Importance of the Precautionary Principle

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

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

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

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

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

The Shadow Side of Political Correctness

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

The Importance of Real People's Concerns

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

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

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

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

Business backs Clarke for Chancellor

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

Ken Clarke Reveals Tory Terms For Deal

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

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

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

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

THE NEW DUKES OF MORAL HAZARD

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

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

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

BLACK SWAN FLIES INTO LONG CRISIS ?

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

An Ideal UK General Election Outcome ?

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

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER !

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

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

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

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

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

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

A week is indeed a long time in politics....

By any stretch of the imagination, the past seven days has been an extraordinary week for international and domestic politics.

I wonder if Iceland's volcanic ash plume would have so effectively grounded North Western Europe had the pilot of Poland's ill-fated presidential plane followed Russian air traffic advice and diverted from Smolensk to Minsk last weekend ?

Meanwhile financier and philanthropist George Soros has warned of the possible break-up of the European Union if Germany and other countries fail to support the financial rescue of Greece and similar failing economies more wholeheartedly.

Sounding a positive note, the Washington summit on nuclear arms control earlier this week has been widely hailed as a success.

On the domestic front, I listened to yesterday's first live broadcast "debate" between the leaders of Britain's three main political parties on the radio, which conveys a rather different impression to television.

I have to say that there was something about the format of this event which wasn't entirely satisfactory, although I agree with the general view that Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg emerged as the "winner".

As I missed the end of the broadcast, I'm not sure whether environmental issues were discussed. However, I have to say that the silent skies outside more than made up for this !

ANOTHER TWILIGHT OF THE GODS ?

The serious consequences for British airspace of ash fallout from the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajoekull - a name to strike fear into Anglo-Saxon pronunciation - recalls again "The Twilight of the Gods" myth, or Ragnarok.

Coming as it does on the day the Green Party launch their election manifesto, one cannot but help be reminded of the power of nature to disrupt human affairs.

Technocrats, in particular, should take note. Similar previous events - before humans took to the skies in such droves - did not cause widespread disruption.

I hope environmental issues receive some serious attention when the leaders of our three main political parties make their joint appearance on television this evening.

Co-incidentally, I last blogged on the subject of Ragnarok during the height of the Icelandic banking crisis in 2008, when an economic catastrophe arising from a "Twilight of the Banks" threatened our horizons.

The Next Most Dangerous Man In Britain ?

Hearing a banker describe Liberal-Democrat Treasury Spokesman Vince Cable at "dangerous" on the radio this lunchtime brought a smile to my own and a few other faces, I imagine. Such use of the "dangerous" word reminded me of the days when Ken Livingstone was Leader of the Greater London Council, and this epithet was regularly used to describe GLC policies, many of which turned out to be very sensible, and were later adopted by other political parties.

Please also see my posts on "Will Hutton & The Economics of Fairy Dust" @ http://witchofworcester.wordpress.com and "The New Battle for Britain" @ http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com

My Image Problem...& That Of Others

Like quite a number of other Blogger.com users, I have found that the images have mysteriously disappeared from my posts.

However, after "reading" yesterday's Guardian newspaper - a rare occurrence these days - I have to confess that this personal image problem may be just the right reminder that image is too much relied upon these days. For amidst a display of pictures recalling "Hello" Magazine, was poor Samantha Cameron on the political campaign trail being railed for her unsartorial attire.

So, dear readers, there won't be any more image-bearing posts from me for the time being, I shall, instead, focus on content !

Nevertheless, for those who like pictures, my other blog http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com/ still has these !

GORDON BROWN AS NICK BOTTOM

Given the interest generated by the New Labour Government's campaign poster of opposition leader David Cameron depicted as the hero of "Ashes to Ashes", I've decided to cast Gordon Brown in the role of the ass-headed Bottom (shown here), a figure of fun in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Bottom temporarily becomes the love object of Queen of the Fairies (analogous to women voting for New Labour ?), due to a work of enchantment, in this case perhaps by Peter Mandelson. All in the end is put to right.

Importance of Herd Matriarch in Politics

The Bank Holiday weekend has shown just what a "Boys's Game" British politics has become. Gordon Brown deserves to lose the General Election because, like the ass-headed character of Bottom, his comparisons are often odious. I'm thinking of his latest podcast which compares economic recovery with the convalescence of footballer Wayne Rooney from minor injury (a sprained ankle).

Therefore, let us all rejoice, as Mrs Thatcher might have said, that the Prime Minister will today ask the Queen (image courtesy of Wikipedia) for the dissolution of Parliament. The burden is already lifting as far as I'm concerned !

