The true conservative nature of the English

 conservative bias, England, English, political parties, UKIP, unclassifiable  No Responses »
May 142013
 

I read recently, though can’t now pinpoint where, that no single political party representing the English has ever properly understood their true conservative nature.  This tweet which has just come my way reminds of this observation:

Farage: a pint, a fag, no control of his party, bigotry galore, and people vote for him? We need a change in electorate as well as govt.

And returning to the original observation, I realise now how mistaken it is.  It’s not that no single political party has ever properly understood their true conservative nature but rather, quite differently, that such parties have understood it all too well.  And as a result, they have – to a greater or lesser degree – chosen to ignore it.

As I argued some time ago in relation to the destructive swings of excluding politics:

The desire for vengeance, the impulse to recover so much lost time, the blind hatred of the other’s ideas … all this leads to an awful environment akin to a pressure-cooker of prejudice, where time postpones the ability to impose what inevitably become one’s tragic instincts.

Nevertheless, as the pendulum swings back, eventually power does return to the vengeful right – or, indeed, the vengeful left.  And so all those suppressed and supposedly politically incorrect opinions find their voice, their bullying courage and their aggressive channels of communication all over again.

Yet pressure-cookers are only good for cooking food.  Opinion is surely best let out on a regular basis.  As the Spanish would say, only by speaking can we understand people.  And if we choose, on either side, to suppress the right for political movements to participate in democratic process, each time the pendulum swings evermore violently back we can only expect further violence in return.

Perhaps what uniquely distinguishes UKIP’s verbal discourse, then (as opposed to the managerialist and toff-nosed leaders who peddle its wares), is that it looks not to avoid such possibilities of violence.  It looks, in fact, not to approach the electorate from the point of view of those educated political souls who understand the dangers of giving the public what it actually believes in but, instead, to engage the same by giving public voice to all its prejudices.  Whilst traditional right- and left-wing parties have both managed to contain such English conservatism, this doesn’t mean the latter has gone away.  And although in the presence of an economy which at least offered hope it has been happy to simply bubble under the surface, generally out of sight of all those social networks and media as its prejudices are shared across multiple garden-fenced and pint-inscribed conversations, when crisis hits home the fracturing nature of English conservatism has finally found in Farage’s foraging in the undergrowth of our beliefs that pressure-cooker valve I refer to above.

The danger is, of course, that what starts out as a release valve of pent-up pressure converts itself into a political party with its hands on the levers of power.

Perhaps, after all, we do need a new electorate.  But that will only really happen when the real powers in this world stop wilfully destroying environments of support, empowerment and societal liberation.

A big ask indeed.

On the other hand, if your aim is actually to engineer brutish societies of lowest-common-denominator capitalism, those are surely the kind of voters you’ll end up getting.

So conservatively focussed on Ye Olde Merrie England, even our dearly beloved Mr Gove wouldn’t feel out of place.

Talk about one forward gear and five reverse.  In their love of ancient comfort zones, political cowards without exception surely.

In the banana republic that is Cameron’s England, the shittiest government website in the world

 a con, David Cameron, Department for Work and Pensions, digital economy, digital literacy, digital world, England, Iain Duncan Smith, in a hole, web, websites  10 Responses »
May 052013
 

This has to be the shittiest government website in the world – the worst, biggest and bitterest digital abyss you’ll ever experience, in fact.  And it’s all here in Cameron’s England for the delectation and delight of those with the right to claim Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance and Overseas State Pension.

No.  Not those websites.  Those are pretty decent; informative and easy to read.  No.  I’m talking about the website behind this Inquirer story.  The website you are supposed to use to claim the benefits the former websites so informatively inform you about.  Read it and be prepared to be absolutely flabbergasted by IT-shite of the very highest (ie the very lowest) order.  This is how it starts out, at least at the time of writing this post:

About this service

You can only use this service for:

  • Attendance Allowance (AA)
  • Disability Living Allowance (DLA adult and child)
  • Overseas State Pension – if you are a non-UK resident (including Channel Islands).

Rather ominously, it then goes on to say:

This service doesn’t work with some modern browsers and operating systems. Tell me more

We are considering how best to provide this service in future.

You may want to claim in another way.

Here then are “some modern browsers and operating systems” which this online piece of bollocks doesn’t work with:

Operating systems and browsers

The service does not work properly with Macs or other Unix-based systems even though you may be able to input information.

You are likely to have problems if you use Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10, Windows Vista or a smartphone. Clearing temporary internet files may help but you may wish to claim in another way.

There is also a high risk that if you use browsers not listed below, including Chrome, Safari or Firefox, the service will not display all the questions you need to answer. This is likely to prevent you from successfully completing or submitting the form. You may wish to claim in another way.

OK.  So let’s see what systems it does manage to negotiate:

What the service was designed to work with

The service was designed to work with the following operating systems and browsers. Many of these are no longer available.

Microsoft Windows 98:

  • Internet Explorer versions 5.0.1, 5.5 and 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2

Microsoft Windows ME

  • Internet Explorer version 5.5 and 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2

Microsoft Windows 2000

  • Internet Explorer version 5.0.1, 5.5 and 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2
  • Firefox 1.0.3
  • Mozilla 1.7.7

Microsoft Windows XP

  • Internet Explorer 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2
  • Firefox1.0.3
  • Mozilla 1.7.7

What?  You do have to be joking, right?

“Many of these are no longer available.”

What the fuck (pardon my French) is the Department for Work and Pensions playing at?

What the hell makes it think it has the right to implement/perpetuate such a frightful piece of web estate in order that the disabled, those in need of care and pensioners various can access online services and exert their solemn rights, via insecure (not to say unobtainable) software such as Windows 98 and Netscape?

For Christ’s sake, this has to be the most unpleasant piece of casual government cruelty to those least advantaged, to those least able to defend themselves, in many a cold-comfort moon.

This is a shocking disgrace.

Words are literally failing me.

Words … are … literally … failing … me.

#IDS and his expiration nation: not the survival of the fittest but of the richest

 aspirational socialism, England, English, Iain Duncan Smith, in a hole, leadership  1 Response »
Apr 022013
 

Yesterday, I posted on how Mr Iain Duncan Smith’s biggest crimes against England didn’t involve engendering a poverty he wasn’t himself prepared to share but, rather, showing no surprise that someone in England, today and in the 21st century, should be living off £53 a week after regular bills were paid.  I compared this amount to that of Tonga, the 118th richest country in the world – which also just so happens to share the honour of being the sixth most corrupt.

I was then engaged in a Twitter conversation with Mark, who always gives as good as he gets and is about the most coherent and knowledgeable of people I chat online with.  I don’t always share his views, and he does sometimes choose to rather wind me up (not difficult to do in the event), but the debate is always correct and content-focussed and rarely trips headlong into a personalisation of the subjects under discussion.

Last night, as a result of this change.org petition, he made it clear he would not be signing it.  He suggested IDS would even be prepared to do what the petition requested – and thus make everyone look as stupid as hell.

I’m not sure he will, to be honest – but then, as I’ve already pointed out, I don’t criticise the man for not wanting to live in such relative poverty.  No.  I criticise him for not wanting to fight with every sinew of his body to ensure other Englanders can expect more of their futures.

For Iain Duncan Smith, England is not an aspiration nation but an expiration nation.  The perfect storm against the poor is coming perfectly together.  From political parties, left and right, which represent the interests of only the top six percent, to the winding down of Legal Aid, the privatisation of the NHS and the disqualification of those who teach our children about the past, present and future, the poor are now in the crosshairs of all Darwinian capitalists everywhere.

On the subject of an aspiration nation and bettering oneself, I finished my conversation with Mark last night with these two tweets:

@HoboCastro Agreed. So let’s talk about how bettering yourself doesn’t = trampling over others. And then we can have a conversation. #NotIDS

@HoboCastro Bettering yourself is fine. But not if it involves exploiting your power over others. That’s not bettering. That’s bullying.

For this is precisely the issue to hand.  Iain Duncan Smith is no leader; no inspirer of hearts and souls; no implementer of profound change capable of taking his people along with him.  He has, instead, identified an enemy, and that enemy consists of those who are poorer than him: Mark suggested at one point that the market trader who earned the paltry sum of money IDS claimed he could live on was simply a bad businessman, and kind of implied it would reasonably be his lot.  This assumes, however, as IDS clearly believes, that he who finds himself in a position of privilege and wealth is, by virtue of his position, deserving of such privilege.

