Saturday 27 December 2014
Orwell's "Newspeak" has arrived, and few of us notice.
My first appointment as a teacher was in the late 50s, to a school in Northolt, outer London. There discipline was maintained by the award to any pupil who offended against the school's ethos of a "black mark." Recipients of these were made to stand up in one of the daily assemblies and were were given a public lambasting by our somewhat ferocious Scottish headmaster. I don't recall any corresponding "white mark" for achievements of which the school approved, but maybe there was one.
However, when in the early 70 I took over my post as deputy headmaster of Port Moresby High School, then in the Australian sphere of influence a more liberal regime operated. Although misdeeds were noted by a "demerit," good works received a "credit." I worked on this system by urging the "demeriters" in private to adopt more virtuous paths, but praising the "top credit winners" publicly in the weekly assembly. I like to think that this was instrumental in improving the "tone" of the school.
In his very readable book "How to Speak Money"* novelist and critic John Lanchester, who claims not to be an economist, attempts to unravel the language of economics for the general reader. To facilitate this he has invented the word "reversification:" a way in which economists in general, but monetarists is particular, turn the meaning of a word into its opposite in order to make the concept it describes more acceptable.
To me the most striking example is the use of reversification to make the concept of debt respectable. Debt used to be a "black mark" or "demerit": a condition entered into by only the most feckless of people. In extreme cases, they were put into prisons. A common form of debt in my youth was called "hire purchase" and my parents were very proud of the fact that, to furnish their home, they never descended to this disreputable device. "Every stick was paid for."
So to make debt respectable we have changed its name to "credit" What was laudable at Port Moresby High School is now the superficially respectable condition which, in what turned out to be its unsustainable private form, brought the western economic system to a halt in the mid 2000s. And if, in Britain, the system is recovering, it is largely the consequence of the accumulation of yet more private debt based on yet another housing boom, the very conditions which brought the system down in the first place.
John Lanchester's book* is a excellent read, even for those who think they know quite a lot about economics.
* How to Speak Money, pub Faber and Faber, 2014
Monday 22 December 2014
Even the rich may need an emergency ambulance.
I have just ordered, but not yet received, a book by Professor Sir John Hills entitled: "Good Times, Bad times: The Welfare Myth of Them and Us". According to the review that prompted me to buy the book, Hills's argument is that our welfare state is not, as the tabloids and Tories pretend, a system by which a virtuous tax-paying majority subsidise a growing minority of layabouts in a "life style choice" (David Cameron) of idleness. Rather, "Britain's welfare state remains a resource for the great majority, not just the feckless few."
This weekend's leaked proposal that the government intends to introduce slower emergency ambulance responses is a case in point. Even the rich have heart attacks, road accidents and all the manifold perils and dangers to which the flesh is heir. As far as I know BUPA runs no emergency ambulance service, nor trains any paramedics, so cutting back on that bit of the state's provision could be just as inconvenient for the wealthy as for the rest of us.
This illustration came too late for Hills's book, but, as the review points out, not just the very wealthy but so called "Middle Britain" (that is, most of us) benefit considerably from such as tax subsidies for the purchase of houses and the tax-subsidised pensions which on average we receive for longer than those at the bottom of the pile. And then there's the heart bypasses which may be beyond the capacity of the private hospitals, and the mental and physicals disabilities for which the private medical sector makes little provision, but which affect indiscriminately all sorts and conditions of men (and women and children) regardless of wealth.
Hence not just the poorest but all of us should be fighting to maintain and indeed improve the level of state services, and fiercely resisting the proposed further cuts.
I look forward to reading the book and having my natural prejudices reinforced by facts.
Monday 15 December 2014
There is an alternative, but it's not on offer.
All three British political parties have now set out their economic policies for the election next May. A BBC commentator summarised them as follows:
Conservatives: continue with drastic cuts and austerity in order to achieve a budget surplus by the end of the next parliament.
Labour: continue with cuts, but not quite so drastic, so as to eliminate the so-called structural deficit by the end of the next parliament, but also spend on investment in the infrastructure.
Liberal Democrat: more like the Tories in the short run, but more like Labour in the long run.
That is, of course, a crude and unfriendly description if the Liberal Democrat position - I hate our being defined by what the other two are doing - but that's what he said and this is above all an honest blog.
Unfortunately no one has the guts offer the alternative, a Keynesian stimulation of the economy, the effectiveness of which is authenticated by both economic theory and practical history, and supported by a pantheon of economists and informed commentators.
