POLITICS: THESE BOYS & GIRLS WORRY ME

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These boys and girls worry me.

POST-FEMINIST MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

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

COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE WOMAN

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

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

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

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

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

PUTTING THE POLITICAL BACK INTO ECONOMY

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

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

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

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

BBC Analysis: Mis-Selling of Financial Services

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE PHONEY WAR FOR MIDDLE ENGLAND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INDIA AND THE GODS OF BIG THINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

MONKEY BUSINESS IN BRITISH POLITICS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Local Government - CRISIS? WHAT IS A CRISIS?

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

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

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

SHARON SHOESMITH AND BABY PETER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HENRY KISSINGER ON CHINA THEN AND NOW

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

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

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

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

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

OECD - SOME BAD NEWS AND SOME GOOD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ENERGY CONSERVATION AND RENEWABLES

Jeremy Leggett, the founder and chairman of company Solarcentury, has made some of the most sensible comments on "the greenest government ever" during the past week.

Whilst welcoming the Coalition's new targets for cuts in UK carbon emissions by 2025, Mr Leggett has also pointed out the present government's "emerging record" on the environment is "actually starting to look worse than their predecessors"(Cameron falls short on his green promise, Financial Times, 18 May 2011).

Meanwhile, Japan is still coming to terms with the consequences of nuclear disaster, including major electricity shortages. Energy conservation is now regarded as one of the country's most important tasks, along with harnessing plentiful geothermal power opportunities.

For renewables to make a contribution to energy production of the scale aspired to by the non-nuclear green movement, the starting point is cleary conservation, something their recent great misfortune has brought home to the Japanese.

The development of renewables then has to be locationally-appropriate, something which has not fully registered with promoters, largely due to the availability of inappropriate financial incentives.

In addition, a truly renewable energy future would depend on unprecedented international co-operation, with energy transmission supergrids deployed to distribute power from different regions of the globe according to the availability of supply and demand.

These are the sorts of issues which politicians, policy-makers, those concerned with implementation as well as the media should be headlining. Instead we have the much-feted "Jam Tomorrow Generation" (see my post of 11 May) fiddling as usual whilst the planet burns.

WELCOME TO CAFE ROCCO !

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

THE JAM TOMORROW GENERATION SURELY

Whilst I generally find Anne McElvoy's radio broadcasts interesting and perceptive, I can't say this of her current BBC Radio 4 series on "The Jam Generation".

As someone who attended a superb Jam concert at Finsbury Park's old Rainbow venue - subsequently a centre for radical Islam - in the cold winter of 1980, I find myself with very little in common with the people of her "Jam Generation".

These are politicians who "came of age" during the period of unsustainable economic growth between the early 1990s and 2007, and include the present prime minister, his deputy and key people from New Labour like shadow chancellor Ed Balls.

When I left the same university as Balls in 1983, the thought of being a "leader writer for the Financial Times at the age of twenty-two" would have been beyond my wildest dreams.

Instead self-employment and economic migration led me to my own"jihad" - in its true meaning of "struggle" - and I returned to Britain to fight "The War on Traffic" through legal channels.

With regard to Ann McElvoy's later generation of politicians, surely these are best collectively summed in words attributed to Tony Benn: "Some of the jam* we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten".

*PS - Jam might serve as an analogy to finite resources such as oil.

THE PROGRESSIVE POLITICS SPECTRUM

Some of the most perceptive political commentary in recent years has come, on the left, from the music journalist John Harris for the Guardian, and, on the right, from Mail columnist and theatre critic Quentin Letts.

Yesterday, Harris bemoaned the absence of a progressive majority in the British electorate, reflected in their rejection of AV, and Letts attacked the Left's use of the word progressive in political discourse.

In fact, the local elections did demonstrate progressive tendencies, of the sort which Harris and Letts should approve, in the removal of the BNP from Stoke-on-Trent Council (which is now Labour-controlled), the performance of the Green Party, and the success of "It's Our County" in Letts's home turf of Herefordshire.

As my own politics are somewhere between those of Harris and Letts, I can, however, both sympathise with the view there is a progressive deficit in British politics, and accept that this can be viewed from the left, right, and, indeed, the centre ground.

The general consensus seems to be that Whitehall government is remote and something needs to be done about this, so it behoves politicians of all parties and commentators of all colours to discourse on just what this might be.

BRITAIN AND THE POLITICS OF PLURALISM

As my post of today will cover elections in the United Kingdom, I would just like to re-iterate that this blog is not wedded to a political party, nor intends to hitch its commentary wagon to any at the present time. Although events could, of course, change this situation.

Hopefully, the overall election outcome will serve the equilibrium of the British political ecosystem, and confirm the plurality of our national politics. In this respect, it can be regarded as progressive, whatever the particular fate of the "Alternative Vote".

As someone who voted Liberal Democrat in the General Election and still support a Coalition Government, I'm naturally sorry for the party's performance.

However, the AV issue came up too early in the political term, and distracted Lib Dems in government from more burning issues. I voted "No", incidentally.

The environment is for me one of those burning issues, literally as it unfortunately transpires, and the present Government has certainly not lived up to its promise of being the greenest ever.

With regard to the performance of Labour, the party should be congratulated on its success in the English and Welsh elections.

