So your man, Brooks Newman (Minister for Civil Society) resigns in shame after sending a picture of (I'm assuming because noone's been explicit) his penis to a fake woman (if you don't know the story it's just tawdry and misogynistic all round mostly on the part of the reporter and newspaper involved). And yet whoever was responsible for coming up with the idea of PFIs is still walking around apparently not feeling any shame at all: not feeling like he (I'm assuming it's a he) has to say sorry; not feeling like he has to put his hand up and say 'perhaps it wasn't a good idea after all'.
A whiff of sex is so shameful it requires resignation. Beggaring the health service in the name of stupidity, oligarchy and greed is apparently nothing to get too embarrassed about. Whoever you are PFI Man you should hang your head in shame, and Vince Cable can join you for selling off the Royal Mail to yet another cabal.
If you have a strong constitution I'd highly recommend James Meek's book on privatisation in the UK. Read it and weep.
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
Monday, 3 February 2014
Evidence, Mr Pickles, and the decline of democracy
Eric Pickles is our Secretary of State for Community and Local Government and was recently a guest on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions (Friday, 31 January 2014). When the topic of whether the top rate of tax should be raised again to 50p for those earning over £150,000, he cited the example of French immigration to London in order, in his view, to avoid a 75% top rate of tax being introduced by French president Francois Hollande.
As nothing is so destructive of an informed electorate's participation in democratic processes than the manipulation of data here are a few things Mr Pickles might like to think about in case he should ever read this blog:
1. The number of French nationals living in London is estimated to be between 100,000 to 400,000. It is conceivable that some of these people actually immigrated into the UK when Nicolas Sarkozy was the president of France (2007-12) and there was no talk of higher tax. Conceivably some were even escaping Sarkozy's conservative austerity and attacks on social policies. So no correlation there then Eric, between French people now living in the UK and the fleeing of Hollande's 'millionaires' tax (which hasn't come into force yet). Anything you might like to know about French skilled migration to London you can find in Louise Ryan and Jon Mulholland's excellent research.
2. That the argument for not introducing the 50p rate is that high net worth individuals will just restructure their finances to avoid/evade paying tax does have some support if we look at the figures from the time the Labour party introduced the policy. But rather than curtailing tax evasion/avoidance, we just give up and say 'let's just not do it and cut social spending instead'. Seriously? Is there any particular reason why we can't impress upon high net worth individuals that, in the words of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, 'you pay taxes because you get services'?
3. Invoking Gerard Depardieu as an example of how high net worth individuals will flee the UK if a 50p top rate of tax is brought in is just insulting. That any country should set its economic policies according to the whims of a spoiled, if talented, actor, is ludicrous. If any of our high net worth individuals want to become Russian citizens go ahead, knock yourselves out. Go become a citizen of a country where the prime minister-president-prime minister-president is still in power after 15 years with at least another four to go, where gay people are beaten up and democracy protesters (or anyone with views Putin or the Orthodox Church seems to dislike) thrown in gaol. Don't slam the door behind you on your way out.
It seems the height of irony that a government that started off with a high profile policy of creating a 'Big Society', in some 1950s nostalgia for when we all knew our neighbours, repeatedly says it's okay to prioritise in our Big Society those who are demonstrative of the highest levels of selfishness. And it seems the height of hypocrisy that a prime minister, who once exhorted us all to demonstrate Christian values, values the presence of individuals who refuse to share and who have less chance of getting into heaven than me and the camel passing through the eye of a needle at the same time.
And even, Mr Pickles, if you do think it's okay that we have to live with such rude neighbours in our society because eventually their wealth will trickle down to the rest of us, at least, for the sake of democratic principles, don't manipulate evidence to suit your arguments. If you want a more accurate correlation, find out the relationship between the creation of dodgy dossiers of all kinds and the general distrust of our political elite. Every time you twist, distort, bend, or bury evidence you twist, distort, bend and bury democracy that little bit more.
As nothing is so destructive of an informed electorate's participation in democratic processes than the manipulation of data here are a few things Mr Pickles might like to think about in case he should ever read this blog:
1. The number of French nationals living in London is estimated to be between 100,000 to 400,000. It is conceivable that some of these people actually immigrated into the UK when Nicolas Sarkozy was the president of France (2007-12) and there was no talk of higher tax. Conceivably some were even escaping Sarkozy's conservative austerity and attacks on social policies. So no correlation there then Eric, between French people now living in the UK and the fleeing of Hollande's 'millionaires' tax (which hasn't come into force yet). Anything you might like to know about French skilled migration to London you can find in Louise Ryan and Jon Mulholland's excellent research.