First, we need to challenge the assumption that "the deficit" is the most important issue in British politics and that to eliminate it is an urgent requirement The government's spending deficit is largely an internal matter: it is borrowing money from one group of Britons wearing one set of hats ( in pension funds, insurance companies, other financial institutions, unit trusts, holders of National Savings, those rich or bold enough not to bother with National Savings but who buy government securities directly.), and paid back by much the same people as taxpayers. So we pay as taxpayers and receive as pensioners etc. The only part of government debt is that could be a problem is that fraction of it that is held overseas.
In my view, a far greater potential economic problem is the Balance of Payments deficit. That is all owed overseas and a supposed deficit (revised figures showed that it wasn't) brought down the Wilson Government in the 1970 election. Today a very real deficit is far larger and therefore more serious, but hardly gets a mention.
And there are other suggestions for "top of the bill." In an article in this weekend's Observer Bill Keegan takes the view that our most serious economic problem that of low productivity.
However, economics, though important (not least because I've earned my living teaching it) is not the be-all and end-all. My own view is that the most serious problem facing our society today is growing inequality. We are in grave danger of becoming not one society but two: perhaps we already are. This situation really does need urgent attention before it becomes dangerous, but it seems will hardly feature in the election campaign, other than to further blame and victimise the chief sufferers from the recession, that bottom 20%, while those who caused the recession continue to flourish.
Be that as it may, there is growing recognition that the main reason for the now returning deterioration of the government's finances is not profligate spending but the fall in tax revenues through continued business stagnation, unemployment , zero-hours contracts, part-time and low paid work, and that the way to restore balance is by a classic Keynesian stimulus which, along with growing prosperity, would increase the tax-take.
Not only is this increasingly understood but it would actual be popular. In his blog Mainly Macro Oxford professor Simon Wren-Lewis quotes a You-Gov poll which shows that in response to the question :
Thinking about how the next government handles the issue of
Britain's deficit, which of the following best reflects your view?
A.
The next government should prioritise reducing the
deficit, mainly through making cuts to spending on public services
B.
The next government should prioritise reducing the
deficit, mainly through increasing the level of taxation
C.
The next government should not prioritise reducing the
deficit, and should spend more on public services or cutting taxes to try and
promote growth instead.
only 27% supported Option A (broadly the Tory policy), 25% Option B, (broadly Labour) but a whopping 48% Option C, which ought to be the Liberal Democrat policy.
So come on, Liberal Democrat manifesto writers: the policies of Keynes are not only right, but almost twice as popular as continued misguided, damaging and unnecessary cuts in the public services which make our society civilised. Stop aping the outdated and failed neoliberal consensus and give us something to campaign on which is worthy of the traditions of our party. Do that and we could win!
So come on, Liberal Democrat manifesto writers: the policies of Keynes are not only right, but almost twice as popular as continued misguided, damaging and unnecessary cuts in the public services which make our society civilised. Stop aping the outdated and failed neoliberal consensus and give us something to campaign on which is worthy of the traditions of our party. Do that and we could win!
Monday 8 December 2014
Pep talk for Liberal Democrat canvassers
About the only perk I get as Hon. President of my local Liberal Democrat Party is to give a little talk at each AGM.
Here's the gist of last week's:
1. We have absolutely nothing to apologise for in going into coalition with the Tories. No principles have been abandoned: rather the reverse. As a party we are passionate advocates of proportional representation, which means that balanced (not "hung") parliaments are both likely and logical, and coalitions inevitable. Natural justice demands that the party with the largest number of seats should make the first offer to the minority part(ies) and in 2010 it was the Tories. As Simon Hughes put it: "You have to play the cards the electorate deals," and that is what we did. In any case, the alternative of a partnership with Labour was not on:
a) because, although Gordon Brown was keen, Labour's tribal big beasts, with Jack Straw and David Blunkett to the fore, were dead against, like boys in the playground taking their bat home if the game couldn't be played according to their rules, and;
b) with the support of the nationalists and the one Green a "rainbow coalition" with Labour would have and a majority of only one. On average three MPs die each year so such a coalition government would have been fighting for its survival at every by-election.
It also follows that we believe a coalition legitimised by a majority of the voters provides a better government than a single party supported by only a minority. Even Polly Toynbee, no longer
our friend, has admitted (Guardian 07/10/14) that without us the Tories would probably have:
1.
Scrapped the Human Rights Act.
2.
Further emasculated the BBC.
3.
Held a fire sale of the NHS.
4.
Maybe “Brexit” from the EU.
5. Made state funded
schools available for private
profit.
2. The gibe that Liberal Democrat leaders will "sacrifice any principle for a whiff of power and a ministerial car" is risible. No one with that as their priority would dream of joining the Liberal Democrats. Ours is the hard road. Ming Campbell fought five times before he won his seat. Nick Clegg was virtually offered a safe Tory seat by Leon Brittan, his boss when working for the European Commission, but turned it down because he, Nick, was first and foremost a Liberal. Those whose first priority is the trappings of power join Labour or the Tories.