From my own experience, I have to support the generalisation that Labour runs local and regional government better than the Conservatives - although I'm open-minded on the London question just now - whilst the Tories run the country better.

"Ken Livingstone of the North", Alex Salmond has obviously been a clear winner. The victory of the SNP is also a testimony to the ongoing remoteness of London-based government.

The apparent continuing semi-detachment of Westminster from the rest of the country would have made a referendum on an English National Assembly more meaningful than one on AV.

EVENTS, DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS, EVENTS !

I realise that my last post of April was guilty of some gender bias, and want to rectify this today.

A few years ago, I possibly offended a former male friend by quoting Harold Macmillan's "Events dear boy, events" in response to an email. We haven't been in contact since, but the reality is that our mutual life narratives had diverged some years before.

Nevertheless, as this particular friendship was an important one for a time I want to acknowledge it by considering the relationship between narratives and events now.

The British, and particularly the English, narrative frequently takes the form of a costume drama, of which the recent Royal Wedding is a fine example.

By contrast, the American psyche seems to prefer the action movie, especially with Western references. The killing of the outlaw Bin Laden reflects this.

Given that one set of events followed so fast upon the other, David Cameron must be reflecting that a weekend is a long time in global politics.

On the home front, what might tomorrow's events - namely elections covering local government in England, the devolved administrations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Alternative Vote - hold for the Prime Minister ?

I would suggest that Mr Cameron might wish to consider the portent of last week's Royal Wedding runaway horse. On AV, a win for first past the post might result in Chris Huhne chucking Nick Clegg and bolting off to the Labour Camp.

With regard to "The Scottish Play", but not the one seen earlier this week by Prince Charles, Alex Salmond is likely to the overall winner.

Nevertheless, whilst for Macmillan "events" might be the worst thing that could happen to a government, I'm personally more upbeat about their consequences for these reasons.

The departure of Chris Huhne would, after all, enable the Coalition Government to wider its appeal by offering Caroline Lucas of the UK Green Party the position of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

A Huhne cohabitation with the Labour Party might also enable leader Ed Miliband to deal with Comrade Balls, which would undoubtedly contribute to the well-being of the nation's political ecology.

Yes, events, dear boys and girls, may be for the better as well as for the worse !

MAY DAY 2011 - GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT

A Feminist Take On The New Royal Family And Other Matters

Image by courtesy of Wikipedia

Feminism, like support for slow growth, skepticism of nuclear power, and, indeed, socialism, is out of fashion. As a not-so-fashionista, I will, therefore, use her as lens to look upon yesterday's Royal Wedding. I should also point out that I don't mind a bit of Gentleman's Relish* in the humour department, although my tastes almost certainly differ from those of our Prime Minister and his deputy.

Yesterday, I had intended a diet free of royal nuptials, but was overcome by a strong desire to sit down in front of the television and do nothing for a couple of hours, as well as the excuse for a glass of alcohol at lunchtime, along with most other Britons. It all turned out to be quite enjoyable : my only criticism being that the equestrian formation which escorted the newly weds back to the palace occasionally looked like something out of a John Wayne film.

This set me wondering what Princess Ann made of it all: the horses, I mean. Now there's a lady that could keep David Cameron on the bit : there would certainly be no "Calm down, Ma'ams" or other speaking out of turn, nor any kind of misbehaviour tolerated amongst the two grey geldings - and their postilions - leading the Coalition Government carriage. She would also, I am sure, bluntly advise the Leader of the Opposition to have the other Mr Ed re-schooled.

Moving on to the matter of succession, I'm glad that this has come up again recently. Personally, I would favour positive discrimination in favour of female offspring, starting with Princess Ann who would succeed her brother Charles as quickly as possible, leaving Zara and her soon to be rugby-player husband as the New Royal Couple. This should continue the reign of stalwart women exemplified in the present Queen Elizabeth.

As to the event of yesterday, surely this was an apotheosis of the spirit of New Labour, but with its prime movers left to be ghosts at the feast, with Ken Livingstone invited instead. It just goes to show that the general matter of transport, and not just getting a wedding party to and from one's palace, may be close to Her Majesty's heart and that the former - and possibly future - London Mayor's introduction of the congestion charge is well regarded in Royal Zones.

* A condiment (? by Royal Appointment)

BRITAIN - A NATION OF DISPLACED DISCOURSE

The term "displaced discourse" has been used in media studies to identify certain tendencies, notably in television and the popular press, whereby a narrowly focused preoccupation, for instance with the private lives of celebrities, displaces wider coverage of changing social values. However, in this post I want to use the term more loosely to describe the displacement of significant issues in favour of less important and sometimes trivial public discourse. Yesterday's House of Commons exchange between the Labour MP, and former minister, Angela Eagle and Prime Minister David Cameron is a good example of this.

Ms Eagle was challenging the Government's proposed changes to the National Health Service when she was told my Mr Cameron to "Calm down, dear...and listen to the doctor". The doctor in question was in fact the PM's medical colleague Dr Howard Stoat, although it should be noted that Mr Cameron has a tendency to adopt the manner of a hospital doctor on his rounds when going about the country on political business. "Calm down, dear" was, of course, a reference to a well-known Michael Winner television advertisement for an insurance company. Although it is also the kind of thing a doctor might have said to a colleague or patient in the "Carry On" series.

