IRAN WINS ENVIRONMENTAL GOAL AT WORLD CUP

Despite a 0-0 draw in its opening match against Nigeria, Iran has won an environmental goal at the Football World Cup by highlighting the challenge of wildlifee conservation through using the symbol of the threatened Persian cheetah on the team shirt and creating a "bio-ball" that is "painted with the design of 31 other countries' endangered species". Please see Iranian Environment Minister Massouhmeh Ebtekar's official "Persian Paradox" blog -  http://ebtekarm.blogspot.co.uk - which also provides an interesting account of both the legacy of the 1979 Revolution and "Prospects for Moderation" - http://ebtekarm.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/prospects-for-moderation.html

BETTER INFORMATION AND LESS PROPAGANDA

Map showing "the expanding battleground" of ISIL or ISIS (Financial Times)

Perhaps it is because the UK is a major centre of the global religion known as commercial sport, of which the ageing media cleric Rupert Murdoch is a high priest, and with many newly-constructed shrines in need of dedicated patrons and pilgrims, that the BBC's coverage of world news, along with that of other British "informational" institutions, has declined in recent years. The recent history of Iraq illustrates this problem very well, and many of us beyond London's political-media classes are now engaged in a continuous pilgrimage on the World Wide Web in search of reliable information sources. However, although Iraq is an extreme news problem, as I'm now going to show, it is not exceptional.

At the end of last month, the UK Royal United Services Association published a study -
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/british-wars-iraq-afghanistan-29bn-failure-131807825.html#u2PIG17 - reported in the International Business Times, whose story was syndicated by Yahoo, to the effect that: "Britain's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost £29bn in government money and were strategic failures..... The 2003 invasion of Iraq fuelled the spread of radical Islam and terrorism in the UK and across the globe, according to the report by defence think-tank,  (RUSI)." In short, Iraq is bad news and this may account why the most recent outbreak of sectarianism has been poorly covered here.

I'm writing, of course, about the ISIL invasion of Iraq - http://www.ibtimes.com/it-isis-or-isil-jihadist-group-expanding-iraq-has-two-names-one-goal-1601346 - which is reported in another IBT - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Business_Times -  article. This clearly explains the evolution of ISIL, or ISIS (an acronym used by the BBC): "The group changed its name in 2012 from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), from the Arabic term for Levant, al-Sham. That is sometimes translated as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It wanted to change its name to include a broader swathe of land, as its goal was to create an Islamic state based on Sharia, or Islamic law..." effectively from Iraq to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Wikipedia also has a comprehensive entry for ISIL - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant - which maintains that the group "have captured and currently use American weapons, vehicles and uniforms in their operations..." or as one commentator to an Israeli news site's coverage of ISIL put it earlier this week: "....they're driving Toyotas"! However, to understand how ISIL functions and, more importantly, what is being done to stop its advance in Iraq, one really needs to look to a range of sources, including the BBC, as the following articles show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27789770; https://uk.news.yahoo.com/iraq-kurds-seize-kirkuk-sunni-militants-surge-toward-093901288.html#AWqpBsf ; http://rt.com/usa/165612-us-iran-allies-iraq-insurgency/

The Russian news agency RT article from Friday 13th June entitled "US air strikes to support Iranian Revolutionary Guard's offensive in Iraq?" is perhaps the most interesting "spin" on just how far the politics of this region have changed in recent years. In answering the question, the article states: "If so, US may find itself assisting its archnemesis in the Middle East to fight against Sunni militias that enjoy support from one of America's closest allies in the region, Saudi Arabia. The ruling family of the kingdom has long been accused of supplying jihadists all over the region with arms and financial support, the New York Times reported".

Map from Wikipedia (included in RT article) showing "Islam by country"

Included in the RT article is the above map which shows "Islam by country". Iran's isolation as the major centre of Shia Islam is obvious. With the exception of parts of Iraq, Sunni Muslims dominate the remainder of the Islamic world. However, the importance of this narrative is usually over-looked in the British media and the regional significance of Iran misunderstood, something I commented upon in a post of 22 April: http://janetmackinnon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-history-of-very-iranian-revolution.html Such oversights may be partly the result of Arab and Israeli propaganda, with the latter sort promulgated today in The Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Israeli-ambassador-to-UN-Iran-is-the-worlds-primary-sponsor-of-terrorism-359366

All this illustrates the complexity of the situation in the Middle East, and not least the ambiguous role played by so-called Western allies like Saudi Arabia and, possibly "stakeholders" within other Gulf States such as  Kuwait (whose experience of invasion from Iraq may have been forgotten), in both sponsoring extreme Islamist groups whilst ostensibly helping to combat terrorism in the region. It also suggests that the vast amount of Western money and other resources pumped in to Iraq after the 2003 US-UK led invasion has itself fuelled regional instability. However, it may be that a more liberal Iran can now play a constructive role in helping to tackle this.