3. So far I've counted 23 progressive achievements which would probably not have happened if Liberal Democrats hadn't been in government. They are:
- The fixed-term parliament.
- The triple lock on pensions
- Raising of the income tax threshold.
- Pupil premium.
- Shared parental leave.
- Increased provision for child-care costs.
- Detention of immigrant children stopped.
- Free school meals for infants in first three years.
- Loans to part-time students.
- Protection of ECHR retained.
- ID cards blocked.
- Civil liberties defended against Theresa May’s advances.
- Target for 0.7% of GDP to aid retained.
- Green investment bank.
- More powers for Welsh Assembly.
- Proposals for increase in minimum wage.
- Employers’ NICs for under- 21s discontinued.
- Vince Cable’s call for limits to executive bonuses.
- Equal treatment for mental health patients.
- Tied pub landlords freed to buy from any supplier (per Greg Mulholland)
- £200m to encourage and make roads safer for cyclists.
- £10m to promote electoral registration of students (rather than pensioners on the Costa del Sol).
- Unlike our government partners, we were and are unequivocally "the party of IN" on Europe, with the only leader prepared to take on Nigel Farage "head to head."
It's not been the government we'd have preferred, but we're proudly confident of what we have achieved with our mere 57 MPs, compared with the Tories' 300+.
So off we go, to face the electorate "with courage high and hearts aglow."
Thursday 4 December 2014
Osborne the closet Keynesian
So the country has money to burn and the government is going to splash out with an extra £2bn for the NHS, for road improvement schemes including a tunnel under Stone Henge, for flood defences, railways in the north and Lord only knows what else. All this is possible, in Chancellor George Osborne's very words, because the economy is now "on course for prosperity."
But, just a minute, the economy was growing, when he took over the reigns from Labour and 2010. And not only that, but the deficit was then falling as well: it's rising again now. Had Osborne introduced this public expenditure stimulation at the time, the recovery could well have continued, real rather than zero-hour-contract jobs created, taxation revenues increased through rising prosperity and, most importantly, additional misery for the weakest in our society avoided.
Instead.Osborne put the recovery he inherited into reverse by cutting government expenditure and raising taxes (VAT from 15% to 20%) and we've endured four years of stagnation until a low-wage quasi-recovery fuelled by increasing private debt and yet another housing boom has finally emerged.
In fact Osborne has abused the the classic Keynesian mechanisms to achieve his political ends. In 2010 he deliberately used the existence of a deficit at an allegedly dangerous level (it wasn't) to achieve the Tory goal of shrinking the state*. Now he is using Keynesian expansion in order to win next May's election.
Integrity and devotion to the welfare of the nation are not descriptions which readily.spring to mind.
* For further and better particulars on this see http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/destroying-state-is-no-accident.html
Monday 1 December 2014
Privatisation of East Coast Mainline service: why no outrage?
Our East Coast Main Line Railway is somewhat misnamed since most of it doesn't go anywhere near the coast. Certainly the bit I use, Leeds to London King's Cross and back, doesn't.
However, its geographical position is not the cause of the present outrage, or, rather, the lack of any. Like the rest of dear old British Rail it was taken out of public ownership and privatised by the Tories in 1993. Since then two private companies, GNER and National Express, have had to pull out because they couldn't make enough profit, and the running of trains on the route had to be taken back into public ownership in 2009.
Since then the trains have been operated by Directly Owned Railways (DOR), a public body responsible to the Department of Transport. They seem from my experience, albeit I'm an infrequent user, to have made a thoroughly good job of it. Trains to and from Leeds are every half hour rather than the hourly service the private companies offered, they are punctual, and the fares, if you book early enough, are very reasonable.
And they also make a profit, which is handed over to the exchequer.
So on the splendid maxim of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" why not leave things as they are?
But no, our ideologically fixated Tory government has insisted that it be re-privatised, and last week a consortium of two private companies, Sir Richard Branson's "Virgin" and Brian Souter's "Stagecoach," were awarded the franchise. DOR was not even allowed to enter a bid - so much for fairness and the level playing-fields of Eton.
There was a time when the Tories accused Labour of being soaked in ideology whilst they, the Tories were pragmatic. Now it seems they are tarred with the same brush, with a complete lack of evidence to support their case.
What I cannot understand is why this outrageous decision has passed almost unnoticed. We seem to have lost our will to react.