The Labour front bench team were not amused. Deputy party leader Harriet Harman called upon Mr Cameron to apologise for the patronising and sexist remark, forgetting that her predecessor, the now Lord Prescott, had caused similar offense to a French female minister with an apparently male chauvinist comment. Whilst I agree that the PM was behaving in a patronising way to Ms Eagle, and possibly being sexist to boot, neither feminism nor the national sense of humour were advanced during New Labour's time in office, and Ms Eagle, for whom I have some respect, was made to look more foolish by the reaction of her colleagues to Mr Cameron's jest than she was by being told to "Calm down, dear".

So what was yesterday's frisson in the House of Commons really all about? The situation was almost certainly aggravated because Angela Eagle is a lesbian, who, according to Daily Mail columnist Quentin Letts had been shouting at the PM like a "tattooed stevedore". If Ms Eagle was indeed doing this, I can indeed sympathise with her, for what woman wouldn't have occasion to feel angry from time to time with someone as smug and privileged as Mr Cameron. I've felt a strong urge to punch such men in the face myself, especially when they have a grinning side-kick like Nick Clegg. Yet equally I find myself with little truck for privileged and smug women like Harriet Harman and her New Labour sisterhood.

For in reality, there isn't much difference between the social values of the Coalition Government and the previous administration. Indeed I would credit Tony Blair rather more than David Cameron with creating the conditions for tomorrow's Royal Wedding between Prince William and "Kate the Commoner", and I'm most surprised that the Blairs - and the Browns for that matter - haven't been invited. Not very correct form Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying so ! Perhaps it is this exclusion from "the wedding of the century" - only Ed Miliband and his partner are going - which has made the Labour front benches so tetchy. If so, my advice is simply this: "Calm down dears, it's only a commercial !"

THE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO POWER POLITICS

One of the "party-tricks" of a central character in Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" is to foretell the Apocalypse. The character, Lebedyev, is also something of a entrepreneur and fixer in the contemporary mold.

Given this Apocalyptic reference in my current fictional reading, I was fascinated to learn in a BBC Radio 4 programme on Chernobyl broadcast yesterday that the town's name translates into English as "wormwood" which also has strong associations with the end of the world.

This was excellent "low budget, high value" broadcasting incidentally, in stark contrast to the political white noise which seems to have beset much of the BBC in recent days. Is the media silly season getting earlier with global warming, I wonder ?

For who, other than Nick Clegg, really cares whether David Cameron has given an unpaid internship in his constituency office to the offspring of an Oxfordshire neighbour. I'm far more interested in whether the Government is dispensing rather more lucrative favours to its friends.

This was certainly the case with New Labour, and we should remind ourselves that prime minister Gordon Brown's brother was head of communications at the French-owned company EDF when it secured a deal which may yet determine the future of Britain's civil nuclear policy.

The response of the Liberal-Democrat component of the Coalition Government to this situation has been extremely disappointing, given that Chris Huhne and Vince Cable hold the key energy, and climate change, and business and innovation portfolios.

Indeed, it would seem that on energy policy, and not just on the "Alternative Vote" that the Lib-Dems favour co-habitation with Labour, something on which independent-minded Tories of the "Conservative Home" persuasion might reflect.

They will also note that Gordon Brown's financial largess, as prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer, to the international business community, which our own country could ill-afford, has been recognised by the World Economic Forum to the tune of £750k per annum.

This "allowance" - like Blair, Brown seems to have pull on the grace and favour circuit - will no doubt support many internships and possibly the odd consultancy for Lord Mandelson's new firm "Global Counsel".

The present British prime minister and his deputy, meanwhile, need to wise up on energy policy and other pressing issues. Let's hope that the end of the present silly season is only just over a week away, and that a prolonged political impairment does not prelude something even worse.

THE NATURE OF CHERNOBYL'S LEGACY

The 31st March 2011 edition of the science magazine Nature has an article on "Chernobyl's legacy" to co-incide with a major conference on nuclear safety being held this week in Kiev. The article notes that "the quarter-century of work following the Chernobyl disaster will offer some important lessons for Japan as the nation begins to assess the health and environmental consequences of Fukushima".

Since the article was published the scale of the Fukushima nuclear disaster has worsened and is now graded 7 like Chernobyl.

Rather grimly, the Nature article suggests that the ongoing Chernobyl clean-up, forecast to finish in 2065, may be a financial beneficiary of the renewed global interest in nuclear safety following the accident in Japan. For at the core of Chernobyl's legacy is a massively expensive decontamination exercise which is programmed to last for eighty years, and one of the key goals of this week's conference is to "secure more cash from international donors".

The article also draws attention to the "value of accurate information" and its communication during the initial phases of a nuclear disaster and through subsequent years. This requires resources other than funding, although the latter is key to the decommissioning process. Twenty five years after the Chernobyl explosion, the health and wider environmental implications of this are still not fully understood.

Although, as the article notes: "Today, hundreds of farms in Wales still have their sheep tested for Chernobyl radiation before herds can be moved or sold". No wonder countries in the Far East and Pacific region are concerned about the impact of Fukushima, both in the short and longer terms, and are putting pressure on Japanese authorities to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information about the disaster.

However, the greatest impact will obviously be on communities nearby. One of the scientists interviewed for the Nature article says that: "Ultimately...Chernobyl's most important lesson for Fukushima is that a nuclear accident haunts a region long after the reactors have cooled....and the government may have to maintain an exclusion zone for decades".

