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.
Wednesday 3 August 2011
Radical parking enforcement
The Mayor of Vilnius in Lithuania adopts a radical solution to the problem of cars parked in cycle lanes : http://bit.ly/oDyoU7
Tuesday 19 July 2011
Fortnum Fiasco
As predicted in my 4th April post "Lack of police intelligence", all charges against the Fortnum & Mason protestors were dropped : http://bit.ly/oiuNft
What is it with the Metropolitan Police? No wonder they're so keen to have the media on their side.
What is it with the Metropolitan Police? No wonder they're so keen to have the media on their side.
Monday 18 July 2011
Will Labour tribalism waste the once-in-a-generation opportunity?
How disappointing. For the first time in a generation the nation has a window of opportunity to break up the incestuous relationship between Government, Met Police and Murdoch media in which the Murdoch press has abused and dominated the political process and intimidated politicians in the name of its imaginary great British readership. (To say nothing of the Royal Family - and I'm no royalist). An abusive relationship in which politicians have felt they had little choice but to humour them and do what they can to limit the damage; maybe even (in the run-up to an election) get their approval. Rebekah Brooks is no doubt very charming, but even she, surely, didn't think she'd have got the invitations to all those dinner parties unless her hosts felt they had little choice but to invite her.
And now the Labour Party, sensing party political advantage, is on the point of throwing it all away.
I would be surprised if there is a single MP in the House who wouldn't be delighted to see Murdoch tamed, and his grubby hands got out of their knickers. Yet on Newsnight tonight, Murdoch was forgotten. The spotlight is of course on the Met - quite rightly, as my previous post predicted - and is starting to swing round on to the politicians. And as it does so, the squabbling and tribal name-calling starts to break out.
The sight of Harriet Harman desperately trying to extract short-term party political advantage from it is pretty pathetic. I understand that Opposition has a job to do, but this isn't the Opposition we need just now. This is a time for a bit of statesmanship from all parties.
Besides, the idea that this incestuous culture is the responsibility of David Cameron is laughable - although of course he's up to his neck in it, as they nearly all are. He couldn't have got to be Prime Minister if he weren't. Thatcher, Major, Blair (especially Blair, and his minder Campbell) and Brown were all responsible for the collective political failure to cage the beast. And the great British public is responsible too, for continuing to buy Murdoch's papers. (Why is it that really good journalism just doesn't seem to sell? I write as someone who has never 'done Murdoch' - fortunately I'm completely uninterested in televised sport.)
Harman kept squeaking about how awful it was that Millie Dowler's phone got hacked, seemingly forgetting that it happened on her watch. It was Tony Blair that sidelined the Labour Party membership - first he consulted focus groups, and then tried to buy the public's affection directly through media manipulation. Riding the tiger.
Which reminds me of a poem we used to read with our children when they were young :
Algy met a bear.
The bear met Algy.
The bear was bulgy.
The bulge was Algy.
I really hope that the Labour Party doesn't squander the opportunity that MPs collectively now have to put Parliament back in control. It may be pretty inadequate as a democratic institution, but God knows it's better than the Murdoch press. And of course it's not just the Murdoch press. The heart sinks at the prospect of the Daily Mail and Daily Express picking up the dropped baton.
And now the Labour Party, sensing party political advantage, is on the point of throwing it all away.
I would be surprised if there is a single MP in the House who wouldn't be delighted to see Murdoch tamed, and his grubby hands got out of their knickers. Yet on Newsnight tonight, Murdoch was forgotten. The spotlight is of course on the Met - quite rightly, as my previous post predicted - and is starting to swing round on to the politicians. And as it does so, the squabbling and tribal name-calling starts to break out.
The sight of Harriet Harman desperately trying to extract short-term party political advantage from it is pretty pathetic. I understand that Opposition has a job to do, but this isn't the Opposition we need just now. This is a time for a bit of statesmanship from all parties.
Besides, the idea that this incestuous culture is the responsibility of David Cameron is laughable - although of course he's up to his neck in it, as they nearly all are. He couldn't have got to be Prime Minister if he weren't. Thatcher, Major, Blair (especially Blair, and his minder Campbell) and Brown were all responsible for the collective political failure to cage the beast. And the great British public is responsible too, for continuing to buy Murdoch's papers. (Why is it that really good journalism just doesn't seem to sell? I write as someone who has never 'done Murdoch' - fortunately I'm completely uninterested in televised sport.)
