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

REPORTING OF PROPERTY & HOUSING ISSUES

Whilst my previous post noted that media reporting of economic and labour issues had been in decline since the 1980s, the subjects of property and housing, and particularly the latter, have attracted more and more media attention, sometimes, it seems, to the exclusion of all other news. The present furore over the Government's proposed changes to housing benefit, following an earlier announcement to cut funding to housing associations and expressed desire to phase out social housing illustrate this very well.

In stating my provisional support for social housing, I also want to share my experience of some its problems through recounting a short history of the flat next door to my former London home.
Soon after purchasing this property, the owner "inherited" the tenancy to a nearby council flat into which he then moved, leasing his own flat to the local authority. A range of housing benefit claimants were placed in this property, one of whom, an Irish lady, also had access to another nearby council flat, and so sublet the one bedroom flat next to me to a large family from Nigeria. At various points, I drew the attention of the local authority to what was clearly housing benefit fraud, and they usually acted on the matter. Incidentally, I owned the property in which I lived, although it was suggested to me on more than one occasion that I was a council tenant, possibly because other owners in the block had entered into arrangements similar to my neighbour.

So we come back to another subject which has received much attention in recent years: regulation. It is the regulation - from policy to enforcement - of property and housing which really needs to be tackled by politicians and in the media, so that "issues of the moment", no matter how important, can be objectively considered in a wider context, and people like the Mayor of London do not have to resort to using highly intemperate language.

However, London does indeed have a particular set of housing issues, some of which have been adequately covered elsewhere, so I don't proposed to dwell upon them here. One issue which has not been fully covered in the media relates to my previous post on "labour issues": low wages. London is producing a great many low paid private sector jobs, many of which are directly in highly paid-sectors such as banking, or in services linked to these. Instead, therefore, of paying some of their employees increasingly high amounts, might I suggest that City institutions provide housing for their less well-paid but nevertheless essential workers.

With regard to the very high levels of housing benefit paid to residents in some areas of London, I would also suggest that this is as much a problem of the type of buy-to-let market which has developed in London, as of individual recipients of state support. To put it bluntly, the beneficiaries of large housing benefit payouts are as much, if not more so, the owners of the properties themselves: something the media, once again, has not properly acknowledged.

REPORTING OF ECONOMIC AND LABOUR ISSUES

Having given vent to "My Inner Yahoo" - a creature of Swiftian satire rather than the new media kind - in my previous post, readers should be warned that I shall be writing in a highly serious vein today. Nevertheless, my critique of Britain's ruling classes - the media, bankers, bureaucrats and politicians et al - will continue.

Last weekend brought media coverage of two symbolically important events, the near demise of "The Work Foundation", due to pensions obligations, and the discovery of Roma children working in the spring onion fields of Worcestershire during a spell of particularly cold autumn weather. The Work Foundation has, as it happens, been rescued by the University of Lancaster, and the young Romanians by the Gangmaster's Licensing Association in conjunction with West Mercia Police.

However, the wider economic and labour context which has thrown these two disparate events into relief has not, and almost certainly will not, receive the receive the media coverage that it merits. The reasons for this are complex: journalism which tackles economic and labour issues in a comprehensive way has been in retreat since the 1980s; people's lifestyles rather than their employment tend to be the focus of media attention; most people are no longer part of an organised labour movement.

Yet there are very good reasons why a more traditional approach to the reporting of economic and labour issues is called for at the present time. For Britain, and England in particular, is not only recovering from a financial crisis induced recession, but also from a period of government under New Labour when is was extremely difficult in matters of the economy, and political economy more specifically, to distinguish facts from fictions, and truth from ideological distortions. Moreover, the British media for much of the decade between 1997-2007 colluded in this process.

Unfortunately, there are strong indications that some within the present Government regard themselves as the "Heir to Blair", and the media management school of political economy as practiced by New Labour but with a somewhat different ideological emphasis, has already sprung back into action. Whether the Secretary of State for Business, Skills and Innovation, and others of a more objective outlook within the Coalition, can steer the nation onto a more broadly-based path to economic regeneration, as distinct from from another financially engineered spurt of growth, remains to be seen.

In the meantime, the media - and indeed the Coalition Government - should pay close attention to "labour issues". Perhaps an analogy with New Labour's attention to matters of property, normally the focus of Conservative policy, is appropriate here, if David Cameron really wants to claim the "Heir to Blair" legacy.

DROP THE DEAD DONKEY

Checking out two news stories on the Telegraph website yesterday, both on the subject of "drops" - the ongoing drop in house prices and a "surprise drop" in consumer spending - I soon found the "Comments" more interesting than the main articles; and particularly this advice from "Jacqui" quoting "Descartes, Discourses on Method": "Accept nothing as true, unless clearly recognised as such." My sentiments exactly !

