MOOCS: NEW CHANNELS FOR BIG CONVERSATIONS

Mooc = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

Like UKIP, the Mooc is a so-called "challenger brand" - http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1296571/ - of the kind described in a Campaign magazine article on the former. UKIP seems to be having a more real "Big Conservation" with the British public than New Labour achieved a decade ago. This is because the latter party and, indeed, the current political ruling coalition, treat a conversation with the electorate as a consultation. In many ways, UKIP has emerged as the antidote to managed politics of the kind most associated with the old New Labour brand.

The Massive Open Online Course model could now be used to facilitate a moderated big conversation around key issues facing individual countries, such as Britain, or geopolitical regions like Europe. Whilst I am a fan of Moocs and have completed a wide range of courses, one of their main shortcoming for me tends to be the dominance of a single viewpoint: ie the host instructor or institution has a particular narrative which is then supported or challenged in the discussion fora. Whilst some subjects lend themselves to this approach, where issues are clearly contested it would be preferable for two or more points of view to be represented by those running the course.

An obvious case is that of migration to the UK and within the European Union. Fact-based arguments for and against the present situation can be made. However, much of the big conversation is unsatisfactory, whatever your view on the issue. A good - or bad! - example of the poor quality of discourse is provided by the Secretary of State for Defence's comments of yesterday and the subsequent reaction to these - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29784486 Rather than such ad hoc outbursts and counter-blasts, far better to have a structured national debate on migration and population change hosted by a reputable institution. A mooc would provide a good starting-point.

MIGRATION AND POPULATION CHANGE IN BRITAIN

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

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

POPULARISTS HAVE RE-ENERGISED BRITISH POLITICS

The success of UKIP in the 2014 elections European Parliament - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/vote2014/eu-uk-results - was a body blow to Britain's established political classes, especially the Liberal-Democrats. Similarly, Douglas Carswell's switch from the Conservatives to UKIP, and subsequent resounding victory in the Clacton by-election has seriously rattled the Tories. Moreover, UKIP is also attracting people from the traditional left, as the result of the Heywood and Middleton by-election and this recent Guardian article show - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/24/ukip-voter-guardian-website-nigel-farage The formula for this success is summed up in these comments from a north of England UKIP supporter: “We’re a grassroots movement; we’re an idea whose time has come. We’re on the long march to Westminster and we will get there.” Source - http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/ukip-target-success-in-barrow-and-ulverston-1.1139730#

In short, as a political operation UKIP's tactical campaign led by Nigel Farage has much in common with the modus operandi of the Scottish National Party under Alex Salmond (although both men would not welcome the comparison) as this Spectator blog notes: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/04/brothers-in-arms-ukip-and-the-snp-are-one-and-the-same/. It concludes: "Neither may reach their ultimate goal of separation from their respective unions (UK and EU) but they have both made politics more interesting and relevant to people previously disinterested. Regardless of whether you agree with them or not, it’s undoubtedly an achievement."

All this begs the question: "Why has popularism become become such a dirty word in modern politics?". In Europe, the answer goes back to the populist base of the German National Socialist and Italian Fascist movements in the twentieth century which precipitated World War II. More recently, popularisn has tended to manifest in anti-European Union parties as this article from the Financial Times describes: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/783e39b4-e4af-11e3-9b2b-00144feabdc0.html#slide0 Opposition to the EU is significantly based on challenges to the power of Brussels, particularly within the Eurozone, and the free movement of people which forms a cornerstone of the European Treaty. Although contemporary populism most often manifests in right-wing groups, in Southern Europe it is left-wing parties who have rallied supporters around these issues.

