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.

BRITAIN AND WAR FOR THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST

The Greater Middle East (Wikipedia)

Britain's Parliament will be recalled tomorrow during a week in which EdX launched its "War for the Greater Middle East" Mooc - https://www.edx.org/course/bux/bux-intl301x-war-greater-middle-east-1556#.VCQ063ZnBuM

The mooc is billed thus: "Military historian Andrew Bacevich recounts the failed U.S. military effort over several decades to "fix" the Islamic world, explaining what went wrong and why." Early reports of this online course are positive.

Parliament's recall to decide the extent of Britain's involvement in the ongoing conflict, which has recently entered a new phase, is one reason this blog supports the kind of federal government described in the following post, rather than a break-up of the UK.

ENGLISH PARLIAMENT: THE CASE FOR NATIONALISM

Public Entrance to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh (opened in 2004)

One consequence of the Scottish Independence Referendum is a re-galvanising of the case for an English Parliament, as recently voiced by the veteran Conservative MP John Redwood - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29203693  However, whilst Mr Redwood suggests that the House of Commons could double up as an English Parliament, this post makes the case for a completely new institution based outside London, accompanied by a  "Great Cull" (humanely executed, naturally) of Westminster bureaucracy. The argument for this might best be summed up in the expression Democratic Sustainable Development.

The so-called United Kingdom has one of the most centralised state bureaucracies in the world. Whilst the previous New Labour administration adopted a policy of "Regionalism", this applied democratically only in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In England, "regionalisation" manifested in the creation of  Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) or Quangos. Indeed "Quangoisation" (see Note) of government was a salient feature of the New Labour state. The Regional Assemblies which gave the RDAs some small measure of public accountability were abolished by the administration between 2008-10 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_assembly_%28England%29

In 2010, a Conservative-led Liberal Coalition Government was elected and set about destroying all vestiges of "regionalisation" - which became a sort of Orwellian banned word - in England, with the stated aim of replacing this with "Localism". In effect, this has meant replacing regional quangos with local ones, including the state-funded Local Enterprise Partnerships. There has also been a re-centralisation of policy-making, notably in the area of spatial planning where English local authorities now have to adhere to a National Planning Policy Framework, which is just as top-down as the Regional Spatial Strategies which it replaced (after much legal wrangling).

Having experienced both discredited "Regionalism" and "Localism" in the past 15 years, the only real option left for England is "Nationalism". This seems to be working very well in Scotland, where record voter turnout in the Independence Referendum gave the birthplace of democracy what seems like a democratic second-coming. I am sure that the prospect of an English Parliament - let's say in Birmingham - in conjunction with down-sizing of the Westminster Elite would have a similar effect. This could leave London with a city state model of government, something that should help overcome the Capital's growing social inequalities.

If all this sounds like it could lead to "Federalism", so much the better. A federal United Kingdom might well be the best way to preserve the Union in the longer-term. It would also provide some justification for the retention of a solid rump of London-based national government. However, the strong likelihood that increased English Nationalism would empower the dreaded  F-word in British politics will ensure that people like are current prime minister and his political cronies (elected and unelected) will do everything in their power to ensure the talk is of a "family of nations" which is run by a parental union of Big Money and Big State (just as it was under the previous government).

Note
1. When I google "Quangoisation" one of the first entries to emerge is a Chinese translation - http://dict.cn/quangoisation - perhaps because it is also a key feature of the State Capitalism model of political economy: one towards which the so-called UK has increasingly moved.

BRITISH POLITICS IS NOT A FAMILY BUSINESS

"I would be heartbroken if this family of nations that we've put together - and we've done such amazing things together - if this family of nations was torn apart." David Cameron.

There is a long article in the lifestyle (Life&Arts) section of this weekend's FT by James Meek, based on his recently published book, "Private Island: Why Britain now belongs to someone else". Entitled "Power from the people", there is much to agree with in the article's description of the British malaise, although the diagnosis seems weak in places.

Meek maintains that Britain has undergone "some grand existential alteration" in the past 20 years ago, and I have to agree that the country is an increasingly peculiar place.