The "Discourses" revealed that most people weren't at all surprised by the drop in consumer spending, and nor apparently were "the markets" whom the Financial Times report, quoting one lunching - albeit at his desk these days - stockbroker "only respond to surprises". What does "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" make of these imprudent hussies of today's markets I wonder, when they can't even register a drop in the sales of lingerie ?

Nevertheless, the price of lingerie has undoubtedly come down in recent years, almost certainly an achievement for "The Spender of Last Resort": to quote another commentator called, I think, "Princesschipchops" (surely the pseudonym of a female impersonator !). My guess is that house prices will follow a similar downwards trend, a bit like those pants that barely covers the buttocks, and which the young seem to favour and the middle aged and over to revile.

If some readers wish to deduce from the above account that I think the bottom may yet fall out of the housing market, please feel free to do so. My own guess is that there are some within the present Government who would like to see a further downward adjustment in property prices, and others who would not: a political reflection for once of the position of wider society. In the meantime, "The Old Lady" should surpise the bankers by witholding money from their hussies.

THE PROBLEMS OF KING & PARLIAMENT

The Governor of the Bank of England's sobering advice of yesterday was blatantly ignored in the unruly behaviour of the UK Parliament today, whose benches sounded as if they had been taken over by a multitude of Swiftian Yahoos when Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson endeavoured to respond to the speech of George Osborne.

My present feeling is that neither the mild-mannered King nor the unruly Parliament are up to the tasks required of them.

The New Spirit Level of the Real Global Economy

The following article appeared in last Sunday's Telegraph newspaper: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/8057069/Jobless-America-threatens-to-bring-us-all-down-with-it.html

Comments are still coming in - some not very politically correct - and along with the original text make for interesting reading. One respondent wonders where all the money is coming from to prop up the United States economy.

The answer of course lies in the labours of overseas workers, and their financial fruits to foreign governments: notably China, increasingly banker to the US.

This is now "The International State We're In", as indicated in my reprinted post of yesterday.

So if political folks over here are getting excited about a new book called "The Spirit Level" - profiled on BBC Radio 4's Analysis yesterday - might I suggest that they also think about the wider international implications of this book's message concerning the benefits of increasing socio-economic equality.

For I would suggest that "The New Spirit Level of the Real Global Economy" is going to be very challenging indeed for many people in the economies of "The Old West", and that their governments, including our own, need to "get real" in responding to this situation sooner rather than later.

THE ECONOMICS OF FAIRY DUST REVISITED

The Coalition Government's policy of continued "quantitative easing" reminds me of a post of six month's ago from my alter ego "The Witch of Worcester": @ http://www.witchofworcester.wordpress.com/

"Writing in The Observer last Sunday (11 April 2010), the former newspaper editor Will Hutton bemoaned the lack of any real content in the current British General Election campaign, and the fact that the euphemistically named government policy of "quantitative easing" - ie pumping £billions of public money to prop up the banking sector - was reinforcing structural problems in the UK economy: namely, the dependence of this on the financial and property sectors.

Commentators on the article - including this one - seemed to have found much to agree with. However, I have to take issue with Hutton's assertion that the British have all been living on fairy dust - ie asset price inflation largely constructed on increasingly sophisticated financial systems, which also provided unprecedented levels of consumer credit - for the past 20 years. For there is another dimension to "The State We're In" - also the title of a book by Hutton published around the time of New Labour's election in 1997. The other side of the story is, of course, the hard labour of people in low wage countries, notably - but not exclusively - China which has produced the cheap, but nevertheless high quality, consumer goods of which we in countries like Britain and the United States are so enamoured. I therefore find it strange that Mr Hutton, now identified with the UK-based Work Foundation, should have apparently overlooked the labours of these multitude of overseas workers in his article, given that their production has underpinned, more substantially than the speculators as it turns out, the long boom from early 1990s to the late noughties.

During this time, Britain has been living not so much on fairy dust - attractive although this analogy may be to one concerned with non-material realties - but on the hard labour, and to a significant extent the savings, of people living in less-developed countries. However, I would argue that this process has not delivered the advantages at home or abroad that are frequently advanced. We are all now aware that the kind of growth which the consumer revolution has brought to China poses not only grave environmental problems for the rest of the world, but has also suppressed, and in some cases destroyed, the development of industries in other countries, including our own. Moreover, there are an increasing number of people within China who would like to see their country take a different development path, which is less reliant upon Western consumers, and the economics of fairy dust."

VICTORY FOR MILIBAND VS THE MEDIA

Congratulations to Ed Miliband and Alan Johnson for foiling the British media's attempt to foist one or other of the Ed Balls-Yvette Cooper husband and wife couple in to the role of Shadow Chancellor, and sending them on their separate ways as shadow spokespersons for Home Affairs and Foreign Policy.

It's great to think that a sense of humour - as well as some common sense - might have been restored to Labour Party politics at long last !

OLD LESSONS OF THE NEW IRISH PROBLEM

This image from the Wikipedia Media Commons depicts the "Famine" sculpture in front of Dublin's financial centre.

