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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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0158 Make sure you have not missed the previous edition Check it out And the one before that? Other recent topics highlighted here Week
9 Monday  I
apologise. I hate being late with my web-editing, when so many of you
make a point of checking-in on Monday mornings. But having spent
most of Sunday travelling to and fro Manchester, to take part in BBC1's Heaven & Earth Show,
I have had no time to complete the web-editing of the new Monday Edition.
It was this website that put me on The Show, because the BBC researchers picked up my recent thoughts about David Goodhart and Pickling Culture. I find it interesting to see how ideas percolate around - in this increasingly Web-intensive world.
One-Stop Nightmare I distrust “One Stop Shops”. The latest idea comes from Sir Peter Gershon, the Government-retained business guru who has come up with £16bn-worth of savings in the running of public services. Many of his ideas are sound. Public service procurement could be greatly improved. His challenge to the ethos of “regulation” is sound: as a socialist, I argue that it often reflects sloppy thinking about the true nature of public service. More auxiliaries and paraprofessionals should be introduced to public service functions, making better use of trained personnel, notably in education and policing. And Government should adopt a single Means Test, valid for all purposes. All these ideas are sensible. But his proposal is barmy, to convert Jobcentres into “one-stop shops” for all citizens of working-age in their relations with the State. Certainly, we all now have complex relations with “the State”, and their management is certainly a vital issue – with which socialists should be in particular concerned. But we should all have multiple opportunities of managing those relations. We must have choice in that relationship, diversity. The idea of giving the task to one team of civil servants is absurd – what happens when a one-stop shop comes to a stop? By incompetence, or internal dissension, inadequate funding or industrial dispute? What happens to the citizen then?
Congestion Charge misconceived 
I am delighted that Ken Livingstone has had such success with his "Congestion Charge" in London. Other cities are seeking to follow his example, and his CREEM (Campaign to Re-Elect the Mayor) builds mightily upon it. But its significance does not simply lie in the management of local traffic jams. Far more important: it serves as a dry-run for the national Daily Usage Charge for which I have been campaigning since 1997... If the entire Queen's Highway were brought into the scheme, it would work like a dream, without the tensions of partial implementation, and if a cheaper collection system were used, it would be a major source of UK tax income, for the Treasury.
Right policy 
New Labour has generated one jargon term which I find convincing. It is “narrative”. Parties, and Party policies, the pundits argue, “must have a narrative”. I agree. Narratives matter. The 2005 General Election will be fought on narratives. Politicians have a heavy duty to simplify the bewildering complexities of the political environment, and to produce a convincing “narrative”, for those having to cast their electoral votes. Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin are busy trying to construct a new Tory narrative. Charles Kennedy has always muddled along without a narrative. And Downing Street has clearly decided that the third-term Labour narrative will be “the New Localism”. The big story will be the dispersal of power, devolution, delegation, localism. Now – I agree with that narrative. It's a good narrative. I welcome all the early indications of a Government intention to disperse and share power.
Quest for Questors
My timetable this week
includes a visit to Exeter, to meet with the National Association of
Paralegals - this is their logo. They work to develop
the institutional structure of the mainstream legal system. They mirror,
for the legal profession, some of the supporting functions which are
common features of the medical world.
The subject for debate
will be my scheme for a new advocates' profession comprising non-lawyers -
informed citizens qualified and willing to help their fellows to find
their way about the systems of modern society, complete forms, write
letters, make applications. The new profession would build on the
experience of the Citizens Advice Bureaux, and the trade unions. It seems, though, that I shall have
problems if I use the term "public advocate". I
am considering the
(NB You may then have to scroll down,
to find this) New
Migration Data In recent years, a
nasty rightwing unit MigrationWatch UK,
purporting to mobilise the legitimacy of "Oxford University", has
commanded far too much media attention. I welcome the formation of a
new Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees (ICAR)
based at Kings College London (their logo, above). ICAR is
committed to provision of unbiased information on current asylum and
immigration issues.
That
balance is sorely needed.
“Enforcement” On
all sides, there is mounting concern about deceit and fraud in the
business sector. The headline corporate scandals are only the tip of
a fearsome and deceitful
iceberg. And the costs of after-the-event “enforcement” are escalating:
the City’s Financial Services Authority has just announced that it will be
increasing its 2004 enforcement budget. This conventional “policing” approach is
bound to fail. Too
many horses are regularly permitted to leave the stable, quietly and unobtrusively, before
the doors can be bolted. Tinkering will not do - what is needed is a
radical change of system. The only long-term remedy is greater
transparency, greater openness. We
must open up to media and public scrutiny the widest possible range of company books
and records. There is no alternative to the fresh air of public scrutiny. These great corporate “affairs of state” are far too important to be
allowed to remain in the shadows of the “private property” sector. The
secretive, collusive, conspiratorial style of the corporate sector must be
radically transformed, by new legislation forcing all major companies to
open their books, and answer to the public for their
decisions.
That is a key plank of the
Naether's Letter
I
love receiving your letters, triggered by this
website - they bring alive the many different lives reflected in the
readership of this richest of media. You will, like me, be moved and
impressed with this letter from Robert Naether of Llanelli, home of the
mighty Scarlets. He has a very distinctive story to tell..
Go Federal
Everywhere one turns, the federal challenge is becoming more pointed.
