Is Europe the cavalry to the rescue with “emanation of the state”?

 a con, Coalition, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, Coalition economics, Europe, European Parliament, European Union, outsourcing  No Responses »
Sep 062012
 

The Black Triangle campaign sent me a couple of links via Twitter this morning.  One in particular attracted my attention.  It described the concept of “emanation of the state”:

Emanation of the state is a term used in European law to describe any body which provides a public service under the control of government. The term was defined by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Foster, A and others v. British Gas plc.[1][2] The ECJ’s ruling defines the term as:

A body, whatever its legal form, which has been made responsible, pursuant to a measure adopted by the state, for providing a public service under the control of the state and has for that purpose special powers beyond that which result from the normal rules applicable in relations between individuals.

The term is most obviously used to describe public sector employers, such as the police, fire service, local government bodies or schools.

To date, then, I suppose “emanation of the state” has been used to tie differing public institutions into the umbrella of accountability – that is to say, our political leaders and democratically-elected representatives – which we vote for at general elections.  But what happens when we get a government which suggests that all our public services should be implemented via private-sector contracts?

This is what I suggested on the 30th of August:

It seems to me that, more and more, supposedly democratically-elected governments are getting the dirty work of less than transparent policy-making carried out on their behalf by private industry.  This is, in a sense, a strategy of de facto governance where democracy is absented from the process.  It works in the following way: in exchange for negative publicity which, in any case, legions of legal departments can generally vanish into relative thin air, private industries of transnational sizes are awarded humongous public-sector contracts.  And as this is a business-to-business relationship – thick-skinned government to hard-sold corporate – public opinion is pretty irrelevant to either party.  A perfect way of removing the need for approval from irritatingly well-informed and tech-savvy end-consumers, who were in any case beginning to make the business of corporate capitalism so very complicated and unpredictable.

Instead of selling to end-users who pick and choose, the most foresighted corporations are now choosing to focus their attentions on governments which – for various untransparent reasons – prefer to pick and stick.

The corporates get stability in long-term contracts despite the voter flak.  The governments get to blame the corporates if anything too unpleasant comes to light.

A perfect exchange of complementary interests.

Black Triangle, however, goes much further than that – as a reading of this page would indicate:

Don’t worry! They’re both as culpable in these crimes as each other and they’re both in our sites equally!

The atrocities committed by one do not mitigate for the atrocities perpetrated by the other!

An article published yesterday in the Guardian, meanwhile, picks up on the flak-catcher idea I essayed a week ago – but, as per Black Triangle’s own thesis, goes further than my own cautious instincts in a first instance allowed me to.

And the only conclusion we can come to – if we care to properly understand the concepts to hand – is that European law would seem to be much clearer on the matter than any of our politicians to date: where governments employ private-sector figures such as transnational companies and institutions, those very same governments – the ones we voted for – continue to be directly responsible for the acts of their “emanations”.

That is to say, both responsible for and – where it is the case – to blame.

I suppose it’s the same principle as when you buy a consumer durable – which then becomes faulty – from a shop in the High Street.  No longer do we need to recur to a distant anonymous manufacturer – it is to the faces and people who sold us the object in the first place we have every right to take our complaint.

This, of course, is at it should be.  But I wonder how many of the Lansleys, Hunts, Camerons and Osbornes of the world are aware we can blame them as directly for the downsides of their tendering and outsourcing policies as we ever could in the supposedly bad old days when everyone was a public-sector employee?

Or do they actually know it all too well – and are currently trying to pull the Tory wool over a very naive public’s eyes?

Is that what’s really going on here?

“No longer do British politicians need to suck up to their electorates”

 a con, Coalition, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, Coalition economics, corruption  No Responses »
May 112012
 

I’ve been helping my son revise one of his history exams recently.  One of the subjects covered less efficiently by his school has been the time of Henry VII – the so-called administrative king.  I say less efficiently because the coursebook chosen has no revision materials from any of the conventional publishers to cover the period in question.

I had to phone up the school late last week and insist that they bought expensive photocopiable materials my son managed, after an extended search, to unearth on the Internet – in order that at least something may be saved of the year.

So, sadly, that is why my son hates that part of the history course this year – and is determined not to continue through to A-levels next year.  Even though he is consistently getting a B in his AS-level mock exam results.

And even though the civil rights’ movement and Stalin is something that truly fascinates him, and would clearly engage him intellectually throughout the second half of the course.

And it’s really sad, because as I helped him through his densely written revision notes it seemed to me that a lot of the behaviours in Henry VII’s reign are reflected in latterday politics.  This, for example:

Although Henry can be credited with the restoration of political stability in England, and a number of commendable administrative, economic and diplomatic initiatives, the latter part of his reign was characterised by a financial rapacity which stretched the bounds of legality. According to the contemporary historianPolydore Vergil, simple “greed” in large part underscored the means by which royal control was over-asserted in Henry’s final years.[1]

In a sense, then, the achievement of this current Coalition government of ours is to avoid the commendable stuff mentioned above and go straight to self-enrichment as a reason for all they do.  They have, in two short years, conflated the natural cycle of political rise-and-fall to a simple hubris of monumental proportions – a hubris none of us could have anticipated.

It may, after all, be true that this government is no more corrupt than previous governments.  Yet why we truly resent their corruption lies in the fact that even as they enrich themselves in much the same way as modern managerialists do so the world over, they fail to deliver the minimum of wider improvements for a society now cast in the role of street beggars.

The social compact is utterly shredded.

“Live and let live” as a guiding philosophy for class interaction a mere chimera on the horizon of a foolish abdication of all sense of propriety.

Perhaps the instinct was there at some time in the past, as these wannabe greasy-pole-climbing businesspeople fashioned themselves in the image of professional politicos – but the flesh, being so very weak, has dampened their enthusiasm for true, honest and radical change.

Yes.

I am inclined to believe we now do resent this government its corruption much more than any other government in the past – mostly and precisely because we receive nothing in exchange.  Their corruption is so excluding that our corruption has no chance.  The bribing of vast sectors of the voting public by one or the other of the major political parties has reached a political cul-de-sac  – as those who are currently on top realise they need bribe no one any more who does not already belong to their circle.

So it is we receive that nothing-in-exchange – except, of course, the misery of a future entirely without hope.

Which is surely what now is to await those citizens who believed in and practised the conditional politics our society so depended on.  In a sense, it was our fault for allowing them to implement the mechanisms of pork-barrel politics in the first place.  If we had spent the last thirty years voting with an adult sense of efficiency and probity, we would have got a body politic of the same characteristics.  As it is, we have allowed the corrupting business classes (not all the business classes by any means, of course) to become so politically powerful these days that jettisoning the baggage which is voter opinion has become a quite practical and attractive option.

“No longer do British politicians need to suck up to their electorates.”  A fair enough epitaph for all our political gravestones perhaps?

Why I hate dystopian elections

 Coalition, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, Coalition economics, David Cameron, in a hole, Labour, managerialism, NHS, NHS cuts, Tories  No Responses »
Apr 112012
 


http://youtu.be/radTKsTJPNE

This is a strange video.  It washes over the viewer in pale dystopian greys.  Towards the end, the NHS it wants to rebuild is white and industrial-looking – just like the padlocked ballot box we are told will serve as a tool to its recovery.  We are missing only the white coats and padded cells to complete the image of Bedlam.

The Labour Party exists only as a logo and is represented by extraordinarily managerialist-looking figureheads (always excepting, perhaps, the nurse).  This is the final nail in someone’s political coffin.  Maybe mine for making such observations.  A corporate NHS, defended by the kind of corporate Labour which cannot itself quite step up to the barricades, populated by corporate bodies who tell professionally-couched corporate tales in the kind of carefully trained corporate tones of practised presentation-givers.

In this video, we also see what I would judge to be a mistaken appeal being made to the voters: here, we see the NHS belongs to a single political identity; it does not belong to everyone.

Yes.  I know.  There are good historical reasons to suggest that without the Labour Party, the NHS would never have existed.

But the people who are taking advantage of this badge of identity are using it quite desperately to capture as many floating voters as they can in a moment in our body politic when Labour should really be ripping apart the Tory-led Coalition in the polls.

This isn’t happening.

Labour is not polling beyond the combined strengths of a curiously resilient Tory Party and even a highly weakened Lib Dems.

This is the reason why I hate elections of most kinds – and dystopian elections in particular.  These are the dynamics of easy “us and them” – the dynamics I might venture of a kind of civil war – where what we are in favour of is made up mostly of what we are against.

