Peace in London and the world

It is almost incumbent on every London blogger to put down in words what the events of 7/7 mean. This is, right now, a fruitless task. However, it is happening already and we can already see the accusations flying, the causes, motivations and implications of the event conjured up whilst the dust is still settling.

What is more important is recognising that the rejection of war and terrorism arrives only from tirelessly working towards peace. Something few peoples and nations are achieving.

There is an important and poignant fact neglected by the world's excited journalists and serious politicians. Tavistock Square Gardens, situated next to where the last bomb exploded - the bus bomb, is London's peace park. You can get great panoramic views of the gardens here.

In the centre of the gardens is a statue of Gandhi sitting in the lotus position. In the cove at the base of the statue you can usually find notes and flowers dedicated to the Mahatma and those like him; notes left by people dedicated to doing small peaceful things. The well kept gardens also include a monument dedicated to conscientious objectors of war. Alongside the memory of radicals dedicated to building a peaceful world, is a memorial to the victims of Hiroshima, victims of one of most viscous acts of war in the history of humanity.

In the light of the cowardly acts perpetrated near these Gardens, it is the vision of a peaceful world that must endure. A vision that a short, reflective walk through Tavistock Square Gardens inspires.

No to ID Cards

If you oppose ID cards, please go to http://www.pledgebank.com/refuse and sign the pledge against ID cards.

If you have 10 minutes go to go http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ and see which way your MP voted. Then either support or castigate them by writing a short note to them using http://www.writetothem.com/.

General Election 3 - the visionless vision of New Labour

Here comes the big one. Two days before the election and its time to hear about the Labour Party manifesto.

Here is a link to the full read: http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto – all 112 pages of it. Below, in about three and half pages, you get all the detail, the comment and, as the process comes to its climax, you get the tortuous process going on in my head.

So, the Labour Party… what to say?

It was born of the British Labour movement, inspired by a German political philosopher, tamed and intellectualised by the Fabians and their ilk, emerged in the first half of the 20th century and then shaken about in the Tory dominated, globally weakening Britain of the second half of the 20th century. Then came New Labour and Tony Blair, and for the first time two consecutive victories for a left-of-centre political party this country has ever had! They, New Labour, Blair, Brown and even the majority of the labour movement that continues to back Labour, are on the cusp of a third term that could justify Blair’s millennial cry that this will be “Britain’s progressive century”.

What a journey these two terms have been. Do I need to remind you?

• Total acceptance of Thatcherite market ethos, deregulation and privatisation
• PPP and PFI pushed to its limit (i.e. into service delivery, not just restrained to overseeing the development of physical capital)
• Union rights only slightly revived
• No repeal of the Criminal Justice Act of 1994 (which killed of raves and gave us saccharine super-clubs), but instead an continuous attack on our civil liberties through a zealous exploitation of the fear of terrorism, an attack on the rights of asylum-seekers and the criminalisation of kids being naughty;
• Fudging over grammar schools, introduction of more tests at all ages, and failure to effectively reform A-levels
• Scraping foundation hospitals through parliament
• Commitment to targets that focus the professionals on the box to tick, not the service
• Centralisation of power into Blair and his mates and Tasmanian Devil like energy in passing legislation and Tasmanian Devil lack of care and forethought in their actions
• Complete cock-up of reform of the House of Lords
• And of course the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the ensuing fallout.

And there’s probably more…

However, there is also the good stuff. And that list is probably longer…

There’s been the introduction of the Human Rights Act and extensive expansion of equality of opportunity legislation, contributing to a more equal, freer and meritocratic society. We’ve seen a double in the NHS investment since 1997… double!!! The usual blurb is true: waiting lists are down, there are more doctors and nurses and they are working fewer hours, hopefully making them better professionals, and happier people.

We have seen the huge increase in education spending. This is my area. Whilst there have been a few blunders – usually because of the desire of Tony to interfere in the work of the Department of Education and Skills, e.g. when he foolishly thought that A-level were worth retaining – there has been some impressive improvements:

• 30% rise in teacher salaries, making teaching a desirable career choice for smartest people in society
• a similar increase in spending per pupil is ensuring that schools are buying the latest equipment (IT, books, environment), employing more teachers and support staff and being able to provide more quality professional development for teachers
• there is the astounding Building Schools for the Future project which is going to see half of all schools in England rebuilt, from scratch, knock ‘em down and start again. And about a third will be fully refurbished.
• there is the ICT in Schools programme, which has seen broadband enter into most schools and a rise in equipment so that there is one computer for every 8 kids. Children have/or will have access to digital cameras, wireless laptops, they learn from digital whiteboards and analyse science experiments using University quality equipment. This is the kind of stuff that costs huge wads of cash.

