HAS THE LEFT BLOWN ITS BIG CHANCE ?

Asks Andy Beckett in the Guardian and at Socialist Unity.

in Britain and most comparable countries the left is not thriving. Quite the opposite. The Brown government’s mild tilt to the left has made it no more popular. At the European elections in June, left-leaning parties, whether in office or opposition, cautious or militant, were trounced across the continent. Votes went instead to mainstream conservative parties or far right and anti- immigration groups. Over the summer the broader political debate, particularly in Britain, has shifted in the same direction: “The crisis of the financial markets has become a crisis of public spending – it’s incredible!” says Hilary Wainwright, editor of leftwing magazine Red Pepper. “Public servants are going to be scrutinised down to the last paperclip, while bankers are not going to be scrutinised down to the last million they have received from the government.”

Has the left missed its moment?

Why, yes, says Laban, repeating himself here and here. But it was a comment by 'socialist' StevieB that struck me :

StevieB - “the USSR was better than capitalism because it raised the living standards of the workers and peasants far higher than the previous capitalist regime had. The revolution allowed the USSR to become a substantial economic power.”

These two things were in fact inversely related. The USSR became a substantial power in the 1930s by depressing personal consumption (aka living standards’) to levels which kept the population in poverty and starved several million, but which enabled the government to massively expand education, the military, aviation and heavy industry. Just in time for WW2, as it happened.

Similarly levels of personal consumption are relatively low in China today, though nowhere near Soviet levels and due to a high savings ratio rather than confiscation, which enables the government to expand etc etc.

In the West, by contrast, personal consumption is actually higher then GDP in many countries - the difference being made up by borrowing. Not a sustainable scenario.

This got me thinking about education. When the Soviets expanded education, it was real education, with right and wrong answers. They wanted - and needed - engineers, chemists, agronomists, vets, metallurgists. They weren't targeted on how many peasants' offspring got to college, nor less did they want to dumb down grades to exhibit their glorious sucesses - they needed large numbers of real, competent people to face a real potential challenge.

In the UK now we expand (using borrowed money) psychology, media studies, sociology, while physics departments close. The purpose of education is increasingly to make HMG (and young people) feel good about themselves, rather than to meet perceived national needs (quite apart from education being good in itself).

And if we find we still need 'real' educated people ? Import them.

Reality 1, Satire 0 (again)

Former head of the BBC Greg Dyke, ex John Lewis chairman Sir Stuart Hampson and former Second Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief of Naval Home Command Vice-Admiral Sir Adrian Johns are among the patrons of the new National Leadership Council which will look into leadership and how to improve standards within the NHS. They will be joined by Daniel Goleman, author of the international best seller 'Emotional Intelligence', and Dr Gary Kaplan, chairman and CEO of the Virginia Mason Medical Centre in Seattle, Washington.

One medic out of five to provide leadership to the NHS. Words fail me.

Greg Dyke ? and some pointy-head ?

A Nasty Argument ...

Labour councillor Luke Akehurst on why people who sell fruit and veg by the pound are criminals :

"Most traders have complied with the legislation - so why should a minority who refuse to comply be allowed to get away with it?"

"Everyone else has obeyed us, what's YOUR problem ?"

Mr Akehurst is (by proxy) exhibiting power - letting everyone know who's in charge.

You can see parallels in the business world, too. A new director or chief exec in charge of the Acme Widget company will dream up "The Acme Behaviours" - a set of key values and behaviours which will "define the company and the way it does business" (actually the dreaming up will be by some ambitious young smoothie in marketing, 18 months out of uni).

For the next few years, until the exec gets the chop or it gets quietly forgotten, everyone at Acme presenting a project or new initiative will be required to get sign-off on compliance with the Behaviours. Every document will have its behaviours check-boxes. The staff and lower management will see a blizzard of posters, mugs, training sessions and mousemats. Every ambitious climber - right up to board level - will need to demonstrate how fully bought-in they are.

The actual content of the Behaviours will be a mixture of apple-pie stuff ("we won't rip the customers off") and additional boxes which will need to be ticked. Some of the ideas may be foolish - but these, as we shall see, serve an important function.

There'll be widespread cynicism - especially among the lags who've already seen 13 similar initiatives in 15 years. But it doesn't matter. Indeed, the more ridiculous the ideas, the better. That's why Mr Akehurst's so keen on protecting the people of Hackney from the monsters in their midst, with their Imperial scales and pounds of bananas.

Because the point is not to make the company better, but to publicly demonstrate that you can enforce your will on your inferiors. It's the equivalent of the top dog making all the others roll on their backs submissively, the gangsta making a captured enemy footsoldier lick his shoes, or the Assassin leader Rashid al-Din Sinan impressing a visiting Crusader lord by asking two of his followers to jump to their deaths from the castle tower (they did so at once).

