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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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040830 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 36 Friday
3 September 2004
Club Doctor
 You
have heard of “Company Doctors”, intrepid managers who take on failing
companies and “turn them around”.
Now for something completely different:
I have been called upon as a “Club Doctor”. The patient is the British
Legion Club, in my home town of
Mumbles.
As an ex-serviceman (Royal Navy, Leading Coder Special), I am a
British Legion Member.
The Club Committee had been overwhelmed by the difficulties of declining
trade, although they have excellent Club premises, right in the centre of
the village. The signs of collapse were everywhere: bills were left
unpaid, envelopes unopened, Bank facilities lost, morale plummeting,
motivation destroyed. I have now been appointed Acting Secretary, pending
the November AGM.
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Quickfire Potted
Politics
Blogging is about immediacy,
about conveying distinctive personal positions. And I must find a
way of keeping in touch, in spite of Summer pressures. These are my
quickfire responses, to current political issues.
 Olympics
- I am a sports sceptic. I am suspicious of the
nationalism with which "sport" so easily becomes tainted. Of course,
there were Athens events which I thoroughly enjoyed. But I dread the
coming years, with their testosterone headlines, as the UK strives for the
ill-conceived prize of the 2012 Olympics.
I suspect the Government's motives in trying to
encourage greater preoccupation with sport, as a diversion akin to bread
and circuses.
Tony
Blair - I do not want his impeachment: that would
perpetuate the agony of his abusive leadership. But if he does not
find, for himself, a pretext for resigning,
then impeachment may have to be considered. The
injustices of Guantanamo Bay are just one of the awful consequences of his
weak and deceitful leadership. And I was deeply distressed by the
gross misjudgement of his holiday stay with Silvio Berlusconi.
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TV
in the Courtroom? I am
against it. There is no parallel with the experience
of sitting in the public gallery. Communication by TV generates its
own multiple distortions, subliminal messages, and they would
irretrievably taint the judicial process. I would approve, however,
of a discreet radio coverage, with unobtrusive commentary.
Examinations
- I favour the shift to a
British Baccalaureat, with a wider range of subjects taught
in the 16-18 period. Wales is already moving in that declaration,
with preparation for a change well advanced. Up to 15, the
subject-content of the syllabus should be reduced, and we should focus on
skills, language skills, basic maths and the use of documents
(map-reading, musical notation, mathematical formulae). I would
reduce the School Leaving Age from 16 to 15.
Stem-cell
Research, human cloning - I
applaud the Government's openness in this sector.
This time, we have got it right.
Alcohol
licensing - I think the
Government is right to go for deregulation, reducing
further the dismal grip of "drinking hours". All societies, all
mankind, must come to terms with the phenomenon of intoxication, and
develop forms of social and personal control, by behavioural convention.
So the Government is right to deregulate. They should apply the same
reasoning to the decriminalisation of drugs, where the considerations are
precisely the same, and where a more liberal approach would show huge
societal dividends.
Postal
Voting - I agree with the Electoral Commission, but
I would go further. We
should keep the Polling Stations open, allowing other methods to run in
parallel. But I would still require a reason to be given, for the
grant of postal votes: the "normal" democratic expectation should remain
the local Polling Station, and a personal visit on "Polling Day".
- Keep thinking - don't let the
holidays dumb you down
- And
drop me a line
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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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?
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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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Editor
September!
August and the hols have been
bad for blogging, hit also by my own
preoccupations, and slow-moving news-pages - hits as follows -
April 1109
May 1576
June 1305
July 1125
August 1077
By way of background August 2002 attracted
166 hits, and for August 2003 the figure was
866.
So thanks for your continuing interest and
support - and in particular for your response and personal reactions -
they make it all worthwhile -
rwe
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 >>>
Are Public
Schools charities?
>>>
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...
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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
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(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.
 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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Other r ecent
topics
Nuclear power: the only option
>>>
"New"
New Labour Five Pillars
>>>
Students!
Get political!
>>>
US/EU: Wrong market models
>>>
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
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040830 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 36 Friday
3 September 2004
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