Harman kept squeaking about how awful it was that Millie Dowler's phone got hacked, seemingly forgetting that it happened on her watch. It was Tony Blair that sidelined the Labour Party membership - first he consulted focus groups, and then tried to buy the public's affection directly through media manipulation. Riding the tiger.
Which reminds me of a poem we used to read with our children when they were young :
Algy met a bear.
The bear met Algy.
The bear was bulgy.
The bulge was Algy.
I really hope that the Labour Party doesn't squander the opportunity that MPs collectively now have to put Parliament back in control. It may be pretty inadequate as a democratic institution, but God knows it's better than the Murdoch press. And of course it's not just the Murdoch press. The heart sinks at the prospect of the Daily Mail and Daily Express picking up the dropped baton.
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Gotcha!
for those with long memories, one's tempted (on hearing that Murdoch's withdrawn his B Sky B bid) to say "GOTCHA!"
Friday 8 July 2011
Murdoch's only doing what comes naturally - it's our politicians that have failed.
There is no such thing as 'business ethics'. The essence of business is making money : that's all business is. We shouldn't complain too much if a business like News Corporation scours the gutters, abuses human rights and bribes policemen to beat its rivals in the marketplace. Like a cat with a bird, it's only doing what comes naturally. We're dealing here, not with human beings, but with what the Apostle Paul called the 'principalities and powers' (Ephesians 6:12) :
"We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world." (The 'rulers of darkness' are not humans like Rupert Murdoch; these are 'spiritual' forces, beyond any single human.)
Any ethics in business has to be supplied by human beings. Yes, we can hope that the human beings employed in the business have ethical standards and apply them. Realistically, though, that isn't going to happen unless ethical behaviour is rewarded. It has to be rewarded from within - the people at the top must define the ethical position. In News International that clearly doesn't happen and hasn't happened for a long time. Rebekah Brooks is absolutely implicated. Murdoch's (and her) ethics are 'do what is necessary to make money'. He and his underlings don't need to instruct junior journalists to hack voicemails. They don't even need to know they're doing it. As long as those journalists could be confident that they would be commended for anything that steals a march on rival newspapers, some of them were bound to do it - like the soldiers that torture prisoners because there is a top-down culture of impunity. Or like the famous assassins of Thomas à Becket, who overheard the king wishing his Archbishop dead, and murdered him on his own altar steps. The king - according to the story at least - had himself whipped through the streets of London as a public penance. I can't wait . . .
Of course, every purchaser of the Sun and the News of the World has also rewarded Murdoch's empire with their custom. The 'customer is always right' in business. As long as someone is prepared to buy gutter journalism, gutter journalism will exist. But it's not realistic to hope the market for gutter journalism will dry up, any more than it is realistic to hope that people like Coulson, Brooks and Murdoch suddenly see the light.
So if it's too much to hope that media moguls in a competitive world will behave ethically, because it's too much to hope that their market will dry up, who will supply the ethics?
Isn't that what we have politicians and judiciary for? In fact, isn't that almost their sole function?
What we have had for the past thirty years is a political culture of hand-washing and avoidance of responsibility.
The old Tory ideology is "You can't expect the common people to know how to run a country. The best people to do that are those who already know how to run a country estate, keep the peasants employed and all that." In the 80s that culture changed and went downmarket. Now it was big businessmen who were likely to be the best at running things (except, of course, they did that so well they shifted most of our manufacturing industry to the Far East because it was more profitable). That meant the only real big businessmen left in the country were the financiers. And how the Blair government feted them! Now of course we know that the financiers weren't terribly interested in running the country either - much more interested of getting as much of their tax liability offshore as they could.
In this whole sorry mess, then, the real culpability lies with our political leaders for failing to govern - for failing to do the job we put them there to do. For failing to supply the ethics to a fundamentally unethical world of business and finance - in fact, for doing the exact opposite and transferring responsibility for governance on to them. And alongside them - and this is a tawdry story yet to fully emerge - stand the police. It seems pretty clear that investigations into phone hacking were blocked at a very senior level in the Met. And unless it was just one rogue policeman passing on phone numbers (like it was 'just one rogue journalist' Mulcaire) I expect to see heads roll at top level in the Met - a police force that's shown itself stunningly short of ethics in recent years and tried to spit out the only Commissioner who showed signs of having any.