Created at the height of the credit boom, when Dublin was amongst the four richest cities in the world, this artwork now symbolises the "feast to famine" cycle of the modern Irish economy.

For some, last week's Irish Government bailout of the banking sector may recall the country's earlier potato famine, but the lessons are much closer to home.

In short, "The New Irish Problem" - as I'm going to call it - shows the folly of a small country adopting the "growth policies" of a much larger one, namely the United States.

For in Ireland, the problems of an overly large and inadequately regulated financial sector as well as a highly speculative property market - problems which the country shares with the United Kingdom - have been made far worse by a lax planning regime and lending to the construction sector, mixed up with some good old fashioned corruption.

UK Coalition Government and "Next Generation Labour" please take note !

For if the previous administration had succeeded in fully implementing its plans for massive volume house-building, the outcome would almost certainly have been akin to the property market collapses in the US, Ireland and Spain, which followed similar policies.

Looking Beyond Britain's Post "Blair Babe" Politics

Image: Stylish fifty something Christine Lagarde, French Minister for Economic Affairs.

News this weekend that Brazil is likely to have a sixty something woman President put in to perspective the election of Miliband Junior as UK Leader of the Opposition. It was also a shame that Diane Abbott apparently lost out to the politics of envy over the choice of a private education for her son, just when I thought such "Old Left" hang-ups had lost out to New Labour.

In the run up to the General Election, I lamented the absence of the "Herd Matriarch" in British politics, as distinct from those "Folletted" women politicians struggling to look forty something when now nearer sixty than fifty. As someone a lot nearer fifty than forty herself, I am actually being cruel to be kind when I say this.

Unfortunately for we more mature ladies looking "ten years younger" has been one of the great aspirations since the Blair Babe years. Indeed, it is now a requirement for "the boys" as well, with baby-faced male politicians like Cameron, Clegg and the Milibands all doing better than their more mature (looking) colleagues.

Poor "old" Alistair Darling had to point out, as in the BBC interviewer's words, he handed over to "the next generation" of Labour politicians that he did not yet have "one foot in the grave". How did British politics arrive at this advanced state of ageism, I wonder, and how can the body politic be restored to a more sensible demographic ?

Were it not the case that European politics still looks like a relatively mature state of affairs, I might have deduced that politicians become younger as their populations age, and younger countries have older leaders, based on the experience of Britain and Brazil, for instance. However, this would not explain the enduring success of "Mother Merkel" in Germany.

No, I think the cult of youth in UK politics must be the new "British Disease", reflecting a society dictated to and dominated by its visual media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation. Something needs to be done about this. Maybe it's high time we more mature women staged a continental-style coup, ejected those hair dye fascists, and sported French-style grey hair.

OH DELHI ! - The Commonwealth Games Fiasco

Like the rest of what I suspect is the world's great silent majority, I do wonder what all the fuss is about sport; and I'm fed up with hearing about the problems of pampered elite athletes, particularly Australian ones and footballers....but that's another story.

So on one level, the Indian Commonwealth Games fiasco is almost welcome: a timely reminder that this a country struggling with development issues of far greater importance than the delivery of yet more world-class sporting facilities.

On the other hand, I very much support the idea of a Commonwealth Games, and hope that this one ultimately delivers a beneficial legacy and the next goes to Glasgow and does the same.

However, a more sensible perspective on sport is essential. People are increasingly comparing the current global obsession with the last days of the Roman Empire, providing a timely reminder to London's classicist Mayor, Boris Johnson, of the wider challenges facing his own country.

BRITAIN'S ECONOMIC SECURITY & FREEDOM

In a week when Britain is "Doing God" with a visit by a Pope who once belonged to the Hitler Youth, it was a timely reminder this lunchtime from one UK military man that our country's economic security should be uppermost in the hearts and minds of every citizen, even if this means less expenditure on high tech weapons.

I'm probably not alone in wondering whether Tony Blair has long term Papal ambitions, even if New Labour "didn't do God", when Alastair Campbell was around anyway. Unfortunately, it did - and didn't do - rather a lot of other things which have potentially compromised the country's economic self-determination.

For a nation which prides itself, rightly or wrongly, on an independent political system, our present predicament should be a concern to all free-thinking people. I believe the Coalition Government is genuine in its aim to deliver economic security, even if I happen to disagree with some of its policies, which - thank the gods ! - I can do freely.

SHRINKING THE STATE OF CUBA

It is interesting that the 2010 TUC Conference should co-incide with an announcement that Cuba is to reduce the number of state employees by around 20 per cent, or 1 million. Apparently, independent enterprise and self-employment are to be encouraged.

I have to say that my recollection of working with public employees in Slovakia shortly after the fall of Communism suggests that these people were better prepared for market realities than some of their British counterparts in 2010.

With hindsight it also seems that some countries in "The New Europe" have made a better job of governing themselves in the period since the collapse of the former Soviet Block, even in the absence of an equivalent of the British media class: or perhaps because of this.

