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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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040301 Make sure you have not missed the previous edition Check it out And the one before that? Other recent topics highlighted here Week
10 Sunday STOP PRESS I have just installed an in-board Search Engine for you, right here at your left, just for this website - I am finding it useful myself, to navigate the last two-and-a-half years since I started weblogging - have fun! STOP STOP PRESS For Web enthusiasts, let me report that the total hits for the 29-day February just fell short of the 31-day January - so it's level-pegging for the website, I would say - thanks for your continuing support...
The genetic engineering of plants continues to generate huge debate and
disagreement. The ridiculous term “Frankenstein
foods” has been coined to discredit the GM case. Readers
will know that I am actively concerned about the adverse legal and political
implications of extending private property power into the plant world. I recognise that the GM
revolution carries with it, through the byways of patent and registered
varieties laws, potential for the abuse of power on a massive scale.
I find no grounds whatever for the “Frankenstein food”-type of attack. I cannot take Friends of the Earth seriously, on this matter. I simply do not believe that life is threatened in any way by these changes themselves. Taverne throws new light on the scale of GM crop-production in China and India and the remainder of the Far East, as well as huge productivity gains achieved in Africa. My position is, I suspect, essentially a religious one. My optimism, and my perspective upon life, is hidden away - deep in my value system.
Why is Blair so fussed.. 
I know precisely why. My perspective is also that of a barrister. And Tony Blair is, first and foremost, a barrister presenting a case. As a man with few political convictions, it is the adoption of a "case to argue" which gives him a framework - for his personality, and the conduct of his life. We all need that. But for a lawyer, that framework comes at a price. And the price is this: you must take the law seriously, very seriously. Legality matters, illegality matters. They certainly matter to Blair - although not to Bush, whose personality is otherwise configured. It mattered desperately to Blair that the attack on Iraq should be legal. And he knew, in the closing weeks of 2002, that it was only a new UN Resolution which could "deliver" that legality.
No - once the UN campaign was lost - effectively in Kofi Annan's office, where much of the politickin' will have occurred - Blair will have known that he was up the creek of history without a paddle.
Defeated in New York, Blair made the best of it, ambivalently switching between both the "legality" arguments available to him, always riding both horses. His capacity for self-persuasion, if not self-delusion, is legendary. But once the UN campaign had failed, he was always onto a loser.
Airport Theory 
The David Goodhart debate about Britishness rumbles on, sadly fuelled by the out-of-office John Denham. Many decent folk are being drawn in to its covert prejudices. The Guardian cites the modern Premiership football team as a reflection of underlying views, where team loyalty outweighs the players' diverse nationalities.
Wrong. The right model for the modern state is Heathrow Airport.
Right topic 
Blair is right to call for greater imagination, and greater flexibility, from the Home Civil Service. He is entitled to castigate the old MAFF for its disastrous performance during the Foot-and-Mouth outbreak, and for its being out-managed by the Army. His major speech this week on Civil Service reform is well focused, well targeted. But in delivering his message, and in spelling out its practical implications, his fabled “touch” has let him down. I have served as an old-style Under-Secretary myself, and I do understand his desire to induce a stronger sense of innovation, of drive, of energy – of an entire “can do” philosophy – into the senior Civil Service. That ambition is entirely legitimate.
EU
"Immigration" Well, YES... It was Lord (Chris) Haskins who said “You have to watch David Blunkett: he does awful things, then suddenly out of the blue, he gets something right!” 
That has happened this time. In January, the UK faced progressive betrayal on EU enlargement by thirteen other EU states, many of whom caved in to popular xenophobia over the year-end. They left UK and Ireland with the only states with “open doors”, and that dramatically changed immigration forecasts for EU enlargement on 1 May.
Blunkett’s compromise is a good one - but it is undoubtedly weak in parts. And those weaknesses will come back to haunt us.
Filofax
DECEIT Filofax
users are used to being exploited. The astronomical prices charged
for Filofax "accessories" have always been a stain upon the good name of
the business sector. But now
It
looks like the presentation
common to other
No it does not. This is a
special cardboard "imitation" page, designed and printed to
look just like
the other Filofax on-shelf presentations. Even imitation punch-holes
are included, cunningly camouflaged and printed to look as if they are being viewed
through the cellophane. Two of these heavier pieces of
cardboard are included, front and back, within the cellophane package.
The effect is to give
the slim pack a very substantial "feel", of thickness, therefore
of quantity - concealing the fact that there
are just 25 thin sheets of A5 paper within it. The
volume of the package is doubled by this useless cardboard, sold for £2. That is
the equivalent of 16p for an A4 sheet of paper. But the actual number
of sheets is not even shown on the outside of the pack.