These themes are taken up in my most recent post at my "shadow blog" - http://the-edge-of-town.blogspot.com/

TREASURE ISLANDS AND LITERARY HAVENS

Having recently confessed to being a Saturday reader of The Daily Mail, I realise that some may interpret this as my having a "No-Brow" tendency. Fear not, my brows are nearly as bushy as those of former Labour Chancellor Dennis Healey, and I aspire to the Mid-High Brow in my general reading: currently Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Idiot", Nicholas Shaxson's "Treasure Islands", a book of which Lord Healey would surely approve, and "Nature" (see above). Moreover last weekend, I broke the recent habit and purchased the Financial Times once again.

Like the Mail, the FT has joined the debate about the future of Britain's public libraries - from one of which I've loaned "Treasure Islands and also photocopied a Nature article. Columnist Christopher Caldwell predicts their demise: "It is the fate of libraries to die"...because..."The government must focus on necessities and cut frills".

However, set in the context of Shaxson's analysis of "Treasure Islands" or tax havens, at the heart of which are the United Kingdom and the United States, the literary haven of the British, or American, public library seems a curious candidate for the death sentence. For it is precisely this type of institution that provides the citizen with the intellectual resources to adopt a more critical attitude to current affairs, of the kind promoted by the FT, including how governments should regulate and spend money, and otherwise safeguard the public interest.

Thames Cable Car: A River Crossing Re-Imagined

Above Image - Cologne Cable Car (Wikipedia Media Commons)

Yesterday's announcement that Transport for London is to fund a cable car crossing of the River Thames between the Greenwich Peninsula and Docklands in readiness - hopefully - for the 2012 Olympics is an interesting development in the history of plans for East London river crossings.

Proposals for cable car projects in the London Thames Gateway go back many years - I can remember schemes put forward in the late 1980s - but next year's Olympic Games seem to the final catalyst to implementation.

The need for improved access in the transport corridor served by the Blackwall Tunnel has long been recognised, but additional road capacity has been opposed for environmental reasons, not least increased air pollution.

Transport for London's support for an aerial passenger crossing should, therefore, be viewed as a progressive development in moving people around the capital, although it is still questionable whether the full potential of the Thames itself has yet been re-harnessed.

THE MAILSTROM OF MODERN BRITAIN

I have to confess to being a reader of the Saturday edition of The Daily Mail newspaper, and that my days as a weekend Guardianista are long gone. There is something about the indignation of the Mail which appeals to middle age. I'm sure that other forty something plus women will know what I mean. The Saturday edition does, however, usually last me until the following weekend, whilst I now catch up with other news online.

Today's Mail is the usual maelstrom of indignation, and perhaps surpasses itself on the subjects of culture, in particular with regard to the Arts Council and new media in the form of Google. The latter American import is singled out partly because of its close links with the office of the Prime Minster, and the Arts Council because of chair Dame Liz Forgan's fall-out with the Mail's Quentin Letts, himself a cultural aficionado. In short, Google and the Arts Council are respectively regarded as threats to British culture, in the form of contemporary creative industries and national heritage, but for very different reasons.

The article on Google is accompanied by a picture of the British singer Adele, whose music has recently exceeded that of Madonna and Bob Dylan in popularity (ie sales), and who was featured on last week's BBC Radio 4 "Profile" programme. Google's search engines are demonised for promoting pirated downloads of Adele's music. The Arts Council, on the other hand, is blamed for promoting multi-culturalism through encouraging better representation of ethnic minorities in the management of cultural institutions.

My own view of the Adele phenomenon is that this is a manifestation of "The X Factor" generation - or Generation X Factor perhaps - in both the UK and the US, where she is even more successful. An anti-American attack on Google, therefore, seems rather out of place. In recent surveys Google comes out as the most trusted global brand, ahead of all other media organisations. Rupert Murdoch, please take note ! The reason for this is, quite simply, that Google provides choice. Some of its choices may be crass, offensive and even illegal, but the ability to choose is what the modern punter wants, including, I imagine, most Daily Mail readers, the majority of whom will also subscribe to the Google preference.

The Prime Minister's desire to foster links with Google, therefore, seems entirely reasonable. "Brand Britain" is after all looking rather jaded, but for reasons that go beyond the arts and media dimensions of culture. Nevertheless, media and the arts are important dimensions of the national psyche, which is certainly in a state of confusion about issues such as multi-culturalism and the vexed subject of political correctness. Part of this confusion arises from the mix-up of multi-culturalism, with an emphasis on diversity and equal opportunities, with political correctness, which is now widely used as a form of explicit or implicit censorship. To their credit, new media organisations like Google have enabled this important difference to be clarified through the blogosphere.

As people of privileged position, both Quentin Letts and Dame Liz Forgan, previously a senior BBC executive, do not have need of new media channels to conduct their cultural conflict. Personally, I have sympathy for both positions: Forgan for standing up for unfashionable multi-culturalism and equal opportunities, and Letts for challenging the culture of political correctness which is like a canker at the heart of many British institutions. A more open and truculent public debate about what culture merits government funding and what should be left "to the market" is certainly needed, the more important question is just how this might happen.