400 years ago, bloody civil war fuelled by religious bigotry led to a separation of the power of the Church (the Rupert Murdoch of its day) from politics. Well, theoretically. Now it is time for an enforced separation of powers between politics and big business and finance. Rebekah Brooks shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the gates of Downing Street - or Cameron's dining table. All MPs - or if not that, at least Cabinet members - should automatically be required to resign from their business interests.
And David Cameron, rather than Rebekah Brooks, should be the one 'considering his position'. We need a clean sweep and a culture change at the heart of British politics.
"We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world." (The 'rulers of darkness' are not humans like Rupert Murdoch; these are 'spiritual' forces, beyond any single human.)
Any ethics in business has to be supplied by human beings. Yes, we can hope that the human beings employed in the business have ethical standards and apply them. Realistically, though, that isn't going to happen unless ethical behaviour is rewarded. It has to be rewarded from within - the people at the top must define the ethical position. In News International that clearly doesn't happen and hasn't happened for a long time. Rebekah Brooks is absolutely implicated. Murdoch's (and her) ethics are 'do what is necessary to make money'. He and his underlings don't need to instruct junior journalists to hack voicemails. They don't even need to know they're doing it. As long as those journalists could be confident that they would be commended for anything that steals a march on rival newspapers, some of them were bound to do it - like the soldiers that torture prisoners because there is a top-down culture of impunity. Or like the famous assassins of Thomas à Becket, who overheard the king wishing his Archbishop dead, and murdered him on his own altar steps. The king - according to the story at least - had himself whipped through the streets of London as a public penance. I can't wait . . .
Of course, every purchaser of the Sun and the News of the World has also rewarded Murdoch's empire with their custom. The 'customer is always right' in business. As long as someone is prepared to buy gutter journalism, gutter journalism will exist. But it's not realistic to hope the market for gutter journalism will dry up, any more than it is realistic to hope that people like Coulson, Brooks and Murdoch suddenly see the light.
So if it's too much to hope that media moguls in a competitive world will behave ethically, because it's too much to hope that their market will dry up, who will supply the ethics?
Isn't that what we have politicians and judiciary for? In fact, isn't that almost their sole function?
What we have had for the past thirty years is a political culture of hand-washing and avoidance of responsibility.
The old Tory ideology is "You can't expect the common people to know how to run a country. The best people to do that are those who already know how to run a country estate, keep the peasants employed and all that." In the 80s that culture changed and went downmarket. Now it was big businessmen who were likely to be the best at running things (except, of course, they did that so well they shifted most of our manufacturing industry to the Far East because it was more profitable). That meant the only real big businessmen left in the country were the financiers. And how the Blair government feted them! Now of course we know that the financiers weren't terribly interested in running the country either - much more interested of getting as much of their tax liability offshore as they could.
In this whole sorry mess, then, the real culpability lies with our political leaders for failing to govern - for failing to do the job we put them there to do. For failing to supply the ethics to a fundamentally unethical world of business and finance - in fact, for doing the exact opposite and transferring responsibility for governance on to them. And alongside them - and this is a tawdry story yet to fully emerge - stand the police. It seems pretty clear that investigations into phone hacking were blocked at a very senior level in the Met. And unless it was just one rogue policeman passing on phone numbers (like it was 'just one rogue journalist' Mulcaire) I expect to see heads roll at top level in the Met - a police force that's shown itself stunningly short of ethics in recent years and tried to spit out the only Commissioner who showed signs of having any.
400 years ago, bloody civil war fuelled by religious bigotry led to a separation of the power of the Church (the Rupert Murdoch of its day) from politics. Well, theoretically. Now it is time for an enforced separation of powers between politics and big business and finance. Rebekah Brooks shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the gates of Downing Street - or Cameron's dining table. All MPs - or if not that, at least Cabinet members - should automatically be required to resign from their business interests.
And David Cameron, rather than Rebekah Brooks, should be the one 'considering his position'. We need a clean sweep and a culture change at the heart of British politics.
Monday 4 April 2011
lack of Police intelligence
Police intelligence - at least, that of the Met - is not all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes it reveals downright political ignorance.