However, Her Majesty aside, British politics is short of "Herd Matriarchs" these days and much the worse for this. In New Labour's case, they appear to have been pretty much "Folletted". Barbara Follett - yes She of the recent expenses scandal despite being married to a millionaire - some may remember was creator of the so-called "Blaire Babe", a sort of political Barbie Doll, now unfortunately somewhat the worse for wear !

Where is the Angela Merkel or Nancy Pelosi of British politics I ask myself ? There are undoubtedly women of talent in all the main political parties, and the Greens have a very able female leader, but I don't seen the New Mrs Thatcher on our political horizon. Quite the opposite in fact, when David Cameron described himself as "probably not" a feminist, I think we all knew that this meant. Personally, I don't look to the New Politics for a resurgence of feminism, as all our male party leaders would be easily upstaged by a serious female contender for power, and will, therefore, do their utmost to ensure that such a woman does not emerge.

In the meantime, British politics has become a "Boys's Game" from which mature women are significantly sidelined, albeit that some younger "cheer leaders" are allowed centre stage from time to time to help rally the crowd, along with the leaders's wives, of course. The media have been their prime allies in this, with market research apparently conveying the view that Jo Public does not like to see women of a certain age on screen, and only then when they have been heavily made over to look like the "Living Dolls" identified by contemporary feminists.

How did this New Old Lad Culture, with its odious comparison of footballer Wayne Rooney's injury to the parlous state of the British economy , arise ? I partly blame New Labour's State Nannies like Harriett Harman and Tessa Jowell, who have eschewed Herd Matriarchy for male approval and the Living Doll look themselves. However, the problem goes much deeper than this, and the "feminised" contemporary British Man with his football joke and similar comfort blankets, has ultimately turned out to be the main obstacle to modern feminism and the substantial exclusion of the Herd Matriarch from British politics. Just look at the sorry state of play we're in as a consequence !

The Battle for Tristramgrad (aka Stoke-on-Trent)

This is the coat of arms of the city of Engels (Saratov Oblast) in the Russian Federation, evoking sentiments surrounding hard-working labour symbolised in the bull bearing his heavy load. Enter the Hon Tristram Hunt, recent biographer of Engels, undisputed pretty boy of the academic media set, and now the Labour Party's candidate for the apparently safe seat of Stoke-on-Trent Central. I'm not a fan, incidentally, and nor, apparently, are many Labour supporters in Stoke, according to the secretary of the local party, who intends to stand as an independent candidate. However, the selection of Tristram Hunt does raise some interesting issues.

Stoke-on-Trent, like Liverpool under the Thatcher Governments of the 1980s, has been the victim of New Labour policies in the noughties. These have included the imposition of education programmes and demolition of much perfectly good housing and other building stock. There has been a loss of population and employment, and, most significantly, a pervasive loss of confidence in the area both amongst its own residents and external interests, notably the very central government whose policies have exacerbated problems arising largely from industrial restructuring within Stoke and its surrounding sub-region in the North Midlands. In the midst of all this, Stoke and other parts of the North Midlands have fallen victim to another political problem, headed by another Cambridge historian, albeit not one so pretty as Tristram Hunt: Nick Griffin of the British National Party.

The question now is whether New Labour "Patrician Socialism" of the kind embodied in Hunt (an apparent favourite of Lord Mandelson) can deliver the kind of transformation required in Stoke-on-Trent, or whether the Labour Party needs to recast itself post General Election as a party of (as distinct from for) the people again. Peter Mandelson aside, Tristram Hunt does have a number of attributes in his favour, including a wide ranging knowledge of the kind of historical developments which contributed to the rise of cities like Stoke, or Five Towns, during the Victorian period. The real possibility that Hunt is the right man to preside over a new renaissance of the North Staffordshire Conurbation cannot, therefore, be overlooked. Against this, is a real danger that any renaissance will still leave many people behind, contributing further to a disaffected rump of voters who will opt for the BNP. With all this in prospect, Labour supporters of Stoke-on-Trent may choose a local independent candidate, something which may in turn split the vote in favour of the not-so-pretty Mr Griffin.

Whatever the outcome, "The Battle for Tristramgrad" has the makings of drama to which many a nineteenth century novelist would have aspired : a dashing hero with dubious connections, an ugly rival with even more dubious connections, and a hitherto unknown man of the people, deeply connected to the local community, but without the right connections to make him New Labour's candidate and perhaps, therefore, without the connections to deliver the modern regeneration which has hitherto eluded Stoke.

A TROIKA OF WISE MEN

The bombing of Moscow railway stations this morning is a sad reminder of the common terrorist threat now facing countries like Russia, Britain and the United States, coming as it does on the heels of a historic agreement on post "Cold War" nuclear arms reduction.