Darwinian capitalism was always thus: not the survival of the fittest but the survival of the richest.

And that is the nub of this horrible issue: whilst corporate capitalism of the sort which brought Mr Iain Duncan Smith to power is gaming the system from within (more here), they tell us that these poverty-stricken market traders either are a) responsible – through their own inefficacy – for the situation in which they find themselves, in which case they are blameworthy; or are b) essentially choosing to live such a life of poverty, in which case they are blameworthy.

If truth be told, and as I said some time ago:

[...] But when David Cameron says we must “sink or swim”, his fervent belief in the values and behaviours of hierarchical capitalism means he doesn’t really mean “sink or swim” – he means “sink and swim”.  There is no way we can all realistically aspire to being on the top; to spreading the privilege around a bit; to sitting at the top table with our leaders.

In a deeply hierarchical society such as ours, in order for some to swim, some must sink.

And that is what David Cameron refuses to publicly acknowledge when he tries so desperately to sell us his version of hierarchical capitalism and democracy.

Where Mark and I diverge most strongly, therefore, is in this belief many people have in a capitalism that plays by common rules.  For every Amstrad, there are millions who cannot be so.  Imagine if it were the case: everyone wishing to be capitalist producers; no one wishing to be materialistic consumers.  It simply wouldn’t work.  The system doesn’t contemplate such a spreading around of wealth and privilege.

No.  If Mark and I, and you perhaps, are to ever reach any agreement on what an aspiration nation must really look like, then we have to accept that it is our responsibility to help the needy, hungry, homeless, infirm, frightened, sickly and defenceless before we configure our political actions for absolutely everyone else.

And if such radical change is to be implemented at all, it must be done on the basis of true leadership.

Something IDS currently appears to know absolutely nothing about.

But I suppose we should really not be surprised.  After all, for those who conceptualise politics as abuse (more here), such behaviours must come pretty naturally.

On Iain Duncan Smith’s real crimes against England

 England, English, Iain Duncan Smith, psychiatry, psychology, Scotland, unclassifiable  2 Responses »
Apr 012013
 

Iain Duncan Smith, the very English manifestation of a Stalinist inquisition, claims he could live on £53 a week.  That he currently lives on £225 a day, after tax, is neither here nor there I suppose.  Anyhow, in gentle, and yet again very English – possibly even tea-laden – protest, you might want to sign this change.org petition which asks him to live on the aforementioned wage for no less than a whole year:

This petition calls for Iain Duncan Smith, the current Work and Pensions Secretary, to prove his claim of being able to live on £7.57 a day, or £53 a week.

On this morning’s Today Programme David Bennett, a market trader, said that after his housing benefit had been cut, he lives on £53 per week. The next interviewee was Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who was defending the changes. The interviewer then asked him if he could live on this amount. He replied: “If I had to, I would.”

This petition calls on Iain Duncan Smith to live on this budget for at least one year. This would help realise the conservative party`s current mantra that “We are all in this together”.

This would mean a 97% reduction in his current income, which is £1,581.02 a week or £225 a day after tax*.

Please join me.

* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9964767/Iain-Duncan-Smith-I-could-live-on-53-per-week.html

To:
Iain Duncan Smith, Department for Work and Pensions
I call on Iain Duncan Smith to prove his claim to be able to live on £7.57 a day, or £53 a week, by doing so for one year.
Sincerely,
[Your name]

I’ve signed it, anyhow.  I even feel it could give certain wings to my famous Point-Of-View Machine.  It might, after all, be an example others would care to follow.  Get a real fly-on-the-wall feel for how the other ninety-nine percent are living their lives.

What interests me most about this story, however, is not so much the great lengths an intelligent and supposedly political man is prepared to go to be insensitive but, rather, that he shouldn’t have first reacted by saying: “How unredeemably disgraceful it is in 21st century England that a man should have to live on less than three thousand pounds a year.”

Now there is some debate which is circulating around this case which seems to indicate the man in question might be earning a little more.  So, for the purposes of this post, let’s err on the generous side.  Let’s say our typical IDS-man of unfortunate means lives on as much as £3000 a year.

At current rates, if my Google friends are right, this just about equals $4700 (the US sort of course).  And if judged to be something we should not throw up our hands in horror about, this sort of sets the scene for the next few very English years.  At the time of writing this post, it would appear that Mr Iain Duncan Smith is suggesting that, if necessary, being at number 118 of the world’s gross national income per capita list is something we could – and presumably should – be getting used to.  So let’s play a little game, shall we?  Here is Tonga, rewritten as an imaginary England some six years in the future (four, that is, after the next British general election):

England’s economy is characterised by a large non-monetary sector and a heavy dependence on remittances from the half of the country’s population who live abroad (chiefly in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States). The royal family and the nobles dominate and largely own the monetary sector of the economy – particularly the telecommunications and satellite services. England was named the sixth most corrupt country in the world by Fibs magazine in 2019.

England was ranked the 165th safest investment destination in the world in the March 2017 Eurobollocks Country Risk rankings.

The manufacturing sector consists of handicrafts and a few other very small scale industries, which contribute only about 3% of GDP. Commercial business activities also are inconspicuous and, to a large extent, are dominated by the same large trading companies found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. In September 1774, the country’s first commercial trading bank, the Bank of Banksters, opened. There are patently no coherent financial-services sector laws in England.

Rural Englanders rely on plantation and subsistence agriculture. Plants grown for both market cash crops and home use include potatoes, wheat, rape seed, runner beans, and root crops such as horseradish and ginger. The processing of potatoes into crisps and chips was once the only significant industry but deteriorating prices on the world market has brought this once vibrant industry, as everywhere throughout the island nations of the Northern Hemisphere, to a complete standstill. In addition, the feudal land ownership system means that farmers have no incentive to invest in planting long-term tree crops on land they do not own. Pigs and poultry are the major types of livestock. Horses are kept for draft purposes, primarily by farmers working their allotments (a plot of urban land). More cattle are being raised, and beef imports are declining. The export of orange squash to Japan once brought relief to a struggling economy but recently local farmers are increasingly wary of this market due to price fluctuations, not to mention the huge financial risks involved.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  Once you take onboard the idea that number 118 in the world’s list of richest countries is something we all should consider viable – a national duty even – you will get all the shit that comes with being 118th.

Corruption; economic inefficiencies; political and business graft.  A land, that is to say, of under-employment which bodes well for very few people at all.

For IDS’s real crime lies not in his insensitivity in answering as he did.  Neither is it in the fact that none of us – least of all him – believe that he would ever take up the challenge of living on such low wages.

It’s not even in the fact that living on such wages is not the most difficult thing about the situation: in truth, what’s really hard about £53 a week is doing it month after month; never knowing when it will end or whether it will get worse; and always fearing that, one day, unusual payments (boiler breakdown; washing-machine death; illness at the hands of a fragmenting health service) will signal a final nail in the coffin of survival.

But no.  IDS’s real crime is not in all of the above.  IDS’s real crime is in his tacit acceptance that Tonga, as a goal, with everything that such poor standards of living bring, is something we should contemplate coping with – even looking to emulate.

He’s not a bad man for not wanting to live it himself.

He’s a bad man – and I mean really, unconscionably, bad – precisely because he’s happy to contemplate it as something we should all begin to contemplate.  His lack of ambition; his throwing in the towel for his country; his failure to fight his corner for his people; his inability to take on the complex elements of modern governance; his general cowardice; his utter lack of moral fibre … all of this, and much much more, serve to constitute the totality of IDS’s real crimes.

He doesn’t love England at all, now does he?  Or, at least, he doesn’t love the country enough to fight fiercely on all its people’s behalf.

In accepting he’d be prepared to live in and rule over a country which rewarded its citizens with a spending power of £53 a week, and in so doing finding himself able to tolerate the situation, he shows us exactly how much he expects of old Blighty.

Lie down and think of England, for England will no longer think of thee.

That’s going to be about as much love as you can expect from IDS’s England.