The Labour government has also quietly met its progressive tendencies. Whilst publicly pandering to the middle classes’ desire for secondary school choice, Labour have invested heavily in poor and inner-city areas, through programmes such as SureStart, Connexions, Excellence in Cities and education action zones. There has been mixed results and the impact has been slower than expected, but working class people are emerging as some of the biggest winners in the system – once again supporting a more equal, freer and meritocratic society. One of the most important things, however, is that in education policy making, a culture has been developed that is committed to evidence rather than ideology, supporting teachers rather than bashing them and a commitment to learning and caring for young people rather than continuous reductive statements about disciplining children and teaching “traditional” methods.

There’s, of course, the small thing about the Economy; rising employment leading to near full employment; the minimum wage; tax credits and targeted support for young families and pensioners and reducing child poverty. Britain, under Blair, has new power on the international stage, this is no doubt controversial. But, I have no qualms about being pleased about the role of Britain has in arguing for the elimination of Europe’s common agricultural policy (CAP), of creating a very anglicised EU constitution and on the Governments focus on Africa and climate change.

I am sure I will have missed many of the pro’s and the con’s of Labour’s record. This process is necessary to break down the new manifesto of 2005. Interestingly, the manifesto, titled “Britain, forward not back” is at its best when talking about their past achievements. I will not go through that again; I have given you my take on their record already.

The vision for the future is, unfortunately, a little disappointing and very boring. Time and again the manifesto misses this opportunity for setting out a bold third term vision by referring to a ‘whole-sale review’ of the issue. Two of the biggest areas of reform are left to these review:

• Reforms of Council Tax will be left to the Lyons Review. No brave stick-your-neck option like the Local Income Tax for Labour. In fact, on taxes, they continue to just offer more of the same, which I’m going to call “intelligent tinkering”. Intelligent, because it raises the state coffers without getting people in a hump; tinkering, because it involves a mix of tax breaks, credits, subsidies and investments for business on the one hand and on the other incremental rises in a range of taxes, most that you’ve never heard. This is a method that means more is spent on collecting tax system compared to if you were to be open about using progressive taxes (like income tax).
• The second cop-out is that the future of pensions is referred to the Pension Committee that will conveniently report in Autumn 2005!

Some of the other big disappointments include:

• There is barely anything on agriculture. Just a whimper – supporting rural post offices and creating new bus routes. Nothing on using regulation to control the power of supermarkets. No vision of the agricultural industry that is often reliant illegal workers, working under the minimum wage. But then this is a Government blinded by their belief in deregulation and free-markets.
• Democracy and the constitution – Labour has been a centralising government, so when there is a chapter entitled “Democracy: Power Devolved…”, it is worth double-checking. And sure enough devolution of power is whimsical, there are commitments like “new powers for parish councils to deal with anti-social behaviour” – woohoo, now that’s what I call democracy! They also make commitments to freeing up local councils from inspections. This is all a far cry from the more visionary boost to British democracy the liberal democrats were offering.

There are a range of commitments worth highlighting, some big, some small, and mostly positive:

• Full employment in every region and nation – let’s not forget that the “modern definition” of full employment being “employment opportunity for all” (p.17)
• Raise minimum wage from £5.05 to £5.35 (about 6% increase, i.e higher than the rate of inflation, but not massively)
• Continuing commitment to PFI to fund the tube, despite evidence of the private sector having a laugh at our expense
• Education – they are committed to give more power to parents, turning all schools into specialist schools, and creating 200 academies. This is tweaking, but on education - as long as Ruth Kelly goes – Labour are strong.
• There is very big idea for education. Labour is committed to give an entitlement to all young people, up to the age of 19, free education. Whilst not as costly, it is as visionary as free education up to the age of 16.
• There’s the usual bumf on crime. I think Camden is safer. The new community support officers (CSOs) were a brilliant idea, particularly for London. Labour introduced the Asbos (anti-social behaviour orders), which I was very hostile to initially, but are being used in Camden to rehabilitate and include rather than criminalise and exclude.
• On asylum issues there is usual mixing of it with immigration, and a “here are the facts, things are better – see less asylum seekers” approach. Fuck that. Labour were not tough enough to face the xenophobes and racists on immigration and asylum and have we have all paid the price. They have proposed a points system for immigration, which if you read the detail will reduce the movement of people from poor countries and increase it from rich. It’s a bit like Britain and the West’s approach to international trade!
• In the NHS it seems there are more promises of tweaking a bit like education. But somehow reading it, just like the education chapter, you know they are looking to build a more robust system that serves people better.
• The Child Trust Fund (CTF) is billed in the manifesto as “the World’s first example of a government ensuring that all children grow up with a financial stake”. This has the potential to be a truly progressive policy – redistribution of money is the sure fire way to equalise society, not good education or good health, but money. That is what the CTF will do. However the CTF is not new, it was launched in January.
• On international policy there is no mention of Iraq. But the Labour party will be reformist of but committed to Europe and have the same approach to the UN, the World Bank and IMF – once again tweaking, whilst trying to be all things to all people. Britain will “lead on” climate change, development for Africa, and fairer trade.

