Holocaust Memorial Day

 From "If this is a Man", Primo Levi  (page 68, as he wakes from a recurring dream):

 "It must be later than 11pm,  because the movement to and from the bucket next to the night-guard is already intense.  It is an obscene torment  and an indelible shame; every two or three hours we have to get up to discharge ourselves of the great dose of water which during the day we are forced to absorb in the form of soup in order to satisfy our hunger: that same water which in the evening swells our ankles and the hollows of our eyes, conferring on our physiognomies a likeness of deformation, and whose elimination  imposes an enervating toil on our kidneys.

It is not merely a question of a procession to a bucket; it is the rule that the last user of the bucket goes and empties it in the latrines; it is also the rule that at night one must not leave the hut except  in night uniform (shirt and pants), giving one's name to the guard. . . 

. . .[T]he risk which hangs over us. . . when we are driven by necessity to the bucket every night, is quite serious.. .  [T]he night-guard  unexpectedly jumps from his corner and seizes us, scribbles down our number, hands us a pair of wooden shoes and the bucket and drives us out into the middle of the snow , shivering and sleepy.  It is our task to struggle to the latrine with the bucket  which knocks against our bare calves, disgustingly warm; it is full beyond all reasonable limit, and inevitably with the shaking  some of the content overflows on our feet, so that however repugnant this duty may be it is always preferable that we, and not our neighbour, be ordered to do it." 

 Having reminded myself of this, in future when I make my minimum of three nightly excursions from my bedroom to my bathroom, instead of regretting the inconvenience I shall try to be happy  that I do so in privacy and warmth and don't have to carry a bucketful of other people's issue

 All societies have their disgruntled, frightened and insecure members, who find it easy to identify some "other" as the cause of their grievances.   Through history Jewish people have been easy targets of this scapegoating and the holocaust is, to date, the most horrifying illustration of the depravity that can result when an entire society normalises the  treatment of one of its components as less than human.

There are alarming signs in our present-day supposedly liberal societies of the initial germs which lead to this depravity.  In the United States  ICE roams the streets arresting so called "undocumented immigrants" identified by their government as "the other" in a manner which calls to mind the activities of fascist mobs in 1930 Germany.  In In our own country we have, as yet, a long way to go, but our government has  placed restrictions on our democratic right to protest, arrested peaceful protesters and deliberately tried to create a "hostile environment" to immigrants whom it believes, often mistakenly, may be here illegally.

 Our prime-minister fears we may become "an island of strangers" (though he now regrets the phrase) the leader of the party at present tipped to win the next general election worries when he hears only foreign languages on a tube train, one of his recent recruits observes critically  that he doesn't see a white face in a suburb of a major city. 

 Just the tip of the iceberg, perhaps, but today is a reminder of where these small beginnings can lead. 

 

Andy Burnham, Labour and the liberal future

 At the time of writing (4pm on Saturday afternoon) there has as yet been no announcement  as to whether the Labour Party establishment will permit  Andy Burnham, presently  Executive  Mayor of Greater Manchester, to stand as their candidate in a coming parliamentary by election, or if they do, whether Mr Burnham will accept the opportunity to change roles and, if successful, possibly challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the Party's leadership. 

Both decisions are possibly crucial for the future of liberal democracy in the UK.  In my view the best outcome will be:

 1.  Labour's NEC will permit Mr Burnham to apply to fight the seat.  To try to prevent him would signal  that the current Labour leadership (the NEC is alleged to have a majority of devoted acolytes of Sir Keir) would announce that they are "frit"  (apparently a Lincolnshire word introduced to the political sphere by Margaret Thatcher) and uncertain of Sir Keir's ability to fight off a challenge.  This suspicion would seriously damage his leadership.

2.  Although given permission to contest the seat, Mr Burnham should turn down the opportunity and declare that he is content to serve the party, the people of Greater Manchester and the the country in his present role.  To do otherwise, win and challenge Sir Keir for the leadership would further weaken Labour's already very unpopular government and present an open door to the Tories and Reform.