Northern Ireland
is, at base, a problem of federalism – how to retain a disparate province
within a unitary “State” framework. In Wales, the Richards Commission
will soon publish its conclusions, addressing similar issues. The elected
regional assemblies of England will pose new federal issues, as will the
continued success of Ken Livingstone in London.
Federalism is about the integration of
competing sovereignties, competing democratic mandates. It
is about sharing the cake of political power. Faced with the demands of
growing political and commercial integration, the 6,000m inhabitants of
this small globe have no option.
We are all federalists now.
Special
Footnote I love the online newspapers, which
are my access to the world - share them with me - click through to their
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.
One
year ago
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Dear Friends Come to the GMC from 0930h onwards
44 Hallam Street Underground: Goodge Street, Warren Street, Regent’s Park, and Great Portland Street
This is an attack upon the human rights and fundamental
freedoms of the Stapleford Clinic patients. These patients, if the Clinic is closed down
(and that is the intention of the Authorities) will find themselves in a
horrendous situation. Their very health and lives will be threatened. Many patients will simply not be able to “manage” the
drastic reductions of maintenance prescriptions that have hitherto kept them stable and away from crime.
A grave
wrong is being planned, an assault upon hundreds of private patients
currently receiving satisfactory addicition treatment, under medical
supervision.
Best wishes - and "Be There"! Reverend John and Adrian Garfoot
Billy Bragg and I 
Billy Bragg has come up with a new idea for elections to the House of Lords. I did the same last year, searching for a compromise position, moving away fr9om my commitment to total abolition. We have both suggested that Lords Elections should draw on precisely that same “legitimacy pool” as the Commons, using the same election results.
Forced 
Last week, I was required by harsh circumstance to "represent" a "Client", in proceedings in "Court". Not legally, you understand, because I am no longer a practising lawyer. But I was pitch-forked, by local circumstance, into assisting an Iraqi asylum-seeker to present his appeal case, as a "McKenzie Friend", before a Home Office Adjudicator.
Why increase 
The price of money remains low in the United States ("Bank Rate" =1%), and the Authorities are not planning any increase. In the UK it is four times as high (4%), and the Bank of England is planning to increase it further. The Bank of England claims to be "managing inflation" by increasing interest-rates - but I do not find that rationale convincing. Can that be the whole story? "Interest" is merely the price of money, or the remuneration paid to the owners of capital - for doing nothing more than owning it. I suspect that the true motive of the Bank of England, seeing a thriving economy, is merely to grab a larger slice of the economic cake for the owners of capital... UK authorities have always been more "pro-capitalist" than either Europe or the USA - that is the foundation of London's preeminent position as a financial centre.
Pensions I continue to be mortified by my Party's failure to get to grips with the old age pension crisis. Labour's puny new Pensions Bill, merely creating mandatory insurance for occupational pensions, is a mere fig-leaf, a diversionary tactic - a political non-event. It is shaming that the Tories have the better policy, of increasing the basic state pension - even though that does not go far enough, by a very long way. The Observer's main leader captures the truth.. Mandelson 
... to lecture the Labour Party on "moving on", "putting Iraq behind us", "closing ranks". We are confronted with an issue of political morality, and he has no moral authority. Our Government has been responsible for colluding in one of the most dangerous and destructive acts of aggression that the world has seen for decades. The threatening clouds of Middle East conflict are still building up as a result. That cannot be allowed simply to "rest there". If Blair would admit that the Iraq invasion was an error of judgment, we could perhaps as a nation "move on". We could work to re-assert the authority of consensus, and of the UN, rather than reinforce the doctrines of unilateral thuggery which Labour has now espoused.
Extraterritoriality rules OK...
Left Activists' Corner
I have three moderately-left political projects to engage your interest, in 2004 - nothing too revolutionary, you understand - and by the way, February's new Royal Mail stamps (First Class only) are now on sale - a light touch, after the dismal railway stamps, last month...
Surfing
my Diary
For
the first time in the two-year history of this Weblog, my diary was 100%
up to date, at Christmas! 'Twas a big effort, over the break,
but you can now browse back over the entire 24-month period
just
click through
Recent
topics Territorial
State v Membership State
>>>
Extending
the Welfare State
>>> Greg Dyke was to blame >>> In defence of the BBC
>>>
Not New Business - "Foraging"
>>> What is the
meaning of "Risk"?
>>> GMB loses campaigning zest
>>> Government - new Iraq "Defence"
>>>
"Culture" is a dangerous concept
>>> Speed Bumps - legal cock-up!
>>>
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 I
enjoy dipping into informed US West Coast chat, always up to
the minute, which can be found at
www.metafilter.com.
0158 Make sure you have not missed Week
9 Monday |
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New
within Russia, will be accommodated only by way of an
imaginative federal solution. In Iraq, the search is for a federal
formula which can accommodate the political aspirations of three deeply
divided “interests”. The South African state is underpinned by a range of
imaginative federal features. Germany, Canada, Australia and the United
States are already practised in the ways of federalism. The European
Union is searching for a new workable federal solution, to accommodate the
ten states due to accede on 1 May. 
House of Lords
A word of warning.
I shall be seeking, increasingly, to raise with you issues of
"extraterritoriality". The term refers to the assertion of a state's
jurisdiction outside the limits of that state's territory. It has
nothing to do with Daleks or other creations from outer space - they're extraterrestrial. And it is all because the
consequences of the French Revolution (and this man Montesquieu)
are 