And just about the sum of the love IDS is capable of giving it back.

But maybe, after all, there is more of a psychodrama to all of this than we could reasonably acknowledge – or, indeed, at first, be inclined to accept.

He was, after all, born in Scotland.

A country which has firmly turned its back on all things Tory.

How out of place he must feel when he returns to his glorious city of birth.  And how curious an impact that must have on his soul.

Are the English political cowards?

 a con, cowardice, England, English, Labour, NHS, NHS cuts, politicians, politics, poverty  No Responses »
Feb 102013
 

This piece just published by Seema Chandwani on Labour Left describes all too clearly what’s happening to the NHS at the moment:

Across the country, the NHS is being dismantled, downgraded and closed down. These decisions are reckless and defies commonsense considering the  growing population. Regardless of the rhetoric from Cameron, the systematic collapse of the NHS is at the heart of Tory ideology as recently exposed by the release of government documents from the Thatcher era. What we are seeing now is an attack on the NHS to fulfil Thatcher’s once defeated plans.

And whilst the Twittersphere I find myself in appears to be vociferous enough, no hugely physical manifestations in the real world seem to be taking place.  The government is proceeding apace with its plans, it would seem.  Nothing too contrary prevents it.

Seema has this to say on the subject (the bold is mine):

The biggest weapon the Tories (and their Lib Dem friends) have to fulfil their vision is public apathy and naivety. The media’s coverage of what this government is doing to the NHS has been intentionally weak and we are being drip fed myths of desired improvements by a manipulating Tory regime. As I have a diabetic brother and my younger sister is being treated for suspected MS, being apathetic, naive and manipulated cannot be an option for me, I am sure that each one of you have similar reasons or experiences why the NHS is important to you.

Actually, I would wager that the vast majority of English people have very direct reasons or experiences to value the NHS.  If not at a personal level, then almost certainly at a familial.  So this – this personal experience, or lack of it – cannot be the reason the English are not now dramatically out on the streets, defending their future wellbeing and health.

Perhaps, then, the explanation lies elsewhere: are the English, in fact, political cowards?

I don’t mean everyone.  I don’t mean the activists.  I don’t mean those of us who love and hate politics in equal measure.  I mean ordinary people: people living their lives; people the politicians are supposed to serve and represent; people who only have the time to survive, work and occasionally live.

Does a certain level of poverty – or its horizontal threat – make of us all little cowards in some way or another?  When you still have a little to lose, do you prefer not to make waves?  Is the fear of losing everything a matter which leads us to kow-tow to those who are hurting us?  And is that precisely the place where we find ourselves now – as a people, as a community and as a nation?

The Tories don’t really have us by the balls, do they?  They simply have us by our cowardice.

The Liberty Conundrum (or a US cultural imperialism I really approve of)

 cultural dissonance, England, free press, free speech, freedom of expression, Freedom of Information, libel law, unclassifiable, USA  No Responses »
Nov 202012
 

Yesterday, I wondered if the problem we’re now facing as far as our laws online are concerned relates to US cultural imperialism.  I remember tweeting the following two tweets. First, this one:

I’m seriously falling in love with my perception of the advantages of the US Constitution. We have a lot to learn, I think.

Then, this one:

Problem with the US is that they export their freedoms, but not their rights. No wonder we get so darned confused.

And I think it’s true.  As it slowly dawns on me that we in England – and when I say England all these times I do of course refer to English and Welsh legislation – really do not have too many cast-iron freedoms to speak freely, so I become more enamoured by the American way of enshrining such freedoms in a testable constitutional arrangement.

The truth of the matter, however, is that whilst we have become so very used to the US wanting to export us its mindset of liberty, it has been manifestly incapable of embedding elsewhere the rights I mention above – at least with any permanence, at least here in England.  So we as citizens of foreign countries learn to yearn for the opportunities to participate more vociferously in our democracies – even as our own politicians and political institutions prefer far more for us to dutifully listen than engagedly participate in significant debate and public oversight.

Yes.  This is one example where I would welcome – and I think so would you – the complete and utter consummation of a US cultural imperialism.  If only they could send us, whole and complete, not only their goals but also the tools to achieve them – that is to say, not only the desire for liberty itself but also the rights which accompany its implementation – life would become so much less confusing than it currently is.

As it is, we’re really not sure if we’re in an American frame of fair comment and free speech or in an English (and Welsh) context where we must not only step on linguistic eggshells but must also self-censor ourselves with ever greater care.

A Liberty Conundrum if there ever was one.

A very English matter of libel?

 England, in a hole, libel law  1 Response »
Nov 192012
 

Michael Crick, Channel 4 journalist, reports the following tonight (on Twitter of all places – so it must be true!):

Ld McAlpine C4News: “I’m determined to make such an impact on the Twittering fraternity that they start thinking about what they’re saying”

Meanwhile, Business Insider provides some background to the above statement, as it tells us the aforementioned gentleman is planning to sue at least ten thousand Twitter users.

Now I’m pretty sure that he is utterly within his rights to do so.  I’m even half-convinced that I might attempt to do the same if someone wrongly accused me of being a paedophile, and – in the absence of Legal Aid services as a result of this government’s unnecessary cutbacks – I had the independent financial wherewithal to proceed with such a complex legal process.

But I bet my bottom dollar (of which I have very few) that none of the thousands of Twitter users in question who end up having to pay compensation will have tweeted from – or be resident in – the United States of America.  This, of course, is relevant in some small way.  As I posted in a previous article:

Given that the above-mentioned corporations are all nominally American in approach, mentality and ways of thinking, if nothing else this all goes to show us how difficult and challenging it can be to transplant at a global and online level behaviours which other legal jurisdictions take for granted.

“So what?” you might say.  So are Starbucks, Asda, Amazon and a whole host of other corporations which supply the English with a wide range of goods and services these days.  They adapt to our culture; they tweak their delivery; they use our own language out of a need to get evermore closer to what, for them, is that sometimes terribly elusive foreign customer.

If they can – and do – manage to achieve the above, why not Twitter, Facebook, Google & Co too?

Well.  That’s a very good question.  And here’s a kind of an answer.  The American SPEECH Act from 2010, signed by President Obama with I believe the unanimous agreement of both House of Representatives and Senate, provides the following guarantees:

The Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act, known as the SPEECH Act, makes libel judgments against US writers in foreign territories unenforceable if they are perceived to counter the First Amendment right to free speech.

What’s more, whilst we’re on the subject, and as a gently relevant reminder of where we find ourselves here in England:

The British-based Libel Reform Campaign has expressed concern that Britain’s reputation is being damaged internationally due to what it calls “our restrictive, archaic and costly libel laws, which cost 140 times the European equivalent.”

According to Wikipedia, at least at the moment, SPEECH was enacted in part as a result of what’s called libel tourism:

Libel tourism is a term first coined by Geoffrey Robertson to describe forum shopping for libel suits. It particularly refers to the practice of pursuing a case in England and Wales, in preference to other jurisdictions, such as the United States, which provide more extensive defences for those accused of making derogatory statements.[1]

A critic of English defamation law, journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft, attributes the practice to the introduction of no win no fee agreements, the presumption that derogatory statements are false, the difficulty of establishing fair comment and “the caprice of juries and the malice of judges.”[2] Wheatcroft contrasts this with United States law since the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case. “Any American public figure bringing an action now has to prove that what was written was not only untrue but published maliciously and recklessly.”[2]

The difference, then, between Starbucks, Asda and Amazon on the one hand and Twitter, Facebook and Google et al on the other?  Whilst the former have to use English ways of offering their goods and services, properly and heavily grounded in competition with local suppliers and legislation, the software that the latter use to construct their virtual environments has been built around the ideas that led up to the enactment of SPEECH: free speech and fair comment above all – and truth as the yardstick for publishing or not.  The very antithesis, in fact, of an English court’s way of understanding its legal business, scope and approach.

How so?  After all, a virtual environment must be the very easiest to tweak according to local legal jurisdictions.  That they haven’t obviously does beg the question why they’ve chosen to leave them as per US criteria.  And only they can say why this has become the case.  That their business models may depend on scandal and breaking news – perfectly legal in the US itself – does obviously occur to me as one factor which may have influenced such decisions.  But further observations on my part as to why they haven’t made it more difficult for their English users to commit libel and defamation would be no more than idle conjecture.  I don’t have access to anyone on the inside of such decision-making processes, and doubt anyone who does would ever say anything in public.

