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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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050425 Make sure you
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Week 17 Monday Without Principle This remains a curiously "unprincipled" Election. I do not accuse our leaders of personally unprincipled, or devoid of moral sense. I am not a cynic, and I value the service which they provide, and the functions they perform. But no Party is appealing to any identifiable set of principles with which voters can identify. 
The Tories are pussyfooting around,
terrified of asserting their true "small State" principles, turning to
meretricious racist gimmicks to command attention.
The LibDems, by failing to assert any clear "Liberal" principles, are missing the greatest opportunity since WWI to assert the primacy of European individualism, human rights, and the peaceful resolution of conflict. And Labour, having abandoned
any attempt to restate socialist values for the next generation, stumbles from one pragmatic fix to another, without the guide of any coherent principle. Each manifesto is an ad hoc list of political goodies strung inconsequentially together, like a badly organised supermarket shelf. No wonder the contest has descended into an unedifying tussle of "personalities", inspiring nobody.
I am convinced that the 21st century will see the emergence of societal forms, the world over, which rely critically on "state" organisation. The future lies with a modified European State model, not a US or Japanese model. Statist forms will become much more sophisticated and more flexible that the UK 1945 Welfare State, and they will not accept the vagaries and misdeeds of the corporate sector (which we too easily accept), crimes which destroy the dreams of billions and are the undoing of the poor. There is plenty of room for the articulation of socialist principle - and I am sure electorates the world over would respond. My War 
I love telecanvassing. I've been "on the phones" all week, in my home constituency of Gower. Actually, I love all canvassing. Where else is one legitimated to cold-call your fellow citizens and engage them in political debate, in their own homes?
In Gower, not much is changing. This is my third Campaign on the phones, and I am building up an aural picture of my fellow citizens. This time, 75% of my respondents are simply restating their traditional voting loyalties, without qualification. There is the usual proportion of "Won't tell you, it's my business" "I'm not interested" (perhaps 5%), and perhaps a few more "Undecided" than before (say, 15%). Finally, there are the 5% waverers: Tories who cannot stand Michael Howard, deeply-disaffected Labour who cannot stand Tony Blair, and those resolving to "give the LibDems a chance". And one Green.
Council Tax is a far bigger issue than immigration, here in West Wales: immigration has been raised only once this week, as a low-priority (third/fourth) of a disgruntled Labour voter. The poor treatment of pensioners looms large, in Wales' very own Costa Geriatrica.
I am smouldering at the injustices meted out to asylum-seekers by the cruel procedural "Rules" now administering their fate. New Rules came into effect at the beginning of April, and the screws are being tightened. The legal profession is under extreme pressure, in handling asylum cases - at least outside London, and as procedural deadlines become impossibly short, greater and greater injustices are being done. Legal Aid funding for asylum-seekers is becoming less and less easily available: many are being rushed through the adjudication process without representation and without any real understanding of what is being done to them.
Blair's too 
Now it can be told! Geoff Mulgan, now Director of the new Young Foundation, inheritor of the Michael Young mantle, and former Head of the Downing Street think-tank, declares that New Labour has not been radical enough. Writing in Prospect, he claims that Labour's "radical reformer" has yet to surface.
Blessed 
The Midlands economy will be the stronger, without Rover. Large, weak firms are a drag upon any economy. They pin down the energies of thousands of thinking people into the pointless pursuit of doomed commercial objectives. That was Rover. Those energies are better released: every skilled worker now released from Rover is a potential growth point, in a busy future economy. I lived through the staff reductions at British Steel at Port Talbot, once employing 21,000 men. Early cuts reduced the figure to 11,000, and then (under Thatcher) the roll reduced to 3,500. When many of the skilled men were finally released, in the early-1980s, they moved on to strengthen other smaller local firms who had not been able to compete with British Steel salaries, while the giant payroll had dominated Port Talbot. Each small firm, indeed each self-employed worker, is a potential growth point, constantly on the look-out for something better and more profitable to do. That is a source of great systemic vitality to the economy. While coralled within the secure cocoon of a large firm, individual creativity and initiative are less likely to flourish. Rover cars were not selling. There were no new models in the offing. Although there will be pessimism among the older workers, the overall effect for the Midlands will be beneficial.
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Corporate Kleptocracy >>> Wicked Tory immigration policy >>> Drop the school-leaving age >>> Michael Howard v The Gypsies >>> Countering Fundamentalism >>> Living Wills >>> Against Unreasonable Inequality >>> Ralph Erskine The Great >>> Darwinian " strangers" >>> "Corporate Manslaughter" fallacy >>> Labour's philosophical vacuum >>> Forget Iraq? No fear! >>> I will vote Labour, but... >>> Abolish Wrongful Dismissal >>> Adjustment Pay for every worker >>>
.... drop me a lineSilence 
Quaker Meeting is a haven for me. I love the George Fox tradition, its simplicity, its deep sense of equality, its courtesy and mutual respect, and above all its deep, practical concern with the wrongs of the world. I missed the BBC broadcast meeting for worship from my old boarding-school Leighton Park, broadcast last Sunday, an oversight which I regret. However busy and stressed-out I am, I make sure I make it to Quaker meeting on Sunday. I performed last Sunday the only ritual function known to Quakerism, namely that of Doorkeeper. It is an ancient 17th century tradition: a Doorkeeper was always appointed then, both to defend the peace of the meeting and to warn against the arrival of "police", or Royalist militia looking for dissenters. A Doorkeeper is still always appointed, shaking hands and welcoming everyone arriving for the meeting.
Web Mining As weblogging proliferates, a new form of modern history becomes possible. I can now give you an insight into what was "in the news" for the matching week, one two, and three years ago. This is how the world looked to me, in at the end of April -
Wrong Decision 
Benedict XVI is the wrong man for the job. Fundamentalism the world over has been strengthened by his appointment. The world needed a chance to turn away from fundamentalism. The world rightly regrets the dominance of the old Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, surpassing that of elected Iranian governments. The fundamentalism of the American Right is already a profound threat to the peace of the world. The Iranian secret police is a dreaded force, comparable with any Inquisition. Whatever the specific truths may turn out to be, Al Quaida is powered by fundamentalism, religious fanaticism. Now we have our own religious fundamentalist leading the Catholic Church. It is a dark day, for a peaceful world. Fundamentalism means one thing. It is the elevation of human artefacts (i.e. doctrine") above our common humanity itself. It elevates male doctrine above the humanity of women. It elevates the sexuality of celibates above the experience of ordinary human beings.
London 
There is one particular corner of the Labour Manifesto which gladdens my heart. It is the proposal to empower Londoners to form their own democratic, representative Community Councils, to supplement the remote system of Borough government. This was one of the great causes upon which I worked with Lord (Michael) Young of Dartington and Simon Partridge in the 1990s, seemingly without prospect of success. Do take a look at The Guardian article which launched the Alliance, in 1998 Michael was the Chairman, and I was the Secretary, of the London Community Alliance.
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050425 Make sure you
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Week 17 Monday
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NOTICE |
I always ignore the pleas of Party Agents to maximise the
number of calls, and avoid long conversations - if anyone wants to talk - Labour, LibDem, Tory or Plaid
- I stay and chat. It is an unparallelled opportunity to understand the
minds of others.
My
view of the electorate, and the issues, corresponds closely with that of
Nick Cohen, writing last Sunday in 
This
is a stain upon the UK's reputation. I am determined to press ahead
with the creation of a new volunteers' pro bono charity,
And read my Big Theory itself, at 