2. That the argument for not introducing the 50p rate is that high net worth individuals will just restructure their finances to avoid/evade paying tax does have some support if we look at the figures from the time the Labour party introduced the policy. But rather than curtailing tax evasion/avoidance, we just give up and say 'let's just not do it and cut social spending instead'. Seriously? Is there any particular reason why we can't impress upon high net worth individuals that, in the words of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, 'you pay taxes because you get services'?
3. Invoking Gerard Depardieu as an example of how high net worth individuals will flee the UK if a 50p top rate of tax is brought in is just insulting. That any country should set its economic policies according to the whims of a spoiled, if talented, actor, is ludicrous. If any of our high net worth individuals want to become Russian citizens go ahead, knock yourselves out. Go become a citizen of a country where the prime minister-president-prime minister-president is still in power after 15 years with at least another four to go, where gay people are beaten up and democracy protesters (or anyone with views Putin or the Orthodox Church seems to dislike) thrown in gaol. Don't slam the door behind you on your way out.
It seems the height of irony that a government that started off with a high profile policy of creating a 'Big Society', in some 1950s nostalgia for when we all knew our neighbours, repeatedly says it's okay to prioritise in our Big Society those who are demonstrative of the highest levels of selfishness. And it seems the height of hypocrisy that a prime minister, who once exhorted us all to demonstrate Christian values, values the presence of individuals who refuse to share and who have less chance of getting into heaven than me and the camel passing through the eye of a needle at the same time.
And even, Mr Pickles, if you do think it's okay that we have to live with such rude neighbours in our society because eventually their wealth will trickle down to the rest of us, at least, for the sake of democratic principles, don't manipulate evidence to suit your arguments. If you want a more accurate correlation, find out the relationship between the creation of dodgy dossiers of all kinds and the general distrust of our political elite. Every time you twist, distort, bend, or bury evidence you twist, distort, bend and bury democracy that little bit more.
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Classifying an Occupation
Never have I lived in a country that is so determined to classify me. Every government document requests some demarcation of ethnicity, sexuality and/or disability. Then I must position myself as left or right as if there is a boundary somewhere across which I must not pass if I am to be able to express an authentic political opinion.
No wonder that the media and established politicians, and a few academics, are confused by the 'Occupy' movement. They can only use the term 'anti-capitalist' to describe it because they have no classification for 'amorphous bunch of anarchists, bourgeoisie, socialists, christians, communists, buddhists, environmentalists, capitalists with a small 'c', and even some people who work in the city'. The protest doesn't shoe-horn itself into 'left, right, left' and has explicitly stated that they don't know how they are going to achieve their goals which is refreshingly honest. No-one else knows what they're doing either but the government keeps on trying to fit reality into ideology because thinking outside those constraints requires too much imagination.
Spending an afternoon with the Occupy London protest has filled me with hope. Fitting in with my middle-aged sensibilities it's clean and self-organised and there is a working group for everything. There is first aid, a newspaper, legal observers, a university, a kitchen, an ecumenical meditation centre, and solar cells powering much of it. It is reiterated everywhere that 'this is a protest not a party' and the Tranquility Group are on hand to calm anyone down who thinks it's Glastonbury. The General Assembly operates via consensus, which initially filled me with dread reminders of a Gandhian NGO I used to work for (think meetings that went on for hours and decisions held hostage by personalities that could best be described as intransigent). But even in this much larger gathering there seems to be a decision making process and agreements generally adhered to. Okay, the Socialist Workers Party haven't taken down their 'Capitalism is Crisis' banner (it has been agreed that the prominent banner position has to be alternated each week), and no-one wants to be in the 'process' working group' (admin!), but what are we if not human. And this is nothing if not a very human process with frailties and foibles accepted, along with hard work and a long term approach driven by a belief that this could work. There is no spun fig leaf to cover the pretense that one leader, one party, one ideology has all the answers, and no three-line whip to enforce the charade as was seen last night in the British Parliament's debate on a European referendum.