 The last thing we need is a squabbling government party.  Even if their leadership does not have the vision and charismatic communication skills they would like, it is at least fairly honest, decent and "in it" for the country rather than themselves. 

It is very important for the future of liberal democracy for the Labour Government  to do well. I have no up-to date figures but throughout my years of active campaigning (from the mid-1960s to the end of the century) when Labour did well in general elections the Liberals/Liberal Democrats did well too.  For Labour to continue to perform badly will probably mean that when the next general election comes the disillusioned electorate is likely to grant some combination of the Tories and Reform a majority and thus put back in power the very people responsible for our present woes  -  Tories with their rape of the pubic sector and Reform with Brexit.   

 So if the approach outlined above is announced in the next hour Labour could, just could, recognise that, united and working, preferably openly but, if they continue to  be "frit," clandestinely, they could, with the other progressive forces, bring about the progressive transformation we all crave.  

And the leaders of those progressive forces, Liberal Democrats, Greens and nationalists, should cut out carping criticisms and limit themselves to constructive suggestions.

 Our  democracy would thus  survive  the present dangerous times and emerge a healthy and decent component of a  liberal, competent, and law-abiding force in the world.

 PS  Added18h25

 

Oh dear:

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn408vmxrg8o

 

 

 

 

 

Crises

I was born in 1937, when, and for the next two years I presume (I could hardly be aware) our politicians and diplomats were desperately working to contain the  expansionary foreign ambitions of Hitler  and Mussolini.  They failed and on the day before my second birthday war was declared on Germany. 

This War expanded to involve most of the world, caused between 70 and 85 million deaths, mostly Soviet and Chinese civilians, and was only ended by the dropping of two nuclear bombs  by “our side” on two Japanese cities, together causing between 150 000 to 246 000 deaths.

 I have yet to hear a rational explanation which justifies the use of the second atomic bomb.

On the conclusion of hostilities the victorious Allies  set up a new world order aiming to avoid such a disaster in the future and secure economic prosperity and peace for all.

Although imperfect and subjected to many breaches, (think Palestine, Suez, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine ) that order has endured, battered but intact, until today.

It came nearest to collapsing in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the Soviet Union led by Nikita Khrushchev sent  a convoy across the Atlantic to set up nuclear missiles in Cuba, America’s “back yard” and President Kennedy vowed to stop them. 

I was living here in Birstall and teaching in Batley at the time and can’t honestly remember being at all worried about it.  We were confident that the “adults” were in charge and no one cold be so stupid as to risk such a devastating conflict again.

  And we were right.  Mr Khrushchev agreed to lose face and ordered the convoy with the missiles  to turn back, and as a quid pro quo President Kennedy agreed (secretly) to remove the missiles pointing at Russia from Turkey, the Soviet Union’s “back yard.”

We need to be considerably more worried now, largely because the key player in today’s crisis may be  “adult” by age, but behaves more like an infant during  a tantrum or an adolescent suffering an identity crisis.  Our sympathies must go out to the West’s political leaders and  the officials of the United Nations.  What on earth are they to do if the US, having virtually annexed Venezuela, goes ahead and uses military force, as President Trump has repeatedly threatened, to take over Greenland?

 Our impotence is partly our own fault.  The US has consistently spent between 3% and 5% of its vast GDP on “defense.”  Few if any of the other NATO countries have matched this  even in percentage terms, and so the US contribution to NATO's defence is double that of all the other members’ combined. 

So President Trump has justification for claiming that Europe’s defence has been provided largely at America’s expense, which is a source of genuine grievance.

Be that as it may, it is hard to know, if Trump does decide to take Greenland buy force, what can be done to stop him.

Sir Keir Starmer has clearly decided to tread carefully, walk a tightrope, utter platitudes but not condemn him.  It is not an honourable position, but it is understandable.

The effective opposition must come from  the American people themselves.