UK TRADE UNIONS: THEY'RE NOT EQUAL TO IT

I'm just reaching the denouement of a superb psychological thriller by the Labour Peer Ruth Rendell, writing as Barbara Vine, called "The House of Stairs". One of the book's central characters, Bell, often uses the expression "I'm not equal to it", although she is quite up to the job of murder.

In addition to being excellent genre fiction, "The House of Stairs" is also a fine novel whose story reflects on the excesses of the 1960s and the perspective of the more sombre 1980s. This is the time frame in which I now want to reflect on the role of trade unions, although my starting point will be the so-called "New Austerity" of 2010.

I began with a literary reference because one of the most sensible comments on "Unequal Britain" came recently from another Labour supporting writer, and former local councillor, Jonathan Myerson. Now I do not usually have much time for Myerson, but when he described the "New Poor" as people who have of necessity more than one low-paid job at the same time, he hit the nail on the head.

Most of these people will not be members of UK trade unions, nor will the comrades meeting this week in Manchester take very much interest in their plight. This is not to deny, however, that the unions have improved the lot of women working in low-paid jobs in the public sector, comprising a key part of its workforce, during New Labour's period in office.

The election of a Labour government in 1997 followed those "wilderness years" of the 1980s when the Party was widely regarded to be unelectable largely because of perceived trade union excesses in the 1970s, culminating in a "Winter of Discontent".

In fact, such excesses went much further back in to the post-war period, and were satirised in that brilliant film "I'm Alright Jack". Even the left leaning comedian, son of Communist parents, and now esteemed writer himself, Alexei Sayle, could acknowledge this in a rather good BBC Radio 4 "Archive Hour" retrospective, which humorously described his own experience of trade union conferences during the 1960s.

Nevetheless, the follies of the British trade union movement are by no means the whole story, nor are strong unions inevitably the enemy of economic productivity, as shown in Germany, even if this narrative has dominated their modern history in this country.

My own response to this narrative has however come full circle. I was skeptical of the movement by the late 1970s, a supporter during the 1980s, sympathetic when New Labour came to power in 1997, and skeptical again by the mid-noughties.

For the election of a Labour Government, with an unprecedented three terms in office, turned out to be a profound missed opportunity for the trade unions, who in turn contributed to the underlying problem of New Labour's lack of a viable political economy for government. In essence, both sold out to unsustainable market-fixing policies which enabled equally unsustainable levels of public expenditure: a political double-whammy if ever there was one !

Thus all the rhetoric currently directed by trade union leaders, and people like Labour Party leadership contender Ed Balls, at the Coalition Government's proposals to manage the economy and public finances sound extremely rich coming from a partnership which, aside from the speculative investment industry, have done most in recent years to create the very problems about which they now most vociferously complain. Talk about trying to get away with murder !

Green Party MP Job Share Proposal

I very much support UK Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas's proposal for MP job shares. Like her, I would like to see much more sharing of powerful and well paid positions. Unfortunately, it's not just amongst Britain's over-bonused bankers that greed continues to be good. Listeners to BBC Radio 4's "Any Questions" this week will have heard Labour Party leadership contender Ed Balls's reluctance to acknowledge the possibility of sharing the position of shadow chancellor with his wife, Yvette Cooper. This greedy couple of class warriors - yes, there's still plenty of them around - both held Cabinet positions in the previous government, and were leading lights in promoting the kind of policies that contributed to the country's present financial and economic problems. I therefore find myself in the unlikely position of agreeing that two Balls would be even worse than one in this instance, notwithstanding my general support for the Green Party proposal.

A SHORT STORY ABOUT SAUSAGE ROLLS

A couple of weeks ago, the Saturday edition of "The Times" carried a double-page spread on Lord Prescott. The article ended on the subject of sausage rolls, and our former Deputy Prime Minister's seduction by the offer of half a dozen from a girl at Greggs the Bakers in Hull.

The article also covered the issue of shipping, a favourite with the erstwhile hero of the Kyoto Agreement, and onetime Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

In short-crust - or puff for that matter - pastry terms, there is a lot more shipping these days, a source - or should that be sauce -not only of major direct impacts upon the environment, but also those nasty embedded emissions, a bit like hidden calories, with which BBC Radio 4's "Uncertain Climate" will deal this evening at 9.30pm. *

On the more mundane matter of food miles at home, it should be noted that around one in four lorries on British roads are involved in food distribution, and over half of these are empty, a reminder perhaps of pies that are all puff pastry and no filling.

Happily, this isn't true of Greggs', purveyor's of "The Nation's Favourite Sausage Roll". Sadly, the same cannot be said for British politics and its thick coating of media pastry during the Silly Season, to whose lack of content we should now all bid a not-so-fond farewell.

I, for one, shall be making a submission to the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee's Inquiry into the "Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies". This will seek to separate the "phoney war" - or puff pastry if you prefer - around housebuilding targets for the English Regions, from the more meaty issues at stake.