Take, for instance, the recent hounding of the Ashya King family across Europe by agents of the British state with the help of an EU arrest warrant. The family have now taken their child to Prague for medical treatment, a fitting conclusion to a particularly Kafkaesque narrative.

David Cameron and his colleagues appear to have intervened on behalf of the family, and rightly so. However, he is wrong to invoke mawkish comparisons of this and the modern nation state.

There is, quite frankly, a rather daft headline in today's Mail  newspaper about "Childless SNP chiefs 'who have no feel for UK family': Leaders of Scottish National Party 'want to break up Union because they do not understand families' which might have emanated from some Westminster spin-doctor, although the quote appears to come from a rugby player.

Modern politics is fundamentally about neither sport nor some ideal of family, and the sooner senior British politicians grow up and realise this, the better. As the Governor of the Bank of England said recently, Britain is a country with "deep, deep structural problems". Scotland and the rest of the country need a government capable of tackling these, separately or together.

DISUNITED KINGDOM: THE STATE OF THE NATION

"State of the Nation" is a 1997 novel by former royal spin-doctor Michael Shea that was serialised in the Herald newspaper - http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/obituaries/michael-shea-diplomat-1.926959 The plot is summarised thus: "Following Scottish independence, worldwide recession has brought mass unemployment leading to civil unrest. An American-based corporation offers the Scottish government aid..." In the event of a "Yes" vote next week, the more likely scenario is that Scotland will ultimately have to join the Euro and, like Ireland, succumb to German economic disciplines. There may be some historical justice here insofar as the closest living relation of the last king of Scotland is the Prince of Bavaria - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Luitpold_of_Bavaria_%28b.1951%29 - and not the British Royal Family. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond also likes to invoke European precedents, namely the disunification of the former Czechoslovakia, for his country's potential exit from the so-called United Kingdom - http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-break-up-of-czechoslovakia-and-scottish-independence

Meanwhile, in today's edition of The Times, Rachel Sylvester writes that "Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage are both benefiting from disillusion with the Westminster elite felt by the ‘left behinds’". This seems to me to be the crux of the matter, although "left behinds" covers a rather larger rump of voters than Ms Sylvester may have in mind, I would venture. Ed Miliband has certainly picked this up in his party's rebranding as "One Nation Labour", and one of his strategists is quoted by The Times as saying: "The reason Ukip has done well in the European elections and the reason why people in Scotland may vote "Yes" is because they're utterly alienated and sick of Westminster politics as normal..." However, the sense of alienation goes rather deeper. In giving precedence to the city state of London ahead of the state of the nation, recent successive governments, namely New Labour and the Lib-Con Coalition, have failed to recognise that all politics are local.

UK PROPERTY AND THE NEW GLOBAL ORDER

Household Cavalry pass "world's most expensive apartments" (Telegraph)

"We could view the threats and challenges we face today as the difficult birth-pangs of a new global order – and our task now as nothing less than making the transition through a new internationalism to the benefits of an expanding global society...." Gordon - "how I saved the world" - Brown 2009

I enjoyed the benefits of lunch with the FT today and, in particular, a front-page article entitled "Tax haven buyers set off property alarm". According to research by the newspaper based on Land Registry data: "At least £122 billion of property in England and Wales is held through companies in off-shore tax havens". To put this in context, the figure is "more than the total value of all housing stock in Westminster and the City of London". Just under two thirds of the property is in London, with centres like Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds also targets for this type of investment. Land Registry data do not allow a breakdown between residential and commercial property. The full article can be found at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6cb11114-18aa-11e4-a51a-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz398lMX18s

The government is currently in the process of privatising the Land Registry - http://civitas.org.uk/newblog/2014/06/why-is-the-government-privatising-the-land-registry/ - which may make it more difficult to unravel UK real estate ownership by off-shore vehicles in the future. However, even under present arrangements records show "only the owner or entity holding a property, not the ultimate owner of the company through which the asset is held" according to the FT. This is despite existing anti-money laundering regulations, and an announcement by the Prime Minister earlier this year that full ownership information about UK-based companies would be made publicly available.