There is considerable hope from this quarter.  Although the Democrats, for the moment, seem to lack an effective, still less charismatic,  spokesperson, those that they have have been very outspoken, indeed outraged, at the actions  taken in America's name.  Eventually, the American people will being Trump down and, if we can leap over the probable horrors of a Vance presidency, the world  of reason may again prevail. 

A start would be a Democrat majority in the Hours of Representatives after the mid-term elections next November.

If we can avert disaster for that long

This Labour Government is not liberal

According to “Labour List” (1^st January) Sir Keir Starmer has appointed a new chair of the Labour  Party.  She is the former MP Anna Turley, who writes that she is so proud of “everything we are doing  to change the lives of working people  across Britain.” (my italics)

Those words “working people” are the first reason why Labour is not liberal.

 Liberals exist to represent  the needs of all people: children, students,  carers, home makers, disabled  people, the retired , criminals (yes indeed, no one should be held in inhumane conditions,) academics, innovators,  migrants and asylum seekers, SME entrepreneurs,  -   what the Prayer Book calls “all sorts and conditions of men (and, in updated editions, women.)”

Labour has its roots in the past when it can be argued that the “working class” needed special protection for which they  deserved  absolute priority. But the modern world  has moved on from a world of ”the bosses v the workers.”  

 Certainly some workers do still  need protection, not least those on exploitative zero-hours contracts and the young unable to find employment other than as unpaid “internships,"  but there are other and equally important sources of conflict: we citizens v the overweening power of the state; the state v overmighty conglomerates; misinformation v truth; might v the rule of law; fairness v the influence of the rich an powerful.

 It is on many of these other sources of conflict that the Labour government is found wanting.  Recent examples are:

Labour’s failure to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, the “civilised” European norm:

The confiscation of migrants' phones;

Measures to reduce the right to protest;

The absurd prosecution of those who have peacefully displayed support  for the aims of  Palestine Action;

The failure to remove the restriction on voting and the powers of the Electoral Commission imposed by the Tories;

The proposal to impose compulsory digital ID on those seeking work, clearly the thin end of a wedge;

The ban on freely elected councillors permitting a four-day week for their council workers:

The shameful cuts to Overseas Aid;

The failure to fund adequately and defend the BBC;

The failure so far to stand up for the rule of international law and condemn the US invasion of Venezuela.

The tendency to place destructive economic growth above the green measures necessary to preserve the habitability of the planet;

An obsession with social mobility, and hence a tiered society, rather than an aspiration for social and political equality.

For  a genuinely liberal future we still need the Liberal Democrats.

Reporting on Israel and Palestine.

 

In his second  mock “Annual  Awards” in his “Strike” newsletter commentator Ian Dunt names “Unholy” as Podcast of the year and comments on the . . .”  grotesque trend” in the UK’s reporting of the Israel Palestine conflict in that:

 “… Israeli lives are personalised. They are made real. But Palestinian lives are anonymised, turned into rubble along with their homes.”

Equally of note to me is the disproportionate  quantity of time and space devoted to the suffering of  Israelis compared to that of the Palestinians. Last week, after the shooting on Bondi Beach in Australia, in which 15 people were killed and others injured, including a ten year old girl,  the Guardian devoted five pages , including the front one, to the incident on Monday, seven on Tuesday and still two on the Friday.

On the situation in Gaza, the Google search engine seems to have stopped counting after the end of November, but by then there had been around 300 Palestinian deaths since the October cease fire (repeat, since the cease fire).  Some of them were probably ten year old children, or even younger, but I don’t remember much mention of such details.  One possible explanation  for this, as Dunt points out, is that the Israeli government bars independent journalists from entering and reporting from Gaza.

However, that does not explain the disproportionate amount of coverage.  In  his Christmas Day broadcast there are clips of King Charles visiting Heaton Park Synagogue  in Manchester, where he visited survivors of the October terror attack, and of floral tributes  commemorating the victims of the Bondi Beach attack, but nothing relating to Gaza. 

In her sermon the Bishop of London (++Canterbury designate) offers wise counsel on our national “conversation” in immigration, which divides us when our common humanity should unite us,  but does not stray beyond such domestic  matters.

