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.

RUSSIFICATION OF EUROPE'S ENERGY POLICY

Whilst the British media celebrated Russian President Vladimir Putin's sixtieth birthday at the weekend - Mr Putin is, after all, something of a celebrity - Russia has today opened a second gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Germany. An earlier pipeline began operation last year. Mr Putin announced that the new pipeline would `make a significant contribution to the economic development of our countries and the entire European continent".

Europe obtains some two-fifths of its natural gas supplies from Russia, and the continent's energy demand for gas is forecast to grow some forty percent by 2035. The increasing energy dependence of Europe on Russian gas amounts to the Russification of the region's energy policy, a development no doubt cause for celebration on Mr Putin's birthday.

The increasingly close relationship between Russia and Germany is also noteworthy. In German Chancellor Angela Merkel Vladimir Putin has, to reverse Mrs Thatcher's description of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, found a woman he can do business with. Mrs Merkel, does after all, share a Soviet hinterland with Mr Putin, who was himself posted to East Germany by the KGB before the collapse of communism.

So as the Conservative Party faithful gather in Birmingham, Prime Minister David Cameron,  a onetime recruitment target for the KGB during his student gap year according to his own admission, might want to turn his attention eastwards to Europe. For it is very important that those "Little Englanders" amongst the Tories - the gods bless their souls! - are not permitted to distract the Government's attention from important European questions, including Russification of energy policy.

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE TURNER PRIZE

As the 2012 Turner Prize show of shortlisted artists opens at Tate Britain this week, I feel it's time to reflect on the role of art in society. So here's my mini-manifesto. Visual art should ideally:

• be aesthetically pleasing
• challenge our perception
• have a spiritual value

I found all these qualities in some pavement art outside a major a high street retailer yesterday: a photograph of "Tom's" pictures  is provided at www.donella.posterous.com (due to problems with blogger images).

One of my regrets in middle age is that I failed to submit a spoof entry for the Turner Prize, although I did consider applying to the former Channel 4's series "Faking It" as a conceptual artist.

My problem is not so much with the competition itself as the industry which it has spawned, and the pretentious language used by some artists and those who write about them. In short, the Turner Prize has contributed to the commodification of art and its spiritual devaluation.

SHADES OF GREY AND PEOPLE OVER FIFTY

The launch this week of a Labour Party commission, headed by Miriam O'Reilly and Arlene Phillips, into employment age discrimination against women over fifty comes as BBC news presented Fiona Bruce admits to dying her hair to keep her job. Both O'Reilly and Phillips were cast off by the Corporation from their roles in Country File and Strictly Come Dancing in favour of younger women.

As a woman just turned fifty and with her natural hair colour, including some grey, this is an issue close to my heart. However, the Labour Party's apparent championing of it will not make me renew my membership, lapsed since one Tony Blair became leader in the mid-1990s, because Britain's cult of youth, or rather of a youthful appearance, began with New Labour and the so-called Blair Babes.

For although John Major was only a youthful forty seven when he took up prime ministerial office in 1990, he was already grey and - although we did not know this until much later - the erstwhile possessor of a love life with fellow MP Edwina Currie probably closer to Fifty Shades of Grey than anyone in New Labour, with the possible exception of David Blunkett, would be capable of delivering.

Returning to discrimination against mature women the workplace, the issue, it seems to me, is not so much about age as appearance; although there are those for whom an older person's knowledge and experience are unattractive. However, discrimination on grounds of appearance is not confined to older women or men, and beautiful people may be discriminated against as well as plainer types.

The key issue - and apparent reason why BBC Country File sidelined Miriam O'Reilly, but retained the more mature John Craven - is that one's face fits, not just physically (the requirements of high definition television, for instance), but also, and even more importantly in most cases, metaphorically. Yes, it is fitting in with a younger group of colleagues that employers think older women will not do.

This apparent problem is often ascribed to a belief that older and younger women do not "get on" as well as men of different ages, and tend to replicate domestic roles in the workplace. The female menopause is also cited as an actual or potential risk to workplace equilibrium, although this seems to be able to accommodate the male's midlife changes.

Nevertheless, many men over fifty have been known to experience turbulent mood swings, and possibly even hot flushes exacerbated by spicy food, when challenged by younger, and perhaps more virile colleagues, including uniformed police officers. This fact may throw some light on the case of Andrew Mitchell (see below), and remind us all that, in life, there are indeed many shades of grey.

E-PANTO?: OLD BILL AND BIG SWINGING DICK

Mulling over some plebeian baked beans, laced with chili sauce, I had to acknowledge that my earlier post had all the right ingredients for a new E-Pantomime, as the following synopsis demonstrates:

The Government Chief Whip, erstwhile patron of international development and friend of the global poor - rather like the Big Clunking Fist in fact - has his lunch-time curry spiked by a Tory anarchist, and later that day transforms into "Big Swinging Dick". Asked to use the pedestrian gate, the bicycling minister insults some Downing Street police officers, who then log his deprecations and their account of the incident appears on the front page of a national tabloid.

In the meantime, the minister has resumed his normal persona and has little or no re-collection of the previous day's outburst, but apologises anyway. However, this is not the end of the matter. The shadow High Sheriff of England, the Honorable Mrs Cooper-Balls, is determined to have the minister publicly humiliated for using classist language in the presence of serving police officers. Now gentlemen of both the tabloid and broadsheet press smell blood and a hunt for BSD ensues.

The story then takes on a life of its own as the narrative of "Old Bill and Big Swinging Dick", in which various honest plods take on the dastardly member until order is restored by the civil service.

PLEBS AT THE GATE AND NEW CLASS POLITICS

On one level, I don't know whether to read the "Plebgate" story as a sense of humour failure on the parts of a government minister and the diplomatic police, or a comedy worthy of the Carry On Team.

Mr Andrew Mitchell, or so it is reported, likes to be known as a "Big Swinging D..k", but on this occasion seems to have behaved like a stupid pr..k. So why didn't the police officer in question caution the minister for bad behaviour at the time of the temper tantrum?

Instead, "Plebgate" was written down in the officer's log-book, and then later on the front page of The Sun newspaper. I'm not clear how the story was procured by News International, but I hope that on this occasion the police weren't paid for it.

Enter left Yvette Cooper, shadow Home Secretary, to demand an inquiry which the Cabinet Secretary has declined. Thank goodness, because even morons have more important things to think about!

URBAN POLICY IN THE AGE OF AUSTERITY

Usually sceptical of the think tank sector's increasing output, I nevertheless feel that The Work Foundation may have published an important report this week. Entitled "People or Place - Urban Policy in the Age of Austerity", this report considers the history of urban and regional policy and programmes, including the present government's partial abandonment of these. I say partial because the "Regional Growth Fund" is evidence that they still exist, in name anyway. However, RDF appears to favour more prosperous areas over poorer ones which is certainly a reversal of earlier policy objectives for urban and regional planning. The Work Foundation's report has focused on the situation in Birmingham and the West Midlands. This may be one reason why it has received little coverage from London-biased media.

THE DAVE CAM CHANNEL NEEDS TO WISE UP

Although the Prime Minister is highly intelligent, a natural tendency to talk down to people means that he often manifests a dual public persona, or cross between "Dave the Vague" and "Dave the Wide-Boy". We also know that he can be totally ruthless. Both personae were in play last week as "Dave the Diffident", an unmediated version of "Dave the Vague", which has some similarity to the manner adopted by Harold Macmillan, ruthlessly sacked various ministers and vaguely informed the House of Commons of a "form of review" of "airport capacity" (See below) Meanwhile, "Dave the Wide-Boy" proclaimed that he would "get planners off people's backs" and the nation's potentially dodgy extensions off the ground in a manner more reminiscent of Del Boy Trotter.

