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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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041206 Make sure you
have not missed the previous edition Check it out And the one before that? Other recent topics highlighted here
Week 50 Saturday Famous Victory
No performance this year
That was me, last year at this time, playing Santa at Green Park Station, Bath. Life has moved on, and I no longer work at promoting Sainsbury's Green Park Station. I arranged for the beautiful 19th century Station to be handed over to a local charitable preservation trust, and my best seasonal wishes go to them. Raise your glasses to that excellent Trust Envolve. Labour's Blind Spot 
This is not the greatest photo of my old friend the leading UK human rights lawyer Anthony Lester QC (now LibDem peer Lord Lester of Herne Hill) - but it's all that Google had to offer. His presence in Cardiff last Saturday, joined by Shami Chakrabarti Director of LIBERTY was important. They formed part of a glittering slate of speakers, at the Fabian Annual Welsh Conference.
Socialists face the challenge of reconfiguring their traditional "values" in the form of individual entitlements, absolute and qualified. The language of contemporary politics is individualist, although that rationale of political action remains firmly collectivist, into whosoever hands the baton of government falls. Unless we socialists find a new individualist language, our children will simply not grasp what we are talking about.Light over Ukraine 
For me, media coverage of the Ukrainian crisis has been opaque, the quality of reporting poor. But I commend to you a remarkable, brilliant, report by The Guardian's Jonathan Steele. It is jam-packed with invaluable perceptions, and key nuggets of information - it is everything that "foreign reporting" should be - don't miss it.
Labour's
One
Year Ago
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Paisley 
I have no doubt whatever that Rev Ian Paisley is responsible for the latest wrecking of peace in Northern Ireland. He is a man of virulence, of aggression, of vindictiveness, wallowing in self-importance. He represents the very worst of Christian fundamentalism, of unloving, uncaring, extremist demagogy of the worst kind. Although by background a Celtic non-conformist myself, I share nothing with this destructive spirit. His influence, throughout my lifetime, has been comprehensively malign, appealing to very worst in human nature, blighting the lives of millions. It must be said. BNP  I suffered a grievous blow last Sunday morning. I felt physically sick. I was visiting a Muslim friend in Central Swansea, and she was obviously distressed. She handed me a virulent anti-Muslim pamphlet which had been put through her door that very morning (Sunday) by hand-delivery. It concerned the purchase, by the Muslim community of of Swansea's derelict chapels, which had long been offered for sale. It was from the British National Party. Every line, every paragraph, exuded anti-Muslim sentiment. There were selective quotations from the Koran design to prove evil Muslim intent towards all non-believers. There were inflammatory references to the death of a young Glaswegian at the hands of local Muslim youths - "Do you want that for Swansea?" I will not reproduce the pamphlet here. It is sick, depraved, typically BNP - and a grievous stain upon the UK, and the community of Swansea. It had been carefully drafted to target Muslims, and there was no express element of racial hatred. Yet it seeped racial hatred from its every pore. It was the kind of leaflet that would certainly infringe any law criminalising incitement to religious hatred, as promised by the Government. I hope we shall find some way of demonstrating its wickedness and wrongfulness, even before Parliament finds time to act.
For the statisticians among you, November was only the second calendar month ever when the hit-counter reached 1500. The only other month was May 2004, when there was a freak 1580 record. Last month, there was a much steadier growth to 1515. Thanks again for your continuing support RogerWE Impeach Blair Human Rights Redgrave style >>>"Groupism" The British
Regional Devolution
Religion
Are Public Schools charities? >>> Taming the Corporations >>> Asylum-seekers abused >>> Extending the Welfare State >>> Adjustment Pay for every worker >>>
Pensions at 70 Good Idea >>> The Mischief of ASBOs >>>
Pre-Nups? 
The top UK family lawyers, the Solicitors' Family Law Association, want the Government to legislate for "pre-nuptial agreements" to be made legally binding. At the moment they are not: marriage is conceived as a matter of status, nor personal contract, and it is only the Courts that can regulate the consequences of its dissolution, as a matter of civic status. In some American States, and in Canada and Australia, they are already binding, and they regulate the break-up of marriages - who get's what, how common property is shared. I am opposed to any such move, but I am aware that my opposition may seem illogical to some. After all, it is argued, consenting adults should be free to regulate these matters for themselves, in a liberal society. Are you not, Warren Evans, in favour of personal freedom?
Talk of the Bay What goes around, comes around. I am thoroughly enjoying the chance to get back to a live mike, after twenty years away*. We are just starting the third week of a 28-day trial transmission for a new radio format, on 102.1 FM. You can catch me on Monday evenings at 6.00 pm, with "Talk of the Bay". That's Swansea Bay Radio. We continue broadcasting until 16 December 2004, and then await the tender documentation.
Are you a Libri? "My" new charity Libri is firing on all cylinders, right now. I say "my" - but although the idea was mine, the cause has now been taken forward by marvellous body of other Trustees who are deeply committed to the cause. Libri challenges the Government to promote book-issues from public libraries. Too many libraries, they say, are becoming Internet cafes, needlessly competing with the private sector - and neglecting book-reading.
The Fabians are a great, enlightened Left-Wing political community some 7,000-strong - and we have many skills among our number.
Nuclear power: the only option >>> "New" New Labour Five Pillars >>> Students! Get political! >>> US/EU: Wrong market models >>> 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
041206 Make sure you
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Week 50 Saturday
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I
am delighted that George won. Way back in May 2003, I
was deeply shocked at the Labour Party's action in 
For it underlined the abject poverty of the
Labour Party in its understanding of the human rights theme, in our future
politics. And in spite of Anthony's personal eminence (we
originally worked together in the Society of Labour Lawyers, when he was
in the Labour Party) the LibDems
are almost as flaky, on human rights territory. 
Ann
Black of Oxford is a fearless scribe. Like Dennis Skinner, she is an elected "Left"
member of Labour's National Executive Committee, and an active trade
unionist. But she is also rigorous in her regular reporting "to the
outside world" what goes on within the NEC. 
Her personal commentaries are
principally of interest to other Party members. But I bring you
November's "Black Report" because it bears worrying signs of a
cocooned complacency within the Party which could still
"As a young Labour lawyer,
I was a part-time Tutor and Examiner to the National Council of Labour
Colleges, in trade-union law and industrial law. As a result, I have always
differentiated clearly between rights (a) which attach to the individual
worker, and those (b) which attach to the trade union as a collective
organisation. 
In Labour political debate, these two ideas are often
confused, rolled-up easily together. After all, given the individual’s “right
to join a trade union”, it is easy to argue that such a union
should have the necessary collective rights to render it effective.
The conflation is entirely understandable, is misleading.
And read my Big Theory itself, at 