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0130 Make sure you have not missed the previous edition of LivePolitics
Check
it out
And the
one before
that?
Other recent topics
highlighted
here
Week 32
Saturday 9 August 2003
Happy Clappy Politics
 The
least attractive
feature of the Blair project is its religiosity. Like the French, I
believe in le pouvoir neutre,
in a secular State. That is a precious part of the European
political
heritage, ideally suited to
the multicultural world of tomorrow.
I am appalled to think that any serious
consideration is being given at Cabinet Level to the clappy-happy clap-trap
that passes for religion in the minds of the "Christian" cabal - Blair, Blunkett, even the nice Stephen Timms.
These men are dangerous . I identify completely with
The Times leader by Mick Hume this
week, which poured scorn on the new Home Office
Faith Community Liaison Group, formed apparently
to draw on religious insights into the Government's dragooning of unruly
social behaviour.
Six short years
But where's 'da beef?
 Blair has surpassed the Attlee record, surviving in
Downing Street for more than six calendar years.
But what is the
condition of my Party?
Not good. Blair has garnered
support from all corners of the political spectrum, but his position is
flaky within his own Party. We have become bogged down in domestic
detail, noses firmly to the grindstone, preoccupied with the minutiae of managerial
performance. I understand how Blair came to make this mistake, because
under Foot/Kinnock/Smith the Labour Party was plagued with concerns about its
managerial competence.
Blair and Brown had to reverse that image, as a top priority.
But a mistake it
nevertheless was. The process of routinisation
has gone too far. We are now very short on idealism. A Party of
the Left lives on inspiration - perspiration is not enough.
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 Try BBC News, the public service website
for the best and quickest access to the news, as well as a huge political
data resource, the BBC is unbeatable. We must never lose sight of the
distinctive qualities, and unique potential, of public service institutions.
I assert that, in spite of present differences with Greg Dyke...
Record month with
MetafilterThanks
to Metafilter, last month was the best hit-month in the 18-month
history of this website, with -
682 hits
Metafilter describes itself thus -
"MetaFilter is a community of over 17,000 users that find and
discuss things on the web. The topics run the gamut, and tend to run
intelligent and civil. If it's your first time here, hang out, and get a
feel for the place."
The material is all from the western United States -
plenty of local colour, comment, news.
Welcome guys! Make sure you re-visit, sometime!
All our States-sides visitors
were checking up on an Emmanuel Todd article, first published in Le
Monde, re-published in Prospect, then
transmitted here on this website.
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Emmanuel Todd I continue to be amazed at the
American chatroom interest in Emmanuel Todd, and his predictions of the
decline in the superpower status of the United States -
metafilter continues
to wrestle with the subject, and another US chatroom has picked up my Todd
article and also entered the
lists.
Key Baha'i doctrine
 Congratulations to the Financial Times for being the only broadsheet
to winkle out the key Baha'i principle of "total honesty".
David Kelly
had embraced the Baha'i faith, with its assertion of the central importance
of truthfulness, as the true core of common humanity, and a great unifying
influence in the world. Kelly had indeed recently spoken to a Baha'i group about his
work as a weapons inspector in Iraq.
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The Dangers of Truth
I am no enthusiast for absolute truth, the belief in the possibility
of "total honesty". If you read my experience at the Dusseldorf Truth
Trial, you will understand why..
I am proud of Rhyl
Rhyl,
in North Wales, last week
staged its second Festival of Filipino
Culture,
attended by over 4,000 local residents in one day, on the Saturday.
The initiative for the event came from the Filipino community, with 1,000
Filipino
nurses and doctors living in Rhyl.
My ambition
is to see such events organised by the host community, as a way of saying
"welcome" to newcomers to our communities, to those from abroad who seek to
make their home with us. With four fellow Trustees, I am making
initial progress with CROESO (Welsh
for welcome) - a new charity
which I have established to promote the development of a
more welcoming society, in all its phases. We are keen
to hear from others who recognise the strength of this challenge to our
society.
Drop me a line
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One year ago
Moving into August - last year at this time, we were on
holiday in Estonia and Russia - I will be updating
my Russian Diary -
but there's lots more to tickle your intellect...
Personality
is
central to politics
S ocialists
are too soft on capitalism
Les Baynton Poet Laureate
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...reminding you of the great UK stamps of
2002
Passionate Secrets Revealed
I eat beetroot every week. A little vacuum-sealed pack of boiled,
plain, unvinegared beetroot slips into my Sainsburys shopping-trolley every
week. And I'm a sucker for borshcht,
whenever it's on the menu. A rationale for this obsessive
behaviour has now emerged. Beetroot is now revealed as a top
aphrodisiac, strengthening the immune system and
increasing brainpower...