Big Four Complacent...Along With House Of Lords

A House of Lords report has labelled the "Big Four" accountancy groups as complacent in their failure to identify the corporate failings which contributed to the banking crisis. This charge is not new and was explained at the time by the firms in question as due to the retrospective nature of an audit process that is not designed to predict the future. The same firms are, however, also heavily involved in economic and financial forecasting for clients through their management consultancy divisions. The fact is that they had - as strategy firm Mckinsey, with no accountancy practice, have acknowledged - bought into the "financial deepening" of an ever more complex banking system so completely that "no more boom and bust", to quote former Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, was the economic doctrine of the day.

The fact that this doctrine went widely unquestioned by "corporate insiders" should come as no surprise, as illustrated in the fate of a former HBOS financial director who was forced out of post when he started to raise difficult questions well before the banking crisis began. Deep thinking, in my experience, is rarely regarded as a core competency for progression up the corporate ladder. Although there are exceptions to the rule, the culture of most large, and many smaller, organisations - private, public and even non-governmental - tends to favour compliant people who swim with the tide of current thinking. For not to adopt this approach runs the clear risk of losing one's job, promotion or, in the case of audit firms and consultancies, like-thinking clients such as key financial service and government accounts.

Given that the House of Lords is packed with these corporate insiders - and in the interests of editorial balance after my previous post on Nimbyism - I'm inclined to come to the defence of the large audit firms which it has chosen to criticise. I did many years ago also enjoy the employment of one myself, until it was pointed our to me that I was not suitable material for progression up the corporate ladder: a judgement with which I had to agree. Business services, like banking and the legal profession is, after all, a sector for which Britain is internationally renowned and an important contributor to UK plc. The sector attracts many intellectually talented, emotionally intelligent and socially well-adjusted people of the kind who make stimulating and congenial colleagues, whose achievements are regularly recognised in the honours system, and sometimes through elevation to "the other place".

In Defence Of NIMBYISM At Home And Abroad

I have noticed that the Coalition Government's C3OH2 (Cameron, Clegg, Cable, Osborne, Hammond and Huhne) have started to rail against so-called NIMBYS (Not-In-My-Back-Yarders) as if these constituted some new threat to national security, so today I want to defend Nimbys at home and abroad today.

Let me start in present day Africa, Kenya to be precise, where, according to BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight programme yesterday, the sustainable livelihoods of tribes people, together with wildlife, are threatened by foreign companies "land grabbing" for the purposes of growing biofuel to help meet the European Union's targets for the use of renewal energy. Some Kenyans have taken objection to this because of the threat that large scale biofuel crops pose both to biodiversity conservation as well as the use of land for growing food. As European targets for renewal energy consumption are clearly a good thing, these Kenyans must be Nimbys standing in the way of progress in the form of green energy. Or might their objections stand up to scrutiny ? There are undoubtedly other ways in which Europe can meet its renewable energy requirements, and such an availability of alternative options often lies at the heart of objections to development which are put down to so-called Nimbyism.

Moving back to Britain - from Australia as it happened - in the mid-1980s, I found myself involved in a planning inquiry into proposals by the Department of Transport to build a new road link across the Thames from the Docklands area to South East London: the never-built East London River Crossing. This scheme would have demolished hundreds of residential and commercial properties, and consumed a large amount of open land south of the river including the famous Oxleas Wood, but the future development of London Docklands depended upon it, or so supporters said. Opponents were cast as Nimbys and, indeed, Luddites, for suggesting that the transport needs of what was later to become known as London Thames Gateway would be better met by strategic rail investment, and - pre-crossrail - an extension of the tube, yet they were proved correct.

The truth is that so-called Nimbys are often right to oppose development, as history will later demonstrate. They frequently have the long term interests of their areas and communities at heart in ways which politicians, technocrats and administrators rarely do. Moreover, some of the most effective Nimby's have a background in precisely those professions most aligned with the apparent march of progress, but "having seen the light" choose to use their talents for the greater good of preventing unsustainable development at home and abroad.

Ford Focus Budget Delivers Some Cold Comfort

When the significance of "Motorway Man" was identified by a Conservative MP before the last General Election, I took this to mean that, Coalition or not, the next government was unlikely to be the "greenest ever". So last week's so-called "Ford Focus Budget", and the accompanying "Plan for Growth", despite use of the "plan" word, came as no real surprise.

Nevertheless, this Budget was not all bad. The re-creation of "Enterprise Zones" is to be broadly welcomed as a means of promoting the unrealised economic opportunities of industrial areas with a plentiful supply of brownfield developments sites.

The wider question, however, is whether the UK Coalition Government really understands the international economic and environmental context and the future shocks this may deliver over, say, a twenty year period. My sense is that there are some significant gaps in government intelligence, but I take cold comfort from an unlikely source, the latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute entitled "Urban World: Mapping the economic power of cities", for reasons I shall shortly explain on my other blog @ http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com/

Picture: my transport during the cold spell which caused so much chaos earlier in the year.