However, the "New Order" which has replaced earlier international hostility has created a set of problems of its own, as my previous post indicates.

Asked by an interviewer whom he would most like to meet, one of the authors of "Londongrad" cites a group of oligarchs and Russian Prime Minister Putin.

My own preferred grouping would be Gorbachev, Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, suggested to me by an account in Havel's own memoirs, "To the Castle and Back".

Closer to home, and as an antidote to accounts of oligarch excess, I've just started to read Vince Cable's "The Storm",about the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis. I'll include the good Mr Cable in my "Troika" of wise men.

A CITY WITHOUT PEERS...OR TOO MANY ?

Image: Wikipedia Commons

The outing this week of three former New Labour Cabinet members for touting business might have stole some of the thunder from the Budget, had it contained any.

As it happens, I've been reading "Londongrad: from Russia with Cash" by Mark Hollingsworth and Andrew Lansley, a book drawn to my attention by a 2009 Channel 4 Dispatches programme about the influence of oligarch money over peers of all parties.

"Londongrad" draws attention to the impact of Russian oligarchs on the Capital and hinterlands, re-inforcing the City's role as the world's premiere financial centre in the noughties, and contributing to the domination of the UK economy by a small number of geographically concentrated business sectors.

In short, the book draws attention to some fundamental failures of governance, most notably in the former Soviet Union itself, but facilitated by the international community and particularly by Britain.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated story. For whilst the "Londongrad" phenomenum undoubtedly provides one of the most sensational perspectives on the world's "laundry of choice"*, as one African commentator describes some of the Capital's financial and property services, many other countries have lost out to Britain's failures of governance, as well as their own.

Indeed, this might very well be described as "The New British Problem", and there is little evidence that any of the nation's main parties have the wherewithal to tackle it, as last year's Dispatches programme illustrated very well.

For the inconvenient truth is that the British economy is now dependent on its role as the world's "laundry of choice", and it is notable that the Chancellor has postponed the introduction of a higher rate of stamp duty on properties over £1 million until next year, something which will undoubtedly encourage a flurry of international purchases in the meantime.

* BBC Radio 4 "File on 4" 31.10.2006

THE MEN (& Women) WITH NO BRAIN

The hero - or anti-hero - of "The Dollar Trilogy" is "The Man with No Name", and I shall return to him in a future post, but today I want to focus on "The Men with No Brain". Now I'm aware that this expression sounds sexist, so I'd just say that women are included here, but they play a smaller, albeit not insignificant, role.

"No Brainer" - something which requires little or no mental effort - is a term whose usage has become widespread in recent years, along with an apparently insatiable interest in zombies etc. For my own part, I've long suspected an android conspiracy whereby key sections of the UK corporate world, public and private, have been infiltrated by automatons.

My evidence for the presence of these, admittedly high-functioning, drones is their incapacity for individual thought and apparent dependency on some collective "super-brain", possibly located in the United States, but more probably in China. The implications of the global financial crisis would seem to bear out my suspicions.

I also suspect that there may be a hierarchy of such collective brains, with a superior one in London, albeit subservient to more powerful forces elsewhere, and lesser ones operating across the English regions, at County and District level. My own feeling is that the intellectual professions, including many academics, are particularly prey to this collective intelligence.

Fortunately, many other people seem to have a natural immunity to the "No Brainer" virus, and I very much hope that their vote will determine the outcome of the next UK General Election when "The Man with No Name", for his identity is still unclear, will restore this nation's strong tradition of collectivist individualism.

Please also see http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com - Planners's "Ivory Towers" targeted by Conservative MP

THE DOLLAR TRILOGY OF NEW LABOUR

I began to reflect yesterday on the legacy of New Labour, and it struck me that "The Dollar Trilogy" might provide an alternative narrative for the Blair-Brown years as follows :

1997 to 2001

A Fistful of Dollars

2001 to 2005

For a Few Dollars More

2005 to 2010

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I refer, of course, to the dominance of "The Special Relationship" between the US and the UK for the past 13 years, the positive aspects of this and its serious consequences.

It must be remembered that New Labour came to power amidst the strong expectation that it would oversee Britain's entry into the Eurozone, although I thought at the time that this was unlikely.

However, the pervasiveness of "The Special Relationship" did not become entirely clear until after the UK joined forces with the US in Iraq, thereby calling into question not only external relations with other key members of United Nations and the European Union, but also within this country's own government.

This has had a very high price indeed, not least because both the US and UK governments clearly had their eyes off the ball from the mid-noughties on economic issues, and most notably in failing to intervene in the global speculative bubble from which the economies of both countries are still reeling.