I didn’t join the Labour Party to turn fellow Englander against fellow Englander.

You may disagree, of course; you may feel this video does nothing of the sort.

Convince me otherwise, then.

And, whilst you do, please explain why there are so many dystopian greys.

Is this really the kind of colourless future you want the public to see you voting for?

Delegation, representative democracy and the need for recall elections

 a con, Coalition, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, Coalition economics, democracy, democratic deficit, pyramid politics, pyramidal organisations, representative democracy, shock and awe  1 Response »
Apr 052012
 

Sue has a nicely judged piece over at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger on the issue of whether our current Coalition government is composed of ministers who are all utterly incompetent:

A scary thought has been scaring me.

What if the Government really aren’t fit to govern?

Now that I’ve recovered from the blast of scorn you all just harrumphed at me, (“Well, of course they’re unfit to govern”) I mean really unfit to govern. Literally incapable?

It does, of course, depend on what you mean by “govern”.  In favour of certain very select interests?  New Labour and the Thatcherite generation before it did precisely that.  But if we mean by “govern” the ability to make a society work at a very pyramidal and traditional level, then perhaps Sue is absolutely spot-on in her analysis.  New Labour, for example, knew how to blunderbuss society into accepting considerable social and welfare breadcrumbs for the absolutely poor in exchange for a relaxed approach to the kind of wealth-generation which – post 2008 crisis – seems to most of us no longer acceptable.

But this Coalition is not just bad at governing for ordinary people.  The car-crash that is the NHS Act, Legal Aid and presumably the recent Budget too is bad for its business sponsors and supporters because of the wider societal dismay it generates.

These supporters aren’t essentially dismayed about the content of government policy right now – the Coalition continues to say what is wanted of them.  They are, however, getting extremely unhappy about the ways of doing which the aforementioned government is exhibiting.  Even at a traditional and pyramidal level this very top-down and millionaire-stuffed Cabinet is making very elemental top-down mistakes.

As I pointed out recently, if the government was a private-sector company worth its salt it would have fired half of its exponents long ago.  They’re not even good at the bad things they’re supposed to be good at.  Unless, of course, shock and awe is the deconstructing game we’re playing:

[...] Just as during the Iraq conflict people needed to express their opposition to a piece of social re-engineering of the most naive kind – bomb a country to bits and then expect democracy to flower out of the ashes – so during this UK conflict people need to show the government that it has not done enough to convince them it has a constructive exit strategy from the all-out war it has chosen to declare on most of the country’s subjects.

Yes.  It’s the job of ambitious politicians to attempt to change nation states.  That’s true.  But, equally, it’s the job of subjects and citizens to say “enough is enough” – or, at least, when events prove, for them if not their wealthy landlords, that this just might be the case.

All power to those who are marching today.

We do not approve of the Shock-Doctrined Iraq-ification of the UK.

This is Cameron’s Iraq then – and we can learn from previous experiences.

The real problem, of course, is that when we vote for our politicians, we delegate our power as subjects of our monarch in their state and condition of being politicising individuals.  I was at a meal recently where clever people attended and was surprised to hear at least one person say that, in fact, politicians knew a lot more about politics and how it needed to work than most of us cared to give them credit.  The implication was that politics must be conducted in the old and unempowering ways which have so disgusted us of late.

My instincts are, of course, not to go there.  But I value the opinion of the person who said it – and wonder if they might actually be right.

If there is, indeed, no alternative to representative democracy as we have it – the temporal delegation by sovereign peoples of power to rather unpredictable politicians – we must, at least, surely tinker with one aspect of the equation: when a boss delegates responsibilities to an underling, the boss remains in charge.  When we delegate, for say a period of four or five years, responsibilities to professional politicos, we lose all control – at least for that period of time in question.  In the future I would argue – especially in the light of what this Coalition has done over the past two years – that there must exist a mechanism whereby an electorate has the opportunity to reassert its control mid-term.

We need the concept of recall to be introduced forthwith:

A recall election (also called a recall referendum or representative recall) is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended. Recalls, which are initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition, have a history dating back to the ancient Athenian democracy[1] and is a feature of several contemporary constitutions.

And I’m getting the feeling we need it now much more than any other piece of legislation.

A sovereign people must remain sovereign always – if democracy is not to be irretrievably tarnished.

Whilst politicians of all political hues talk greatly of rights and responsibilities for the wider voting public, for themselves they have more and more reserved just the rights.  That must stop – and it must stop sooner rather than later if we are not to lose all confidence in what to date has remained a society with a relatively widespread attachment to the concepts of rule of law, justice and fairness for all.

Is modern Britain on its way to becoming a fascist state?

 a con, ATOS, Big Capitalism, Big Society, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, Coalition economics, corporate Communism, corporations, democracy, democratic deficit, DLA, fascism, Legal Aid, private spaces of public use  2 Responses »
Mar 232012
 

Fascism has had a long and truly unpleasant 20th century history.  I mentioned the concept a couple of times recently, unsure whether I had any right to do so.  Then Paul Evans shared an image on Facebook which someone else had drawn up, and which contained the following quote by Franklin D Roosevelt:

[T]he liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

In fact, Wikipedia on the subject of corporate capitalism goes even further back in time as it adds the following reminder to Roosevelt’s quote:

Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the United States democratic system, said “I hope we shall crush … in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country”.

Something which, in the light of so many recent events here in Britain (here, here and here for example), would appear to have in the end been quite beyond our collective ability to achieve.

So if we can accept Roosevelt’s definition as workable, and if we must admit the possibility that large corporations now not only have the ear of government but also constitute and occupy its very soul, its very essence, doesn’t this then mean modern Britain – especially as submitted to the levers of power which this Coalition is currently connecting to big business across the globe – is well on its way to becoming a fascist state?

Isn’t it time we stopped being so mealy-mouthed about this whole matter and fully recognised how devalued the currency of democracy has truly become?

*

What can we do about it though?  I don’t believe in violence – yet I see violence of all kinds being committed by those in power.  I don’t believe in the imposition of the thoughts of a minority over a majority – yet I see exactly this happening in the name of parliamentary debate.  I don’t believe in the inefficient shortcuts of excessively hierarchical organisation – yet the only alternative to Tory-led dictatorship seems to be a kind of leaping into the abyss of yet more “trust me with your all” progressive politics.

What I really find difficult to understand is if the grassroots is so large – for it is everyone who does not have real power at the moment – why, then, is it taking so long for us to find a way of effecting our potential?  It is clear of course, whether intentionally or not, that in everything it does this government of corporate capitalism is making it more and more difficult to have the time to organise alternatives.  From the Big Society concept itself right at the very beginning, designed to overload us active sorts with far too much business to do the job effectively, to the savage reduction in living standards of all kinds – tax credit cuts, DLA, minimum wage guarantees – as well as the constricting of access to support such as Legal Aid, there seems a clearly and intelligently thought-out strategy underlining this all which aims to make it simultaneously easier for the corporations to colonise our democracy and far more difficult for individuals to defend what are rapidly becoming spurious and even non-existent rights.

Perhaps fascism isn’t quite the word we should be using, as it has so many awful historical connotations which deserve to be separated from all the other crimes mankind has committed in the name of political ideology.  But the colonisation of democracy is surely something we can live with conceptually as a fair description of what is happening.

We have been colonised by a fleet of alien invaders: organisations which have the grand advantage of being relatively eternal compared to our own finite lives, which have access to high living standards and support from massive legal departments – and which aim to turn all public spaces into private spaces of conditional, as well as highly profitable, public use.

If that isn’t a colonisation – in Roosevelt’s terms a fascist colonisation at that – I really don’t know what is.

Our responsibility and duty to be hosts to barely symbiotic creatures.

Our destiny to forego all right to democratic representation.

To finish, then, with Wikipedia’s definition of corporate capitalism (the bold in the second paragraph is mine):

Corporate capitalism is a term used in social science and economics to describe a capitalist marketplace characterized by the dominance of hierarchical, bureaucratic corporations, which are legally required to pursue profit.

A large proportion of the economy and labour market falls within joint stock company or corporate control.[1] In the developed world, corporations dominate the marketplace, comprising 50 percent or more of all businesses. Those businesses which are not corporations contain the same bureaucratic structure of corporations, but there is usually a sole owner or group of owners who are liable to bankruptcy and criminal charges relating to their business. Corporations have limited liability and remain less regulated and accountable than sole proprietorships.

