United Nations Day, 24th October

 

Emblem of the United Nations

The flag of the United Nations consists of the white emblem on the sky blue background. The emblem depicts a azimuthal equidistant projection of the world map, centred on the North Pole, with the globe being orientated to the International Date Line. The projection of the map extends to 60 degrees south latitude, and includes five concentric circles. The map is inscribed in a wreath consisting of crossed conventionalized branches of the olive tree.^[1][2]

The size of the emblem on the flag is one half the width of the flag itself. The flag proportions of the aspect ratio of the flag height to its width, are equal 2:3, 3:5 or to the same proportions as the national flag of any country in which the UN flag is flown.^[2] White and blue are the official colours of the United Nations. The light blue background colour code is Pantone Matching System 2925. It approximates sky blue.^[3]

The olive branches are a symbol for peace, and the world map represents all the people and the countries of the world.^[2]

 

^{The above is "lifted" from Wikipedia  without permission, but I don't suppose they'll mind.}

 ^{A pity we don't see a few of these flying  in our downtrodden estates.}

 ^{A pity there no mentions, or none that I've spotted, of this important ideal in or on any of the media.} 

Aspects of Maccabi Tel Aviv v Villa Park (Birmingham)

 

The current controversy  as to whether the Maccabi fans should be allowed to attend this football match raises some interesting questions about the way Britain is governed, and perhaps some (not very) unconscious  British attitudes.

Firstly, there are perfectly competent and accountable bodies “on the ground” – West Midlands Police, Birmingham Council, representatives of Aston Villa - who have together made a reasoned decision.  Some people may think it is the wrong one, but that’s what the local “authorities” think is best for the local people. 

Why does the central government feel the need to over-rule them?  We see this time and time again, particularly in relation to planning, housing and miniscule tax-raising powers.  Britain is one of the most over-centralised developed countries and this one of the major reasons why our democracy functions so badly.

Secondly, given that even a former Archbishop of Canterbury has conceded that football is more than a matter of life and death, if the right of visitors to attend this match is an issue of national importance, why does the Prime Minister himself need to intervene (along with other national party  leaders, including, to our shame, Sir Ed Davey)  We have a Home Secretary, responsible for Law and Order, we have  a Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, there’s also a Secretary of State for Local Government. Why not leave it to them to sort the matter out?  If they can’t what are they for?

 In the previous post I have singled out Clement Attlee as the most successful post-war prime minister.  Chief among his gifts was the ability to act as chairman and arbiter, but them to let his ministers get on with the job, and, if successful, take the credit.   Hence we all acknowledge his vey  effective Foreign Secretary, the wonderful Ernest Bevin, and the glorious  founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan.  Whizzing around the world taking part in President Trump’s show-pieces, affecting to coordinate Europe’s response to the invasion Ukraine, popping home occasionally to discipline recalcitrant  members of his party, stirring-up inter-racial anxiety and then retracting -  it is almost impossible for him to “keep his eye on the ball.”  Hence the gaffes.

 

Finally, the  local officials claim that the reason for banning the Maccabi fans from the match is one of public safety: they do, after all, have well documented reputation for hooliganism and racism.   Others suspect, however, that there is an Anti-Semitic undercurrent to the ban.  But if there are any grounds for such a view, they raise the question of  why the match is takin place at all.  After all, Russian teams are banned from taking part in international sporting events in protest against their country’s invasion of Ukraine.  So why is there no equivalent ban on Israeli teams  in protest against their country’s bombardment of Gaza?  Why the one and not the other?

The Thatcher legacy

 

Had she lived Margaret Thatcher would have been 100 yesterday.  A dinner has been held for the Great and the Good of the Tory Party, along with the odd member of Reform, to mark the occasion.  Apparently the Tories and Reform are competing to inherit her legacy.

 There can be little doubt that  Clement Attlee wins the accolade as the UK’s best post-war prime minister, and  that the worst (so far) has been Liz Truss.  However, in determining which post-1945 prime minister has done most harm I believe historians will decide it is a close-run thing between Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron. 

Thatcher’s most obvious legacy at the moment is the consequences of the crass decision to flog off our social housing stock at knock-down prices in her failed attempt to create a property-owning (and Tory-voting?) democracy. More serious in the longer run is the squandering of the  of the revenues of the North Sea Oil on financing tax cuts and  unemployment instead of creating  a sovereign wealth fund, as Norway has done.  Then we have the damage to social cohesion  by setting the police against the miners, the stupidity of the poll tax and its replacement  by the inadequate council tax, along with the dogmatic sale of public assets for private-sector  profit (to name but some). 

Although much of the damage done to individuals  is irretrievable, we can recover from most in due course. 

Similarly, we can eventually recover from David Cameron’s austerity regime, but the damage to our economy and international reputation  and influence caused by our exit from the European Union  through his ineptitude will persist for decades and may never be righted.

So it is probable that Cameron's premiership has done most damage.  However, it is fair to acknowledge that Cameroon's damage was accidental rather than deliberate.  Thatcher's is the result of conviction.