* Please see also http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com

UK HOUSEBUILDING: THE PHONEY WAR

As Summer draws to a close, and with a new government now in place, the resumption of what can only be described as a "phoney war" by the UK's large scale housebuilding sector, and its adherents, has once again gathered momentum.

Historically, the big beasts of the UK housebuilding industry have enjoyed some of the highest profits in their sector, based upon international comparisons. This has led to calls from the wider development business, as well as consumer groups, for the industry to be better regulated.

However, whilst some anti-competitive practices amongst major housebuilders and construction groups have been identified, notably with regard to price fixing in public procurement, much of the sector remains, quite simply, unreconstructed.

One of the main reasons for this is the industry's unrivalled public affairs infrastructure, which is supported by organisations like the Institute for Housing and the National Housing Federation, who have a remarkably uncritical relationship with commercial construction interests.

Both these reputable organisations should know full well that commercial house builders are not going to develop more houses than they can construct, sell or rent at a profit - notwithstanding any affordability or social subsidy component - for the market.

The fact that the UK market is delivering an all time low number of dwellings at present is, to put it simply, "the nature of the beast", or more accurately, "the nature of the big beasts"; and all the rhetoric around this reality little more than a phoney war.

PLEASE END FERTILITY CULT POLITICS

It must surely be testimony to a profound lack of content - and perhaps sheer boredom factor -in Blair's autobiography and the Labour Party leadership contenders' debate, published and broadcast yesterday, that the media should choose to focus instead on William Hague's sex life.

In adopting the cost-saving measure of sharing a twin-bed hotel room with a young male adviser during the recent general election campaign, the Foreign Secretary has fallen prey to prurient minds, of which there are indeed a very great many, and a general presumption of something untoward in this arrangement. Surely, if Mr Hague had been having an affair with his young adviser he wouldn't have been so blatant about it !

However, the Foreign Secretary's response to allegations of an affair have touched the heart of the matter: Mr Hague's failure to pro-create with his wife, or anyone else, and thereby fulfill the requirements of the fertility cult which has dominated British politics in recent years.

The fact that Mr Hague has been forced to make "a detailed and emotional statement" (Metro) to explain the situation is testimony again to the low levels to which politics, and wider political commentary, in this country has sunk.

As for the propriety of the young adviser's appointment, our corridors of power would surely be empty if everyone was up to the job, as anyone who encountered the political entourage of former London Mayor - and Phallus-in-Chief - Ken Livingstone will be aware.

British Politics: Not a Game of Cricket

Whilst the world of cricket may be fretting about the latest match-fixing allegations, "No Balls" has been good for British politics in recent months as far as I'm concerned.

I refer, of course, to the Ed Balls campaign for the Labour Party leadership. Mr Balls basically wants a return to the days of "Spend, Spend, Spend" government on the back of the Blair-Brown speculative bubble, and he's advocating the kind of economic "match-fixing" policies which brought us to the current state we're in.

With that opening spin, I'd like to set out my wider views on the forthcoming Labour Party leadership elections and, indeed, my own political perspective at the present time.

To adopt a biblical reference and deal with the last first, I'm not so much interested in the particular political party species these days: with the possible exception of the lizard-like Ken Livingstone, who has, incidentally, thrown his balls in with Ed. It is the wider ecology of politics which concerns me, including the sustainability of the habitat generally known as "Centre-Left".

Now, it seems to be that the other Ed - Miliband that is - and Diane Abbott are the creatures best evolved to occupy this territory, Mr Miliband probably having the superior intellect, and Ms Abbott more common sense.

With regard to the wider political landscape, my guess is that at some future time socio-economic climate change may be accompanied by a shift in the tectonic plates of party politics, to borrow a favourite phrase of Lord Prescott, and a new social democratic grouping may emerge comprising some former Labour and Liberal-Democrat Members or Parliament.

However, such a "Rainbow Coalition" is not quite yet on the horizon; and whether the present terrain turns out to be "Brokeback Politics" or something more lofty has I think for most people yet to be determined.

Postscript : As an "old environmentalist", I would strongly caution against the creation of a "New Green Movement" based upon the development of GONGOS - Government-Organised Non-Government Organisations - of the kind found in China, for instance.

FIRE & FLOOD - ACTS OF GOD OR MAN ?

The recent forest fires in Russia, together with flooding in Pakistan and China, have dominated the world news this month. Wider climate change aside, abnormally hot and wet weather, linked to changes in the Gulf Stream and seasonal monsoons, has been identified as the root cause of these natural disasters.

However, Russia has experienced increased forest fires over a number of years, including devastating outbreaks in the far east of the country. The cause of these is largely "anthropogenic" - they are started by people - and other "human factors", including lack of strategic fire defence infrastructure, have undoubtedly exacerbated the latest catastrophic outbreaks.

