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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty |
Week 51 Saturday 2003 China's Year 
2003 will always be, for me, China's year. It was in about June 2003 that the Western financial press started to highlight the remarkable growth rates generated by the Chinese economy, the surge of consumer demand, rising oil consumption, and raging commercial enterprise. The drive has revived Hong Kong, and even Japan is showing signs of business life again. This is a force which will transform all our futures.
Wrecking our Streets 
Government is intervening to reduce the bewildering range of highway obstacles, inhibiting traffic movement on our roads. But the constant disruption of traffic by utility works (gas, electricity, water) is the direct result of reckless and incompetent privatisation, in the 1980s. In Defence of 
Labour activists often find difficulty in getting to grips with the "individualism" of current public and political discourse. Having been schooled in the political advantages of collective action, they run the risk of rejecting the immanent individualism of the rising generations. And worse still, they easily mistake individualism for selfishness. Worthwhile reforms, they seem to say, must always proceed from collectivist principles of social justice and equality. Such reasoning permeates the majority of the Parliamentary "top-up fee rebels". Jenni Russell, writing this week in The Guardian, makes the same mistake - in spades. And Young Fabian Matthew Jenkins of Cardiff is cast in traditional socialist mode.
Christmas was jollier in 2002
And here's the proof. Questions
have been asked in Parliament about the obscure, dull designs foisted upon
the public by the Royal Mail this Christmas - too clever by half, I
reckon. This is how this year's stamp
Or rather, click here. Join the thinking arm of the Labour Party. Actual membership of the Labour Party is not required - socialists from all corners of the world are welcome, provided they are not actual members of a different political Party...
One year ago
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 - I have added the English-language China Daily ... and I now offer you the leading English-language Indian paper The Hindu.
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 to January 2002 - just click through
Never miss
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Letter from Finland 
Christer Nikander writes from Finland, having caught up with the Emmanuel Todd Interview, which I re-published earlier in the year. It is always exciting to receive letters from you, particularly those which underline (as Christer's does) the truly global character of the political space we now occupy.
Wasting money With railway investment funds in short
supply, it is ridiculous for the nation to provide two rail routes between
London Scotland. Just look at this map -
The West Coast Line is being upgraded along the whole of its length, thus creating two mainlines to Scotland, between London to Glasgow. That is unnecessary. The East Coast Line to Glasgow, via Newcastle and Edinburgh, would be quite sufficient. The West Coast line could finish at Preston, perhaps Lancaster.
Le Pouvoir Neutre
The State, held the great 18th century French political philosopher Montesquieu, should be le pouvoir neutre - the strictly "neutral power" in society. That political perception runs deep in France, and in French constitutional thinking. That is why it is France that has generated the current debate about Muslim schoolgirls wearing headscarves to school. But the French have nevertheless got it wrong. While I accept the principle of State neutrality, we must develop more sensitive and sophisticated ways of giving effect to this principle. Local government unexpected conclusion 
My conclusion is unexpected - even to me! The search is on for new local taxes, ostensibly to make local government truly local. The process is a bloody one, having destroyed Margaret Thatcher's Government and already weakening Blair's.
I have come to the conclusion that we should be moving the system in precisely the opposite direction. Central government should take full responsibility for providing sufficient funds for all "national" service commitments, while allowing greater local discretion in how those funds should be deployed. I know that most of you will give a yawn, and scroll on - but I hope that political activists will persevere.
A reminder of some
of the great stamps of 2003Corporate Crime desperation sets in 
New proposals emerge this week for the Metropolitan Police to join forces with the City University. The object is to train our Police in the devious ways of companies and company operators, in defrauding and conning their way through their daily work. The first special courses will start in February. This is an act of desperation. Because no policeman, however well-trained, can hope to out-gun the secretive insiders of the corporate jungle. The only way to counter City crime is to open up the whole system to proper public scrutiny - radical, international, company law reform.
Publication Day
I doubt if I will ever write the book I want to write, on the history of artificial personality. So much to do, so little time... But perhaps I get the second-best this month: Greenleaf Books publishes an essay from me on the same subject, The Rise of the Abdroids. The text is also published on-line by Greenleaf, explore below - follow "What's New" and the book Something to Believe in..
Recent topics Police Forces are dangerous >>> Iraq: Lawyers have failed.. >>> Labour Links: Amend Party Rulebook >>> Milburn gets "Third Sector" wrong >>> Queen's Speech verbatim >>> Check out New Wave Labour >>> My pessimism as investing Trustee >>> "Equality?" An electoral non-starter >>> Data Protection: Many Nasty Scams >>> My Mum was an Asylum Seeker >>> Rail Chaos - could do better >>>
And read my Big Theory itself, at Multiple Differential Uncertainty... Or try my snappier and more practical analysis of the Corporations and the Left Coming to Terms
0148 Make sure you have not missed Week 51 Saturday 
And let me sign off with another reminder of happier philatelic days, last Christmas.. Great stamps bring a flash of inspiration to the routine of the day, like the flash of a kingfisher across the evening pool (or so they tell me - as a committed city boy, I've never seen a kingfisher in flight...
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New
compares with the jolliness
of
last year - there is no comparison! Christmas is not a time for
cerebral symbolism - nobody has yet written to me explaining what these
various symbols mean, or what they represent.
A reminder of some of
the great stamps of 2003
A reminder of some
of the great stamps of 2003
Jolly, seasonal
Footnote - and you're right! That's me, serving as
Santa at the launch of Christmas at Bath's Green Park Station - my thanks to the
Bath Chronicle for an excellent
photograph.
A reminder of some
of the great stamps of 2003
A reminder of some
of the great stamps of 2003
A reminder of some
of the great stamps of 2003