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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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050704
Make sure you have not missed the previous edition Check it out And the one before that? Other recent topics highlighted here
Week 27 Friday Revenge Attack 
For that is what I believe the London bombings were. This was no simple "Iraq" issue: the motives were much more complex - revenge by some Muslims against the desecration of their holy lands by Western forces, and the sheer success of many Western values - revenge by the poor against the rich - revenge against the insensitive swagger of the Americans, embodied in George Bush - revenge for the ravages past imperialism - revenge for the indignities heaped upon the world's poor by the dominant West - revenge for the devastation caused by unleashing the business corporations upon the "Third World" without proper state regulation.
Iraq Occupation
Instinctively, I know this to be true. Sami Ramadani is a political refugee from Saddam's Iraq, now lecturing in London. And you should read this piece. He argues that we are now being "sold" the idea that a continuing US presence is essential to the maintenance of order in Iraq. Just as we were "sold" the myth of WMD. And it is indeed a myth, he argues. The opposite is true. Only Coalition withdrawal will create the opportunity for civil order and the peaceful resolution of these conflicts.
Pressure to
Interest rates are a key political phenomenon, indicating the balance of power between owners and workers. America, a land of low interest rates, is one in which (contrary to popular belief) workers, including active management, are more powerful that the owners of capital. If you want to earn a fortune, from scratch, you must get up and do something. In the UK, owners have traditionally been more powerful than the active workers, thus sustaining the UK's high interest-rate regime. But I suspect that is changing, the world over. It now seems that, contrary to expectations, the UK Bank Rate (the "Government" borrowing rate) will peak at 4.5%, and the next move will be downwards. That means that the owners of money can in practice cannot ask more than about 7% pa, when lending their money to those with the skills and drive to make use of it. The ability to make profitable use of capital is growing in importance, while the mere ownership of money confers less power upon its owners. The price mechanism has spoken, and delivered a key political verdict. And I am optimistic about that.
Kenneth Harris and us
For me, the link was a debating one - through a common love of debating, evidently also a Welsh trait. We both "did" the American University debating tour in our respective times, organised by the English Speaking Union. He represented Oxford in 1947, I represented Cambridge in 1959. After America, I met him in the context of the Observer debating "Mace" competition. I think I was a guest Judge, one year.
Even Nye Bevan's
NHS saw a role for the private sector
I despair of the oversimplifications that mar the current NHS debate. Government opponents (particularly the trade unions, and many health professionals) have taken up a "principled opposition" stand against private investment in the NHS. They see it as the thin end of the wedge of wholesale privatisation. I understand their concerns, but I do not share their conclusions. I am relaxed about the mobilisation of skills and investment under contract, provided that the whole process is managed by the NHS, and that no irreparable damage is done to the NHS' ability to deliver to its primary promises. I do not accept that any part of the service should be allowed to operate on a competitive or market basis: I can see no possible justification for operating market systems within the NHS. And on this front, I do share some of the opponents' concerns. The NHS should never allow key assets (in particular real property and major equipment) to pass out of its ultimate contractual control. The private corporations should never be able to hold the NHS to ransom, by going on a "capital strike". I accept the principle of public primacy, namely that if a service is important enough to be a public service, it should in principle be delivered by public servants, and not under private contract. I discovered this socialist principle, lurking among my own thoughts three years ago, and re-visited it some two years ago. It has stood the test of time! Exceptions should be carefully and thoroughly argued, and justified. But it would be nonsense to think that exceptions were in principle unacceptable.
Starting Afresh 27 June 2005: Elizabeth and I have just returned from a week's break in our beloved Ireland, where we always go to recharge the batteries. That is why this week has been a second static week, here on these pages.
It was the week
in which my acceptance of Labour intolerance finally cracked, and But the cloud is clearing. It was also the week of great relaxation in County Kerry and County Cork, and we visited parts of County Clare we had never seen before. And it was the week of meeting up again with Mike Holmes and his new wife Julie: Mike is an old friend who had faced the breakdown of his marriage in Swansea and then rebuilt his own own life, with Julie, in Ireland. And it was a week for regaining perspective. I am helping to pick up the pieces at the Legion. I shall be busy this week with the construction of Asylum Justice. I am content to be outside the constraints of Party discipline, and its imputed loyalty. I will now play my political cards as a liberal socialist, contending that the future of humankind does not require increasing autocracy, increased regimentation, and arguing for a civilisation that respects "that of God in everyman".