In the midst of all this, I had a dream - and I jest not - about being given a lift by former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan around the M25 and environs where some new and rather ugly development was taking shape. The journey ended, however, in an unregenerated inner urban neighbourhood. What could this vision presage, I wondered, except the continuing inability of the present government, like the previous one, to properly tackle the regeneration of Britain's inner city and older industrial areas, particularly in the Midlands and North of England?  I was, nevertheless, curious about the significance of the Bond figure. Upon reflection, I think this was Brosnan as he appeared in "The Ghost Writer", apparently in a role based on that of former prime minister Blair.

I've since reflected that Colin Firth, an actor able to take on tragic and comic roles in equal measure, might one day play Dave Cameron very well. In the meantime, it behoves the Prime Minister to both wise up the content of his public pronouncements, and, given the obvious inferiority of his comic persona to that of London Mayor Boris Johnson (a figure even the creme de la creme of British comedy creators could not dream up), to seriously consider enhancing the No 10 sense of humour department, through the engagement of some new speech writers as well as technical advisers.

INQUIRY'S TERMS OF REFERENCE WILL BE KEY

Following some week long speculation, the Prime Minister yesterday announced that "a form of review" would be conducted in to airport capacity around London. The chairman of this enterprise has been identified as Howard Davies. This must be regarded as a curious choice as Mr Davies was last in the news when he resigned as Director of the London School of Economics in 2011, as a consequence of donations from a charity linked to the former Gaddafi regime in Libya. One can only presume that friends in the right places felt Howard Davies was in need of guaranteed work for the next three years, as the airport "review" is not due to report until after the 2015 General Election. Would that more of us had such connectivity!

Connectivity will also be a key issue for the airport inquiry, as will its terms of reference. Unfortunately, Mr Cameron lived up to his reputation for being "Dave the Vague" when he informed the House of Commons of a review intended to "bring parties together and make a decision about airport capacity". My guess is that the terms of reference will be too narrowly drawn and thereby enable the "Heathrow Hub" concept to emerge as the solution to an ill-defined problem. Due to an inability to manage powerful stakeholder interests, the UK government is seriously impaired when it comes to strategic planning, an incapacity compounded by the appointment of people with questionable credentials for arriving at objective-based recommendations on major spatial projects.

UK GOVERNMENT TO HOLD AIRPORTS INQUIRY

News that the UK Government is likely to announce the creation of an independent commission to consider options for future airport capacity in South East England is, on balance, to be welcomed.

The options would seem to be as follows:

• Restrict capacity/demand manage air travel favoured by Green Party and environmentalists
• Restrict capacity in South East with new high speed rail link to regional airports in Midlands/North
• Heathrow Hub with expanded capacity
• Additional capacity at Gatwick and/or Stanstead
• Additional capacity at other existing airports in South East
• New Thames Estuary airport, for which there are a number of different options

It is important that the above options are considered in the context of the need for integrated transport solutions, including rail access, and the legal requirement for Strategic Environmental Assessment.

Since this blog was posted, The Independent on Sunday has revealed that a mystery consortium is drawing up plans for a new, four-runway airport close to Heathrow, with sites in Berkshire and Oxfordshire potentially in the frame.

VALUING THE 2012 OLYMPIC MEDAL COUNT

With the Russians apparently unhappy about their Olympic medals total, which officially put them in fourth place behind Britain, perhaps the time has come for a new method of scoring the medal count. A gold medal could be worth 3 points, a silver 2 and a bronze 1. This system would put Russia ahead of Britain in the medals count. Alternatively, the country's leaders could reflect on the possibility that Russia's longer term economic prospects might be better not only than Britain's, but perhaps even those of China and the United States, given the right political conditions.

EUROPE WILL BE WINNER OF LONDON 2012

During a year when Euroscepticism is very much in vogue, I'll wage a bet that Europe will be the winner of London 2012. Britain may win the medal count amongst European partners, but the continent looks set to have a majority of countries amongst the top ten performers and is likely to be the ultimate victor of the 2012 Olympics.

So whilst the UK may have beaten its main rival Germany in equestrian sports, with outstanding performances by our dressage and showjumping teams, it is the German horse industry which could secure more international business from the Olympics than our own. This has much to do with the dominance of northern European warmbloods in the sports horse market, reflecting the superior organisation of breeding in countries like Germany and the Netherlands. The German equestrian sector is also particularly well positioned for export markets as shown in their website: www.ghindustry.com

In addition, other European countries will be the undoubted beneficiaries of foreign tourists discouraged from coming to Britain during the Olympic year, at a time when the continent is already providing a greater attraction for the international visitor market. There is also the question of how many Britons will choose to holiday abroad.

So whilst national pride is rightly running high, it behoves British politicians and the media to curb the Eurosceptic spirit which has run riot in recent months, and focus instead on creating a lasting legacy from the London 2012 Olympics which extends well beyond the capital. In this context, the development of a national facility capable of staging the World Equestrian Games is something that requires serious consideration. The UK is currently without one despite being a global leader in horse sports, whereas a number of European countries have long-established centres of excellence, which bring together a major international competition circuit with valuable trade and visitor markets.

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.

OLYMPICS: LADY GODIVA RIDES FOR BRITAIN

As the British Eventing Team won a very well-deserved silver medal yesterday, a cycle drawn Lady Godiva made her way from the Midlands to London. Although this Godiva is clothed in the interests of public decently, a naked lady on horse back petitioned the prime minister a few years ago to support the creation of a national Museum of the Horse: www.museumofthehorse.org The promoters of this project point out that we are one of the few great horse-loving countries without such an attraction, and the choice of Greenwich Park as Britain's Olympic equestrian venue means that there can be no permanent legacy on this site, a theme I have covered at http://eponaland.wordpress.com

GOD SAVE PUTIN FROM THE PUSSY RIOT

The emasculation of Punk Rock in contemporary Britain is reflected the 2012 Olympic soundtrack, with The Clash's London Calling used by sponsors British Airways and The Sex Pistol's lyric "God save the Queen" (from their song Jubilee) finding its way into the opening ceremony's popular music medley.

In modern Russia, on the other hand, Punk seems to be alive and kicking. I refer, of course, to the girl band Pussy Riot who broke into Moscow's main cathedral earlier in the year wearing coloured balaclavas and called for the Holy Mother to save Russia from then prime minister, and now president, Vladimir Putin in a barrage of obscenities. Unsurprisingly, these actions led to unseemly scuffles with Orthodox nuns and clergy, and the subsequent imprisonment of some band members on charges of blasphemy and other offences. The absence of bail and the prospect of a long prison sentence for these young and, it has to be said, rather demure-looking women has outraged many Russians, leading to street protests by their supporters and one artist stitching his lips together. International media support for their plight is also growing.

However, I wonder what the reaction of Britain's liberal democracy, and, indeed that of the world's media, would be if a group of inappropriately-clad young women were to break into a mosque and engage in behaviour like that of Pussy Riot. The young women might well need to be imprisoned for their own protection.

For this reason, I would suggest, Britain is undergoing its own cultural emasculation, in some ways reflected in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. The insidious nature of this process, by contrast with the, arguably, fascist regime of President Putin should be cause for equal concern.

