MIGRATION AND POPULATION CHANGE IN BRITAIN

As the debate around net migration to the UK grows, it is important to focus on the facts of population change around Britain. A good place to start is the Office for National Statistics Population and Migration page from which the above graphic is taken -  http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/compendiums/compendium-of-uk-statistics/population-and-migration/index.html
The UK is forecast to become the most populous country in Europe by 2035 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8851902/Migrants-to-send-Britains-population-soaring-to-largest-in-EU.html - largely as a consequence of migration from within and outside the European Union. This has led to a growing number of calls for the impacts of migration and population change to be better understood, as well as reports questioning the sustainability - environmental, social, economic and cultural - of existing and predicted increases in Britain's population. Such critical reports include work commissioned by the think tank Civitas - http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/LargescaleImmigration - and the campaign group Population Matters - http://www.populationmatters.org/documents/myths_migration.pdf

Population forecasts have a level of uncertainty as acknowledged by ONS. What is needed are future scenarios based on lower and higher level projections and descriptions of their potential effects on key areas of concern. The UK government should have the intellectual and technological resources to do this and to engage the British public in an objective national discourse about migration and population. However, the traditional parties have hitherto eschewed such a "Big Conversation" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3245620.stm - apparently preferring to accept that an already "Big Society" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Society -
- is just going to get bigger regardless of the consequences. The recent award of a peerage to Sir Andrew Green, founder of Migration Watch - http://www.migrationwatchuk.org - for his work  "to improve public understanding of the impact of the very high levels of net migration" appears to indicate that the factual component of a popularist "big conversation" on this subject should now be supported in the managed political process.

ENGLISH PARLIAMENT: THE CASE FOR NATIONALISM

Public Entrance to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh (opened in 2004)

One consequence of the Scottish Independence Referendum is a re-galvanising of the case for an English Parliament, as recently voiced by the veteran Conservative MP John Redwood - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29203693  However, whilst Mr Redwood suggests that the House of Commons could double up as an English Parliament, this post makes the case for a completely new institution based outside London, accompanied by a  "Great Cull" (humanely executed, naturally) of Westminster bureaucracy. The argument for this might best be summed up in the expression Democratic Sustainable Development.

The so-called United Kingdom has one of the most centralised state bureaucracies in the world. Whilst the previous New Labour administration adopted a policy of "Regionalism", this applied democratically only in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In England, "regionalisation" manifested in the creation of  Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) or Quangos. Indeed "Quangoisation" (see Note) of government was a salient feature of the New Labour state. The Regional Assemblies which gave the RDAs some small measure of public accountability were abolished by the administration between 2008-10 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_assembly_%28England%29

In 2010, a Conservative-led Liberal Coalition Government was elected and set about destroying all vestiges of "regionalisation" - which became a sort of Orwellian banned word - in England, with the stated aim of replacing this with "Localism". In effect, this has meant replacing regional quangos with local ones, including the state-funded Local Enterprise Partnerships. There has also been a re-centralisation of policy-making, notably in the area of spatial planning where English local authorities now have to adhere to a National Planning Policy Framework, which is just as top-down as the Regional Spatial Strategies which it replaced (after much legal wrangling).

Having experienced both discredited "Regionalism" and "Localism" in the past 15 years, the only real option left for England is "Nationalism". This seems to be working very well in Scotland, where record voter turnout in the Independence Referendum gave the birthplace of democracy what seems like a democratic second-coming. I am sure that the prospect of an English Parliament - let's say in Birmingham - in conjunction with down-sizing of the Westminster Elite would have a similar effect. This could leave London with a city state model of government, something that should help overcome the Capital's growing social inequalities.

If all this sounds like it could lead to "Federalism", so much the better. A federal United Kingdom might well be the best way to preserve the Union in the longer-term. It would also provide some justification for the retention of a solid rump of London-based national government. However, the strong likelihood that increased English Nationalism would empower the dreaded  F-word in British politics will ensure that people like are current prime minister and his political cronies (elected and unelected) will do everything in their power to ensure the talk is of a "family of nations" which is run by a parental union of Big Money and Big State (just as it was under the previous government).