The heavy-handed rounding-up of 138 UK Uncut activists in Fortnum & Mason on March 26th, and the confiscation of their mobile phones, indicates that they are seen as a sinister threat to society. No doubt police agents are already deployed to infiltrate this 'dangerous' movement. If the story of the infiltration of the eco-activists in the Midlands is anything to go by, this shouldn't be too much of a concern, since the police informers themselves came to see the police as more of a threat than the activists when they were violently assaulted by their own colleagues, and found themselves largely supportive of the activists' cause. And that unit was planning criminal trespass. Still, it is inconvenient to have large numbers of police itching for some action waiting for you every time you turn up for an action because they've been tipped off.
It can be fairly safely predicted that no charges will stick to any of those arrested. UK Uncut is a peaceful movement that simply seeks to draw attention to a far bigger 'crime' : the deliberate avoidance by many large companies, with the connivance of a craven Inland Revenue, of paying billions of pounds in tax, at a time when millions at the bottom of the pile are going to be experiencing the impact of public spending cuts. Whilst not technically illegal (since it has Inland Revenue approval) this massive tax avoidance is theft from the British public for political reasons : it's about bribing big companies to stay here in Britain - companies that are happy to send the message that 'we'll go elsewhere' unless you look after us.
Meanwhile a small but highly organised anarchist anti-capitalist movement has made quite clear that it will, under cover of large public demonstrations, cause as much criminal damage to certain capitalist targets as it can, and is quite happy to attack the police while they're at it.
In the 'intelligent' police mind, these two radically different movements seem to be one and the same thing. Which papers do the police chiefs read? Is there any 'intelligence' here?
It reminds me of when, in the early 80s, I attended a World Development Movement lobby of Parliament. At the time I was a member of CND - still am - but CND wasn't involved in the lobby. CND was perceived as the Enemy Within at the time. I had had my phone tapped. As I walked through the back streets from Victoria I was surprised to see twenty or so green buses full of riot police waiting. Steel barricades had been erected everywhere, and despite the fact that I was wearing a clerical collar I was assaulted by a young policeman as I attempted to take a picture of the lobbyists for our church magazine. There were about 250 lobbyists in all, mostly over 50 (since it was the middle of a working day), a high percentage of them churchpeople and Quakers meeting their MPs by appointment. That must have cost the taxpayer a bit in police overtime. The BBC news that night reported that there had been a "CND demonstration at the Houses of Parliament" that day, so the police and BBC news team had presumably decided the story in advance. They must have been disappointed there was no violence. Maybe that was why the young copper tried to start some.
Meanwhile, as government is willing to spend billions bribing fat capitalists to stay in Britain another story unfolds.
The Council of World Mission is a network of 31 national churches around the world. It is the successor to the London Missionary Society - the oldest of such movements, founded in 1795, since when its headquarters have been in London. But mission has changed since the days of the LMS's David Livingstone : the missionaries now tend to come here rather than vice versa. Following the departure of its General Secretary, Revd Dr Des van der Water (a white South African), CWM appointed a Jamaican minister Revd Dr Collin Cowan. Unfortunately, the UK Borders Agency has refused Dr Cowan a work visa - not once, but five times finding different reasons every time and changing the rules a couple of times in the process. The message to 13 million Christians round the world is clear : you're welcome in Britain if you're a white South African but if you're black - forget it.
As a result, CWM is having to consider relocating its headquarters to Johannesberg.
Doesn't it all make you proud to be British?
The heavy-handed rounding-up of 138 UK Uncut activists in Fortnum & Mason on March 26th, and the confiscation of their mobile phones, indicates that they are seen as a sinister threat to society. No doubt police agents are already deployed to infiltrate this 'dangerous' movement. If the story of the infiltration of the eco-activists in the Midlands is anything to go by, this shouldn't be too much of a concern, since the police informers themselves came to see the police as more of a threat than the activists when they were violently assaulted by their own colleagues, and found themselves largely supportive of the activists' cause. And that unit was planning criminal trespass. Still, it is inconvenient to have large numbers of police itching for some action waiting for you every time you turn up for an action because they've been tipped off.
