A little broadsheet ballad for the 2011 Christmas season :
1.
God rest you merry money-men; let nothing you dismay :
remember that our government will not stand in your way.
However much you foul it up you'll still get bonus pay
. . . so it's tidings of comfort and joy for Bullingdon Boys, (1)
yes it's tidings of comfort and joy!
2.
You've got the politicians tamed like monkeys in a zoo;
Besides, an awful lot of them are wheeler-dealers too!
You're "all in it together" — so there's little we can do.
. . . but it's tidings of comfort and joy for Bullingdon Boys,
yes it's tidings of comfort and joy!
3.
If tax is inconvenient there is no need to shout.
Your Man in Inland Revenue will help you sort it out
with dodgy deals in Switzerland — the tax-avoider's tout.
. . . yes, it's tidings of comfort and joy for Bullingdon Boys,
yes it's tidings of comfort and joy!
4.
You had an anxious moment when an obstacle you dread —
tighter European regulation — raised its head,
but Cuddly Dave has gone and got you off the hook instead
. . . so it's tidings of comfort and joy for Bullingdon Boys,
yes it's tidings of comfort and joy!
5.
So Christmas has come early for financiers one and all.
Mervyn King can fulminate but, safe in marble halls(2)
the one per cent can celebrate; the rest go to the wall
. . . and it's tidings of comfort and joy for Bullingdon Boys
yes it's tidings of comfort and joy!
Dick Wolff
(1) the Bullingdon Club : an élite Oxford University drinking and dining club in which the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mayor of London were contemporaries
(2) an old music hall ballad : "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, with vassals and serfs at my side; and of all who assembled within those walls, that I was the hope and the pride."
Monday, 12 December 2011
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
1930s Appeasement revisited?
So the moment of truth is approaching. Before long we will find out whose side David Cameron is on. Is he on the side of the people of Britain, some of whom sort of elected him? Or is he a puppet of the unaccountable 1% in the City, who bear a large measure of responsibility for the debt-ridden mess we find ourselves in and who are still heads down in the trough?
Europe is a potential economic powerhouse but - for all the fulminations of the little-Englander nationalistic media - it is a political David when facing the Goliath of international finance. Big Mammon has exploited the political weakness of European institutions for its own ends and brought it to its knees. It's a pathetic sight.
Clearly if the EU David is to get to his feet, Goliath is going to have to be reined in somehow. There are going to have to be Europe-wide agreements on fiscal policy, if not a single European fiscal policy and financial regulation régime. Otherwise, Big Mammon just picks off nations one by one, starting with the weakest. The process has long since started. Cameron may think that Britain is more secure because Big Mammon lives here, but it's tosh. With something like 30% of GDP dependent on the City of London, Big Mammon has got us over a barrel. Luke 14 : 31 -
"What will a king do if he has only ten thousand soldiers to defend himself against a king who is about to attack him with twenty thousand soldiers? Before he goes out to battle, won't he first sit down and decide if he can win?"
Britain can't go it alone. Even Europe, united, can't go it alone. To bring Big Mammon under control, global political muscle is needed. OK, with a dysfunctional USA, we're not going to get that, but there's nothing we can do about that. There is something we can do about Europe.
It's beginning to look like Merkel and Sarkozy are bowing to the inevitable : proposing tighter political coordination in the fight against Big Mammon, and as part of that, a Tobin tax.
If Cameron refuses to cooperate in order to protect (the people he thinks are) his chums in the City of London, what he will effectively be doing is refusing to fight for the British people, and capitulating to the malign outside interests of global capital. What's so pathetic is that he will do it claiming some kind of victory over "European domination", when actually he'll be selling us all down the river and capitulating to a far worse enemy that is wrapping its squid-like tentacles over the face of whole nations.
There was a word for that in the 1930s : appeasement. The Conservatives were the appeasers then, and for the same reason - an inability to identify the real enemy because they could only see things from the perspective of the ruling class. They sold the Czechs down the river then — this time it's the Greeks, then the Irish . . The sorry difference is that Labour have joined the right-wing appeasers this time.