For further and better particulars of the failure of Mrs Thatcher's supposed triumph of privatisation read James Meek's excellent book: "Private Island: why Britain now belongs to someone else," - but only if you have no problem with high blood-pressure. Most bizarrely, many of the utilities privatised by Mrs Thatcher to encourage eider share ownership have been renationalised, but not by the British government. Our electricity supplies are now largely owned by EDF, an arm of the French government, and, back to railways, Arriva UK Trains is actually owned by the German government's Deutches Bahn. You couldn't make it up. a chunk of our railways is now owned
Saturday 29 November 2014
Plebgate et al: what is it about bikes?
When last Tuesday I went to the church in Leeds where we run classes of English for Speakers of other Languages (ESOL) for immigrants and asylum seekers, there was a bicycle chained to the rail by the South Door. I thought little of it: it certainly didn't impede access. But half an hour later the caretaker interrupted my class to demand if it belonged to anyone and a young Somali chap said it was his (given later events in the week I might have thought "pleaded guilty.") He was asked to move it and did so without any fuss, though for all I know he may have muttered a few Somalian imprecations under his breath.
Then last night I rode my own bicycle to the little amateur theatre where the drama group to which I belong operates. I was there to help with the bar rather than to watch the performance, so arrived early. Normally I chain my bike to a drainpipe outside, but as there was a slight drizzle I took it inside and parked it in the lobby. No-one complained, even though, with my glasses covered in rain-drops I couldn't see very clearly and, in manoeuvring the bike accidentally knocked the star from the top of the Christmas tree. Indeed, people seemed to think this rather a joke, and the house manager for the evening, a gifted young cartoonist, quite cheerfully climbed onto a chair to put it back again amid general merriment.
However, shortly before the performance began our president asked me to move the bike. I explained that I'd brought it inside in order to avoid a wet saddle, which I believe can lead to piles, and was invited to store it back stage. This involved getting it through a door way with a heavy door, then wriggling it round a corner and down some steps. It was difficult enough with the help of the gifted young cartoonist (who felt that the bike by the Christmas tree enhanced our lobby with the air of a John Lewis advert) and even more difficult getting it out again at the end of the performance when, after remaining behind fora bit of washing up, there was no one around to help. However both operations were carried out without any ill feeling or bad language.
Not so poor Andrew Mitchell, ex-Tory minister, who some two years ago was prevented by a policeman from riding his bike through the main gate of Downing Street, which he claims he normally did, and ordered by a policeman to wheel it through a side gate. Strangely enough it was not that in the resulting angry exchanges Mitchell used some very rude adjectives beginning with f. . . that resulted in a court action, but that he allegedly called the policemen "a pleb."
A judge has ruled that he probably did, and he's probably right, since, although "pleb" is not used as a term of abuse by most of us, I'm told it is so used in some of our posher public (ie private and fee-paying) schools, and Mitchell went to Rugby, the one made famous by "Tom Brown's Schooldays."
In coming to his decision the judge claimed that the offended policeman" "would not have had the wit [or the] imagination. . . ." to invent the disputed term. Frankly I'd find that rather more insulting than being called a pleb.
As another Tory MP has pointed out, had Mitchell left Downing Street in the official chauffeur-driven car to which he is entitled none of this would have happened, and he wouldn't be saddled with the loss of his reputation (he was quite a well respected and effective Secretary of State for Overseas Development) or saddled with a ludicrous £1.5 million legal bill.
Just what is it that make people "clothed in a little brief authority" want to take it out on cyclists?
Wednesday 26 November 2014
Ukip euphoria
Those of us who have lived through the ecstasies of Torrington and Orpington can perhaps be forgiven an indulgent smile at UK's euphoria over its recent by-election successes.
In 1958 the Liberal Party achieved its first by-election success of the post war period when Mark Bonham Carter snatched Torrington form the Tories with 38% of the vote. However this first of many "Liberal Revivals was short lived. In the general election of the following year we were back to 5.9% of the vote and just six MPs,who could proverbially hold their party meetings in a telephone box.
Four years later, in 1962, Eric Lubbock thrashed the Tories with no less than 52.9% of the vote and gained Orpington. This did prompt the then prime minister Harold Macmillan to sack a third of his cabinet in the "night of the long knives," but in the following general election, 1964, although we polled over 3 million votes, we still had only nine MPs, needing, perhaps, a Tardis rather than a phone box for their meetings.
When the Gang of Four formed the Social Democratic Party in 1981 our Alliance briefly led the "Old Parties" in the opinion polls, but in the next election,1983, although together our total vote nearly beat Labour's, we still had only 23 MPs compared to Labour's 209 and the Tories 392. The "mould" was hardly cracked, never mind broken.
So from the first green shoots of revival in 1958 to actually forming a very minor part of the coalition government (57 Liberal Democrat MPs to 305 Conservatives) in 2010 took just over half a century.
Has UK the stamina for the struggle?
