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Diary in date order Jan 2002 to date
but you also find this search
engine useful, in keeping track of events
Renewing
participatory democracy
My Little Red Book
A
New
Socialist Settlement
Bevan
Re-visited
Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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041220 Make sure you
have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 1 Friday
7 January 2005
I have taken a break from web-editing, over
Christmas. These are my final thoughts before abandoning the
keyboard, for a while. I am profoundly disturbed by the passivity of
our craven MPs, in nodding through ID cards. I want to think about the challenge of the
new authoritarianism which surrounds us. How can men and women of
goodwill best counter these undoubted evils in their midst?
The
formation of a new, weak, fledgling UK political party (as the Redgraves have
essayed) is unlikely to be successful. It has no attractions for
me. And in any
event, what is needed is an international vehicle of common identity and
commitment.
My idea is to create an international membership-based
organisation - Humanita! - to
uphold in all political contexts the principles of the UN Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Those principles make the perfect foundation for a new
international political movement -
check them out!
Viva Humanita!
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Blunkett's
End
Let’s tell it like it is.
David Blunkett garnered the most enormous goodwill, for having overcome
his blindness. Nothing will ever deprive him of that
astonishing accolade.
But his is a barren, bleak personality, powered by the bruising ego which
enabled him to overcome his disability. He lacks ordinary sensitivities,
to the point of believing his crudeness to be a virtue in itself. He is a
thug, a bully, tough and uncompromising. He claimed to embody the values
of the “working-class” from which he came, but he represented only their
lowest common denominator. He failed to reflect the higher sense of
justice and fair play, the innate sense of equality, which also
characterise and ennoble such communities. He made the awesome mistake of
believing that any liberal belief in human rights was muddle-headed, a
middle-class conceit, not for the likes of him and his ilk.
 His roughness and toughness bolstered his standing with the insubstantial
Tony Blair, who had had no close personal contact with “working-class”
communities and their “values”. Blunkett lent to Blair and to the
Government a distinctive class legitimacy.
But Blunkett’s relentless
pursuit of his love-child, against the wishes of the mother, was not an
act of selfless commitment: it was sheer, obsessive selfishness, a
breath-taking disregard for the privacy of both mother and child, which
blinded him and clouded his judgment. He was brought low precisely by the
lack of generosity and liberal insight which he displayed in his exercise
of power. He did not have the breadth of character, or the human
understanding, to realise where his own faults lay.
Finally, I do not trust a man who considers himself to be driven by
“honesty”. That that is the ultimate hubris, self-deceit. Like George Dubya Bush, his
failings made him a dangerous man to exercise political power. I am
glad that he has gone.
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Eastern
Promise
I have just experienced acupuncture
treatment, for
the first time. Having this week entered my 70th year, my need is to
reduce my weight, to match the declining strengths of an ageing frame, in
particular to relieve growing shortness of breath. My wife
Elizabeth has benefited decisively from acupuncture and its related philosophies.
I am attracted by the image of bodily energy flows, although I confess the
"evidence" is pretty flimsy.
"Western" medicine remains cautious: see
the 1997
Declaration by the US medical establishment. But the broad
philosophical context of Chinese medicine is attractive, and I am
persuaded to experiment.
 My old friend Peter Fitzgerald of
Caerphilly did just that, and reports his own acupuncture affair...
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Sign of the Times
Another sign of my mood is that I have,
for the first time in my life, taken out a subscription to
New Scientist. I am
consciously, almost self-consciously, disillusioned with the capacity of
the European political journals to inspire new radical thinking,
new directions. I am deliberately exposing myself to new
perspectives. I suspect that there are new political perceptions about "the
human condition" to be found from quite new sources...
What do you think?
One
Year Ago
8 December
2003
In Defence of
Individualism
Labour activists seem to 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. They mistake individualism for selfishness.
Worthwhile reforms, they seem to say, must always proceed from the
collective principles
of social justice and equality.
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Two
Years Ago
12
December 2002
T he power
of poverty
Personal poverty could be the making of Internet freedom. Where everyone is wealthy, poverty can be a strength. The
private litigants in the famous McLibel case kept that legal action going for
years, while living on social security benefits, draining the resources of
the giant corporation. And the
Australian High Court has just opened up the possibility that Internet will
confer greater freedom of thought and expression on the poor than on the
rich.
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Never miss Steve Bell! His cartoons, from
The
Guardian
- his wit and perception illuminate the absurdities of the
political scene... Our political life is diminished by the absence, in
mainstream politics. of leaders with capacity to deliver the same punch.
I
enjoy dipping into informed US West Coast chat, always up to the
minute, which can be found at
www.metafilter.co
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Activists' Update
December
2004
Three of my four pet reform projects are decidedly "alive", but the
fourth is floundering, and will probably have to go onto the back-burner.
The weakling is "Labour Party Reform", in spite of the evidence from
Brighton that radical reform is needed, if political Parties are to
survive as viable political institutions.
(a)
Company Reform Coalition
In this, I am targeting the stimulation of
a new UN treaty - nothing less! This difficult project has attracted a
little more understanding in recent weeks, and will be the subject of an
article from me in the
The Chartist - it's a slow burn.
Drop me a line
(b)
Questors -
there is growing official interest in the
the birth of a new "citizens'
advisory" profession, as the lawyers continue to price themselves
out of the market - it is clear (a) that there is
constitutional/legal space for such a creation and (b) that there
would be no legal or institutional obstacles to its emergence - this
leaves the ball unambiguously in my court, and I need allies..
.