However, the lyrics which perhaps best encapsulate our country's contemporary cultural malaise, expressed most profoundly in the cult of celebrity and the lingering legacy of The Spice Girls, due to perform in the London 2012 closing ceremony, are still those of The Sex Pistol's original Punk song Pretty Vacant:

"There's no point in asking us you'll get no reply
I just steam in but I don't decide
I got no reason it's all too much
you'll always find us
Out to lunch !
We're so pretty oh so pretty
vacant
We're so pretty oh so pretty
vacant"

OLYMPIC TRIUMPH OF FORM OVER CONTENT

The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics was certainly a spectacle. Although I was hoping for something more Ken Russell and The Wicker Man to emerge from the Fields Full of Folk beneath the grassy mound, the transformation of these into Dark Satanic Mills instead was still impressive. Moreover, the heroine of the show for me was not Her Majesty's Bond Girl but the deaf drummer Dame Evelyn Glennie who led the summoning up of the infernal spirits of industrial revolution with Titan relish, stealing the limelight from Sir Kenneth Branagh's Isambard Kingdom Brunel with a positively awesome chthonic beat. Unfortunately, after that I thought the event rather lost its plot. Showcasing the National Health Service and Youth Culture was, I imagine, intended to highlight the role of these, along with the Queen and Our Green and Pleasant Land, in forging Britain's social cohesion. Nevertheless, despite the undoubted technical achievement of Danny Boyle's creation, I was left feeling that this culmination of the so-called Cultural Olympiad was still outdone by another Recent Event where form also triumphed over content: Last Year's Riots.

BANKING CRISIS: BEYOND THE THIRD WAVE

The current problems of the Eurozone have been described as "the third wave" of the banking crisis which began in the United States when the scale of the sub-prime lending fiasco became apparent in 2007, and the British bank Northern Rock was implicated in this. With the demise of the US bank Lehman Brothers the following year, a "second wave" of the crisis erupted. This period co-incided with the use of dubious interest management methods by Barclays bank, currently headlined in the London Interbank Offer Rates (LIBOR) scandal. It is useful to remind ourselves that the US authorities regarded the unsupportive position of the UK Government on a potential rescue of Lehman Brothers in 2008 as an important contributory factor in that bank's liquidation, and, as a consequence, in the escalation of the international banking crisis. The British narrative, of course, is rather different, as we were reminded when the deputy governor of the Bank of England informed us recently that it was intervention by the Brown government in the global credit crunch which "saved the world" (his words) in 2008. These comments were made against the backdrop of the Barclays LIBOR scandal. With regard to this present matter, it is perhaps hardly surprising that a different narrative is starting to emerge in the US, to the effect that the US authorities had drawn the attention of the Bank of England to likely irregularities associated with LIBOR in 2008. The real truth of the story may, or may not, unfold in future weeks as British players jostle for the position of new Governor of the Bank of England, and those in the US seek to set the record straight.

In this context, the recent international - ie Anglo-American - media focus on the problems of the Eurozone, and in particular of Spain and Greece, has subsided somewhat: something for which European politicians and those who support the Eurozone are no doubt grateful. Instead, we are reminded that the situation in many US states continues to be analogous to that of some Eurozone countries, with a number of cities recently filing for bankruptcy, including Stockton and San Bernardino in California, itself one of the world's largest economies. So "the third wave" of the banking crisis is by no means confined to the Eurozone, and is proving just as difficult for sunny west coast California to surf as sunny southern Europe. However, it may be "the fourth wave" of this crisis of capitalism, a term deployed by the Financial Times in 2008, which ultimately proves most difficult for the world to ride out. I refer, of course, to the present economic and political difficulties of China, the elephant in the room with the potential ability to demolish the global banking system's house of cards like a tsunami. Unsurprisingly, China's problems are once again founded, but not well as it turns out, upon a real estate bubble, which has contributed to the profound socio-economic polarisation of her enormous population. As the country's turbulent history has shown, China's present predicament is by no means auspicious. Meanwhile we all live in interesting times.

DETROIT: EXEMPLAR OF URBAN RENEWAL?

I was very surprised, or rather gobsmacked, to hear Centre for Cities chief executive Alexandra Jones cite Detroit as an exemplar of urban renewal on BBC Radio 4's today programme this morning. "The Lost City of Detroit" is identified probably more than other western metropolis with the phenomenon of urban abandonment and mass dereliction.

The policy of "grassing over" such abandoned areas, referred to by Ms Jones as an example of successful urban renewal, is one which most contemporary regeneration practitioners would not advocate for UK towns and cities. Although the disastrous "Pathfinder Programme" of New Labour, now abandoned by the Coalition, did indeed demolish and grass over parts of some older urban areas in the Midlands and north of England by way of following the model used by some US states.

So whilst the Centre for Cities does produce some very useful information on the state of UK urban areas, I would seriously question whether it lives up to the self-proclaimed title of "non-partisan.....policy research unit". Instead, the organisation seems to be engaged in re-packaging - perhaps grassing over - discredited programmes strongly associated with the previous government.

IT'S TIME TO RE-PACKAGE THE TEDDY BEAR

I'm not referring to an Olympic mascot, but the top secret project code-named "Teddy Bear" which Lord Mandelson, then an MP somewhat fallen from grace, devised with former prime minister Tony Blair, then Director General of the BBC John Birt and current Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood to break up ex-Chancellor Gordon Brown's Treasury. Yes, this cuddly creature is one of the revelations of "The Third Man", the subject of my previous post.

However, notwithstanding its apparently soft exterior, "Teddy Bear" might just end up being one of Mandelson's, or Heywood's, most substantial legacies to British government, albeit one also involving transfer of the "Prince of Darkness" title from politician to civil servant. So let's unpack New Labour's Teddy Bear and consider whether a timely re-packaging for the Coalition Government could make him a winning mascot for the New British politics.

In short, Project Teddy Bear, as I shall call it, envisaged splitting the economic management role of the Treasury from it administration of public expenditure, based on a model of government in the United States. This would have downsized the role of Gordon Brown, who tended to run the Treasury as a sort of International Bank for Re-Distribution and Development. Although, "re-distribution" to less developed countries tended to revert to London banks in the form of money laundering, thereby contributing to the now well-documented excesses of the City of London. Meanwhile, at home "development" became increasingly identified with lucrative construction contracts, many under the guise of the Private Finance Initiative, which now threaten to bankrupt parts of the public sector.

In this context, Teddy Bear remains an excellent idea, not least after last week's unedifying House of Commons squabble between present Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and the shadow-boxing Ed Balls. Re-packaging Teddy Bear would enable the Coalition Government to re-distribute the Treasury's responsibilities between say, Vince Cable, as head of a new finance ministry to handle macroeconomic policy and, yes, my old favourite, Ken Clark, who could lead a US-style Office of Budget and Delivery. George Osborne might be re-shuffled to the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation, where, no doubt, he could very ably represent the interests of the UK banking sector. Such a reshuffle could also afford Ed Miliband the opportunity to consign  Balls to the back benches.

IS BRITAIN READY FOR A NEW THIRD WAY?

Having taken some time out for reflection and reading, this blog is now resuming service with some thoughts inspired by "The Third Man" of British (and international) contemporary politics, New Red Baron Lord Peter Mandelson.

I purchased Lord Mandelson's autobiography, "The Third Man", from Waterstones for the princely sum of £0.99, being told by the young bookseller that this was one tome the shop "couldn't shift". This surprised me as the book has an elegant red and black cover, with a rather scary-looking Mandelson on its dust jacket.

In fact, the book was well-received by serious reviewers such as Matthew Dancona on its publication in 2010, shortly after Labour's general election defeat but before the election of Ed Miliband as new party leader.

However, it is perhaps testimony to the British public's lack of love for Lord Mandelson, as much as his own party's, that this rather good book has received less attention than the rantings of new raving loony party contender, Alastair Campbell. It may also be the case that Mandelson, the King of Spin, was and is not the lovely boy of the British media that we all assumed.

