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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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040906 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 38 Thursday
16 September 2004
Beslan
The deep dangers of politics
On Sunday morning 5 February, as the BBC reported 330
confirmed deaths at Beslan, the Moscow
Times website was still announcing the mere possibility that 150 had died -
"September 5
Forces Storm School
150 may be dead
Commandos stormed a school Friday in
southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding 1,200 hostages, as
crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions
and gunfire."
You may wish to check out what the papers
are saying now.
Responsibility for this tragedy lies
with Vladimir Putin. The Chechens are merely fighting for their
political independence, against the might of the Russian State. Yet Putin has set his face against any
"secession", and will not even negotiate.
The Chechens should be given the
opportunity to govern themselves, if possible with
subordinated authority within the Russian Federation. As a people, they have always been unpopular with
westernised Russians like Putin, as perpetuating a criminal culture, akin to
the Italian mafia. This is a conflict with many more than one dimension.
Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief...
Chechnya should be accorded far-reaching
autonomy within Russia. Throughout the world, similar questions are
being put about the relationship between "Mega-state Governments" and the
acceptable political leeway to be allowed to component, but subordinated,
states within their territories. Germany, America, Canada, Australia
all have federal constitutions designed to address precisely this issue.
France faces the issue with Corsica, Iraq with the northern Kurds, the UK
with Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. And in many cases, it is clear
that communities can indeed survive, as Very Small States.
- The Chechens must be given their
chance. The Beslan children were the victims of Putin's
stubbornness and lack of political imagination.
Club Doctor
 You
have heard of “Company Doctors”, intrepid managers who take on failing
companies and “turn them around”.
Now for something completely different. In
mid-August, I was called upon to act as a “Club Doctor”. The patient is the British
Legion Club, in my home village 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
quick-fire 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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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
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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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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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
>>>
US/EU: Wrong market models
>>>
Immigration
Insights
>>>
Dodgy
Opinion Surveys >>>
Are Public
Schools charities?
>>>
Taming
the
Corporations >>>
Kalan Karim
The Swansea city-centre murder of Iraqi
refugee Kalan Karim was a tragedy, and probably an unvarnished unprovoked
racist attack. I was proud that many hundreds of local Swansea
citizens and refugees attended an impromptu vigil last Saturday, to
express their horror and sympathy. And I can support the local
campaign to raise £5,000, to ensure that his body is flown back to Iraq
for burial - in the circumstances, that is an act of friendship and
solidarity.
But I retain my usual
middle-of-the-road misgivings about the political motivation of my
fellow "vigilantes" (SWP,
Stop the War Coalition, who are now jumping on every bandwagon).
They are now planning, with the local TGWU, a much larger march "Against
Racism". I would march to demonstrate that my home-city welcomes
refugees and newcomers, but I will not march to convey the aggressive,
confrontational "Swansea against Racism" message. The march could
inflame local fascist groups, and give them a natural target. No
good will come of it.
Good on 'yer, Will
Will Hutton is my kind of man, in spite of being a journalist. He
is broadly "on the Left", but intensely conscious of our European
dimension, having for several years edited The European,
which was an attempt to create an English-language all-Europe broadsheet.
And this week, he is right on the button.
Our media report the remote Bush and Kerry campaigns, often with
mind-numbing repetition. But where are the UK debates about the
crises in Europe, namely the
grave situations in both France and Germany? In France, too much
power lies (under De Gaulle's 1960 Constitution) with a vain and
failing President, as the economy flounders. In Germany, the younger
and vigorous Prime Minister Schroder is seeing his authority ebb away,
under the Allies' 1948 federal Constitution, designed to minimise the
concentration of power.
Both countries face unusual challenges to their civil and political
order. Yet where can read I about, let alone participate in, those
political debates? I ought to have the chance to address these
issues - not as a Welshman, or a UKanian - but
as a European. Do you have an answer?
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.
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
September
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
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(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 to many Party members - 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
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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040906 Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 38 Thursday
16 September 2004
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