BALLS MAY RAISE THE POLITICAL GAME BUT...

Readers of my blog will know that I'm not a fan of Ed Balls, and had supported the appointment of Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, few would deny that Johnson's performance in this role has been poor. Moreover, the current public inquiry into the disastrous management of a Staffordshire hospital whilst Johnson was Secretary of State for Health has also revealed the weakness of "Corporal Johnson"*, as one Midlands Labour councillor called him after the local government elections in 2009.

Nevertheless, whilst Johnson's replacement by Ed Balls may raise the Labour Party's game in the short-term, it must be remembered that his record in office is no better than that of his colleague. Indeed, Balls is regarded as one of the architects of New Labour's highly flawed economic policies. Former Chancellor Alistair Darling also seems to have regarded him as a bullying thug. Balls' main strength seems to lie in the fact that as a former journalist the media can relate to him, but that is no recommendation.

* Recalling Corporal Jones in Dad's Army and his words of "Don't Panic, Dont Panic !" whilst doing precisely that.

CLIMATE CHANGE FOR ENERGY ISSUES

As he took up the role of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the Liberal-Democrat Chris Huhne also took up with a new partner, and is recently divorced from his wife. So BP has taken up with the Kremlin, now set to become the company's largest shareholder, in a move which has upset its previous major partner, the US.

Meanwhile, it turns out that whilst Britain has been taken up with Russian spies, the previous government, via the Association of Chief Police Officers, had been funding under-cover agents to spy on climate change activists. One of these has now changed sides and given evidence in support of his former green comrades.

The political climate it seems - and not just the weather - is increasingly difficult to predict.

JOURNEY WILL BE SUBJECT TO DELAYS

As someone who hasn't read Fitzroy Maclean's "Eastern Approaches", but heard an interesting account of the man and his work over the Christmas period, I have to inform readers that my journey is likely to be rather less exciting, and will inevitably be subject to delay. However, the opening of Maclean's journey and the start of my own virtual progress in 2011 share the same mode of travel: the railways. But whilst his account begins with a sense of excitement as he departs from Paris destined for Moscow, my first proper posting of the New Year begins rather closer to home: the Conservative Home website in fact, and the subject of the Government's new Regional Growth Fund and strategic rail investment between London and the North of England. Please see http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com Like many rail journeys in this country I anticipate that this one will be subject to delays.

2011 - MY YEAR FOR NEW INTERNATIONALISM

As someone who's yet to warm to the the UK Coalition Government's New Localism agenda, I'm making 2011 a year for New Internationalism. Yes, I've resolved to revisit the "Eastern Approaches" of former Soviet Europe, and perhaps some even more distant places.

RUSSIA: A NOT SO SIMPLES STORY

"Justice of the Rus" by Ivan Bilibin - Wikipedia Media Commons

I was surprised by former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind's simplistic picture of "The Rule of Law" - or not, as the case may be - in Russia and China yesterday. Rifkind compared Russia unfavourably to China in the context of this week's judgement in Moscow on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, when the treatment of the 2010 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiabo, surely suggests that the governments of both countries are equally unwilling to accept political dissent and prepared to imprison those who challenge the system. Moreover, as Russia's onetime richest oligarch, Khodorkovsky's business conduct does seem open to question, whereas Liu Xiabo's only crime has been to question the conduct of the state.

Rifkind's unfavourable portrait of the Russian legal system may also have something to do with his own professional connections. Some may remember an excellent Channel 4 Dispatches programme on 30 November 2009 which "examines the relationships between Russia's richest men and Britain's political elite." This was a fine piece of investigative journalism which showed just how much British politicians are, to put it bluntly, "in the pocket" of Russian businessmen, and particularly those who have made a home in "Londongrad". My own impression is that unlike "The Life and Times of Alexandr Orlov"*, Russian politics are "a not so simples story", notwithstanding their presentation as such by Western politicians and media.

* A Simples Life

Is the Russian Prime Minister a Red Tory ?

Feeling somewhat fatigued with British politics just now, I'm going to take the opportunity of "The Festive Break" to speculate on the political bigger picture. This one shows Russian Prime Minister, when President, Vladimir Putin in conversation with Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State during the US Presidency of George Bush, and former Soviet specialist.