So you
cannot check arithmetically, you can only feel. But in feeling the weight of the
package, you are being most grievously deceived. These
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
I
enjoy dipping into informed US West Coast chat, always up to
the minute, which can be found at
www.metafilter.com. |
Progressive
He advances Theory Number Four, namely that unilateral military intervention can be justified on humanitarian grounds (although he denies attacking Iraq for that reason…). The speech is well-intentioned, and serious. But it is also rambling, unbalanced, and incoherent. I believe that Blair's Messianic self-delusion has reached an advanced stage, and that his judgment has been adversely affected.
Lord Sainsbury says... 
Please forgive a little blowing of the own trumpet, but it has just been brought to my attention that, in the House of Lords in on 8th January, Lord Sainsbury acknowledged my role in generating the idea of community interest companies. In introducing the Second Reading debate, he said -
My thanks to David Sainsbury (my former boss, of course, and Labour Party colleague, before the SDP...) for that handsome acknowledgment.
Mind “The Gap”! 
Have you understood the game that is being played in Iraq, by the US and the UK? Have you grasped the significance of the gap that will be left between the “transfer of sovereignty” to a puppet Iraqi Government (on 30 June 2004) and the holding of elections (perhaps early 2005)?
My
triple
Billy Bragg has come up with a new idea for elections to the House of Lords.
General Election votes would be counted in two different ways - once for the
Commons and a second-time for the Lords.
And
the electorate would, in conventional election manner, Trade Union Inspiration
There are huge challenges facing the TU movement,
political and industrial. But they will not be met by desk-bound “experts”.
GMB must try harder...
Fatcat Remuneration Patricia Hewitt has
annoyed the Unions by refusing to intervene to limit Board and executive
remuneration. She has been sitting on the fence for two years, and
now she has decided to do nothing.
Hewitt is right to reject direct State
intervention in corporate reward packages. Incomes policy is a broken
political reed, whether on the shop-floor or in the Boardroom.
And Hewitt is right to look to
shareholders to discipline corporate management.
But Hewitt is wrong to leave shareholders with so few
powers, when faced with rapacious and devious executives. Government
intervention is needed, to strengthen shareholders, on a much broader front. This is
what she should
do.
Deceit is endemic Deceit and dishonesty are endemic to the
financial services sector. No attempts at statutory regulation have
yet been successful. Maybe the only course is for the State to become
the repository-of-last-resort for ordinary "retail" savings,
giving some minimal guarantee of security. Thanks to The Guardian, for
the cartoon
Asylum
Footnote I should report that justice
came a little nearer, for the Iranian dissident seeking asylum, whom I was
forced to "represent" at a hearing in Pontypool last Friday. The
Adjudicator was equally concerned at the difficulties he had experienced
in finding a Solicitor. Acting as his "Next Friend" in the
absence of a Solicitor, I managed to get a second adjournment of the
hearing, until early April. That will give him time
to brief London Solicitors, and get the necessary certified statements
from the leadership of the Baluchistan
National Front, so vital to his case of political
persecution. His Party colleagues have met up with him, and are
arranging legal representation. So I felt I had
done a good day's work...
Did you know...?
If a
picture is worth a
thousand words, how about this picture?
PS Richard Brunstrom
the courageous Chief Constable of North Wales has
published his great drugs-reform report "Time for change?" on the
Police website at www.north-wales.police.uk 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...
(a)
Company Reform Coalition targeting a major Easter pow-wow in
London;
(b)
Questors - the birth of a new
profession, group planning expansion;
(c)
Labour Links,
seeking
to unlock the resources of the Labour Party - and I seek the opportunity
to speak to Party groups about Party reform
Let me know what you think
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
Extending
the Welfare State
>>> Greg Dyke was to blame >>> GMB loses campaigning zest
>>> "Culture" is a dangerous concept
>>> Speed Bumps - legal cock-up!
>>> We are all Federalists now
>>> "Localism" for the
wrong reason
>>> Asylum: Inadequate legal aid
>>> Territorial v Membership States
>>> Filofax Deceit >>>
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
040301 Make sure you have not missed Week
10 Sunday |
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That is why
he reacted so violently, and petulantly, to Clare Short's revelation about
the bugging of Annan's office.
She took him back to the real turning-point, in
Blair's War. For that occurred - precisely in Kofi
Annan's New York Office.
House of Lords
My
own union GMB, has adopted the most uninspiring slogan imaginable - "
Will the "retail" financial services industry ever be
honest enough to be allowed to trade?
I am beginning to doubt
it. The arcane wording of all "financial instruments" will always be
liable to misunderstanding, disappointment and deceit. I am beginning
to doubt whether ordinary private companies will ever prove to be reliable
enough to look after the savings of ordinary people.