"First they came for the Jews, and I did nothing because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I did nothing because I wasn't a trade unionist. . . Then they came for me, but there was noone left to fight for me." The rules of subsidiarity suggest to me that you must fight your battles at the level at which the enemy is operating. If the destructive power of international capital is to be brought to heel (only when tamed is there a chance of it bringing blessings rather than a curse) there simply has to be international political cooperation and solidarity.
Whose side are you on, Bullingdon boy?
Europe is a potential economic powerhouse but - for all the fulminations of the little-Englander nationalistic media - it is a political David when facing the Goliath of international finance. Big Mammon has exploited the political weakness of European institutions for its own ends and brought it to its knees. It's a pathetic sight.
Clearly if the EU David is to get to his feet, Goliath is going to have to be reined in somehow. There are going to have to be Europe-wide agreements on fiscal policy, if not a single European fiscal policy and financial regulation régime. Otherwise, Big Mammon just picks off nations one by one, starting with the weakest. The process has long since started. Cameron may think that Britain is more secure because Big Mammon lives here, but it's tosh. With something like 30% of GDP dependent on the City of London, Big Mammon has got us over a barrel. Luke 14 : 31 -
"What will a king do if he has only ten thousand soldiers to defend himself against a king who is about to attack him with twenty thousand soldiers? Before he goes out to battle, won't he first sit down and decide if he can win?"
Britain can't go it alone. Even Europe, united, can't go it alone. To bring Big Mammon under control, global political muscle is needed. OK, with a dysfunctional USA, we're not going to get that, but there's nothing we can do about that. There is something we can do about Europe.
It's beginning to look like Merkel and Sarkozy are bowing to the inevitable : proposing tighter political coordination in the fight against Big Mammon, and as part of that, a Tobin tax.
If Cameron refuses to cooperate in order to protect (the people he thinks are) his chums in the City of London, what he will effectively be doing is refusing to fight for the British people, and capitulating to the malign outside interests of global capital. What's so pathetic is that he will do it claiming some kind of victory over "European domination", when actually he'll be selling us all down the river and capitulating to a far worse enemy that is wrapping its squid-like tentacles over the face of whole nations.
There was a word for that in the 1930s : appeasement. The Conservatives were the appeasers then, and for the same reason - an inability to identify the real enemy because they could only see things from the perspective of the ruling class. They sold the Czechs down the river then — this time it's the Greeks, then the Irish . . The sorry difference is that Labour have joined the right-wing appeasers this time.
"First they came for the Jews, and I did nothing because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I did nothing because I wasn't a trade unionist. . . Then they came for me, but there was noone left to fight for me." The rules of subsidiarity suggest to me that you must fight your battles at the level at which the enemy is operating. If the destructive power of international capital is to be brought to heel (only when tamed is there a chance of it bringing blessings rather than a curse) there simply has to be international political cooperation and solidarity.
Whose side are you on, Bullingdon boy?
What Leveson will not reveal
The Observer's Nick Cohen has written strong articles about 'dodgy' Dave Hartnett, the Inland Revenue chief, and what the remit of the Leveson inquiry means it is covering up : "The inquiry they have established under Lord Justice Leveson is a minor scandal in itself. "We will focus primarily on the relationship between the press and the public and the related issue of press regulation," Leveson declares. Not, I hope you notice, the specific relationship between ministers and News Corporation, or on the specific charges now heading to the courts, but on the dangerously nebulous subject of press freedom."
Full article here.
Full article here.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
The triumphal march of the Fortnum 145
So, ten of the protestors that 'occupied' Fortnum & Mason to highlight the company's tax avoidance have been done for 'aggravated trespass' - a new law introduced by a 'Labour' government in 2003. I'm not sure how entering a shop during opening hours and sitting down, and then leaving when requested (clearing up as you go) can be described as 'aggravated trespass'. Video footage taken at the time shows shoppers continuing to shop during the 'aggravated trespass', and a police inspector telling them that they will be allowed to go shortly provided they turn left out of the store so as to keep them separate from a more aggressive demonstration up the road. They were then 'kettled', all arrested, and many kept for 15 hours or more in the police station.
