You are in the company of Roger Warren Evans, Welsh socialist lawyer and company director, on a journey to work out a new socialist order capable of generating equality and freedom for the world.  Nothing less will do.
    

 

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Renewing participatory democracy

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Bevan
Re-visited 

Multiple Differential Uncertainty

Who am I? Biography  

 

      060109  Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition  Check it out   
And the one before that?   
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Week 2 Monday
9 January 2006

Busted flush

I agree with the Liberal MPs.  You may recall that, without taking Kennedy's alcoholism into account, I gave my verdict: only early departure would do.  
And I have not been inconsistent: using my own Search Engine (see left) I find that in June 2003 I wrote -

"The Liberal Democrats are even more of a failure than New Labour: Charles Kennedy has been a spineless, unprincipled disaster."

I think the Liberals' choice of leader will also determine Labour's path ahead.  If Sir Menzies Campbell wins, Labour will make a swift change to Gordon Brown, and those two will dominate the next Election.  If it's Mark Oaten, then both Blair and Brown will soon give way to a younger Labour leader.

  • That's what I think.

Arise
City Regions

I told you so. If rumours are correct, the Government is planning to follow the French constitution, strengthening city government and extending commune, or neighbourhood. government.

If the Guardian leak is correct, the news could not be more welcome to me.  I am Director of the inactive City Region Campaign, founded by me in 1994 to further this constitutional cause.  In 1996, working with the political analyst Simon Partridge, I wrote a paper arguing strongly for this position, but our thinking was overwhelmed by the wave of enthusiasm for Celtic "regional" devolution: see Building a New Britain.

But that devolution has left a huge democratic deficit unresolved.  The Government of Scotland Act did not address the good governance of Glasgow or Edinburgh, nor did the Welsh Act address the governance of Cardiff, Swansea, Newport.  And community government was disdained by Parliament.

Are David Miliband and his fellow Ministers really serious about building a new democratic structure?  If so, that would be good news indeed. No more silly mayors. The creative potential of our cities unleashed. The better democratic governance of our schools and hospitals.  Far greater involvement of ordinary citizens in the governance of their own local communities. Can it possibly be true?  Is it unfair of me to be sceptical?  Shall we watch this space together?

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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.

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"As long as drugs are illegal
the problem won't go away"

This was Polly Toynbee's headline in The Guardian.  Hers is a courageous and principled position.  If you want the opportunity to make your own public declaration in support of the decriminalisation of drugs, check out and sign in at the Angel Declaration.

  • But when did Polly Toynbee say this?  On 7 December 2002.  We have not learnt the most obvious lesson of all...

Polly Toynbee is in good company, the world over: many thousands of the world's leading citizens have called for the decriminalisation of "drugs"...
check out TRANSFORM.

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Britishness? 
No, thanks...

I value the Fabians.  And I encourage you to go to their open annual Conference in London, on Saturday 14 January 2006.  The theme is Who do we want to be?  The Future of Britishness.  And the keynote speech will come from Gordon Brown..

This time, however, I will definitely not be there.  I find current preoccupations with collective identities, whether cultural or political agglomerations, both misplaced and dangerous.  For the truth is that I want to be me.  And you want to be you, first and foremost. I want no truck with Britishness, or Welshness, or Frenchness, or Whatever-ness.

Identity is a matter of individuality, an attribute of the natural person, a matter of precious human experience.  It is not some compendium of collective generalisations which in the end apply to nobody. In race relations too, community is a fallacy - all the paraphernalia of multi-culturalism (or any culturalism) is destructive and distracting. 

Every individual seeks to be valued on a personal, individual basis - that is a constant affirmation of identity, and we all need that. That is our human birthright, the essence of the Human Rights philosophy (or religion...).  There is no such thing (pace Durkheim) as a collective consciousness, une conscience collective - that way lies dictatorship, even fascism.

  • The Fabian search for "Britishness" is fundamentally misconceived. The Fabians should grapple with something more serious and constructive, like international company law reform.