In local government and education, the creepy "Every Child Matters" initiative currently serves the function of the Acme Behaviours. It won't stop kids being beaten to death or left in burning flats, but it lets everyone (i.e. the staff - in this case local government employees and school governors - the poor consumers are only there to have "services" "delivered" to them) know who's boss.

Which brings us nicely back to Mr Akehurst, and his outrageous follow-up comment.

"One of the reasons why Hackney has often been in a mess in the past is the misconception that the rule of law stops east of the A10 and a merry state of anarchy prevails. One of the ways in which you squeeze out major crime, as shown in New York, is by zero tolerance of all the minor law and rule breaking too."

That is absolutely breathtaking. William Bratton's police force were concerned about crimes which increased the perception of lawlessness - graffiti, panhandling, riding the subway with no ticket, littering, drunkenness, abusiveness, pickpocketing, soliciting, petty theft. How many people in Hackney feel less safe when they see someone selling veg from Imperial scales ?

Either he knows the "Broken Windows" comparison is nagombi and he's scrabbling for any justification he can find - in which case he's utterly cynical - or he really believes it - in which case he's idiotic. Either way it does him no credit.




Oh - and this morning it was announced that HMG are calling off the attack dogs. I'm sure Mr Akehurst will regret it, but it looks as if we may no longer read in the news about hardened villains convicted "of selling mackerel at £1.50 a pound".

Things Fall Apart, the Centre Cannot Hold ...

It looks as if the plans are being put in place for when it all goes pearshaped :

7. At the same time we need to recognise that community tensions can escalate into violent disorder and that short-term and possibly unpredicted factors, in this country or abroad, have the potential to trigger conflict in normally cohesive communities. These factors may include a racially or religiously motivated assault, an act of terrorism, or military conflict.

8. Arrangements for monitoring and responding to rises in community tension already occupy an important place in ongoing local community cohesion activity. The Government believes that it is vital for every local authority and its partners to consider developing a local cohesion contingency plan which sets out the roles, responsibilities and processes to be activated should local community tensions be assessed as likely to result in serious violence or disturbance and in the event of actual disorder occurring.

The good news is that local authorities in general, and NuLab in particular, are legendarily incompetent.

This ghastly bureaucratic questionnaire reminds us of those mentioned in the satire The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek.

The similarities between the incompetent police state bureaucracy just before the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the First World War, and that which has been instituted by the failing Labour regime and with its "Community Cohesion" snooping and "intervention", are remarkable...

In the satirical novel, the bureaucratic Sergeant Flanderka mistakes The Good Soldier Švejk for an enemy Russian rather than a Czech soldier, and, in order to make himself appear more important to his superiors, even exaggerates this mistake by convincing himself that Švejk must actually be an elite high ranking Russian officer spy.

We expect that exactly the same will happen with this "tension monitoring" nonsense. Either people will just "go through the motions" and tick all the "everything is ok here" boxes, or else some apparatchik, ambitious for promotion, or fearful of having their funding cut back, will exaggerate and invent "community tension" where none actually exists, to cast themselves in a good light.

Will such Local Authority "little Hitlers" be tempted to make disproportionate use of their Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act powers for Communications Traffic Data and Directed Surveillance, using "tension monitoring" as an excuse ?.

Yup. (via the Englishman)

UPDATE - it's interesting to see the successful application of media pressure. Local authorities are among the biggest advertisers in local papers, so it wouldn't take more than a phone call or two to get the message across.

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council - Tameside holds regular meetings with local newspaper editors to gather information and stop sensationalist reporting which might otherwise start or add to rising tensions, e.g. in response to a Kick Racism out of Football campaign, an extremist political group wanted to picket a local football stadium. A local newspaper was going to print the story on its front page – an action that was likely to bring unwanted publicity to the picket and fuel rising community tensions. The intervention of the Community Cohesion Partnership prevented the story from being run and in the event no-one turned out for the picket.

Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council - The Berwick Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) is working with the local press/media to vet stories involving migrant workers from eastern Europe and Portugal employed in the food processing and agricultural sectors to prevent stigmatisation.

Can't say plainer than that, can you ? And how about this ?

Monitoring political extremism
60. Local tension monitoring may take specific account of activities by members of any political group which increase community tension.
61. It is important that the gathering and use of such information complies with any legislation which might be relevant (for example the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998).

Now I seem to recall that RIPA was sold to the Great British Public as a means of preventing terrorism and organised crime, not for monitoring "activities by members of any political group". Silly me.

Oh Dear

"Music is an essential part of Western culture and British music dates back centuries. Pop music in particular has played an important role in British culture and the success of ‘Britpop’, which includes influences from several cultures, is an indicator of the multi-cultural nature of Britain today."