Libya - A Case for Muscular Multilateralism

The decision by the United Nations Security Council to support a no-fly zone over Libya, and thereby lend the assistance of the international community to those Libyans in the east of the country fighting against the forces of Colonel Gadhafi*, has revealed some unlikely hawks and doves. As someone who has styled himself as much an African** as Arab leader in recent years, Gadhafi has bought the support of African mercenaries in an attempt to quash opposition to his regime. Meanwhile, Arab countries, along with France and Britain, have successfully sought a UN resolution to intervene in the conflict. Although the shadows of our involvement in Afghanistan, and, particularly in Iraq, hang over this latest intervention, the situation in fact bears more resemblance to that of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In short, there is a moral imperative to intervene, as reflected in discussions at today's summit in Paris, notwithstanding the serious consequences that this may bring.

* Associated Press spelling
** The African Union's response to the Libyan crisis must be reported in the British media.

A New Muscular Multi-Culturalism Is Needed Now

Multi-culturalism, like slow growth, is out of favour in Britain. Although Germany seems to have thrived on slow growth, its Chancellor, and new iron lady, Angela Merkel, has also been critical of multi-culturalism. Indeed, it seems to have been Merkel's recent comments that have prompted David Cameron's invocation of a new muscular liberalism, whereby Britain's core values are to be set out to its citizens and other residents. Yet the challenge to such values hardly comes from the post-war multi-cultural legacy. Rather it is the apparent monoculturalism of certain representations of Islam that have challenged the pluralism and tolerance which the British have generally espoused.

Interviewed earlier this week on BBC Radio 4's "Thinking Aloud" programme, Professor Stuart Hall of the Open University, and formerly head of cultural studies at the University of Birmingham, responded to the current debate about multi-culturalism with a muscular intellect for such matters which those on the right, and, arguably, even on the centre, of British politics seem unable to muster. With a Caribbean and colonial heritage, Hall described the changes which have occurred in Britain since his arrival in 1951; also noting that his education in the West Indies enabled him to recognise our native trees.

The fact that many indigenous Britain's, let alone migrants, struggle with such a task today is a reflection more of the decline in this country's general standards of education in the intervening period than the fault of multi-culturalism. Although there is a strong tendency amongst politicians, and other commentators, particularly on the right, to confuse these two issues. In fact, multi-culturalism tends to be invoked as the "bete noire" of all sorts of problems which have beset British society since the 1950s, including rising levels of family breakdown and crime, nothwithstanding that, judged proportionately, these were just as great in the past.

However, it is the overall growth in the population of this country in the intervening period, and more especially increasing population growth elsewhere in the world, which does pose a real and major challenge. A new muscular multi-cultural response to this situation is required, which recognises the strengths of different national heritages and social groups, because these must be harnessed to tackle present and future problems, particularly those arising from environmental change and economic uncertainty. In this context, muscular liberalism, I would suggest, resonates too much with the laissez-faire international outlook which has contributed most to the crises in which global capitalism now finds itself.

Japanese Earthquake - Jesus Out To Sea ?

The rescue of a Japanese man swept out to sea on the roof of his house recalls the title short story of a collection by the US writer James Lee Burke, "Jesus Out To Sea", in which a similar fate befalls some citizens of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In a disaster situation greater in magnitude than even those tragic events which have befallen the Gulf of Mexico in recent years, much is currently being made of Japan's orderly and courageous response to the largest earthquake in its history and the accompanying tsunami.

The country's Shinto religion bears some similarity to James Lovelock's Gaia Theory, with the forces of nature regarded as deities capable of wreaking utmost havoc on human society. It is curious, therefore, that both these should lend support to the development of nuclear power.

For few technologies would seem less compatible with major disruption in the earth's crust than nuclear, yet it is precisely country's prone to these, such Japan and Iran, which have raced to develop their capacity, when renewable options like solar and sea power are readily available.

Indeed, Japan would surely have been far better to have deployed the country's undoubted technological brilliance in harnessing wind and wave power. Instead the sea is now being used to appease nuclear reactors which have "gone critical"*

Although it may seem uncompassionate, and even unchristian, to raise these issues at the present time, events in Japan must inform the current escalation in nuclear power, which, sadly, many so-called environmentalists have chosen to endorse.

Nuclear power is not an appropriate technology, although along with coal, oil and gas it has to be regarded as a transitional one: and the sooner the world makes a transition out of these unsustainable technologies the better.

Compassion for the Japanese from the world's peoples is certainly called for at the present time, but so is compassion for the environment. This is not compatible with nuclear proliferation, particularly in a climate change scenario with increased tectonic activity.

*Going Critical is the title of a book on nuclear power by Walt Patterson

Reflections On The Revolutions Near Europe

As David Cameron returns to Britain from his travels in the Middle East, perhaps he has reflected on the recent revolutions near Europe as manifestations of "The Big Society" in action. For events in North Africa and elsewhere seem to reflect the aspirations of citizens to replace "Big Man" politics and corrupt government bureaucracies, long supported by countries like our own, with something akin to the kind of democratic government enjoyed in most of Europe.

In some respects, these revolutions also read like a sequel to Christopher Caldwell's well-written and thought provoking book "Reflections on the revolution in Europe" which gives an account of immigration into countries such as Britain, France and Germany following World War 2. The book proposes that a European Islamic revolution is already underway and poses a threat to the cultural values of the West: a view which, needless to say, is widely challenged.

My own view is that the course of history in "Greater Europe" - extending to North Africa, the Near East and Russia - as I shall call it, is certainly at something of a watershed. Indeed, water will be one of its key resource issues, but I am less concerned with the role of Islam than with the wider economic and environmental challenges, as well as opportunities, posed by population and resource factors.

