is correct: it is remarkable that the position of two
senior politicians should now turn on the judgement of unelected "judges"
to whom the public looks for authoritative judgments. Yet this is
but another practical example of ...
back
to top
Governmental authoritarianism...
... is running out of control. The
Illiberal Blair/Blunkett Duo, desperate to find new enemies so as to curry favour with the
mainstream middle-class, are targeting the young, in an inexcusable
vendetta. Don't take my word for it -
check out the BBC...
Curbing Litigation
Given the chance, the Court of Appeal is ready to damp down the fires of
litigation now consuming
US society.
UK
senior judges are showing good common sense, and signalling that there is
no need for us to go down the disruptive American path. The trouble is
that, because of high legal fees, very few cases
get to the Court of
Appeal, for authoritative decision. That means that maverick local
judgments and (worse still) settlements out-of-court come to
dominate the gossip scene, and shape popular culture.
Two recent gold-digging plaintiffs got their come-uppance recently in
the Court of Appeal – Ms Laverton and Ms Beaton.
back
to top
Missing link
We are trying to solve real social
problems by using the wrong political tools. Central government is
out-of-its-depth, lashing out in all directions. True, the Cabinet trying
to pass responsibilities "back" to local communities - for Police, civic
disorder, education, NHS. Yet those communities are politically
ill-equipped to accept them - their political structures have been
dismantled, emasculated. And it will take time to repair those
ravages.
back
to top
 
We all saw the new, assertive
Duncan Smith at Blackpool - trying on this aggressive Aztec mask - 15th
century Xiuhtecuhti - portrayed on this month's beautiful stamps, from the
British Museum.
Isn't this gorgeous?
Political
no-go zones
 My
mind has been working overtime, during these two Party Conferences.
Because a sixth sense has gone missing,
in our political culture. It is a sense of the proper limits of "Government" intervention,
in our personal and social lives. All Parties, including the LibDems,
seem prepared to become much more interventionist than in past
generations.
Recent topics
Economies to be responsive >>>
Disperse Downing St power >>>
The Spin is in the Media...
...not in the
Message
>>>
Pertax? New form
of "smart" tax?
>>>
My chat with Tony Blair
>>>
Party Conference 2003: Issues
>>>
Ruinous Drugs Prohibition
>>>
Highway Charging must go national >>>
Busking: Key Political Parable
>>>
Homage to Emmanuel Todd >>>
Immigration Some Blunkett advances >>>
How to organise
the Police
>>>
And read my Big Theory itself, at
Multiple Differential
Uncertainty...
Or try my snappier and more practical analysis of the Corporations
and the Left
Coming to Terms
back
to top
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 to January 2002 -
just
click through
back
to top
Never miss Steve Bell!
his cartoons, from
The
Guardian
- his wit and perception
illuminate the absurdities of the political scene...
0139 Make sure you have not missed the previous edition
Check
it out
And the one
before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 43 Sunday
26 October 2003 |
|