For my money, and sadly I'm not filthy rich, this makes what the Red Baron has to say all the more interesting; even if the Queen of Sofa Government tends to be rather more preoccupied by the microcosm of New Labour than the wider realities of politics at home and abroad. Cherie Blair's health guru Carol Caplin, for instance, receives rather more attention than most female ministers.

This said, Mandelson's account of his time as director of communications for the Labour is not only fascinating for anyone interested in the history of the modern party, but also explains why he and Tony Blair, the only two people to understand what New Labour was all about according to the latter, were willing to jettison so much in order to win and sustain power.

"He would say that wouldn't he", may well be the reaction of many to Mandelson's literary positioning of himself not only as the power broker of New Labour, but also its prime mover in matters of strategy. Nevertheless, it is he, rather than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who emerges through his book as the architect of the promised (but never actually delivered) political Third Way.

"The Third Man" ends with Lord Mandelson looking forward to "a new chapter" in his own life and the lives of  fellow protagonists in what has been called "The Project". It now seems that this chapter is already being written.

For an article in last weekend's "I" newspaper, funded by one of the "filthy rich" Russian oligarch's with whom the Red Baron is reported so friendly - another, incidentally, owns Waterstones bookshops - speculated on a "theatrical" Lord Mandelson playing a leading role in the appointment of Tony Blair as prime minister of a Lib-Lab Coalition following the 2015 general election.

Could such an arrangement deliver the Third Way for which many of us have been waiting. Having read "The Third Man", I'm still not so sure. It might well have been better for Britain and the world stage if the Churchillian Ken Clark had staged a military coup to prevent New Labour assuming government in 1997, and imposed a benign dictatorship on the country. But that's another story!

MANAGED DECLINE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

The current furore around whether Lord Howe recommended managed decline for the city of Liverpool following the riots of 1981 comes at a time when many question the commitment of the present government to the regeneration of England's major urban areas. If this latest controversy, following the 2011 unrest in English cities, re-invigorates urban and regional policy making it will be a good start to 2012.

However, the debate about what happened in Liverpool should be set in a broader context of the urban and industrial decline which has defined how much of Britain has developed, or not, since the 1970s. For managed decline has certainly been supported by successive governments over the past forty years or so, particularly with respect -or lack of - to the manufacturing base of major cities.

Indeed, anyone who has dealt with government departments knows full well that decisions inevitably resulting in managed decline, whether of particular areas, types of infrastructure or industrial sectors, are being made all the time; although largely, it has to be said, by faceless bureaucrats rather than politicians, who generally play second fiddle to the technocrats to whom England's economic and wider fate seems to have become entrusted.

The advent of regional government, and particularly the recent election of the Scottish National party, has nevertheless challenged the rule of technocracy in the United Kingdom, and a country arguably in managed decline during the latter part of the twentieth century has, with new democratic powers, undergone something of a renaissance. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that an arch-technocrat like the outgoing Cabinet Secretary should feel threatened.

CAMERON: WE'RE NOT ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

Interviewed recently, a former member of the Bank of England policy committee sensibly observed that it was very good for the UK that we are not in the Eurozone, and very good for the Eurozone that the UK is not a member.

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.

SMART MONEY'S ON MERKEL AND LAGARDE

Picture: The Telegraph

I have recently (and belatedly) started reading Germaine Greer's "The Whole Woman", published at the end of the twentieth century. There is a certain bitterness in later vintage Greer arising from the all too apparent flaws of "The Feminist Project", and in particular the failure of this to empower the "The Older Woman". However, it is not only older feminists who should reflect keenly on recent events in the Eurozone, where female power brokers Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde have this week seen off a male chauvinist of Imperial Roman proportions in Silvio Berlusconi.

For the partnership of German Chancellor and International Monetary Fund chief should be a concern not only for male politicians well-past their sell-by date, but also for fashionably young political leaders like David Cameron, and even President Obama, who have a penchant for coming across as onetime head boys now elevated to the position of school head master or college principal: ie still relatively inexperienced in the workings of European Realpolitik.

The present problems of the Eurozone may have provided a most welcome distraction from those of UK (and US) political economy, with Eurosceptic interests having a field day in the British media, but in the medium to longer term it is likely to be Germany and fellow members of a European Union premier league who are the winners. Indeed Britain should beware being cold-shouldered in both the "Special Relationship" and the New Europe.

With this in mind, Britannia might well do worse than look to "Mature Feminism" for help in renewing her political economy and the national psyche. Why, after all, should women of a certain age fare so well in foreign public life and be largely excluded from appearing in British visual media? The answer must lie amongst our male-dominated political media classes, and the many women who subscribe to their televisual reality. However, whilst this deep-rooted cultural problem may inspire outstanding feminist critics like Germaine Greer, it will prevent Britain from getting real with the challenges of the twenty first century.

VLADIMIR PUTIN'S NEW EASTERN APPROACHES

Source: Financial Times

News that Vladimir Putin is to seek a third term of office as Russian president, making the creation of a Eurasian Union the centrepiece of his political enterprise, comes as the prospects of the European Project appear much diminished. Alternatively, has the image of Euroland politics been excessively tarnished in recent months by an Anglo-US government alliance keen to deflect attention away from its own economic woes?

My own take on the new geopolitics is that the Arab Awakening, together with the prospect of closer co-operation between Russia and former Soviet republics, is creating a zone of opportunity between the Tiger economies of China and India and key European and North American markets. In this context, it is important that the British government's policy response is not dominated by an overly ideological approach based on Conservative Euroscepticism.

Prime Minister Cameron, and even President Obama, should also remember that, whilst their Russian colleague may be short in stature, Mr Putin is widely regarded, along with German Chancellor Merkel with whom he shares an old Eastern Bloc hinterland, as a political heavyweight: a status which the two younger, and probably more transient, western leaders have yet to prove.

THE DOUBLE EDGE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

Recent criticism of UK education - or its absence - in computer science by the head of Google no doubt has some justification.

However, the digital age has itself dumbed-down important areas of our personal and professional lives, as well as enriching these.

Many young people have professed themselves addicted to digital technologies which in recent weeks also facilitated destructive social disorder on our streets.

Digital sweatshops abound and few could not relate to some digital detox in their lives.

In the area of transport planning, for instance, whilst information technology has facilitated positive developments, professional practice has also become a slave to this.

The double edge of digital technology means that its usage can have regressive as well as progressive outcomes.

Critical thinking needs to be deployed and this is perhaps another shortcoming in UK education.

UK'S "OUT-OF-CONTROL CONSUMERIST ETHOS"

A very interesting article appeared in yesterday's Guardian, some extracts from which follow;

"The recent riots in London and other big cities were the product of an "out-of-control consumerist ethos" which will have profound impacts for the UK economy, a leading City broker has said.

The report by the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, Tim Morgan, ....details recommendations to resolve what it sees as a political and economic malaise: new role models, policies to encourage savings, the channelling of private investment into creating rather than inflating assets, and greater public investment.

It warns: "We conclude that the rioting reflects a deeply flawed economic and social ethos, recklessly borrowed consumption, the breakdown both of top-end accountability and of trust in institutions, and severe failings by governments over more than two decades."

"The dominant ethos of 'I buy, therefore I am' needs to be challenged by a shift of emphasis from material to non-material values. David Cameron's 'big society' project may contribute to the inculcation of more socially-oriented values, but much more will need to be done to challenge the out-of-control consumerist ethos.

"The government, too, needs to consume less, and invest more. Government spending has increased by more than 50% in real terms over the last decade, but public investment has languished.....""

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.

RE-COMMITMENT TO REGENERATION NEEDED

That a senior minister from the Communities Department was busy railing against a left-wing conspiracy he percieved amongst countryside conservation groups, who object to proposed changes to the planning system, just as unprecedented rioting broke out in London, is evidence of the growing reality gap between much of government and England's major urban areas.