Drop me a line
(c) Charitable Public Loos -
my new charity Hygeia
continues to make progress, and I think and believe that we are nearing
a breakthrough in public toilet provision, although all our discussions
are at this stage strictly confidential. But we would welcome
contributions from those of you who share our concern at the
disappearance of the public loo...
Drop
me a line
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(d)
Labour Links -
the Brighton Labour Conference decisively underlined the case for
Party Reform - my
latest attempt was in Cardiff in mid-June
with the Fabians - but "Party reform" will face the implacable
resistance of the professional
salariat, and that
makes it highly problematical.
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So this is Christmas
Christmas Day has taken on, for me, a new significance. Because it was on
Christmas Day 2001 that I posted my very first weblog.
Life has not
been the same since.
In looking back three years, I do seem to be a bit predictable, a bit
dull, a bit unoriginal. And the format of those old pages seems distinctly
amateur - that was before I enlisted the help of my website guru
Graham Morse of
Swansea, who now advises me.
My first three 2001 topics remain high on my agenda today,
without my having made any obvious breakthrough with any of them…
By Christmas 2003, last year, I was preoccupied
with the Fate of political parties.
Even by Christmas 2002, that subject was
clearly on my mind.
Can
Labour still
be radical?
 My
political ideas (I know to my cost) rarely fit conventional Party
pigeon-holes.
For example, I say that our sclerotic and arbitrary system of
Redundancy Payments should be abolished and replaced by
a system of six-months’ Adjustment Pay, payable
to all employees upon termination of their employment.
Further, the very concept of “wrongful dismissal” should be abolished, and the
employer given the right to terminate the contract of any employee at any
time upon giving then appropriate contractual notice and upon payment of Adjustment Pay. Employers should be free both to hire and fire, without let or hindrance,
in return for a commitment to universal Adjustment Pay, to support and
assist the
employee to find a new job.
Further,
all discrimination claims (gender, race,
disability) should be litigated, along with all other civil wrongs (or
"torts") in the mainstream Courts. And Industrial
Tribunals should be abolished altogether.
 This would be
a triple-pronged winner
for Labour in its Third Term, if only the Party would take it up. But does the Party
retain its
capacity for radical reform?
Recent
topics
Blair is weak
not strong
>>>
Pre-Nups?
Wrong principle
>>>
Labour's NEC: Ann Black
reports
>>>
Impeach Blair
sign up here
>>>
Human Rights
Redgrave style
>>>
"Groupism"
a dangerous error >>>
Religion
ravages politics
>>>
Are Public
Schools charities?
>>>
Extending the Welfare State
>>>
Adjustment Pay
for every worker
>>>
Pay
Guardianship Allowance
>>>
The Mischief of ASBOs
>>>
 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
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BNP
evil influence
Just to update you: this week, the Socialist
Workers Party in Swansea swings into
action with anti-BNP leaflets covering the same neighbourhoods as the original
BNP anti-Muslim leaflet. I am still reluctant to
re-publish the BNP leaflet for you to see, for fear of prolonging the
mischief, compounding the vitriol. The media reports have so far been
measured, without sensationalism, and the incident seems to have passed
off, so far, peacefully. I have met with the local Imam Khalil
Ullah and offered support on behalf of the Swansea Quakers.
He is clearly not minded to "retaliate".
And I am
ambivalent about the reaction of SWP,
which simply jumps onto every passing political bandwagon. I shall
not be joining in their leafleting this week, simply because I am so
suspicious of their motives.
There is no doubt that the BNP leaflet had been carefully drafted to
target Muslims as Muslims, and there were no specific words of racial
or ethnic hatred. Yet it seeped aggression and hatred from its every pore.
It was designed to attack, to harass, and to make political capital out of
harassment.
This evil must be addressed:
the Government must find a way of criminalising this mischief. Rowan Atkinson has chosen the
wrong high horse to mount, on this occasion.
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Cities Resurgent
Political
interest is turning again to the empowerment of our great
city regions. The BBC transfer to
Manchester (< this is Manchester City Hall) is a brilliant and perceptive move, a trailblazer. And I
make no apology for republishing for you, my own proposals for city
regional government, made in 1996.
 Labour deserves great credit, in my book,
for having started the devolution process. But sadly adhoccery
ruled, justified by the absurd concept of "asymmetrical devolution", a
ready-made recipe
for popular discontent. Labour's devolution initiative was never informed by
any coherent constitutional theory or strategy: even the Scottish measure
is flawed, and those fault-lines will continue to weaken the Scottish
settlement. And now Labour's plans for England have been, with entire
justification, comprehensively trashed by the electorate.
- For constitutional
aficionados, I give you,
after eight years in the political wilderness -
Building a New Britain.
It makes the case for powerful city regional government.
Its best days are still to come.
My father
really did know Lloyd George
That's me on the left,
confronting my Dad, in early 1936. He was a "Lloyd George Liberal",
which was the furthest to the Left that the Welsh middle classes dared to
go, at that time. As a tribute to the sheer zealousness of my Dad's commitment to public life, I now publish the only
pamphlet he ever wrote, in November 1934, A Plan for Currency Reform.....
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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.
-
Interested? Concerned?
-
Check out
LIBRI
The Fabians
are a great, enlightened Left-Wing political community some 7,000-strong -
and we have many skills among our number.
Would
you like to be added to the monthly Fabian Update e-mail list?
Just e-mail
Fabian Research
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Other r ecent topics
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
 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
to let it go
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041222 Make sure you
have not missed
the previous edition
Check it out
And the
one before that?
Other recent topics
highlighted here
Week 1 Friday
7 January 2005
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