It can be fairly safely predicted that no charges will stick to any of those arrested. UK Uncut is a peaceful movement that simply seeks to draw attention to a far bigger 'crime' : the deliberate avoidance by many large companies, with the connivance of a craven Inland Revenue, of paying billions of pounds in tax, at a time when millions at the bottom of the pile are going to be experiencing the impact of public spending cuts. Whilst not technically illegal (since it has Inland Revenue approval) this massive tax avoidance is theft from the British public for political reasons : it's about bribing big companies to stay here in Britain - companies that are happy to send the message that 'we'll go elsewhere' unless you look after us.
Meanwhile a small but highly organised anarchist anti-capitalist movement has made quite clear that it will, under cover of large public demonstrations, cause as much criminal damage to certain capitalist targets as it can, and is quite happy to attack the police while they're at it.
In the 'intelligent' police mind, these two radically different movements seem to be one and the same thing. Which papers do the police chiefs read? Is there any 'intelligence' here?
It reminds me of when, in the early 80s, I attended a World Development Movement lobby of Parliament. At the time I was a member of CND - still am - but CND wasn't involved in the lobby. CND was perceived as the Enemy Within at the time. I had had my phone tapped. As I walked through the back streets from Victoria I was surprised to see twenty or so green buses full of riot police waiting. Steel barricades had been erected everywhere, and despite the fact that I was wearing a clerical collar I was assaulted by a young policeman as I attempted to take a picture of the lobbyists for our church magazine. There were about 250 lobbyists in all, mostly over 50 (since it was the middle of a working day), a high percentage of them churchpeople and Quakers meeting their MPs by appointment. That must have cost the taxpayer a bit in police overtime. The BBC news that night reported that there had been a "CND demonstration at the Houses of Parliament" that day, so the police and BBC news team had presumably decided the story in advance. They must have been disappointed there was no violence. Maybe that was why the young copper tried to start some.
Meanwhile, as government is willing to spend billions bribing fat capitalists to stay in Britain another story unfolds.
The Council of World Mission is a network of 31 national churches around the world. It is the successor to the London Missionary Society - the oldest of such movements, founded in 1795, since when its headquarters have been in London. But mission has changed since the days of the LMS's David Livingstone : the missionaries now tend to come here rather than vice versa. Following the departure of its General Secretary, Revd Dr Des van der Water (a white South African), CWM appointed a Jamaican minister Revd Dr Collin Cowan. Unfortunately, the UK Borders Agency has refused Dr Cowan a work visa - not once, but five times finding different reasons every time and changing the rules a couple of times in the process. The message to 13 million Christians round the world is clear : you're welcome in Britain if you're a white South African but if you're black - forget it.
As a result, CWM is having to consider relocating its headquarters to Johannesberg.
Doesn't it all make you proud to be British?
Monday 14 March 2011
How the NHS is being abolished
Dr John Lister explaining what the ConDems NHS 'reforms' actually mean. Alarming.
http://vimeo.com/20855112
http://vimeo.com/20855112
Tuesday 8 February 2011
The Big Tax Avoiders
UK Uncut have published the response of Boots, Tesco and Vodaphone to the charge of massive tax avoidance at http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/our-response-to-their-pr
They are not accused of tax evasion, of course, which would be illegal. The issue is the willingness of the Inland Revenue to come to such generous arrangements.
Capitalism (in the sense of unchecked ability of organisations and individuals to compete in a market in which they can buy up the 'means of production', use their weight to crush competition etc), whilst dynamic, is ultimately self-destructive. It leads to exploitation, and in the long run inefficiency, waste, social divisiveness and once-free markets destroyed by monopoly power; ultimately it implodes, destroying any who are vulnerable in the process. It actually depends on regulation for its survival. (Business people were strong supporters of the minimum wage, for instance, because it protected them from being undercut by exploitative 'cowboys' . . that's not to say the minimum wage is anything more than a nudge in the right direction).
The absolutely basic role of political governance in a nation state - the one which even the most right-wing people accept - is maintaining law and order and 'defending the nation'. The state has a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. (That's not to say I believe it should be used - only that the use of force by any other agency is even more wrong). That means that regulating the markets and business is the key task of government.
This primary responsibility has been evaded by UK governments since Thatcher - Thatcher, who actively promoted the interests of capitalists. The failure to hold the power of large capitalist enterprises - most especially the so-called financial 'services' industry (who, actually, does it serve, other than its own interests?) - in check has been a hallmark of the Blair/Brown governments. There are a number of excruciating speeches by Brown on YouTube where he is wooing the City and telling them how beautiful they are.