Significantly, UKIP was set up "with the aim of fielding candidates opposed to the Maastricht Treaty" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party UKIP  The party has been the leading member of the UK's growing EU Referendum Movement which includes a number of other smaller parties. UKIP has been a controversial arrival on the British political scene, as a Wikipedia entry demonstrates, and its success has increasingly been identified with the leadership of Nigel Farage who "started a wide-ranging policy review, his stated aim being "the development of the party into broadly standing for traditional conservative and libertarian values." However, the party's appeal has extended far beyond those who might identify themselves with such political values. Farage now has a column in the left-leaning Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/nigel-farage-8931418.html - and has sought to "highlight UKIP's female, black and ethnic-minority candidates" and to distance the party from extremist politics - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27315328

Whilst UKIP's stance on EU and non EU-migration to Britain has been an important selling point, it seems that a "Farage Factor" drives the party's ratings in the polls - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage  In short, Nigel Farage is a consummate salesman as well as a conviction politician. The conditions for his rise to power were undoubtedly created by New Labour, and Faragiste politics are the antithesis of the Blairite values which persist in the present Coalition government. Whilst I would not predict that UKIP will secure "their ultimate goal of separation" from the European Union, in challenging the "grand projet", including HS2, of the modern national and transnational state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnationalism) and rolling back some of the frontiers of political correctness, Faragiste popularism has undoubtedly re-energised British politics, even if it has failed to grasp global climate change.

Note: The term "popularist" rather than "populist" has been used in this post with two exceptions. This article from the New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/opinion/sunday/friedman -the-rise-of-popularism.html - say of the former expression: "...I heard a new word in London last week: “Popularism.” It’s the über-ideology of our day. Read the polls, track the blogs, tally the Twitter feeds and Facebook postings and go precisely where the people are, not where you think they need to go". "Populism", on the other hand, is described thus in Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism#Fascism_and_populism

TRANSPORT: FINANCIAL TIMES CHANGES PLATFORM

According to the print edition of today's FT, "..HS2 should reach Birmingham in 2016", although the same report in the paper's online version - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4c7f36aa-5883-11e4-942f-00144feab7de.html#axzz3GyGfswxp - states that: "Ths article has been change to reflect the fact that HS2 should reach Birmingham in 2026, not 2016". As someone prone to typos, I can take a little satisfaction that the mighty media also occasionally fall victim to these.

However, the article also suggests that the FT may have changed platform on HS2, and this report is somewhat more circumspect than last week's as the following extract shows:

"Martin Blaiklock, a consultant on infrastructure and energy project finance, said the extra capacity needed could be built more cheaply. “[HS2] is very high-risk. There may well be alternatives available. The public are not convinced as to benefit of HS2. It is a gravy train for consultants, involving banks, lawyers and government officials,” he said.

The article also points out that:

"Northern councils have their own £15bn road and rail plan to better connect their cities and want it delivered before HS2. It includes a new high-speed line between Leeds and Manchester. Journey times across the North are twice as slow as those into London. 

The government wants to create a “northern powerhouse” to rival London by improving links between the biggest cities in the region. Jim O’Neill, the economist, who coined the term, “ManSheffLeedsPool”, told the FT: “For people to have to wait for HS2 to do that, I don’t see the logic. And I think and I hope that the people who sponsor it will have accepted that principle.”

Not content with an article on the transport shortcomings of "ManSheffLeedsPool...the inelegantly named northern region running between Liverpool to Hull..", today's FT also has an editorial entitled "A modest proposal to get Britain's cities moving" which identifies investment in the Trans-Pennine express rail link as a key project for the Chancellor's "Northern Powerhouse", along the lines of a Centre for Cities report published last week.

Transport is indeed a subject that keeps the commentators peddling. However, as many policy-makers still live in the kind of alternative universe where HS2 trains could be scheduled to serve Birmingham ten years in advance of the construction of the necessary rail infrastructure, and without all the necessary development consents in place, I remain to be convinced that a high-quality rail network and sustainable transport system within and between English regional cities will arrive on time.

TRANSPORT KEEPS THE COMMENTATORS PEDDLING

Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne (Getty Images)

There are three articles on transport in today's Financial Times headlined as follows: Cost of congestion takes toll on economy; Contest starts to win £10 billion of contracts to build HS2 line; and, East Thames targeted for regeneration.

The first article reports Edmund King of the AA as saying that "infrastructure investments such a the new high-speed rail link would have "minimal" effect on future UK road traffic increases (or rail congestion, I would add). Meanwhile, congestion in the United States, which has embraced the car more enthusiastically than perhaps anywhere else in the world, is forecast to pay a higher price for congestion than perhaps any other country by 2050.