The understanding of the Atonement that is most powerful for me is that which Paul (if it is indeed Paul) describes in Colossians 2 : 14, 15 where Jesus's ignominious execution by the 'principalities and powers' is recast as those same powers being led as captives in Christ's triumphal procession - Roman imperial imagery turned on its head. What he describes as being 'nailed to a cross' we might describe as 'being outed' . . "now we can see The System as it really is, with all its injustice and ugliness exposed for all to see, and know that for all its pomp it cannot stand."
That, I am sure, will be the effect of this abuse of power by the Met Police and the courts - it will rebound in the form of a generation radicalised, with any cosy illusions about the British State shattered. While senior government officials run off to Switzerland to do backhand deals with global companies to allow them to avoid paying billions of UK tax, while investment bankers rob a generation of its prospects and pay themselves obscene bonuses for doing so, while their political stooges run behind them collecting their ordure and tipping it on the heads of the poor and vulnerable, those who dare to shout that The System is broken and no longer fit for purpose are done for aggravated trespass. Now we see it : no more illusions.
It's true that I lost my illusions about the British State - and especially the Met Police - years ago. A generation ago, in fact. The war waged on the people the prime minister of the day called the 'Enemy Within', and the covert operations against peace activists, destroyed my faith in the beneficence of the State for good. But just because we see here power doing what power will always do - protect privilege, protect its own power, victimise the weak - doesn't mean that it doesn't still make me angry.
Donate to the appeal costs to keep that triumphal march rolling.
The understanding of the Atonement that is most powerful for me is that which Paul (if it is indeed Paul) describes in Colossians 2 : 14, 15 where Jesus's ignominious execution by the 'principalities and powers' is recast as those same powers being led as captives in Christ's triumphal procession - Roman imperial imagery turned on its head. What he describes as being 'nailed to a cross' we might describe as 'being outed' . . "now we can see The System as it really is, with all its injustice and ugliness exposed for all to see, and know that for all its pomp it cannot stand."
That, I am sure, will be the effect of this abuse of power by the Met Police and the courts - it will rebound in the form of a generation radicalised, with any cosy illusions about the British State shattered. While senior government officials run off to Switzerland to do backhand deals with global companies to allow them to avoid paying billions of UK tax, while investment bankers rob a generation of its prospects and pay themselves obscene bonuses for doing so, while their political stooges run behind them collecting their ordure and tipping it on the heads of the poor and vulnerable, those who dare to shout that The System is broken and no longer fit for purpose are done for aggravated trespass. Now we see it : no more illusions.
It's true that I lost my illusions about the British State - and especially the Met Police - years ago. A generation ago, in fact. The war waged on the people the prime minister of the day called the 'Enemy Within', and the covert operations against peace activists, destroyed my faith in the beneficence of the State for good. But just because we see here power doing what power will always do - protect privilege, protect its own power, victimise the weak - doesn't mean that it doesn't still make me angry.
Donate to the appeal costs to keep that triumphal march rolling.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
thank you, Giles Fraser
letter posted today to Revd Dr Giles Fraser, until today a Canon of St Paul's Cathedral in London :
Dear Dr Fraser,
I write to express my appreciation of the stand you have taken over the protest mounted by the 'Occupy London Stock Exchange' at St Paul's, which is echoed by similar protests across the world.
Over the last thirty years we have seen another 'occupation' going on : a progressive 'occupation' of supposedly democratic structures by financial power. An 'occupation' very much more damaging to the 'health and safety' of vast numbers of people. I trace the start of this 'occupation' to Margaret Thatcher's prime ministership — a Prime Minister who believed that business people were the sort of people who knew best how to run things. As indeed they did : they ran things so well that they took much of our manufacturing industry overseas. The financiers took their place, but by the time this happened finance had gone truly global, breaking the human bonds that bound it such that powerful financial institutions could bring whole countries to their knees. These institutions have proved adept — with a little assistance from HMRC — at offshoring their profits to avoid tax responsibilities, accountable to no one save themselves.