News coverage that recognises this complexity and reports all the facts as far as difficult circumstances allow is essential. Equally important, adequate news time needs to be allocated. Given BBC programmes and schedules that seem to be filled with increasing trivia this should not be difficult. However, given the deep-rooted problems which the Corporation seems to have in reporting news from beyond the Home Counties (ie problems of the Home rather than the World Service) - as reflected in this recent BBC debate on housing http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2014/06/20140609t1830vOT.aspx -  I will continue to multi-source both my international and national news feeds.

Postscript of 18 June 2014 - Since I wrote the above post, there's been a great improvement in the BBC's coverage of these issues and I very much hope this will extend to some other subjects.

LATEST UK REGIONS DISPOSABLE INCOME MAP

According to the Office for National Statistics figures released yesterday - http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/regional-accounts/regional-household-income/spring-2014/stb-regional-gdhi-2012.html -

•  GDHI (Gross Household Disposable Income) per head estimates give values for each person, not each household*
• In 2012 London had the highest GDHI per head, where the average person had £21,446 available to save or spend. Northern Ireland had the lowest, with the average person only having £13,902 (see Table 1).
• Of the 37 NUTS2 sub-regions, in 2012 Inner London had the highest GDHI per head, where the average person had £24,940 available to save or spend. The West Midlands sub-region had the lowest, with the average person only having £13,300 (see Table 2).
• Of the 139 NUTS3 local areas, in 2012 Inner London - West had the highest GDHI per head, where the average person had £36,963 available to save or spend. Nottingham had the lowest, with the average person only having £11,411 (see Table 3).
• Between 2011 and 2012, GDHI per head of population increased in all NUTS1 regions. The North East had the strongest growth at 4.0%, followed by Wales at 3.8%. Northern Ireland had the weakest growth at 2.7%

* Slightly confusing. A PDF of the full briefing is available at the above link.

A WIN FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM LONDON VOTE

Final Breakdown of UK vote in 2014 Euro Elections - Source: The Telegraph

Like many people I was surprised by the number of anti-EU candidates on my European Parliament election ballot paper last week. In fact, they were more numerous than those representing the main political parties, including the United Kingdom Independence Party, so I was not too surprised by the strength of the final UKIP vote, as shown in the above diagram.

One of the minority parties was called "An Independence from Europe". However, I would describe the election outcome as a win for the independence from London vote. In the capital, incidentally, UKIP secured only 11% of the vote with Labour in the lead position. Nationally, the election was a firm thumbs down amongst a minority turnout - about 33%  - who voted against the metropolitan elite.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has shown himself extremely adept at challenging the London elite, except on their home ground. The big losers, of course, are the Liberal Democrats and leader Nick Clegg, in particular. The loss of their traditional stronghold amongst England's grass roots to UKIP and the Greens does indeed represent a tectonic shift - to quote the former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott - in British politics.

THE UK'S PROPOSED NEW EU REGIONAL AID MAP

Map A - Proposed UK Regional Aid (Assisted Areas) 2014-2020

Map B: Assisted Areas (excluding Northern Ireland) 2006-13

On 20 April 2014, Business Minister Michael Fallon announced a proposed new regional aid package for the UK giving potential access to European Union funding - http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140430/wmstext/140430m0001.htm The Minister's announcement included the following comments:

"The Commission’s regional aid guidelines (RAG) define the parameters for assisted areas for 2014 to 2020. Under the guidelines the UK’s overall regional aid coverage may cover a maximum of 27.05% of the UK population, an increase on the 23.9% coverage in 2007-14.

Working within the guidelines, assisted areas coverage has been granted based on the potential to use regional aid to encourage economic growth through levering private sector investment, as well as the economic need of the locality. A strong principle underpinning the map is for coverage to focus on areas that are able to use the flexibility provided: many parts of the UK do not have the scale of industrial or development sites necessary to exploit assisted area status.

There was a high level of demand for assisted areas status, and given the limited population coverage available, we have targeted those areas that can benefit most. The UK’s industrial heartlands are central to the map, and a wide range of different sized manufacturers are included, from the high-tech sectors at the core of our industrial strategy to the more traditional industries that still provide vital employment to many communities. Support will also be available for additional disadvantaged coastal areas. Sites and businesses that can support growth in less advantaged localities have been included, as well as many that will make significant contributions to growth at a regional and national level."

The devil, as they say, is in the detail and included amongst the proposed areas identified is a greenfield site to the north-east of Worcester, near Junction 6 of the M5 motorway. A technology park proposal for this location was refused a £18 million grant from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills Regional Growth Fund last year following due diligence. The project is a controversial one which has been opposed by local communities because of its environmental impact and by Birmingham City Council and others because of its potential for undermining economic regeneration at Longbridge and elsewhere in the West Midlands conurbation.