Hardly good – is it? – that our democracy should now be in the hands of organisations with limited liability, and which are less regulated and accountable than the “sole proprietorships” which were once in charge.

Democracies, in order that they function on behalf of ordinary people and voters, need real short-lived people running and controlling them – not faceless and indefinite transnational organisations.

A car crash of awful proportions awaits us I fear.  Roosevelt saw it coming in 1938.  Jefferson saw it coming as it started.

Now we have the privilege to bear witness to it in person.

I’m not looking forward to the experience at all.

Are you?

Time to stop triangulating, Ed; time to start the fightback

 a con, Coalition, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, Coalition economics, ConDem-millionaire complex, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, George Osborne, Labour, triangulation  2 Responses »
Mar 212012
 

An increase in personal allowances which benefits the rich just as much as the poor but is sold solely as an improvement for the most disadvantaged; a massive hit on middle-class pensioners; a tax cut for 14,000 millionaires which benefits practically everyone on the Tory front bench … oh yes, these are the things which make class warfare very easy.  However, when Ed Miliband is accused of committing such a crime, those who argue he is doing so really fail to understand the reality of the situation.  This is not class warfare in the traditional sense we are engaged in but simply a drawing of voters’ attention to the fact that we are most definitely not in this together as a nation or a people.

After this budget, something should clearly separate the Tories and Labour: whilst the Tories are legislating – using the very tools of Parliament – to enrich their personal standing and already deep pockets, Labour no longer has to triangulate a middle way between those nakedly rich – who for decades have been accustomed to operating via bought-off politicians – and the rest of our blessedly Middle England.  For the fact of the matter is that those businesspeople who benefited from pork-barrel politics are now precisely the politicians who use Parliament for their own ends.  There is no difference between a stratospheric businessperson and a stratospheric politician any more.  It’s not just that they speak the same language – they are actually, literally, the very same individuals.

So here is my plea to the Labour leadership, members and supporters: let us put well behind us the instinct to triangulation here and now.  The current Coalition government has opened up so many simultaneous fronts of active political warfare that it can only be a matter of time before their thesis begins to slip and lose traction.

Time to stop mincing our words?  Oh absolutely, yes it is.

Time to put all that triangulation rubbish well and truly behind us.

Time to start the slow but sure route to political fightback.

What the Coalition government has achieved, more than any other in history, is put the levers of parliamentary power under the direct control of big and bad capitalism.  Our job now is to make this patent and clear to our voting constituencies.  Democracy allows for terrible mistakes but it also allows for rectification.  Labour lost the last election because it didn’t deserve to win.  But the Tories didn’t win the last election and we don’t deserve to labour under their mistakes.

That is the message we must now get through.

This budget draws a final and undeniable line in the sand: self-enrichment for the few versus economic prosperity for the many.  As simple as that.  Now it’s Labour’s turn to meet the challenge.

It’s not the NHS but English socialism the Coalition had in their sights

 a con, Coalition, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, England, NHS, pyramid politics, pyramidal organisations, socialism, Tony Blair  No Responses »
Mar 212012
 

This Mirror frontpage today, via the always sharp Political Scrapbook, is a sad recognition of a reality we can no longer deny.

The reference it makes to both Tory and Lib Dem gloating at the passing of the NHS bill in question will surely capture your attention.  There is a simple reason for this: the object in Tory and Lib Dem sights is not the NHS itself – even as it is neither just the Legal Aid bill, also stumbling through reasoned objection to mindless implementation.

If we were simply talking about bringing down discrete institutions, we could not explain the massive and evil joy these top-flight politicians are expressing.

Not even the prospect of massive self-enrichment can surely explain their satisfaction.

No.  The issue is quite separate and different from all the above.  It’s neither the NHS nor Legal Aid nor a wider raft of other institutions which find themselves under attack here but the much broader concept and idea of English socialism itself.

The NHS in particular was effective and efficient English socialism writ large.  With its example to remind us of what a humane economy can do suddenly and succinctly wiped from the political and socioeconomic landscape, it’s not just a national health service they’ve destroyed but a whole alternative way of thinking about and doing politics.

No wonder these beasts are as happy as sandboys.

I bet Tony Blair & Co are similarly pleased as punch with themselves.

Truth of the matter is that a long period in opposition can lead to politically effective and highly strategic government once back in power.  The latest wizard wheeze I read about the other day – structuring the pay of public sector jobs in terms of the average wealth of a region in particular – is clearly aimed at making the task of unions evermore difficult.  Little by little, therefore, these bods are picking off their targets.  It may not be quite Machiavellian quite yet – but it’s certainly well on its way.

The Mirror‘s tombstone got it wrong.  It’s not the NHS which died today but the very best example of socialism in England we’ve ever had the privilege to witness.  And, as a result, perhaps any chance to weave in the future an alternative tapestry of ideas to neoliberalism’s inevitable and overwhelming power over those who reach the top of these disgustingly greasy poles.

On International Women’s Day and other matters

 a con, Coalition, Coalition cuts, copyright, copyright madness, David Cameron, International Women's Day, Nick Clegg  No Responses »
Mar 082012
 

The Prime Minister David Cameron and the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg have just published this short text (the bold is mine):

“International Women’s Day is about reflecting on the strides that have been taken to give women more power, more choice and more control over their lives. But it is also about pushing for more to be done. Because the truth is, there is still a lot of work we need to do on the basics: ending violence against women and ensuring the physical security that is everyone’s fundamental right.

The UK already has some of the most robust protections against violence towards women in the world. But we know we’ve got to do better. So today we can confirm that we are working towards signing the Council of Europe’s Convention on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence before ratifying the treaty and incorporating it into UK law.

This agreement is unprecedented, and it is vital. Across Europe millions of women suffer physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes. In the UK nearly one million women experience domestic abuse each year. This is an utter scandal – and together we are going to work harder than ever to bring this violence to an end.

The agreement is not just a piece of paper. It’s going to lift the standards of protection for women across Europe, give greater support for victims and – crucially – bring many more perpetrators to justice.

By signing the Convention we would ensure that British offenders who commit their crimes abroad would still face justice in our courts. This is what we do in cases of murder and paedophilia. We believe rapists and abusive men from the UK who seriously harm women should face the same fate – wherever they commit the offence. Our message must be loud and clear: there must be nowhere to hide.”

This is excellent news.  Two observations only.  First, the violence against primarily women which mainly ideologically driven cuts are generating here in the UK should not be underestimated:

WOMEN are being stung for £11.5billion by Coalition cuts at a time when the largest number are jobless for 23 years.

They are bearing more than two thirds of the £16billion Chancellor George Osborne is raking in from slashing welfare in his Budget and spending review.

The number of unemployed females currently stands at 1.07 million.

In the past 18 months ministers have axed the health in pregnancy grant, closed Sure Start centres, cut housing benefit, limited child benefit and slashed tax credits. Women are said to be deserting the Tories in droves.

Second, on an entirely separate matter, but relating to the sentence I highlighted in bold, when was the last time someone accused of infringing online copyright not abroad but in Britain itself required to go before a British court rather than a foreign one?

The statement on the occasion of International Women’s Day by our Lone Ranger Cameron and his sidekick Tonto Clegg is certainly welcome.  It would, however, be far more welcome if it didn’t whiff a little of grandstanding to the gallery.

Deeds, please, gentlemen and ladies, not words are needed now.

Paranoia, convergent evolution and politics

 Chris Grayling, Coalition, Coalition cuts, Coalition economics, convergent evolution, high street closures, in a hole, paranoia, politics, schizophrenia  No Responses »
Feb 252012
 

Carl over at Though Cowards Flinch clearly identifies the issue (the bold is Carl’s):

“Let me give you an example, my own e-mail address was hacked by this organisation and used to lodge a complaint with Tesco so I don’t accept the scale of the campaign is very large. It’s a small number of activists who are deliberately targeting these companies and are trying to destabilised them.”

The organisation in question being the Socialist Workers’ Party, and the allegedly “hacked” complainant being the Coalition’s Chris Grayling.  As Carl goes on to point out:

The SWP wouldn’t know a computer from a hobby horse. I remember a time when they were reluctant to have a website, then a Twitter account, the thought of them hacking computers is laughable.

But the situation is a little more worrying than simple accusations of hacking, which in any case Grayling then had to backtrack on.  Whilst Carl begins to wonder whether a kind of “brushing all socialists with a broad McCarthyite brush” isn’t really what’s behind Grayling’s attack, I’m beginning to wonder if a kind of paranoia isn’t seeping into this embattled government’s perceptions:

“We’ve got a lot of companies who are very jumpy,” he told Evan Davis.

