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/

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.

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.

Keeping the Liberal Democrats on the straight and narrow

Last week I had occasion to send the following letter to our Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) in a nearby constituency

                                                                                                20^th  October, 2014

Dear Liberal Democrat PPC,

A friend of mine, a confirmed Labour Party supporter, attended one of your meetings recently – I believe it was a meeting of your MP and all the PPCs  -  and has told me he was very impressed by you, but that you pushed the usual line of the Coalition’s “clearing up the economic mess left by Labour.”

I know this is the line currently adopted by our leaders and particularly Danny Alexander, but it is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.  Briefly:

• Gordon Brown was quite “prudent” for most of his time as Chancellor, running a budget surplus for several years and, before the crash, bringing the Debt/GDP ratio down to some 40% (well below the “respectable “ level of 60%).  Indeed the Debt/GDP ratio in 2007, before the crash, was lower than that inherited from the Conservatives when Labour took office in 1997 after umpteen years of Tory rule. *
• The economic “mess” was caused by irresponsible behaviour by the financial sector made possible by the policy of deregulation introduced by the Tories, who would have undoubtedly ridiculed any attempts to tighten regulation  in the period up to 2008.  In fact, they (and we) haven’t done much since;
• Gordon Brown may not have saved the world, but his prompt action  through the G8 in 2017/8 most certainly helped avoid an even more serious crisis  and is much praised in the rest of the developed world, and  especially in the US;
• As a result of Alistair Darling’s mildly expansionary budgets the British economy was actually growing and the current deficit falling when Labour lost office and the Coalition took over;
• George Osborne’s first and subsequent budgets halted this growth, and produced several years of stagnation from which the economy is only now showing hesitant signs of recovery.  Neither of Osborne’s declared aims, of retaining our AAA rating and eliminating the current deficit within the parliament, have been achieved.

A friend and fellow Liberal/Liberal Democrat over half a century has spelt out the true nature of the economic situation and the effects of the policy of “austerity” in the enclosed booklet,** which I hope you will read. You may also like to look at my blog keynesianliberal.blogspot.com and my article in Liberator 365.

For more authoritative confirmation of these views you could read the articles of Bill Keegan in the Observer, Larry Elliott in the Guardian and Simon Wren-Lewis’s blog, mainly macro.

The Conservatives excellent PR machine has successfully sold the fallacy of Labour’s responsibility for the economic situation and even the pretence that the Coalition’s economic policy is a success.  You may feel that there are short term advantages in jumping on this dishonest bandwagon, but I believe that we shall not restore respect for our democratic system unless and until we are prepared to treat the electorate as adults and tell the truth.

Before the last election Nick Clegg campaigned on the promise of greater honesty in politics.  We should hold him to it and campaign accordingly.

With best wishes for a successful, and honest, campaign,

Peter Wrigley.

*Not in the original letter but added at the suggestion of John Cole

** You can receive an E-copy  of this pamphlet by Emailing john.cole6744@gmail.com

Package "pilgrimage" to the Battlefields

For the past eighteen months or so I've been helping a former colleague and former pupil compile a record of the Old Boys of the school we all attended who fell in the First World  War.  The bulk of the work has been done by the former pupil who, as an ex Chief Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard, has considerable investigative skills, so the finished compilation contains an astonishing amount of fascinating detail.

As a "post script" to our efforts the former colleague and I decided to go on a  Battlefields coach tour, which lasted five days and from which we've just returned.  Unfortunately the ratio of travelling time  to time on the battlefields was exceptionally high- two full days of travelling to get there and back, and at least half the time spent on the coach on the two  "battlefields" days, since it was  an hour's  drive from our hotel, in Zeebrugge, to Ypres and Passchendaele on the first day, and a two hours' drive to the site of the Somme battles on the second day.  The third  day was spent on touring unrelated to the battles, but included an obligatory visit to a chocolate factory.

 I strongly advise anyone planning a similar trip to check that their hotel is central to the things they wish to see, and not, as I suspect may be the case on this occasion, the result of a good deal offered by the hotel to the tour company.

I've visited War Cemeteries several times before, normally alone, and found the experience very moving.  Perhaps because of the Centenary of the start of the War there were in this week many school parties.  I'm not convinced of the value of this.  Youngsters  are adept at turning whatever they do into a "fun" experience, and who can blame them?  The more appropriate reverence and contemplation are not highly developed skills in adolescence, especially in large groups with mates to impress.  Surely small family groups would be more appropriate.  And surely primary school children are far too young to gain any real benefit.

Allan Bennett has, I believe, some trenchant things to say about touristic voyeurism on the sites of the concentration camps.  I suspect the commercialisation of the battlefields similarly degrades the memory of the victims.

We passed between France and Belgium several times but I never noticed the frontier.  This is what all Europe should be like: a merged Union with different customs and languages*  and free passage from one area to another.  The nonsense of passport checks, carried out by the British Border Agency officials in their  sinister all-back uniforms before being allowed to re-enter the UK, marks us out as the Neanderthals of the Union.

I wonder how many of the two-thirds of our electorate  who failed to vote in the recent EU election, or the third of those who did but voted for the party that wants to leave, realise that the founding purpose of the Union is that their children and grandchildren will not lie under grave stones in a beautifully-kept military cemetery, or have their names inscribed among the missing but "known unto God" on a future  Menin Gate or Thiepval Memorial?