Similarly in Pakistan, resources allocated for flood defence and emergency services seem to have been lost to corruption or incompetence. Additionally, there is the problem - shared with China - of development pressures associated with a growing population which inhabits areas prone to natural disasters.

In other words, these so-called "Acts of God" are very much "People Problems". Of these, it is clearly Pakistan that faces the greatest set of challenges. As well as countries such as Britain and the United States, it is to be hoped that the wider Islamic world, particularly wealthy nations in the Middle East, will come to the assistance of the people of Pakistan, and also that those nationals hitherto engaged in terrorism will now turn their energies to disaster relief.

BP - NOT BEYOND POLITICS

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

IMPORTANCE OF REGULATORY ACTIVISTS

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

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

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

THE REAL CRISES OF CAPITALISM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Construction, Construction & Construction

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

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

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

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

GETTING OUT OF THE STATE WE'RE IN

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

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

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

BBC RADIO 3'S CREATIVE NIGHTWAVES

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

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

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

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

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

A watershed indeed !

TIME TO TOP KILL BP MANAGEMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

REFLECTIONS ON ROTTWEILER MAN

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

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

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

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

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

IMAGINE !

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one....."

A while back someone said to me that he thought the John Lennon song Imagine had been censored from the British airwaves, as he didn't seem to have heard it recently. So just in case this is true, here's some of the lyrics !

In these bellicose times, I have to say that Michael Hastings article on "The Runaway General" in the edition of "Rolling Stone" magazine out tomorrow - but available for download today - makes a very interesting, as well as entertaining, read.

However, although its opening lines seem to support Stanley McChrystal's bravado style, by the end one is left with the impression that the General is probably best out of the way, for reasons other than his criticism of "The Wimps in the White House".

The good news is that the winner in this particular war is undoubtedly "Rolling Stone": a testimony to the enduring power of its genre of writing on music, politics and popular culture.

DON'T LET A FIGHT RUIN YOUR NIGHT !

I find this message all over the streets of Worcester this afternoon as people gather to watch England play Slovenia in the Football World Cup.

This is perhaps also a message to which embattled President Obama needs to take heed.

As the President's wrath switches from BP's Tony Haywood to US General McChrystal's comments in Rolling Stone magazine, my advice is "Calm Down, because this isn't a commercial !"

Diane Abbott MP: "Consistent and Persistent"

In an unlikely analogy, Diane Abbott's bid for Labour Party leader is being likened to the rise to power of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

This blog recognised some time ago that Ms Abbott had leadership potential, and she does share with Mrs Thatcher the virtue of being a "signpost" rather that a "weather vane", to use Tony Benn's defining description of the political temperament. The new Communities Secretary Eric Pickles described Ms Abbott as "consistent and persistent" yesterday.

As someone offering a genuinely left of centre perspective, Ms Abbott's candidacy for Labour Party leader is very much to be welcomed at a time when the interests of government and big business have become to far too closely intertwined, both in this country and abroad.

BP: FROM BIG PROFITS TO BIG PROBLEMS

When former President Putin effectively put a stop to BP's activities in Russia a few years ago, for a combination of financial and environmental reasons, the company's public relations machine ensured that it was portrayed as the wronged party. With hindsight, Putin may be regarded as having better political judgement than his US and UK contemporaries. This a factual comment rather than an ethical observation.

For a country which likes to regard itself as pushing forward the frontiers of ethical business - I'm speaking of Britain - the unethical activities of BP, like those of the overly-ambitious British banking sector, have struck another deep blow on the domestic front. For the facts are that BP's increasingly aggressive exploitation of the world's oil reserves and the big profits that accompanied this strategy have led not only to an unprecedented environmental - and economic - disaster for the United States, but the prospect of major financial problems in the UK if the company has to suspend payments to an already shaky pensions sector.

The US Government is, of course, as much to blame as BP for the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, and, therefore, equally responsible for tackling its consequences. Prime Minister Cameron needs to convey this message to President Obama. Both men should also recognise that the problems of overly powerful business interests are as much as issue for the US and the UK as they are for countries like Russia.

THE OIL DOLLARS TRAGEDY

I've suggested previously that "The Dollars Trilogy" provides an alternative narrative for New Labour's time in office: please see my post of 17 March. However, "The Oil Dollars Trilogy" may provide a more appropriate description of the years between 1997-2010, when the so-called US-UK "Special Relationship" dominated so much of the governance of Britain.

It is, therefore, a tragic twist to this narrative that "The Oil Dollars Trilogy" should end with a failure of governance on the part of the US administration in regulating the activities of British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico. For it turns out that BP were exempted from the provision an environmental impact assessment prior to the sinking of the deep sea oil well whose subsequent leakage has brought catastrophe to the area. Had this precautionary principle - see my post of 30 April - been adopted, the subsequent narrative might have been very different.

Also @ http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com

AND NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS....

The new Treasury team has apparently found ample opportunity for making saving in public expenditure. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have observed the growing gravy train in recent years.