So my vote  as the most damaging post-war prime-minister goes to Thatcher.

Which of the Tories and Reform deserves to inherit the legacy, as her former party moves further and further to the would-be usurpers, is probably a dead heat.

Killings, Thursday 2nd October, 2025

The front-page headline in today's Guardian (3rd October) reads "Terrorist kills two people at Manchester synagogue."

The rest of the front page is devoted to a picture of the attacker, partly obscured by a Venetian blind, and further details of the story.  Four other people were badly injured, the attack took place on Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day of the year for Jews. The Prime Minister has returned early from meeting, described the killer as a "vile individual," spoken to the nation from Downing Street and called an emergency meeting of COBRA ( which actually stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A). 

The following six full pages are devoted to further pictures, details and comment on the event.

It is not until page 27 of today's Guardian that we learn, in an article at he bottom right-hand side of the page, taking up about a third of it, that on that same day, yesterday, Thursday 2nd October,   "At least 53 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunfire in Gaza..  Some of the airstrikes were carried out in a safe  zone, in which "at least nine Palestinians  were killed, inducing  a father, his sons and grandson, when the Israeli military struck a food store."  In a refugee camp in central Gaza, "four siblings were killed  while collecting firewood" and in another area nine people "mostly women" died when an Israeli strike hit a house. 

 Naturally, although I don't actually know any of the victims I feel very sorry for all 55 whose lives have been cut short, the others who were injured,  and sympathise with their grieving friends and relatives. 

I'd like to think that all the perpetrators of these evils will be brought to justice.

 Even more so I’d like to see a change in our reaction to evil.  I'd like to see a more balanced concern towards  evil perpetrated on both sides, and,  if the sides cannot quite respond with love and forgiveness, at least they  "do a Mandela" and find a practical way forward towards mutual tolerance.  

Nasty Labour

 

 

It is 13 years now since Theresa May warned the Conservative Party not to become “the nasty party.”  She then went on to ignore her own advice  by, as Home Secretary,  introducing her hostile environment, most vividly remembered by vans circulating in areas where immigrants had settled, bearing posters warning those who weren’t convinced of their right to be here to “Go home – or else.! “ Even Nigel Farage thought it was unpleasant.

 Although the vans were rapidly discontinued in the face of a public outcry the hostile environment continues to thrive, though we now have a government by a party which used to claim to believe in the international brotherhood (and sisterhood) of man (and women) and only just over a year ago promised  “change”  if it won the election.

Instead we have the  the proposed introduction of Digital IDs, not for the various conveniences that such measures are alleged to bring (more of which later) but to make it more difficult for immigrants to obtain employment.

There is something bizarre or maybe Kafkaesque (or both) in a party called Labour (the clue is in the name) on the one hand pulling out all the stops to bully disabled people into work, and at the same time trying to prevent largely young, energetic  and enterprising people who want to work from doing so.

And it’s not, as a Liberal Democrat spokesperson has pointed out, all that clear how the measure will deter unorthodox immigration via small boats.  Surely the worries at the forefront of such aspiring migrants’ minds  will be the costs and dangers of crossing the Channel, not the ease or otherwise of getting a job.when they get there. They’ll cross the bridge of getting a job should they be lucky enough to make it.

Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that once non-compulsory  IDs for employment purposes are introduced  there will be “mission creep” to extend them to  include a right to rent, a right to use the NHS, right to welfare, right to vote, and, by hook or by crook, eventually, a right to be here at all for everybody, born here or not.

Labour under Tony Blair tried to introduce ID cards.  A coalition led by Liberals fought them off.  We must do so again.  

 At present our government exists with our permission.  Under our inadequate electoral system that permission is rather grudging. Only a third of those who voted actually voted for it and, since the turnout was low, that represents only about 25% of those entitled to vote.  The permission would be more convincing if we had PR and the government could claim the support of a majority, but that’s where we are and Labour lacks the gumption to change it  (I’ve read somewhere that Andy Burnham, who appears to be manoeuvring to challenge Sir Keir Starmer, believes that a “Progressive Majority” comprising Labour, Liberals, Greens and perhaps some Nationalist would have more authority and more courage.  I am sure he is right)

 

With compulsory  ID cards the roles are reversed: we exist  by permission of the state – and no prizes for guessing which minorities would be the more pestered by the agents of authority  to prove they had that permission.

“Papers, please" has never been part of the British peacetime tradition and Labour should not be allowed to drive a wedge towards authoritarianism on the bogus precept that they will deter migarants. 

Rather we need some positive assertions of the valuable contribution immigrants have made and are making to the quality of our lives.

Attending the London meeting of leaders for Global Progressive Action last Friday, Iceland’s prime minister  M/s Kristrún Frostadóttir (the world’s youngest) was asked on the BBC how she had achieved  a Social Democratic victory in a world dominated by far-right populism.  She replied by being positive and telling the truth, not by attacking and criticising her opponents, but by saying what her party believed in and what they would do.