Sport also plays an important role in White British culture with many sports enjoying a rich history in the country. Football is the national sport and immensely popular with all ages. Tennis is also considered a national sport with the oldest and most prestigious competition in the World being held in Wimbledon."

Bury Metropolitan District Council explain "White British Culture" to ... who exactly ?

The British also enjoy home-made desserts such as apple pie, rhubarb crumble and bread and butter pudding. Britain is famous for fish and chips which dominate the take-away food sector with a ‘chippy’ on every corner. British cuisine has also been influenced by multi-cultural diversity and curry has become an integral part of British cuisine, so much so that, since the late 1990s, Chicken Tikka Masala has been commonly referred to as the “British national dish”

I try to avoid using four-letter Anglo-Saxon words. In this case, it's a pity. While I deprecate those commenters whose first reaction is to call for a rope and a lamp post every time they read something they don't like, for the perpetrator of this - probably not the actual writer, some poor ex-local paper journalist now doing council media relations - but the guy who commissioned this - not hanging, not quartering, not even drawing will suffice. Perhaps the treatment handed out by William the Bastard to the leading citizens of Alencon, after they shouted the 11th century equivalent of 'yer Mum!' will do.

"You all remember," said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, "you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk. History," he repeated slowly, "is bunk."

He waved his hand; and it was as though, with an invisible feather wisk, he had brushed away a little dust, and the dust was Wessex, was Londinium, was Halidon Hill, was Agincourt and Crecy; some spider-webs, and they were Lincoln and Hastings and York and Worcester and Flanders and Alamein. Whisk. Whisk–and where was Matilda, where was Harold, where were Edwin and Morcar and Cromwell, Kitchener and Montgomery? Whisk–and those specks of antique dirt called Dalriada and Powys, Iona and the Heptarchy–all were gone. Whisk–the place where Ireland had been was empty. Whisk, the cathedrals; whisk, motte and bailey, cruck-frame and shieling, broch and pele tower, whisk, whisk, Beowulf and the Mabinogion. Whisk, Passion; whisk, Requiem; whisk, Symphony; whisk …

Flaying would be an acceptable fallback.

Quote Of The Day

From this Polly Toynbee thread, credited to Larry Elliot :

"Only counter-revolutionary defeatism could explain the failure of the masses to appreciate just how good life was under Labour....the voters greeted the litany of achievements with the same sort of world-weary cynicism characteristic of the Soviet populace under Brezhnev; they assumed the figures were meaningless and that the real beneficiaries of the extra spending were the bureaucrats. They were right on both counts."

I imaigine the quote is from his book. The nearest I can find on the web is this piece, also quotable.


"The sad truth is that nobody in Britain has built a major manufacturing company from scratch since the time of the Attlee Labour government in 1945. All our major manufacturers pre-date the second world war. And yet countries that didn't exist, were only partially literate or were engaged in endless conflict 20, 35 or 45 years ago have managed to build major manufacturing businesses from scratch."

This is not just about competition from low-cost rivals. If globalisation was really to blame for Britain's industrial decline, the same effects would be seen in Finland and Sweden, where costs are even higher. Medium-high technology manufacturing comprises only 3.6% of the UK economy, compared with 9.6% in Germany and 6.5% in Sweden.

How have these countries managed to succeed where Britain has not? My guess is that they are more hard-nosed about it. They probably don't think the development of "soft skills" is a substitute for knowledge; they don't think "emotional intelligence" is a substitute for real intelligence and they don't think whizzy schemes for tax avoidance are on a par with dominance of the global mobile telephone business.

"the voluntary option has failed"

Just when you think there's nothing left you can despise them for ...

The government will reintroduce powers to ban strikes by prison officers in England and Wales, months after a surprise walkout by 20,000 staff. Justice Secretary Jack Straw said he had "no alternative" but to seek reserve powers, if a voluntary no-strike deal cannot be reached.

Now I can understand, even if I might disagree with, a government wishing to make strikes by key 'security' staff illegal. After all, the Army can't go on strike - it's called mutiny, something people used to get shot at dawn for.

But what really gets my goat is that this bunch of cretins repealed the existing (Tory-legislated) law themselves ! Although in fairness it must be said that Blunkett - for it was he - seems to have been pretty straight with them at the time.

Mr Blunkett admitted the new "partnership approach" would look "very odd" from the outside, but it was "actually for the best of outcomes".

"If we have got a no strike agreement and they wish to remove the order that imposed that nine years ago, and that will change the whole nature of their response to the reform agenda that I am putting in place, then it makes sense from my point of view to do that," he said. "Were the voluntary agreement to break down, we would have the authority and power under the law to bring back the requirements that would protect the prison service and protect the public. I think from their point of view the restoration of union rights and the ability to voluntarily agree with us rather than have something imposed makes a difference. It may be psychological. It may be a pyrrhic victory, but if that is necessary to change people's attitude and to back the new leadership who want reform, who want to modernise the system, then let's go for it."