Is it that transnational corporations (like Boots, operating from a PO Box in Switzerland and paying 3% tax) are so powerful that no national government dare challenge them? Well, how did they get to be so powerful in the first place? But actually, I don't believe it. Regulation (which doesn't have to lead to reams of trivial red tape) is essential for healthy business.
They are not accused of tax evasion, of course, which would be illegal. The issue is the willingness of the Inland Revenue to come to such generous arrangements.
Capitalism (in the sense of unchecked ability of organisations and individuals to compete in a market in which they can buy up the 'means of production', use their weight to crush competition etc), whilst dynamic, is ultimately self-destructive. It leads to exploitation, and in the long run inefficiency, waste, social divisiveness and once-free markets destroyed by monopoly power; ultimately it implodes, destroying any who are vulnerable in the process. It actually depends on regulation for its survival. (Business people were strong supporters of the minimum wage, for instance, because it protected them from being undercut by exploitative 'cowboys' . . that's not to say the minimum wage is anything more than a nudge in the right direction).
The absolutely basic role of political governance in a nation state - the one which even the most right-wing people accept - is maintaining law and order and 'defending the nation'. The state has a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. (That's not to say I believe it should be used - only that the use of force by any other agency is even more wrong). That means that regulating the markets and business is the key task of government.
This primary responsibility has been evaded by UK governments since Thatcher - Thatcher, who actively promoted the interests of capitalists. The failure to hold the power of large capitalist enterprises - most especially the so-called financial 'services' industry (who, actually, does it serve, other than its own interests?) - in check has been a hallmark of the Blair/Brown governments. There are a number of excruciating speeches by Brown on YouTube where he is wooing the City and telling them how beautiful they are.
Is it that transnational corporations (like Boots, operating from a PO Box in Switzerland and paying 3% tax) are so powerful that no national government dare challenge them? Well, how did they get to be so powerful in the first place? But actually, I don't believe it. Regulation (which doesn't have to lead to reams of trivial red tape) is essential for healthy business.
Thursday 27 January 2011
A Pretty Penny
At my band rehearsal tonight ('Three Pressed Men') we decided we're going to have to cover Steve Tilston's remarkable song A Pretty Penny, written (amazingly) a few months before the banking crashes of 2008 :
There's some men in this city who are paid a pretty penny
Just for guessing where the money flows.
Certain handshakes, knowing smiles in this City mile :
that's the way you know the bonus grows.
We should be so lucky they're such plucky fellows
Only right they pluck the sweetest plums.
If we don't knock such wisdom, rock the boat or rock the system,
if we're good, we'll get to pick the crumbs.
Chorus :
And behind their hedge they don't plant wheat
they don't cut corn, they don't pick tea
they don't dig coal, they don't forge steel.
They just push numbers all about. They push too far - we bail them out,
keep their fingers firm on fortune's wheel.
Such fine aspirations, their justifications.
Where's the justice I would like to see?
It seems the simple fact is : keeping rules and paying tax
is just for simple fools like you and me.
The sky's the going rate; they want it on a plate,
they'll relocate should we dare to decline.
Well it's a global market : they can take their jet and park it
somewhere where the sun refuse to shine.
Steve Tilston 2008
recorded on the album 'Ziggurat'
http://www.stevetilston.com/home
There's some men in this city who are paid a pretty penny
Just for guessing where the money flows.
Certain handshakes, knowing smiles in this City mile :
that's the way you know the bonus grows.
We should be so lucky they're such plucky fellows
Only right they pluck the sweetest plums.
If we don't knock such wisdom, rock the boat or rock the system,
if we're good, we'll get to pick the crumbs.
Chorus :
And behind their hedge they don't plant wheat
they don't cut corn, they don't pick tea
they don't dig coal, they don't forge steel.
They just push numbers all about. They push too far - we bail them out,
keep their fingers firm on fortune's wheel.
Such fine aspirations, their justifications.
Where's the justice I would like to see?
It seems the simple fact is : keeping rules and paying tax
is just for simple fools like you and me.
The sky's the going rate; they want it on a plate,
they'll relocate should we dare to decline.
Well it's a global market : they can take their jet and park it
somewhere where the sun refuse to shine.
Steve Tilston 2008
recorded on the album 'Ziggurat'
http://www.stevetilston.com/home
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