The term "Red Tory" has been popularised of late by the political thinker and Anglican theologian Phillip Blond; although the concept appears to be of North American origin, where it has been used to distinguish Canadian Conservatives of more humble origins and affiliations from "Blue Tories" belonging to the political establishment.

It is interesting, therefore, that Vladimir Putin should have distinguished himself politically from the current Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, by using the term "conservative", whilst the latter has described himself as a liberal. In a comparison that might also apply to the British Prime Minister and his Deputy, according to WikiLeaks the US view is that Medvedev "plays Robin to Putin's Batman".

So is Putin a Red Tory ? His origins are certainly humble, as were those of his political predecessor Boris Yeltsin: another Red Tory perhaps ? Putin has also sought to distance himself from wealthy Russian oligarchs, although not when they play a helpful role in supporting Russia's successful bid to host the 2018 Football World Cup. It is noteworthy that Putin's speech (in English) on this occasion highlighted the role of "The Great Game " in "The Big Society".

In short, it was a speech that could have been delivered by our own Prime Minister, had the old "Blue Toryism" represented by himself, Prince William and London Mayor Boris Johnson won the day, which it very much didn't. So my advice to David Cameron and his colleagues is to be more circumspect about these "Red Tories". After all, the days of "Reds under the beds" seem to be here again, if they ever left these shores at all.

Moreover, I suspect that all this talk of "Red Tories" may have contributed to the bout of Siberian weather to which Britain has recently succumbed. After all, didn't President Putin arrange for the clouds to be dispersed from above Saint Petersburg on the occasion of a concert for international dignitaries some years ago, and might not the same technology now be used inflict freezing conditions on Western Europe ?

Or perhaps not, so my advice to our own Batman and Robin (Aka David Cameron and Nick Clegg) is to have fewer "big ideas" and concentrate on good basic governance and government for this country. This means paying rather less heed to the Think Tanks - bane of the previous New Labour administration - and rather more to common sense principles and practice.

I would also suggest that Secretaries of State, even ones as musically accomplished as Condoleezza Rice, and particularly those due to appear on "Strictly Come Dancing", should avoid manoeuvres of the kind likely to offend the powerful media oligarchs who many believe actually run this country, notwithstanding heritage politics of the kind espoused by Phillip Blond.

As to whether the Russian Prime Minister is a "Red Tory", I'm rather more concerned about the "Putinisation" of British politics. By this I mean a continuation of the cronyism and institutionalised corruption that took root during the Blair premiership, combined with the erosion of civil liberties linked to Britain's "Special Relationship" with the United States during the Bush Presidency.

If my reflections seem rather unseasonable, I'd suggest that others might also like to take the opportunity of this White Christmas and further forecasts of snow on Boxing Day, with their accompanying travel restrictions, to think outside the media-controlled box of British politics for a change. Something worthwhile might come of it. Tidings of Comfort and Joy for now !

SNOW, GLORIOUS SNOW !

Like most other people, I've been seriously inconvenienced by the Big Freeze of recent weeks, made worse by ill health during the same period. Yet before this becomes a mini misery memoir, let me also say how much I enjoy snow, especially as I haven't enjoyed a holiday to foreign cold (or hot) climes for ten years. Just thought I'd get that one in! Yes, the past decade has forced the English weather on me as never before, and because of recent sickness I'm reminded of the quote, possibly from Anthony Trollope, that, for the English person: "Everything depends upon the weather and the state of one's digestion" (my other problem incidentally).

Somewhere in the middle of this exile in England, I started a "blog" at the BBCI's H2O2 site under the pseudonym, Janet Jung. However, it was not until some 2 years later in 2006, when I began blogging under my real name, that the posts started to flow. Nevertheless, the theme of that first blog, the strange hysterias gripping Britain, and England in particular, during the New Labour years, seems as relevant now as then. For we continue to be a nation apparently gripped by one hysteria after another, notably the consequences of apparent extremes of weather - cold, wet, hot, dry - and lifestyle maladies such as obesity. This issue of obesity springs to mind because the West Midlands, in which I currently live, is apparently the most obese place in Europe, with some 30% of people so categorised, although how and by whom I'm not sure.