To summarise and conclude today: Lord McAlpine may manage to clean up that bit of Twitter which operates out of Britain – though I would respectfully suggest that the history of the web would indicate that the crowd generally wins out over a single intelligence – but even if he does, and even if his legal team is as well informed as they would have us believe is the case, I am also sure neither party truly thinks they will ever be able to get even close to any Twitter user operating out of the US.

And if this is the case, it will clearly be an example of a very English matter of libel.

Which leads me, tangentially, to wonder what use our democratically-elected officials will choose to make of the kind of precedent Lord McAlpine is looking to set.

Just as I wonder how they will use it in the future to muzzle legitimate debate and publicly-driven oversight of encroaching – and highly painful – government decisions.

Is it time to get serious about free speech here in England?

 England, English, Facebook, free speech, in a hole, libel law, social media, social networks, Twitter, USA  1 Response »
Nov 192012
 

I finished a recent post on the subject of social media with the following realisation:

Given that the above-mentioned corporations are all nominally American in approach, mentality and ways of thinking, if nothing else this all goes to show us how difficult and challenging it can be to transplant at a global and online level behaviours which other legal jurisdictions take for granted.

I always thought when we spoke of oppressing freedom of speech that we were talking about developing countries in the Third World.

I now realise that there is a reason people call the United States the “Land of the Free”.  In many freedoms, they do clearly fall down on what their people deserve.  But in speaking their minds, they clearly do not.

We here in England have a lot to learn.

Too much for us to properly learn it in my lifetime, I fear.

Now in that piece I chart my sudden awareness that the figure of free speech in my homeland is highly limited by English law on defamation, where the onus in any case is on the defendant not the plaintiff to prove the truth or otherwise of any statement.  The most recent example whereby free speech is clearly not contemplated in such an environment is obviously in relation to the Lord McAlpine case, where it would appear his lawyers are operating entirely within legal structures many of us simply did not realise existed.  An overview of one aspect of what is being pursued here can be found at this interesting post, which examines the technicalities of – in this case – Twitter retweets: the forwarding on, and implied (or otherwise) intentionality behind such a forwarding, of other people’s remarks to your followers.  It would appear that Lord McAlpine’s legal team are looking to argue that retweeting implies acceptance of and agreement with the content so communicated.  The frame which is presumably being used is that of newspaper publishing – with all that such a frame implies from a legal point of view – but I am inclined to believe this is wrong for several reasons:

  1. Twitter is in many cases the online version of that gossipy office or neighbourhood grapevine – only globalised somewhat.  That the offline world generally tolerates without recourse to due legal process such gossip should make us think twice about making the virtual equivalent tougher than its progenitor.
  2. Twitter is – more and more – also a vast debating chamber of hugely beneficial democratic input.  That ministers and governments various across the world are finding it resistible should make us think twice about limiting its freedoms.
  3. Twitter does not earn, for its users and generators of content, very much – if any – tangible income.  Yes, it’s great for networking, which – arguably – leads onto tangential money-making opportunities.  But unlike the newspaper model so many online lawyers will at the moment be eager to allude to, the vast majority of tweeters who might amateurly fall foul of English defamation legislation will not be making a living out of doing so – nor will they earn anything directly from their continued stream of tweets.

But more important to a wider constituency than the McAlpine case mentioned above is surely the fact that these recent events – as well as those to come – show us that speech in England is anything but free.  And I wonder, as a result, whether we shouldn’t ask the following question: is it time to get serious about free speech here in England?

Will future libel and defamation cases on Twitter, Facebook and other social media need a two-pronged defence of erstwhile and clearly ignored freedoms here in England?

Firstly, that the onus and burden of proof about the incorrectness of a statement should fall on the plaintiff and not remain the responsibility of the defendant.  That is to say, we should be innocent until proven guilty – not guilty until proven innocent.

Here we need, then, to change the law.

Secondly, that those companies which have turned the erstwhile client (that’s you and me, I mean!) into product – product which generates income for the former on the back of the latter’s freely created tweets and input, produced in those environments such companies deliberately enable – should also face a certain kind of music when it comes to legal action, given that their business models rely on interesting and even scandalous information being continually generated by their product.

Without such software, nothing – of course – could be republished.  Without such algorithms or ways of connecting people, directly engineered by such corporations, nothing would become visible.

Here we need, then, to change the focus of our legal action.

And with a degree of substantial urgency, I think.

*

Alternatively, of course, we could simply decide to follow the US tradition of almost incontinently free speech.  The downsides are clearly manifest, of course, but in the light of recent revelations in England, and our creeping understanding of how many rights we don’t actually have, I think I’d rather follow the Americans down their route of incontinence than continue with this very English constipation of public discourse.

What say you?  A wholesale re-examination of what free speech should mean – rather than what it has, wearily, come to mean?

Culture Shock (or how a certain kind of immigration is invading our shores)

 cultural dissonance, cultural DNA, cultural rub, England, English, ideas, immigration, neoliberalism, shock and awe, Spain, Spanish, unclassifiable, USA  No Responses »
Sep 132012
 

My two youngest children, seventeen and fourteen now, are becoming more and more Spanish as they get older.  They miss the ways and wherefores of social integration: the ways people address you and assume your reality.  I had believed life in Britain would’ve become easier as time passed.  But this has most definitely not been the case.

Without wishing to sound too dramatic, they are verging on a state of walking wounded.  They do laugh and enjoy their lives, of course.  I’m not saying they do not.  But Britain – perhaps that’s just England – is such a repetitively insistent society.  Variety is the spice of life – but not in the England we know.

I wonder if this state of walking wounded I speak of isn’t being shared more widely by those who would consider themselves natives.  In the past, we lived our lives in a relatively comfortable environment: our leaders were like us more or less; we were like them; people didn’t fake too much; prejudices were shared.

Now, we find ourselves attacked on two sides simultaneously.

Firstly, from within, and since phonehacking, the Leveson inquiry and now the day-old Hillsborough revelations, it is clear that in what we thought was a representative democracy, the only people truly represented have been the already rich and wealthy.  The police have been found guilty of using their tools against innocent citizens; the tabloids, in particular those belonging to Murdoch’s empire, seem clearly in the thrall of making money over uncovering the truth; and the judiciary and establishment in general have allowed themselves to be distracted by power and status to such an extent that digging deeper was clearer not a goal.  As this by-the-by sign-off from one of the Guardian pieces linked to above indicates, and in relation to Thatcher’s own reign and preoccupations around the terrible events of Hillsborough:

While there was no direct evidence that Thatcher or the cabinet was complicit in a cover-up, it is revealed that the primary concern of the government at the time was the impact of the disaster on its proposed football spectators bills.

The second disorientation I can see, an external one this time, and which is also creating a legion of confused and shocked citizens, comes from the US – a country whose cultural content has to date, quite rightly, entranced and engaged us.  Here, we find that foreign ideas, mostly foreign to our own special form of English socialism, are beginning to take over and invade our very sense of Englishness.  This disorientation leads to feelings of shame and guilt; of anger and fear; of all kinds of uncertainties around not change as such – but bad change as per Cameron and his ideologues.

Is it possible, then, that just as my daughter and son become evermore Spanish in their instincts, growing up as they are into adulthood, and even as they find themselves in permanent and intimate contact with English society, so native-born English people – whatever their ethnicity – are discovering that the invasion of immigrants from distant and different countries which is most affecting their sense of wellbeing happens to be an immigration of ideas more than people?

That is to say, is it only that my children are growing towards their Spanishness and away from their perception of Englishness – or is Englishness for everyone in general growing away from what we might argue it has every right to remain?

And if the latter, is this a case where we can all agree that immigration is undeniably wrong?  An imposition by the already globally powerful with the aim of organising a society which clearly does not belong to them.

Ways of organisation which manifestly benefit them even as such ideas serve to prejudice the rest of us poor souls.

Yes.  Perhaps this is the final stage of globalisation.  Where ideas underpin the future of money over the future of flesh-and-blood human beings.

Familiarity breeds understanding, perhaps?