“The High Street retail sector is going through a tough time at the moment – if you’re running a company and you’re getting streams of emails attacking you it’s very unsettling.

“It’s a false campaign.

Apart from the fact that he refuses to recognise that the “tough time” he mentions is now mainly due to Coalition economics, the truth of the matter is that in moments when psychotic relationships with reality begin to creep in on one, it’s very easy to confuse what is really convergent evolution with the impressions that paranoia engender.  The fact that millions of people suddenly turn on their governors doesn’t necessarily mean there is an evil conspiracy behind it.  The behaviour of flocking in birds, for example, can exhibit structure without such structure being malignant.

It does, however, become a broader problem for us all when a government starts along the road of awful paranoia.  In fact, in its early days – whilst still in charge and gloating – it may be a far safer deal than when it begins to perceive it is losing control of popular opinion.  An enemy is never more dangerous than when wounded.

And this government is wounded.

So expect far more of these errors of judgement and perception which confuse convergent evolution with the psychosis born of a disconnection from reality – Grayling is but the first example of what will soon assail us en masse:

Paranoia [ˌpar.rəˈnoɪ.ə] (adjective: paranoid [ˈpar.rə.noɪd]) is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. [...]

As the definition goes on to suggest:

Making false accusations and the general distrust of others also frequently accompany paranoia. For example, an incident most people would view as an accident, a paranoid person might make an accusation that it was intentional. 

Ring any bells?  Does for me, anyhow.  And – for me – this is clearly an example of a government going dangerously dysfunctional.

Question really is whether it’s part and parcel of wider behaviours in politics – in which case we should be very worried – or just a passing sequence of actions which might serve to inconvenience a generation of what may become the lost.

In which case our worry can become focussed.

But if the latter is the case, and our societal attention does concentrate itself thus, won’t we simply end up feeding the paranoid thoughts of an evermore schizophrenic Coalition?

Just because you think people are after you doesn’t, after all, mean they aren’t.

Cameron on the importance of "a warm and stable home" – when it suits him, of course

 a con, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, David Cameron, False Economy, home truths, homelessness, unclassifiable  No Responses »
Feb 162012
 

Cameron on what makes the United Kingdom such a great deal:

“We are stronger together than we ever would be apart …” in what he describes as “… a warm and stable home.”

Tell that to False Economy, as of February 16th, 2012:

Housing cuts

See other sectors »

Yorkshire Housing Foundation

Charity. Stay Put equipment and adaptations, plus Home Improvement Agency service for older people.Local authority funding cut: …

Support Care Ltd

Charity. Funding for accommodation-based mental health service. Local authority funding cut: £20,013.1. Details: Received …

Stonham Housing Association

Charity. Provider of housing and support for vulnerable and socially excluded people. Local authority funding cut: £51,701. …

St Anne’s Shelter & Housing Action

Charity. Supporting people with learning disabilities, mental health problems, and people with drug or alcohol problems.Local …

South Yorkshire Housing Association

Charity. Manages more than 6,000 homes throughout the Sheffield City region, providing care and supported housing. Funded under …

Somali Mental Health Project

Charity. Funding for mental health floating support servivce. Local authority funding cut: £5,124.36. Details: Received …

Sheffield YWCA

Charity. Funding for accommodation based services for young people. Local authority funding cut: £25,862.72. Details: Received …

Salvation Army

Charity. Funding for accommodation-based homelessness service. Local authority funding cut: £42,450.58. Details: Received …

Roundabout

Charity. Provides shelter, support and life skills to Sheffield’s young homeless.Local authority funding cut: £111,602.92. …

Refugee Housing Association

Charity. Accommodation-based service for refugees. Local authority funding cut: £101,079.2. Details: Received a total of …

Pitsmoor Youth Housing Trust

Charity. Supported housing accommodation provider in Sheffield for homeless 16-21 year old single young people, including …

Phoenix House

Charity. Care home for people with alcohol and substance abuse problems. Local authority funding cut: £25,970.4. Details: …

Credit Union

Charity. Funding to provide loans to prevent homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £50,000. Details: Received £50,000 in …

Ben’s Centre

Charity. Provides a ‘damp’ day service to street drinkers. Local authority funding cut: £2,250. Details: Received £45,000 in …

Action Housing Association

Charity. Works to enable vulnerable people to establish a home and live responsibly in society. Funding cut affects …

Doorstep

Charity. Offers drop-in centre for young homeless people aged 16-25, information on benefits, education and training, finding …

Christian Action Resource Enterprise

Charity. Charity located in North East Lincolnshire dedicated to relieving poverty, hardship and distress to those sectors of …

Nacro

Charity. T4 Project – helps people who are engaged in treatment for either drug or alcohol use to access good supported …

Foundation Housing

Charity. Charity working with offenders, the homeless, women who are victims of domestic abuse and young people at risk.Local …

Equity Housing Group

Charity. Not-for-profit registered social landlord providing affordable homes for those in need of housing and those on low or …

Action Housing and Support

Charity. Works to enable vulnerable people to establish a home and live responsibly in society. Local authority funding cut: …

Stonham Housing Association

Charity. Funding for St George’s Resettlement. Local authority funding cut: £28,382. Details: Received a total of £464,551 in …

Coventry Cyrenians

Charity. Provides services to homeless, vulnerable and disadvantaged people in Coventry and Warwickshire to empower them to …

Beat the Cold

Charity. Aims to reduce the incidence of fuel poverty and cold-related illness. Informs, advises and makes referrals for …

Viridian Housing

Charity. Housing association providing social housing. Local authority funding cut: £91,952. Details: Received £91,952 in …

Sandwell Homes

Charity. Arms Length Management Organisation. Local authority funding cut: £700,000. Details: Received £1,357,700 in 2010/11; …

Sanctuary Housing

Charity. Local authority funding cut: £47,722. Details: Received £47,722 in 2010/11; cut by £23,861 in 2011/12, and by a …

Midland Heart

Charity. Housing and regeneration group. Local authority funding cut: £6,838. Details: Received £6,838 in 2010/11; cut by …

Jephson Housing

Charity. Housing association. Local authority funding cut: £60,210. Details: Received £60,210 in 2010/11; cut by £30,105 in …

Harborne

Charity. Local authority funding cut: £45,390. Details: Received £45,390 in 2010/11; cut by £22,695 in 2011/12, and by a …

Black Country Housing Group

Charity. Local authority funding cut: £113,292. Details: Received £113,292 in 2010/11; cut by £56,646 in 2011/12, and by a …

ASRA Housing

Charity. Housing, care and support provider.Local authority funding cut: £59,594. Details: Received £59,594 in 2010/11; cut …

Accord Housing

Charity. Housing association. Local authority funding cut: £4,512. Details: Received £4,512 in 2010/11; cut by £2,256 in …

SIFA Fireside

Charity. Affected funding for two services targeted at homeless people – health and wellbeing forum, and community catering …

Yarlington

Charity. Provides affordable homes for rent or shared ownership in south Somerset. Local authority funding cut: £99,636.49. …

Western Challenge Housing Association

Charity. Registered social landlord. Local authority funding cut: £42,205.02. Details: Received £42,205.02 in 2010/11; no …

Taunton Association for the Homeless

Charity. Specialises in the housing and support of vulnerable, single homeless people.Local authority funding cut: £75,700. …

Riverside Group

Charity. Registered providers of social housing nationwide, providing support to people of all ages and circumstances.Local …

NOVAS

Charity. Works with diverse communities, tackling the issues of homelessness, crime and community safety, and domestic …

Mendip YMCA

Charity. Offers schemes to help and assist young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Local authority funding …

Magna West Somerset

Charity. Community-based housing association. Local authority funding cut: £43,136.84. Details: Received £328,120.38 in …

Flourish Homes

Charity. Registered social landlord. Local authority funding cut: £189,710.04. Details: Received £776,158.25 in 2010/11; cut …

Chapter 1

Charity. Specialises in providing accommodation and support for vulnerable people. Local authority funding cut: £13,531.03. …

Carr Gomm Society

Charity. Charity offering housing and support services to vulnerable people with a range of special needs. Local authority …

Bridgwater YMCA Foyer

Charity. Provides supported accomodation for 53 young people at three sites. Local authority funding cut: £50,252.96. Details: …