We have ended up with the sorry spectacle of our elected politicians running scared of the press and even more scared of the markets. For myself, I believe that we elect politicians (of which, in a humble way, I am one, as a Green member of Oxford City Council) to provide the ethical rules by which finance and business run. I'm not sure what else politicians are there for, really, apart perhaps from avoiding wars. Maybe I am naïve in believing that in fact it is in business's interest to have the playing field marked out and the rules defined and policed. An ungoverned financial sector (which is pretty much what we now have) was inevitably going to lead to mayhem; and it always was going to rebound hardest on the people at the bottom of the pile who (according to my understanding of the Hebrew scriptures) are precisely the people 'kings' are there to defend.
The penetration of financiers into the corridors of power is very deep. If some of the blogs I read are to be believed, their penetration into the corridors of power in the Church of England — and St Paul's Cathedral in particular — is also significant.
As a United Reformed Church minister, I have been brought up to believe in the separation of powers of Church and State. Perhaps the equivalent of this for our time needs to be the separation of powers of State and the New Religion of the great god Mammon whose temples rise to the sky around St Paul's, asserting their dominance.
When the 'Occupy' protest first began outside St Paul's I felt that this would be a crucial test of the Church's witness against the principalities and powers. We prayed for you at Temple Cowley URC that Sunday morning, as we reflected on the Gospel reading, "Render to Cæsar . . ." I prayed that the cathedral would stand the test, because its witness was not just its witness only, but on behalf of the whole ecumenical Church in these islands. (Most of those watching the protest from a distance have little sense of the distinctions between churches.) When, to my dismay, comments leaked out that St Paul's was concerned about its loss of revenue, I hoped that the Church of England would step up to the plate with its backing, and made a small donation myself. But it was an ominous sign. In recent days, it was becoming increasingly clear that the cathedral was going to 'revert to type' as a pillar of the Establishment, the church of kings and princes — confirming every stereotype and hampering the Christian mission for another generation.
Your resignation restores my hope that there is some Christian faith lurking in the Church, even in its most Establishment bastions . . . and even if those with that faith have to resign to prove it. I hope the brothers and sisters you leave behind will reflect hard on their priorities and 'decide this day whom they will serve'. And I wish you the very best for your own future.
Dear Dr Fraser,
I write to express my appreciation of the stand you have taken over the protest mounted by the 'Occupy London Stock Exchange' at St Paul's, which is echoed by similar protests across the world.
Over the last thirty years we have seen another 'occupation' going on : a progressive 'occupation' of supposedly democratic structures by financial power. An 'occupation' very much more damaging to the 'health and safety' of vast numbers of people. I trace the start of this 'occupation' to Margaret Thatcher's prime ministership — a Prime Minister who believed that business people were the sort of people who knew best how to run things. As indeed they did : they ran things so well that they took much of our manufacturing industry overseas. The financiers took their place, but by the time this happened finance had gone truly global, breaking the human bonds that bound it such that powerful financial institutions could bring whole countries to their knees. These institutions have proved adept — with a little assistance from HMRC — at offshoring their profits to avoid tax responsibilities, accountable to no one save themselves.
We have ended up with the sorry spectacle of our elected politicians running scared of the press and even more scared of the markets. For myself, I believe that we elect politicians (of which, in a humble way, I am one, as a Green member of Oxford City Council) to provide the ethical rules by which finance and business run. I'm not sure what else politicians are there for, really, apart perhaps from avoiding wars. Maybe I am naïve in believing that in fact it is in business's interest to have the playing field marked out and the rules defined and policed. An ungoverned financial sector (which is pretty much what we now have) was inevitably going to lead to mayhem; and it always was going to rebound hardest on the people at the bottom of the pile who (according to my understanding of the Hebrew scriptures) are precisely the people 'kings' are there to defend.
The penetration of financiers into the corridors of power is very deep. If some of the blogs I read are to be believed, their penetration into the corridors of power in the Church of England — and St Paul's Cathedral in particular — is also significant.
As a United Reformed Church minister, I have been brought up to believe in the separation of powers of Church and State. Perhaps the equivalent of this for our time needs to be the separation of powers of State and the New Religion of the great god Mammon whose temples rise to the sky around St Paul's, asserting their dominance.