 England, English, London, on a high, racism, Wales  No Responses »
Jun 082012
 

Here are a couple of interesting graphs a Twitter friend of mine – John Murray – has just produced.  The first maps BNP membership in England and Wales according to postcode as per leaked information a while back.

The second maps ethnicity, using the same scale as the first.

As you can see, especially in London, there is an inverse correlation between BNP membership and ethnicity.  A case of familiarity breeding understanding perhaps?

And whilst there are regional variations (the triangle around Bradford, Preston and Leeds for example) which muddy the waters a little, John does point out that when you drill down into the figures the “strongest correlated variables are unemployment and index of multiple deprivation”.

For those who might believe that ethnicity leads to racial turmoil, this is an intriguing set of statistics and deserves to be followed up.  It must also lead us to consider the possibility that London is leading the field in ethnic understanding – and that perhaps the rest of us, certainly in England and Wales anyway, have something to learn from that experience.

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.

January 5th, 2012 – Salamanca, Spain (or my antidepressant)

 antidepressants, economy, England, photographs, Salamanca, Spain, unclassifiable  2 Responses »
Jan 052012
 

It’s the equivalent of Christmas Eve here in Spain.  The children are getting ready for the annual present-giving splurge.  The Three Kings are getting closer to their destination.

This morning, I went with my wife to town and we had a couple of drinks and pinchos each.  I took a few photos – here are two of them so you can continue to appreciate why I love Spain so much.

In the first photo, you can see one of Salamanca’s two cathedrals as the morning fog lifts to reveal a splendiferous day.

“Cathedral Scene”

In the second photo, you can see part of Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor – as they ready the centre of town with security barriers for the procession of the Three Kings.

“Red”

It’s strange for me to be walking these streets.  The light, the blue of the sky, the warm embrace of the golden stone, the depth of field, the corners you turn, the distances you perceive as layers of activity catch your attention – all these details occupy my busy mind to such an extent that I feel calm and beloved just for occupying these spaces of historical weight.

Concrete urbanity is simply not good for me.

Give me green leaves and golden meadows – or, alternatively, cities like Salamanca.

And as I read that since the economy took a nosedive the prescribing of antidepressants has risen by 26 percent in England, I know where I would like to be – if, that is, I were lucky enough to have the means to choose my fate.

Every time Salmond says "Scotland", why not say "England"?

 Alex Salmond, civic nationalism, England, nationalism, Scotland, SNP, thought experiment, unclassifiable  12 Responses »
Oct 232011
 

Peter has Alex Salmond’s speech embedded in three parts on his blogsite here.  I suggest you watch all three first, before you continue with my post.

Now for those of you who still find Salmond resistible, here’s a thought experiment you might like to carry out.  Below is my amended version of his speech, the original transcript of which you can find here.  Not all the changes make sense, of course – national poets don’t translate easily (so I don’t even try), and dialect isn’t my strongest suit at all.

But a makeshift translation, anyhow – just to get your head around the idea.

Do try and read to the end – and, as you do, remember two things: firstly, this version is a game on my part; and secondly, as a game, it allows us to savour the curious – perhaps even alien – sounds of English independence:

Firstly England has many friends internationally. People cheering us on and wanting us to do well.  That international reach is a great asset for this country.
Secondly climate change is perhaps the greatest issue facing this planet. The responsibility of the English Parliament for it is almost accidental. It wasn’t even on the agenda back in 1997 and therefore wasn’t specified as reserved in the England Act. As a result it was devolved.
So given that by international acclaim we have handled this mighty issue so well as a parliament, what possible argument could there be that the English Parliament is not capable of discharging ALL of the issues facing the English people.
I also wanted to say a word about England’s late national poet Eddie Morgan. A man whose modesty as an individual was matched by his brilliance as a poet. He didn’t wear his politics on  his sleeve but he has left this party a financial legacy which is transformational in its scope, and Angus Robertson will spell that out tomorrow..
However his real legacy is to the world in his body of work.
Eddie Morgan once told our Parliament:
“We give you our deepest dearest wish to govern well, don’t say we have no mandate to be so bold.”
Delegates by your applause let us salute our Makar Edwin Morgan.
When I was cutting my teeth in politics in the West Midlands the late Billy Wolfe once told me that the ENP stood for two things – independence for England and home rule for Aston Villa!
In reality the ENP does stand for two fundamental aims – and these are enshrined in our constitution – independence for England and also the furtherance of all English interests.
These are our guiding lights and they are equally important because they reflect the reality that our politics are not just constitutional but also people based.
I tried to reflect this on election night when these self same people, the community of the realm of England presented to us the greatest ever mandate of the devolution era – an absolute majority in a PR system – a system specifically designed to prevent such a thing ever happening
Mind you it was designed by the Labour Party so we should not be too surprised  that their cunning plan didn’t  work.
“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ Lord George Robertson gang aft agley.”
What I said on election night was that after almost 80 years we had lived up to the name of one of our founding parties – east, west , south and north.
WE ARE NOW THE NATIONAL PARTY OF ENGLAND
It is a good phrase “the community of the realm”. It was developed in mediaeval England to describe a concept of community identity which was beyond sectional interest.
The best English term for it would be the common bond.
It does not ignore the fact that sometimes as a Government we have to take sides within England, as well as taking England’s side. Particularly when times are tough we have to ask the rich to help the poor, the strong to help the weak, the powerful to help the powerless.
But we do so in pursuit of the common bond, the community of the realm.
We love England but we don’t believe our country is perfect. We seek to make it better.
We know that in building the new England we must confront our demons from the past like sectarianism and our problems from the present like the abuse of chip butties. 
Some people say tackling these things is unpopular. But the election  told us that the people respect and understand that sometimes it takes guts to govern.
But we shall always govern for that common bond.
We govern – we have governed – wisely and will continue to do so.
We have sheltered the community from the economic storms in so far as it is in our power to do so.
Our people – our community – face a hugely difficult position – a squeeze between falling incomes and rising prices.
To help family budgets we have frozen the council tax for FOUR years and will continue to freeze it through this coming parliament.
Labour say we shouldn’t do this. Really!  And then we would have the same 60 per cent rises as when they were in power. A Council tax rise of £680  for a band D property.
To help family budgets we have held down water rates.
The Liberals say that we should privatise water. Really!  And then we would have been  as powerless to act on water bills as they are right now on energy bills.
To help family budgets we have abolished prescription charges.
The Tories say we shouldn’t  do this. Really! Tell that to the 600,000 Scots on incomes of only £16,000 who were forced to pay for their medicine.
Every household bill which is under our influence, we have tried to control.
Every household bill under UK influence is out of control.
In England we have a prices and incomes policy.
In London the Tories control incomes – except of course in the boardroom- but not prices.
None of these things- the freeze on the Council Tax, the ending of prescription charges, the stability of water bills, are easy.
They are all difficult.
BUT THE RECORD SHOWS THAT THE ONLY PARTY AND THE ONLY GOVERNMENT ATTEMPTING TO HOLD DOWN HOUSEHOLD BILLS IS THE ENP GOVERNMENT.
The unionist parties have lost touch with the people.
Labour and Tories are parties without a leader. The Liberals have a leader without a party.
We govern well. They oppose badly. 
IN THE ELECTION THE PEOPLE DECIDED THAT LABOUR WERE NOT FIT FOR GOVERNMENT. RIGHT NOW THEY ARE NOT FIT FOR OPPOSITION.
Governing well makes a real difference to real people.
Back in 2007 we said we would put 1000 extra police on the streets and communities of
England. Labour said it couldn’t be done.
But it has been done.
And the result has been a 35 year low in recorded crime in England. I’ll just repeat that.
 Recorded crime in England is at its lowest since 1976, when Jimmy Carter was elected President of the United States and Jimmy Saville was presenting Top of The Pops.
Earlier this week a poll showed that peoples FEAR of crime in England was running at almost HALF of the level in the rest of the United Kingdom – 28 per cent against 48 per cent.
 Much of that success is down to the  extra police officers.
 We are the ENP. We believe in freedom.
 But the freedom of people from the fear of being mugged or robbed is a key objective of this Government and the 1000 extra police in the communities of England is a substantial part of achieving that objective.
LET THERE BE NO MISTAKE. OUR REFORM OF THE POLICE SERVICE IS ABOUT PROTECTING THE FRONT LINE SO THAT THE FRONT LINE CAN PROTECT THE PUBLIC.
Right now our focus is on jobs and the economy.
John Swinney and his team spend every waking minute seeking to encourage our own businesses to grow and to attract new companies to England.
We have the most competitive business tax regime in these islands.
80,000 small businesses either pay no business rates or have a substantial discount.
We know, as they do, that their success holds the key to job creation. We will continue to offer that crucial incentive throughout this Parliament.
 LET US BE CLEAR. THE SMALL BUSINESS BONUS STAYS IN ENP RUN ENGLAND.
In the last few months a procession of major international companies have chosen England as the place to conduct their business.
From Amazon, Mitsubishi, Doosan, Gamesa, Vion, Avaloq the message has been the same – England has the people and the resources to allow them to conduct their international operations from a Scottish base.
And what have the UK Government been concentrating on while we focus on jobs and investment?
They have formed a Cabinet sub Committee to attack English independence.
Let’s get this right. Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Alexander sit in a committee working out how to do down England and they engage in this while  the European Monetary system teeters on the brink of collapse, while the jobless total in the UK is at a 20 year high and inflation more than double its target.
And these politicians wonder why they carry no confidence among the people of the UK never mind the people of England.
OUR MESSAGE TO THIS QUAD OF MINISTERS: STOP ATTACKING ENGLISH ASPIRATIONS AND START SUPPORTING ECONOMIC RECOVERY.
We need more capital investment not less, finance for companies and price and job security for the people
And what is their grand strategy to restore their flagging political fortunes?  To have more Ministerial day trips to England.
*CONFERENCE EVERY TORY MINISTER WHO COMES NORTH PUTS ANOTHER 1000 VOTES TOWARDS THE NATIONAL CAUSE.
Of course these visits to England are selective. Very selective
Last week the Prime Minister came to England to hail the billions of investment in the new hot air fields off the eastern approaches.
*However there was no sign of a Prime Ministerial visit this week when HIS Government betrayed the future of Derby.
Over £13 billion from London’s Parliament’s hot air in the course of this year but not even a tenth of that to secure the future of the clean coal industry in England.
Not even one tenth of one year of hot air revenues to secure a world lead in planet saving technology.
MR CAMERON HOW LITTLE YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLAND
When he was making the BP announcement David Cameron claimed his geography teacher at Eton had told him that all the hot air would be gone by the turn of the century.
The Prime Minister’s memory is faulty. It wasn’t his geography teacher. It was successive Labour and Tory Governments.
Like Margaret Thatcher’s Energy Minister who claimed hot air was declining in 1980!
Now the cat is well and truly out of the bag and we know that hot air will be extracted from the waters around the UK Parliament in London for at least the next 40 years.
Can I therefore put forward this simple proposition.
After 40 years of London hot air Westminster had coined in some £300 billion from English water – around £60,000 for every man women and child in the country.
The Tories’ own  Office of Budget Responsibility figures suggest another  £230 billion of hot air revenues over the next 30 years – and that was before the latest announcements.
LONDON HAS HAD ITS TURN OUT OF ENGLISH HOT AIR.
LET THE NEXT 40 YEARS BE FOR THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.
England has the greatest array of energy resources in Europe. Oil, gas, hydro, wave, wind and tidal power and clean coal..
On Thursday I went to Norfolk to announce the redevelopment of that great fabrication site. Once again thousands of jobs can be developed there as marine engineering comes alive in the wetlands.
Today I am announcing a further important development on our journey to lead the world in wave and tidal power.
A new £18 million Fund to support marine energy commercialisation.
This will support the deployment of the first commercial marine arrays and the scaling up of the devices currently on test in English waters.
And this is part of a £35 million investment over the next three years which will support testing, technology, infrastructure and deployment.
TODAY ENGLAND IS LEADING THE RACE TO DEVELOP OFFSHORE RENEWABLES.
WITH THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, OUR NATION IS MOVING UP ANOTHER GEAR.
THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR. IN MARINE ENERGY  ENGLAND RULES THE WAVES.
Conference, right now some two thirds of wave and tidal projects in Europe are in English waters. That will soon be three-quarters. The announcement by Kawasaki Heavy Industries on Thursday of their intention to test in the Isle of Wight underlines the international impact that England is now making..
And as we develop wave and tidal commercially in our waters then we will export that technology across the planet.
Our objective in wave and tidal power is to have not just demonstration projects but hundreds of mega watts of electricity by 2020 -enough to power  half a million English homes.
The green re-industrialisation of the coastline of England is central to our vision of the future.
And the jobs impact will be felt from Manchester to Hull, to Birmingham to Liverpool, to Preston to Oxford, to Milton Keynes to Newcastle.
Onshore wind power has one serious drawback. And that is, only little of the fabrication is home based.
Despite the fact that the first modern wind turbine was demonstrated in Chester Cheshire  in 1887 the technology of the onshore industry was exported to Denmark and Germany more than a generation ago. 
However we can do something about our offshore renewable opportunity.
Our objective is that England will design, engineer, fabricate, install and maintain the great new machines which will dominate the energy provision of this coming century.
THAT IS OUR VISION FOR ENGLAND AND WE SHALL GET THERE.
And in doing so we will create jobs and opportunity and hope for young people of England.
It is the inescapable responsibility of this Government and indeed of every adult Englishman and woman to help tackle the scourge of youth unemployment.
Employment among English youngsters is almost five per cent higher than elsewhere in these islands. We have a near record of school leavers going on to positive destinations of a job, apprenticeship or full time education.
However this is not enough. Youth unemployment is still far too high.
So this is what we are doing and this is what we shall do.
First apprenticeships. There will be 25,000 modern apprenticeships in England – 60 per cent more than when we took office -not just this year but every year – and in England remember every single youngster on a modern apprenticeship is in a job.
Secondly every major contract or grant from Government will now have an apprenticeship or training plan attached to it. For example when Acme Food chose Bradford as their centre of excellence for food production there were 50 modern apprenticeships among the new jobs.
Thirdly every single youngster who is not in a job or full time education or an apprenticeship will be offered a training opportunity. That is every single 16-19 year old under Opportunities For All.
Fourthly we shall ensure that university and college education remains free to English students. We now have more world-class universities per head than any other nation on the face of this planet.
AND THANKS TO THIS PARTY THAT OPPORTUNITY WILL REMAIN AVAILABLE TO YOUNG ENGLISHMEN AND WOMEN ON THE BASIS OF THE ABILITY TO LEARN NOT THE ABILITY TO PAY. 
AND TODAY I AM ANNOUNCING A FURTHER MOVE. COMPANIES IN ENERGY SECTOR ARE REPORTING SKILL SHORTAGES. THEREFORE OVER THE NEXT FOUR YEARS WE ARE DELIVERING 2,000 MODERN APPRENTICESHIPS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE ENERGY INDUSTRIES.  
HOWEVER WE WILL ALSO NOW PROVIDE AN ADDITIONAL 1,000 FLEXIBLE TRAINING PLACES FOR ENERGY AND LOW CARBON. 
REAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR OUR YOUNGSTERS IN THE SECTORS WHICH WILL SHAPE THE INDUSTRIAL FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY.
We cannot wipe every tear from every cheek but we can try. And everything we do will reflect the common bond of England.
The best way to get people back into work is through capital investment. That is why John Swinney has diverted funds to sustain economic recovery.
That is why we have created the English Futures Trust to gain value for money. Major contracts sponsored by the English Government are now delivered on time and on budget.
And this gives me the opportunity to make a further announcement today. 
Two years ago we set out plans for a new school building programme in England.
Led by the English Futures Trust, our investment was to deliver 55 new schools.
Already 37 schools have been committed in the first two phases.
Conference, the English Futures Trust has levelled the playing field in public sector construction contracts. We have sunk the PFI and replaced it with value for money programmes.
THAT ACTION HAS ALLOWED US TO DELIVER OVER 3O0 NEW OR REFURBISHED SCHOOLS IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS.
AND THAT’S WHY TODAY I AM ABLE TO TELL YOU THAT THE NEXT PHASE OF OUR NEW SCHOOL BUILDING PROGRAMME WILL BE ABLE TO DELIVER 30 NEW SCHOOLS ACROSS OUR NATION.
A DOZEN MORE THAN PREVIOUSLY PLANNED.
PROVIDING A FURTHER 15,000 PUPILS WITH 21ST CENTURY LEARNING FACILITIES
DELEGATES IN THE FACE OF WESTMINSTER CUTBACKS THE £2.5 BILLION NON PROFIT DISTRIBUTION PROGRAMME IS CRUCIAL TO ECONOMIC RECOVERY.
NONE OF THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE IF WE HAD ALLOWED THE PFI  RIP OFF TO CONTINUE.
THAT IS WHAT GOOD GOVERNMENT IS ALL ABOUT.
We face a winter in this energy rich country of ours where people will be frightened to turn on their heating.
Fuel poverty amid energy plenty. What a miserable, disgraceful Westminster legacy for our energy rich nation.
Fuel poverty amid energy plenty. If there ever was an argument for taking control of our own resources then this must be it.
The Prime Ministers fuel summit was little more than hot air. We don’t control the energy markets but we can and will do something to help. 
WE ALREADY HAVE THE BEST HEATING INITIATIVE IN THESE ISLANDS
WE HAVE INVESTED ADDITIONAL FUNDS THIS YEAR TO MAKE WHAT IS GOOD, EVEN BETTER 
WE’VE EXPANDED OUR ENERGY ASSISTANCE PACKAGE TO INCLUDE THOUSANDS OF ENGLISH CARERS.
AND CONFERENCE, BY 2015 THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT WILL INCREASE OUR FUEL POVERTY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY BUDGET BY ONE THIRD.
BECAUSE OF THIS INVESTMENT I AM ABLE TO MAKE A FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENT.
A FEW MOMENTS AGO YOU HEARD PREMIER RANN OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA  PRAISING OUR OFFER OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY MEASURES TO HALF A MILLION ENGLISH HOUSEHOLDS.
I CAN NOW TELL YOU THAT BY APRIL OF NEXT YEAR THAT 500,000 WILL BECOME 700,000.
ENSURING 200,000 MORE ENGLISH FAMILIES GET THE HELP THEY NEED TO HEAT THEIR HOMES IN THIS ENERGY RICH COUNTRY.
Delegates
On the way to Newcastle I noticed an outdoor company called ‘naelimits’. No limits is a beautiful idea, and somehow it carries more punch in Geordie.
Nae limits to your ambition, your courage, your journey
Nae limits sums up the spirit of freedom which many of us take from our magnificent landscape, and which we wish for our society and politics
This same spirit was reflected in the words of  Charles Stewart Parnell:
“No man has the right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has the right to say to his country, ‘Thus far shall thou go and no further’.”
No politician, and certainly no London politician, will determine the future of the English nation.
Mr Cameron should hear this loud and clear.
The people of England – the sovereign people of England – are now in the driving seat.
Twenty years ago when England faced a previous Tory Government a cross party group drew up a Claim of Right for England .This is what it said.
“We do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the English people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”
Twenty years ago we demonstrated for that right in front of an open topped bus in the streets of York. 
But we had no Parliament then.
But we have now, and next month I will ask England’s Parliament to endorse anew England’s Claim of Right.
The point is a simple one
THE DAYS OF WESTMINSTER POLITICIANS TELLING ENGLAND WHAT TO DO OR WHAT TO THINK ARE OVER. THE ENGLISH PEOPLE WILL SET THE AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE.
Robert Kennedy once said, ‘the future is not a gift, it is an achievement’.
That is true for England as for any nation. Our future will be what we make it.
The England Bill isn’t even enacted yet it lies in the past. Unloved, uninspiring, not even understood by its own proponents.
The UK Government haven’t even gone through the motions of considering the views of the English Government, the English people, the last English Parliament Committee, the current English Parliament Committee – total negativity to even the most reasonable proposal to strengthen the Bill’s job creating  powers.
THE RESPECT AGENDA LIES DEAD IN THEIR THROATS
This is Westminster’s agenda of disrespect – not of disrespect to the ENP but of fundamental disrespect for England..
The Tories and their Liberal frontmen have even taken to call themselves England’s other Government. A Tory English Government?
If Boris Johnson thought such a notion was conceivable then he wouldn’t be trying to disband the Party!
In contrast fiscal responsibility, financial freedom, real economic powers is a legitimate proposal. It could allow us to control our own resources, introduce competitive business tax, and fair personal taxation.
All good, all necessary but not good enough.
Delegates even with economic powers Trident nuclear missiles would still be on the River Dee, we could still be forced to spill blood in illegal wars like Iraq, and England would still be excluded from the Councils of Europe and the world.
THESE THINGS ONLY INDEPENDENCE CAN BRING WHICH IS WHY THIS PARTY WILL CAMPAIGN FULL SQUARE FOR INDEPENDENCE IN THE COMING REFERENDUM
We have the talent, resources and ingenuity . The only limitations are our imagination and our ambition. So give England the tools, put the people of England in charge and see our nation flourish as never before.
Let us a build a nation that reflects the values of our people.
With a social contract – and a social conscience – at the very heart of our success.
 The society, the country, that England desires, that England believes in – it is not a country or a future on offer from the Tory government down south.
Even that one institution which really made Britain great – the National Health Service,  – is being dismantled in England.
THE TORIES CALL IT A BIG SOCIETY
I CALL IT NO SOCIETY AT ALL
Remember the founding principles
We are committed to winning Independence for England.
And we are pledged to the furtherance of all English interests.
Both are in our DNA.
It is who we are and what we are for.
They are what makes us England’s National Party.
And it is more than a name – it is an attitude.
Over these past three days, at this conference, I have seen that passion and belief in action.
We are a party with a mission, because we know England’s cause is great and we know England’s need is great.
Let us be strong
Let us have our own debate about our own  future on the timescale which was endorsed by the people in May.
And let us decide it in a proper fashion
Our task is to work – to convince the people of this nation that we can do better
To work at building a society which is not simply better than today’s, but a beacon of justice and fairness to the world
All these things will come from hard work, from toil and from sweat
Look around you, look at where we stand
And tell me this was easy – it was not
This was eighty years of hard work
We stand where we do because of generations before us, because of party workers and campaigners who never saw this day
And we shall prevail – because we share a vision
A vision of a land without boundaries
Of a people unshackled from low ambition and poor chances
Of a society unlimited in its efforts to be fair and free
Of an England unbound  
Nae limits for England.

