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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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050221 Make sure you
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Week 8 Sunday Do
not 
I cannot forget Iraq. Faced with Bush on his European grand tour, I cannot just put Iraq behind me, and "move on". Not because of the horrors of the invasion itself, or Falluja, or the tragic continuing loss of life - for I recognise that they are to be set against other horrors, including the atrocities of Saddam Hussein. I cannot forget Iraq because it marks the destruction, by George Bush, of all our hopes for a rational and humane world order. It was a political crime beyond forgiveness. His rubbishing of the United Nations was and is a political misjudgment of the highest order. The invasion of Iraq represented the triumph of sheer thuggish brute force over persuasion and diplomacy.
His is a violent Government with a short fuse. The reservoirs of goodwill, within the international community, have been polluted by the aggressive invasion of Iraq. And the British are tainted, along with their flawed leader. It will be a long time, after Bush and Blair are both gone, before we see restored any real international consensus for peace and the peaceful resolution of global conflict.
Asylum Seekers Numbers Fall
CROESO
It is clear that there are four separate asylum "cadres" or stages, each with its own dangers and injustices.
There are signs that the Home Office systems are being made to work more quickly, and that is welcome. But there is no early prospect of working through the "removals backlog", particularly for Iraq (where no returns at all are currently possible). At every stage of this process, there are arbitrary risks of destitution, forcing many to operate within the black economy, in insecurity and danger. It is a bad system, which cries out for root-and-branch reform. And check out my thoughts on what a radically-different system would look like. Civil Three news-reports this week highlight the growing importance of civil litigation, as a means of "doing justice". All on the same day, in three different jurisdictions. In the US, men swindled out of $-millions by false Internet claims for penis enlargement took action through the Courts, for misrepresentation and breach of contract. In the UK, asbestos-toting corporates were forced to face up to their full liabilities to employees, in a successful AMICUS legal action. And in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights held that, without legal aid, the McLibel Two, Dave Morris and Helen Steel, were deprived of a fair trial of their defence against McDonalds' marathon libel action.
As the traditional authority of the politically managed State ebbs away, there is every sign of growing confidence in a "rule of law" of some kind - at neighbourhood level, as well as nationally and internationally.
Finally understood... 
It was before the 1997 Election that I wrote to Tony Blair and advised him to give up "We"-statements. "Acknowledge," I said, "the force of individualism in our society. Cut through the fear of socialist collectivism. Instead of "we", practise using "you and I - address the individual listener, not the mass - personalise, individualise". I was being vetted, at the time, as a possible Blair speechwriter, and I remember going to the Opposition Leader's pokey little Commons Suite, for an interview with one of his Advisers. He did not take the advice, and I was never asked again to write. TB marched on, scattering sack-loads of "We"-statements. "We are far more effective together than we are apart..." Until now. To judge by the 2005 pledge-card (nothing enforceable this time, you understand), it looks as if "You-&-I" may yet have its day. Watch this space.
Whatever happened to Labour's "Election Pledges" demonstrate graphically the collapse of political philosophy, of any appeal to socialist principle. Yet even as late as March 2002, I was still motivated to spell out my own political philosophy, in conventional declaratory socialist terms. Sadly it already seems strangely outdated. Pragmatism rules OK.
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Blackened
Mr Justice Wilson has ruled
"It is all too clear that persecution and human rights abuse are not isolated problems at the margins of life in Bangladesh, which is officially ranked as "worst for corruption" on the relevant international index". This is yet another setback for the bleak authoritarianism of this illiberal Government. At local level, I have heard the most harrowing reports from Bangladesh of the repeated violence of local politics, in particular violence against Awami League activists, whose Party lost power to the Bangladesh National Party in 2002. And yet the Home Office has blandly continued to despatch hapless victims back to Bangladesh, to confront their tormentors.
NB Apart from the EU States, the list is now as follows - Albania - Bangladesh - Bolivia - Brazil - Bulgaria - Ecuador - Jamaica - Macedonia - Moldova - Romania - Serbia & Montenegro - Slovenia - South Africa - Sri Lanka - Ukraine.