Actually, if they can keep it up it may not take them quite so long. Way back in the 1950s the two dominant largest parties between them took 96.1% of the vote. Today things are much more fluid with that same two parties' share falling to only 65.1% of the vote in 2010 on, by coincidence, a turnout of only 61.5%. On the other hand, there are more mouths eagerly open to receive the protest vote: Nationalists, Greens, and perhaps the odd "save the NHS" independent.
My belief is that UKIP may poll well in the next election whilst the euphoria lasts, but is unlikely to win more than a handful if seats, if that, and them will fade away. Its policies now seem to be reduced to two: withdrawal from Europe and halting immigration, maybe even sending some back The arguments in favour of both are fallacious. and so, I fervently hope, unable to withstand the passage of time and serious scrutiny.
For lots of home truths about immigrants from the EU please see this very well informed post on a blog by Jon Danzig
http://neweuropeans.net/article/527/home-truths-home-secretary
Monday 24 November 2014
Flags and White Vans
Like it or not it is a fact that for many our two national flags have become symbols of some of the less attractive features of our society. The Union Jack tends to be associated with the British National Party (BNP) and other extremists on the xenophobic far-right, and the St George's flag with football hooligans.
Whereas the French and US flags have always been proud symbols of their countries, historically the British, at home at any rate, have not been great flag wavers. Even during the war I can't remember much flag flying. I think the Union Jack was supposed to be flown on public buildings on the King's birthday: maybe this was abandoned for fear of identifying useful targets for enemy aircraft. And I can recall the flag being flown at my primary school only on one Empire Day (24th May: I know that because it was my Auntie Ada's birthday, a fact of which she was very proud), sometime in the late 1940s. And the St George's flag was rarely flown at all until the churches started to display it at Easter and on "red letter" Saints' Days.
And unfairly or not, it is a fact that drivers of white vans are often regarded as doing so with less consideration for the welfare of other users than the Highway Code might demand, and may well indulge in businesses in the "informal|" economy in which the payment of taxes is minimised, though perhaps with not quite the ruthless efficiency of some of the major international corporations.
So I have some sympathy for Emily Thornberry and her tweet from the Rochester and Strood by-election campaign, and feel the Ed Miliband has grossly over-reacted in forcing her to resign as Shadow Attorney General. Politics will never gain the respect it deserves if political leaders jump through every hoop held up for them by the tabloids.
Poor Ed Miliband. he and his party are being subjected to the same ridicule as scuppers Labour and Neil Kinnock in 1992. This is not grown up politics: we should be able to do better.
Of course, it may well be that the owner of the house with two St George's flags draped on its walls and a white van parked outside is an enthusiastic member of the Church of England whose business is all set to grow into the Marks and Spencer's of the 2060s.
Saturday 22 November 2014
Obama's amnesty for migrants highlights Liberal Democrat cowardice.
It was in the first of the Leaders' Debates before the 2010 general election that Nick Clegg's reputation reached heroic proportions and "I'm backing Nick" became a catchphrase.
The issue which made me proudest of Nick's performance was his brave defence of the Liberal Democrat policy to grant an amnesty to long term migrants in Britain illegally. This was by no means a general amnesty: to be eligible for recognition as legally here the migrants had to have been in Britain for a minimum of ten years, had a job, paid taxes and have no criminal record.
The policy was ridiculed both be David Cameron and the then prime minister and Labour leader Gordon Brown, but Nick robustly and repeatedly defended it, not least by demanding of the other two how they expected to find those illegally here.
This was Liberal policy at its best: humane, rational and boldly unafraid of any adverse reaction in the chauvinist popular press.
Alas, this admirably liberal policy has now been quietly dropped from the Liberal Democrat lexicon as unrealistic and too far in advance of public opinion.
As the Rochester and Strood by-election demonstrates we are badly in need of a party prepared to speak out for decency. Yet both Tories and Labour now compete to outdo UKIP in nastiness.
As Theresa May, home secretary and therefore minister responsible for immigration and migrant affairs was once brave enough to point out, the Conservative party is regarded by many as the nasty party. Now we are rapidly degenerating into nasty Britain.
I suppose it will be argued that President Obama can afford to be in advance of public opinion as America's rules forbid him from standing for election again. But it is my belief that a healthy democracy needs parties prepared to lead public opinion rather than cravenly follow the prejudices revealed in their focus groups.
Here's a wonderful opportunity for Liberal Democrats to resume the lead in restoring decency to our political debate.
Wednesday 19 November 2014
Cameron gets the boot in first.