So how does it sound now, dear English people – to our awfully untutored ears?  Does it really sound so terrible a destination for England and its long tradition of diversity and tolerance – as currently, to the United Kingdom, it may very well sound a threat we dare not see ourselves contemplating?

To my uncertain ears, and reading it I am honestly perplexed, it certainly makes me wonder.  There are dangers in such a nationalism in England which I am pretty sure do not exist in Scotland.  The Scottish sense of community which Salmond alludes to is, I am sure, not so constructively embedded across the whole of England and its counties.  Selfish politics was born and bred in London more than Manchester – and the political elites of Westminster have now visited it on us at least three times in the last fifty years, where the regions have wished for anything but.

Even so, such a thought experiment is worth carrying out – if for no other reason than to allow us to try it on in safety, and see how – some day – it might fit in our political wardrobe.

The Tory gameplan for Scotland looks more like Slovenia every day

 a con, England, Labour, nationalism, Northern Ireland, Scotland, SNP, unclassifiable, Wales, Westminster, Yugoslavia  6 Responses »
Sep 042011
 

This (requires registration but access is currently free), asking the highly pertinent question “what’s holding the Union together”, honestly answers that it would appear very little right now:

There is vagueness, certainly, about the SNP’s definitions of independence – but Moore’s are not killer questions. I’m beginning to wonder if there is a positive case for the Union at all. Yes, Scotland receives more per head in public expenditure than some areas of England – though not London, which receives more than Scotland. But this is pretty poor compensation for the hundreds of billions that Scotland has donated in oil revenues to the UK exchequer over the last 40 years.