With this "case study" in mind, and when comparing the UK Assisted Areas Map (A) for 2014-20 with than of the period for 2006-2013 (Map B), it does seem that the industrial regeneration impetus of regional policy which favoured older urban areas with major brownfield sites is being eroded in favour of promoting greenfield development, whether this represents sustainable value for money or just the present geography of political influence is a subject to which I shall return.

DCMS: MORE CULTURE, LESS MEDIA AND SPORT

A recent version of the famous Arabian Nights

Earlier this week, I wrote to the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Sajid Javid about the possibility of his department supporting a series of Massive Open Online Courses (Moocs) on the cultural heritage of the Muslim world. This follows an excellent mooc sponsored by the Danish Government and led by the University of Copenhagen on the subject of "Constitutional Struggles in the Muslim World" - https://www.coursera.org/course/muslimworld - around which there was much online discussion of cultural themes, including music and literature.

Now Sajid Javid's appointment has been met with some teeth-grinding amongst UK arts institutions because he appears to come to DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) with little cultural background, having previously been a banker and subsequently, after his election as MP for Bromsgrove, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. As it happens, however, I can see a literary connection between these two roles and offer some recommended summer holiday reading to Mr Javid. "The Man Who Counted" - http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/count.pdf - is, according to its wikipedia entry, "a series of tales in the style of the Arabian Nights, but revolving around mathematical puzzles and curiosities. The book is ostensibly a translation by Brazilian scholar Breno de Alencar Bianco of an original manuscript by Malba Tahan, a (fictitious) thirteenth-century Persian scholar of the Islamic Empire"(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Counted)*

"The Man Who Counted" was recently recommended on the BBC Radio 4 statistical programme "More or Less" -  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd - in which presenter Tim Harford "explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life". However, with regard to the running of his new department, my advice to the Secretary of State is mathematically straightforward: "More Culture, Less Media and Sport", with the exception of equestrian show jumping and eventing which need more coverage on the BBC.

Postscript: On the subject of *Latin American-Middle Eastern intersectionality, a forthcoming Coursera Latin American Culture Mooc might provide a model for something similar on the Muslim world - https://www.coursera.org/course/latinamericanculture

GOVERNMENT EVERGREENING OF UK ECONOMY

Whe David Cameron declared that the Coalition was going to be "the greenest government ever"   and upset the Green Great and Good - http://www.jonathonporritt.com/Campaigns/greenest-government-ever - I just put this down to a "Dave the Vague" moment (of which there have been many!). However, the prime minister has turned out to be a more "eel-like customer", to use a recent Boris Johnson description of Tony Blair, than I initially envisaged. The big difference, of course, is that the nation's coffers are far more depleted than in the heady days of "New Labour" and, so thankfully, opportunities for foreign misadventures have been restricted, but that is about the only good news.

My guess is that when Mr Cameron referred to "the greenest government ever" he really meant that the Coalition would engage in the greatest "evergreening"* of any modern British administration. Now the term "evergreen" is used with a number of different meanings so I will clarify its usage in this post by referring to a Financial Times article of 25 March 2011 - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/59864380-570f-11e0-9035-00144feab49a.html#axzz31CkN4Zo5 - entitled ""Evergreening" will still leave UK banks in the red". Written by Marryn Somerset Webb, of Money Week and SuperScrimpers fame, the article uses "evergreen" according to the FT Lexicon - http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=evergreen-loan -  to mean a "short-term loan that is continuously renewed by the lender." The FT's Gillian Tett also uses the expression with the same meaning in an article of 30 December 2010 - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c23e885e-1422-11e0-a21b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz31CkN4Zo5 - on the subject: "Commercial property loans pose new threat".

To return to the Somerset Webb article, she comments: "One of the odd things that happens after a credit crisis is bad loan “evergreening”. Banks need to reduce their loan books to get their capital adequacy ratios back in order. But they can’t get rid of their low-quality loans (they need to keep rolling them over so no defaults turn up). As a result, they end up reducing their good loans instead. This looks slightly counter intuitive from the outside (bank in trouble reallocates its business away from good-quality assets towards lower-quality assets) but it makes sense for the bank: it buys it time to run down the bad loans slowly and earn its way out of trouble."