Barnabas Housing Association

Charity. Hostel for single homeless people. Local authority funding cut: £89,010.12. Details: Received £659,432.70 in …

Shelter

Charity. Specialist housing advice and information for anyone who is homeless or has a housing problem. Local authority funding …

Gloucester Nightstop

Charity. Arranges temporary and emergency accommodation for young homeless people in the homes of trained and vetted …

Shelter

Charity. Homelessness charity. Local authority funding cut: £1,652. Details: Received £6,608 in 2010/11; cut by £1,652 in …

St Petroc’s Society

Charity. Homelessness charity. Includes funding for the Breadline resettlement centre, used by the street homeless of Penzance, …

Coastline Housing

Charity. Funding for The New Connection, which provides crisis accommodation for the homeless in Cornwall.Local authority …

Churches Together in Penzance Area (CTIPA)

Charity. Funding for the Breakfast Project, which provides food for the homeless on weekday mornings.Local authority funding …

Guildford No 5

Charity. Provides direct access supported accommodation for single homeless people with support needs who may in addition have …

The You Trust

Charity. Provides care, housing and advice services for those faced with exclusion from their family or community.Local …

Salvation Army

Charity. Funding for Catherine Booth House, which provides accommodation and parenting support for families and expectant …

Emmaus Oxford

Charity. Emmaus tackles the problems of homelessness through a network of self-supporting Communities, where people are offered …

Community Soup Kitchen

Charity. Funding awarded to provide a community soup kitchen for homeless or socially excluded individuals. Local authority …

West Kent Housing

Charity. Housing association providing affordable homes and services. Local authority funding cut: £55,934.81. Details: …

Medway Cyrenians

Charity. Houses and supports vulnerable, single, homeless people aged 16 and over.Local authority funding cut: £17,979.98. …

Avante – Step Ahead (Crisis 10)

Charity. Crisis support for young homeless people. Local authority funding cut: £1,951. Details: Received £27,876 in 2010/11; …

Ashdown Medway Accommodation Trust (AMAT)

Charity. Provides services and accommodation primarily for single homeless people aged 25 and over, both with and without …

Furniture Helpline

Charity. Provides low cost recycled furniture and electrical goods to people on low incomes. Local authority funding cut: …

Oxfordshire Rural Community Council

Charity. Rural housing enabler. Local authority funding cut: £11,500. Details: Received £11,500 in 2010/11; no funding in …

Hometree House Association

Charity. Funding for activities for the club.,Local authority funding cut: £400,. Details: Received £400 in 2010/11; no …

BYHP

Charity. Works with young people aged 16-25 who are homeless, inappropriately housed or at risk of becoming homeless in …

SHAP

Charity. Arrangement relating to homeless young people accommodation. Local authority funding cut: £19,000. Details: Received …

Turning Point

Charity. Provides services for people with complex needs, including those affected by drug and alcohol misuse, mental health …

Stepping Stone

Charity. Provider of housing, support and charitable services for people who are homeless or at risk of losing their home.Local …

St Vincent Housing

Charity. Registered social landlord. Local authority funding cut: £258,000. Details: Received £258,000 in 2010/11; no funding …

St Edmunds Charity

Charity. Supported accommodation facility for men and women whose lives have been impaired by alcohol misuse and who have an …

Shelter

Charity. Homelessness charity. Local authority funding cut: £858,861.13. Details: Received a total of £1,064,621.13 in …

Sanctuary Trust

Charity. Aims to provide programmes and services as an answer to homelessness and homeless related issues. Local authority …

Sanctuary Housing Trust

Charity. Housing association. Local authority funding cut: £3,705. Details: Received £3,705 in 2010/11; no funding in …

Salvation Army

Charity. Funding for strategic housing services. Local authority funding cut: £102,645. Details: Received £433,312 in …

Rochdale Petrus Community

Charity. Provides supported housing and related services to homeless people. Local authority funding cut: £139,791.64. …

People First

Charity. Housing association. Local authority funding cut: £21,256. Details: Received £185,000 in 2010/11; cut by £21,256 in …

Next Step

Charity. Affordable housing for special needs. Local authority funding cut: £7,213. Details: Received £76,000 in 2010/11; cut …

Newbarn Ltd

Charity. Offers communal support, advice and accommodation for fifteen people who have difficulty managing on their own and …

Making Space

Charity. Funding for strategic housing services. Local authority funding cut: £8,940. Details: Received a total of £150,887 …

Guinness NC

Charity. Social housing provider. Local authority funding cut: £93,000. Details: Received £93,000 in 2010/11; no funding in …

DePaul UK

Charity. Helps young people who are homeless, vulnerable and disadvantaged.Local authority funding cut: £36,426. Details: …

Contour Housing

Charity. Registered social landlord. Local authority funding cut: £161,000. Details: Received £161,000 in 2010/11; no funding …

Open Door Furniture Recycling

Charity. Community based furniture scheme. Local authority funding cut: £50,470. Details: Received £50,470 in 2010/11; no …

Riverside ECHG

Charity. Registered social landlord. Local authority funding cut: £26,674. Details: Received £186,784 in 2010/11; cut by …

Oldham Family Crisis Group / Threshold

Charity. Joint funding under Supporting People. Local authority funding cut: £324,001. Details: Received £1,546,621 in …

FRC Trading

Charity. Social business distributing low cost furniture to low income households. Local authority funding cut: £25,375. …

First Choice Homes Oldham

Charity. Registered social landlord. Local authority funding cut: £143,115. Details: Received £971,138 in 2010/11; cut by …

DePaul UK

Charity. Funding for Oldham Reconnect, a mediation service for homeless young people and their families.Local authority funding …

Anchor Trust

Charity. Not-for-profit provider of housing and care for the over-55s. Local authority funding cut: £34,785. Details: Received …

Shelter

Charity. Homelessness charity that runs a housing helpline, has a network of housing aid centres, and works with local citizens …

Nightstop Teesside

Charity. Provides emergency temporary accommodation for homeless young people aged 16-25 in the homes of trained volunteer …

First Stop Darlington

Charity. Provides home and dry service for people in poor accommodation, plus information on securing housing.Local authority …

United Anglo Caribbean Society

Charity. Tackling homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £18,105.63. Details: Received £28,969 in 2010/11; cut by …

Threshold Centre Ltd

Charity. Tackling homelessness; and reduce youth homelessness through targeted prevention activities with at risk groups. Local …

Thames Reach

Charity. Day centre facilities for homeless ppl & ppl at risk of homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £62,500. Details: …

P3

Charity. Tackling homelessness; and reduce youth homelessness through targeted prevention activities with at risk groups. Local …

London Irish Women’s Centre

Charity. Tackling homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £38,366.72. Details: Received £61,386.75 in 2010/11; cut by …

Food For All

Charity. Day centre facilities for homeless ppl & ppl at risk of homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £17,128.75. …

Eaves Housing for Women

Charity. Increase access to services for women with no recourse to public funds to enable them to exit domestic violence or …

Central and Cecil incorporating Cara Housing Trust

Charity. Tackling homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £38,138.28. Details: Received £61,021.25 in 2010/11; cut by …

Cardboard Citizens

Charity. Reduce youth homelessness through targeted prevention activities with at risk groups. Local authority funding cut: …

Broadway Homelessness and Support

Charity. Day centre facilities for homeless ppl & ppl at risk of homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £41,316.88. …

Barnardo’s Families in Temporary Accommodation Project

Charity. Tackling homelessness. Local authority funding cut: £87,592.03. Details: Received £140,147.25 in 2010/11; cut by …

Trinity Homeless Projects

Charity. Provides nine staffed hostels and move-on accommodation in Hillingdon and promotes independent living for the homeless …

P3

Charity. Provides a range of support services for young people who are homeless and/or vulnerable. This is a holistic response …

ASRA Greater London Housing Association

Charity. Anand Day Centre. Local authority funding cut: £6,366.02. Details: Received £48,969.36 in 2010/11; cut by £6,366.02 …

Stevenage Haven

Charity. Stevenage Haven is an emergency homeless hostel that also provides day services and support to ex-residents and help …

Stevenage Furniture Recycling Scheme

Charity. Recycles used furniture donated by the community to those on low incomes. The withdrawn funding was to extend shop …

Nottinghamshire Housing Advice Service

Charity. Provides housing and housing debt related advice and advocacy services for the people of Nottinghamshire, in order to …

Newark Emmaus Trust

Charity. Housing, care and support for the young homeless.Local authority funding cut: £7,500. Details: Received £12,500 in …

Kirkby Trust

Charity. Provides educational, recreational and social activities for young people and their families and provides support and …

Hope for the Homeless

Charity. Homelessness charity in Worksop. Local authority funding cut: £6,000. Details: Received £32,000 in 2010/11; cut by …

Friary Drop-in

Charity. Local authority funding cut: £4,600. Details: Received £18,200 in 2010/11; cut by £4,600 in 2011/12.