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Birtian Demolition I confess I did not expect, from John Birt's pen, quite the damning condemnation of "Drugs Prohibition" as was leaked this week, from the ever-leaky Downing Street. In every phase of this outdated 1920s policy, it is proving destructive, expensive, and an entirely predictable failure. In their hearts, Ministers must surely know that - and that a move to legalisation should be made before the end of this Parliament. Don't they? Legalisation, with regulated over-the-counter sales, would unleash huge financial resources for other purposes (both public and private), weaken criminal interests throughout the world, enhance civil liberties, and help to build a more considerate society, more respectful of human dignity. If you want to know how that could be done in practice, read The Angel Declaration, from the pen of yours truly and friends... Webmaster punished
I was duly punished for neglecting you,
As my asylum-seeker work mounts, future time becomes even more heavily mortgaged. But the editorial fight-back starts here..
Africa on our doorstep Africa has been the key theme of this week, including this interview with the Chairman of De Beers. Sadly, apart from grandiose and questionable schemes for high-level debt relief, little emerges of practical effect.
Repatriation Myth & Reality
With this week's publication of the numbers of "illegal immigrants", we may start to make progress in understanding the huge issues at stake. While the possibility of large-scale repatriation is present in the public debate, reports like this one will re-occur: a failed asylum-seeker, already recommended for deportation for fraud, but not actually deported, went on to commit further serious crimes. But the truth is that no Government will ever be able to "catch up" with the huge removals backlog, estimated at over 500,000, covering both failed asylum-seekers and those overstaying legitimate visas. Removals ran at a level of 14,000 for the whole of last year, and that included accompanying families. This week, a leading politician for the first time contended for an amnesty (it was Mark Oaten, the impressive LibDem frontbencher). The failed asylum-seekers themselves are certainly speculating about an amnesty, as are all the support-workers, in despair.
Nobody has The ID Card debate is generating valuable commentary, at least in TheGuardian. One of the most disarming arguments ("If you've nothing to hide, why object?") is tackled head-on in a perceptive "leader" by Muriel Gray. We all have things to hide. And our personal lives, and our personal freedoms, are the richer for the right to do so. Those freedoms will be undoubtedly whittled away by the ID Card system. "Police State" is an emotive term, which does nothing to further the debate. But Labour is certainly constructing the threatening infrastructure of a surveillance society, with the new NHS database offering an even more sinister backdrop to the venture. And congratulations to Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, for his strong stand against it.
This item was tucked away in the "News in Brief" column on Page 6. Just imagine how big this story would have been if the death had been from heroin. O ye editorial hypocrites... 
Labour Party my resignation >>> My uncle, in the Assam Cabinet >>> Raspberry for Raffarin >>> Electoral reform My conversion >>> New principle Public Primacy >>> Blair's too old-fashioned >>> The Power of Private Property >>> Wrong man for Pope >>> Corporate Kleptocracy >>> Drop the school-leaving age >>> Countering Fundamentalism >>> Against Unreasonable Inequality >>> "Corporate Manslaughter" fallacy >>> Abolish Wrongful Dismissal >>> Adjustment Pay for every worker >>>
.... drop me a line
Web Mining As web-logging 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,at the end of April -
050704
Make sure you have not missed
Week 27 Friday
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Both Elizabeth and I had "connections" with the late Kenneth Harris,
who died this week, aged 88. For Elizabeth, the connection was Welsh
aristocracy of birth: she was born in the same tiny enclave of
Aberaman as he was, on the
road from Cardiff to Aberdare, near Aberdare. In our long
single-highway valleys, every distinctive stretch of of the road claims
separate village identity, and Aberaman
is no exception. 
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
The Government should be prepared to
act, not just talk. A form of working
residency could easily be created, short of settled
status - just as one was invented for EU workers, last year. They
should be allowed to get on with their lives, and contribute to the
wellbeing of our society, and their families.
Amnesties
are notoriously difficult to use, as a governmental tool. But a
confident USA has used them from time to time, to "clear the decks",
while France has tried and abandoned them. 
And read my Big Theory itself, at