Unfortunately, the scale of the financial crisis and the level of state involvement in the banking sector, as well as the wider structure of the UK economy (which certainly has not re-balanced since 2010!) has meant that the Coalition has also followed this strategy. In short, lots of bad historic loans, including those obtained by public sector and other organisations under the so-called Private Finance Initiative (PFI) - see my earlier post below - have been, or are in the process of being, evergreened. This is not good news, as noted in 2012 by the TaxPayers' Alliance - https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/bettergovernment/2012/07/pfi-deals-costing-300-billion.html - who refer to a Guardian newspaper article of 5 July: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/jul/05/pfi-cost-300bn

The big difference between state and bank "evergreening", of course, is that the mechanism is not restricted to short-term loans. In the case of the UK government, "long-term evergreening" is the name of the game. However, whilst this may help shore up the nation's finances until after the next General Election, the strategy, as Marryn Somerset Webb notes, has the downside of diverting resources from good projects. This accounts for the lack of positive investment, in for instance the green economy, which many identify with the Coalition, and leaves me wondering whether evergreening will not just leave the country in the red, but also colour the nation's vote in 2015.

* "Evergreening" is also used to describe controversial practices associated with the pharmaceuticals industry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening

MORE LEVIATHANS IN THE LURE OF MAMMON

The original Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

"Leviathan in the lure of Mammon: limits of political Islam in Turkey" is the title of a recent article on the Open Democracy website by Kerem Oktem - http://www.opendemocracy.net/kerem-oktem/leviathan-in-lure-of-mammon-limits-of-political-islam-in-turkey In this, Oktem uses the context of "Western-style liberal democracy's" apparent increasing loss of appeal to discuss the current political economy of Turkey. However, the article's rather brilliant title, invoking the "Leviathan" of Thomas Hobbes, might also be used to describe the state of global and state capitalism as this manifests in so-called Western-style liberal democracies.

The present controversy around US drugs giant Pfizer's - http://www.pfizer.com - take-over bid for the UK's Astrazeneca - www.astrazeneca.co.uk - seems to illustrate that there are a lot more Leviathans in the lure of Mammon around the world. Indeed this metaphor seems to sum up very well not only the whole dynamic of global capitalism, epitomised in the financial system - much of which in Britain is still state-owned - but also what Oktem describes as "authoritarian power regimes" of the kind that can be found, not only in countries like Turkey, but in the relationship dynamic between the private and public sectors here in the UK.

The relationship between the pharmaceuticals sector and the British National Health Service (NHS) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service - provides a very good example of this.  As one of the world's largest employers - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers - the NHS has always invited comparisons with other public and private sector Leviathans, such as China's People's Liberation Army and US supermarket giant Walmart. However, it is in its more recent role as a commissioning and partnership body for private sector services that the lure of Mammon has really come in to play.

In short, the NHS is not only a global cash cow for the pharmaceuticals sector, both homegrown and international, but the partner of choice for a variety of companies providing a whole range of contract services through the so-called Private Finance Initiative (PFI) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_finance_initiative All this offers the prospect of a potential feeding frenzy of positively Olympian proportions for Leviathans in the lure of Mammon, and it is hardly surprising, therefore, that our esteemed National Health Service should have provided a centrepiece of London 2012's  opening ceremony. Roll on the Great Global Grab!

THE GLOBAL GRAB FOR LAND AND RESOURCES

The sale of farmland belonging to the troubled UK Co-operative Group - http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/03/co-op-farms-sale-chinese-buyers - has highlighted the global grab for land and resources, of which Britain is both an origin and destination: "In a similar way to central London property, farmland is now seen as a safe bet by foreign investors – while the average value of prime residential property in London has grown by 135% over the last decade, the value of prime British farmland has increased 273% to an average price of £8,500 per acre, according to Savills." In this case, it is the prospect of a single Chinese buyer for the Co-op's 17 000 hectares (44 000 acres) which is cause for concern. However, research by Land Matrix - www.landmatrix.org - shows that the British are just as active in international land investment. An extensive article in the United States Monthly Review - http://monthlyreview.org/2013/11/01/twenty-first-century-land-grabs - by Fred Magdoff, professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont, covers the history of the land grab from a global perspective. However, whilst the present focus of attention is agricultural land, this should be seen in the larger context of a grab for the earth's resources. It is to be hoped, therefore, that environmental and natural resource economics, as well as land economy, will be on the preferred curricula of the International Student Initiative for Pluralist Economics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Student_Initiative_for_Pluralism_in_Economics - whose open letter (from the Glasgow Unversity Real World Economics Society) in today's Guardian calls for their subject to respond to "the multi-dimensional challenges of the 21st century - from financial stability to food security and climate change".

ECONOMIC HETERODOXY SOUNDS GOOD TO ME

After reading Ha-Joon Chang's article, "Economics is too big a deal to leave to the experts" http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/economics-experts-economists, in today's edition of The Guardian, I decided to check out his Wikipedia entry:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang This states that: "Chang's contribution to heterodox economics started while studying under Robert Rowthorn, a leading British Marxist economist, with whom he worked on the elaboration of the theory of industrial policy, which he described as a middle way between central planning and unrestrained free market. His work in this area is part of a broader approach to economics known as institutionalist political economy which places economic history and socio-political factors at the centre of the evolution of economic practices." Co-incidentally, after my post of yesterday, I was reminded of an excellent book on the subject of spatial economics called "The Geography of De-Industrialisation"* edited by Robert Rowthorn, that sadly now seems to be out of print. Greater heterodoxy on the subject of the spatial economy would certainly be very welcome.

