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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty |
Week 40 
Just back from Bournemouth, and a "flat" Party Conference. Our end-of- month hit-counter figures were remarkable - it's great to have so many of you dropping in, given the heavyweight political coverage - during September, the hit-count reached - 1,356 as compared with 272 in September last year - I am taking that as a sign of encouragement - Bournemouth de-briefing to follow. I got no chance to talk to Tony Blair, so you will have to make do...
Busking
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Memo to Tony/B: "Listening" will do no good!You are being advised on all sides to "listen" at Bournemouth. But that will do you no good. There is nobody left worth listening to. The TU Left, while rightly assiduous in defence of their 7m members, has no wider political insights - sadly, Tribune has been captured by the Unions, and is now a political backwater. The Party itself has been eliminated as a positive political force, by your own so-called "reforms", which have emasculated it. Nothing original will come from the Policy Forum process. We talked about that when we met, didn't we?
The Government's verdict on the various bids to takeover Safeway is the right one. But the conclusion has been pretty obvious since January - and it is troubling that such decisions can hold up business for so long - belts and braces are getting in the way... barren socialist perception
Alan Milburn re-surfaces for Labour Conference, with a think-piece about New Labour, in the Guardian. Sadly, he only demonstrates the barren socialist ground which Blairism has become. There's plenty about the inaccessible abstraction which he calls "fairness", deftly replacing "equality" in his socialist firmament. But nothing about Labour acting to strengthen each individual - in Place of Fear..
Which Way is “Straight On”? Last week, confronted by Blair’s rejection of a “leftwing” government, I asked Which way is Left? This week, with Andrew Rawnsley countering with the assertion that Blair will simply “keep straight on”, the same question looms.I
Warning! I think I may be shifting my position, on University Top-up Fees! My hunch is that Gordon Brown is being very subtle indeed... I favour, you may recall, a Graduate Tax, levied on all future graduates, by way of percentage premium on their primary income-tax liability. That was Charles Clarke’s initial preference. And I reckon that what is emerging is indeed a subtle new form of Graduate Tax, without the redistributive element.
Abdroid Chaos 
More examples this week of the havoc wreaked in our lives by the rampant proliferation of artificial personality. Certain Directors of Equitable Life are being sued personally for negligence in the conduct of the failed company - and they thought they were protected by "limited liability". And in America, new confusions are being sown because companies, as artificial persons (i.e. persons nonetheless...) are considered to have rights of "free speech" under the Constitution... Wanted! What is your mental "model" of the UK? How do you configure your own "nation state", in your mind? In business, one talks about a "business model", as a means of describing how a trading system operates, or is planned to operate - the language comes from psychology, more particularly epistemology ("the theory of knowledge"). Government actions such as the recent threat to limit LA taxation presuppose a model - of the economy, the polity and the society - which subtly informs all thinking. It is vital that that model is "correct" - otherwise, the wrong policy conclusions will flow. We should debate that model, openly.
Mounting anxiety
Subtlety is needed, in the drive to deliver "reassurance" to our people. I have no doubt that Jackie Ashley (writing in The Guardian) is right: there is at large a mounting sense of anxiety and fear which is unsettling our lives. "Much of the developing Labour agenda for the next few years," she says, "seems designed to reassure insecure voters that the Government has a grip (on the situation)". And so it should. Countering anxiety is a key function of modern government. The methodology however is complex, and indirect - see my essay Multiple Differential Uncertainty.
 The same rummaging produced the old 26p stamp, for
First Class Mail - does anyone remember how long ago this was? Does
any reader follow the stamp prices...?
Drop me a line
Vive la Commune!
In October, I will set out for Brittany, seeking to negotiate new communal relations with the commune of Hennebont, near Lorient. The 36,000 communes of France are a glory of that great country. And those communes have powers of independent initiative which would make the eyes water, of every UK Parish, Town or Community Council... Hazy, on your
We pay over £160m every year, by way of out-of-date Direct Debits, reports online Bank Cahoot. I checked mine recently, and found that I was still paying £42 per month, on out of date commitments! £500 a year! No wonder organisers love us to pay by Direct Debit! When did you last check yours?
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Created by GMID Design & Communication COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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New
T
Try
BBC News, the
Memories
of September 2002 - then, as now, I was preparing to attend the Labour
Party Conference at Blackpool - I will be in Bournemouth by Monday
morning, and taking a break from web-editing until Thursday...
Rummaging at the back of a old desk drawer, I found these stamps from
earlier years - do you remember when Second Class Mail first went up to
20p, only to be reduced for several years to 19p?
These stamps,
celebrating the oddities of British domestic architecture, date from
then...
Far better to listen to the able team of advisers now
assembling in Downing Street - Matthew Taylor, Geoff Mulgan, Michael Jacobs
and Pat McFadden. Their task is to generate a convincing Left strategy
for retaining the broadest electoral support, a reassuring manifesto,
individualist in concept and appeal, and cross-class in content.