Note
1. When I google "Quangoisation" one of the first entries to emerge is a Chinese translation - http://dict.cn/quangoisation - perhaps because it is also a key feature of the State Capitalism model of political economy: one towards which the so-called UK has increasingly moved.

UK PROPERTY AND THE NEW GLOBAL ORDER

Household Cavalry pass "world's most expensive apartments" (Telegraph)

"We could view the threats and challenges we face today as the difficult birth-pangs of a new global order – and our task now as nothing less than making the transition through a new internationalism to the benefits of an expanding global society...." Gordon - "how I saved the world" - Brown 2009

I enjoyed the benefits of lunch with the FT today and, in particular, a front-page article entitled "Tax haven buyers set off property alarm". According to research by the newspaper based on Land Registry data: "At least £122 billion of property in England and Wales is held through companies in off-shore tax havens". To put this in context, the figure is "more than the total value of all housing stock in Westminster and the City of London". Just under two thirds of the property is in London, with centres like Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds also targets for this type of investment. Land Registry data do not allow a breakdown between residential and commercial property. The full article can be found at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6cb11114-18aa-11e4-a51a-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz398lMX18s

The government is currently in the process of privatising the Land Registry - http://civitas.org.uk/newblog/2014/06/why-is-the-government-privatising-the-land-registry/ - which may make it more difficult to unravel UK real estate ownership by off-shore vehicles in the future. However, even under present arrangements records show "only the owner or entity holding a property, not the ultimate owner of the company through which the asset is held" according to the FT. This is despite existing anti-money laundering regulations, and an announcement by the Prime Minister earlier this year that full ownership information about UK-based companies would be made publicly available.

The FT analysis cites the example of "One Hyde Park, London's most expensive block of flats" which "epitomises how the rich stash their money through off-shore companies in luxurious property that can remain empty for much of the year". A global market for this type of investment is the main reason why the near-by home of the Household Cavalry, Hyde Park Barracks, is up for sale with a price tag of £600m and prospective buyers lined up -  http://www.arabianbusiness.com/abu-dhabi-s-mubadala-considers-purchase-of-historic-london-property-report-556845.html  as reported in Arabian Business. Although one commentator on this article asks perceptively:"Aren't experts warning about London property bubble????"

Meanwhile, the FT's Philip Stephens - a Rip Van Winkle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle) type columnist who seems to live in a prelapsarian Blair world*, rather than the alternative universe of Gordon Brown - complains of Britain's increasing hostility to capitalists and immigrants (possibly because of our dysfuctional economy ????)

*According to another FT columnist Blair "ruled in a prelapsarian age, when faith in public figures (and, I would argue, policy) was yet to be blown apart by financial meltdown" - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bedfb93c-10c5-11e4-812b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz398lMX18s

WHO'S HOLDING UP THE CHILCOT REPORT?

In some respects the circumstances leading to and surrounding the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War are the opposite of those associated with more recent investigations into security leaks and media hacking. For at the heart of the Chilcot deliberations is not an explosive release of intelligence through illegitimate channels but rather an absence of information, currently reflected in the withholding, for reasons which are far from clear, of the inquiry's long overdue final report.

In a letter to the Prime Minister of 4th November this year, the official Chilcot website - www.iraqinquiry.org.uk - leads us to believe that the cause of the report's delay is due to the "Maxwellisation process". According to Wikipedia this "is a procedure in British governance where individuals due to be criticised in an official report are sent details of the criticism in advance and permitted to respond prior to publication. The process takes its name from the newspaper owner Robert Maxwell. In 1969, Maxwell was criticised in a report by the Department of Trade and Industry as "unfit to hold the stewardship of a public company". Maxwell took the matter to court where the DTI were said by the judge to have "virtually committed the business murder" of Maxwell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwellisation

However, for those who might infer from the above reference that it is the deceased newspaper mogul who is responsible for holding up publication of the Chilcot report, I can say quite categorically that this is not the case. Instead blame has been cast upon Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Heywood - who has apparently vetoed publication of documents supporting the main report.