I've never studied the dark art of propaganda but I suspect one of the standard tenets it to get your story in first, and then stick to it. Thus while, after their defeat in 2010, the Labour Party occupied itself in electing a new leader, the Tories managed to convince the public that the Britain's economic problems were the result of Gordon Brown's mismanagement rather than a global crash caused by the the their own policies of financial deregulation. Beyond a circle of informed economists this distortion is now generally accepted.
Now that George Osborne's "expansionary contraction" policy is seen to have failed on all counts (the government current deficit is not only not eliminated but close to £100bn and once again rising, and he has lost his talismanic AAA rating). Cameron hastens to lay the blame, not on the ineptitude of his chancellor and policy of austerity, but on global events: recession in Japan, stagnation in the Eurozone, the Ebola epidemic and lack of progress in the Doha round of international trade negotiations (which has actually been failing to make progress for some 13 years.)
Presumably Cameron will hope that by getting in first with his claim that, by contrast with 2007/8, our present difficulties are all the fault of foreigners, he will pre-empt any counter-claims that the problem lies with the failures of his own government. Perhaps he needn't bother, because it is hard to see in the present state of our politics who is in a position to make the counter-claims. Labour's shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, is as committed to deficit cutting as Osborne, and, indeed, desperate to bolster his own credentials for toughness.
In his Guardian article Cameron is proud to point out the the UK economy is now growing at 3% per year whereas the Eurozone is flat-lining. He goes on to flaunt the fact that the coalition government is: ". . .also making the biggest investment in roads since the 1970s and the biggest in rail since Victorian times, connecting 4 000 premises to superfast broadband every week, and starting an energy revolution with the first new nuclear plant in a generation, the world's first green investment bank and the largest production of offshore wind on the planet."
In other words, Keynesian pump-priming investment, much of it (including, alas, the new nuclear plant) at the instigation of Liberal Democrat ministers.
The truth is that Osborne long ago abandoned his Plan A, and the UK economy, after an unnecessary and damaging delay, is now growing once again as a result of belated and over-modest Keynesian stimulation. By contrast the Eurozone has adhered more strictly to the mistaken policy of austerity and is therefore stagnating.
Cameron studied PPE (the E stands for economics) at Oxford. One wonders what they teach them: or maybe he wasn't paying attention..
Sunday 16 November 2014
The blunt end of the cuts
Cousins who have researched the paternal side of my family tree tell me that their enquiries come to a full stop in the mid 19th century with a Luke Wrigley, who appeared in our area apparently from nowhere and was a road-sweeper.
Perhaps because I have inherited some of his genes I find our present day road-sweeper a very affable chap. He's certainly very efficient, in spite of the challenges set up for him by my less considerate fellow townsmen and women. Unfortunately, rumour has it that his job is to come to an end, along with the maintenance of all but the largest of our parks, because as part of expenditure cuts imposed by the central government our local authority is likely to reduce the road cleaning budget by some 75% and the park maintenance budget by some 30%.
When I enquired as what if anything would avoid such devastation I was told the major areas to be protected were for the protection children and care of the elderly. Well, that's the sharp end and it's hard to argue with it, but it is nevertheless sad that our relatively smart and attractive civic environment is to become increasingly shabby and neglected. It is the poorest of course, who have the greatest need for, and make the greatest use of, our parks, of which there are several very well maintained ones in our area.
And all this so the Tories can implement their ideologically motivated public spending cuts while the economy remains in recession and Keynesian policies indicate that the reverse is required: more street cleaners, better maintained parks, and park custodians with peaked caps to limit vandalism and maintain public lavatories in a state of fragrant cleanliness if not exactly beauty.
In the 1950s the great American economist James K Galbraith, in "The Affluent Society," predicted this "private affluence and public squalor." Our government seems, alas, to be pursuing it with enthusiasm.
I suppose the privately affluent don't rely so much as the rest of us on clean and tidy streets and well-kept parks. Even if they don't live in gated communities they drive in their 4x4s to take their kids to school and do their shopping, and have their own gardens so have no need of parks.
Thursday 13 November 2014
Microsoft indifferent at home.
Microsoft's home page opens with the words:
At Microsoft our mission and values are to help people and businesses throughout the world realise their full potential.
Well that's fine, and I'm a great admirer of the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which is doing great things all over the world. To counteract the grumpiness of the Daily Mail and right wing Tories with regard to overseas aid expenditure, the number of children under five dying from easily preventable diseases has, according to Melinda Gates, fallen from 12.6 million in 1990 to 6.6 million now. That's still 6 million too many, but 16 438 fewer per day, which is something to shout about.
I wish however Microsoft would devote a tiny fraction of their concern for those of us who use their facilities at home.
The following letter speaks for itself.
29th
October, 2014.