The very presence of the camp on 'hallowed ground', partly, is also raising interesting questions about the commons, both physically in the form of land ownership and the commons that is embedded in institutions. The camp has redefined trespass and now has a working group to map land ownership in London, which will undoubtedly turn out to be a complex web of 'commons now made private' (as in Paternoster Square, the attempted site of the first camp) and 'government but not really commons' (as in some of the site around St Paul's which is 'owned' by the City of London). It's anyone's guess where the boundaries of the commons now lie. Similarly for the commons that are publicly owned and shared institutions. For example, the funding cuts and 'reforms' to institutions such as the NHS and schools are eroding the vestiges of the only bulwark against rampant inequality in this country. Public education and universal health care were at least something to balance out the differences between socio-economic categories.
There is one glaringly obvious gap though in the camp's population ... it is missing representatives from the estates and from the most economically marginalised who are the most vulnerable to the government's contingency plans of funding cuts in order to maintain its largesse to banks and lobbyists. But if the camp can manage to bridge those gaps it will be a force to be reckoned with. The best thing that could come out of the Occupy movement is the possibility of alternative connections and the desecration of classification in the process. With that may come new solutions, new forms of political organisation, a revitalisation of the commons, and a reminder of where power really lies.
No wonder that the media and established politicians, and a few academics, are confused by the 'Occupy' movement. They can only use the term 'anti-capitalist' to describe it because they have no classification for 'amorphous bunch of anarchists, bourgeoisie, socialists, christians, communists, buddhists, environmentalists, capitalists with a small 'c', and even some people who work in the city'. The protest doesn't shoe-horn itself into 'left, right, left' and has explicitly stated that they don't know how they are going to achieve their goals which is refreshingly honest. No-one else knows what they're doing either but the government keeps on trying to fit reality into ideology because thinking outside those constraints requires too much imagination.
Spending an afternoon with the Occupy London protest has filled me with hope. Fitting in with my middle-aged sensibilities it's clean and self-organised and there is a working group for everything. There is first aid, a newspaper, legal observers, a university, a kitchen, an ecumenical meditation centre, and solar cells powering much of it. It is reiterated everywhere that 'this is a protest not a party' and the Tranquility Group are on hand to calm anyone down who thinks it's Glastonbury. The General Assembly operates via consensus, which initially filled me with dread reminders of a Gandhian NGO I used to work for (think meetings that went on for hours and decisions held hostage by personalities that could best be described as intransigent). But even in this much larger gathering there seems to be a decision making process and agreements generally adhered to. Okay, the Socialist Workers Party haven't taken down their 'Capitalism is Crisis' banner (it has been agreed that the prominent banner position has to be alternated each week), and no-one wants to be in the 'process' working group' (admin!), but what are we if not human. And this is nothing if not a very human process with frailties and foibles accepted, along with hard work and a long term approach driven by a belief that this could work. There is no spun fig leaf to cover the pretense that one leader, one party, one ideology has all the answers, and no three-line whip to enforce the charade as was seen last night in the British Parliament's debate on a European referendum.
The very presence of the camp on 'hallowed ground', partly, is also raising interesting questions about the commons, both physically in the form of land ownership and the commons that is embedded in institutions. The camp has redefined trespass and now has a working group to map land ownership in London, which will undoubtedly turn out to be a complex web of 'commons now made private' (as in Paternoster Square, the attempted site of the first camp) and 'government but not really commons' (as in some of the site around St Paul's which is 'owned' by the City of London). It's anyone's guess where the boundaries of the commons now lie. Similarly for the commons that are publicly owned and shared institutions. For example, the funding cuts and 'reforms' to institutions such as the NHS and schools are eroding the vestiges of the only bulwark against rampant inequality in this country. Public education and universal health care were at least something to balance out the differences between socio-economic categories.
There is one glaringly obvious gap though in the camp's population ... it is missing representatives from the estates and from the most economically marginalised who are the most vulnerable to the government's contingency plans of funding cuts in order to maintain its largesse to banks and lobbyists. But if the camp can manage to bridge those gaps it will be a force to be reckoned with. The best thing that could come out of the Occupy movement is the possibility of alternative connections and the desecration of classification in the process. With that may come new solutions, new forms of political organisation, a revitalisation of the commons, and a reminder of where power really lies.
Monday, 10 August 2009
Electoral Reform in the UK
The UK has one of the most anachronistic voting systems I've ever had to use. First-Past-the-Post means that the current government, which had about 30% of the popular vote, has 100% of the power. So if you're interested in creating a system that is fairer, and that has the possibility of creating a democracy that actually incorporates representation and participation, feel free to check out the work of the Electoral Reform Society.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)