Sir Jeremy's apparent action has led to a flurry of media coverage and a former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen has requested that the Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Grayling - take charge of the matter. Meanwhile, the Independent newspaper claims in an exclusive today that it is the United States government who are now holding up publication of the long-awaited Chilcot report, although this has subsequently been denied by sources there.

CHINESE NUCLEAR POWER?: NO THANKS!

 A recent BBC satirical panel show hosted by Rory Bremner asked the question: "Who owns Britain?" The answer was largely foreign companies and governments. One wonders then why there is so much fuss about European Union regulations. Personally, I would prefer the country was run from Brussels than Beijing. Moreover, if the name Angela Merkel was ever to appear on my ballot paper, I would certainly vote for her ahead of any serving British politician, even the Green MP Caroline Lucas.

For whilst the German Chancellor has managed to preside over her country's phasing out of nuclear power, following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, the British government has carried on regardless with the promotion of new reactors. We now learn that Chinese companies are to be allowed to hold a majority stake in these. Surely some mistake? When George Osborne and Boris Johnson descended on Beijing this week, many people thought their mission was to increase UK exports, following the example of Germany (who export more than they import from the Chinese). Instead, it seems that London is to become a Chinese off-shore zone and British energy policy - or that of England, Wales and Northern Ireland anyway - is to be run from Beijing.

What this demonstrates is that our Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Mayor of London are a pair of political opportunists par excellence. However, if anyone is looking to a change of UK government for national energy security and sustainability, there seems to be little prospect of this short of direct rule from Berlin. In the meantime, Britons may wish to ponder how they can prevent a couple of political Beau Gestes like Osborne and Johnson from ever becoming prime minister.

THE PROBLEMS OF BRITISH POWER POLITICS

Several years ago I went to a very good conference on the potential for renewable energy development in Britain. However, whilst broadly sympathetic to renewables, I still had some hard questions to ask, and, because this was a conference for the converted, I felt regarded as the enemy. Fast forward to the present, and I recently attended an equally good economics discussion. On this occasion, it was my use of expressions like environmental advocacy and planning that seemed to cause a noticeable tremor in the room. Nevertheless, the company was rather better tempered.

The major similarity between the two events was a poor understanding of the role of spatial or land use planning, as distinct from Soviet-style centralised economic or energy planning. Now, as someone with an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning Studies conferred by a university economics department, with over twenty five years' experience of spatial planning and project development, I feel reasonably well equipped to explore this important difference. So let me start with land use planning.

In fact, land use planning in the UK - outside Scotland where its strategic importance is still acknowledged - has been largely abandoned in favour of regional spatial strategies (RSS) and local development frameworks. The RSS are also now in the process of abolition. Incidentally, I support the retention of regional planning albeit with a lighter touch. Meanwhile, council-led local planning has become an essentially administrative process, with the hard skills once identified with the land use planner's profession, including architecture, urban design and engineering, largely outsourced to other agencies and, particularly, consultants.

This erosion of planning by successive governments has led to the increasing inability of local plans to fulfil their most important purpose: to direct development to the most appropriate locations relative to its type and scale whilst having regard to existing infrastructure, or probable investment therein, and comprehensive environmental impact assessments. Such direction is, I would argue, especially important for energy planning, and it is the weakness of the spatial planning system and associated environmental regulation in England, most particularly, which has acted to inhibit the development of renewable energy.

To turn now to centralised economic and energy planning, most ordinary people recognise that, notwithstanding the British - or rather English - political penchant for free market rhetoric over the past thirty or so years, this actually disguises an equally strong commitment to central government control, regardless of which parties happen to be in power. The case of nuclear power illustrates this situation very well, for there would be no development of new capacity if this were left to market forces alone. The recent history of nuclear development in the United States shows that strong government financial support is essential.