Socialists used to argue nationalism was a means by which the ruling class divided the workers of the world. No-one talks like that any more, largely because the industrial working class has ceased to exist as a political force, and the Labour Party, under Gordon Brown, has became the party of City of London financiers. We used to be told the National Health Service was the glue that kept the UK together, along with secondary and higher education for all. Well, the NHS is being privatised in England and had it not been for the SNP Government, Scottish students would have been paying £9000-a-year tuition fees. Not much glue there.

I have to say, as a relatively loyal member of the British Labour Party (though plenty would say not loyal enough), the arguments for splitting up the evermore dis-United Kingdom are gathering steam and – potentially – unstoppable inertia.

Whilst the Tories spent years in opposition working out how to recapture England and Wales by hook or by crook, they either neglected to worry about Scotland or – perhaps more likely – discarded its importance to their wider project.  Personally, I’m inclined to believe the latter is the case.  The analogy would be Slovenia’s practically bloodless escape from the imposed union of disparate peoples that was Communist Yugoslavia.  Here, instead of a medieval Milosevic bent on unimaginably physical violence, we have a 21st century strategist only a PR background could invent.  And the result?  Recapture and reaffirm all natural Tory heartlands, enslave and terrorise the rest of England and Wales through a destruction of all its public infrastructures – and, if it so wishes, let a wayward Scotland do its very worst as it decides to bow out of the battleground thus initiated.

If we are to continue with the Balkan analogy, Scotland is Slovenia (when not a nest of Scottish nationalists, a den of all-too-clever Labourists – clearly, then, in the long-term, better out than in); the rest of England and Wales is Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia et al (to be brutally fought over, destroyed and subjugated in the process); whilst the Tory heartlands are the controlling Serbian rump – as well as any other areas of convenient wealth and financial importance (Gibraltar, the Channel Islands – you know, the sort of places we could stash our dough) which might conveniently occur to them to conveniently hang onto.

Oh – and Northern Ireland in all of this? 

Who cares about faraway places …  (But did I hear anyone out there mention Kosovo at all?)

Will Thatcher’s heirs be finally responsible for destroying the Union she began to dismantle?

 England, identity, in a hole, Munguins Republic, nationalism, Paul Evans, Scotland, SNP, www.BestOfTheRest.org  No Responses »
Sep 022011
 

No.  Not the trades union, silly.  The United Kingdom.

It’s a thought.  Whilst an idea which I first wrote about at Munguin’s Republic (please go there for their version of the article if you’re looking for some useful, enlightening and enlightened comments) – and then republished and developed here (a project which I am continuing to work on behind the scenes) – managed to float a couple of weeks ago the need to address the growing tensions within the United Kingdom’s nation states, by analysing and highlighting what the grassroots was saying amongst itself, a more recent comment from Paul on a more recent piece of mine (on the Union Jack amongst other things) really got me thinking as to how unhappy people might be underneath it all.  In much the same way, in fact, as those who saw the ex-Yugoslavia only from the outside – and thus preferred to perceive a miracle of a quite different Third Way to that of Blair’s.  (Or perhaps not …)

When in fact the reality of the Yugoslavia as we grew up to know it eventually led to things as terrible as this.

Anyhow, Paul succinctly said, in response to the post I mention, that:

My family have always referred to the Union flag as ‘The Butchers Apron’….

To which I sadly replied:

I think your family is right. I had it explained to me in visual terms: we find that St George’s cross is literally stamped on top of all the other bits and pieces which relate to the individual nations thus oppressed. A more brash, brazen and overt representation of the relationship between governor and governed I do not think we could find anywhere else in the world.

So it is, then, in the light of all this history (and whilst historians will always insist on history’s significance, many of us might truly wish it were possible to magic it clean away), that the Observer published a long but worthy piece last Sunday on what serious writers are beginning to think seriously about the state of the Union.  I would far rather you read it all for yourselves – and do hope you do.  And although I am only an inexpert observer of the Scottish relationship with the rest of the Union, as the half-Croat I am, I can – to use Peter Watt’s terminology – empathise only too well with the condition.  As I pointed out on the latter piece, in relation to the wider issue of politics and the blogosphere:

[...] Sympathy is for people whose pets have died. Empathy is real 21st century dialogue.

And this sentiment is just as applicable to the sensitivities of national identity.  It is not enough for the Westminster bubble to argue that nationalisms have caused us so much grief – and therefore need to be universally excoriated.  Religion occasionally occupies a similar role in society – politics, in its naked and unabashed manifestation perhaps even more so.  That doesn’t mean that either of the latter should be dismantled and left to rust away unattended to.

As Iain Banks underlines in the Observer piece I mentioned earlier (the bold is mine):

Then Margaret Thatcher took over the Tory party and swung it to the right. Out went one-nation Conservatism; in came deep cuts, privatisation, the glorification of greed and globalisation. And the Big Bang for the City; the deregulation programme that was at least necessary and arguably sufficient to set up our part in the financial crisis that started in 2008 and whose most debilitating results we have, perhaps, yet to suffer.

The thing is, the Scots never fell for Thatcherism. We were always sceptical. When she announced that there was no such thing as society, most of us were, frankly, incredulous. Thatcherism, and the enthusiasm with which it was embraced by so many in England, made a lot of Scots begin to realise that we were, after all, meaningfully different en masse from the English; more communitarian, less convinced of the primacy of competition over co-operation. There was no one nation.

So, the Scots learned to vote tactically, ganged up on the Tories and reduced the Conservative party in Scotland to a rump. In England, even in the depths of its unelectable ghastliness, I don’t remember seeing a poll where they scored under 30%.

And that’s all you need to know.  Yes.  OK.  Nationalisms have always been accused of containing destructive folk memories, which let no cultural stone unturned in their desire to extract both historical and historic vengeance.  But the encroaching nationalism of the Scots (if encroaching is the right fearful word) is – in my poor and inexpert judgement – nothing of the kind I describe; nothing like the sort of nationalisms the Westminster bubble so enjoys discounting whenever we refer inwards, to ourselves, to these islands of ours.

An identity by default, imposed because – so the discourse goes – any other is way too dangerous to contemplate, is an identity with a massive hole at its centre; a hollow emptiness which sadly inscribes an inability to recognise, understand and deal with cultural strengths.

Only when we, in the United Kingdom, recognise that unity cannot be built on silence will anything truthful come in the long-term to these currently dishonest isles of the English.

On maintaining order

 a con, England, in a hole, News Corp, News of the World, order, riots, unclassifiable  No Responses »
Aug 162011
 

It’s interesting how this is panning out.  Whilst at the time of Clive Goodman’s original prosecution, it seemed imperative – for the integrity of the established order – to maintain the idea that these were isolated events and examples of rogue reporters, thus leading to a now well-documented, curious and lackadaisical approach by the police to the investigation in question, in the case of the recent English riots the integrity of the established order has depended on a pretty fearsome application of English law.  Witness this case today in Chester, the town where I live – or, indeed, this case where stealing water has lead to a six-month jail sentence, and where it would seem most people in England are currently quite happy to see this man spend time behind bars.

Now as Adrian fairly argues in relation to today’s case in Chester, incitement to a criminal act can reasonably be understood to compare quite favourably (or perhaps I should say unfavourably) with the act itself.  So I’m not going to argue with the draconian nature or not of such sentences.  What I really would like to underline, instead, is why the established order has seen fit to spread the pain (for want of a better word) so widely in the case of the riots – but not in the alleged phone-hacking cases of News International, its reporters, editors and executives, its apparent police hangers-on and other related folk.

There is, therefore, a clear lack of fit here in the attitudes and behaviours of those who prosecute and sentence in the English justice system which would appear to be most revealing in relation to whose interests are really at stake.

And the implications, if nothing else in this matter, are something I really do find most resistible.
____________________

Update to this post: there is, of course, as always, an alternative explanation to conspiratorial dynamics – an explanation which, more often than not, is actually where the bigger truth of the matter will lie.  Cameron describes the recent riots as “criminality, pure and simple”.  That is to say, easy to prosecute.  Meanwhile, it’s quite possible to believe that the phone-hacking scandal was “criminality, pure and complicated“.  Which might lead us to conclude, without any desire to cast aspersions other than those of incompetence, that it was all too much like hard work for anyone to want to properly pursue its implications.

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