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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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I love the online newspapers, which are my access to the world - share them with me - click through to their here - they are all just a click away from your desk..

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"Choice" is not a right-wing word

I resent the childish hi-jacking of jargon, the gimmick which lies at the heart of the lightweight Blair Legacy Project.  Two of those hi-jacked words are "choice" and "respect".

It is not the shibboleth of "choice" that matters. Opportunities for "choice" characterise public service systems, as well as private - they are no trigger for privatisation, or the adoption of market mechanisms.  Neither in education nor in health does "greater choice" necessarily mean greater private-profit domination.  To offer "choice" is an honourable objective of all systems, both private and public.

My first-ever political battle was on the Hackney Borough Housing Management Committee, in 1971.  As a new Councillor, I was appalled at the Council's dictatorial take-it-or-leave it methods of allocating Council housing,  Two single-option offers were made to waiting-list families - if they turned down the second, they did not get a third chance, but went to the bottom of the List. 

I argued that each family should always be offered a choice of at least two options simultaneously, preferably three. A dominant bureaucracy, I argued, should not call the shots in this vital domestic matter.  The practice crushed families into dumb acceptance, when their dignity (and indeed, "respect") argued for a different system of public service administration.  "Choice" is not a right-wing word, as Tony Blair fancies it is.

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Asylum "failures"
New strategy

Remarkable developments this week, on the asylum front.  The Government is clearly reluctant to increase the rate of forcible removal, for failed asylum seekers, and has opted for a carrot-and-stick campaign to induce voluntary return on a much larger scale.

We have had the sticks for some time: unnecessary "dawn raids" with armed officers, Police-station reporting for everyone, a stream of threatening Home Office letters inducing a growing sense of terror and anguish, and the aggressive withdrawal of financial support, deliberately creating destitution.

This week, the carrot has appeared.  For those deciding to leave "voluntarily", between 1 January and 30 June 2006 this year, the re-settlement payment will increase from £500 for each adult to £3,000.  This is a commercial, time-limited offer.

This will be a huge sum for the younger single asylum-seekers, and I suspect many will accept the offer.  For many, it could be the chance of a lifetime.  For families, the inducement is less attractive, because their interests lie in the education of their children, and they know that every month in the UK constitutes a lifelong advantage which is otherwise beyond their reach.

These £3,000 offers were received this week by every relevant household in the UK.  It is clearly the start of a new six-month drive.  This "high" sum is small, compared with the costs of forcible repatriation (est £11,000 per person).  The deal makes good economic sense for Charles Clarke.  But I have a sense of foreboding that the popular Press will attack the scheme, as favouring "illegal immigrants" before UK citizens. 

  • I hope Clarke has his "speech for the defence" carefully prepared.

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  • NCADC, the active campaigners against the deportation and removal of asylum seekers, are on high alert.   If you have any interest in the awful saga that is now unfolding in the UK, right under your eyes, please check out with them.  And keep coming here. Thanks.

New History

What were we thinking about, at the turning of the year - last year, two years ago, three years ago - FOUR years ago?  With modern web-logging, you can check that out - a new form of modern history becomes possible.  These extracts are newly-mined on New Year's Day 2006.  This is how the world looked to me, at this time of year, in  -

2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005

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*Recent topics

My opportunistic web-editing >>>

Wanna be happy? Avoid anxiety >>>

Ministries should not be "spun" >>>

Asylum Management my reforms >>>

Turkey should join Europe >>>

What New Orleans means for UK >>>

Josef Stalin and Flat Tax  >>>

Corporate Theft by Proxy >>>

What do interest rates mean? >>>

Labour Party my resignation >>>

New principle Public Primacy >>>

The Power of Private Property >>>

Drop the school-leaving age >>>

Against Unreasonable Inequality >>>

Abolish Wrongful Dismissal >>>

Adjustment Pay for every worker >>>

Pay Guardianship Allowance >>>

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

60109  Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition  Check it out   
And the one before that?   
Other recent topics highlighted here

Week 2 Monday
9 January 2006

  
       
 

 
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