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My diary
Now up to date (well, more or less...)
I have re-structured my Diary to give you a day-to-day
means of looking back, throughout the year
just click
through
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These men
are
crooks...
 A criminal conspiracy rules our lives. And this is
their HQ, openly flouted in the heart of London, in Pall Mall - the Institute of Directors. For the leading
conspirators are the top Directors of the corporate sector, listed recently
in The Guardian.
That gruesome list can be replicated
for every statutory jurisdiction with its own system of company law - 235 territories
in all, globally. The defects of company law, of mankind's failed control of
artificial personality, have allowed the corporate sector to become a
vehicle for
systematic
theft, perpetrated by powerful Directors upon their shareholders and
employees.
I gotta'n idea!
Not
another one..." groans my long-suffering wife Elizabeth, "What is
it this time?"
RWE: "It's how to handle teenagers"
Elizabeth: But you don't know anything about that. And
anyway - that's my department, I'm the professional teacher in the family...
RWE: Ah, but I do know about commercial property
matters - and that is where I have found the solution to "the teenage
problem".
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Pensions
Crisis deepens
When will Labour realise
that the failure of "the market sector" to provide old age pensions for our
people is final - definitive - total - absolute
- irretrievable - cataclysmic? Both in the UK and
throughout the rest of Europe? And that the great
socialist
opportunity of our time is the introduction of a new decent, universal, State Old
Age Pension, as the bedrock of society's peace of mind, a sense of true
equality and mutual self-worth? Labour is in danger of missing its
Greatest Political Opportunity, comparable with the creation of the NHS in
1948.
Confronting
Corporate Demons
 As Labour leaders start to prepare the
Party's 2005 Manifesto,
they must summon up the courage to confront international corporate power.
That is a socialist responsibility
which no other mainstream Party will assume. The current post-Enron
tinkering, planned by DTI Secretary of State Patricia Hewitt...
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...reminding you of the great UK stamps of
2002
I am angry
 The imprisonment of
drugs campaigner Shane Collins for
cannabis cultivation* is an outrage.
I fail to understand how Labour Ministers can continue to preside over the
immoral and bankrupt system of drugs prohibition which we have inherited from
earlier generations. This anger recalls
a 2002 Drugs Conference in Kent, where I tried - from the podium - to give
constructive expression to that anger.
*
I am delighted to report that Shane Collins was released immediately on
appeal, having served just five days of a six-week prison sentence -
injustice, although done, was rapidly undone...
GM
Is the issue a religious one?
 I have been searching the depths of my own
mind, on GM issues. For I find that I am untouched by all the horrific
Frankenstein food predictions. I rebel at the use of genetic engineering as a
vehicle for corporate dominance, through the patenting of new species and
genetic variations - and I am convinced we need new political strategies to
counter the abuse of "private power" by this means.
But I do not fear "pollution"
by GM crops.
The Friends of the Earth cut no ice with me.
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Bully for Charlie!
Lord Falconer has come into his own, since
becoming "Lord Chancellor" - and I like what he is doing. I support the
introduction of senior lay elements into the judicial process, and it should
go further. We ought to bring non-lawyers into the adjudication process
on a far wider front - the lawyers should not be allowed to retain their
monopoly of this key societal function. I welcome Falconer's attempts to bring
professional services into the High Street, into Tesco and into Sainsburys.
But he must also address the underlying problem that market pressures have
priced lawyers out of the High Street market.
I am sure
you will want to
keep in touch with what Steve Bell is drawing - he's on leave now, until 22
August, but his brilliant legacy stands in for him, in
The
Guardian
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...reminding you of the great UK stamps of
2002
Other recent topics
-
Confidence is indivisible
>>>
New legal Profession needed >>>
Rise of the Dicastocracy >>>
Using our political intellect >>>
BA abuse Concorde power >>>
The great Pensions Crisis >>>
What
Gordon Brown
must do >>>
BBC in the Dock >>>
Fabians:
Dodgy Royal Priorities >>>
Creating "special electorates"
>>>
I oppose
"Share Options"
>>>
Six-month Notice for all
>>>
The politics of
insurance
>>>
Psychological economies
>>>
Future community government
>>>
Repairing political legitimacy
>>>
Judges
v. Politicians
>>>
TU socialism insufficient
>>>
And read my Big Theory itself, at
Multiple
Differential Uncertainty
Also my more practical political thesis about the Corporate Sector and the Left
Coming to Terms
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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 Homepages from here
Daily Telegraph
Independent
The Times
Financial Times
New York Times
Le Monde
Die Welt
Moscow Times
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Saturday
9 August 2003
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