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Diary in date order Jan 2002 to date
but you also find this search
engine useful, in keeping track of events
Renewing
participatory democracy
My Little Red Book
A
New
Socialist Settlement
Bevan
Re-visited
Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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040823 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other current topics
highlighted here
Week 35 Monday
23 August 2004
I owe y'all
an apology
 I
had high hopes of August. This would be the time when the
pace of life would slow, and I could return to my first love, editing this
website. Instead of that, the website has been static. You can see that the asylum issues have accelerated, as
the Home Office speeds up the decision-making process, working with
inadequate staff, thus increasing the incidence of personal injustice.
And other matters of charity administration have added to my workload.
 Last
Friday, I resigned as a Mumbles
Community Councillor - simply because "something had to go". A week
before that, I resigned as
Chairman of the Mutual Aid Centre, which was my umbilical cord with the
the late (and great) Michael Young, after thirty years as his
fellow Trustee. Both resignations seared my heart.
But life must be lived in the present.
And the issues of the present are (a) the fair management of migration,
(b) the evolution of new forms of non-state enterprises to serve societal
objectives and (c) the redrawing the lines of "the State" so that it
focuses on the future, not the preservation of the past. And
overriding all, my perception that we are moving towards a world in which
the key political battle-lines will be liberal v. illiberal, authoritatian
v. democratic, participation v. elitism.
Check out
my My Current Topics
opposite.
- I am re-defining myself
accordingly.
Bear with me.
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Campaign
Courage
Drugs
are always “bad news”, at the bar of public opinion. My own personal commitment to
the cause of decriminalisation always generates raised eyebrows, a pained
puzzlement. And I am keenly aware of the difficulties faced by those
campaigning for Drugs Reform. I am therefore delighted to bear the
message that “The Methadone Alliance” has moved to new premises, and is
now at –
Panther
House (Room 312)
38 Mount Pleasant
London WC1X 0AP
Tel 020-7837-4379
(Helpline)
Tel 020-7713-622
But consider too the effect of prevailing public opinion. This courageous
champion of heroin-users' interest has been forced to drop the word
methadone from
its title - it is now simply "The Alliance" or "The M-Alliance"...
And, strapped for funds (like all such bodies) it has to limit its
office-hours to the 11.00am /4.00 pm weekday slot. In some respects, we
remain a primitive, illiberal society...
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Replacement
to cost £64m
This is not the value of a good marriage, depicted here by Elizabeth
and me tying the knot in 1966. That is today's replacement cost of
Hackney Town Hall - which is in the background, where we were married, on a
sunny Whit Friday - and where I was later a Labour Councillor. Those
were the days of Little Moscow
on Thames, when out of 60 Hackney Councillors,58 were Labour - and the other two
were Communist...
Blast against Blair
No great weight should ordinarily be placed on August political
articles. They are penned to occupy a political vacuum, the great black
hole of the August holidays.
- But this is
an exception.
Writing The Guardian, the Editors of the Labour loyalist
publication Renewal have
unleashed a great howl of anguish and
protest,
against Tony Blair.
They say everything I think about the sheer vacuity of the Blair regime,
the triumph of form over substance, the steady destruction of the Labour
Party and the morale and motivation of its traditional loyal supporters -
like me, for goodness' sake!
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Public Schools
Charity Status
The Government’s attempt to remove the charitable status of “public
schools” has run into trouble – again. This issue has dogged the Labour
Party throughout my 41-years of membership. Every initiative has
foundered on the rocks of fuzzy thinking. And the current Charities Bill,
floundering its way through Parliament, could meet the same fate.
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mindless
Prohibition
As
a society, we are addicted to prohibition. "Government by prohibition" is
deeply embedded in our political style: modern Governments love to “send
for the Police”, and to pretend that that will solve the problems of
society.
The nonsense of prohibiting “pirate” radio operations has now been exposed
by the new media Regulator Ofcom.
Ofcom has now offered to legalise the
hundreds of UK pirate radio stations (there are 180 "illegal" stations in
London
alone) simply by charging them £600 for a “licence” (see
The Guardian, 3
August). Just like a dog licence (another little prohibition, now
thankfully abolished…) Yet the Authorities are currently carrying out “an
average of three raids a day on such stations, seizing equipment and
arresting those responsible for the illegal broadcasts…”
A
quoi bon? What good does that do? I acknowledge the case for “management” of the radio spectrum -
the importance of avoiding frequency clashes with emergency services, or
the military or even Secret Services. And I acknowledge the desirability
of reasonable waveband “spacing”, to permit easy listening. But
otherwise, why should the airwaves not be like Speakers’ Corner at
Hyde Park? Bring your own soap-box and get on with it?
Cobber comes home
The
eloquent Mike Davis is back at his Australian desk, following a Far Eastern
tour. He is a professional Immigration Agent, and he and I seem to
share many current concerns, albeit reaching different conclusions.
Mike argues for a new international treaty, incorporating the Roman
ius soli, giving every new-born
child the certainty of entitlement to the nationality of his birth-place.
I disagree, much as I am
attracted by the simplicity of ius soli:
I suspect that initial nationality will have to be inherited,
merely because that corresponds with common sense and common perceptions...
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Conduct unbecoming
I am ashamed of my Government.
My recent asylum/immigration training has alerted me to the
Government's hidden agenda. In order to make the UK an unattractive
target for those seeking asylum, the Government is systematically stifling
off publicly-funded representation for asylum-seekers. Even the most
committed, idealistic lawyers are in despair at the prospects.
- Immigration advisers are
already subject to impossible time-constraints in the preparation of
appeal cases, with the Government now paying for just 300 minutes of
their time, an allowance which is pitifully inadequate for most cases.