* Some of the themes of this book are taken up in a recent publication entitled "The Economic Geography of the UK" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Economic-Geography-UK-Neil-Coe/dp/1849200904, part of whose introduction is available here. http://www.uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/35376_01_Coe_&_Jones_Ch_01.pdf

THE STATE OF SPATIAL ECONOMICS WE'RE IN

"Rerum Causas Cognoscere" or "To Know the Causes of Things" is the motto of the London School of Economics and Political Science (known as the LSE) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_School_of_Economics - whose rather attractive coat of arms is shown above. Incidentally, I am also a big fan of beavers who are amongst the great builders of the animal kingdom, and construction is one of the key themes of this post.  Moreover, the LSE has an excellent mission statement, to use a modern expression, and one whose aspirations I very much support. Indeed it would serve as a fine motto for all higher education research institutions. Unfortunately, the wider ambitions of the UK universities sector, much of which now resembles a property development enterprise, rather than a fountain of knowledge, often work against these loftier aims.

I was reminded of this academic state of affairs earlier this week, when trying to post a comment about an article on some LSE spatial economics research on the Planning Resource website - please see http://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1291801/discriminatory-green-belt-policies-causing-housing-affordability-crisis-says-lse-professor - I found myself suddenly censored. Therefore, having been cut short and fearing further censorship, I shall endeavour to answer the question of a fellow Planning Resource contributor on my own blog: thank goodness for Google! In response to my expression of concern about the impartiality of LSE research, due to the funding regime for this and similar institutions, a  Lawrence Revill (whom I suspect is a planning consultant) asked: "Just what, precisely, has that got to do with the Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography and his views on the Green Belt? Please show some perspective." Indeed I will, Mr Revill, in the following account. "Rerum Causas Cognoscere"!

The Emeritus Professor, and member of the LSE's Spatial Economics Research Centre, in question is Paul Cheshire  http://www.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/profile.aspx?KeyValue=p.cheshire%40lse.ac.uk The Spatial Economics Research Centre  http://www.spatialeconomics.ac.uk/SERC/about/default.asp -  describes its mission thus: "Economic prosperity in the UK is very unevenly distributed across space. Tackling these persistent disparities is a key policy objective. The Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC) aims to provide a rigorous understanding of the nature, extent, causes and consequences of these disparities, and to identify appropriate policy responses." This sounds highly admirable so it comes as a surprise to me that Professor Cheshire's research article* - http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp417.pdf - should advocate policies likely to exacerbate persistent regional disparities in economic prosperity.

So let's look at what the Professor had to say. The basic thesis is that not enough housing has been built nationally, and, particularly, in the Home Counties around London in the past 20 years. Leaving aside the national picture, about which his article doe not really concern itself, the real bete noir for Cheshire is the capital's green belt of which he says: "What SERC research has shown is that the only value of greenbelts is for those who own houses within them (gibbons et al, 2011). What greenbelts seem to be is a very British form of discriminatory zoning, keeping the urban unwashed out of the Home Counties - and of course helping to turn houses into investment assets rather than places to live in". Given that the whole modus operandi of British economic policy has been driven by rentier capitalism during the period in question, this seems to be a remarkably naive statement from an "Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography" at the LSE!

Indeed, my censored comment on the Planning Resource website highlighted a "popular" post from the LSE SERC's blog - http://spatial-economics.blogspot.co.uk/ - entitled "How many French people live in London?" which opens thus: "According to the BBC London is now France's sixth biggest city: "The French consulate in London estimates between 300,000 and 400,000 French citizens live in the British capital" which compares to city populations as follows: Paris - 2.3m; Lyon - 488,000; Marseille - 859,000; Toulouse - 447,000; Nice 344 000." What this illustrates is the increasing globalisation of London since the 1990s. In terms of capital flows, London vies with New York as the world's most globalised city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city The capital has become a magnet for international property investment and uber wealthy people, as well as a preferred destination for an increasingly globalised workforce. This has been the major factor in the increasing cost and shortage of London housing.

Although I have suggested that Professor Cheshire is naive, I do not believe this to be the case. The LSE and other British universities have capitalised on the attraction of London for international students. Moreover, there does seem to have been something of a "London effect" as foreign students spread around the country and universities court them with increasingly high-specification (and expensive) campuses. It is quite possible that the LSE has its sights on a new greenfield site in the Homes Counties, with supporting development, including possibly a world-class golf course. For my own part, I shall be delighted if the main activity of London's green belt remains intensive agriculture. As an economic geographer, the Emeritus Professor should know very well that this is one the most suitable roles for it.