Both Conservative and Labour parties should challenge UKIP not by adopting its policies but by putting forward the positive case for Europe and peace.

*Both Zeebrugge and Bruges are aggressively Flemish.  Having spent much of the last decade trying to improve my French I'd have appreciated some Canadian-style insistence on bilingualism on all signes and descriptions. 

Post Script (added 18/10/14)

The following is a footnote, part of the poem In Parenthesis , the experiences of a serving soldier, by David Jones.  It seems to confirm  my unease about "battlefield tourism."

Cook’s Tourist to the Devastated Areas –

This may appear to be an anachronism, but I remember in 1917 discussing with a friend the possibilities of tourist activity if peace ever came.  I remember we went into details and wondered if the unexploded projectile lying near us would go up under a holiday-maker, and how people would stand to be photographed on our parapets.  I recall feeling very angry about this, as you do if you think of strangers ever occupying a house you live in, and which has, for you, particular associations.

Clegg shows courage, but not enough.

On Sunday Andrew Marr challenged Nick Clegg with the question:  "Surely that means you'll have to raise taxes?"

"Yes, of course!" was Nick's prompt response: no hesitation, prevarication, evasions or avoidance - and he went on to list some of the taxes Liberal Democrats would like to increase  (capital gains tax for one, reduction in pension tax relief for another.)  In this and other interviews Nick showed himself to be direct, honest, brave, informed, unflappable and personable.

This morning a BBC presenter on Radio 4's "Today" programme stated, without any qualification, that everyone acknowledges  further cuts in government expenditure will be necessary after the election, whoever wins.  I sincerely wish that Nick's courage would extend to challenging this unquestioning acceptance of Tory perception management.

In an earlier post I've outlined how the two mildly expansionary Keynesian-style budgets introduced by the previous government actually had the predictable effect of both reducing the government deficit  and generating economic growth, and how George Osborne's "austerity " equally predictably placed this recovery into reverse.

A friend, by no stretch of the imagination a Liberal Democrat, has drawn my attention to this further evidence, from Australia, that Keynesian stimulus of the economy still works.This quotation is directly form an article by Aditya Chakrabortty in September 2013:

Australia is now enjoying its 22nd year of growth: during the Great Recession , the country managed to avoid any recession at all.  How?  By warding off a global downturn with what Nobel prize-winning  economist Joseph Stiglitz described as "probably the best designed   stimulus package of any. . .advanced industrial country, both in size and in design. . . .

Using the cry of "go early, go hard and go households" Rudd [Australia's prime minister at the time] chucked a total of A$52bn (£30bn) into the housing market, into refurbishing schools and roiling out broadband and other public works.  He even dolled out money, in the spring of 2009 giving the typical single worker A$900. . .The result is an economy in enviable nick,(my emphasis - pun accidental but very convenient) especially compared with other rich economies.

So Nick, along with much needed tax rises for those at the top of the tree, and modest tax cuts for those fortunate enough to pay income tax, lets have some cuts that will help everybody (how about VAT back to 15%, which will really stimulate demand) and a public works package which will generate jobs and incomes, increase tax receipts and so reduce the deficit whilst at the same time enabling us to to continue to provide a civilised social security safety-net.

You've shown yourself a man of courage.  Now have the courage of our party's historic convictions.

Render unto Caesar - and prove it

Apparently from today we no longer need to display a colourful tax disc on our car windscreens to demonstrate that we've paid our road tax.  The excuse is that it will save money  (possibly enough to buy a few more Cruise missiles) and the police have mysterious ways of knowing whether or not the tax has been paid.  This happens, presumably, only when the car is stopped by them for some other reason.

I believe the government is still advertising on television to persuade us to dobb in our neighbours if we think they're cheating on benefits. This, I fee,l is disgraceful, (as well as being very un-British - all the best public  school stories denigrate "sneaks") but the tax disc is a well accepted system and I see no harm in enabling our neighbours, and any casual passer-by, to to spot that we're tax-cheats if we display only an outdated disc, or none at all.

Indeed, I'd go further and adopt the French system, which requires vehicles to display not only a tax disc, but also proof of being insured - it's a small square and goes on the other side of the windscreen.  I suspect there are many more uninsured vehicles in Britain than there are untaxed ones, purely because a tax disc has until now to be displayed. And uninsured drivers tax the rest of us by imposing higher premiums on the payers in order to make up for their deficiencies.

On a topic that's only slightly related, it is mooted that the non-payment of the TV licence is to cease to be a criminal offence.  Tories in particular show a sudden and touching concern for the welfare of their fellow citizens too poor to pay their whack - whilst at the same time  voting enthusiastically to cut their social security payments even further.  Decriminalisation of non-payment is obviously a ploy to attack the BBC, who estimate that the change would cost them a £200m a year.

If the government is desperate to cut expenditure on the BBC then they could reasonably stop giving free licences to75+  year-olds such as me who could well afford to pay for one.  This would not involve means-testing:  just don't allocate free licences to those whose pensions or other incomes are sufficient for them to have to pay income-tax.  The same rule could apply to the winter fuel allowance, which one of my friends  refers to as his "winter wine" allowance