Family First

Charity. Furniture service. Local authority funding cut: £19,870. Details: Received £19,870 in 2010/11; no funding in …

Cedar Housing Nottingham

Charity. Provides housing, education and support services for vulnerable people affected by homelessness.Local authority …

Broxtowe Youth Homelessness

Charity. Aims to prevent young people from becoming homeless and inform young people of their options and provide emergency …

Spencer Contact

Charity. Seeks to relieve poverty and hardship in and around Northampton by supplying free second-hand furniture. Local …

Sofawise

Charity. Recycles good quality furniture that is no longer needed and makes it available at an affordable cost to those in …

Phoenix Furniture Project

Charity. Collects and redistributes unwanted furniture and household goods in Kettering and the surrounding area. Local …

Northamptonshire YMCA

Charity. Funding for mentoring services under homelessness theme. Local authority funding cut: £15,200. Details: Received …

Northampton Hope Centre

Charity. Supports homeless and socially excluded people. Local authority funding cut: £3,000. Details: Received £3,000 in …

Daventry Contact

Charity. Furniture redistribution charity. Local authority funding cut: £8,976. Details: Received £8,976 in 2010/11; no …

Corby Furniture Turnaround

Charity. Collects donated furniture and passe it on to low income people who live in the local area. Local authority funding …

Accommodation Concern

Charity. Independent housing advice and homelessness organisation in the boroughs of Kettering and Corby. Local authority …

Leicester YMCA

Charity. Homeless drop in centre and education/skills project. Local authority funding cut: £25,950. Details: Received …

Centrepoint Outreach

Charity. Homelessness charity. Provides a drop in centre and rough sleeper facilities, redistributes furniture and household …

LAMP homeless charity

The Christian charity works with homeless 16-25 year olds by providing secure accommodation and individual ongoing support, as …

Foundation Housing

Charitable organisation, which had provided support and housing to vulnerable families, single and young people for 25 years.

Summergrove

Summergrove is a housing project for families affected by substance misuse + often domestic violence. It is a safe haven for …

Summergrove housing project

Summergrove is a housing project for families recovering from substance misuse and often domestic violence. It is a safe haven …

Amber Valley pest control charges

Amber Valley Borough Council is introducing fees for some types of household pest control, and increasing existing fees for …

Social policy research

Since the coalition came to power no new research contracts have been awarded nationally in all areas of social policy, putting …

Community Support Service

The cuts in funding to the Community Support Service following the removal of its ringfencing to its budget has led to cuts …

Bromley subsidised pest control

Bromley Council has voted to axe subsidised pest control for residents on income benefit as part of its 2011-13 cuts package.

Bromley sheltered housing

Bromley Council plans to cut funding for sheltered housing, saving £500k in 2011/12 and £800k in 2012/13 from its £1.15m …

Bromley Supporting People funding

Bromley Council has voted to cut its reduce commissioning of Supporting People services, saving £300k in 2011/12 and £600k in …

Bromley private sector renewals grant

Bromley Council is cutting £350k from its private sector renewals grant, which will impact on the assistance available to help …

Trafford’s Housing for Vulnerable People

Trafford’s budget for housing for vulnerable people has been cut by £450,000 in its February 2011 Budget.

Blackburn Council Services (many!)

Mobile library service to be cut and library opening hours reduced. Arts and cultural events / provisions to be cut include …

Manchester neglected buildings

Manchester City Council plans to save £12k in 2011/12 by reducing work on neglected buildings, and £13k through reducing its …

Manchester supported housing

Manchester City Council plans to axe 340 supported housing units, which provide homes for the city’s most needy people. The …

Manchester Advice

Manchester City Council plans to shut its Manchester Advice service, which provides free and confidential advice and …

Asylum Seekers Unit (Your Homes Newcastle)

The Home Office has decided not to award Your Homes Newcastle’s Asylum Seekers Unit (ASU) an extension on their contract …

Refugee Council

The Refugee Council, which provides essential and in some cases life-saving support to asylum seekers, refugees and their …

Bristol housing support

Bristol City Council is planning to reduce its Tenant Support Service budget by 20 percent in 2011/12, meaning that either …

Bristol pest control

Bristol City Council is proposing a number of reductions in its pest control service as part of its 2011/12 budget: * the …

Supporting People

Proposals to slash £1.1m from the cost of supporting elderly, sick and frail residents have been drawn up

Dorset property repair and maintenance

Dorset County Council’s property management division supports the delivery of the council’s capital programme, manages and …

Dorset County Council planning services

Dorset County Council is proposing the following cuts to its planning service in 2011/12: • ending staff support to tourism …

Framework homelessness charity

Framework, Nottinghamshire’s leading homelessness charity, is warning that the level of budget cuts proposed by …

Salford City Council staff

Salford City Council is set to shed hundreds of jobs under plans to save £39m over three years. Town hall bosses say they …

Southwark Council staff

Southwark Council has threatened that it may need to make 1000 employees redundant over the next 3 years in order to save …

Planning Aid England

The government has decided to terminate funding for Planning Aid England when its current contract ends in March 2011. The …

Camden Council district housing offices

Camden Council is planning to close its five district housing offices, as well as merging telephone and face to face contact …

Camden housing repairs

Camden Council is planning to cut the housing repairs it carries out through a number of measures: a) Ceasing to carry out …

Camden tenant and leaseholder service charges

Camden Council is planning to increase tenant and leaseholder service charges in order to raise an extra £1.55m a year by …

Shelter Cymru in Wrexham

Wrexham Council has voted to withdraw funding of £44,000 to Shelter Cymru, the charity serving homeless people.  The authority …

Peterborough urgent housing repair work

Peterborough City Council is planning to cut funding for urgent repair work on private housing by around 40 percent. The …

Huntingdonshire housing

Huntingdonshire District Council is axeing its annual £500k budget for social housing grants, and is also cutting funding for …

Rough sleeping and homelessness prevention advisors

The government decided to axe its rough sleeping and homelessness prevention advisors in July 2010. The eight advisors helped …

Will this passive-aggressive Coalition use the credit rating agencies to weld the Union together?

 Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, credit rating agencies, independence, Left Foot Forward, Scottish independence, unclassifiable  No Responses »
Feb 062012
 

The other day, at the foot of a post on the subject of Englishness – and in response to this comment – I made the following point:

It’s interesting you should mention the division of national debt. I’d be inclined to believe where there was evidence of a profligate drive towards increasing national debt prior to any moves to independence, the share might arguably not be so simple to arrive at. Certainly, the current economic crisis, exacerbated by the Coalition, makes it easier for opponents of for example Scottish independence to argue it would not be sustainable. In that sense, such opponents have every interest in increasing such national debt over the next few years.

Today, Left Foot Forward publishes the following piece on almost this eventuality:

Chris Giles, the FT’s economics editor, writes:
The three leading credit rating agencies – Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch – indicated an independent Scotland would not automatically inherit the UK’s top-notch rating.

Scotland could expect to receive an investment grade rating, but some notches below triple A, one agency told the FT privately.

The agencies declined to comment publicly on the precise ratings Scotland could achieve because they do not undertake unsolicited ratings and the Scottish government has not yet sought a draft opinion.

Last month, Martin Wolf wrote for the paper that:

A newly independent small country with sizeable fiscal deficits, high public debt and reliance on a declining resource for 12 per cent of its fiscal revenue, could not enjoy a triple A rating.

Now I’m not, of course, suggesting that the Coalition is driving up fiscal deficits and public debt purely to make it impossible for Scotland to stand on its own two feet.  But it does make one think, just a little I mean, that a clever and wily politicised approach to the issues surrounding the Union would see the clear advantages – for those interested in preventing its break-up – in ensuring that deficits and debt remained high.

Just as any future British government, even if of a left-wing Miliband (E) flavour, would find it entirely impossible to unravel the changes in the fields of education, social care and health – engineered, quite naturally, as befits a government in hock to such sponsors, in favour of privately monopolistic providers.