This is not to say that the Coalition, or Conservative politicians, are more to blame for the outbreak of violent unrest, arson and looting than the previous administration and now political opposition. For the structural under-employment, worklessness and social breakdown of many urban communities was largely by-passed during Britain's boom years, except in so far as the aspirations of their growing young populations were raised unrealistically by the consumer society they have now turned upon through collective acts of theft and destruction.

Urban regeneration during New Labour was largely housing and retail-led, with city centres like those of Birmingham and Manchester becoming ever-expanding shopping malls, whilst deprivation in many immediately adjoining areas continued to be a major problem due to the ongoing decline of industries which once provided mass employment. The same is true across much of London. That shopping centres should now become the focus for unrest is not surprising, although the actions of the past few days remain inexcusable.

Whilst these are not riots of the kind experienced in the 1980s, with modern gang culture clearly playing a much more significant role than collective social and political grievance, some of the key underlying causes of earlier violent unrest have, nevertheless, not only remained untackled but increased over the last twenty five to thirty years. Amongst these is not just the quantitative decline of manufacturing employment, but the relocation of this to areas outside major cities.

This process was facilitated by the planning policies of Conservative governments during the 1980s, and is once again being encouraged by Coalition proposals currently subject to public consultation. In addition, the government's Regional Growth Fund appears to favour speculative greenfield development, ill-defined as "growth", of the kind which could well lead to a further exodus of employment from major urban areas, and, indeed, the inner parts of smaller cities.

Instead of these potentially disastrous measures, the Coalition must make a re-commitment to the regeneration of England's major cities, with the creation of skilled-employment a priority. Only when young people there have the prospect of work that offers the possibility of a genuine livelihood, and where their skills and contributions secure the respect of peers and the wider community, will the need to turn to collective criminality be sustainably reduced.

Management of deep-rooted economic problems through increased policing and social programmes of the kind pursued by New Labour may have the short-term affect of supressing the symptoms of malaise, but make the situation worse in the longer-term. However, much of the most sensible comment in the run up to the 2011 riots has come from "Blue Labour" Peer Maurice Glasman, someone who could well be part of a possible political solution, along with "Red Tories" and senior Liberal-Democrat MPs like Simon Hughes.

The present government, meanwhile, must make regeneration centre stage again, and the work of ministers and civil servants within the Department for Communities and Local Government needs to be re-prioritised accordingly. With Parliament re-called tomorrow, this British summer can no longer accommodate a political silly season.

ECONOMY: NO BOOM AND MORE BUST?

The BBC radio 4 debate between supporters of Keynes and Hayek at the London School of Economics the other day was well-timed, with Business Secretary Vince Cable amongst others now pressing for more quantitative easing. This may be inevitable at the UK and international levels, but is not something I support, despite having Keynesian leanings, for the reasons given below.

Measures to protect the international banking system from collapse in 2008, a fate which would have been particularly disastrous for London as a global financial centre and the wider British economy as a consequence, were nevertheless always going to have highly undesirable side effects. These include preventing necessary downward price adjustments, in the property market and public service provision, for instance, which would provide a much more sustainable economic stimulus than further quantitative easing. The continuing inefficiency of the UK financial sector, reflected for instance in the poor performance of pension investments compared to other countries, also remains an ongoing problem with, as yet, little prospect of cure.

Therefore, like the majority of those attending the LSE debate the other day, I found myself siding with supporters of Hayek, up to a point. I do, however, believe that there is a strong case for highly focused public expenditure, which some will regard as Keynesian, in areas such as basic infrastructure maintenance and improvement - as distinct from high profile mega projects like high speed rail - social rented housing provision, and employment programmes for young people linked to environmental technologies and conservation.

Unfortunately, because the UK economy remains particularly exposed to the continuing shortcomings of the international financial system, currently focused on the problems of the Eurozone, and the Coalition has a Schizoid - in the Osborne-Cable politically split personality -approach to economic policy and government spending, my concern is that a necessarily nuanced response to the present crisis will not emerge and we will have a more of the same situation in the immediate future. The question is whether this can stave off a further down-turn/recession, or whether another bust is inevitable because the international and UK response to the banking crisis of 2008 was both inappropriate and inadequate.

LOWERING THE VOLUME OF FUTURE BABBLE

I am currently reading "Future Babble" by Dan Gardner, and note the introductory chapter's reference to an IMF economist's view that his profession's "record of failure to predict recessions in virtually unblemished".

Although "Future Babble" seems to set up a dichotomy, rather than a discourse, between technological optimists and ecological pessimists, Gardner's perspicacity cannot be faulted.

The case of Robert Schiller, the Yale economist who wrote "Irrational Exuberance" in 2000, and revised this in 2005, is used by Gardner to illustrate a particular problem with professional experts. Although Schiller was one of the few economists to predict the global financial disaster of 2008, in his capacity as an adviser to a US bank he "felt the need to use restraint". The consensus at the bank was that there was no housing bubble in the US, a position Schiller's conceded because: "Deviating too far from consensus leaves one feeling potentially ostracised from the group, with the risk that one may be terminated".

"Groupthink", as Gardner argues, "is very much a disease that can strike experts. In fact, psychologist Irving Janis coined the term "groupthink" to describe expert behaviour...."

My own strategy for dealing with expert and wider non-expert "future babble", and indeed group think, is to treat these as background noise: something to be acknowledged, ignored and taken into account as appropriate.

ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS FOR THE BIG SOCIETY

"There has got to be a new era of transparency, accountability and openness." Eric Pickles

Like most people, I'm still not sure what "The Big Society" is all about, although I like this quote from the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government obtained from an Insight Public Affairs briefing on the subject.

THE MOTHER OF ALL MURDOCHS' ADVICE

Perhaps the most salutary lesson to emerge from the furore surrounding Murdoch Media, currently engulfing the attentions of the British political upper classes, is the fact that Rupert's mother Dame Elisabeth, who is 102, has over the years strongly advised him against unwarranted journalistic invasions of privacy. Would that son had taken mother's advice!

THE OLD WOMAN MOUNTAIN DREAMING

Realising that my previous posts may have offended fans of the Australian Thorny Devil, I decided to consult the treasure trove of Aboriginal myth, medicine and magic this morning - having previously outed myself as "The Witch of Worcester" - and found this gem on the Aboriginal Art Store website:

"The Old Woman Mountain Dreaming (or Thorny Devil Lizard) is a major Dreaming story from this region (called Utopia!*) and features prominently in several art works. This creation story tells of the journey of the female ancestors as they travelled across country pinpointing relevant significant sites essential for survival. In the artworks these references are depicted as a symbolic line of trees indicating the location of underground water, the seasonal cycle and location of various native food or the sites of waterholes."

More on Utopia Aboriginal Art can be found @ http://www.aboriginalartstore.com.au/

Applying the wisdom of Aboriginal female ancestors to current events in Britain, I would suggest that Mrs Rebekah Brooks, along with many others, might benefit from some time in the wilderness, having spent a few years there myself I can't recommend it enough!

Also drawing a personal message from "The Old Woman Mountain Dreaming", I feel recalled to attend to sustainable planning issues, and the protection of "significant sites essential for survival" around Worcester and Environs (and elsewhere) from speculative development. Once again the importance of "Water Issues" can't be underestimated.

The Witch of Worcester can be found @ http://witchofworcester.wordpress.com/

* My brackets

MEDIA ALTERNATIVES TO MOLOCH HORRIBUS*

Yesterday I touched upon the importance of aims and objectives in decision-making, and today want to highlight the issue of alternative scenarios, options for achieving these and their possible downsides. In the case of British press and broadcasting, for instance, whilst foreign investment may desirable, one would not wish the Chinese state media to take a controlling stake in BSkyB.