Flawed 
Alas poor Goldsmith. Lord Goldsmith, Attorney General. Without any previous experience of "political" office, plucked straight from the Bar as a Blair placeman, he was swept away by his sense of duty to his patron. I suspect there was no need for Downing Street to "lean on" him: he was already in a suitably compliant posture, in anticipation. In the fateful month of March 2003, confronted by the Prime Minister's preoccupation with invading Iraq, he duly came up with a "legal" justification for it. He is said to have written an Opinion confirming the legality of the Iraq invasion plans. In doing so, he lost for ever his reputation, among his fellow lawyers, for professional integrity and independence of mind. A new critique by Philippe Sands QC exposes the sheer fragility of his legal reasoning, and the poverty of the Government's legal case for the invasion. I shall be buying a copy, at £12.99: you can buy one here too.
We seem trapped in a phoney Election. The electioneering is eclipsing other news, other political dialogue. The Prime Minister seems on full-time Election alert - either that, or pressing flesh to back Britain's Olympic bid. Manifesto promises are being made, left right and centre, by both Labour and Conservatives. And yet the starting-gun has not yet been fired for the Campaign, there are no formal Election candidates. So what is going on? Is there a tacit agreement between the Parties to avoid the inconvenient constraints on Election expenditure, and press on with the fight regardless? Or are they so ill-financed that they must maximise this informal electioneering, by informal TV and radio, before the paid-for campaign, and the legal controls, kick in? Is this a fix?
Language is And two languages are better than one. I ask you to encourage your children and grandchildren - without being under any compulsion to do so - to immerse themselves in different cultures, different ways of thinking about life, different insights, different experiences. Therein lies the biodiversity of the human spirit.
For language is Voting Labour
Migration should be legal >>> Referendum? Wrong question >>> Volunteering: is this a sham? >>> Housebulding misunderstood >>>Waterstones and Human Rights >>>How politicians abuse "contracts" >>> Abolish Wrongful Dismissal >>> "Groupism" Adjustment Pay for every worker ;> >>
The Mischief of ASBOs >>>
Jacques' I enjoy the clear intelligence, as well as the political perception, of Martin Jacques. Writing in The Guardian, he casts his mind forward to the period after the Tories return to power on an ultra-right, racist, nationalist agenda. New Labour will inevitably run out of steam, he argues, succombing to sheer philosophical vacuity. And what would Labour do then? How would the Party recover? The Party's traditional springs of political energy would have run dry, in the process of outbidding the Tories for the centre-right ground. The renewed Tories would be even nastier than Labour, where Labour had been trying to compete with them. Where could Labour re-group?Jacques does not suggest an answer. But I know precisely what Labour should do.
One Year Ago
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But numbers
of other immigrants rise. That is, after all, the
"liberal" side of Labour's strategy, masterminded by David Blunkett. The annual Home Office
statistics, published this week, show just how distorted the "immigration
debate" has become. 
Asylum-seeker numbers have fallen, from
an annual peak of 110,000, partly because the number of violent conflict
zones in the world has decreased, and partly because the Eastward
extension of the EU has legitimised the entry of those Eastern Europeans,
formerly asylum-seekers. 
At
the ground-breaking
These
are early moments. Early, that is, after the
momentous asylum ruling in the High Court on Thursday 24 February, by Mr
Justice Wilson. He overruled Beverley Hughes' action, in July 2003, in
placing Bangladesh on the "White List", where asylum-seekers can be
summarily returned, without any effective appeal. The applicant
loses any right of appeal while still in the UK: the woefully inadequate
administrative decisions of the Home Office must stand, without challenge,
until the applicant has left the UK. Which is tantamount to blocking
the appeal. It is pure Kafka.
My
heart is breaking, at the steady decline of foreign language
studies in our schools and universities. All languages are
suffering dramatic
And read my Big Theory itself, at 
The entire phenomenon of the English speed
"hump" was triggered by lawyer's errors. Errors of statutory
interpretation. Now that the errors have been corrected, these awful
highway obstructions should be dispensed with. I joined Ken
Livingstone in his anti-hump drive, during his re-election campaign.
Older readers will recall that I was very
active, two years ago, campaigning for drugs legalisation.
My commitment has not changed.
But I am dulled by the bovine obtuseness and lack of principle displayed
by our MPs, afraid of every electoral shadow. Here, I celebrated the
11 MPs with the courage to identify with the liberal cause of drugs
legalization. They are still, to my knowledge, the only 11 to stand
out from the bovine herd.