The FT analysis cites the example of "One Hyde Park, London's most expensive block of flats" which "epitomises how the rich stash their money through off-shore companies in luxurious property that can remain empty for much of the year". A global market for this type of investment is the main reason why the near-by home of the Household Cavalry, Hyde Park Barracks, is up for sale with a price tag of £600m and prospective buyers lined up -  http://www.arabianbusiness.com/abu-dhabi-s-mubadala-considers-purchase-of-historic-london-property-report-556845.html  as reported in Arabian Business. Although one commentator on this article asks perceptively:"Aren't experts warning about London property bubble????"

Meanwhile, the FT's Philip Stephens - a Rip Van Winkle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle) type columnist who seems to live in a prelapsarian Blair world*, rather than the alternative universe of Gordon Brown - complains of Britain's increasing hostility to capitalists and immigrants (possibly because of our dysfuctional economy ????)

*According to another FT columnist Blair "ruled in a prelapsarian age, when faith in public figures (and, I would argue, policy) was yet to be blown apart by financial meltdown" - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bedfb93c-10c5-11e4-812b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz398lMX18s

COSTS AND BENEFITS OF MIGRATION TO THE UK

UK Prime Minister and Home Secretary on raid of suspected illegal migrants - Picture Slough Express

David Cameron and Teresa May joined a police raid of suspected illegal migrants in Slough yesterday as the government announced a crackdown on migrants' access to unemployment benefit - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10996721/David-Cameron-announces-immigration-benefits-crackdown.html

It is very difficult to have an objective, robust, but nuanced, debate about the costs and benefits of migration to the UK, although a good starting point for such a discourse is Oxford University's Migration Observatory - http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/ My position, incidentally, is similar to that taken in this BBC article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25880373 - entitled "More or Less: Calculating how much migrants cost or benefit a nation". The article considers the costs and benefits of migration in the UK and wider global context. With regard to the UK, migrants from the European Economic Area (EEA) are identified as net contributors to the national economy in the decade to 2011, but if total migration (ie from within and outside the EEA) to the UK over the period 1995-2011 is considered then "...immigration has been a drain on the public purse". Moreover, the benefits of mass migration, of the kind the UK has seen from some European Union countries, is likely to be short-term because "a good proportion of those people who have been in the UK for some time are likely to be older than the most recent immigrants, and so are more likely to be on benefits and using health services....".

Yesterday's announcements focused on illegal or "undocumented" migrants (whose numbers "oscillate between 417,000 and 863,000, including a population of UK-born children ranging between 44,000 and 144,000" according to work by the London School of Economics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_in_the_United_Kingdom) and EU migrants claiming unemployment benefit. A Home Office campaign to crackdown on illegal migration last year drew criticism from within and outside the government -  http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/28/vince-cable-attacks-crackdown-on-illegal-immigrants-as-stupid-and-offensive-3901527/ It followed an earlier report by the House of Commons Public Administration Committee - http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/28/uk-immigration-figures-little-better-than-a-guess-3901272/ - that immigration figures are "little better than a guess". Lack of robust information about undocumented and legal migration is certainly a problem, as is the conflation of issues around EU migrants claiming state benefits. The real issue is not the number of people claiming unemployment benefit (which is relatively small) but the growing number of migrant families eligible for the full range of other UK state benefits.

The structure of the UK economy means that many jobs are effectively subsidised by the state through in work and family benefits paid to employees. Indeed this situation might well be described as Britain's new "social contract" - the old one is described here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Contract_%28Britain%29 - in which migration is a key and increasingly contested part.

UK GREEN POLITICS AMOUNTS TO LOTS OF HOT AIR

Outgoing and incoming Environment Secretary: Owen Paterson and Liz Truss (Telegraph)

George Monbiot on Twitter - "Oh bliss it is to wake this morn And hear that Paterson has gorn".

A war of words has broken out between the former UK Environment Secretary and various green Non-Governmental Organisations following an article by Owen Paterson in The Sunday Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10978678/Owen-Paterson-Im-proud-of-standing-up-to-the-green-lobby.html

In his article Paterson refers to " The Green Blob...the mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape...". He goes on to say: "Local conservationists on the ground do wonderful work to protect and improve wild landscapes, as do farmers, rural businesses and ordinary people. They are a world away from the highly paid globe-trotters of the Green Blob who besieged me with their self-serving demands, many of which would have harmed the natural environment...".

