BP - NOT BEYOND POLITICS

News that outgoing BP chief executive Tony Hayward is to pursue business opportunities in Russia suggests to me that he would make a good replacement for the former parasailing donkey, Anapka. The now famous ass, rescued by the Murdoch media machine - aka The Sun newspaper - was forced to fly through the air by a Russian entrepreneur to advertise a nearby private beach, much to the horror of those enjoying the public seashore beneath the braying beast. Sea-loving sportsman Mr Hayward seems like a fair swap for Anapka - who has been signed-up by Spurs Harry Redknapp according to The Sun's website - and Prime Minister Putin might invite the BP bete noire to sing some old Soviet songs at his summer dacha. Sounds fanciful ? So does Hayward's payout to most sensible people. However, if the man's a donkey, his BP colleagues in the US are asses along with a good few people in their government.

IMPORTANCE OF REGULATORY ACTIVISTS

Another excellent BBC Radio File on 4 programme yesterday drew attention to the role of the US Government in failing to regulate the activities of oil companies following the Exxon Valdez spill 20 years ago, with tragic consequences for the Gulf of Mexico.

With so much development advocacy around these days, I very much hope that the UK Government's "Big Society" society initiative will support people and organisations seeking to ensure that the activities of "Big Business" are properly regulated at the national and local levels.

For the Deep Water Horizon disaster, reflecting as it does the systemic failures of multi-national corporation and national government alike - as well as the wider consequences thereof - constitutes as much as a crises for capitalism as the inherent problems of its market structures.

THE REAL CRISES OF CAPITALISM

Most people will recall the numerous articles on "The Crisis of Capitalism" during the height of the global credit crunch and dire warnings of economic depression to follow. Whilst the more extreme of these prophesies do not seem to have materialised, the threat of another "financial apocalypse" was nevertheless featured on MSN News only the other day, reminding us that economic angst still abounds.

For there remains a very real "crises" - as distinct from single over-arching "crisis" - of capitalism which continues to manifest itself, albeit in different ways in different places around the world.

In a country like Britain, one symptom of the crises is a deepening concern about disparities of income, not just between extreme high earners, such as some bankers, and other people, but increasingly between highly paid individuals in the public sector, their less well rewarded colleagues, and the wider public.

Given the constant attention given to this widening UK wealth gap, it was very interesting to hear the response of a woman whose family lived on benefits as to whether she regarded herself as poor. No, she responded, she regarded poor people at those primarily living in the less developed world ie in conditions of extreme poverty.

Yet it is precisely these countries, such as India, where many millions - indeed billions - of poor people live who are now regarded as the engines of global economic growth and recovery; and one of the main reasons for this is, quite simply, the existence of very large numbers of people whose wages are far lower both in relative and absolute terms than those of people in countries such as Britain.

As the global balance of economic power inevitably shifts away from countries like our own, albeit that London may remain one of the world's financial capitals, questions will increasingly arise as to the real value of the UK economy and the relative importance of professions and sectors which contribute to this, as well as the affordability of public services and social security.

In this context, it will be increasingly important to distinguish between the financially engineered, virtually constructed and speculative economies, with their vulnerability to boom and bust cycles, and the more robust underlying economies of production etc. At present, it is often difficult to know where true financial value lies, and this in itself constitutes one of the crises of capitalism.

Construction, Construction & Construction

Although the last government started out with the mantra "Education, Education, Education", by the end of its time in office many people thought that "Construction, Construction, Construction" was more apposite. Not that there's anything new about close links between UK national governments and local authorities and the building industry, it was just that New Labour embarked on this relationship with far too little heed to the financial costs involved. "Building Schools for the Future" is a very good example of such overly-aspirational spending.

My previous post may have seemed unsympathetic to areas like Sandwell in the West Midlands, whose school re-building programme has apparently been cut by the new administration. In fact, this is precisely the kind of deprived area which should continue to provide a focus for government spending on regeneration, including education projects. However, there are almost certainly funding mechanisms which offer better value for money than the BSF model.

In this context, a key challenge for the Coalition will be re-contracting the relationship between government and the UK construction industry to reflect current economic and financial conditions. Much public - and private - building in recent years has created over-designed and costly constructions which are often neither fit for purpose nor aesthetically attractive, and its may well be that the architecture of austerity will not only be more sustainable but also leave a superior built legacy for future generations.

Please see also my post @ http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com/ - Regional Policy and Regeneration: Confusion, Confusion and Confusion ? Or maybe just another example of the continuing overly close links between government and construction sector.

GETTING OUT OF THE STATE WE'RE IN

I have some sympathy for the present Government, and the latest furore about dismantling the previous administration's "Building Schools for the Future" programme has only served to re-enforce this.

Indeed, my own feeling is that the very Department for Children, Schools and Families - sometimes known as the Department for Carpets and Soft Furnishings by the teaching profession I understand - needs to be dismantled and restored to the status of an Education Department.

Instead of the carpets, I want the new Education Secretary to roll out his programme of "Deep Thinking", not least amongst those senior civil servants who were presumably responsible for wrongly briefing him - no surprise there ! - on the suspension of some BSF projects.

BBC RADIO 3'S CREATIVE NIGHTWAVES

The 9pm "watershed" has brought some especially good listening on BBC Radio over the past couple of days.

On Sunday there was "Looking for Leonora" about the English artist Leonora Carrington, now aged 93 and looking forward to being 100, whose work is shown here.

Carrington - also known as "Prim" - eloped with the famous Surrealist Max Ernst in 1937, and after their wartime separation moved to Mexico where she still lives.

Yesterday's Radio 3 "Nightwaves" show brought an interview with the US oceanographer Dr Sylvia Earle, also known as "Her Deepness" and "The Sturgeon General".

Earle's formative experiences were in the Gulf of Mexico, about whose current problems, and those of the wider oceans, she talked with great passion and profundity.

A watershed indeed !

TIME TO TOP KILL BP MANAGEMENT

The FT's excellent feature on BP in last weekend's magazine may well have the same effect as Rolling Stone's profile of General Stanley McChrystal a couple of week's ago....but probably not so fast.

As with the war in Afghanistan, however, one is left firmly with the impression that the main protagonists in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, namely BP and the United States authorities, are out of their depth in the serious consequences of their own (in)actions.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward is reported to have succeeded Lord Browne - now advising the UK Government - with the view that his company employed too many people trying to save the world. That was in the days of "Beyond Petroleum"....as well as "Big Profits"

Oil has always been BP's core business, and for many it was the main driving force for war in Iraq. Like civilian casualties, safety and environmental problems are regarded as collateral damage.

The question now is whether events in the Gulf of Mexico have changed United States public opinion to the extent that the country is willing to make the environment a core American value.

In the meantime, the top management at BP certainly deserve to go, but like the company's own "top kill" operation in the Gulf, this will not solve the deeper issues.

REFLECTIONS ON ROTTWEILER MAN

A couple of years ago, an incident arose in which I attempted to calm down the male owner of a Rottweiler, leading said man to accuse me of assaulting him and threaten to call in the police.

In fact, this individual - not his dog incidentally - was the aggressive party, and, needless to say, the police were not called in.

Since then, I have tried to steer clear of "Rottweiler Man" but this morning couldn't avoid a pavement encounter.

Once again, the dog behaved impeccably, but his owner - whose right arm was, I noticed, heavily bandaged from the elbow - growled "Nutter" in an aggressive manner as he passed me.

"Good job your dog had more sense than you !" I responded. The dog looked at me knowingly.