These economic and environmental challenges now need to be firmly grasped not only by political leaders and governments throughout Greater Europe, but also by "Big Society" - to use Mr Cameron's touchstone - movements within countries and across the region. The alternative scenario is likely to be more akin to that which preceded the Second World War, rather than the one which emerges in Christopher Caldwell's "Reflections".

To conclude, if the "Booming Noughties" resembled the "Roaring Twenties", the next decade may have more in common with the 1930s. This situation calls for a very different kind of politics, particularly in Greater Europe. It also calls for a very different kind of media coverage, particularly from organisations like the BBC, whose reporting of European issues has been lamentably weak and Anglo-centric in recent years*.

*Postscript March 14 - The appointment of Chris Patten as chairman of the BBC Trust might help tackle this problem.

HOWEVER, THIS LADY IS NOT FOR TURNING... !

I just love this 1920s photograph of a young girl riding an alligator, first sighted yesterday on the cover of an album called "Different Gear, Still Speeding" by the group "Beady Eye" led by Liam Gallagher, formerly of the 1990s "Brit Band" Oasis.

PUBLIC FORESTS: THE LADY IS FOR TURNING

"You turn if you want to, the lady's not for turning" was former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's famous pronouncement on the subject of government U-turns.

Yesterday, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman made a rather spectacular U-turn on the proposed sale of publicly-owned woodlands, following a national campaign whose celebrity supporters included editor of "The Lady" - and sister of Boris - Rachel Johnson.

IMF AND IMPORTANCE OF CONTRARIAN VIEWS

"IMF admits wilting under Brown Treasury" is the title of an article in today's Financial Times. The Fund's independent watchdog has drawn attention to the UK Treasury's pressuring of IMF officials to tone down adverse interpretations of Britain's economic and financial data and regulation in the run-up to the banking crisis, during Gordon Brown's tenure as chancellor and when Ed Balls "was a key figure". Now there's a surprise !

The watchdog's report concludes, according to the FT, that "in future the Fund should seek contrarian views and be less concerned about crying wolf".

This is an important message not just for the IMF, but for many other institutions in this country and elsewhere. The rise of "The Monstrous Regiment of Yes-People" was one of the defining features of corporate culture - private and public - during 2000s decade. Contrarian voices were generally ostracised, or belittled. Hopefully, this "Yes-People Culture" is now in decline, but I'd advise a cautionary approach to any news of its demise. Watch this space !

HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM !

This message comes not from a space, or rather not from space as Houston might have once understood this, but from built space on the ground. In short, Houston has too much new space, although in fact this is not a new problem. Th city has always had a tremendously speculative property market, and it has not been unusual for large amounts of commercial space to lie empty. However, the sheer volume of speculative real estate development in recent years, combined with the sub-prime crisis, whose aftershocks are still reverberating around the United States, has created unprecedented difficulties for home owners. To mix metaphors even more, many of these properties are "under water", a North American term for negative equity, and citizens around the country are having to get to grips with this, the ongoing problem of mortgage foreclosures and associated debts. The title of this post comes from a briefing for people in the Texas city of Houston who are thus afflicted.

The situation in the UK is different because speculative real estate development is regulated through a planning system which just about survived the previous administration and may, or may not, fare better with the present one. The appointment of Ed Balls as Shadow Chancellor last week is a timely reminder that had his good wife Yvette Cooper, Housing Minister for several years under New Labour, had her way the situation over here might be more akin to the US, Ireland and Spain. For what Balls means by "growth", and we shall be hearing a great deal more from him on the subject, is an over-developed construction and and real estate sector, notably in the form of speculative house-building on green field sites. This is precisely the kind of growth the United States experienced during the so-called boom years. Meanwhile, the managed decline of former industrial cities was encouraged, a policy which New Labour also embarked upon with the disastrous "Pathfinder Programme", now fortunately abolished by the Coalition Government. The last thing this country needs is US-style planning !

Postscript: "A Man in Full" by the American writer Tom Wolfe remains, in my view, one of the best accounts of the property cycle in the United States. Without wishing to divulge details of the novel's plot, I would also add that the hero's "journey" in one key respect resembles Tony Blair's.

NOUGHT SO QUEER AS FOREIGN FOLK

There’s a saying in the North of England “Nowt sae queer as folk” or “Nothing so strange as people”, which I’ll expand to “Nought so queer as foreign folk”.

Britain is generally regarded as one of the most open countries in the world, particularly as regards foreign ownership of British companies and other strategic assets. Thus in many respects we are a multinational country, perhaps to the extent that it is questionable whether our elected Government actually runs things, or an oligarchy of international business and financial interests does.

The Murdoch media empire is one such group of interests, and many will support the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills’ reluctance to concede further control of UK television to this, although he no longer has a say in the matter. However, it is the conduct of the group’s newspapers, notably the News of the World, which raises most questions, particularly as regards mobile phone hacking.

I have to say, however, that when news emerged earlier today that former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has contacted the Metropolitan Police about his phone being hacked, it was not immediately clear who the suspected culprit was, and whether the News of the World, the police themselves or even the security services might be the source of the intrusion.