However, it is not my intention here to consider the pros and cons of different forms of power generation, but to argue that a spatial plan, ideally encompassing the whole of the British Isles and international connectivity, is needed. By such connectivity, I mean a plan which recognises current supply lines and potential future developments, notably international energy super grids. Such a plan would, of course, have to recognise the vital principle of subsidiarity in order to encourage regional and local ingenuity. Similarly, a coherent and long term national regulatory and incentives-based framework would need to be in place to support appropriate investment.

Is an integrated - economic and spatial - planning scenario for energy generation and supply in Britain of the kind I have described a realistic possibility? Perhaps a better question is: can the UK for reasons of economic security as well as environmental sustainability afford not to take this approach? For the "business as usual scenario", where our national politics of power are essentially left to the power politics of day, is no longer viable in an increasingly internationalised energy market where the forces in operation may not always espouse freedom.

TEAM GB: PRE-EMINENT MINI-SUPERPOWER?

The success of London 2012 and Britain's Olympic competitors has inevitably allowed politicians, sponsors and the media to bask temporarily in the glory of a role to which this country's elite most aspire: gold membership of a nation with pre-eminent mini-superpower status. However, this role, like hosting the Olympic Games, comes with a heavy price tag and questionable legacy.

One of the defining characteristics of super-power nations, arguably now the United States, China, Russia and India - based on country-size and/or population as well as economic resources - is increasing polarisation between rich and poor, something Britain, and particularly England, also shares. We also share with the US an increasingly multi-ethic society.

In a Telegraph article of 5 August, the historian David Starkey repeats his thesis of last year that 2011's civil unrest in English urban areas, especially London and other major cities, were predominantly "race riots". Although this contention has been hotly challenged, and the general consensus is that there were a number of contributory factors, Starkey's view is significant, as reflected in the volume of comments on his article.

Coming from a decidedly under-privileged background, as well as being homosexual (rather than gay), Starkey is perhaps better equipped than many to reflect on how poverty and minority-status can make life difficult, and how a good education, at least for his generation and the one which immediately followed it, can help overcome such difficulty.

The problem is that a good education, arguably still freely available up to level 3 (A level equivalent) for the majority of Britons under 20, is no longer regarded as a guarantor of the ability to succeed in life by significant sections of young people in our country. This is perhaps especially true of black adolescent males, and also many white working class ones, the primary targets of Starkey's diatribe.

Yet it may be that these young people, coming from the sharp end of Britain's increasing social inequality and feeling this most acutely, are simply presenting some of the clearest symptoms of the underlying disease. Moreover, it could also be that in an unreconstructed intellectual like Starkey, who is unencumbered by political correctness, that the disease may find some hope of a cure.

For the fine thing about Starkey, in my view, is that, like all traditional pedagogues, he appears to talk down to everyone, great and good included; and whilst castigating some lesser groups as misguided, and others criminal, he does not charge them with stupidity, a criticism he reserves for much of the elite and those intent on dumbing down social discourse.

It is for this reason, I would suggest, that David Starkey may be the ideal person to lead a national debate, which should take place at every level of society, on the advantages and disadvantages of Britain's aspirations - or rather those of our country's elite - for gold position in the global league of mini-superpowers. This might start with an appraisal of the main competitor nations, if there are any.

DEMOCRACY VS TECHNOCRACY IN THE UK

The displacement of elected government ministers by an appointed group of technocrats in Italy has brought strong opposition from some in the British press, although the occasional academic correspondent favours a fully-fledged technocracy of the kind found in contemporary China.

However, I would argue that technocratic government has long existed in the UK, and has probably been the the norm, rather than the exception, in post-war Britain. The important issue is the implicitness of this arrangement in our country, as distinct from its explicitness in continental Europe. To illustrate this, it is useful to look at how economic growth has been defined and supported through policy-making and government intervention in the UK in the period since 2000.