However, anyone who hopes that a more nuanced and robust debate on the environment and green politics - including how we respond to climate change - may emerge from this outburst and counterblasts from the so-called "Green Blob", is very likely to be disappointed. Yet, although I've never warmed to Owen Paterson, there is a modicum of truth is what he has to say.

As someone who has been an environmentalist since the 1970s, I do find much of the contemporary UK green movement, including those worthy "conservationists" as well as the "environmental pressure groups", more akin to campaigning brand managers than organisations primarily concerned either with the natural environment or our built heritage, but then brand management is really what modern politics is all about.

Postscript : Monbiot's riposte to Paterson's "Green Blob" article -  http://www.monbiot.com/2014/07/22/bone-china-tea-party/

COALITION: DEFICIT OF POLITICAL SATIRE MATERIAL?

Political Satirist Rory Bremner and former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown

"The Westminster establishment can breathe easy. Armando Iannucci, creator of The Thick of It, has said that he can no longer skewer a British political scene which is now too bland to inspire great satire..." said an Independent newspaper article this weekend - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/british-politics-are-now-too-bland-for-good-comedy-says-armando-iannucci-9601104.html. Meanwhile, north of the border, political satirist Rory Bremner has just teamed up with former prime minister Gordon Brown "to spice up Independence debate with one-off show discussing Scotland's future" according to the Scottish Daily Record - http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/comic-rory-bremner-gordon-brown-3831056

My own take on this important subject is that the age of British political satire is not dead, but perhaps still in recession across much of England, yet apparently revived by the Scottish question where old foes have joined forces but perhaps not for long (note body language of Messers Bremner and Brown in the above picture, which looks as if it could have been taken just outside the host establishment's convenience).

Returning to the Coalition - admittedly a lacklustre affair filled with bland politicians - it is certainly true that much of the satirical entertainment potential has been off centre stage (some of it now residing at Her Majesty's Pleasure in South East London's Belmarsh Prison). In fact, given the fate of Prime Minister David Cameron's former spin doctor Andy Coulson, and the reliance of recent political satire on the politics of spin, it is perhaps hardly surprising that Southern Britain should now be lingering in a period of satirical austerity, occasionally punctuated by the jolly antics of the Mayor of London. Yet Britons south of the border have surely not lost their appetite for political satire: one good reason why the Lib-Con Government is likely to be removed from office next year.

THE SOCIAL OCCULTATION OF NEO-MATHUSIANISM

I recently came across the expression "social occultation" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_occultation - and suggest this applies to the subject of Neo-malthusianism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism - in contemporary UK public policy making (and probably elsewhere). However, difficult issues which are suppressed tend not to go away and David Cameron and colleagues should consider this recent publication on "Malthus: The Life and Legacies of an Untimely Prophet" for their summer holiday reading. A review of this book can be found at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/malthus-the-life-and-legacies-of-an-untimely-prophet-by-robert-j-mayhew/2013388.article

BATTLES LOST ON THE PLAYING FIELDS OF ETON

Although "the famous quote attributed to Wellington" - "the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton" - "was probably apocryphal" according to Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_in_popular_culture - David Cameron might like to reflect on whether his defeat in Europe yesterday was lost in the same place.

For our prime minister seems to lack a fundamental grasp of the history of the so-called European Project, which his predecessor Margaret Thatcher actually understood much better. As I pointed out in a post of last year - http://janetmackinnon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-iron-ladies-thatcher-and-merkel.html - whilst Mr Cameron "may privately regard himself as "the Heir to Blair", it is surely the German Chancellor who is heiress of the original "Iron Lady's" drive for democratic liberation of the former Communist Europe where Angela Merkel spent her earlier life..." 

Thus the most significant event in Europe yesterday was not the UK's failure to influence the appointment of the next President of the European Commission, but the signing of a trade agreement between the European Union, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28052645 Moreover, without wishing to appear politically incorrect or incite old enmities, the concept of so-called "Lebensraum" or "Living Space" - http://www.historytoday.com/martyn-housden/lebensraum-policy-or-rhetoric - has always been an important aspect of Greater European Politics, something Russian President Vladimir Putin knows only too well.