Without a healthy economy, how could we ever return anything to a semblance of what our society and its supportive socialisation once looked like?

A bit like that husband who materially impoverishes his homemaker – in order to drill into her frightened and suffering head the lesson that escape will always be materially impossible.

And when you think about it, there is a kind of passive-aggressive feel to this Coalition as it imposes cuts from way above – only to then get other bodies to take all the flak.

No taking ownership here, eh?  The sign of a bully if there ever was one.

Déjà vu, anyone?

 a con, Coalition cuts, cruelty, David Cameron, in a hole, Nazism, normblog, reflection  No Responses »
Feb 052012
 

It was called the Holocaust.  It involved killing millions of people because they were different.  It was designed to re-engineer a whole society.  It succeeded in turning a world upside down. 

Now this is not the Holocaust and it won’t involve killing millions of people.  We have – hopefully – progressed somewhat since then.  But, after some of the reading I’ve been doing of late, I do feel rather obliged to make some of the following comparisons.

So four passages today to remind us of what exactly is going on in my head.  And if it’s not going on in yours, you’re quite welcome to disagree. 

First, from this synopsis of an academically minded book on the matter:

[...] They quickly took steps against those whom they wanted to isolate, deport, or destroy. In these essays informed by the latest research, leading scholars offer rich histories of the people branded as “social outsiders” in Nazi Germany: Communists, Jews, “Gypsies,” foreign workers, prostitutes, criminals, homosexuals, and the homeless, unemployed, and chronically ill. Although many works have concentrated exclusively on the relationship between Jews and the Third Reich, this collection also includes often-overlooked victims of Nazism while reintegrating the Holocaust into its wider social context.

The Nazis knew what attitudes and values they shared with many other Germans, and most of their targets were individuals and groups long regarded as outsiders, nuisances, or “problem cases.” The identification, the treatment, and even the pace of their persecution of political opponents and social outsiders illustrated that the Nazis attuned their law-and-order policies to German society, history, and traditions. Hitler’s personal convictions, Nazi ideology, and what he deemed to be the wishes and hopes of many people, came together in deciding where it would be politically most advantageous to begin.

The first essay explores the political strategies used by the Third Reich to gain support for its ideologies and programs, and each following essay concentrates on one group of outsiders. Together the contributions debate the motivations behind the purges. For example, was the persecution of Jews the direct result of intense, widespread anti-Semitism, or was it part of a more encompassing and arbitrary persecution of “unwanted populations” that intensified with the war? The collection overall offers a nuanced portrayal of German citizens, showing that many supported the Third Reich while some tried to resist, and that the war radicalized social thinking on nearly everyone’s part.

Now a little substitution exercise designed to illuminate our current state of mind:

[...] They quickly took steps against those whom they wanted to isolate, deport, or destroy. In these essays informed by the latest research, leading scholars offer rich histories of the people branded as “social outsiders” in Coalition Britain: Communists, benefit claimants (or “scroungers” as they were termed), “Gypsies,” foreign workers, prostitutes, criminals, homosexuals, and the homeless, unemployed, and chronically ill. Although many works have concentrated exclusively on the relationship between benefit claimants and the Coalition regime, this collection also includes often-overlooked victims of Osbornomics while reintegrating the policy into its wider social context.

The Coalition knew what attitudes and values they shared with many other Britains, and most of their targets were individuals and groups long regarded as outsiders, nuisances, or “problem cases.” The identification, the treatment, and even the pace of their persecution of political opponents and social outsiders illustrated that the Coalition government attuned their law-and-order policies to British society, history, and traditions. Cameron’s personal convictions, Tory ideology, and what he deemed to be the wishes and hopes of many people, came together in deciding where it would be politically most advantageous to begin.

The first essay explores the political strategies used by the Coalition to gain support for its ideologies and programs, and each following essay concentrates on one group of outsiders. Together the contributions debate the motivations behind the purges. For example, was the persecution of benefit claimants the direct result of intense, widespread prejudice, or was it part of a more encompassing and arbitrary persecution of “unwanted populations” that intensified with the economic crisis? The collection overall offers a nuanced portrayal of British citizens, showing that many supported the Coalition while some tried to resist, and that the double-dip recession radicalized social thinking on nearly everyone’s part.

Meanwhile, if all the above seems exaggerated on my part, just try reading this story from the Guardian newspaper this evening:

The government’s focus on alleged fraud and overclaiming to justify cuts in disability benefits has caused an increase in resentment and abuse directed at disabled people, as they find themselves being labelled as scroungers, six of the country’s biggest disability groups have warned.

Some of the charities say they are now regularly contacted by people who have been taunted on the street about supposedly faking their disability and are concerned the climate of suspicion could spill over into violence or other hate crimes.

While the charities speaking out – Scope, Mencap, Leonard Cheshire Disability, the National Autistic Society, Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), and Disability Alliance – say inflammatory media coverage has played a role in this, they primarily blame ministers and civil servants for repeatedly highlighting the supposed mass abuse of the disability benefits system, much of which is unfounded.

At the same time, they say, the focus on “fairness for taxpayers” has fostered the notion that disabled people are a separate group who don’t contribute.

So what do you say to that now?  Am I really conflating two totally separate issues?  And doesn’t the latter bear at least some similarities to how the former started out on its very merry way?

As Norman made perfectly clear this afternoon:

[...] There is no limit to the inventiveness of the human capacity for cruelty, and in that sense evil is bottomless. This doesn’t mean either that everyone will do evil or that humans are more evil than good. It only means that people’s creative talents are boundless and when they apply themselves to cruelty no moral or other barrier will restrict them from horrors or from ghastly ingenuities. This is a conclusion written not only, everywhere, in the history of the Holocaust but also in a thousand and more other episodes of moral criminality.

It is also why so many well-meaning sociologies and psychologies of extreme human wrong-doing miss a certain mark. Endeavouring to find preceding causes influencing individuals to behave badly – something one can always do because no human action comes out of a causal vacuum – they have a tendency then to downplay the gravity of the evil committed, as if it proceeded by an unbroken chain from its putative causes. But what the example Howard was given here shows is that such evils always ‘exceed’ their causes, real or supposed. As depressing as it is to have to acknowledge this, they reflect those human sources of all that is also admirable about our species – the freedom to choose and the fertility of the human imagination.

Cruelty, then, of the kind we see displayed in these four passages, is not a question of people who are so very different from you or me.  Neither should we make the same mistake they do as they attempt to separate society into groups of the deserving and non-deserving.  The “bottomless evil” Norman describes, and which I am inclined in its very casual nature to attribute to the ideologues in our current government, can only ever be sustainably dealt with, therefore, if we are able to honestly recognise our very own ability to commit the very same evil.

If the Coalition government refuses to understand that what it is doing is generating such cruelties, then perhaps it is even more evil than the above evidence would initially suggest. 

But if, at some time, a moment of healthy reflection can engender – amongst at least some of its members – a desire to repair what is being done in its name, then maybe we will yet manage to attain a society where we refuse to deliberately blame and prejudice others for the mistakes we ourselves are making.

For to be cruel out of ignorance of the reach of one’s actions is a state of mind we can easily rectify through education. 

Whilst to be cruel in full knowledge of the reach of one’s actions is a state of mind which can lead to only one response: that of despair.

Déjà vu, anyone? 

When a Freudian slip resembles a self-inflicted banana skin

 a con, Coalition cuts, Jonathan Djanogly, Ken Clarke, Legal Aid, Lord Freud, welfare, Welfare State, www.soundoffforjustice.org  No Responses »
Jan 132012
 

Ekklesia describes the government’s performance in the Lords this week quite perfectly:

Lord Freud, for the government, is generally agreed to have put in a dismal performance – getting his sums confused, admitting lack of evidence on Work Capability Assessments (which have been plagued by misdiagnoses and appeals), and having no response to detailed case studies and well-researched criticisms levelled by opponents.

But this is not only happening in the context that is welfare and disability.  The admirable website Sound Off For Justice highlighted – also on Wednesday – the following absurdities in the Coalition’s foolish plans to cut Legal Aid:

Yesterday was is the launch my of my long-awaited report on the Government’s legal aid reforms which found that for every ￡1 cut from the legal aid budget less than 42 pence will actually be saved from the public purse.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will achieve its savings by largely cost shifting to other cash-strapped departments. For example, for every ￡1 saved by removing clinical negligence from legal aid funding it will cost the NHS almost ￡3.