During the Blair premiership, in one important respect "New Labour" meant precisely what it said on the bottle in the encouragement of mass migration as a means of transforming the UK employment market and creating a growth trajectory based upon a rapidly increasing population. This, combined with the well-documented expansion of financial services sector, together with the encouragement of what some describe as the "feral rich" to locate in Britain, gave rise to a rapid increase in property prices and subsequent speculative bubble.

At no time during the above process, which substantially gathered momentum following the re-election of New Labour in 2005, were the above policies explicitly identified to the UK electorate, many of whom by now had been bought off by the availability of cheap credit, although some politicians, notably Vince Cable for the Liberal Democrats, had begun to sound alarm bells on debt. Such alarms were soon proved to have real foundation as the strongly integrated (but never democratically mandated) UK and US financial systems imploded in 2008.

A British Coalition Government was then elected in 2010 with a political mandate to deal with the serious consequences of the banking crisis, together with other problems arising from the poor governance of the previous administration, including unregulated and unsustainable levels of migration.

During the early days of the Coalition much political rhetoric was directed at tackling these problems, but in retrospect remarkably little has actually been done, and it now appears that the present government is determined to embark upon a leveraged growth strategy, as distinct from promoting sustainable economic development, which is more or less identical to that of New Labour. One can only presume that this must be due to the existence of a technocratic "state within the state" of Britain which is beyond democratic accountability and political mastery because its very existence is implicit rather than explicit in our system of government.

RIOTS - COMPREHENSIVE INQUIRY REQUIRED

A wide ranging inquiry into this week's riots and disorder in London, English cities and towns is needed, of the kind now being called for by Labour leader Ed Miliband. A House of Commons inquiry conducted by the Home Affairs Select Committee will not have adequate scope to deal with all the contributory factors in this week's outbreak of violent unrest and looting, although it will no doubt have an important role in considering police intelligence and actions. A Royal (or Public) Commission may be a more suitable vehicle for the wider inquiry which will need to examine larger societal issues, such as the use of digital media technology and networks, as well as important area-based factors, including local deprivation and inequality, in the civil disorder.

Prime Minister David Cameron must not shy away from an in depth examination of the state of the national psyche, because it is precisely the shadow side of his "Big Society", in its tribalism, existential status anxiety, greed, absence of individual volition in the face of peer group pressure, addictions to quick fixes, and propensity to mass hysterias which needs to be confronted at the present time. These shortcomings are by no means confined to those young, and older, people who actually participated in criminal activities this week, but are increasingly part of wider socio-economic behaviour, and colluded in by business, the media and political classes.

ENERGY CONSERVATION AND RENEWABLES

Jeremy Leggett, the founder and chairman of company Solarcentury, has made some of the most sensible comments on "the greenest government ever" during the past week.

Whilst welcoming the Coalition's new targets for cuts in UK carbon emissions by 2025, Mr Leggett has also pointed out the present government's "emerging record" on the environment is "actually starting to look worse than their predecessors"(Cameron falls short on his green promise, Financial Times, 18 May 2011).

Meanwhile, Japan is still coming to terms with the consequences of nuclear disaster, including major electricity shortages. Energy conservation is now regarded as one of the country's most important tasks, along with harnessing plentiful geothermal power opportunities.

For renewables to make a contribution to energy production of the scale aspired to by the non-nuclear green movement, the starting point is cleary conservation, something their recent great misfortune has brought home to the Japanese.

The development of renewables then has to be locationally-appropriate, something which has not fully registered with promoters, largely due to the availability of inappropriate financial incentives.

In addition, a truly renewable energy future would depend on unprecedented international co-operation, with energy transmission supergrids deployed to distribute power from different regions of the globe according to the availability of supply and demand.

These are the sorts of issues which politicians, policy-makers, those concerned with implementation as well as the media should be headlining. Instead we have the much-feted "Jam Tomorrow Generation" (see my post of 11 May) fiddling as usual whilst the planet burns.