Dear Microsoft,
peter.wrigley@hotmail.co.uk
Over the last weekend my Hotmail
account was blocked by you because you suspected that someone else was trying
to use it. I have filled in the form you
provide for me to confirm my identity and so recover the account and each time
the application has been rejected for giving insufficient information. The final rejection said that you would
consider no further applications.
I have given you all the
information I have available.
I do not know what
Text*******72 means, nor am I ware of a “Code” which I could send.
You will see from my date of
birth (04/09/1937),for which you have asked several times, that I am not of the
generation which is all that necessarily au
fait with modern communications technology: hence this letter by snail
mail.
I have no recollection of
having told you or anyone else my favourite
fictional character, but it is nearly ten yours since I opened this
Email account, so if I did I have certainly forgotten whom I chose.
I have only ever used one
password with this account, so cannot complete the other three boxes.
I have given you the topics
of four recent Emails, the names of four folders (though some of these may be
wrong as I may have confused them with folders on Word) and the Email addresses
of four recent correspondents. (Incidentally
one of my correspondents was reluctant for me to divulge his address as he
suspected the form might be a scam – maybe it was).
Though incomplete the above
provides ample verification that I am who I claim to be, and not a hacker. Since my applications were rejected within
minutes of being sent I suspect they were never looked at by a person, but simply
rejected by a machine.
As you will appreciate, by
losing access to this account I have lost my entire list of Email contact
addresses along with much information which is important to me on Emails which
have been saved. In addition, many
acquaintances who contact me by Email will presume I am ignoring them when I
fail to respond, and I have no means of alerting them to any new Email address
as I don’t know their addresses. There
are also several organisations which contact me by Email and on whose
communications are important to me.
If you really feel that the
above information is insufficient to verify my identity then to make certain
you could phone me on the number which is given on all my Emails and I shall be happy to assure you that I am who I claim
to be.
Yours faithfully.
Over two weeks later there has been no response.
In addition, using http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php I've found two telephone numbers for them:
020 3027 6039 and 0800 7318 457
Both are permanently engaged.
My potential may be modest, but I'd be a lot nearer to reaching it if they'd have the courtesy to lift a telephone, verify that I am who I am, and restore to me my contacts and carefully saved records.
Any advice on how to prod them into action would be gratefully received.
Monday 10 November 2014
Remembrance of things past - and present.
That yesterday's news bulletins first recorded that the Queen had laid a wreath to commemorate the sacrifices of those of Britain and the Commonwealth who had fought to end wars and then went on to tell us that the US had successfully bombed a convoy and perhaps killed a senior Islamic State leader is a sad reminder that, like the Bourbons, we have forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
One after another the commentators tell us that, because this is the hundredth anniversary of the start of the Great War, this year's ceremonies (and presumably the next four) have a special poignancy. Sadly, however, in Britain they continue to be essentially exercises in a backward-looking nationalism which sentimentalise and sanitise the real nature of war, whilst ignoring the cause of war, which is a failure of politics.
In Jonathan Jones's opinion the sea of 886 246 ceramic poppies, each representing a "British" death, in the moat surrounding the Tower of London, "nurtures the world view of UKIP." I find it difficult to avoid the view that the stereotypical ceremonies, with their marching bands, military commands, bugles and flaunted medals do something similar.
Surely this poignant anniversary should be used to broaden and deepen our understanding of wars, their causes and their tragic consequences. Should we not also mourn the losses of all the combatant nations? The numbers from the Great War tell a humbling story. The principal ones were, in round figures (apologies for that) at a minimum:
Germany: 1 800 000
Russia: 1 700 000
France: 1 350 000
Austro-Hungary: 1 300 000
Britain and Commonwealth: 900 000
Turkey: 325 000
United States: 116 000
Figures for the Second World War are equally horrifying and illustrate in particular, and again, the massive sacrifice made by the Russians.
It was a noted improvement to see and hear a German youth take part in the British Legion's shockingly misnamed "Festival" of Remembrance in the Albert Hall on Saturday evening. Surely there is cope for extending participation to create a truly international event.
We could extend the flower symbolism to include the remembrance flowers of other nations. For France it is the cornflower (le bleuet), for Germany I believe the marguerite, or perhaps the forget-me-not (my Google researches have not been very productive: perhaps someone can adjudicate on that and add to the list). Ubiquitous as the poppy is for "British" remembrance, I'm not so sure it conveys the appropriate message. The final stanza of John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" on which its use is based, begins:
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
which seems to be a call for continued belligerence.
Redirecting our remembrance in these significant centenary years to exploring ways of avoiding further wars, and resolving our difference through politics and diplomacy would better bring about the peace for the souls of the sacrificed which McCrae calls for in his final lines:
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Alas instead of making a positive contribution to the EU, founded to avert a future European catastrophe, our politicians use the vocabulary of war to seek "victory" over each petty dispute, and threaten, like petulant schoolboys, to take our bat home if the "the enemy" does not accede to our every whim. And our red-top press cheers them on.