- They now get no funding whatever
for time spent attending the key first Home Office interview (at
Croydon, Birmingham or Liverpool); they are forced to leave
the asylum applicant without support at the key initial stage of the
proceedings; for those speaking English there is not even the presence
of an interpreter.
- Each Immigration Adviser
must, as from next April, prove formal "Accreditation" (passing a
Home Office exam reputed to be highly technical), a process which is
likely to reduce adviser-numbers drastically.
Proper asylum representation will soon become the exception, rather
than the rule. My Government is resorting to nastiness by the
back-door.
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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
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.
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 Having
discovered this remarkable NASA website, linked with the Hubble Telescope
and the NASA Mars exploration vehicles, with its current photographs from
outer space, I am reluctant
to let it go
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My current
topics
Extending
the Welfare State
>>>
Adjustment Pay - for every worker
>>>
Pay
Guardianship Allowance
>>>
We
do not own
our children >>>
" Institutional Racism"
a fallacy
>>>
Pensions at 70 Good Idea
>>>
The Mischief of ASBOs
>>>
LIBRI
and public library reform
>>>
US/EU: Wrong market models
>>>
"Planning"
over-egged
>>>
Immigration
Insights
>>>
Dodgy
Opinion Surveys >>>
I need allies,
volunteers
Can
you help me? I am currently preoccupied with the
injustices of the UK asylum arrangements - see "Insights"
indexed above. Far too many asylum-seekers with deserving cases are being
deprived of a fair hearing, by the Home Office and Legal Aid rules.
There are already several "lawyer"
organisations seeking to assist - Asylum Aid,
Immigration Advisory Services, the
Refugee Legal Centre, and the
Refugee Council, both in England and
Wales. But all suffer the disadvantage that they are limited by the
Government's deployment of legal aid - they are led by enthusiastic and
committed young lawyers, who must be paid.
And
there's rub. Because, with the Government tightening
the Legal Aid purse-strings, all "representation" of asylum-seekers is being
effectively curtailed.
What is needed is a new force of
Asylum Volunteers, combining both
lay and legally-qualified volunteers, willing to devote their time
pro bono (i.e. without payment) to ensure that asylum-seekers
are not simply left alone to confront an increasingly hostile
Administration. Where lawyers cannot be paid to do the job, they
should be ready to step in.
It is now only by using volunteers
that justice can be done, and a fair investigation assured. There is a
desperate need for lay volunteers, for example, willing to accompany the
asylum-seeker to the initial Home Office interrogation, held at Croydon,
Birmingham or Liverpool - often before a lawyer has been appointed at all.
Volunteers willing to donate one-day per week, or even half-a-day, could
form an invaluable workforce.
If you are, please drop me a line
More
means worse
George Monbiot is a passionate and committed campaigning
journalist. True, I am often
infuriated by his other-worldliness, and inability to generate practical
political solutions.
But I respect his passion, and his perceptions. And
I accept his current analysis, which contends that current generations may
well be enjoying the best of global existences, never to be repeated. Global warming and climatic
degradation, he contends in this week’s
Guardian, are bound to bring far
less satisfactory conditions beckoning, for our grandchildren.
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Taming the
Corporations
The Chartist magazine has given me the
chance to seek support for the Company Reform Coalition.
It will require
a new UN Treaty to secure concerted international agreement on the
integrated reform of company law, to address and moderate the overweening
power of the corporate sector. The challenge to radical reformers is
to find a way of putting company law reform firmly onto the UN agenda.
The Fabians
are a great, enlightened Left-Wing political community some 7,000-strong -
and we have many skills among our number.
like to be added to
the monthly Fabian Update e-mail list, just e-mail
Fabian Research
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 Never miss
Steve Bell!
His cartoons, from
The
Guardian
- his wit and perception illuminate
the absurdities of the political scene...
Activists' Update
July 2004
.jpg)
Three of my four pet reform projects are decidedly "alive", but the
fourth is floundering, and will probably have to go onto the back-burner -
the weakling is "Labour Party Reform", although I shall be flying the flag
again at the September meeting of the West Wales Fabians. This is
just to keep in touch...
(a)
Company Reform Coalition
In this, I am targeting the stimulation of
a new UN treaty - nothing less! This difficult project has attracted a
little more understanding in recent weeks, and will be the subject of an
article from me in the September edition of
The Chartist - it's a slow burn.
Drop me a line
(b)
Questors - the
birth of a new advocacy profession has come a little nearer - July
discussions at the Department of the Constitutional Affairs have
confirmed (a) that there is constitutional space for such a creation
and (b) that there would be no legal or institutional obstacles to
its emergence - this leaves the ball unambiguously in my court, and
I need allies...
Drop me a line
(c) Charitable Public Loos - my new
charity Hygeia is making
progress - we now have realistic prospects of finding two pioneering
Councils, willing test our ideas - our aim is to
develop the charity sector, to replace the collapsing local authority
provision of public toilets.
Drop me a line
(d)
Labour Links -
the case for Party Reform is proving difficult to make - my
latest attempt was in Cardiff in mid-June
with the Fabians - but the prospect of taking deliberate action
to re-structure the relationship between Party Members and MPs is deeply
unattractive - and I am making no progress at all.
Drop me a line
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I
enjoy dipping into informed US West Coast chat, always up to
the minute, which can be found at
www.metafilter.com.
Other r ecent
topics
We
do not own
our children >>>
Nuclear power: the only option
>>>
"Institutional Racism"
a fallacy
>>>
"New"
New Labour Five Pillars
>>>
Pensions at 70 Good Idea
>>>
Students!
Get political!
>>>
US/EU: Wrong market models
>>>
"Planning"
over-egged >>>
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
040823 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 35 Monday
23 August 2004
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