However, profligacy is not the whole story. Some areas of government do operate efficiently.

Quangos are clearly one of the problem areas. The Regional Development Agencies, for instance, have evolved an oligarchic relationship with certain sections of the business community in areas like the West Midlands.

As a former minister for this region, the previous Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, was an important contributor to such collusion.

We should not be surprised, therefore, that his administration should have left the coffers empty.

"THERE'S NO MONEY LEFT"

This was former Chief Secretary to the Treasury's hand-over message to successor David Laws.

NEW UK POLITICS CLOUDED BY ASH....

There must be something about New Labour politics which offends the Old gods of the North, for no sooner have the Miliband brothers announced plans to stand as leadership candidates, than the Icelandic ash cloud returns to the skies above Britain.

However, it was Lord (Paddy) Ashdown who looked like thwarting the New Politics of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition last week, along with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In short, the UK electorate was being asked to support a so-called "Progressive Alliance", whose leader would be appointed after the Labour Party decided a successor to Brown, who by then had conveniently offered to resign.

I'm sorry, but most of the ordinary voting public wanted a leader elected by the people, a mandate to which new Prime Minister David Cameron has most claim. My guess is that such a "Progressive Alliance" could well have be deemed unconstitutional, and that the Liberal-Democrats took the only real course of action open to them in joining the Government, a move which was endorsed by their conference last weekend.

Week In Politics Nearly Not Long Enough !

Some general reflections on the UK Elections to follow shortly.

EUROPEAN SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS

The Government Deficit/Surplus of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom in relation to that of the Eurozone and the European Union between 2002-2009 (Source 2010 European Sovereign Debt Crisis Wikipedia).

Acropolis Now was how The Economist Magazine recently described the Greek Debt Crisis. However, the "European Stabilisation Mechanism" agreed by EU Finance Ministers this weekend is also a response to the wider Sovereign Debt Crisis across Europe. Nor is this problem confined to the Eurozone, for the crisis again threatens contagion across the international banking system. Whilst the markets have responded positively to EU's actions - which are not proving popular amongst the prudent Germans - the threat of moral hazard has raised itself once more, with protection of necessity being afforded to the imprudent.

This is precisely why British politicians need to closely follow Lady Prudence and swiftly form a government capable of tackling economic and financial problems at home and abroad. The role of the opposition in this process will also be crucially important.

UK ELECTIONS - DEAL OR NO DEAL ?

Conservative leader David Cameron needs to do a deal with the Liberal Democrats, offering Nick Clegg and Vince Cable positions in a "Balanced Cabinet", and giving Ken Clarke the role of Deputy Prime Minister.

In the absence of this, the likely scenario is that Gordon Brown will be back, as New Labour performed better than the newly Lib-Dem media anticipated.

Terminator Needed for UK Elections

Whatever the outcome of today's General Election, I'm sure most people would share my view that we don't need another one in the near future. So whether a single political party emerges as the winner, or there is a hung parliament, our elected leaders should get on with the job of running the country.

Schwarzenegger Terminates Drilling Plans

The Governor of California's announcement earlier this week to suspend the expansion of oil drilling off the US West Coast is good news, particularly given the financial problems confronting the State. These share some similarity with those of Greece, although California remains one of the world's major economies.

In contrast to the lack of action by the United States Government in dealing with the problems of the Gulf of Mexico, the move by Schwarzenegger reflects the positive side of the US federal system. The Governor of California has also led action on energy and climate change issues.

WEAKNESS OF US GOVERNANCE MODEL

The reaction of the United States Government to the catastrophic oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico reveals the weakness of the US model of governance. In short, legal retribution is the name of the game. This approach may be more effective than other models in dealing with consequences of financial wrongdoing, as in the case of banks, but when the environment is at stake pre-emptive and prompt practical action by the appropriate public authorities is essential. Once again, the US Government has been lacking in the this regard, as it was with New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina.

Importance of the Precautionary Principle

Less than a fortnight ago, much of Europe was grounded by the eruption of an Icelandic volcano. The airline business was swift to complain that European civil aviation officials were overly cautious, but most people would prefer this kind of disruption to a calamitous accident.

At around the same time aircraft were returning to British skies, the rig component of a deep sea oil well and pipeline complex belonging to BP - British Petroleum - exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people. However, the possible wider impact of this incident does not seem to have been fully acknowledged by the company, the US Coastguard, or the government in Washington....until too late.

This failure to fully acknowledge the potential consequences of the oil rig explosion at the time of the incident may have been due to a number of factors, including the impending announcement of BP's annual profits and the United States Government's plans to extend drilling in the Gulf.

Whatever the reason, the outcome may be the US's worst ever environmental disaster, bringing devastation to marine and other wildlife, as well as to the livelihoods of people engaged in industries such as fishing and tourism.