*  Some of the claims in this article (eg as much land given over to golf courses as housing in England) were subsequently challenged in a BBC radio 4 More or Less programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b044jh75

A CONTEXT FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Having signed up for a Coursera Mooc (Massive Open Online Course) entitled "Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication" https://www.coursera.org/course/russians I've been wondering whether this course may be too highbrow and time-consuming, on the one hand, or the ideal opportunity to engage in a timely critical discourse, given the Ukraine-Russia crisis, on the other. Fortunately the need to make an immediate decision is unnecessary because an email from course leader, Mira Bergelson from the Higher School of Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Research_University_%E2%80%93_Higher_School_of_Economics, earlier today informed me that: "May 1 through May 9 is Russian big holiday time. That’s why we had to postpone the course for two weeks altogether." Let's hope this message is also received by Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine. A week's break to celebrate "The Day of Spring and Labour", which might extend to the release of peace observers and others recently taken prisoner, would be very welcome just now.

NUCLEAR POWER: IS THERE NO TURNING BACK?

The above graphic is taken from an article on the Aljazeera website this week - http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/04/antagonising-iran-strategic-mis-201442161724450258.html - by Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a professor of North American Studies and dean of the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran. This came to my attention, incidentally, via Iranian Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar's "Persian Paradox" blog yesterday (please see my earlier post). Aside from offering an interesting back story to the present controversy surrounding Iran's civil nuclear programme, the article has a wider relevance for international energy policy in an age of so-called transition to sustainable development.

Professor Marandi's article opens as follows:

"Even though it was a major exporter of crude oil and held some of the world's largest natural gas reserves, Iran made a compelling case over half-a-century ago that it needed, almost immediately, to produce an additional 20,000 megawatts of electricity by constructing 23 nuclear power plants. At the same time, Iran's government made the case that the country needed to acquire the capacity to enrich uranium in order to fabricate the reactor fuel for such an ambitious programme.

Western governments eagerly endorsed these arguments, praising Iran's then Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's ambition to rapidly modernise Iran while overlooking the reality that he was presiding over a ruthless dictatorship and diverting much needed capital to purchase massive amounts of weapons from the US and other Western countries. And so, during the 1960s and 1970s, billions of dollars were invested in establishing an Iranian nuclear programme and training thousands of Iranian nuclear experts in the West - until Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution replaced the monarchy with an Islamic Republic..."

In short, Iran's energy pathway has very much reflected that of Western nations, although a number of these, including the United States and, most recently, Germany, have moved away from civil nuclear power in the period since the 1980s for reasons of cost and safety associated with both generation and waste disposal. Meanwhile, other countries, notably Russia and China, have forged ahead with nuclear development programmes notwithstanding major accidents at Chernobyl in the Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) during 1986 and Fukushima in Japan following the earthquake and Tsunami of 2011. It should be noted that Iran is also located in a major earthquake zone:  http://www.ibtimes.com/iran-earthquake-strikes-near-bushehr-nuclear-power-plant-1489402

The current popularity of nuclear power has much to do with the need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide that are the major contributor to the green house effect associated with global warming. However, the nuclear option also offers the prospect of national energy security for countries increasingly concerned about their dependency on foreign gas supplies. Whilst Iran, "with the world's second-largest proven reserves of natural gas", as Professor Marandi notes in his article, does not have such concerns, much of Europe is reliant upon Russian supplies, and this is a key factor in the current Ukrainian crisis.

Nevertheless, it should be remembered that the accident at Ukraine's Chernobyl plant was probably the single most important event in turning the world against nuclear power in the last decade of the twentieth century. Moreover, the former Soviet regime's attempt to cover up the seriousness of this incident is widely cited as a major contributory factor in its demise only five years later. The problem with nuclear energy is that the conseqeunces can be very serious indeed if things go wrong. Iran, along with the rest of the world, would be wise to remember this.

THE HISTORY OF A VERY IRANIAN REVOLUTION

A young woman protests in Iran's so-called "Green Revolution" (for greater democracy) in 2009. The country is currently experiencing a wave of environmentalism, in part supported by Iranian Vice President Ebtekar

I had a look at - as distinct from a full reading of - Michael Axworthy's "Revolutionary Iran" over the Easter Bank Holiday. Whilst the book is now on my "To Read" list, just thought I'd share a few thoughts on a history which has just been brought bang up to date by Penguin (an updated paperback version came out this spring).

However, let me first caveat my comments by saying that I have never visited Iran and met very few Iranians. Other reviewers have described Axworthy as an "Iranophile" and some people may not share all his views. Nevertheless, the book resonates with my own limited knowledge and experience.