Our leaders  should take a leaf out of the Icelandic book, applaud and promote the values of which we can be proud,  and not resort to feeble and failing attempts to outflank Farage.

High technology: yet more outsourcing

The pay-off for last week's embarrassing grovelling to President Trump is apparently £150bn of American high-technology investment in the UK.  Even spread over ten years that's a lot of investment. 

 I suppose investment from anywhere is to be welcomed, but foreign investment  of this kind has two disadvantages:

 1.  If it is successful (which is dearly to be hoped)  it leads to a flow of profits out of the country on the "invisible" part of the balance of external payments.  We hear little of the balance of payments these but the persistent deficit on it dominated politics for the first 40 post-war years and is a far more serious  problem for "future generations" than the much publicised government sending deficit of today.    The last time I looked the balance of payments deficit was about 6% of GDP - way above what is healthy.  This £150bn will give short-term relief  but a long term additional burden.

2.  The "investment" remains under the control of foreigners, in this case the US tech giants.  When push comes to shove they will make decisions in the interest of their own economies, not ours.  In a worse-case scenario, if retrenchment becomes necessary they will close our enterprises, not their domestic ones.  Even more seriously, since much of this latest technology concerns AI and communications we are outsourcing the rules and safeguards necessary for our freedoms, probably in ways we do not yet fully understand.

3.  An article in last Friday's Guardian by a Matt Davies  (The A! deal sounds great.  Until it doesn't , 19 September.) points our that our "international peers" such as the EU and Brazil "have charted  alternative paths  to bolster sovereign capabilities and create the conditions  for domestic tech firms, small and medium sized enterprises and truly public alternatives, to flourish."   Instead "[e]ntrenching reliance on US tech at the most lucrative  parts of the AI value chain would leave British firms to fight over the leftovers."  Nick Clegg, who knows a thing or two after his stint with Meta, described the deal more vividly as "sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley."

I this as in so many other spheres we are continuing to rely on what former Bank of England governor Mark Carney described as "the kindness of strangers."  We really have to try to "stand on our own feet" rather than rely on others to bale us out. If our investors are more interested in gambling on the money  markets that on real investment, maybe we should release , or encourage, out pension funds to fill the gap, as  Will Hutton has advocated recently in an Observer article.

 

Fragile Democracy

 

 

Yesterday, 15^th September, was apparently the UN’s World Democracy Day, though if any of our media mentioned it I didn’t notice.

 The post 1945 new world order seems to have assumed that democracy is the preferred flavour of the future and leading democracies, including the UK and the US,  have taken the view that all we need to do is establish elections for the governments of countries, by force if necessary, and, behold, a democracy has been created.

But there’s more to it than that. 

Yes, governments need to be chosen by” the people,” but the elections  need to be free and fair, and in addition there needs to be a whole infrastructure to include:

The rule of law

Fair (and prompt!) trials for infringements of the law

Independent judges

Separate law making and executive powers

Free and balanced information

Freedom of speech

Freedom to assemble and promote or protest about a point of view

Respect for minorities

A measure of equality.

For most of my life both the UK and the US have gradually moved towards the ideal in the above categories, but, alarmingly, for the past decade, both countries have moved in the opposite directions, both to rig or discredit the judiciary (openly biased appointments in the US, “enemies of the people” in the UK),curb the right to vote (gerrymandering in the US, unequal  ID requirements in the UK) . . . .  .and lots more.

But to my mind the most serious problem is the lack of access to balanced and accurate information.  That is why I have included a “measure of equality” in the list above.  Some people have so much wealth that they can distort the availability of information.  Elton Musk’s  address by video-link to the right wing demonstration in London over the weekend is only the latest, and not necessarily the most blatant, example.  And the advent of artificial intelligence will probably make it even more difficult to discern what is true and what isn’t.

How else can we explain the absurdities that electorates have been persuaded to believe, or, if not believe, at least to vote for - the  £350m per week for the NHS in the UK’s Brexit Referendum, that tariffs in the US will bring back jobs the Rust Belt, that the UK can have Scandinavian-quality public  services without paying the taxes to finance them?

Why do the charlatans, (Johnson, Trump, Farage, to name but three) flourish?

The answer is partly by possessing effective communication skills, which all three of the above have in spades and poor Sir Keir Starmer lacks (and Sir Ed Davey compensates for by doing silly things). 

But more generally we need to know who is financing their distortions.

To restore and imporve our democracy I believe we need to:

Diversify the ownership of the media:

State clearly who owns each organ

Require the owner(s) to pay taxes in the county the medium operates

Forbid multi or cross-media ownership.

Require public broadcasters, when quoting think-tanks and similar sources,  to report who owns them or what particular interest they represent

Operate the same rules of identification on the internet and social media as operate in the press (name and address supplied if there is some valid reason not to give it)

Strictly limit the size of individual or corporate donations to political parties.

Apart from restoring the second choice vote in the elections for mayors and crime commissioners and requiring an over-all majority, there is as yet little interest by our present Labour government in any of the above.  Rather the reverse. 

That is why we need Liberals in government.