The Importance of Real People's Concerns

Gillian Duffy's retort to Gordon Brown's off-air - but actually on - description of her as a bigot was that he needed to meet more real people.

The context was a prime ministerial visit to Rochdale today, and Mrs Duffy is a former Labour supporter with concerns about the economy and social justice, although she didn't use the latter expression. Like many other people, she is also concerned about immigration to the UK. In short, Mrs Duffy expressed the kind of concerns which most pollsters have found characterise the British electorate.

What the Prime Minister's faux pas - for which he has apologised - reveals is the political correctness gap, or perhaps that should be gulf, between ordinary people and those in positions of power who have been the major beneficiaries of New Labour's social engineering project, of which mass immigration has been a key component. To express disquiet about this runs the risk of being labelled "that bigoted woman" as Brown described Mrs Duffy.

The fact that Gillian Duffy is a traditional Labour supporter makes today's encounter all the more interesting. Although I once hoped that the future ex-prime minister would do a "Tony Blair" and pretty much disappear from British public life, my present feeling is that he should retire gracefully to the back benches and spend more time in the company of real people.

THE IRAQ INQUIRY

In my previous post I emphasised the need for "tough and fair" public hearings into matters of national and a strategic importance. It is very much to be hoped that the inquiry into events leading up to the war in Iraq - www.iraqinquiry.org.uk - will provide these.

Also, to any readers who feel that my blog has been unfair to members of the present British Government, I would respond that the prospect of fewer lawyers in senior political positions in the next administration offers the possibility of better national governance, and therefore a reduction in the need to blog much on the subject of politics....but I may be wrong.

CLIMATE CHANGE & INFRASTRUCTURE

The impact of flooding on infrastructure has been highlighted again by events in Cumbria, including the tragic loss a policeman's life due to collapse of a road bridge. The danger of similar collapses have made travel around the County extremely difficult, and a motorist interviewed on the radio this morning identified the particular difficulty of access to Sellafield, the location of Britain's major civilian nuclear waste installation.

Further capacity is proposed for Cumbria and the Sellafield area. and it is the task of the new Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) to assess issues arising from this and other proposed increases in British nuclear power capacity.

Now although the Government's Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has suggested that the flooding in Cumbria is on the scale of a once in a millennium event, I question whether he can really know this. Indeed, I would invite Mr Hilary Benn and some colleagues - weather permitting - to accompany me on a historical climate change tour of Britain, which will include site visits to areas which have experienced significant changes in sea levels.

Returning to the IPC and the need for "tough and fair" decision-making in public policy at the present time, highlighted in my previous post, I would remind the Chairman, Sir Michael Pitt, and his colleagues of the ruthless manipulation of the facts in which promoters of major infrastructure projects sometimes engage, historically leaving objectors to rely on "tough and fair" planning inspectors to hear their challenges.

I have to say in this context that my low estimation of the characters of political and business leaders (see below) would improve if resources were made available to those challenging the Government's proposed nuclear and other major infrastructure programmes, such as strategic road and bridge construction, which may well end up making this country more vulnerable to climate change, when local adaptation strategies are really what are most urgently required.

A NEW COMEDY OF ERRORS - OH WHAT A LUVVIE WAR !

As the season of cultural prizes (Booker, Turner etc) comes around again, along with the Party Conferences, it is no surprise to me that the theatre of politics (as distinct from political drama of the kind now on at the National Theatre) remains firmly centre stage.

Enter right : General Sir Richard Dannatt, Constable of the Tower of London, former head of the British Army, and future Tory Peer.

Enter left : Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling who - "out of the loop" as they say in spin - misheard details of Sir Richard's forthcoming peerage in a television interview.

Grayling thought the General was to be honoured by the present Government. The fact is, of course, that there is really very little difference between Conservative and New Labour policy on military strategy.