The economic collusion of big business and national governments is always a clear and present danger, as the recent banking crisis has revealed. This is precisely why the precautionary principle and timely intervention by regulatory authorities are so important in disaster prevention and management, even if this time it's the environment, stupid !

The Shadow Side of Political Correctness

One consequence of Gordon Brown being off-message and on air yesterday was that British National Party Leader Nick Griffin was on air and on message this morning on the BBC's Today Programme.

The Importance of Real People's Concerns

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

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

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

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

Business backs Clarke for Chancellor

News agency Reuters reports today that Ken Clarke is the favoured candidate for next Chancellor of the Exchequer amongst UK business leaders. This is hardly surprising, as Clarke steered the economy from the last recession, and British politics is short on experience just now. Ken Clarke has also stuck around, although rebuffed as contender for the Tory leadership, in stark contrast to the leading architect of New Labour, former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Ken Clarke Reveals Tory Terms For Deal

According to a Press Association report today, the Shadow Secretary of State for Business Industry and Skills has said the bottom line for a deal with the other political parties would be adherence to the Conservatives planned deficit reduction programme, involving early massive cuts in public expenditure.

The timing and scale of public expenditure reductions is a defining difference between the Tories and the other main parties, and Clarke has also expressed doubt that these would accept the Tory proposals.

However, a legacy of "moral hazard" (see below) also applies to much of the public - and publicly funded - sectors under New Labour. In short, there has been a great deal of profligate spending and too little accountability when things have gone wrong. The problem is that the casualties of public spending cuts will not be, in the main, the people who made the wrong decisions.

Nevertheless, I do very much support Conservative proposals to scale down The Quango State, although even Mrs Thatcher found this difficult. Nevertheless, as a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as Secretary of State for Health, I do regard Ken Clarke as someone capable of administering radical surgery of the kind most people accept is required sooner or later.

THE NEW DUKES OF MORAL HAZARD

To celebrate the restoration of "The Image" to my blog, I'm returning to the 1980s auto theme with which the present British General Election campaign started. I'm referring, of course, to the David Cameron-Gene Hunt-Audi Quattro image for which "Dave" expressed his thanks to New Labour spin.

The Dukes of Hazzard was a real (as distinct from retro) US TV show of the late 1970s-mid '80s, with 2 main heroes - a bit like the contemporary partnership of David Cameron and George Osborne - and an attractive woman in hot pants, not as yet sighted amongst those Cameronettes....but now the weather is hotting up, who knows what might happen.

"Moral Hazard", I fear. For I'm not convinced that David Cameron's Conservatives will tackle this problem arising from the bail-out of UK banks and the protection of bankers from bearing the real consquences of their risk-taking. I also detect a return of the Conservative pre-occupation with the less fortunate amongst the feckless, at a time when it is the morals of the wealthy and powerful that most need regulation.

BLACK SWAN FLIES INTO LONG CRISIS ?

Yesterday, I was reminded of Black Swan Theory - see www.fooledbyrandomness.com - and today hit upon a website called www.longcrisis.com Black Swan Events are unpredictable happenings which have an impact of great/wide magnitude, and whose occurrence and effects are later rationalised as predictable: the consequences of volcanic eruption(s) in Iceland serve to illustrate the theory very well. The forecast "Long Crisis" encompasses changes arising from increasing global connectivity, with particular reference to financial/economic systems, climate change and "peak oil" and the need to adjust to these environmental limits to growth. Political leadership will be a key factor in determining how societies like our own adjust to the challenges ahead, and this is precisely why Britain needs a very different kind of politics at the present time.

An Ideal UK General Election Outcome ?

The prospect of a genuine coalition government involving all the major, and some of the minor, UK political parties is looking more attractive to many people, including myself. However, there is a possibility that such a government would not be run by any of the current political party leaders. In a situation where the Conservatives had most seats followed by the Liberal-Democrats, my guess is that Ken Clarke might prove the most acceptable prime ministerial candidate, with Vince Cable as the man who would be Chancellor. It strikes me that these are two men who could do business with one another, to paraphrase Mrs Thatcher's description of her relationship with former Soviet President Gorbachev. At the present time, the UK needs more experienced leadership than that offered by David Cameron who, as former Number 10 advisor Mathew Taylor pointed out on BBC Radio 4's The World at One today, did not appear to demonstrate much real passion or enthusiasm for office in the three party leadership debate last week.

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER !

"Global Gridlock" is how Australian ABC News describes the impact on world air travel of the volcanic ash plume across northern and central Europe.

Forecasters are now suggesting that the climatic conditions which have contributed to the problem could continue into next week.

The volcanic ash plume is an environmental event of global significance, a so-called "Act of God" which at best is an inconvenience for users of air transport, and at worst a disaster.

However, unlike recent earthquakes, there do not seem to have been any direct fatalities as yet from the eruptions in Iceland.

What this episode should do is make people - and policy makers in particular - think more laterally about the potential for and impact of "Nature's Great Events".

Please also see http://the-deep-stuff.blogspot.com