The link between our current weather problems and an overweight population is transport. I should point out that I have not had access to a car for over 6 years, and if anything, undertake too much exercise through necessity - my local bus service certainly is not running today! - and consequently am more inclined to weight loss than gain. Obviously, my lifestyle is against the grain of a society which is becoming more and more mobile (but not socially) and motor transport dependent, and, therefore, increasingly vulnerable to any climatic or other events which bring roads, in particular, to a stand still. The advent of Internet commerce has also generated considerable additional delivery traffic, and people seem more inclined to spend time with their computers than enjoying the kind of informal outdoor recreation which might help keep them trim.

In this unhealthy state of affairs - and I haven't even touched upon the subject of increasing carbon emissions and their contribution to global climate change - I think we should all be celebrating this year's seasonal snow fall in Britain as Father Christmas's present to the nation, and potential second coming of the less transport dependent and healthier lifestyles of yore. For those who have spent their lives dreaming of a white Christmas - and who has not at some time - now we have one, so let us rejoice! Get out there I say - as I did this morning on a 10 mile walk in the service of animal welfare - and enjoy. Stop moaning and make the most of it ! Oh yes, and if anyone would like to contact me to discuss how the country might make itself more resilient to physical and psychic challenges, they are most welcome to do so.

TACKLING INCONVENIENT POLITICAL TRUTHS

I was reminded recently of a speech which Labour leader Ed Miliband made on the occasion of the George Orwell Memorial Prize award in 2006. Miliband's theme is the role of the public intellectual and why this is important.

The latest WikiLeaks revelations show that much of what passes for high level international diplomacy is in fact little more than tittle tattle and dodgy dossiers of the kind freely and widely available in the blogosphere.

Nevertheless, the controversy created by the release of this information and the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on unrelated charges has revealed unlikely apparent support for the organisation's modus operandi.

Could it be that not only some within the media, including people like John Pilger, but also some within and close to the very establishments whose data has been leaked welcome the outing of political "white noise" around which important decisions are taken ?

I think this is certainly the case, and a lot of people outside and inside the system want a higher level of discourse around diplomatic decision-making, including the management of conflict in places like Afghanistan.

George Orwell would certainly have done so, and if the contribution of Ed Miliband to British politics is to re-introduce high quality public intellectual discourse to these - which he has not done yet - the new Labour leader will have made his mark.

THE MORAL AMBIVALENCE OF THE MEDIA

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Americana yesterday, the veteran newspaper editor Sir Harold Evans displayed the typical moral ambivalence of the media man. Asked for his views on Wikileaks and founder Julian Assange, Sir Harold retorted: "Infantile Leftism". He went on to express support for the prosecution of Assange for the latest Wikileaks data releases, but would not extend his support for punishment to the newspapers, such as The Guardian, who have published the Wikileaks data.

However, I would suggest that the lastest Wikileaks furore calls for a more complex response from the political and media classes. I'm sure that I'm not alone in wondering what Swedish investigative journalist and author of The Millennium Trilogy, the late great Stieg Larsson, would have made of Julian Assange and Wikileaks, for they could have been his creations. Anyway, I'm sure that Larsson would have had something rather more interesting to say on the subject than Evans, or his wife Tina Brown and creater of The Daily Beast.

BRITAIN'S BIG FREEZE & FIFA'S COLD FEET

It's hardly surprising that the Great British Worthiness Troika, aka Davids Cameron and Beckam together with Prince William, failed to impress FIFA. After all, this is an organisation that apparently likes its palms well oiled so selection of the resource-rich, and some might say, democratically poor, countries of Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups seems in character. Having said this, I welcome FIFA's decision, particularly in the case of Russia. After all, the developed world seemed to fall over itself in support of China's hosting of the 2008 Olympics. Moreover, Vladimir Putin does come across as a prime minister with some modicum of common sense, which can't be said for David Cameron who on this particular occasion should have stayed in Britain to attend to the latest Big Freeze. People like John Prescott should be left to deal with organisations like FIFA ! In the meantime, the British media might like to focus on the institutionalised corruption inherent in our planning system, partly a legacy of the Prescott regime, but likely to be re-forced by the policy of cash for planning permissions which the present Government is seeking to implement. Probity starts at home !

THE PICKLE PROJECT

After reflecting on "The Pickle We're In", or The Big Society Pickle, and the particular pickle in which New Localism and Eric Pickles find themselves, I discovered this rather wonderful blog called "The Pickle Project": http://pickleproject.blogspot.com Pass the Pickles Please !