Thus it is that I am unable to decide whether I believe this government to be unbelievably Machiavellian as it proceeds with an unnecessary plan of cuts in order to impose a reign of merciless subjugation on a now hapless voting public or – perhaps worse for us all in such crisis-ridden times as these, where effective leadership is surely required – whether I see it to be simply and quite miserably incompetent in practically everything it does.

Evil or unprepared then?  That is the question.  What is clear is that Lord Freud’s slips were unhappy examples of self-inflicted banana skins; unnecessary but revealing actions of the frankly useless and totally unhelpful.

And what’s absolutely patent is that whilst Lord Freud will continue to enjoy a privileged standard of living, distanced from the violences of this socioeconomic disaster which he and his colleagues are visiting upon us, it will be the ordinary people who will suffer the consequences of this Coalition’s lack of preparation for the high offices it has aspired to.

As Ekklesia underlined (the bold is mine):

Lord Low hit out at the “draconian” nature of the ESA limits being proposed and called on Lib Dems peers (who had been given a non-whipped vote) to “search their consciences” when it came to voting.

On exempting cancer patients, Lord Patel pointed out that the issue was a reduction in savings, not extra funding. His amendment, he said,was not about adding to expenditure but refusing to take £1.3 billion from the most vulnerable.

He declared: “If you are going to rob the poor to pay the rich we have entered a different form of morality”, adding that cancer patients are not “not skivers, not benefit cheats”.

Absolutely spot-on.

And absolutely disgraceful.

And still I am not sure if it is true incompetence or utter evil.

"I don’t want the world, I just want to survive"

 a con, Andrew Marr, Coalition, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, Darwinian capitalism, DLA, Sue Marsh  No Responses »
Dec 192011
 

I woke up thinking I should write about “un calor envolvente”.  The house I find myself in has underfloor heating.  15 degrees Celsius is all that is needed on the thermostat to keep the rooms lovely and warm.  The heat rises directly from underneath one rather than heating up cold air coming in the windows.  No grand convection currents here.

Just an embracing heat.

But I was drawn, like many others, to Sue’s blog “Diary of a Benefit Scrounger”.  In particular, this most recent post, which surely must break anyone’s heart:

I have severe crohn’s disease. Probably one of the most severe cases in the country.

I have had 7 major life saving operations to remove over 30 obstructions (blockages) from my bowel.

I take chemo-shots every two weeks that suppress my immune system, ensuring that I regularly have to fight infections. Exhaustion, pain and nausea plague every single day of my life.

I have osteoprosis and malnutrition.

I have had major seizures and a stroke.

Nonetheless, I have just heard from my own Disability Living Allowance application, that it has been rejected. Completely. I will receive no support at all from DLA. Despite claiming successfully in the past, despite only getting weaker and more frail and less able to live independently, my reconsideration was rejected.

Yesterday, coincidentally, I came across this passage in a book I have been meaning to read for ages but which has sat on my coffee table, glaring at me with barely self-contained fury – Andrew Marr’s “A History of Modern Britain”:

[...] Britain had had a system of voluntary hospitals, raising their own cash, which varied wildly in size, efficiency and cleanliness.  Later, it also had municipal hospitals, many growing out of the original workhouses.  Some of these, in go-ahead cities like London, Birmingham or Nottingham, were efficient, modern places whose beds were generally kept for the poor.  Others were squalid.  Money for the voluntary hospitals came from investments, gifts, charity events, payments and a hotchpotch of insurance schemes.  Today we think of ward closures and hospitals on the edge of bankruptcy as diseases of the NHS.  The pre-war system was much less certain and wards closed for lack of funds then too. [...]

Now don’t you think, in these two pieces quoted above, the first from Sue, the second from Marr, we have both the result of Tory-led Coalition policy and a roadmap for where they want to go in the future? 

The Tory plan for the NHS is nothing more nor less than to roll back Britain’s history to the past Marr describes so succinctly in the paragraph I quote.  For as he goes on to explain:

[...] GPs depended on private fees, though most of them also took poor patients through some kind of health insurance scheme.  When not working from home or a surgery, they would often double up operating in municipal hospitals where, as non-specialists, they sometimes hacked away incompetently.  And the insurance system excluded many elderly people, housewives and children, who were therefore put off visiting the doctor at all, unless they were in the greatest pain or gravest danger. [...]

The idea and concept is clear: re-engineer the nation’s mindset so that future generations focus on the need to gather together mountains of money to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of life.  The endurably and necessarily poor and infirm?  Let the philosophy of survival of the fittest deal with them.

Sue says she doesn’t want the world – she only wants to survive.  The truth of the matter is that the Tory-led Coalition barely cares for her to survive – as it wants the world entirely for itself.

On Osborne’s nation fit for leisurely white males (or how he’s turning us all into laboratory rats)

 a con, Coalition cuts, David Cameron, five-year plans, George Osborne, six-year plans, Soviet Russia, the Real George Osborne, World Development Movement  2 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

My previous post linked to a painful video which is designed to energise us into action.  As the About page of this latter site points out:

Welcome to The Real George Osborne – a 14 episode comedy web series about George Osborne’s personal journey towards tackling global hunger. We hope that you enjoy it, share it with your friends and, crucially, take action.

The Real George Osborne has been created for The World Development Movement by HOOT COMEDY. It stars Rufus Jones as The Real George Osborne and Rebecca Johnson as his advisor, Vicki Reed. It was written and directed by Ben Bond and James Rawlings, and produced by Ben Thompson and Annis Waugh.

It goes on to elaborate:

What is food speculation?

Banks, hedge funds and index funds are betting on food prices in financial markets, causing massive price rises in staple foods such as wheat, maize and soy. In the last year, average food prices increased by 15 per cent, driving more than 44 million people into extreme poverty.

Since widespread deregulation of financial markets in the 1990s, speculators’ share of basic foods like wheat has increased from 12 per cent to 61 per cent. These traders have no connection to the actual food and are only interested in the profit it will make.

And then explains:

What does it have to do with George?

George Osborne, backed by the City of London, is doing all he can to stop EU proposals for regulation of food speculation from being implemented.

But we think he can be persuaded to change his mind. Like all politicians he’s influenced by a need to be popular, not just among his banker friends, but among real people like you.

If enough people email George about food speculation he might listen to us and support regulation. Please take action now.

However, if the words of the World Development Movement weren’t enough, here – from the New Yorker no less – we have the following appreciation of exactly how badly our dear George is getting it wrong in this “Austerity Britain” of manifest stupidities:

During the past eighteen months, a callow and arrogant Chancellor of the Exchequer, empowered by a hands-off Prime Minister and backed by the bulk of the country’s financial and media establishment, has needlessly brought Britain to the brink of another recession by embracing draconian spending cuts that hark back to the early nineteen-thirties. Rather than changing course and taking measures to boost growth, the Conservative-Liberal coalition is doubling down on austerity. On Tuesday, it announced plans to extend its cuts for two more years, until 2016-2017. “Until now, we had been thinking of four years of cuts as unprecedented in modern times,” Paul Johnson, the director of the non-partisan Institute for Fiscal Studies, said. “Six years looks even more extraordinary.”

And so it was with the Soviet five-year plans.

If only our dear Chancellor was able to emulate their early successes.

But I don’t think so.

Do you, George?

I now know exactly what they meant when they said Britain under the Coalition would be a country fit for leisurely white males.

For I now know exactly what it is to be a laboratory rat.

Which came first – the Autumn Statement today or the #N30 Strike tomorrow?

 #N30 strike, a con, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, establishment, George Osborne, pensions, public sector  No Responses »
Nov 292011
 

This tweet says it all:

This #Tory #LibDem coalition was so blinded by it’s excitement at the prospect of dismantling the state they’ve wrecked the economy. #Resign

But a thought does come to me.  Which came first – the Autumn Statement today or the #N30 Strike tomorrow?  Did the unions plan with incredible foresight the date of their strike or does the establishment have something quite awful up its sleeve?

And, by positioning all this dreadful economic news right before a massively supported outpouring of public emotion in favour of public sector workers and their labour, will the aforesaid establishment now try and stoke these emotions to their ultimate benefit?  For as another tweet quite wisely pointed out this evening:

It is perfectly fair that public sector wages don’t keep up with inflation whilst bankers pay themselves bonuses from taxpayers’ money.

With that backdrop of communal logic, I don’t which scares me more.  That the establishment have lost control and they don’t realise it – or the establishment are in control and we don’t realise it.

Page 2 of 6 1 2 3 4 5 6