Ironically, perhaps most of all for the Americans, Iran has been an unexpected beneficiary of the  former United States-led "War on Terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan (countries where previous regimes and extremist groups had received US assistance before they turned against their western benefactors). As Axworthy points out: "The Iranians helped the coalition powers to set up the new democratic structures in both countries, though this has often gone unacknowledged. Instead, Iran has perversely been blamed for the fact that the removal of these enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan has enhanced Iran's regional (ie Middle Eastern) influence".

Although Axworthy locates the Iranian Revolution of 1979 - and the removal of American together with other western powers from the country - within the great revolutionary trajectory which started in France and moved through Russia and thence to Tehran, I see Iran more as the location of the 20th century's third great revolution, following on from the Soviet and the Chinese. The question will be whether the key religious dimension of "Revolutionary Iran" will be sustained in the future, or whether Iran, like Russia and China, will be overcome by the same kind of secular materialism which has engulfed these and most other countries. Only time will tell.

For the 2014 Penguin edition of  "Revolutionary Iran" see  http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141046235,00.html
Iranian Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar's "Persian Paradox" Blog can be found at  http://ebtekarm.blogspot.co.uk/

THE EUROPEAN UNION IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

The Berlin-based Iversity's Mooc (Massive Open Online Course) on the subject of the European Union in Global Governance starts next week. This course could hardly be more timely given current events in Ukraine. For information please see - https://iversity.org/courses/the-european-union-in-global-governance

UKRAINE CRISIS MAY BE EUROPEAN OPPORTUNITY

German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets Britain's Queen Elizabeth 27.2.2014

There was an interesting interview with former Soviet President Khrushchev's grand daughter Nina Khrushcheva on BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight Programme last week. Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs in the United States, said that Russia and Ukraine should ultimately share the same aim: to become part of Europe. Instead, she argues in a recent article,"Putin takes perverse pride in his persistent efforts to alienate the West" - http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nina-l--khrushcheva-asks-whether-vladimir-putin-will-exploit-ukraine-s-disarray-to-reclaim-lost-territory

There does indeed seem to be something about the Olympics which raises Mr Putin's geo-political testosterone. Russia's invasion of South Ossetia co-incided with the 2008 Beijing Games and the latest occupation of strategic facilities in Crimea has taken place in the midst of the Sochi Winter Olympics (with the Paralympics due to begin later this week). A report in today's Guardian suggests that Angela Merkel felt that Putin had lost touch with reality in telephone conversation about Crimea: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/03/ukraine-vladimir-putin-angela-merkel-russian

However, the ever-sensible Mrs Merkel has been careful not to over-react to the situation. Instead, according to The Guardian article, ".... she suggested to Putin that the EU send a fact-finding mission to Ukraine. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is also meeting to discuss Ukraine on Monday (today) in Vienna, could be charged with the mission, diplomats said." Mrs Merkel also pressed the Russian President "to back down from his invasion of Ukraine and occupation of the Crimean peninsula."

Both Merkel and Putin share the same Soviet Bloc hinterland, but whilst the German Chancellor has moved inexorably on from the GDR, Russia's President still regrets the passing of the USSR. Fortunately, "cometh the hour, cometh the woman", and Mrs Merkel, the undoubted Queen of Europe, is the contemporary political leader most likely to be able to transform the current crisis in Ukraine into an opportunity for "The Greater European Project". This is bigger than the present (or presumed) EU configuration, and may be something to which even Britain could sign up.

CRIMEA - THE SPECTRE OF NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV

Image: www.pushkinpress.com

I have just finished reading "The Spectre of Alexander Wolf" by Gaito Gazdanov -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaito_Gazdanov - a Russian emigre writer of Ossetian heritage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossetia The book deals with the subject of fate, and how an earlier event can unexpectedly determine the future.

So it is that the fate of Crimea - a gift of former Soviet President Khrushchev to the Ukraine - now seems bound up with that of its Russian benefactor.  The transfer of Crimea was framed as a goodwill gesture to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's merger with tsarist Russia, although the actual politics were rather more complicated: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/02/25/separatism_in_ukraine_blame_nikita_khrushchev_for_ukraine_s_newest_crisis.html

Recent events in the Ukraine may now lead to the gift's forcible return to Russian control, notwithstanding an "urgent diplomatic offensive" by Western governments: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10669850/William-Hague-demands-Russia-respect-Ukraines-territory-as-Kremlin-tightens-grip-on-Crimea.html

BRITAIN NEEDS NEW LAND USE PLANNING REGIME

UK Prime Minister with troops on recent floods tour of duty (Source: Number 10 Twitter account)

The UK Government's response to the flooding crisis followed a typical sequence: inadequate action (crisis, what crisis?), followed by that sinking feeling, panic and blame allocation, and, finally, a sort of belated event management exercise with the army called in to help out. Such criticism may seem unkind, but it should be remembered that since coming to power in 2010 Mr Cameron and his colleagues have conducted a ruthless offensive against the planning system: one of the key mechanisms for reducing the impact of extreme weather events associated with climate change.