When the 'Occupy' protest first began outside St Paul's I felt that this would be a crucial test of the Church's witness against the principalities and powers. We prayed for you at Temple Cowley URC that Sunday morning, as we reflected on the Gospel reading, "Render to Cæsar . . ." I prayed that the cathedral would stand the test, because its witness was not just its witness only, but on behalf of the whole ecumenical Church in these islands. (Most of those watching the protest from a distance have little sense of the distinctions between churches.) When, to my dismay, comments leaked out that St Paul's was concerned about its loss of revenue, I hoped that the Church of England would step up to the plate with its backing, and made a small donation myself. But it was an ominous sign. In recent days, it was becoming increasingly clear that the cathedral was going to 'revert to type' as a pillar of the Establishment, the church of kings and princes — confirming every stereotype and hampering the Christian mission for another generation.
Your resignation restores my hope that there is some Christian faith lurking in the Church, even in its most Establishment bastions . . . and even if those with that faith have to resign to prove it. I hope the brothers and sisters you leave behind will reflect hard on their priorities and 'decide this day whom they will serve'. And I wish you the very best for your own future.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
a letter to the Bahraini ambassador
posted Saturday :
Her Excellency Mrs. Alice Thomas Samaan
Bahrain Embassy - London
30 Belgrave Square
LONDON, SW1X 8QB
Dear Mrs Samaan,
You will be all too aware, as are many in this country, of the 15 year sentences passed against a number of doctors and nurses in Bahrain for treating casualties of disturbances earlier this year. I believe that their appeal commences tomorrow (Sunday).
I imagine that as Bahraini ambassador in the UK you must be deeply embarrassed by this treatment of medical staff for doing what every doctor in the world knows is a doctor's primary responsibility, regardless of circumstances. The fact that, it seems, your country's government and legal profession seem unaware of this basic promise speaks volumes about their understanding of what it means either to be a nation or to be a human being, let alone a doctor. I can just imagine how many people will want to serve in Bahrain's hospitals now . . . I hope that other countries' hospitals will gain from Bahrain's loss.
I cannot imagine that there is anything in the moral code of any of the world's main religions that would consider the treatment of casualties a punishable offence. I am sure that there is no such teaching anywhere in Islam, and there is certainly nothing of this in my own Christian tradition. Even if the people they treated had been enemy soldiers at war with Bahrain, the Geneva Conventions would require the wounds of enemy combatants to be treated by Bahrain's doctors. I need to make this clear, because the claims of some in your government that the injured were effectively enemy combatants is utterly irrelevant, even if it were true (which I don't know). Is Bahrain not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions?
It is true that those conventions have been sorely breached by US and British forces in Iraq and elsewhere, but you will be aware that this led to an outcry of embarrassment from the public and disciplinary action against those responsible — although that disciplinary action did not, in my view, go nearly far or high enough. It is the responsibility of those in the highest positions to make clear what standards are applying. Any suggestion that abuse of prisoners will not be dealt with immediately and robustly creates conditions lower down the chain of command where abuse is almost guaranteed to happen. That is why it is particularly alarming to see a government not only tolerating brutal treatment of its own people, but even penalising those who do their duty to the wounded.
I have to say that, inevitably, this is a sign of the beginning of the end for any state, because it has started to cease functioning as a state. Instead it is starting to function as an élite at war with its own people. Its days are inevitably numbered because it cannot last. The end may come swiftly, or after many years of misery and brutality, but come it will.
I did not know much about Bahrain before, although I have passed through briefly en route for India. The little I now know about it is that it is a state that is beginning to fail, cut off from the world and living by values that reflect no understanding of what makes a nation's life worth living, and no respect for individual human life — even the human life of its own citizens.
I hope you will speak into the closed world of your country's rulers and at least tell them what an embarrassing position they are putting you in. In your position, I would be resigning, I think : I couldn't bear the humiliation. But maybe it is not too late to prevent the inevitable decline into a failed state, if you can persuade your rulers to overturn these bizarre convictions.
Yours sincerely,
Her Excellency Mrs. Alice Thomas Samaan
Bahrain Embassy - London
30 Belgrave Square
LONDON, SW1X 8QB
Dear Mrs Samaan,
You will be all too aware, as are many in this country, of the 15 year sentences passed against a number of doctors and nurses in Bahrain for treating casualties of disturbances earlier this year. I believe that their appeal commences tomorrow (Sunday).