It is the Archbishop of York, ++ Stephen Cottrell,  who, at least according to the Guardian’s report, highlights the injustices and indignities daily heaped upon the Palestinians in the rest of Palestine, though he does not appear to mention the   death still rained on Gaza.  Cottrell speaks of being subject to intimidation by the Israeli militias, being stopped at check points and being forbidden  to visit Palestinians in the West Bank.

 A letter in yesterday’s Guardian (27^th December) from a Rev’d David Haslam, points  out that the report of the Israeli government ‘s “green light “ given for the establishment of 19 new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, clearly a brazen flouting of international law, was reported simply in an “In Brief” paragraph. (22 December)

King Charles spoke of “peace through forgiveness.”  

 Terrible injustices have been heaped on both the Jewish people and the Palestinians. The persecution of Jews goes back centuries, culminating in the Holocaust in Europe in the twentieth.  Yet the victors of the Second World War have ignored the second part of the Balfour Declaration, that in looking favourably on a  “homeland” for Jews in Palestine “ . . .nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. ” Thus, in what appears to be a fit of hubris, they gave way what was not theirs to give.

If there is ever to be  “peace through forgiveness” in this benighted area, then one step towards it must surely be that  the wrongs done to  and committed by   both parties should be fairly and equally reported.

 

The Budget: sound and fury signifying very little.

 

 

In nearly sixty years of studying and teaching economics I have always felt attitudes to the UK’s annual budget to be over-hyped. In earlier time MPs honoured it by wearing top hats,  chancellors of the exchequer stimulated themselves with mysterious drinks, one of Disraeli’s  budget speech lasted five hours  but this wasn’t a record as he took a break in the middle, Gladstone once  managed four hours non-stop.

Rachel Reeves’s budget probably wins the record for the longest and most misleading  deluge of pre-event speculation around (deliberately leaked?) predictions.

These annual budgets have very little effect on the quality of the day to day lives of the vast majority of the population.  The very poorest may benefit by  a little more income or a better chance  of getting a job.  The lives of the comfortable and rich are hardly affected at all.

Similarly whatever the government does to try to affect the over-all level  of economic activity,  presently  the desperate quest for economic growth,  is often far overshadowed by external events:   Donald Trump's tariff wars, the price of oil, the Ukraine war, a stock exchange crash, to name but some.

That said, I watched most of the speech  and M/s Reeves sounded confident and  I felt made a good case.  She kept within her self-imposed fiscal rules and pre-election promise, found enough money to abolished the two-child benefit  limit, taxed gambling and EV cars, and introduced an additional council tax on very expensive houses. (Will that stay with the councils or go to the central government for re-distribution from the rich to poorer authorities?)

I was sorry to see the Lower Thames Crossing confirmed as that is just a pointless prestige project, (ditto the largest of the London Airport expansion schemes) and the overhauling of the planning system which will further over-centralise our inefficient government.

In summary, the budget raises taxes in order to marginally improve the public realm and the plight of the poorest. The Tories regard that as a criticism: Labour should be “out and proud.”

I have three major criticisms.

1.The whole hooligan atmosphere of the budget debate does our democracy little credit.  Despite the reservations expressed above, the budget is a serious business, especially for the poorest, and should be treated as such, not for jah-boo behaviour which would disgrace a football crowd

 2.The approach is “muddling through.”  The extra “add on “ of council tax for expensive houses is simply to make an unfair and ineffective tax just a little bit less  unfair and ineffective.  For real change we need a root and branch revision of the purpose of local government and how to finance it.

3.  We need lots more “green” measures.  Why is the pause in “accelerator” on fuel duty still in place, and no duty all or aviation fuel; why no taxes on pollution, congestion other “bads.?”

As to the political effect, I suspect both M/s Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer (who was very confident at PMQs) have saved their jobs.

 Now let’s hope the Labour Party will stop fighting itself and get round to governing the county efficiently and with vision.