SOME ADVICE FOR GETTING OUT OF A PICKLE

I have some sympathy for the Prime Minister's former Enterprise Adviser, Lord Young (now 78). The business banking adviser in my local branch of one of the UK major financial institutions expressed similar sentiments to those of the good Lord, to the effect that most people have never had it so good and what's all the fuss about. Indeed, I'm sure that many people, by reason of some insulation from the wider world - wealth, stupidity, some combination of the two, university vice-chancellors, people who run "difficult conversation" workshops for the Cabinet Office etc, etc - feel the same. The question is do we want such people running, or helping to run, the country or advising businesses on their banking. No, but they will continue to do so.

This is precisely why it is important that politicians, business people and bureaucrats are constantly reality-checked, and every citizen should regard this function as a basic duty. So last week I wrote, for the second time, to Bob Neill, the Minister for Local Government and Planning: please see http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com/

My letter was prompted by a legal judgement against the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, to the effect that his over-hasty abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) earlier in the year was unlawful. I anticipated this judgement, although - and I'm sure that Mr Pickles would agree with me - the law can be just as much of an ass as anyone else. In fact, Mr Bob Neill may well be right when he describes this judgment against the Secretary of State as a Pyrrhic Victory for house-builders. My legal verdict, which may be as good as that of anyone else, is that whilst the Pickles was "ultra vires" in his abolition of the RSS, the development targets set during the previous administration's revision of these are a matter of government policy, which has now been superseded.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PRUDENCE

Whilst trying to calculate the expenditure by UK Universities on property development and construction projects under the previous government, I came across an interesting paper by the Oxford Professor Avner Offer subtitled "The Political Economy of Prudence 1870-2000". Although the paper didn't deal with the period in which I am most interested, its exploration of the "political competition" between private and public control of services such as housing, health, transport and other infrastructure is instructive, and an addendum for 2000 to the present day would be very welcome. The original paper was published by Nuffield College Oxford in 2002.

In the meantime, the real political economy of prudence, or perhaps the political economy of real prudence, is definitely something worth valuable consideration. This isn't intended as an Irish joke, although, for my money, the mare called Prudence may have already bolted.

UNIVERSITY TUITION FEES - MY POSITION

Over the weekend I was greeted by a dog bearing a remarkable resemblance to Kanellos, "The Famous Greek Riot Dog", in the car park of a rural village hall. However, the owner assured me that his hound is a law-abiding British citizen...and so am I. Therefore, I want to clarify my position on university tuition fees.

First of all, the bad guys (and girls) in this case are fat cat British Vice Chancellors and other expensive university suits who have been responsible, along with the previous New Labour Government, for the unsustainable expansion of the further education sector. To put it bluntly, many universities have unaffordable overheads and these have contributed more than anything to the proposed rise in tuition fees.

I do not, however, agree with the proposed rise. Instead, I would suggest that universities need to substantially reduce their overheads through a programme of asset - primarily land and building - disposal and improved management. Cutting administrative costs is also necessary, as well as a re-focusing on their "core business" of education and research. Spin-off enterprises should be precisely that.

Students, and prospective ones, should also bear in mind that the pension entitlements of some of the very staff who accompanied them on their march last week are also a contributory factor in the cash crisis faced by many universities. Extending the retirement age for those in a profession well suited to the older worker would therefore seem a good idea.

I make the above comments as someone who enjoyed a university degree funded by the state - but which didn't create a career path - and who subsequently self-funded a part-time masters degree, whilst working full-time. This led to better paid positions and professional training paid for by employers. I was by then thirty years old and had experienced two major economic recessions.

FURTHER EDUCATION - NOT FOREVER 21

Forever 21, yet another "young" high street store opened in Birmingham's Bull Ring yesterday. The city boasts the youngest population in Europe in a region which still claims chronic labour shortages. Nevertheless, the young shoppers, who looked very much like the student marchers of earlier in the week, formed an orderly procession as they waited for their next consumer fix. It was clearly this kind of behaviour that police had anticipated in London.

There was, however, more than one difference between yesterday's queues and the storming of Conservative Party HQ: participants in the London disorder were predominantly white, and - notwithstanding any subsequent claims by the Whitechapel Anarchist Group - likely to be mostly middle class. One can interpret this as either a cascading down of upper class/public school yobbishness, a sort of Bullingdon Club rampage for the masses, or an ascent upwards of the kind of behaviour expected of so-called lower class Chavs.