However, Grayling is very lucky his kind aren't still sent to the Tower for such faux pas, notwithstanding that the likes of the General still wield too much power and influence.

For, let's face it, the upper strata of the British military and defence establishment are as much to blame as the present government for current problems in Afghanistan, except that they are proving rather better in the PR war at home than our politicians.

THE BIG ISSUE FOR SMALL BUSINESS.....

....IS PROMPT PAYMENT OF MONEY DUE.

Notwithstanding all the fine words from Government about prompt payment - never mind loans - to small business from large public agencies, this remains - along with slow payment by large private sector companies (and particularly those formerly in public ownership) - The Number 1 problem for smaller businesses and the self-employed.

It's just a shame that this issue doesn't receive the same media attention as MPs expenses. Could it be that media organisations are also slow to pay freelancers etc and don't want to draw attention to an issue which might embarrass them : much like MPs and their expenses, in fact.

The Need for a New Glasnost and Perestroika

"Glasnost" : Truth, Frankness

"If the Russian word 'Perestroika' has easily entered the international lexicon, it is due to more than just interest in what is going on in the Soviet Union. Now the whole world needs restructuring; that is, progressive development, a fundamental change".

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich

Precisely what transpired between one of Russia's wealthiest oligarchs, the former European Trade Commissioner, and the UK Conservative Shadow Chancellor is today the matter of much media speculation, but this blog has more important matters to address.

For some time, Russian Prime Minister (and former President) Putin and current President Medvedev have re-iterated that : "There are no ideological differences between us" (ie Russia and the West). Meanwhile, Mr Putin describes himself - a former KGB officer and supporter of the Soviet Union - as a "Conservative", whilst Mr Medvedev, a wealthy oligarch, describes himself as a "Liberal".

Does this mean that the Russian Prime Minister would identify himself (ideologically that is) with so-called Worcestershire Conservatives ? There are certainly some Soviet-style bureaucrats amongst the West Midlands regional and local authorities, and other other public bodies, who, I feel, would welcome the kind of strong leadership favoured by Mr Putin.

As for the Russian President's "Liberalism", is this in reality little more than a culture of "Loads of Money". The UK Liberal-Democrats, I seem to remember, secured one of the largest donations to a British political party shortly before the last General Election, only to find that the donor was a crook who subsequently fled the country rather than face a prison sentence.

Under the circumstances, whilst I abhor much of what New Labour represents, neither the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats hold much promise for me just now. What this country (ie Britain) needs is some real "Glasnost" and "Perestroika", and so I'm going to explore these concepts in a wider ideological context with the help of some "friends" @

http://janetrocco.wordpress.com/ (See Tails of 2 Nations)

However, I would like to leave readers of this post to ponder the following quote from Geoffrey Hosking's excellent book "Russia and the Russians" (Penquin 2002). Professor Hosking's notes (pg 580-1) the rise of "informed political movements" in the Soviet Union of the mid-1980s :

"These early initiatives focused on matters of "motherhood and apple pie" : no one could argue that historic buildings, the environment, and nuclear power were issues of legitimate public concern"...

Present day UK national and local governments please take note !

Power at Any Price

The Prime Minister has been keen to emphasise just how "ordinary" he is during the Labour Party Conference, although he also wants to be seen as a "serious man for serious times". Sounds a bit like Iain Duncan-Smith's "quiet man" stuff to me, so I'm hoping Gordon Brown will be off doing something more suited to his "ordinariness" in the not-too-distant future : adviser to the nuclear industry perhaps, like his brother. Yes, whilst the global economy and our own have been playing havoc, British (nuclear !) Energy is being sold off to the company for whom the Prime Minister's brother works, French government-owned EDF. Quelle Surprise ! However, the economic and financial viability of nuclear power - like so much else just now - still remains very much open to question.