Although the precise aims of the proposed HS2 remain unclear, it would according to the second article, "provide a lifeline for the construction industry". Indeed, this seems to be the main purpose of the project which is still some way from having all the necessary development consents, although the state-owned company behind it has already "spent £3 billion since it was set up by government in 2012". The total cost of HS2, including trains, is estimated to be in region of £50 million, "making it one of the most expensive railway projects in the world".

Finally, the FT reports that "four river crossings should be built between east London and Kent" at an "estimated" cost of £3-7 billion according to the Centre for London think-tank. Presumably these are also lifelines for the construction industry, as again the precise rationale for them is unclear. I speak as someone who attended two major planning inquiries into an East London River Crossing and then a Thames Gateway Bridge between 1985-6 and 2005-6 respectively.

The UK currently likes to flaunt its economic superiority to France, yet the government seems intent on pursuing precisely the same "grand projet" in the transport and energy sectors which do not seem to have served the French very well. Having been involved in English transport planning for nearly thirty years, much of what I now see is regressive, rather like reality television.

BENEFITS STREET OUTPERFORMS JOHN LEWIS STREET

 

White Dee from Benefits Street and Andy Street from John Lewis

Two British public figures have been in the headlines recently for making speeches. John Lewis man - aka managing director Andy Street - upset the French with his comments on their national decline: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2783273/John-Lewis-boss-drunk-beer-wrote-France-finished-says-country-s-prime-minister.html White Dee - real name Deidre Kelly - of Channel 4's "Benefits Street" attended a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference -  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2773553/Now-White-Dee-threatens-defect-UKIP-Benefits-Street-star-tells-Tory-conference-IDS-touch-real-world.html - to express support for UKIP. Ms Kelly's public speaking engagements seem to be going better than those of Mr Street, with the lady reporting that business is booming - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2779195/Benefits-Street-star-White-Dee-makes-1-500-just-TWO-HOURS-partying-students-personal-appearance-nightclubs.html  Meanwhile, French prime minister Manuel Valls has suggested that Mr Street was drunk when he made the derogatory comments - purportedly in jest and for which he has since apologised - at the World Retail Congress. Perhaps John Lewis need to engage White Dee to carry out a charm offensive and restore some entente cordial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entente_cordiale

Meanwhile, people concerned about national decline closer to home might like to look at this report on the British High Street - http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/09/national-retail-chains-quitting-high-street-rate-doubles - or read about how Britain is viewed by some of China's Big Men: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10908008/Britain-a-petty-and-declining-empire-argues-Chinese-paper.html The expression "small government, big society" is Chinese, I believe: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S147474641200036X

REVISITING NEW LABOUR AND THE BIG SOCIETY

Headline after UK "Big Society" minister quits following "Sexting Sting"

The resignation of Britain's Minister for Civil Society, following a media sting which saw him reveal his "Big Society" to an apparent young female Twitter supporter, provides a good opportunity to reflect on what is meant by "Big Society", an idea which was supposed to succeed that of "New Labour".

Brooks Newmark, the former minister and a keen supporter of women in politics (particularly attractive blonds of ample bosom it appears) only took up the appointment in July when the Big Society project - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Society - had fallen in to some disarray: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-camerons-big-society-in-tatters-as-charity-watchdog-launches-investigation-into-claims-of-government-funding-misuse-9629848.html

However, the fundamental problem with this concept of civil society, aside from brand failure, is the rather narrow view it takes of the original proposition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society  The term first really came to my notice during the anti-communist uprisings in Central and Eastern Europe of the1980s, and later in the former Soviet Union, and is identified in this context with "the elements such as freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, etc, that make up a democratic society" (Collins English Dictionary). As far as I'm concerned, civil society is not primarily about so-called voluntary or third sector organisations which are increasingly funded, and directed, by the state, and known as Gongos (government organised non-government organisations) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GONGO Although such organisations can make a limited contribution to civic values, particularly where these have previously been undermined by the state itself. This is clearly the way David Cameron's "Big Society" construed itself : http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MOknpBbt8cgJ:www.thebigsociety.co.uk/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk The question now is whether this political construction, like that of New Labour, still really exists. My judgement is that like the earlier political ideology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Labour - the "Big Society" is an idea whose time has already passed.