So that’s it. No policies to scare you into voting for the Tories, no major constitutional or tax reform like the Liberals, the Labour is about more of the same as before, just a little bit better – nothing to shock you to much, we don’t want another Iraq after all, but, look, we’ve stabilised the economy, we are moving to a full employment, we are a redistributing government, and we are placing health and education at the heart of British public society… I mean, what I am saying is... what more do you want?

This manifesto is the triumph of managerialist politics; the emphatic stamp of the politician as technocrat rather than ideologue or intellect. Chapter after chapter is incredibly boring – you have to really search for the gold, and there is some as I have indicated above. It is a vision of tweaking Britain into greatness.

The first time I came across this managerial politics was in Kenya, during the run-up to the 2001 election when Moi was finally disposed of. The parties weren’t arguing about ideology, there was no left or right, it was simply a matter of creating the right conditions where IMF and World Bank money would flow in, thereby stabilising local markets and encouraging foreign investment and increasing employment to increase the tax take and support a modicum of social investment. It was easy to understand that this was a shadow of democratic discourse. Kenyan public policy making was, crudely put, subject to American foreign policy and subservient to American, European and Japanese multinationals.

On reading Labour’s manifesto – the same feels true for Britain: free-markets and deregulation have been accepted by both Blair and Brown. Britain, as a very rich country has considerable room for manoeuvre, compared to a country like Kenya, and so can redistribute and invest heavily on health and education. But the Britain that Labour governs over is deeply divided and unequal. The party that emerged from the Labour Movement presides over a society where fewer people from lower classes get access to university places now than in the mid-sixties; a society in which 40 percent of young people, largely from poor socio-economic still fail at GCSE; a society which repays fat-cattery over the odds; a society that raises its borders as its neo-liberal international policies and trigger happy tendencies raise people’s lives to the ground.

When it is all said and done, Labour is a progressive government and will continue to be, Labour will attempt to make society more equal and meritocratic and Labour also has the most complete vision of Britain. However, terms such as “progressive”, “equal” and “meritocratic” are limited and our expectations of these terms reduced in this managerial political climate. Frankly, it is all a little dull.


All the same, here’s to staying up all night to watch the election!

General Election 2 - ruminating the Liberals

Just over one week to go. I have posted my analysis of the Tory party manifesto… next up is the Lib-Dems.

If you’ve been following the election coverage you’ve probably believe that the Liberal democrats are the anti-Iraq war party, the most left of the big three and the party straight about tax. Is that true? Find out by reading the full manifesto here, http://mobular.onlinedm.com/libdems/manifesto/england/, or read my take on it below.

Before I write my take, it’s important to note that this is a little harder than the Tory manifesto – first, it isn’t written in tabloid English, and, second, it actually has a complete set of proposals, both that explicitly compliment current Labour policies and those that challenge them. The Tory party manifesto is made up of a bunch of fairly feeble statements focusing on a range of fairly minor issues… just a reminder to be diligent against Howard and his Aussie (or should I say immigrant) labour…

The Lib-Dem manifesto is a leaf short of 40 pages and packs a lot of information in it. The general gist is not too dissimilar to the Tories approach – overall acceptance of the Blair-Brown consensus, with a tweaking approach. Unlike the Tories, the Lib-Dems’ tweaks include some big ideas. I highlight what I think are the big ideas here:

• the war – first, they wouldn’t have gone in at all, and second they want to set a timetable (guided by the UN) to get us out.
• Tax – the thing you’ll have heard is about placing a 50% tax on earnings over £100,000/year and you might have heard their plan to scrap Council Tax and introduce a local income tax – both in my mind eminently sensible…if only it were that easy and would have no negative externalities. But what is also interesting about the Lib-Dem tax approach is its real challenge to Labour’s ‘stealth taxes’. The Lib-Dems argue Brown has made the tax system more complicated, more bureaucratic, and ultimately more costly to manage. The Liberals would streamline taxes – supposedly. The lack of detail here is a missed opportunity.
• Their education proposals look bold, but I am not convinced by the possibility of meeting all their commitments. E.g. they have a commitment to recruit 21,000 new early years teachers to reduce class sized – good idea, but where are the teachers to come from? It’s been hard enough to raise the number of teachers under Labour in the last eight years and teacher salaries have increased massively. Also this policy will be funded by scrapping Labour’s Child Trust Fund – a policy that is more likely to have a greater impact to reducing inequality; cash in people’s hand. Their big, realistic, idea for education is their acceptance of the recent Tomlinson recommendations that would scrap GCSE’s and A-Levels and provide us with a unified 14-19 education system.
• They have proposals reducing the prison burden by not putting low-level, non-violent criminals into prison, but giving them ‘tough’ community work. The use of the word ‘tough’ is clearly a pander to those who think shitting on criminals makes society better. It is indicative of a party who still doesn’t read the electorate particularly well or perhaps a party that is trying to get both Tory and Labour votes.
• The Lib-Dems would scrap the DTI as part of a slash and burn approach to business regulation and ‘red-tape’. This is the only point where the liberal democrats resemble their Liberal heritage of the pre-first world war era.
• Interestingly, by cutting red-tape they would introduce a legal duty on all to trade fairly – sounds like a brilliant idea, but what does this mean in practice, how will it be enforced and what will be the bureaucratic load? They imply that supermarkets that push farmers prices down would fall foul of this fair trade law – sounds good, but again the lack of detail is woeful.
• For both the business and public sector the inspectorates would be rationalised and slimmed down – a positive vision as part of a less-regulated society and one that encourages and supports local autonomy and democracy.
• Scrap the Child Support Agency and hand its functions to the Inland Revenue – thought that was interesting, not sure of the impact.
• Their foreign and international policy is credible - Lib-Dems would work to eliminate nuclear weapon and lead for reform in the WTO, IMF and World Bank. Of course the Lib-Dems are pro Europe too.
• Scrap Vehicle and Excise Duty (road tax) and replace with a targeted tax that would weigh against you if you have a high polluting car, are in areas of good public transport and the traffic on the roads. They also support the widening of congestion charging, which was apparently their idea in the first place!
• They have a very strong green theme and have Green considerations on each page they explore how their policies can support a more environmentally conscious approach.

They are most eloquent in the last section entitled ‘Stop the Abuse of Power’. Shirley Williams’ waxes lyrical about Blair’s arrogant abuse of power, the mess of the House of Lords, the anti-democratic nature of the Labour government and its centralising tendencies. The Lib-Dems have a set of policies that would reinvigorate local democracy. However, even the Lib-Dems will not re-fuel the increasing democratic disengagement, which I believe is more about the impact of globalisation turning democracy into a contest of the best manager, rather than a contest of the ideas that inspire us to believe they will make society better – don’t be fooled by those who blame disengagement on postmodernism, blame the supremacy of multinationals.

Whilst on the power of MNCs, I was disappointed by one thing I didn’t read… there was no challenge to Labour’s public finance initiative or public-private-partnerships or Labour’s commitment to privatisation, whether it part or whole. It seems that these policies are here to stay and that they will ever more creep into the service end delivery of healthcare and education. Thereby compromising the public service ethic and fixing future Governments to pay high interest debts due to the blind faith in the private sector.

Overall, however, the Lib-Dems offer an impressive package. But despite their strengths – presenting an effective balance between liberalism and social-democracy – they are the Lib-Dems after all. Yes, the party led by Mr Kennedy, the party that have to sit out of harms way in the House of Commons, the party that will not get into power in 2005. Theirs is the manifesto unrestrained by the real prospect of Westminster power. With all their strengths there is something missing. Voting for the Lib-Dems there is no lure of power, only the boredom of tactics.


Up next will be the Labour party manifesto summary – the 120+ page manifesto – hopefully with no homoerotic photos of Blair and Brown…

General Election 1 - trashing the Tories

It’s election time.

Read the Tory party manifesto here: http://www.conservatives.com/pdf/manifesto-uk-2005.pdf. This would cost £2.50 in the shops!! But I bring it to you for free.

An important read, even if it’s all about knowing the enemy . However, if you cannot be arsed or feel insulted to read this document read my précis that’s as unbiased as Kennedy’s election blog or Blair’s election diary.

The manifesto is notable mainly for its complete acceptance of Blair/Brown politics…

…and then ridiculousness like:

• within a month “we will bring back Matron to take charge”. What, Matron from Carry On?
• the usual rubbish about immigration and asylum being in chaos. BTW, for those open to the radical I suggest reading http://www.noii.org.uk/, for those a little less so go to the excellent and informative exhibition at Camden’s impressive Jewish Museum (http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/)
• the usual con-game around taxes – reduce taxes but increase government spending and squaring it by reducing bureaucracy. It was interesting on ‘Today’ this morning to see how all the parties are going crazy about the Longbridge plant, but fighting to sack as many civil servants as possible!
• increasing military spending – who the fuck wants that!!!

However, to be fair, there’s some good stuff in it:

• devolution of power to professionals (already happening under Labour and LibDems have a more developed policy than the Tories on this anyway)
• more control to local authorities and reduction of Council Tax bill for pensioners (LibDem has much more coherent ‘localisation’ plan, Greens’ plan is also more coherent than the Tories)
• strategic reform of Lords, stronger Parliament and ‘English votes for English laws’ in Westminster (not sure of LibDem’s view here, or Labour’s)

This may turn into an election series...