Trying Times for Security and Defence Services

Mr "Trying Times", who describes his profession as "Accountancy", has posted this comment on my earlier Blog regarding "Professions Better Suited to Single People". This refers to the case of Max Mosley, who was "outed" by the wife of an ex-employee of MI5 :

"Who said her husband was a former Director of MI5. What's the source of that information? The best I can place him at is earning £23,500/year as a staffer on the middle-east desk working in Circulations. I'm pretty sure that a (former) Director of MI5 wouldn't be living in a two-bed Semi in Chavsville, so what is your source please?"

My source, or so I thought, was BBC Radio when the story first broke in ? March/April this year, but I may be mistaken. Perhaps the Director was sacked for failing to "vet" his staff sufficiently.
However, like Mr "Trying Times", I also interested in remuneration.

Surely the key issue here is money, which I take up in my earlier Blog :"Spooks and the Real Power Inquiry". My guess is that many MI5 staff, like their counterparts in the Armed Services aren't earning enough, and they and their families are easy prey for press payouts. Remember the case of the British marines captured by the Iranians who were then paid for their stories !

"This isn't the Roman Empire"

No, indeed ! Nor is this a reference to the Murdoch Media Empire's relations with the British Security Services, Boris Johnson's address in Latin at the opening of the Emperor Hadrian exhibition, or even London's preparations for the 2012 Olympics. No, this quotation - from yesterday's West Midlands edition of the Metro newspaper - refers to Worcestershire County Council's expenditure of "£850 000 on one room" (!) which provoked these comments from the TaxPayers' Alliance :

"This isn't the Roman Empire - taxpayers don't want glittering prestige buildings, they want their bins collected on time."

Now, as it happens, Worcestershire's bins are collected by the District Councils - Worcester City, Malvern Hills, Wychavon etc - and do not fall under the auspices of the County Council. However, the structure of Worcestershire's local government is pertinent to the underlying issues here : value for money, sustainable development and local democracy. The "room" in question, incidentally, is the Council Chamber in County Hall (built in the 1970s, when it accommodated not only Worcestershire but also Herefordshire County Council).

This annexation of Hereford County Council was subsequently abandoned, and it is a testimony to the rolling forward of the frontiers of the local state that said building - whose (? New Brutalist) structure would have done proud any former Soviet regime - now has difficulty accommodating the one County of Worcestershire's bureaucrats, and, more particularly, their vehicles in the adjoining acres of car-parking. Some may find such expansionism curious in a local authority which is regarded, by and large, as Conservative.

By way of explanation, I would propose that the expansion of this particular "empire" is testimony to the power of the local bureaucrat, many of whom now command salaries higher than their "peers" in higher eschelons of government, and, indeed, in some cases, the Prime Minister. Sadly, such power does not so much cascade, as trickle, down to local communities, as the individuals and groups whose concerns have been "silenced" in the Council Chamber of Worcestershire County Hall can testify, and, this is notwithstanding the current expenditure of :

"...£115 000 ...on electronics ...65 microphones, a sound system, two radio microphones...."

This expenditure, reported in yesterday's Metro, along with "about £631 000...on construction" helpfully brings me back to the subject of "waste", although not bin collections. For it was last year that the protestations of local people went unheard - because they were not allowed to speak - in that "room" now under consideration, when Worcestershire County Council granted planning permission for a major new waste facility on an environmentally sensitive site, served by poor infrastructure, and prone to flooding.

My prediction is that the Council's current "splashing out" of £850k will most certainly not lead to the creation of a Temple of Democracy in County Hall, nor will this facilitate better decision-making on controversial local development projects be they "glittering prestige buildings", waste facilities or the urban extensions much favoured by bureacrats. Real democracy in places like Worcestershire will require, quite simply, fewer empire builders facilitated through the streamlining and re-structuring of local government in the County. Let's get started !

The Next Leader of the Labour Party.....

... should of course be Diane Abbott. Never mind the wimpish Mr Miliband, or one makeover too many Ms Harman, the Labour Party needs a woman of substance to renew its values, and tackle any rogue elements amongst the security services and its spouses, amongst other things...