If you want to make a gesture in a more constructive direction, White Poppies are available from the Peace Pledge Union, I Peace Passage, London N7 0BT, or http://www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/
Saturday 8 November 2014
Cameron paints himself into a corner.
So far I've regarded the threats of an "In-Out" referendum on Britain's continued membership of the EU as so much sound and bluster signifying very little. I have assumed that, if it were to take place, there would be some sham negotiations with he rest of the EU, tiny changes would be heralded as great victories (as per Harold Wilson's re-negotiation in 1975), the establishment, including the Tories, would close ranks, we'd vote overwhelmingly to remain in (again as per 1975, though probably by not so much as the two to one majority achieved then) and life would go on much as usual.
Recent events however, make me less sanguine.
First the Scottish Referendum has demonstrated quite clearly that we're no longer as dutiful and deferential to the will of the establishment as we were forty years ago. All three major parties, the banks, industry and, I think, the trades unions, all ganged up together to insist that the Kingdom was better off United and that a "Yes" vote for Scotland's independence would pitch them so far into economic outer darkness that they'd have to exist on gruel for the rest of their days.
True the majority voted "No," but the margin, though not as narrow as some of the opinion polls predicted, was narrow enough to have frightened the living daylights out of the powers that be. We may not be so lucky in a referendum on Europe.
Secondly, although Cameron is a skilful negotiator (he certainly stitched up we Liberal Democrats in the negotiations for the formation of the coalition, in particular on reforms of the electoral system and the second chamber) it is difficult to see how he can wriggle out of his commitment to end the free movement of labour, - or else, against the determined opposition of Angela Merkel and most of the other members,
Admittedly, the Tory PR machine is adept at turning a non-event (eg Osborne's claim that he has halved the surcharge on Britain's contribution when we should have received that amount as a rebate in any case) as a glorious victory, but there is a real possibility of Cameron's being forced to eat his words and campaign for a British exit.
So if we are to avoid Britain's' being cast into outer darkness economically, politically and probably culturally, it is more important than ever that the Tories should play no part in the next government.
Monday 3 November 2014
Spending the 0.7%
In an earlier post I've welcomed David Cameron's tenacity in making sure that the Coalition stuck to its promise to reach the target of earmarking 0.7% of GDP for aid to poorer countries. A few weeks ago I was dismayed, to put it mildly, to hear a couple of relatively senior Liberal Democrats say they felt that keeping this pledge was foolish and unnecessary. Their argument seemed to be that the the Department for International Development (DFID) is now awash with cash that it doesn't know what to do with.
Well, if that is the case, then DFID needs to think a bit more proactively.
The rich world's tardy response to the Ebola epidemic is a classic example of a need that could have been met promptly but wasn't. This disease has been around since the 1970s but the rich world has done little if anything about it. Only when the developed world, and particularly the US, felt itself threatened have the alarm bells rung and preventative measure and the search for a suitable vaccine put into top gear.
Let's hope they are successful, but we must ask ourselves how many lives would have been saved and how much fear avoided if the rich world, with our vast resources, had been ready.
The current Ebola outbreak as so far killed some 5 000 people out of about some14 000 infected. Remaining within the sphere of health, tuberculosis kills some 1.7 million a year, and malaria 800 000. About one in ten of the world's population lacks access to safe water and over one in three lack adequate sanitation, which leads leads to approximately 14 000 deaths, mostly children, per day.
So there's plenty of scope for research and development in the medical area. The neo-liberals' beloved market forces won't prompt the private pharmaceutical companies to do the work, as the potential beneficiaries don't have the money to buy the products. In economics "demand," in the famous "demand and supply" paradigm, means not just wanting something, but "effective demand", is desire for something backed by the ability and willingness to pay for it. So Big Pharma concentrates instead on treatments for such as erectile dysfunction and depilation, for which there's a demand backed by money. The world's most prevalent diseases therefore present an area wide open for states with the money to step in and fill the gap.
Much the same could be argued in the spheres of education and social, physical and civic infrastructure.
To say "we" can't afford it is nonsense. Africa, with its population of 1.111 billion, has a total total GDP of $2.263 billion. The UK's total GDP is sightly larger at $2.663bn and our population is just under 64 million.
Yes, I know that more than just money is needed to solve the problems of world poverty, but lack of money is in most spheres a serious hindrance.
So still three cheers for Cameron, and Liberal Democrats in high places need to remember that it is a great principal of Liberalism that our concern for the poor and needy does not stop at the shores of this county.
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