So he was straight with them that the lifting of the ban didn't actually mean a thing. And what did the union, the POA, say at the time ?

"It means quite a lot to us - infact a great deal," he said. "What it does mean is that we have a right to ask our members their views, gives us a right to ballot our members for their views and it gives us a right to enter a partnership and a partnership of equals."

So the union were quite willing to be sweet-talked, although they knew it meant damn-all in reality ? What about the Tories, who when in power had introduced the ban ?

Shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin said the proposal seemed "perfectly sensible". "If you can have peaceful and cordial relationships and yet be sure that there will not be strikes in the prisons then this is a sensible relationship," he told the same Radio 4 programme.

So it's not (just) this government who think that government by signifier, by mood music, by gesture, is the way to go about things. The unions and the Tories agree. I have to despise them all.

Pointless

Reckless or repeated breaches of data security should become a criminal offence, a committee of MPs has said. Currently, government departments cannot be held criminally responsible for data protection breaches. But a report (pdf) on the "truly shocking" loss of 25m people's personal details by HM Revenue and Customs, the Commons justice committee demands tougher laws. The government welcomed the report and said it was considering measures to toughen up the Data Protection Act.

So the Government will fine itself. Brilliant. Government by signifier again. I suppose the money could come from the relevant departmental budget - but what good would that do except presumably reduce the effectiveness (if any) of said department ? It's like fining Network Rail for skimping on maintenance - thus leaving less money for maintenance.

UPDATE - David Cameron takes another leaf from the Nu Labour textbook. He'll soon have more of it than they have. This is a man who understands gesture politics as well as anyone.

David Cameron has defended his proposal to penalise hospitals for each patient who picks up an infection. In a speech, he said English hospitals should lose part of their tariff for each patient if that person contracted MRSA or Clostridium difficile. But the British Medical Association said it would put hospitals off treating the most vulnerable patients. Mr Cameron told the BBC "payment by results" was the best way to ensure NHS staff prioritised infection control.

Another Day, Another "Crackdown"

Charles Clarke follows the iron law of Nu Labour.

"Don't enforce the existing law, pass some new ones."

The Home Secretary has always had the power to deport foreign nationals whose presence is not considered to be in the public interest. He's just not used it.

I wrote a while back that I didn't see why any foreign national guilty of more than a traffic offence shouldn't be deported. I must admit I was surprised to find Charles Clarke agreeing.

Mr Clarke said among his proposals to sort out the problem of removing foreign criminals was the "guiding principle that foreign nationals guilty of criminality should expect to be deported".

If I thought for one moment that that was what would actually happen, I'd be very pleased. There's not a cat in hell's chance.

I'll be surprised if many Labour MPs support it. They're just keeping their heads down until the council elections are over. Can you see Jeremy Corbyn and the awkward squad lining up in the lobbies ?

It'll be fought in the courts by 'civil liberties' groups. Yesterday Shami Chakrabarti, who spends more time in the Today studio than in her own office, raised the spectre (RealAudio) of the 'starving asylum seeker who steals a loaf of bread'.

The papers are full of such cases.

"The only gunman to survive the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London may be freed from prison and granted asylum in the UK, BBC News has learned."

It won't be implemented at ground level by police, prison or Home Office staff for whom an accusation of racism is professional death. Look at the proposals :

"Data that identifies individuals as foreign nationals must be "captured" at the beginning of the criminal justice system including at the point of arrest and as the case proceeds through the courts"

And this will be done by ... ?

You've got two options whan someone's arrested. You can try to make ALL prisoners prove their nationality - in which case remand places will need to be quintupled while Dave Smith from Romford and Jamal Al-Hadji are banged up together, awaiting the arrival of the birth certificates. Or you can use your skill and judgement ... how ?

Fifty years ago it would have been easy. A dark skin or a strange accent. Now there are millions of UK citizens with both. Do I hear a cry of 'racial profiling' ? There'd still be lots of people (though not so many) banged up awaiting the birth certificates - but black or Asian Brits would be over-represented. I can just see the Met and the Chief Constables going big for this one.

Sanctions should be available at all stages to use against individuals who give false information on nationality or no information at all.

Those sanctions being ... ? I can just see the Indie front page now as poor Lemba gets here only to be banged up.

And in the end, no-one will be interested in enforcing it. Part of getting on in an organisation is knowing what the superiors really care about and what gets lip service. Anyone at a low level who genuinely took this seriously would find it a career-threatening move.

No, it's another crackdown. One of the worst features of this administration is that the law has become just another signifier, a form of advertising. These proposals aren't there to address the problems of foreign criminals preying on the citizens of the UK. They're there to address the political problem of a (correct) public perception that the administration in general, and Mr Clarke in particular, couldn't organise a drinks party in a Majestic Wine Warehouse.