It does now seem that Murdoch’s men – and quite possibly women – are the prime suspects in this matter, and perhaps, therefore, BSkyB should be renamed BSpyB, although it is apparently rogue News of the World reporters who are actually in the frame. Gordon Brown is also one a number of diverse public figures who have reportedly fallen victim to such phone hacking.

The resignation of the current Prime Minister’s Director of Communications and former News of the World Editor, Andy Coulson, last Friday cannot be regarded as pure coincidence it would seem.

Nevertheless, the more important story, it seems to me, is just how the media became the story, and why press pranks have so distorted coverage of current affairs at home and abroad across the British broadcasting sector, including the BBC, that important news is often side-lined. Clearly the culture of “Spin Doctoring” which took hold during New Labour lies at the heart of the problem.

“What goes around comes around” is a lesson which politicians need to learn. Hopefully, former Prime Minister Brown now understands this, and his successor Mr Cameron does too.

The present Coalition Government would also do well to regulate relations with some foreign powers, including the Murdoch Empire, and to secure more balanced media coverage of these.

UNCLOSETING BRITAIN'S QUEER POLITICS

Has the word “Bisexual” been banned by the BBC?

This question was raised by Britain’s former ambassador to the United States, Sir Christopher Meyer, whilst being interviewed on Radio 4’s Today Programme a few weeks ago. The subject was Russian spies, and Sir Christopher disclosed that both female and male Russian agents had been sent to tempt him during his days as a diplomat. During this disclosure, the word “bi-sexual” came out and Sir Christopher asked if he could say that on the BBC. The interviewer sounded uncertain.

I mention this matter partly because of its relevance to the topical issue of British undercover police agents having affairs with, and sometimes even marrying, the people on whom their spying. The subject of bisexuality – although the word itself was not mentioned - also came up again on the Today Programme only this week when it was disclosed that Energy Secretary Chris Huhne’s new partner was previously in a lesbian relationship.

The fact is, of course, that the heterosexual/homosexual, or straight/gay if you prefer, dichotomy does not really exist. Many people find themselves somewhere between the two. However, the majority of these choose to repress their bisexuality because at the present time this is a social taboo area, as reflected in its more or less unmentionable status, outside sensationalist soaps, on Britain’s national public broadcasting network.

Nevertheless, much of the rest of the world still regards the British as a pretty queer lot, and for good reason, in my view. Social silence, to use an anthropological term, on the subject of bisexuality seems to me to reflect a much deeper discomfort with any kind of conceptual challenge where ambiguity plays an important role. In short, we British like simple ideas, and, to compensate psychologically for this – yes I do subscribe to some Freudian thinking – we go in for administrative complexity in a big way.

The BBC itself is a very good example of this, and so are the majority of our other national institutions. Many of these enjoyed what can only be described as a “golden age of administrative complexity” under the previous government, and the prime mover in all this was indeed the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, although Gordon Brown did his utmost equal his predecessor. Blair, I would suggest, is the archetypal repressed British queer, and Brown the lesser sort.

After all, what men in their right mind could have been seduced by their own Spin Doctors? This is why, yesterday, I expressed my gratitude for the resignation of Andy Coulson, whose presence at No 10 certainly set me wondering about David Cameron, especially with his public school boy background. Was this bit of rough to be our new Prime Minister’s undoing? The relationship with Deputy Nick Clegg is a different matter, because Coalition Government, if not yet politically endorsing bisexuality, has certainly brought Britain’s queer politics out of the closet.

THE NEW SECRET POLICEMAN'S BALLS ? *

Before returning to the subject of Ed Balls' appointment as Shadow Chancellor, I would like to express gratitude for the resignation of Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister’s outgoing Head of Communications. However, on a day when Tony Blair made a further appearance at the Iraq Inquiry, I do wonder why the Coulson story has received so much media attention.

Alan Johnson’s resignation yesterday, we have subsequently learnt, appears to be the consequence of his wife having an affair with a police protection officer, or rather the forthcoming appearance of this story in the media. But is all as it appears?

This blog generally supports the cock-up theory of events rather than the conspiratorial one, although in the case of Alan Johnson’s resignation perhaps both theories are equally applicable. So let me give a little spin of my own to this story.

The present Government is presently engaged in cutting back the state, including the police state. Chief Constables and other senior officers may lose their jobs. There will be less money available for undercover surveillance operations of the kind instigated during the New Labour regime.

Then someone has a bright idea: “What we need is Ed “Big Spender” Balls in the role of Shadow Chancellor”. So the story of Mrs Alan Johnson’s liaison with a protection officer, apparently going back to the days when her husband was Home Secretary, conveniently comes out in the media. Gotcha!

* The original Secret Policeman's Balls were events in support of Amnesty International

BALLS MAY RAISE THE POLITICAL GAME BUT...

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

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

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

CLIMATE CHANGE FOR ENERGY ISSUES

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

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

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

JOURNEY WILL BE SUBJECT TO DELAYS

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

2011 - MY YEAR FOR NEW INTERNATIONALISM

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

RUSSIA: A NOT SO SIMPLES STORY

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

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

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

* A Simples Life

Is the Russian Prime Minister a Red Tory ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SNOW, GLORIOUS SNOW !

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

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

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

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

TACKLING INCONVENIENT POLITICAL TRUTHS

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE MORAL AMBIVALENCE OF THE MEDIA

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

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

BRITAIN'S BIG FREEZE & FIFA'S COLD FEET

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