I imagine that as Bahraini ambassador in the UK you must be deeply embarrassed by this treatment of medical staff for doing what every doctor in the world knows is a doctor's primary responsibility, regardless of circumstances. The fact that, it seems, your country's government and legal profession seem unaware of this basic promise speaks volumes about their understanding of what it means either to be a nation or to be a human being, let alone a doctor. I can just imagine how many people will want to serve in Bahrain's hospitals now . . . I hope that other countries' hospitals will gain from Bahrain's loss.
I cannot imagine that there is anything in the moral code of any of the world's main religions that would consider the treatment of casualties a punishable offence. I am sure that there is no such teaching anywhere in Islam, and there is certainly nothing of this in my own Christian tradition. Even if the people they treated had been enemy soldiers at war with Bahrain, the Geneva Conventions would require the wounds of enemy combatants to be treated by Bahrain's doctors. I need to make this clear, because the claims of some in your government that the injured were effectively enemy combatants is utterly irrelevant, even if it were true (which I don't know). Is Bahrain not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions?
It is true that those conventions have been sorely breached by US and British forces in Iraq and elsewhere, but you will be aware that this led to an outcry of embarrassment from the public and disciplinary action against those responsible — although that disciplinary action did not, in my view, go nearly far or high enough. It is the responsibility of those in the highest positions to make clear what standards are applying. Any suggestion that abuse of prisoners will not be dealt with immediately and robustly creates conditions lower down the chain of command where abuse is almost guaranteed to happen. That is why it is particularly alarming to see a government not only tolerating brutal treatment of its own people, but even penalising those who do their duty to the wounded.
I have to say that, inevitably, this is a sign of the beginning of the end for any state, because it has started to cease functioning as a state. Instead it is starting to function as an élite at war with its own people. Its days are inevitably numbered because it cannot last. The end may come swiftly, or after many years of misery and brutality, but come it will.
I did not know much about Bahrain before, although I have passed through briefly en route for India. The little I now know about it is that it is a state that is beginning to fail, cut off from the world and living by values that reflect no understanding of what makes a nation's life worth living, and no respect for individual human life — even the human life of its own citizens.
I hope you will speak into the closed world of your country's rulers and at least tell them what an embarrassing position they are putting you in. In your position, I would be resigning, I think : I couldn't bear the humiliation. But maybe it is not too late to prevent the inevitable decline into a failed state, if you can persuade your rulers to overturn these bizarre convictions.
Yours sincerely,
Thursday, 4 August 2011
About-face on Whistleblowing
Back in 2009, the Nursing & Midwifery Council struck off a care nurse, Margaret Haywood, who four years before had blown the whistle on neglect and abuse of vulnerable elderly residents in a care home. She was struck off for life for breaching her professional code of conduct, having gone undercover to help Panorama produce a programme exposing the home.
Radio 4's Jenni Murray had written in The Guardian protesting, and there was apparently a massive public response. In late 2009, following the Royal College of Nursing's appeal against the decision, the NMC effectively apologised and reinstated her.
This week, The Independent reports chairman of the government's Health Select Committee Stephen Dorrell as saying he wants the regulators to show "real leadership" in changing the culture to ensure whistleblowing is seen as a professional obligation and not a choice!
I hope Margaret Haywood feels her four years of misery were worth it, and wanted to post this blog as a tribute. Now, more than ever, when the fat-cat-induced cuts are slashing resources for the care of the most vulnerable, we need all the whistleblowers we can get.
Radio 4's Jenni Murray had written in The Guardian protesting, and there was apparently a massive public response. In late 2009, following the Royal College of Nursing's appeal against the decision, the NMC effectively apologised and reinstated her.
This week, The Independent reports chairman of the government's Health Select Committee Stephen Dorrell as saying he wants the regulators to show "real leadership" in changing the culture to ensure whistleblowing is seen as a professional obligation and not a choice!
I hope Margaret Haywood feels her four years of misery were worth it, and wanted to post this blog as a tribute. Now, more than ever, when the fat-cat-induced cuts are slashing resources for the care of the most vulnerable, we need all the whistleblowers we can get.
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