*The Australian Thorny Devil at the helm of Murdoch Media.
Image: Wikipedia Media Commons

THE IMPORTANCE OF AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Assisting clients with clarification of their aims and objectives, and identifying the best means of achieving these, including different courses of action and the effects of these upon stakeholders, represent some of the most important tasks of the management consultant.

My advice to British politicians would be to remember these tasks in their dealings with Murdoch Media. Some may wish to oust the group from UK press and broadcasting, but I doubt this is the consensus view, which is probably represented in "better the devil you know".

MURDOCH MEDIA: A VERY BRITISH COUP?

Whilst Ed Miliband has emerged as the leader of today's parliamentary coup intended to rout Murdoch Media's takeover of BSkyB, I'm still left wondering whether this remains a phony war.

The "leader image" shows an Australian Thorny Devil or Moloch Horridus.

THE WEAKNESS OF WESTERN CURRENCIES

The "blame game" around the unfolding tale of corruption and malpractice at UK News International - just remember that the rot set in under New Labour and Ken Livingstone's mayoral responsibilities for the Metropolitan Police - provides an analogous side-show to the bigger, and largely untold, story concerning the current weakness of western currencies.

It is as if the so-called "Decline of the West" has now been consciously accepted and the only way is down, or downunder, East or Essex.

So politicians in the United States, along with those in the UK, look forward to a weakening of the Euro, because this improves the prospects of their own weak currencies. Indeed, much of the anti-Euro sentiment in the North American and British media derives from this express wish.

Meanwhile, supporters of the Euro within and outside the Eurozone have worked together to maintain the value of the currency, notwithstanding the media assault.

Perhaps we just need a "New Media"in the West. I certainly wouldn't give a "ForEx" for much of the present one, even the apparently respectable institutions behave little better than the rent boys and girls of political and corporate sentiment alot of the time.

GEORGE OSBORNE AND THE POUND SHOP

My last post concluded with an expression of concern about the UK becoming the economic equivalent of a "Pound Shop", and I shall probe this comparison further today, but first some reference must be made to those "Events", dear boys and girls.

I refer, of course, to "News of the World's End" - and having purchased yesterday's final edition shall allude to this further -together with the re-entry of the "C-Word", or "Corruption", into the British political lexicon. Needless to say, some will feel that the four letter C-word may best describe some of the parties involved, but this blog won't devalue itself by resorting to such language.

It will, nevertheless, remind readers that it was George Osborne, as shadow chancellor, who recommended to David Cameron the appointment of Andy Coulson as his party's head of communications, following the departure of the latter from the News of the World. Readers should also be aware that Mr Osborne's judgement in the choice of some of his friends is no better, and possibly worse, than that of the Prime Minister. The role of a former Eton friend in the 2008 "Yachtgate Affair" is a case in point.

Indeed, I would strongly caution both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer against the appointment of people they might think of as friends to positions of power, and opt instead for relationships with colleagues of the kind described by former Conservative deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine in BBC Radio 4's "Meeting Myself Coming Back" series.

Returning to the currency issue, yesterday's News of the World did in fact carry a rather good article on the financial advantages of holidaying in Blackpool this Summer: something the Osborne family might like to consider. The particular reason for Blackpool being an increasing destination of choice is the weakness of the pound, particularly against the Euro.

The weakness of the pound is, however, very much a double-edged sword where the British economy is concerned because of our heavy reliance upon imports. Even manufacturing, widely regarded as being a beneficiary of the present situation, is disadvantaged because the raw materials and components of production are increasingly purchased abroad.

Moreover, the situation is made worse because much of Britain's manufacturing amounts to little more than assembly, something to which the Chancellor and Business Secretary Vince Cable should attend more. In effect, much of the UK is now the branch office/plant economy once used to describe the fate of the West Midlands.

The response of Mr Osborne and his colleagues to "re-balancing the economy" seems to consist mainly of policies to re-stimulate the construction sector, albeit that funding for projects - such as some grants made through the Regional Growth Fund (of which Lord Heseltine is Chairman) - is dressed up as support for manufacturing. The identification of "growth" with the development of greenfield sites is also reminiscent of planning policy during the Thatcher governments.

In short, much of the Coalition's efforts to date on economic policy hark back to the major regional infrastructure and construction programmes of the second half of the twentieth century. These palpably failed to support endogenous productive enterprise, and ultimately led to the retreat from these activities which characterised the New Labour regime in the first decade of the present millennium.

Instead, the Coalition should be focused on the creation of an added-value economy with a currency which reflects this. The nearest approximation to this economic state of affairs is Germany, and, notwithstanding the very real problems of the Eurozone, the relative strength of the Euro compared to UK Sterling reflects this situation. As noted in an earlier post, the Euro also has the advantage of its reserve currency status.

So what should the Chancellor of the Exchequer do about the Great British "Pound Shop"? Government policy should recognise that whilst bargain basements do have a role, these do not provide a model for sustainable economic development, as evidenced in any UK high street. The Chancellor must, therefore, act against practices within the financial sector which are currently undermining the value of UK plc, at the cost of making London less attractive to certain types of speculator.

Whether the present incumbent of Number 11 is up to this task is the question. I still favour "Big Beast" Ken Clarke for the role of chancellor. The sadly disgraced David Laws might have been up to the job, but probably not (again sadly) Vince Cable, for reasons I shall almost certainly cover in a future post. Ironically, however, failure on the current Chancellor's part could render British membership of the Euro a real option.

POLITICS: THESE BOYS & GIRLS WORRY ME

Reflecting recently on the dangers to British parliamentarians of foreign holidays, I was drawn to a blog by George Warner in the Telegraph concerning the "Yachtgate Affair" of 2008 which included the refrain "that boy Osborne worries me".

The sight of our boyish Chancellor looking bemused on the Government's front benches as "News of the World's End" unfolded yesterday was a strong reminder that the politics of fatal distraction remain as much a clear and present danger as ever.

For whatever Andy Coulson's misdemeanors, it must be remembered that, unlike his New Labour predecessor and another onetime tabloid editor, David Cameron's former head of communications did not falsify documents which played a key role in the run up to the Iraq war.

Nevertheless, Coulson's appointment was clearly a misjudgement on the part of our Prime Minister, of the kind which British politics has been riddled for the past ten years or so and from which shows few signs of recovery.

A recent article in the Telegraph by the Chic-Lit author Louise Bagshawe, who as a Conservative MP now uses her new married name of Mensch, illustrates why the generation of MPs who have come to power since 2000 are prone to such misjudgements.

The subject of the Bagshawe-Mensch article is former New Labour minister, and wife of shadow chancellor Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, for whom the lady author - who was for a time a member of the New Labour Party - seems to have developed a crush.

These same sex crushes, often amongst married people, seem to characterise relationships amongst the political and media classes, compromising professional judgements and contributing to Britain's recent poor record of government.

They are, in my view, a particular shortcoming of people who attend same sex private schools, although by no means the exclusive preserve of such institutions. Vain men and women of the kind attracted to careers in politics and the media are most prone to such crushes.

Therefore, I would especially caution "Geogeous George" Osborne in his choice of advisors, for the clear and present danger in my view is UK plc becoming the economic equivalent of a "Pound Shop" if he doesn't attend to attend to issues currently underlying the weakness of Sterling.

These boys and girls worry me.

POST-FEMINIST MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

Like most women, I want to see my gender better represented in positions of power. However, I'm not convinced that women make better or more progressive managers than men. The case of Murdoch media moll Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) is a classic example of female management providing a cover for practices even most hardened male hacks would blench at. Women can be just as unethical, ruthless and unenlightened as men, so whilst supporting the IMF's appointment of Madame Lagarde, I disagree with her that a "Lehman Sisters" might have averted the banking crisis.

COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE WOMAN

News that Gina Reinhart, heiress to an Australian mining empire, is likely to become the world's richest person - with a personal net worth estimated at $100 billion - comes as Christine Lagarde is made executive head of the International Monetary Fund.

The latter appointment has noticeably bought complaints from some male economists, as Lagarde was an international lawyer before taking up her previous position as French finance minister.

However, Reinhart's potential replacement of Microsoft's Bill Gates (or the founder of IKEA according to some reports) as the wealthiest person on the planet does not seem to have raised many eyebrows.

What it does reflect is the continuing importance of natural assets and resources - coal and iron in this case - to economic development, something the male-dominated economics profession has failed to adequately acknowledge in recent years.

Indeed their frequent inability to see elephants in the room is one very good reason for the IMF to appoint a non-economist as its new head, although Madame Lagarde should remember not to forget her spectacles (as she did at her first meeting as a member of the French government).

PUTTING THE POLITICAL BACK INTO ECONOMY

The apparent return of "Greek Riot Dog Kanellos" to the political scene co-incides with the latest crisis in that country's economy. With the conditions of Greece's earlier bailout proving too onerous, the European sovereign debt problem has come to the fore yet again and with it questions over the sustainability of the Euro. However, the Euro will survive, whatever the fate of the Greeks, because politics and economics are inextricably linked. Germany will continue to back the Euro, to which Chancellor Angela Merkel only yesterday ascribed the renaissance of her country's economy. In addition, the Euro has strong support amongst countries outside Europe such as Russia, who want a reserve currency alternative to the United States Dollar.

As a Eurosceptic nation, this wider significance of the Euro is not generally reflected in the British media. UK Sterling is, after all, the world's third largest reserve country, with the Euro in second place. There are many here no doubt who would like this situation reversed, and media coverage of the European political economy tends to reflect this. My observation, incidentally, is not intended to support the case for Britain joining the Euro, which I accept is unforeseeable at the present time. What I do want is much better and more balanced coverage of Eurozone issues over here. BBC Trust Chairman, Lord Patten please take note.

For if one is to believe its media, Britain is a nation increasingly obsessed with money, sex and, or so it seems, death, but rather less interested in religion, science and technology. Ideology, however, does not seem to register on the radar of the national psyche. This is a serious problem because politics and economics are not just about sex and money, and they are certainly not a science. Yet notwithstanding our apparent reluctance to recognise the role of ideologies, these nevertheless exert an imperceptible control on issues which the British regard as important, and thus need to be "outed" rather more than the dalliances of our politicians.

As I noted near the beginning of this blog in 2006, the international theatre director Peter Hall has observed that sex is used to divert attention away from politics in Britain. A new website called http://www.sexymp.co.uk/ reflects this very well. It has, therefore, occurred to me that a survey of the open ideological affiliations, as well as more covert sympathies, of Members of Parliament and the House of Lords is called for at the present time. Casting around for a potential sponsor for such a survey, august media institutions like the Financial Times and Economist Group spring to mind, but perhaps it is rather to some foreign media organisation that I should look.

BBC Analysis: Mis-Selling of Financial Services

Juxtaposition of the repeated BBC radio 4's Analysis with the second airing of Money Box yesterday evening created an opportunity for some interesting reflection, but before giving this I want to tell a short cautionary tale.

In the early 1990s, I worked for a professional services firm in a tallish office building opposite the Old Bailey. The young star economist of my group, which occupied an upper floor of the building, came in one weekend to dabble with his computer model. Feeling that his brain was in need of increased oxygenation, he endeavoured to open a non-opening window with some force, very nearly defenestrating himself and causing a large pane of glass to crash to the ground in many shards.

This experience, combined with the property bust (which followed a boom) and international recession of the same era, taught me that a crash might accompany anything to do with economists and their supposedly scientific discipline.

Fast forward to yesterday evening, and my second hearing of BBC Radio 4's Analysis - yes, I felt compelled to listen to this programme twice - began to ring internal alarm bells, as Janan Ganesh of The Economist made some rather astounding statements.

First of all, words to the effect of "four years on from the first intimations of the great crash" were used. Excuse me, Mr Ganesh, but many people had "intimations" of a bubble likely to burst well before 2007. Then there was reference to economic recessions arising from problems in financial services being less severe than those linked to manufacturing: this "thesis" being used by Mr Ganesh to caution the present Government against being too zealous in re-balancing the economy away from the banking sector.

In short, my response to this "analysis" was very similar to the BBC's own advisers on hearing the mis-selling of financial products to under-cover customers by the staff of major banks, as reported in the pre-ceding Money Box programme.

THE PHONEY WAR FOR MIDDLE ENGLAND

"All pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others"

This doodle of a spinning pig was supposedly drawn by shadow chancellor Ed Balls during a plot to purge New Labour of Tony Blair's premiership in favour of a government led by Comrade Brown. The rest, as they say, is history.

Or it would be had today's Telegraph newspaper not chosen to remind its readers of those dark days, and thereby create a remarkable spin amongst certain sections of the chattering classes, of a kind the Balls doodle might well symbolise.

So why should Telegraph readers be interested in this old story? The answer lies in a politically modified animal which I shall call the New Labour Conservative. This creature, it should be emphasised, is not Red Tory or Blue Labour, but represents an equally important political constituency in Middle England.

The New Labour Conservative is typically a household which identifies itself as professional, and where one partner works in the public sector. This aspirational social unit was championed during the "Christian democracy" of Tony Blair's government, but wasn't so sure about Gordon Brown, particularly when the economy went pear-shaped.

However, neither has the Coalition's deficit reduction programme and proposed changes to public services gone down well with the New Labour Conservative. Incidentally, this politically modified animal includes a good many Lib-Dem (and Tory) councillors who don't like the downsizing of their fiefdoms, anymore than Liverpool Trots liked Neil Kinnock calling the shots.

However, the fact remains that New Labour created a Britain - and an aspirational Middle England in its own image - with a non-viable model of political economy. As politicians of the left, right and centre know very well, only radical structural transformation can re-create a sustainable future. The important issues in this tectonic shift, I would suggest, are the environment and a re-ordering of social well-being, as I'm sure Dr Rowan Williams would agree.

INDIA AND THE GODS OF BIG THINGS

It was something of a curry night on BBC Radio yesterday with a very interesting programme on "blogging against bribery" at 8pm on 4, and later a Night Waves interview with Arundhati Roy and Siddhartha Deb on their new books. Amitav Ghosh is on 3's Night Waves this evening.

It is testimony to the great challenges of contemporary India that the country has created some of the best English language writing of the present time, leading to an obvious comparison with Victorian literature.

Ghosh has chosen the early Victorian period for his Ibis Trilogy, the second novel of which, River of Smoke, has just been published. Speaking of the first volume, Sea of Poppies, a few years ago, Ghosh was asked to explain the book's underlying sense of optimism, notwithstanding the dire circumstances of its story. Ghosh responded to the effect that people facing great challenges in their daily lives often have a remarkable sense of hope.

Since her success with The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy has relinquished fiction for writing about the immense social and environmental problems of modern India, and is now recognised around the world as one of the country's foremost critics of unsustainable development. In her latest book, Broken Republic, she tackles the pressures facing India's tribal peoples and their homelands, including forced eviction by government militia, and their recourse to assistance from Maoist guerrillas.

Roy's apparent support for Maoist groups drew some stern questioning from Nigh Waves host Rana Mitter, until Siddhartha Deb pointed out that a group of people interviewed for his book, The Beautiful and the Damned, who lived near a toxic waste site on the outskirts of Hyderabad, having exhausted all other options, also had to look to such groups for help.

All in all, the interview with Roy and Deb was red hot. A great shame that Mitter had to cut this short to cover items, which, although interesting, paled into insignificance compared to the earlier exchange.

MONKEY BUSINESS IN BRITISH POLITICS

This summer will see the opening in British cinemas of a prequel to "The Planet of the Apes" called "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", providing the back story to the primate plot which eventually led to their future superior species status.

As for monkey business in British politics, and particularly in local government, we should be grateful for the Tweeter called Mr Monkey for raising its profile. The Mail newspaper revealed on Saturday: one council in South Tyneside "may have an awful lot to hide".

This story obviously resonates with readers of the paper, and one commentator has urged the prime minister to act because "we are all in this together". The monkey business goes much deeper than local authorities, although these might be a good place to start.

For the business of government and public services is increasingly that of contract and asset management, usually involving close working with major private firms. Any one who has attempted to question such relationships will know how just how difficult this can be, and why resort to blogging may be the only real option available.

Corruption is to a significant extent a cultural blind-spot in British politics - personally, I regard MPs expenses as small beer - and many in government and public life will all but deny its existence on our home shores, preferring to expend energy in lambasting organisations like FIFA and foreigners in general by way of media distraction.

An alternative interpretation may be that our supposed ruling classes already live on a different planet to the rest of us.

Local Government - CRISIS? WHAT IS A CRISIS?

I'm surprised the BBC television news channel found time to cover any international affairs yesterday, as it seemed to have been transformed into a sports station, or rather a commercial football channel. So let me remind trust board members than many of us wish that FIFA, along with professional football in general, would disappear permanently up their large rear orifice. Having got this off my chest, I do feel that the FIFA president's question during yesterday's "very important" press conference -"not a bazaar" as he informed the media - is one which needs tackling.

So let me focus on Britain's local democratic deficit, and ask why so many major planning inquiries are held in football stadia. In the good old days, these events typically took place in city and town halls, although I attended one in the august surrounds of the Old Royal Military Academy at Woolwich (later redeveloped). The apparent closeness of the Planning Inspectorate and local authorities to commercial football, itself the source of some controversial development applications, is precisely the kind of professional relationship which raises concerns amongst those who suspect officials, if not of actual corruption, then of collusion with business interests.

The fact that most large councils have now entered the social media arena also raises important issues of accountability and, inevitably, funding, as highlighted in the case of South Tyneside Council and a Tweeter called Mr Monkey over the weekend. This English local authority has pursued Mr Monkey through the Californian legal system and gained access to his Twitter account, along with that of an independent councillor, all for less than US$100k (or was that £s Sterling ?) according to a council spokesman. That people should feel the need to resort to anonymous blogging to make claims against council officials indicates that if English local democracy, to quote FIFA president,is "not in crisis...we are in some difficulties".

SHARON SHOESMITH AND BABY PETER

Whilst this blog generally tries to steer clear of "children, schools and families", the case of Sharon Shoesmith is so important that, on this occasion, I feel the need to wade in.

Although usually unsympathetic to the highly-paid social bureaucrat, I do think that Ms Shoesmith became the victim of a political game of football between Gordon Brown and David Cameron in the final years of New Labour. There are important differences between accountability and media fuelled witch hunts of the kind to which Ms Shoesmith fell victim. Yesterday's court judgement has recognised this.

The cases of Sharon Shoesmith, the former head of education and social services in the London Borough of Haringey, and Baby Peter, the child neglected, abused, and finally killed by the adults who supposedly cared for him, raises a range of issues which need to be considered separately.

Firstly, the creation of a super-department for children, schools and families presided over by Ed Balls was a mistake. Social care fits better with health than education, and it was ultimately the medical profession that failed Baby Peter, whose serious injuries were left undiagnosed, rather than his social workers.

Secondly, as secretary of state Balls was wrong to intervene personally in having Ms Shoesmith sacked. The failures of her council department in managing education and social services were, after all, partly a consequence of the flawed government re-organisation led by him.

Thirdly, the strong tendency under New Labour for power in public sector organisations to concentrate in the hands of a relatively small number of highly-paid officials has ultimately made effective day-to-day hands-on management virtually impossible. Much flatter and more accountable structures are required, with remuneration which reflects this.

Finally, the previous government adopted what can only be described as a naive approach to children, parenting and families, and it looks very much like the present administration will continue this. Whist Balls, Brown, and Cameron are all, I am sure, excellent parents, many people are not. It might well behove governments, therefore, to recognise this in the benefit system and actively discourage those likely to be unsuited to parenthood from having children.

HENRY KISSINGER ON CHINA THEN AND NOW

Rana Mitter's BBC Radio 3 Night Waves interview with former US Secretary of State Dr Kenry Kissinger was well worth tuning into, albeit that Mitter's questioning was rather loud and Kissinger's replies rather quiet.

The interview on China, also the name of a book which Kissinger has just had published on this subject, focused on the Mao Zedong years, although there were also some rather chilling comments on current US-China relations.

Asked by Mitter if he was an admirer of Mao Zedong, Kissinger responded that he admired the former Chinese leader's grasp of strategy, both at home and in international affairs, but deplored the oppression and genocides of Mao's regime.

However, although Mao is widely regarded as one of the architects of modern China, Kissinger said that he and his contemporaries in the early 1970s could not have imagined the magnitude of the country's transformation over the next twenty five years.

The interview sounded a cautionary note about the future of US-China relations, with references to Britain and Germany in the early twentieth century. Let's hope the current G8 Summit meeting in France keeps this in mind.

OECD - SOME BAD NEWS AND SOME GOOD

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has today warned of the threat of global stagflation due to rising commodity prices and slower than expected growth.

This comes at the same time as the the OECD publishes a major report entitled "Towards Green Growth", which is upbeat on the potential of sustainable development to tackle global economic and other problems whilst meeting environmental sustainability criteria. Monitoring and delivery mechanisms are also identified.

The good news and the bad has particular relevance for China, the engine of the world economy, whose growth forecast for this year has been downgraded by the OECD.

A report released by the Chinese government in 2006 revealed that roughly 3% of the country's annual GDP had been offset by economic loss through environmental degradation - a figure than some think is too conservative (Nature 448, 2007).

The key issue is whether "green growth" - an oxymoron for many environmentalists - can become a reality, and within a realistic timescale. Political interventions will be essential, and the OECD has highlighted the use of government bonds as a core funding mechanism for developing renewables and other green technologies.

From Tabloid Paradise To Green Utopias & More....

The past week or so has been something of a golden age for the tabloid press and sections of the new media, as diplomatic and legal channels are by-passed and the crimes and misdemeanors of the powerful and famous laid bare.

However, the visit of the US President (O'Bama in Ireland) to the British Isles, along with a new ash cloud, will, I trust, return a more serious spin to current affairs.

I've decided that the present may be a good time to revisit some Green Utopias - of which Hawaii, the Emerald Isle, and, indeed, our very own Albion might claim to be three - and shall be exploring these through the medium of the blogosphere in the coming weeks.

As the dominant discourse is dystopian, I shall also be spending time on the dark side, and offer some exegesis on the duality of apocalyptic predictions from various perspectives.

The first installment of this exploration - Green Utopias Revisited - can be found @ http://woodwose.wordpress.com/

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.

WELCOME TO CAFE ROCCO !

As we live in serious times, I've opted for something sweeter on the menu today and would extend an invitation to Cafe Rocco @ www.caferocco.com