Yet the prime minister and his government seem to have no grasp of wider European geo-politics at all. The fact is that the EU can well afford to lose Britain in the long term because the Ukraine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine - as the largest country in Europe, and one of the few places in the world with surplus agricultural land resources, represents "Lebensraum". Although use of this expression  may be construed as anti-German, British colonial expansion was also strongly motivated by the political aim of increasing land and other natural resources available to a small nation state.

With this in mind, Mr Cameron might like to reflect on last week's figures from the Office of National Statistics which saw the UK population increase by the size of Scotland's, or about 5 million people, in the period between 2001-2013 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2670751/Number-people-UK-smashes-64million-one-biggest-population-increases-Europe.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 - together with a report by the University of Cambridge and the National Farmer's union which identifies a "significant" shortage of UK farmland by 2030: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28003435

When I attended a Welsh comprehensive school in the 1970s, both "Lebensraum" (which I studied for my history O level) and Malthus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus - whom I studied as part of my geography A level, were fairly key curriculum subjects. I do sometimes wonder what Mr Cameron and his friends learnt at school, apart from how to advance their own careers. However, this problem of the British elite is not new, as George Orwell, also an Eton school boy, wrote: "Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there."

THE UK'S STATUS IN GLOBAL SPORT AND POLITICS

London Mayor Boris Johnson stuck on zip-wire before 2012 Olympics (Telegraph)

London Mayor Boris Johnson, writing in The Telegraph, bemoans England's exit from the Football World Cup and its associations - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/10918666/World-Cup-2014-Come-on-England-dont-force-us-to-reach-for-the-pzzzzzt.html - ".....As any anthropologist will tell you, sport is the imitation of war.....Success or failure in sport conditions national psychology, and football is the global game....There is abundant evidence that sporting victory leads to feelings of well-being and confidence – and confidence, as we all know, can be economically decisive.... 

......Germany seems likely to impose this Juncker geezer on the European commission, in defiance of British wishes. Wouldn’t it have been splendid to whack the ball in the back of Merkel’s net, and beat her team in the World Cup? And why should that seem so totally unthinkable? For the sake of our self-respect and psychological health, we need someone to get a grip on the England football team – and turn them round. Of course it can be done: look at what they did to get Team GB ready for the 2012 Olympics. We need an eight or 12-year plan to rescue our international footballing reputation...." 

What a difference two years can make! Britain was third in the Olympic 2012 medal tally, behind China and the United States, and, perhaps most importantly, ahead of German in fourth place. London Mayor Boris Johnson, despite his ill-fated zip-wire act, was riding high after overcoming the English Riots of 2011 when many countries questioned the suitability of Britain to host the Games in the following year. Yet these turned out to be a success, albeit rather an expensive one whose legacy, sporting and otherwise, has been rather more questionable.

There must also be questions about the political future of London's Mayor, who turned fifty last week. Could he be the figure to rescue Britain's diminished status on the international scene, and resuscitate the spirit of nationhood whatever the outcome of the Scottish Referendum later this year? Or do Boris and "The London Problem" themselves embody some of the very shortcomings of English football? By these, I mean key players whose loyalties lie beyond British shores, and others who are over-paid and under-performing.

Whatever the answer, the next two years are going to be interesting for this country. After the Scottish question, there is the prospect of a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union in 2017.  If the UK votes to leave the EU, this could leave Scotland with the prospect of joining the Euro which might be a better scenario for that country. However, an England, Wales and North Ireland independent of Europe is an altogether less attractive proposition, unless one accepts a certain underlying logic that this territory is in reality already a colony of Boris's birthplace fifty years ago, North America.

IRAN WINS ENVIRONMENTAL GOAL AT WORLD CUP

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

BETTER INFORMATION AND LESS PROPAGANDA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LATEST UK REGIONS DISPOSABLE INCOME MAP

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

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

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

A WIN FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM LONDON VOTE

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

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

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

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

THE UK'S PROPOSED NEW EU REGIONAL AID MAP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DCMS: MORE CULTURE, LESS MEDIA AND SPORT

A recent version of the famous Arabian Nights

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

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

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

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

GOVERNMENT EVERGREENING OF UK ECONOMY

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

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

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

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

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

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