In short, Britain needs more and not less planning, and in Southern England, most especially, a return to comprehensive and integrated land use management of the kind found in other densely populated countries like the Netherlands is required. I'm delighted that Mr Cameron has called upon Dutch engineers for advice in dealing with the current floods. Now he and his colleagues should ensure that the best environmental practice from North West Europe is adopted in the English planning system. If current ministers and civil servants are incapable of rising to this challenge, they should be replaced.

UK GOVERNMENT'S LITTLE LOCAL DIFFICULTIES

Image: flood warnings across southern Britain

David Cameron is a modern British leader - in his own words the "Heir to Blair" -  who likes big ideas and dislikes bad news. Like Blair, his government is filled with a monstrous regiment of yes-people, who eshew common sense policies in favour of those which appear to proffer personal advancement. It is no surprise, therefore, that Britain is currently beset by what "One Nation" - now the brand of Ed Miliband's Labour Party - Conservative Harold Macmillan called "little local difficulties."

Foremost of these is "Floodgate". Climate change is not official Conservative Party policy, and, alas, Mr Cameron, along with many others, now finds himself in the position of early medieval English (and Scandinavian) King Canute who famously "set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet "continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leapt backwards, saying: 'Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings (and ill-founded government policies), for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws" according to chronicler Henry of Huntington  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great#Ruler_of_the_waves

Then there is the prospect of a Disunited Kingdom, and according to the Guardian newspaper today our Olympian "Prime Minister David Cameron will use the scene of Team GB’s success at London 2012 as the backdrop for his warning against Scottish independence."All this, as Russian President Vladimir Putin opens the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi: an event which Mr Cameron will be not be attending. Nor will he attend to calls from Scottish leader Alex Salmond and his colleagues to engage in a debate north of the border. For in the great modern line of political actor-managers, namely Blair and Heir, Mr Cameron will never place himself in a position where he is likely to be upstaged. For whom "The Scottish Play" will prove unlucky is, of course, another little local difficulty.

NEW PARLIAMENT OF THE EUROPEAN PEOPLES

Awakening towards the end of 2013, I realised that a certain political correctness had afflicted me in recent months, repressing my spirits and satirical proclivities. To set me to rights, I was later visited by the spirit of the seasonal e-pantomine who advised me to set down the following synopsis.

The events of this tale occur at an unspecified time in the future. Former British prime minister Tony Blair and Lord Peter Mandelson have acquired a mysterious life-prolonging elixir and now co-habit the Palace of the Parliament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament - in Bucharest. Formerly the seat of Romania's Soviet-era president Nicolae Ceaușescu, the world's largest civilian building now accommodates the eastern head quarters of the European Union, including a unified presidency that has taken over the role of EU Parliament supremo. To add to this, President Blair is also a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church with ambitions to de-secularise the European Project and create a new Holy Roman Empire. Fortunately, however, these aspirations are beyond the scope of this particular synopsis.

Readers are no doubt wondering how the events I have described came about, and the story is marvellously straightforward. Awakening one morning a British prime minister of the near future took it upon herself to transform the country's unsustainable welfare state and wider public sector. Her government went, somewhat like the Starship Enterprise, where no recent British administration had dared go before and dismissed vast swathes of the kleptocracy, including those on the payroll of the state media, which had grown obese at the public expense. In short, the nation's finances were radically over-hauled, along with the benefits system. The effects of this were nothing short of miraculous. Seeing their mistress and her comrades living within their means, the British public soon followed suit. Those unaccustomed to such a lifestyle started to migrate in vast numbers - a subject I shall deal with later - and the country assumed a state of good governance never before experienced in its history. In short, a London banker's word was his bond, and not someone else's.

Unfortunately whilst Albion was liberated from financial repression and the other ills of a nation living beyond its means, the so-called "New British Problem" was exported to other parts of Europe as the engine of the unreal economy, with its propensities for public maladministration, property speculation, booms and busts, and labour market distortions relentlessly moved eastwards. Soon the citizens of Eastern Europe were complaining of similar evils to those their British counterparts had once done, including mass migration by Western Europeans, particularly from over-crowded areas in Southern England, and accompanying benefits tourism. Meanwhile, a Campaign to Protect Rural Eastern Europe, or CPREE, was established amidst clamorous support for wholesale importation of the early 21st century British planning system.

At this point, a spiritually ascended cadre of enlightened European leaders, including Vaclav Havel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel , took it upon themselves to instigate the second coming of Angela Merkel, who restored order and admitted Ukraine to the greater EU family.