My perception of the group of people likely to have participated in last Tuesday's disorder, as distinct from those who may have instigated it, is that they came from "Middle England", either earlier in the morning or at the beginning of the university term, with no thought of conducting themselves in the manner that transpired. Indeed their lack of ability to think for themselves made them vulnerable to the kind of pack mentality which subsequently erupted.

This doesn't say much for our post-16 education system, or perhaps it does. For far from encouraging what the Coalition Education Secretary, the Conservative Michael Gove, has called "deep thinking", the British system seems to encourage precisely the opposite. For in reality it is the unsustainable growth of the this system - and of universities in particular - and its especially unaffordable building programmes, which has led to the escalation in costs now reflected in the rising price of further education.

In short, Britain has too many young people in full-time education, particularly at university, and too many foreign students. The main beneficiary of this situation appears to be the retail sector, the ever burgeoning number of high street and online outlets serving the youth market, together with associated media services which market and promote "fast fashion" and cheap consumer goods, including BBC WM who advertised the opening of Birmingham's "Forever 21" yesterday.

So Wise Up Young People, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Retail Chains !

KANELLOS & THE STORMING OF 30 MILLBANK

The spirit of Kanellos, the famous "Greek Riot Dog", appeared to have joined yesterday's protests by student and university lecturers against proposals to raise tuition fees.

I'm rather surprised that this wasn't anticipated by classical scholar - albeit more of Rome than Greece - Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London

As a consequence, a truly British farce ensued with the occupation of Conservative Party HQ by protesters, whilst "Military Intelligence" officials in a nearby building locked themselves in.

One can only suppose that "The Dogfather" of London and his advisers presumed that the consumer values of most young Brits cannot produce "good old fashioned" anarchy.

THE CHINA SYNDROME

This week's visit to China by the UK Prime Minister and leading members of the Coalition Government has inevitably raised the issue of human rights, and how these should be handled.

However, the issue is much more entangled than some in Britain might wish, for contemporary China is as much a creation of western consumption patterns, including our insatiable appetites for cheap consumer goods, as it is of communist state capitalism.

Moreover, the West's own record on human rights issues, following the US-UK led intervention in Iraq in 2003, is also currently open to question.

The Chinese interpretation of "human rights" is certainly one that would not be widely countenanced in Western democracies. Nevertheless, for the billions of very poor people in the world, China's development model may be preferred to, say, that of India.

Human population management, something which India has largely rejected in recent years, has certainly played a key role in lifting millions of people out of poverty in China.

Yet the present vulnerability of China to those very Western market forces which have enabled its apparent economic miracle in the past 20 years suggest that this achievement remains precarious and perhaps unsustainable.

There is also the more important underlying question of environmental sustainability in the context of Chinese "growth", and whether this may yet trigger a crisis of Gaian magnitude.

What is certainly needed in this context is freedom of expression, but any criticism of China should bear in mind that there are some subjects in Britain and the West which are still very much politically "off-limits", including resource consumption and population management.

ROCKET SCIENCE & THE GOLD STANDARD

The World Bank suggestion that a return to "The Gold Standard" should be considered comes at a time when rocket science is undergoing a renaissance: that is real rocket science rather than the kind deployed in recent years by banks, and largely responsible for the global financial crisis. We should also remind ourselves that much of Britain's reserves of gold were sold by "No more boom and bust" Brown when Chancellor of the Exchequer on the advice of his own personal rocket scientist, Ed Balls, when in fact both men were ill-equipped to run the proverbial "p.ss up in a brewery".

BBC: IT'S ALL COMING OUT IN THE WASH !

I was actually grateful for the British National Union of Journalists strike (about pensions) this morning, which meant that the BBC Radio 4's prime time "Today" was replaced by an interesting nature programme about "The Wash", a large estuary in the East of England. This comes on a day when former Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly takes the Corporation "to court" for unfair dismissal on the grounds that she had too many wrinkles for high-definition television. Countryfile had a "face lift" a couple of years ago, and number of older presenters had to leave when the programme moved to a prime time slot. When are women in their prime I wonder.

RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY IN UNITED STATES

The Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington over the weekend is a reminder of the Roman festival of Saturnalia*. Aimed at overheated political debate and laziness in the media, according to today's Guardian newspaper, we could very much do with a rally over here.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia