Thursday, 4 January 2018
Monday, 3 January 2011
First Preview - The Millennial Divine Comedy
Nel mezzo del cammin. Dante meant that he was thirty-five when he started his great journey. But what about these days? When Dante said it he was thinking of the Book of Genesis, which said that in the ideal world (of the Book of Genesis) a man should normally make threescore and ten. But how many of them did in Dante’s time, or in the time of the Book of Genesis for that matter? Even poor Signor Alighieri only had twenty-one years to go after his mezzo.
I’m not over-optimistic. My father got caught cold by cancer in his early fifties, and I remember passing a dull train journey, shortly after his death, by making pointless calculations. I came up with a start, however, on working out that, if I were to live as long as he had, I was already two weeks into the second half of my life. I was twenty-six.
But now I had reached an unarguable mezzo, in the form of a half-century, however unimpressively nudged and nurdled. True, I had no great prospect of the ton; drink, diabetes and divorce had considerably lengthened the odds. But, I thought, these days my chances are as good as Dante’s: I might just match his twenty-one.
It was in the faint hope of shortening those odds that I donned woolly jumper and (ludicrously virginal) walking boots and yomped off through the Oxfordshire countryside with my trusty Ordnance Survey map. For some time I’d had my eye on the village of Sutton Courtenay, with its inviting PH promising two-pennorth of wassail which, five miles in, I could just about do with.
But before reaching the PH, my attention was arrested by the village church. It takes a lot to divert my attention from a PH, but a proper church with a proper churchyard will do it. And so I entered, and did my bit of looking around the tombstones, calculating ages, and who was related to whom, and how the power relationships might have worked in the village, and so on and so on (as in Coming Up For Air by George Orwell).
I was just about to leave and slake the noble thirst which had been so piously whetted, when I tripped. My usage of my gleaming walking boots had been too sparing to walk them in properly, and it was hardly surprising that I lost my footing on a tussock. Down I went, putting out both arms to break my fall, in stupid defiance of experience, which has provided me with four broken bones in this way. However, this time I was lucky, if you can call it that given what followed. I fell into unresisting earth, and kept on falling. And lost the plot for a while.
I awoke to find myself covered in mud. Which was fine, I reflected, as far as my hitherto pristine walking boots were concerned. But once I realised how far north the infestation had stretched, I was less chuffed. However, my attention was swiftly diverted by the clench of a bony hand on my shoulder.
“Aaaaarrrgghhh!!!”, I shouted, being related by blood or marriage to several people who watched horror films. My apprehensions were swiftly dispelled by the reply “Get up, you silly sod”. I swivelled round on the more functional of my elbows.
No, it wasn’t a skeleton. But almost. The figure was enormous, or at least looked so from my recumbent position. There was still some flesh on the bones. And the grip on my shoulder seemed strangely ill-coordinated. The spectre was obviously no real physical threat. Relaxing somewhat, I remembered my obvious lines: “Wh-wh-who are y-y-you?”
“You know damn well who I am,” said the towering figure. “Who the fuck did you expect to meet in a graveyard in Sutton bleeding Courtenay? Sorry, that should be ‘whom’. Except that it shouldn’t, because ‘whom’ would sound barbarous. Unless you’re some kind of linguistic pedant? ” And here the figure took on a frightening aspect for the first time.
“No,” I said tremulously. “I mean would you prefer to be Mr. Blair or Mr. Orwell?”
“George will do,” he replied. “It took me long enough to get used to it, after all. And I understand that the name Blair has…a bit of an overtone, these days.”
“Well, what do you think?” I said. “A pint or two at the George & Dragon?”
“We’ll deal with the dragons first, if you don’t mind. Besides, I found it difficult enough to cope with ordinary working people in pubs back in the day, what with being an Etonian and all. How I’d cope with the sort of people in there these days I can’t begin to imagine.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Let’s get straight down there,” he said. “You need to see what’s what.” He produced, from within some interstice in his decayed graveclothes, a pouch of tobacco, and rolled himself a cigarette. “If we’d gone to the pub, you’d soon have found out what’s what,” I said to myself.
“Down where?”
“You know damn well where,” he said. “Just need to sort out the transport.”
I indicated, by a gesture of abandonment and impotence, that I was in his hands.
“And so we’re off to Hell,” said he, “by transethereal steamer!”
“The baddest guys these days,” I told him, “get there in a Beamer.”
“And, just to warn you, George,” I said, “I can’t do terza rima!”
“That’s because your generation is thick as mince,” he said. “I never got an Oxford First, but I’d still read two-thirds of English Literature by the time I was eight. And I may not have read anything they told me to at Eton, but I sure read a hell of a lot of other stuff. Terza rima? Cyril Connolly and I used to do that as a displacement activity.”
“Touché,” I conceded.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Ford Open Prison: the blithering idiocy of the jack-in-office
I have never met a British prison officer. The loss is, no doubt, mine: I should greatly enjoy a conversation about my fellow-jailbird Dostoyevsky’s “From the House of the Dead” with someone who knew the system from the inside. But I somehow suspect that prison officers here do not really belong to the Dostoyevsky-reading classes. I rather fear that, like policemen and social workers, they combine mediocre education with a rather horrifying level of power over their fellow-citizens.
And it’s not that I don’t sympathise with their working conditions. We aspire to be more of a free-booting, vibrant, devil-take-the-hindmost American-style society, while forgetting that the US imprisons (per capita) five times as many of its citizens as we do. And we won’t build the prisons for that, so the ones we have are all heaving. And money must be saved, which inevitably means staffing reductions. We hear that last night, at Ford Open Prison, there were only two prison officers and four support staff on duty.
Was that enough? Well, it was clearly enough to prevent a large-scale prison break-out, which is the bare minimum the public requires from prison management. But was anyone surprised to hear that, in a very lightly policed “open” prison, the inmates managed to smuggle in a certain amount of booze for a pennyworth of wassail on New Year’s Eve?
Now, it’s quite clear to me why alcohol has to be banned in prisons; so much crime is connected to it. The same goes for illegal drugs, with which most British prisons are reputed to be awash. After all, powders, leaves and resins are far easier to smuggle in, if only by reason of volume. But, you might have expected someone in authority to think, is it really so bad if the prisoners stage a bit of a New Year piss-up? The governor would have had every right to say to the powers that be “Look, if you cut our staffing that badly, we’ll still perform the basic duty to keep the cons locked up, but we’ll just have to turn a blind eye to the odd bit of smuggling. It’s only once a year, and no real harm was done.”
But no. Somebody decided that a hard line must be taken. The problem with people of moderate intelligence is that they tend to fall back on rule-books rather than using a bit of nous. And so a full inquiry was ordered. Everyone who might conceivably have been involved in the breach of regulations must be breathalysed. Result: dozens of cons chased around the place by screws with breathalyser kits, refusing to cooperate; the screws wouldn’t back off, and so a riot broke out. Even Ronnie Barker couldn’t make that up. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage done, and hundreds of prisoners now having to be moved to other prisons which are already bulging at the seams.
All because “Mr Mackay” didn’t have the sense of his near namesake, my late schoolmaster Richard McCall. After an extended – and totally illegal – post-exam celebration, Mr McCall came over to me at the morning meal and said “Collard, I strongly suspect you of being the first boy I have ever seen drunk at breakfast. But don’t worry, I shan’t pursue the matter.” But I fear that such men do not become prison officers.
And it’s not that I don’t sympathise with their working conditions. We aspire to be more of a free-booting, vibrant, devil-take-the-hindmost American-style society, while forgetting that the US imprisons (per capita) five times as many of its citizens as we do. And we won’t build the prisons for that, so the ones we have are all heaving. And money must be saved, which inevitably means staffing reductions. We hear that last night, at Ford Open Prison, there were only two prison officers and four support staff on duty.
Was that enough? Well, it was clearly enough to prevent a large-scale prison break-out, which is the bare minimum the public requires from prison management. But was anyone surprised to hear that, in a very lightly policed “open” prison, the inmates managed to smuggle in a certain amount of booze for a pennyworth of wassail on New Year’s Eve?
Now, it’s quite clear to me why alcohol has to be banned in prisons; so much crime is connected to it. The same goes for illegal drugs, with which most British prisons are reputed to be awash. After all, powders, leaves and resins are far easier to smuggle in, if only by reason of volume. But, you might have expected someone in authority to think, is it really so bad if the prisoners stage a bit of a New Year piss-up? The governor would have had every right to say to the powers that be “Look, if you cut our staffing that badly, we’ll still perform the basic duty to keep the cons locked up, but we’ll just have to turn a blind eye to the odd bit of smuggling. It’s only once a year, and no real harm was done.”
But no. Somebody decided that a hard line must be taken. The problem with people of moderate intelligence is that they tend to fall back on rule-books rather than using a bit of nous. And so a full inquiry was ordered. Everyone who might conceivably have been involved in the breach of regulations must be breathalysed. Result: dozens of cons chased around the place by screws with breathalyser kits, refusing to cooperate; the screws wouldn’t back off, and so a riot broke out. Even Ronnie Barker couldn’t make that up. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage done, and hundreds of prisoners now having to be moved to other prisons which are already bulging at the seams.
All because “Mr Mackay” didn’t have the sense of his near namesake, my late schoolmaster Richard McCall. After an extended – and totally illegal – post-exam celebration, Mr McCall came over to me at the morning meal and said “Collard, I strongly suspect you of being the first boy I have ever seen drunk at breakfast. But don’t worry, I shan’t pursue the matter.” But I fear that such men do not become prison officers.
Saturday, 16 October 2010
To hell with middle-class self-pity. Let's hear it for the real coping classes
Oh those poor old middle classes. Day after day after weary day, our favourite paper bewails their woes. “Coping classes at breaking point”; “middle class hit by something or other (probably Socialist mortar bombs)”; it never rains but it pours for these poor people. They go under many names; the “coping classes” are what the last government called the “hard-working families”. To Ed Miliband they are the “squeezed middle”. I don’t like that; it reminds me too strongly of the process of putting my trousers on in the morning. To me they are the “poor sods who got conned into voting for a cabal of millionaires singing ‘We’re all in this together’”. Perhaps one should seek a neutral description: the Sober Married Unsubsidised Gentlefolk, for instance. At least it would provide a snappy acronym.
But let’s not sink into Schadenfreude. The idea of families at breaking point is not one that should be sneered at. There are lots of them up here in the North-West, for whom the recent glorious Indian summer was overshadowed by the looming seasonal debate: proper winter clothes for the kids or heating the house properly? But I somehow suspect these aren’t exactly the people referred to. Surely, many of our readers will say, that’s in the North! They’ve been like that for twenty-five years; surely they’ve got used to it by now. Now we, on the other hand....
They have a point. The jobs which consisted of spending all day in the factory or oop t’mill have indeed gone, with a little help from a certain lady; many of the jobs involving sitting in the office all day, looking out of the window and dreaming of house prices, have lasted a good deal longer. So it could be said that the coping classes have had an extra quarter of a century to put aside sheaves of corn for the lean years. And have they? ‘Ave they ‘eckers. They’ve borrowed themselves silly, admittedly following the Government’s example, and now the bills are coming in. A sense that a lot of these people have misjudged their real economic interests steals over me.
Politics is not, at bottom, about ideas and principles; much of that is froth on the surface. It’s about living and working conditions, and that comes down very simply to relative wealth. Margaret Thatcher united the rich and the middle classes, got some of the poor on board too, and won three elections. Tony Blair united the poor and the middle classes, got some of the rich on board too, and achieved the same. The Coalition stands or falls by persuading the “coping classes” to identify their interests with the “millionaires’ Cabinet”. That is why they have taken the risk of allowing the pain caused by reforms to pensions and child benefit to reach as far down as the £45,000 bracket; they need to keep convincing them that “we’re all in this together”.
I have got a bit sick of middle-class self-pity. Earning a living and paying one’s taxes makes one a decent citizen; it doesn’t make one a hero, saint and martyr. The real heroes and martyrs, if not necessarily saints, are simultaneously the real coping classes; those who are managing to hold things together, amid collapsing social services, a long way short of the top tax bracket. This is where a lot of the real entrepreneurial talent is emerging; this class don’t expect secure jobs and nice regular incomes any more. Yes, there’s some ducking and diving; the wheels of the downmarket coping strategy are occasionally greased with a bit of benefit-fiddling, as those of upmarket enterprise are sometimes greased by a bit of tax-dodging. But it’s really those of us on four- or five-figure incomes who are “all in this together”, and Mr Cameron must not be allowed to forget it.
But let’s not sink into Schadenfreude. The idea of families at breaking point is not one that should be sneered at. There are lots of them up here in the North-West, for whom the recent glorious Indian summer was overshadowed by the looming seasonal debate: proper winter clothes for the kids or heating the house properly? But I somehow suspect these aren’t exactly the people referred to. Surely, many of our readers will say, that’s in the North! They’ve been like that for twenty-five years; surely they’ve got used to it by now. Now we, on the other hand....
They have a point. The jobs which consisted of spending all day in the factory or oop t’mill have indeed gone, with a little help from a certain lady; many of the jobs involving sitting in the office all day, looking out of the window and dreaming of house prices, have lasted a good deal longer. So it could be said that the coping classes have had an extra quarter of a century to put aside sheaves of corn for the lean years. And have they? ‘Ave they ‘eckers. They’ve borrowed themselves silly, admittedly following the Government’s example, and now the bills are coming in. A sense that a lot of these people have misjudged their real economic interests steals over me.
Politics is not, at bottom, about ideas and principles; much of that is froth on the surface. It’s about living and working conditions, and that comes down very simply to relative wealth. Margaret Thatcher united the rich and the middle classes, got some of the poor on board too, and won three elections. Tony Blair united the poor and the middle classes, got some of the rich on board too, and achieved the same. The Coalition stands or falls by persuading the “coping classes” to identify their interests with the “millionaires’ Cabinet”. That is why they have taken the risk of allowing the pain caused by reforms to pensions and child benefit to reach as far down as the £45,000 bracket; they need to keep convincing them that “we’re all in this together”.
I have got a bit sick of middle-class self-pity. Earning a living and paying one’s taxes makes one a decent citizen; it doesn’t make one a hero, saint and martyr. The real heroes and martyrs, if not necessarily saints, are simultaneously the real coping classes; those who are managing to hold things together, amid collapsing social services, a long way short of the top tax bracket. This is where a lot of the real entrepreneurial talent is emerging; this class don’t expect secure jobs and nice regular incomes any more. Yes, there’s some ducking and diving; the wheels of the downmarket coping strategy are occasionally greased with a bit of benefit-fiddling, as those of upmarket enterprise are sometimes greased by a bit of tax-dodging. But it’s really those of us on four- or five-figure incomes who are “all in this together”, and Mr Cameron must not be allowed to forget it.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Kyrgyzstan - even the neighbours don't care
Does anyone care what is happening in Kyrgyzstan? Well, obviously we don’t much, as it’s a jolly long way away and ethnic conflicts rarely make much sense. But what about the countries rather closer to the action, like Russia and China? All three countries are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which, consisting of four little ‘stans plus the Big Two, looks at first glance like one of those “Fox & Chickens Co-Partnership Agreements”. In reality, of course, the foxes are the governments, all of them, and the chickens are their peoples.
While horrible things happen to the Uzbeks of Osh, the mighty neighbours are showing considerable restraint. Russia has so far shown no sign of responding to the new interim Kyrgyz Government’s invitation to Russia to send troops in to keep the peace. Does it matter that they asked Russia rather than China? Well, Russia has a military base in Kyrgyzstan already, and makes no secret of regarding the Central Asian ‘stans as part of its extensive backyard. Also I can imagine the Russians having rather a tough time working out who the goodies and baddies are from that point of view: this is no longer a sound post-Soviet government against CIA-backed rebels, as both the post-Soviet government and its replacement have now been overthrown. And the government of Uzbekistan, a sound post-Soviet government if ever there was one, is showing little sympathy for its persecuted brothers across the border, which it has closed to Uzbek refugees.
Unlike Russia, China actually has a border with Kyrgyzstan. But all they have done is organise a fairly efficient airlift to extract their own citizens from the killing zone. Intervention outside the borders is something China just does not do, at least not since having its butt kicked by the Vietnamese in 1979. On the surface Russia and China are both firm adherents of the absolute-sovereignty-no-interference-in-internal-affairs brigade. But Russia is inclined to make exceptions for the countries of the former Soviet Union, which it would secretly like to reincorporate. China, on the other hand, is not interested in direct control, which implies responsibility, at all; China just wants to make sure the natural resources are flowing in the right direction, which is east. Not that Kyrgyzstan has much in the way of natural resources (apart from a certain amount of gold); but that whole region is pipeline country, and thus will bear watching. And, of course, if any unrest were to spill over into Xinjiang, that would be an entirely different matter; one more reason for getting Chinese nationals, who are mostly Muslim businessmen from Xinjiang, out of Kyrgyzstan sharpish.
So poor old Kyrgyzstan is going to have to sort out its own problems – I don’t think there’s much chance of their getting the UN peacekeepers they’re hoping for. And they’ll have to make sure they sort them out in a way that doesn’t annoy anybody important. Not an easy proposition for a new and wobbly government.
While horrible things happen to the Uzbeks of Osh, the mighty neighbours are showing considerable restraint. Russia has so far shown no sign of responding to the new interim Kyrgyz Government’s invitation to Russia to send troops in to keep the peace. Does it matter that they asked Russia rather than China? Well, Russia has a military base in Kyrgyzstan already, and makes no secret of regarding the Central Asian ‘stans as part of its extensive backyard. Also I can imagine the Russians having rather a tough time working out who the goodies and baddies are from that point of view: this is no longer a sound post-Soviet government against CIA-backed rebels, as both the post-Soviet government and its replacement have now been overthrown. And the government of Uzbekistan, a sound post-Soviet government if ever there was one, is showing little sympathy for its persecuted brothers across the border, which it has closed to Uzbek refugees.
Unlike Russia, China actually has a border with Kyrgyzstan. But all they have done is organise a fairly efficient airlift to extract their own citizens from the killing zone. Intervention outside the borders is something China just does not do, at least not since having its butt kicked by the Vietnamese in 1979. On the surface Russia and China are both firm adherents of the absolute-sovereignty-no-interference-in-internal-affairs brigade. But Russia is inclined to make exceptions for the countries of the former Soviet Union, which it would secretly like to reincorporate. China, on the other hand, is not interested in direct control, which implies responsibility, at all; China just wants to make sure the natural resources are flowing in the right direction, which is east. Not that Kyrgyzstan has much in the way of natural resources (apart from a certain amount of gold); but that whole region is pipeline country, and thus will bear watching. And, of course, if any unrest were to spill over into Xinjiang, that would be an entirely different matter; one more reason for getting Chinese nationals, who are mostly Muslim businessmen from Xinjiang, out of Kyrgyzstan sharpish.
So poor old Kyrgyzstan is going to have to sort out its own problems – I don’t think there’s much chance of their getting the UN peacekeepers they’re hoping for. And they’ll have to make sure they sort them out in a way that doesn’t annoy anybody important. Not an easy proposition for a new and wobbly government.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
BP dispute: Bend over and assume the position, Mr Cameron
So the Prime Minister is going to Washington on July 20th, at which time it is safe to assume that the sub-oceanic gusher is still gushing away and that one will still be able to fill up one’s Buick from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not often I can drum up real sympathy for my former FCO colleagues, but I do feel just a bit for the poor chaps and chapesses in Washington and King Charles Street currently (and I do mean currently, this being Sunday lunchtime) working on the visit preparation.
As a diplomatic imbroglio, this one might have defeated Talleyrand. How to maintain and restore the worn fabric of the “special relationship” while causing justice to be seen to be done for the misdoings of a US/UK company with a British-derived name? No-one can blame the American people for being angry. But managing that anger seems as difficult as capping the oil leak. Thank heaven we didn’t exacerbate it by winning the footy.
Americans are always keen, where possible, to reduce any issue to one they can chant “USA! USA!” about. And the problem is that, though BP is an international company owned by shareholders all over the world (with US and UK holdings almost equivalent), everybody knows what the “B” originally stood for. The USA doesn’t have that much history, but what it has focuses understandably on the nation’s genesis and resisting King George’s redcoats. It’s an easy button to press. President Obama assures us he is not anti-British and has no wish to lay the blame on Britain: but his frequent references to the company’s former name are a bit disingenuous. Over here we recognise the sound of a dog-whistle when we hear one.
Furthermore, the President has also lapsed into the kind of down-home language everyone likes to hear, by talking about “kicking ass”. The trouble with that is the usual trouble with politicians’ promises: pretty soon people are going to be asking for evidence of ass duly kicked. Saying that he would have sacked Tony Hayward if Hayward had worked for him won’t do: a hypothetical ass-kicking is not enough. Not only can Obama do nothing meaningful about BP: he wouldn’t even want to. As Cameron has been rightly pointing out to him, serious damage to BP would be serious damage to both UK and US economies.
Threats to prevent the payment of dividends would also be an own goal (or a “Robert Green” as they are now known). There are as many pensioners over there who would be affected as over here. A ban on any BP employee being paid more than $100,000 this year would be a far better symbolic gesture, but it ain’t going to happen. In any case, Americans believe the sky would fall in if “executives” were not “compensated” according to their “status”.
This means that the circle will have to be squared diplomatically. If ass is going to be kicked without lousing up economic recovery, a sop will have to be thrown to the spirit of George Washington. The Southern States will not forgive Obama for missing such a fine opportunity to apply the shoe-leather. Somehow the impression has to be given that the limeys have got what was coming to them. I hope that the FCO furnishes the Prime Minister with a couple of nice thick files to insert in his trousers.
As a diplomatic imbroglio, this one might have defeated Talleyrand. How to maintain and restore the worn fabric of the “special relationship” while causing justice to be seen to be done for the misdoings of a US/UK company with a British-derived name? No-one can blame the American people for being angry. But managing that anger seems as difficult as capping the oil leak. Thank heaven we didn’t exacerbate it by winning the footy.
Americans are always keen, where possible, to reduce any issue to one they can chant “USA! USA!” about. And the problem is that, though BP is an international company owned by shareholders all over the world (with US and UK holdings almost equivalent), everybody knows what the “B” originally stood for. The USA doesn’t have that much history, but what it has focuses understandably on the nation’s genesis and resisting King George’s redcoats. It’s an easy button to press. President Obama assures us he is not anti-British and has no wish to lay the blame on Britain: but his frequent references to the company’s former name are a bit disingenuous. Over here we recognise the sound of a dog-whistle when we hear one.
Furthermore, the President has also lapsed into the kind of down-home language everyone likes to hear, by talking about “kicking ass”. The trouble with that is the usual trouble with politicians’ promises: pretty soon people are going to be asking for evidence of ass duly kicked. Saying that he would have sacked Tony Hayward if Hayward had worked for him won’t do: a hypothetical ass-kicking is not enough. Not only can Obama do nothing meaningful about BP: he wouldn’t even want to. As Cameron has been rightly pointing out to him, serious damage to BP would be serious damage to both UK and US economies.
Threats to prevent the payment of dividends would also be an own goal (or a “Robert Green” as they are now known). There are as many pensioners over there who would be affected as over here. A ban on any BP employee being paid more than $100,000 this year would be a far better symbolic gesture, but it ain’t going to happen. In any case, Americans believe the sky would fall in if “executives” were not “compensated” according to their “status”.
This means that the circle will have to be squared diplomatically. If ass is going to be kicked without lousing up economic recovery, a sop will have to be thrown to the spirit of George Washington. The Southern States will not forgive Obama for missing such a fine opportunity to apply the shoe-leather. Somehow the impression has to be given that the limeys have got what was coming to them. I hope that the FCO furnishes the Prime Minister with a couple of nice thick files to insert in his trousers.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Farmer Yang's wheelbarrow cannon shows that the spirit of freedom is not dead in China
There’s always something new and surprising coming out of China. Yesterday the Telegraph related the tale of a farmer whose land is located on the edge of the rapidly expanding city of Wuhan. On being told, as farmers on the edge of Chinese cities frequently are, that his land was being requisitioned by local government for development, Mr Yang Youde did not simply submit. He mounted a metal pipe on a wheelbarrow and, using explosives extracted from China’s ubiquitous fireworks, improvised a cannon capable of firing a rocket more than 100 yards. He claims that he has fought off two attempts to evict him and move the bulldozers in.
There are two ways to look at this. On one hand, it’s an example of the lengths to which people can be pushed by an oppressive state apparatus which takes scant notice of the individual rights of its citizens. We know this happens in China, and sometimes we rather admire it. Think of the speed with which the Olympic stadia and their supporting infrastructure were prepared; half a dozen new underground lines, thirty or forty miles long and going right through the centre of Beijing (eat your heart out, Boris Johnson); the fact that, as people in Hamburg were always complaining to me, a new Chinese container port can be operative within 18 months of groundbreaking, whereas no-one in Europe can do it in less than ten years.
And we know there is a human cost to this, just as there is to the population control policy. Planning permission is not subject to delays or appeals. For the last twenty years people have been receiving instructions from the local authority to be out of their homes by a week on Friday. Resistance is futile.
But of course it is not always a question of major infrastructure projects of which everybody sees the point. In Mr Yang’s case, he was told by the local authority that the land was required for government buildings. Mr Yang is not so sure. By his calculations the market value of his land is about five times what the authorities are offering him. He suspects that, once he has been evicted, something rather more lucrative than government buildings will go up on his land, and that the local authority has been handsomely bribed to use its coercive powers to ensure that the developers acquire the land for a fraction of its real value. That is why he is putting up such spirited resistance.
Another view might be to admire the way in which the old buccaneering spirit of the Wild West is re-emerging in this otherwise strictly regimented country. The developers (assuming the argument of my last paragraph is correct, and I do) are behaving like old-style robber barons. As for Farmer Yang, what a splendid example of active citizenship. Just imagine if anyone tried to resist compulsory purchase in such a way in the UK. You’d be monstered, not only by the Old Bill but by Elf ‘n’ Safety too. You wouldn’t last two hours. Let us hope that Mr Yang avoids the slammer (the fact that this story was carried in the local media suggests some sympathy for him in high places) and that his spirit proliferates in China.
There are two ways to look at this. On one hand, it’s an example of the lengths to which people can be pushed by an oppressive state apparatus which takes scant notice of the individual rights of its citizens. We know this happens in China, and sometimes we rather admire it. Think of the speed with which the Olympic stadia and their supporting infrastructure were prepared; half a dozen new underground lines, thirty or forty miles long and going right through the centre of Beijing (eat your heart out, Boris Johnson); the fact that, as people in Hamburg were always complaining to me, a new Chinese container port can be operative within 18 months of groundbreaking, whereas no-one in Europe can do it in less than ten years.
And we know there is a human cost to this, just as there is to the population control policy. Planning permission is not subject to delays or appeals. For the last twenty years people have been receiving instructions from the local authority to be out of their homes by a week on Friday. Resistance is futile.
But of course it is not always a question of major infrastructure projects of which everybody sees the point. In Mr Yang’s case, he was told by the local authority that the land was required for government buildings. Mr Yang is not so sure. By his calculations the market value of his land is about five times what the authorities are offering him. He suspects that, once he has been evicted, something rather more lucrative than government buildings will go up on his land, and that the local authority has been handsomely bribed to use its coercive powers to ensure that the developers acquire the land for a fraction of its real value. That is why he is putting up such spirited resistance.
Another view might be to admire the way in which the old buccaneering spirit of the Wild West is re-emerging in this otherwise strictly regimented country. The developers (assuming the argument of my last paragraph is correct, and I do) are behaving like old-style robber barons. As for Farmer Yang, what a splendid example of active citizenship. Just imagine if anyone tried to resist compulsory purchase in such a way in the UK. You’d be monstered, not only by the Old Bill but by Elf ‘n’ Safety too. You wouldn’t last two hours. Let us hope that Mr Yang avoids the slammer (the fact that this story was carried in the local media suggests some sympathy for him in high places) and that his spirit proliferates in China.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Bertie at the Bilderberg
Spring was doing its thing, the snail on the wing, the lark on the thorn, and morning was about quarter past eleven, as I trickled into the old Bilderberg for a snifter. But all was not as of old. Jeeves had warned me, on sending me forth into the wide world with my whangee and my yellowest shoes, that the old security had been stepped up a smidgeon. So I was about two-thirds prepared for the chappie who stopped his bullet-proof limo alongside me and invited me to hop in. “You can’t be too careful, Mr Wooster”, he said.
Now, I’m as aware as the next man that a certain amount of pre-prandial bread gets bunged about at the Bilderberg, especially when Catsmeat Potter-Putin is in attendance. But I could hardly credit that it was necessary to employ the horny-handed to protect the Wooster bonce from the odd ballistic baguette. “But no,” said my charioteer, “it is the oiks below who are feared by the gentlemen of your esteemed society.”
Well, if that’s the case, then your humble narrator asks no further questions. Indeed, when I entered the club, nothing seemed to be amiss. Oofy Prosser sat in his usual corner, his pimples flashing angrily at anyone who looked likely to try to touch him for a couple of billion. Conky Kissinger was holding forth at his usual table, with Boko Bush, Barmy Berlusconi, Sheepface Sarkozy, and the usual crowd hanging on every word. By the window an old fossil called Rockmetteller sat in a leather chair in an attitude I swear hadn’t altered one iota since the 1973 world oil crisis.
I ordered myself a convivial whisky-and-splash, and sat down with “Fruity” Cholmondeley-Friedman.
“Skin off your nose, Fruity, old robber baron,” I said.
“Mud in your eye, old fleecer of the widow and orphan,” he replied.
“So what’s all the jolly old manning-of-the-ramparts and battening-down-the-hatches about?”
“Why, Bertie, where have you been for the last few aeons?”
“Oh, you know, Cheltenham, Aintree, Epsom, whatever...”
“Well, these days the great unwashed have got the idea that we’re running some kind of alternative World Government up here. All nonsense, of course; who on earth could be bothered with all that effort? No money in that sort of thing, anyway. Mind you, it’s true that some of the younger members find it rather a lark to be thought of as movers and shakers and Men of the Future; the only future the rest of us are interested in is when they’re going to buy their bally rounds. And the old jossers are just delighted that they can find someone who’s still prepared to take them seriously.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I’d hate to have anyone thinking that good old B. Wooster was important enough to warrant bumping off.”
“My dear chap, when have you ever heard of any of this lot being prepared to take responsibility for anything?”
“My dear old bean, you haven’t half taken a weight of my mind. Have another?”
Now, I’m as aware as the next man that a certain amount of pre-prandial bread gets bunged about at the Bilderberg, especially when Catsmeat Potter-Putin is in attendance. But I could hardly credit that it was necessary to employ the horny-handed to protect the Wooster bonce from the odd ballistic baguette. “But no,” said my charioteer, “it is the oiks below who are feared by the gentlemen of your esteemed society.”
Well, if that’s the case, then your humble narrator asks no further questions. Indeed, when I entered the club, nothing seemed to be amiss. Oofy Prosser sat in his usual corner, his pimples flashing angrily at anyone who looked likely to try to touch him for a couple of billion. Conky Kissinger was holding forth at his usual table, with Boko Bush, Barmy Berlusconi, Sheepface Sarkozy, and the usual crowd hanging on every word. By the window an old fossil called Rockmetteller sat in a leather chair in an attitude I swear hadn’t altered one iota since the 1973 world oil crisis.
I ordered myself a convivial whisky-and-splash, and sat down with “Fruity” Cholmondeley-Friedman.
“Skin off your nose, Fruity, old robber baron,” I said.
“Mud in your eye, old fleecer of the widow and orphan,” he replied.
“So what’s all the jolly old manning-of-the-ramparts and battening-down-the-hatches about?”
“Why, Bertie, where have you been for the last few aeons?”
“Oh, you know, Cheltenham, Aintree, Epsom, whatever...”
“Well, these days the great unwashed have got the idea that we’re running some kind of alternative World Government up here. All nonsense, of course; who on earth could be bothered with all that effort? No money in that sort of thing, anyway. Mind you, it’s true that some of the younger members find it rather a lark to be thought of as movers and shakers and Men of the Future; the only future the rest of us are interested in is when they’re going to buy their bally rounds. And the old jossers are just delighted that they can find someone who’s still prepared to take them seriously.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I’d hate to have anyone thinking that good old B. Wooster was important enough to warrant bumping off.”
“My dear chap, when have you ever heard of any of this lot being prepared to take responsibility for anything?”
“My dear old bean, you haven’t half taken a weight of my mind. Have another?”
China's Three Gorges Dam: a disaster takes shape
In China, cracks are appearing – in the neighbourhood of the massive Three Gorges Dam, the country’s great prestige project, and also in the Great Firewall of China, enabling the ominous news to leak out. Three years ago stories were already emerging in the Chinese media about landslides, ecological deterioration and accumulation of algae further down the river. And less and less effort seems to be made to plug the leaks. A Sunday Times report tells of a series of landslips, minor earthquakes and cracks appearing in roads and buildings along the central section of the Yangtse, between the dam and the city of Chongqing. Almost 10,000 “dangerous sites” have been identified, but many of the people living near them cannot be relocated for lack of money. Two years ago thousands of children died in Sichuan Province because their schools were not resistant to the earthquake which hit the area; in the town of Badong near Chongqing children are attending school in buildings which have been recognised as far more vulnerable. What else can they do? The local authorities can’t afford a new one.
Like many such megaprojects, the Three Gorges was always driven as much by politics as by economics. Its rationale covered irrigation and flood control in the lower Yangtse plain, hydroelectric power generation, which sounds sensible: but objections were bulldozed in the tense political atmosphere of the late 1980s, when the final decisions were made.The dam was the pet project of then prime minister Li Peng, who was involved in the party split which led to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, in which he was the triumphant prime mover. In this context he was not going to back down on the dam, and the debate was closed down.
So the construction was forced through without even what passes in China for proper debate. The number of local people who had to be relocated came to 1.4 million – equivalent to the obliteration of Birmingham. Now it looks like another 300,000 will have to be shifted – add Coventry to that. This, in China, means getting a few weeks’ notice to quit and putting up with wherever the authorities see fit to put you. On top of that a large number of historic sites from one of the most ancient cradles of Chinese civilisation had to go. Yes, China has vast numbers of people to feed and cannot afford sentimentality, but perhaps a bit more care might have been taken to ensure that the costs and benefits had been properly calculated.
But even three years ago, with Li Peng and his family safely out of the way, official Chinese sources were admitting that things had gone horribly wrong. In the official media references were made to landslides, ecological deterioration and accumulation of algae. The Chinese aren’t unworldly and irresponsible greenies. When they point things like this out it’s because it’s causing real damage. Of course the authorities are careful not to promote mass panic, but so far the incidents are far enough apart to prevent collective protest; local complaints can still be suppressed without too much trouble.
Meanwhile, at the centre, it would appear that there is no great enthusiasm to see this all hushed up. The current supremo Hu Jintao has always taken care not to associate himself with the project. Hu’s faction of the Communist Party is broadly opposed by the “princelings’ faction” – i.e. the rich-kid offspring of the post-Mao leadership – and appears disinclined to pull Li Peng’s chestnuts out of the fire.
Like many such megaprojects, the Three Gorges was always driven as much by politics as by economics. Its rationale covered irrigation and flood control in the lower Yangtse plain, hydroelectric power generation, which sounds sensible: but objections were bulldozed in the tense political atmosphere of the late 1980s, when the final decisions were made.The dam was the pet project of then prime minister Li Peng, who was involved in the party split which led to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, in which he was the triumphant prime mover. In this context he was not going to back down on the dam, and the debate was closed down.
So the construction was forced through without even what passes in China for proper debate. The number of local people who had to be relocated came to 1.4 million – equivalent to the obliteration of Birmingham. Now it looks like another 300,000 will have to be shifted – add Coventry to that. This, in China, means getting a few weeks’ notice to quit and putting up with wherever the authorities see fit to put you. On top of that a large number of historic sites from one of the most ancient cradles of Chinese civilisation had to go. Yes, China has vast numbers of people to feed and cannot afford sentimentality, but perhaps a bit more care might have been taken to ensure that the costs and benefits had been properly calculated.
But even three years ago, with Li Peng and his family safely out of the way, official Chinese sources were admitting that things had gone horribly wrong. In the official media references were made to landslides, ecological deterioration and accumulation of algae. The Chinese aren’t unworldly and irresponsible greenies. When they point things like this out it’s because it’s causing real damage. Of course the authorities are careful not to promote mass panic, but so far the incidents are far enough apart to prevent collective protest; local complaints can still be suppressed without too much trouble.
Meanwhile, at the centre, it would appear that there is no great enthusiasm to see this all hushed up. The current supremo Hu Jintao has always taken care not to associate himself with the project. Hu’s faction of the Communist Party is broadly opposed by the “princelings’ faction” – i.e. the rich-kid offspring of the post-Mao leadership – and appears disinclined to pull Li Peng’s chestnuts out of the fire.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
German President resigns: when are the Germans going to grow up?
President Horst Köhler, the generally well-respected German head of state, has felt compelled to resign, only a year into his second term. In a refreshing contrast to our own shenanigans, it had nothing to do with any dubious personal enrichment strategies, on which the Germans are much tougher than we are. It was a genuine political issue. What Dr Köhler appears to have said was that Germany’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan is motivated by a wish for economic as well as physical security; the security of supply lines, trade routes etc.
Well, derr. How could such a statement of the obvious have caused such a furore? Only in Germany. It’s something you’re not allowed to say, see, unless you’re a lefty activist denouncing warmongering capitalism, in which case you say it all the time. But you can’t say it if you’re the state President. You have to keep parroting the line that NATO is protecting the German people from Afghan-trained terrorists, and is there FOR NO OTHER REASON. Protecting economic interests means that you’re working solely in the interests of the rich (who, as we know, are the only people who need an economy).
But the fact that this sort of issue cannot be discussed in public without causing resignations just shows how infantile the level of debate frequently is in Germany. If they outdo us in personal financial rectitude, they knock spots off us when it comes to political correctness. A chap I knew slightly – the new partner of an old friend – once expressed incredulity when informed that I, a fellow leftie, owned some shares. How could I support capitalism in such a way? Investing in capitalist companies just enabled them to rationalise their operations, which always led to downsizing and people losing their jobs. I admitted that this might happen, but surely it was equally likely that the companies might use the investment to expand their operations and create jobs. He hadn’t thought of that. This was a man around 40 with a university degree and a job of commensurate status.
And when it comes to war the reactions are equal and opposite to what they were in 1939. It’s just bad. It sucks. Which of course is true, but grown-up nations recognise that one does have to prepare for it happening occasionally. All right, you may feel that Afghanistan is one war which doesn’t need fighting; but it can hardly be denied that it began with a clear act of aggression on 11th September 2001. And Germany is a democratic country, with a perfectly good army, bound into a military alliance: surely in principle they ought to be able to fight a war on a reasonably logical basis.
But no. Yes, we will send troops to Afghanistan, they say; but you must put them in a part of Afghanistan where they won’t get shot at, and you mustn’t expect them to kill anyone either. Any involvement of the Bundeswehr in actions in which someone dies, and the Germans hit the roof. On a previous visit to Germany I found the nation caught up in a very ugly media witch-hunt against a senior German officer who had been working with UK/US special forces and got involved in some rather messy stuff.
Yes, the Germans have a better excuse than most for all this. But their position is hopelessly illogical. Either you declare yourselves institutionally pacifist, do a Costa Rica and abolish the armed forces altogether, and rely on others to defend you; or you take your share of defence responsibilities, build an army and try to use it as sensibly as possible. But you have to acknowledge that if war does prove inevitable, people are going to kill and get killed. And that wars are always going to have an economic rationale as well as a political one.
I think you’re well out of that job, Dr. Köhler. You can’t lead people who aren’t prepared to think, and will lynch you if you try to.
Well, derr. How could such a statement of the obvious have caused such a furore? Only in Germany. It’s something you’re not allowed to say, see, unless you’re a lefty activist denouncing warmongering capitalism, in which case you say it all the time. But you can’t say it if you’re the state President. You have to keep parroting the line that NATO is protecting the German people from Afghan-trained terrorists, and is there FOR NO OTHER REASON. Protecting economic interests means that you’re working solely in the interests of the rich (who, as we know, are the only people who need an economy).
But the fact that this sort of issue cannot be discussed in public without causing resignations just shows how infantile the level of debate frequently is in Germany. If they outdo us in personal financial rectitude, they knock spots off us when it comes to political correctness. A chap I knew slightly – the new partner of an old friend – once expressed incredulity when informed that I, a fellow leftie, owned some shares. How could I support capitalism in such a way? Investing in capitalist companies just enabled them to rationalise their operations, which always led to downsizing and people losing their jobs. I admitted that this might happen, but surely it was equally likely that the companies might use the investment to expand their operations and create jobs. He hadn’t thought of that. This was a man around 40 with a university degree and a job of commensurate status.
And when it comes to war the reactions are equal and opposite to what they were in 1939. It’s just bad. It sucks. Which of course is true, but grown-up nations recognise that one does have to prepare for it happening occasionally. All right, you may feel that Afghanistan is one war which doesn’t need fighting; but it can hardly be denied that it began with a clear act of aggression on 11th September 2001. And Germany is a democratic country, with a perfectly good army, bound into a military alliance: surely in principle they ought to be able to fight a war on a reasonably logical basis.
But no. Yes, we will send troops to Afghanistan, they say; but you must put them in a part of Afghanistan where they won’t get shot at, and you mustn’t expect them to kill anyone either. Any involvement of the Bundeswehr in actions in which someone dies, and the Germans hit the roof. On a previous visit to Germany I found the nation caught up in a very ugly media witch-hunt against a senior German officer who had been working with UK/US special forces and got involved in some rather messy stuff.
Yes, the Germans have a better excuse than most for all this. But their position is hopelessly illogical. Either you declare yourselves institutionally pacifist, do a Costa Rica and abolish the armed forces altogether, and rely on others to defend you; or you take your share of defence responsibilities, build an army and try to use it as sensibly as possible. But you have to acknowledge that if war does prove inevitable, people are going to kill and get killed. And that wars are always going to have an economic rationale as well as a political one.
I think you’re well out of that job, Dr. Köhler. You can’t lead people who aren’t prepared to think, and will lynch you if you try to.
China’s missing babies re-emerge: is this the beginning of the end for the one-child policy?
Chinese demographer Liang Zhongtang has recently revealed that something like 3 million Chinese babies a year may be unregistered at their birth, as a means of circumventing the country’s one-child family policy. The evidence seems fairly compelling: census returns record 23 million births in 1990 and 26 million ten-year-olds in 2000, figures which don’t really allow of any other conclusion. So is the one-child policy fraying at the edges, and could another Chinese population explosion be on the horizon?
First, a couple of words of caution regarding the stats. They relate to births in 1990, which by my arithmetic is twenty years ago. By then the universal one-child policy had only been in operation for ten years, and was still being fairly rigidly enforced, at least in the cities. This has since changed. For one thing, the state no longer has all the enforcement methods at its disposal that it had in 1990. Then, your job, your housing, and your access to healthcare and education were all provided by state entities; people who didn’t conform could be deprived of any or all of them. Now that the state has withdrawn from so many of these areas it doesn’t have the leverage; provided you can pay for these things yourself – and you probably have to do so anyway – you don’t need to worry about official regulations so much, though people are generally careful not to flout them too openly. Party spies have disappeared, but nosy and mean-spirited neighbours haven’t.
Secondly, with the remarkable economic growth of the past thirty years, the one-child policy has largely institutionalised itself, at least in the cities. The new bourgeois, who have the money to thumb their noses at the State if they wished to, now exercise voluntary restraint. Everyone is busy, nearly all mothers work, larger flats and houses are expensive, the best education costs a fortune; who wants extra kids? Access to abortion (entirely without moral stigma in China) is easy in case of accidents. The economic boomers regard a single child as perfectly natural, not to mention extremely convenient. Nor do the urban middle classes get hung up about gender as their peasant contemporaries do: small wonder, as China really is an equal opportunity society and a girl has every bit as much chance of being successful as a boy (rather more, in my experience).
So it may be that the one-child policy has done its job and had its day. After all, running such a policy for thirty years – one generation – cannot but have a lasting effect on population growth, as the current generation of child-begetters are far less numerous than their predecessors were. The Chinese population problem really arose in the fifties and sixties, when Mao called upon his people to keep cranking them out, in order to give China a better chance of surviving nuclear war than its putative opponents. Now it would seem that vigilance can be relaxed a little; especially as a huge demographic time bomb is going to hit China in about twenty years’ time, when Mao’s mass-produced battery chickens qualify for their non-existent old age pensions, and somebody will need to keep the fires burning….
First, a couple of words of caution regarding the stats. They relate to births in 1990, which by my arithmetic is twenty years ago. By then the universal one-child policy had only been in operation for ten years, and was still being fairly rigidly enforced, at least in the cities. This has since changed. For one thing, the state no longer has all the enforcement methods at its disposal that it had in 1990. Then, your job, your housing, and your access to healthcare and education were all provided by state entities; people who didn’t conform could be deprived of any or all of them. Now that the state has withdrawn from so many of these areas it doesn’t have the leverage; provided you can pay for these things yourself – and you probably have to do so anyway – you don’t need to worry about official regulations so much, though people are generally careful not to flout them too openly. Party spies have disappeared, but nosy and mean-spirited neighbours haven’t.
Secondly, with the remarkable economic growth of the past thirty years, the one-child policy has largely institutionalised itself, at least in the cities. The new bourgeois, who have the money to thumb their noses at the State if they wished to, now exercise voluntary restraint. Everyone is busy, nearly all mothers work, larger flats and houses are expensive, the best education costs a fortune; who wants extra kids? Access to abortion (entirely without moral stigma in China) is easy in case of accidents. The economic boomers regard a single child as perfectly natural, not to mention extremely convenient. Nor do the urban middle classes get hung up about gender as their peasant contemporaries do: small wonder, as China really is an equal opportunity society and a girl has every bit as much chance of being successful as a boy (rather more, in my experience).
So it may be that the one-child policy has done its job and had its day. After all, running such a policy for thirty years – one generation – cannot but have a lasting effect on population growth, as the current generation of child-begetters are far less numerous than their predecessors were. The Chinese population problem really arose in the fifties and sixties, when Mao called upon his people to keep cranking them out, in order to give China a better chance of surviving nuclear war than its putative opponents. Now it would seem that vigilance can be relaxed a little; especially as a huge demographic time bomb is going to hit China in about twenty years’ time, when Mao’s mass-produced battery chickens qualify for their non-existent old age pensions, and somebody will need to keep the fires burning….
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
What if there was a recovery and nobody got a job?
What’s a job, Daddy? Where do jobs come from, Mum? What am I going to be when I grow up? Apart from disillusioned?
But seriously, why is there so much unemployment? Because the economy’s gone down the Swanee. So if it recovers and comes back up the Swanee again, will it bring lots of jobs with it? Is there any reason on earth why it should? All over Europe there are repeated sightings of “green shoots”, although it usually doesn’t take long for EU corruption and incompetence to pour paraquat all over them. But one thing common to all these mini-recoveries is the absence of a surge in employment. Who needs ya, baby? the 21st-century economy is saying to us all. What can’t be automated can at least be severely rationalised. The extent to which both manufacturing and service industries can be outsourced seems to acknowledge no limits. Even newspapers are increasingly putting themselves together without the aid of journalists.
To a certain extent, work has become just soooo 20th century. One of the last Prime Minister’s strongest convictions was that this tendency must be resisted; that work was good for us all, personally, economically and socially. In the run-up to losing the last election he was repeatedly lambasted for creating thousands and thousands of jobs, or possibly non-jobs, in the public sector. These must go, we are told; they are unnecessary and their holders are all parasites on the private, wealth-producing sector. The fact a lot of these voices ignore is that an enormous part of the private sector is equally upheld by government expenditure whose necessity is equally spurious. The new government, with its cuts programme, is going to have to face up to the fact that large cuts in expenditure means large cuts in jobs.
In my view the biggest disaster of the last administration was PFI. The economics of it never made sense; most of the private-sector bids for government contracts would never have been considered if the rules hadn’t been stretched to favour them. And if (if??) the contractors find they need more money halfway through the job, they have the government over a barrel. But PFI keeps a huge number of consultants and contractors afloat, supporting millions of jobs. (With no detriment to the public sector, as the public servants who would otherwise have done those jobs were retained in any case; so civil servants on modest salaries were not replaced, but actually augmented, by private sector wallahs on two or three times the screw.) This has cost an absolute fortune, with open-ended commitments extending into our grandchildren’s time, but Gordon Brown thought, rightly or wrongly, that this was better than having all those people on the rock ‘n’ roll. (I would guess that the abolition of all unnecessary public and government-supported-private sector jobs might bring unemployment to around fifteen million.)
So was Gordon right? (I am aware that a lot of my readers think that Brown could not be right if he announced that 2+2=4.) But just supposing – I know I could never prove this – that an efficient modern economy could now be run with 10% of the population engaged on serious productive activity, with say 15% in various ancillary functions. What are we to do with the other three-quarters? Redistribute the proceeds of the economy to keep them fed and happy? Or disenfranchise them and leave them to starve? I am not hurling imprecations at those who take the latter view; I am merely asking how much they would enjoy living in gated communities policed like the Baghdad Green Zone. The Molotov cocktail will always get through.
But seriously, why is there so much unemployment? Because the economy’s gone down the Swanee. So if it recovers and comes back up the Swanee again, will it bring lots of jobs with it? Is there any reason on earth why it should? All over Europe there are repeated sightings of “green shoots”, although it usually doesn’t take long for EU corruption and incompetence to pour paraquat all over them. But one thing common to all these mini-recoveries is the absence of a surge in employment. Who needs ya, baby? the 21st-century economy is saying to us all. What can’t be automated can at least be severely rationalised. The extent to which both manufacturing and service industries can be outsourced seems to acknowledge no limits. Even newspapers are increasingly putting themselves together without the aid of journalists.
To a certain extent, work has become just soooo 20th century. One of the last Prime Minister’s strongest convictions was that this tendency must be resisted; that work was good for us all, personally, economically and socially. In the run-up to losing the last election he was repeatedly lambasted for creating thousands and thousands of jobs, or possibly non-jobs, in the public sector. These must go, we are told; they are unnecessary and their holders are all parasites on the private, wealth-producing sector. The fact a lot of these voices ignore is that an enormous part of the private sector is equally upheld by government expenditure whose necessity is equally spurious. The new government, with its cuts programme, is going to have to face up to the fact that large cuts in expenditure means large cuts in jobs.
In my view the biggest disaster of the last administration was PFI. The economics of it never made sense; most of the private-sector bids for government contracts would never have been considered if the rules hadn’t been stretched to favour them. And if (if??) the contractors find they need more money halfway through the job, they have the government over a barrel. But PFI keeps a huge number of consultants and contractors afloat, supporting millions of jobs. (With no detriment to the public sector, as the public servants who would otherwise have done those jobs were retained in any case; so civil servants on modest salaries were not replaced, but actually augmented, by private sector wallahs on two or three times the screw.) This has cost an absolute fortune, with open-ended commitments extending into our grandchildren’s time, but Gordon Brown thought, rightly or wrongly, that this was better than having all those people on the rock ‘n’ roll. (I would guess that the abolition of all unnecessary public and government-supported-private sector jobs might bring unemployment to around fifteen million.)
So was Gordon right? (I am aware that a lot of my readers think that Brown could not be right if he announced that 2+2=4.) But just supposing – I know I could never prove this – that an efficient modern economy could now be run with 10% of the population engaged on serious productive activity, with say 15% in various ancillary functions. What are we to do with the other three-quarters? Redistribute the proceeds of the economy to keep them fed and happy? Or disenfranchise them and leave them to starve? I am not hurling imprecations at those who take the latter view; I am merely asking how much they would enjoy living in gated communities policed like the Baghdad Green Zone. The Molotov cocktail will always get through.
Kindergarten stabbings and now Foxconn suicides: what is causing China's fatal crazes?
What is happening to set off these fatal crazes in China? First there were those strange incidents in which people ran amok in kindergartens, knifing small children. I blogged on this last month. Now, as my colleague Malcolm Moore reports, there is a worrying chain of suicides by workers at factories in China run by the Taiwanese company Foxconn, a significant technology supplier for Apple; 11 attempts this year so far, with 9 fatalities.
Nine of these incidents took place at Foxconn’s Longhua factory, near Shenzhen on the Hong Kong border. Like the kindergarten stabbings, the incidents have taken the form of a gruesome series of copycat acts: all the suicides happened in the same manner, by jumping off the roof of a high building, and all the victims were under 25. One such incident is clearly acting as a trigger for others; but the trigger can only be primed by a pre-existing condition of despair. But how can this be, given that these large foreign-invested enterprises are providing much-needed employment, driving up wages and powering China’s impressive rate of development?
China’s attractiveness as a manufacturing centre lies not only in low labour costs; in any case, these are rising rapidly in the big coastal cities. It lies also in the virtual absence of regulation regarding treatment of workers – the government will ensure the absence of free trade unions and lend the full force of its repressive apparatus to the company’s management as enforcers. The Chinese are of course used to this – they are the world’s most docile workers, and I’m absolutely certain that some of them are undermining the minimum wage back here. But in Longhua, amazingly, China and the West appear to have combined to create a voluntary Gulag.
Workers flood in from the countryside, attracted by wages they could never have dreamed of at home and convinced that they can endure the harshest of conditions to earn them. They work 80-hour weeks and live in common dormitories, under constant surveillance to maintain “security”. Apple insists on extremely tight secrecy in all its operations; and two of the suicides have been linked to allegations (apparently wildly far-fetched) that workers were smuggling parts out of the factory.
It is clear that China provides a kind of proving ground for the ultimate in hyper-efficient industrial processes, eliminating that pesky human factor as far as possible. Human beings are regarded as parts in the machinery, which can be stressed until a fraction short of breaking point, with a certain casualty rate built into the planning. After all, there are plenty more where those young people came from. Just like the Gulag, and I’m not entirely sure how much difference is made by the undoubted fact that it is all voluntary.
With regards to working conditions, the deal is “If you don’t like the deal, you can eff off back to the paddy-field”. As this would involve the puncturing of a family’s dreams and intolerable loss of face, they stick it out. Until the last straw and the lonely walk off the ninth-floor dormitory roof. Enjoy your new iPad, and let’s hope the person who made it is still alive.
Nine of these incidents took place at Foxconn’s Longhua factory, near Shenzhen on the Hong Kong border. Like the kindergarten stabbings, the incidents have taken the form of a gruesome series of copycat acts: all the suicides happened in the same manner, by jumping off the roof of a high building, and all the victims were under 25. One such incident is clearly acting as a trigger for others; but the trigger can only be primed by a pre-existing condition of despair. But how can this be, given that these large foreign-invested enterprises are providing much-needed employment, driving up wages and powering China’s impressive rate of development?
China’s attractiveness as a manufacturing centre lies not only in low labour costs; in any case, these are rising rapidly in the big coastal cities. It lies also in the virtual absence of regulation regarding treatment of workers – the government will ensure the absence of free trade unions and lend the full force of its repressive apparatus to the company’s management as enforcers. The Chinese are of course used to this – they are the world’s most docile workers, and I’m absolutely certain that some of them are undermining the minimum wage back here. But in Longhua, amazingly, China and the West appear to have combined to create a voluntary Gulag.
Workers flood in from the countryside, attracted by wages they could never have dreamed of at home and convinced that they can endure the harshest of conditions to earn them. They work 80-hour weeks and live in common dormitories, under constant surveillance to maintain “security”. Apple insists on extremely tight secrecy in all its operations; and two of the suicides have been linked to allegations (apparently wildly far-fetched) that workers were smuggling parts out of the factory.
It is clear that China provides a kind of proving ground for the ultimate in hyper-efficient industrial processes, eliminating that pesky human factor as far as possible. Human beings are regarded as parts in the machinery, which can be stressed until a fraction short of breaking point, with a certain casualty rate built into the planning. After all, there are plenty more where those young people came from. Just like the Gulag, and I’m not entirely sure how much difference is made by the undoubted fact that it is all voluntary.
With regards to working conditions, the deal is “If you don’t like the deal, you can eff off back to the paddy-field”. As this would involve the puncturing of a family’s dreams and intolerable loss of face, they stick it out. Until the last straw and the lonely walk off the ninth-floor dormitory roof. Enjoy your new iPad, and let’s hope the person who made it is still alive.
Monday, 24 May 2010
The two faces of Hamburg
I’m back in my old stomping ground of Hamburg where, not too long ago, I was Her Majesty’s Consul-General. As anyone who has visited knows, this is notoriously a city of two faces. I remember HRH the Duke of York arriving there on a formal visit. Asked whether this was his first visit to Hamburg, the Duke seemed to hesitate a little before replying: “Well, I was here once with the Navy, but we saw a rather different side of town.” Laughter all round.
I am especially well-positioned to appreciate the Janus face of Hamburg. When I visit I see many friends from my time as Consul-General; pillars of society, genial, prosperous but unostentatious (flaunting one’s wealth is not the Hamburg style), intensely Anglophile, all models of respectability. However, I am no longer a diplomat with all conveniences laid on courtesy of the taxpayer, but a freelance hack who has to pay his own way and hasn’t much to pay it with. So, after my coffee with a millionaire or beer with former consular colleagues, where do I retreat to? The zone of absolutely-no-frills hotels, internet cafes, shops from which you can make phone calls (exclusively manned by chaps of the Turkish persuasion) pizza by the slice and late night supermarkets; in short, the Reeperbahn.
There’s nothing glamorous about the Reeperbahn, day or night. At all hours the pavements are full of men of my own kind of age, dressed in shabby leather jackets, frequently sporting ponytails of painfully dyed hair. All clutch bottles of Astra beer and all adjacent surfaces are a mass of empties. It is as if the city employed rafts of character actors to stand around the Kiez (the local name for the red light district, pronounced like the poet Keats, a fact of which anyone who teaches Eng. Lit. in Hamburg ought to be aware) preserving the area’s reputation as a pimps’ paradise for the sake of tourists. But these aren’t actors, and they’re not pimps either – the real pimps are all Albanian and don’t stand around swigging beer in the street. The kindest word to describe them is “wannabes”. They will occasionally address you in passing, usually with something ribald, but there is no threat or hostility involved. In fact the Reeperbahn is one of the world’s safest sleaze zones, thanks to the enormous cop-shop, the Davidwache, slap in the middle of it.
Already by mid-afternoon the ladies of negotiable virtue are emerging; not scantily dressed – Hamburg is almost always far too cold for that – but recognisable by their figure-hugging clothes and by the fact that they alone don’t seem to be going anywhere. It’s an international business these days, of course – I saw one girl who I’d swear was Mongolian – but Latin America seems to be the prevailing trend. As evening proceeds some of the wannabe-pimp-or-madame types morph into touts trying to manhandle you into the go-go bars, which are presumably clip joints although I’ve never dared investigate.
The Reeperbahn is a real temple to the free market: Germany is notorious for draconian shop-opening laws, but you can buy anything, anytime, on the Kiez. There’s a large, well-stocked gun shop not a hundred yards from the Davidwache. I’m too old to stay up late enough to find out what time the shops close, especially the sex shops. I cannot imagine the sort of person who suddenly requires complex rubber appliances at half past three in the morning, but he or she will not be disappointed.
Both sides of Hamburg attract disapproval, but both provide unrivalled people-watching opportunities. And I’m glad to have a foot in both camps.
I am especially well-positioned to appreciate the Janus face of Hamburg. When I visit I see many friends from my time as Consul-General; pillars of society, genial, prosperous but unostentatious (flaunting one’s wealth is not the Hamburg style), intensely Anglophile, all models of respectability. However, I am no longer a diplomat with all conveniences laid on courtesy of the taxpayer, but a freelance hack who has to pay his own way and hasn’t much to pay it with. So, after my coffee with a millionaire or beer with former consular colleagues, where do I retreat to? The zone of absolutely-no-frills hotels, internet cafes, shops from which you can make phone calls (exclusively manned by chaps of the Turkish persuasion) pizza by the slice and late night supermarkets; in short, the Reeperbahn.
There’s nothing glamorous about the Reeperbahn, day or night. At all hours the pavements are full of men of my own kind of age, dressed in shabby leather jackets, frequently sporting ponytails of painfully dyed hair. All clutch bottles of Astra beer and all adjacent surfaces are a mass of empties. It is as if the city employed rafts of character actors to stand around the Kiez (the local name for the red light district, pronounced like the poet Keats, a fact of which anyone who teaches Eng. Lit. in Hamburg ought to be aware) preserving the area’s reputation as a pimps’ paradise for the sake of tourists. But these aren’t actors, and they’re not pimps either – the real pimps are all Albanian and don’t stand around swigging beer in the street. The kindest word to describe them is “wannabes”. They will occasionally address you in passing, usually with something ribald, but there is no threat or hostility involved. In fact the Reeperbahn is one of the world’s safest sleaze zones, thanks to the enormous cop-shop, the Davidwache, slap in the middle of it.
Already by mid-afternoon the ladies of negotiable virtue are emerging; not scantily dressed – Hamburg is almost always far too cold for that – but recognisable by their figure-hugging clothes and by the fact that they alone don’t seem to be going anywhere. It’s an international business these days, of course – I saw one girl who I’d swear was Mongolian – but Latin America seems to be the prevailing trend. As evening proceeds some of the wannabe-pimp-or-madame types morph into touts trying to manhandle you into the go-go bars, which are presumably clip joints although I’ve never dared investigate.
The Reeperbahn is a real temple to the free market: Germany is notorious for draconian shop-opening laws, but you can buy anything, anytime, on the Kiez. There’s a large, well-stocked gun shop not a hundred yards from the Davidwache. I’m too old to stay up late enough to find out what time the shops close, especially the sex shops. I cannot imagine the sort of person who suddenly requires complex rubber appliances at half past three in the morning, but he or she will not be disappointed.
Both sides of Hamburg attract disapproval, but both provide unrivalled people-watching opportunities. And I’m glad to have a foot in both camps.
Wenlock & Mandeville: cheap gimmicks or echoes of a vanished England?
I suppose that “mascots” of the type that have just been unveiled in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics are a bit of a soft target. They’re all ridiculous, and there’s not much more to be said. The only crumb of comfort is that those of other countries are normally even worse than our own. I was in China for the Asian Games of 1990, when the twee little panda Pan-Pan must have set the cause of wildlife conservation back by decades, as a whole continent fantasised about panda-shooting. By the 2008 Olympics they had had the sense to diversify the target, producing five little manikins named after the five syllables of “Welcome to Beijing”. I suppose you sorta had to be there.
But I had hopes when I heard the names Wenlock and Mandeville. Soon dashed, of course; Wenlock is named after the Shropshire village whose “games” apparently put the Olympic idea into Baron de Coubertin’s head. (The village put a few ideas into A. E. Housman’s too – must be quite a place.) And Mandeville, the Paralympic mascot, is named after Stoke Mandeville hospital for spinal injuries, a noble but rather prosaic derivation.
But just for a moment I heard the alarums and excursions of a vanished but cherished England. Was it not Sir John Wenlock who fought on so many sides in the Wars of the Roses that the historian Alison Weir dubbed him “Prince of Turncoats”? Wenlock’s ultimate come-uppance was entirely appropriate; ending up on the Lancastrian side at their last hurrah at Tewkesbury in 1471, he was forced to retreat. His fellow Lancastrian general the Duke of Somerset misinterpreted this as yet another convenient change of allegiance, and split Wenlock’s bonce down the middle with a mace. I suspect that in a few months’ time we’ll all be wondering where the Duke of Somerset is when you need him.
Strangely enough Sir Geoffrey Mandeville, 12th century Earl of Essex, was another notorious side-switcher, this time in the Stephen-Matilda fandango. He got his earldom from Stephen for supporting him against Matilda, then went over to Matilda after Stephen’s capture at the Battle of Lincoln, changed sides again on Stephen’s release, and finally abandoned the King after a dispute over some castles in 1143. By now neither side would trust him as far as they could throw him, and he set up on his tod as an outlaw in the Fens around Ely, as Hereward the Wake had done before him. The next year Stephen put an end to the yo-yo act by putting an arrow in him.
Neither really seems an ideal mascot for a great national enterprise; both civil warriors and notorious double-dealers. Or does someone perhaps know something we don’t? Perhaps our javelin throwers will all turn on each other (mascot Mandeville had better watch where he is standing) or we’ll find our athletes defecting to Australia halfway through the 1500 metres. Nothing is impossible in the Olympics, or in English history – last time round, we even won a few medals.
But I had hopes when I heard the names Wenlock and Mandeville. Soon dashed, of course; Wenlock is named after the Shropshire village whose “games” apparently put the Olympic idea into Baron de Coubertin’s head. (The village put a few ideas into A. E. Housman’s too – must be quite a place.) And Mandeville, the Paralympic mascot, is named after Stoke Mandeville hospital for spinal injuries, a noble but rather prosaic derivation.
But just for a moment I heard the alarums and excursions of a vanished but cherished England. Was it not Sir John Wenlock who fought on so many sides in the Wars of the Roses that the historian Alison Weir dubbed him “Prince of Turncoats”? Wenlock’s ultimate come-uppance was entirely appropriate; ending up on the Lancastrian side at their last hurrah at Tewkesbury in 1471, he was forced to retreat. His fellow Lancastrian general the Duke of Somerset misinterpreted this as yet another convenient change of allegiance, and split Wenlock’s bonce down the middle with a mace. I suspect that in a few months’ time we’ll all be wondering where the Duke of Somerset is when you need him.
Strangely enough Sir Geoffrey Mandeville, 12th century Earl of Essex, was another notorious side-switcher, this time in the Stephen-Matilda fandango. He got his earldom from Stephen for supporting him against Matilda, then went over to Matilda after Stephen’s capture at the Battle of Lincoln, changed sides again on Stephen’s release, and finally abandoned the King after a dispute over some castles in 1143. By now neither side would trust him as far as they could throw him, and he set up on his tod as an outlaw in the Fens around Ely, as Hereward the Wake had done before him. The next year Stephen put an end to the yo-yo act by putting an arrow in him.
Neither really seems an ideal mascot for a great national enterprise; both civil warriors and notorious double-dealers. Or does someone perhaps know something we don’t? Perhaps our javelin throwers will all turn on each other (mascot Mandeville had better watch where he is standing) or we’ll find our athletes defecting to Australia halfway through the 1500 metres. Nothing is impossible in the Olympics, or in English history – last time round, we even won a few medals.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Let’s hear it for Diane Abbott – if it’s audible
A bit of colour – and I mean this entirely in the metaphorical sense – was brought into the otherwise monochrome Labour leadership contest by the entrance of Ms Diane Abbott into the competitors’ enclosure. She says, absolutely correctly, that the current crop of candidates all look the same. How many smooth, clean-cut male early fortysomethings can we cope with? Surely the opposition to a government led by Ant and Dec should offer some sort of contrast? So I unequivocally welcome Ms Abbott’s candidature.
Besides, I like Diane Abbott. I had lunch with her once, and she was great company. Labour women are often described, fairly or unfairly, as screeching harridans; but Ms Abbott is something far better: a reformed ex-harridan. Round about the time she decided she really must send her son to a selective school, she dropped the class-and-race-warrior bit and adopted a wonderfully self-deprecatory, foot-in-mouth style which is a welcome contrast to so many of her buttoned-up colleagues. Her double-act with Michael Portillo on Andrew Neil’s sofa has been a must-watch in my family for ages.
But there is a serious point behind her candidature: how important is it that Labour gives a clear sign of embracing diversity? It’s not just a question of showing willing by putting a token woman on the short-list; it’s a question of utilising the qualities that diverse sectors of humanity can bring to the table. Now, generalising in public about the differing qualities of men and women is taking your life in your hands, but, what the hell, I’ve got two ex-wives and I can take it. I would say that, on the whole, women possess great single-mindedness but are not so well equipped to deal with nuances, counter-arguments and unintended consequences. I will stick my neck out and say that seeing the issue from the other person’s point of view requires a Y chromosome.
This is no question of superiority or inferiority. Margaret Thatcher, love her or loathe her, was a prime example of a politician who knew what she wanted to do and got it through, scattering objectors like chaff. It’s clear that both approaches, the dialectic and the bulldozer, have their place in politics. What has no place is any sort of tokenism. Diane Abbott is no more “token” than Mrs Thatcher was, but I hope no-one votes for her just because of her gender or colour. As it is, I for one will be observing the performance of Labour MPs selected from “all-women shortlists” fairly closely.
But, inevitably, Ms Abbott’s performance in the leadership election will give some indication of just how important or unimportant “gender” or “diversity” issues really are in Labour politics. I rather suspect that, when push comes to shove, that competence and clarity of vision will prove to be rather more significant factors. Not that I am suggesting that Ms Abbott is deficient in either. But that’s for the party to decide.
I don’t think I’ll be voting for Ms Abbott – she’d be bound to put her foot in it to an extent which would endanger my ageing heart – but I’m glad she’s standing. Give ‘em hell, Diane.
Besides, I like Diane Abbott. I had lunch with her once, and she was great company. Labour women are often described, fairly or unfairly, as screeching harridans; but Ms Abbott is something far better: a reformed ex-harridan. Round about the time she decided she really must send her son to a selective school, she dropped the class-and-race-warrior bit and adopted a wonderfully self-deprecatory, foot-in-mouth style which is a welcome contrast to so many of her buttoned-up colleagues. Her double-act with Michael Portillo on Andrew Neil’s sofa has been a must-watch in my family for ages.
But there is a serious point behind her candidature: how important is it that Labour gives a clear sign of embracing diversity? It’s not just a question of showing willing by putting a token woman on the short-list; it’s a question of utilising the qualities that diverse sectors of humanity can bring to the table. Now, generalising in public about the differing qualities of men and women is taking your life in your hands, but, what the hell, I’ve got two ex-wives and I can take it. I would say that, on the whole, women possess great single-mindedness but are not so well equipped to deal with nuances, counter-arguments and unintended consequences. I will stick my neck out and say that seeing the issue from the other person’s point of view requires a Y chromosome.
This is no question of superiority or inferiority. Margaret Thatcher, love her or loathe her, was a prime example of a politician who knew what she wanted to do and got it through, scattering objectors like chaff. It’s clear that both approaches, the dialectic and the bulldozer, have their place in politics. What has no place is any sort of tokenism. Diane Abbott is no more “token” than Mrs Thatcher was, but I hope no-one votes for her just because of her gender or colour. As it is, I for one will be observing the performance of Labour MPs selected from “all-women shortlists” fairly closely.
But, inevitably, Ms Abbott’s performance in the leadership election will give some indication of just how important or unimportant “gender” or “diversity” issues really are in Labour politics. I rather suspect that, when push comes to shove, that competence and clarity of vision will prove to be rather more significant factors. Not that I am suggesting that Ms Abbott is deficient in either. But that’s for the party to decide.
I don’t think I’ll be voting for Ms Abbott – she’d be bound to put her foot in it to an extent which would endanger my ageing heart – but I’m glad she’s standing. Give ‘em hell, Diane.
How was your Everybody Draw Mohammed Day?
Ms Molly Norris, a Seattle cartoonist, called a few weeks ago for May 20th to be declared Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. This was in protest against the self-censorship of Comedy Central, producers of the notoriously iconoclastic South Park series, when they pulled a provocative cartoon of the Prophet PBUH in a bear costume. She has since retracted the call, apologised to Muslims in general and taken down the relevant Facebook page. Why? Well, you can guess.
Now, I enjoy a wind-up as much as the next person, but I did not participate. Largely because I can’t draw to save my life (and perhaps it did save my life). I feel extremely ambivalent about this sort of think, as I expect a lot of people do. When I say I enjoy a wind-up I mean I like winding up the pompous, prissy and cocksure; not that I burn with passion to offend peaceful people who do or wish me no harm. I do not remove my copy of “The Satanic Verses” from the bookshelves when I have Muslim guests; but I do not wave it in their faces. Like most British people, Muslim and Christian alike, I am a determined live-and-let-liver. (I wish more of the atheists were. I am tempted to suggest that next to Rushdie’s magnum opus on my shelves stands a copy of “The Good Writer Philip and the Scoundrel Pullman”.)
But something gnaws at me. Essentially, it is one of those “elephants in the room”; truths which everybody knows but feels compelled to ignore. We have large Muslim communities in Britain, and other Western countries, whom we welcome in the name of liberalism and diversity, provided that they hare here legally. But why are they here? I am no fanatical anti-immigrationist, and I accept that the post-war influx of sub-continentals was a natural concomitant of the end of Empire. But there is no corresponding inrush of Geordies, Scousers or Cockneys to Bangladesh. Now, one must tread carefully here, but is it permissible to mention words like “flush toilets”, “electricity”, “central heating”, “political freedom and stability” etc.?
And where did those come from? No serious historian will deny that the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the industrial one of the eighteenth derived at least in part from the freedom of thought generated by the Reformation and the Enlightenment; i.e. to put it crudely, the freedom to flout religious taboos. People come to us because our society is better, and it is better because we do things they won’t. And no, it isn’t better just because of our previous imperialist exploitation. To cite just one example, societies which bar women from socio-economic activity out of terror that they might develop a sex life get poor, and get poor quickly. China was the world’s leading civilisation before they started binding women’s feet.
And if they do come here, they shouldn’t be demanding that we become more like the society they left. Britons of Pakistani or Bangladeshi background are here, or at least their parents were, because Britain is not Pakistan or Bangladesh. And, with all respect, we don’t want it to be. Any of it. Is this crass racism? If it is, then shoot me. But I don’t think so.
Now, I enjoy a wind-up as much as the next person, but I did not participate. Largely because I can’t draw to save my life (and perhaps it did save my life). I feel extremely ambivalent about this sort of think, as I expect a lot of people do. When I say I enjoy a wind-up I mean I like winding up the pompous, prissy and cocksure; not that I burn with passion to offend peaceful people who do or wish me no harm. I do not remove my copy of “The Satanic Verses” from the bookshelves when I have Muslim guests; but I do not wave it in their faces. Like most British people, Muslim and Christian alike, I am a determined live-and-let-liver. (I wish more of the atheists were. I am tempted to suggest that next to Rushdie’s magnum opus on my shelves stands a copy of “The Good Writer Philip and the Scoundrel Pullman”.)
But something gnaws at me. Essentially, it is one of those “elephants in the room”; truths which everybody knows but feels compelled to ignore. We have large Muslim communities in Britain, and other Western countries, whom we welcome in the name of liberalism and diversity, provided that they hare here legally. But why are they here? I am no fanatical anti-immigrationist, and I accept that the post-war influx of sub-continentals was a natural concomitant of the end of Empire. But there is no corresponding inrush of Geordies, Scousers or Cockneys to Bangladesh. Now, one must tread carefully here, but is it permissible to mention words like “flush toilets”, “electricity”, “central heating”, “political freedom and stability” etc.?
And where did those come from? No serious historian will deny that the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the industrial one of the eighteenth derived at least in part from the freedom of thought generated by the Reformation and the Enlightenment; i.e. to put it crudely, the freedom to flout religious taboos. People come to us because our society is better, and it is better because we do things they won’t. And no, it isn’t better just because of our previous imperialist exploitation. To cite just one example, societies which bar women from socio-economic activity out of terror that they might develop a sex life get poor, and get poor quickly. China was the world’s leading civilisation before they started binding women’s feet.
And if they do come here, they shouldn’t be demanding that we become more like the society they left. Britons of Pakistani or Bangladeshi background are here, or at least their parents were, because Britain is not Pakistan or Bangladesh. And, with all respect, we don’t want it to be. Any of it. Is this crass racism? If it is, then shoot me. But I don’t think so.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
There's a Con-Dem coalition in Germany, and it's creaking ominously
Over in Germany for a few days, to see what happens in a land where Con-Dem coalitions are a chronic condition. Helmut Kohl led one for about 15 years, and now Frau Merkel is having a go. But she has reached that tricky mid-term stage where things begin to go pear-shaped, and I thought it might be a good idea to look into the precise form and composition of the pear.
Actually the situation in Berlin appears reasonably stable: the permanent tensions run along different lines to our own, with the Free Democrats imbued with the spirit (or virus) of Thatcherism pitted against the more staid, don’t-frighten-the-horses approach of Frau Merkel’s lot. (Could she be Ted Heath in drag?) But in the country at large, ominous creaks are audible.
We have by-elections to demonstrate how a mid-term Government’s performance is perceived. The federalist Germans, by contrast, have state elections, which are rather more sweeping in their scope. Especially when the state in question is North Rhine/Westphalia (NRW), which covers about a quarter of the German population. Until last week NRW had the same Con-Dem coalition as the Federal Republic; but now the voters, as voters will, have stuck a great clumping foot through the carefully constructive edifice. Not only was the general preference unclear (the Merkelite CDU beat the Labourish SPD by a mere 0.1 per cent), but the arithmetic is such that either of the two main parties will need not one but two coalition partners to form a government. Oh, the joys of PR and five-party politics!
The Free Democrats want to remain true to Frau Angela and the CDU, but that would only work if one of the left-wing parties, the Greens or the Left Party, come in to make up the numbers. And the same would apply if they tried to set up a coalition with the SPD. But the Free Dems, who run more to smooth suits and Friedmanite economics than to beards and sandals, have a big problem with lefties. They cut them dead in the street, and give the impression that they’d rather form a coalition with Al-Qa’eda. The central party in Berlin is trying to make the NRW branch see sense, but trying to talk sense into liberals is rather like trying it with a 15-year-old.
So it would seem that Con-Dem coalitions can be addictive, withdrawal symptoms and all. But what’s the likely result of the NRW hissy-fit? There are two possibilities. One involves the SPD and Greens bringing the Left Party (a sort of independent Old Labour) into a Western state government for the first time, an idea to make German conservatives choke on their Bratwurst. Of course it would not be easy to form a government with two parties with a distinctly ambivalent attitude to governmental responsibility; however, if it worked, it could lay a platform for a revived German Left, strengthened by moving leftwards.
However, that isn’t the sort of thing one bets the ranch on. So NRW may retreat to what in Britain would be unthinkable but what in Germany is the tried and trusted: the “grand” or Con-Lab coalition. This, of course, is a tried and trusted recipe for institutional stagnation, cosy carve-ups and general evasion of responsibility. But, hardly surprising given their recent history, the Germans have no objection to the odd bit of stagnation. They’ve had it for years, and the place still seems to function.
But we’re not Germans, you may say; and we aren’t. But it does seem that Germany provides a glimpse of what political life might become under PR. It should at least induce us to ask the question: is this a price we are prepared to pay just for the sake of being “fair” to Nick Clegg and his band of dozy students?
Actually the situation in Berlin appears reasonably stable: the permanent tensions run along different lines to our own, with the Free Democrats imbued with the spirit (or virus) of Thatcherism pitted against the more staid, don’t-frighten-the-horses approach of Frau Merkel’s lot. (Could she be Ted Heath in drag?) But in the country at large, ominous creaks are audible.
We have by-elections to demonstrate how a mid-term Government’s performance is perceived. The federalist Germans, by contrast, have state elections, which are rather more sweeping in their scope. Especially when the state in question is North Rhine/Westphalia (NRW), which covers about a quarter of the German population. Until last week NRW had the same Con-Dem coalition as the Federal Republic; but now the voters, as voters will, have stuck a great clumping foot through the carefully constructive edifice. Not only was the general preference unclear (the Merkelite CDU beat the Labourish SPD by a mere 0.1 per cent), but the arithmetic is such that either of the two main parties will need not one but two coalition partners to form a government. Oh, the joys of PR and five-party politics!
The Free Democrats want to remain true to Frau Angela and the CDU, but that would only work if one of the left-wing parties, the Greens or the Left Party, come in to make up the numbers. And the same would apply if they tried to set up a coalition with the SPD. But the Free Dems, who run more to smooth suits and Friedmanite economics than to beards and sandals, have a big problem with lefties. They cut them dead in the street, and give the impression that they’d rather form a coalition with Al-Qa’eda. The central party in Berlin is trying to make the NRW branch see sense, but trying to talk sense into liberals is rather like trying it with a 15-year-old.
So it would seem that Con-Dem coalitions can be addictive, withdrawal symptoms and all. But what’s the likely result of the NRW hissy-fit? There are two possibilities. One involves the SPD and Greens bringing the Left Party (a sort of independent Old Labour) into a Western state government for the first time, an idea to make German conservatives choke on their Bratwurst. Of course it would not be easy to form a government with two parties with a distinctly ambivalent attitude to governmental responsibility; however, if it worked, it could lay a platform for a revived German Left, strengthened by moving leftwards.
However, that isn’t the sort of thing one bets the ranch on. So NRW may retreat to what in Britain would be unthinkable but what in Germany is the tried and trusted: the “grand” or Con-Lab coalition. This, of course, is a tried and trusted recipe for institutional stagnation, cosy carve-ups and general evasion of responsibility. But, hardly surprising given their recent history, the Germans have no objection to the odd bit of stagnation. They’ve had it for years, and the place still seems to function.
But we’re not Germans, you may say; and we aren’t. But it does seem that Germany provides a glimpse of what political life might become under PR. It should at least induce us to ask the question: is this a price we are prepared to pay just for the sake of being “fair” to Nick Clegg and his band of dozy students?
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Labour's future: please, no more hatchet-men or aping the rich and greedy
Well, there’s going to be an indefinite spell in opposition. When I was blathering just now along the usual lines of “a short interval to regroup and reassess”, a friend replied: “Like 1951 or 1979, you mean?” Touché. But, despite the unprecedented move to fix the date of the next election in 2015, a spread bet on when it will actually happen would be quite interesting.
So Labour has to elect a Leader for opposition, and keep its powder dry in case things in Downing Street go pear-shaped. First, of course, the fairground spectacle of the leadership contest. The sooner the personality-cult stuff is dispensed with the better. It’s only a pity the process takes so long. Young Miliband seems to be taking the initiative; let him have it, for all I care. There’s no especially attractive alternative. So long as he brings Jon Cruddas into the team; I doubt Cruddas has the necessary profile to land the job himself, but he has retained the ability to think for himself (which the Brown inner circle will painstakingly have to reacquire) and he is able, almost uniquely, to locate his constituency without recourse to Google Maps.
Then of course there’s a strategy to develop. Clearly there will be much fun to be extracted from the gyrations of the Cameron-Clegg pantomime horse; but Labour must not be too clever in scheming to create or magnify splits. (Someone sit on Lord Mandelson, please.) Labour can’t allow its approach to the agenda to be too reactive; but it can’t try too hard to set it either. (Macmillan’s “events” will do that.)
More important than either personalities or detailed policies will be the style and tone. In government we were not popular, and not pretty. I believe Gordon Brown was a good man, but to say he lacked the popular touch is somewhat of an understatement. And it wasn’t just his personality; it was the perception, justified or not, of his style of government. We don’t want any more hatchet-men or hatchet faces; people who know where you live and will waylay you in dark alleys if you step out of line. We want MPs who know their constituencies and have channels through which local views, however uncomfortable, can be fed into the centre. The next party leader must be properly prepared for Mrs Gillian Duffy.
We need to face up to the changing face of employment; yes, we can now blame our woes on the Tories and Lib Dems, but we’ll need to argue convincingly that we could do it better. We need trade unions which concentrate on improving their members’ pay and conditions, not on power-broking within the party like the old 1970s barons. In fact we need smaller unions to serve the smaller and more diverse workplaces of today, not the recently emerged megaliths with their six-figure executive salaries.
We need an end to clinging to the coat-tails of the rich and greedy. Even if we’re no longer soaking the rich, we don’t need to ape them. That lay at the heart of the expenses scandal. If we see sound economic reasons for allowing and encouraging the acquisition of great wealth, then we must be absolutely clear that Labour people do not belong in such circles. Nor is there much point in chasing their votes: our own people have hundreds of times as many. If we can get them out, which we almost didn’t this time.
The new Government will face plenty of opportunities to fail the ordinary working people of Britain. They’re bound to take some of them. Labour, under whatever leadership, must make sure that it puts itself in a position to benefit.
So Labour has to elect a Leader for opposition, and keep its powder dry in case things in Downing Street go pear-shaped. First, of course, the fairground spectacle of the leadership contest. The sooner the personality-cult stuff is dispensed with the better. It’s only a pity the process takes so long. Young Miliband seems to be taking the initiative; let him have it, for all I care. There’s no especially attractive alternative. So long as he brings Jon Cruddas into the team; I doubt Cruddas has the necessary profile to land the job himself, but he has retained the ability to think for himself (which the Brown inner circle will painstakingly have to reacquire) and he is able, almost uniquely, to locate his constituency without recourse to Google Maps.
Then of course there’s a strategy to develop. Clearly there will be much fun to be extracted from the gyrations of the Cameron-Clegg pantomime horse; but Labour must not be too clever in scheming to create or magnify splits. (Someone sit on Lord Mandelson, please.) Labour can’t allow its approach to the agenda to be too reactive; but it can’t try too hard to set it either. (Macmillan’s “events” will do that.)
More important than either personalities or detailed policies will be the style and tone. In government we were not popular, and not pretty. I believe Gordon Brown was a good man, but to say he lacked the popular touch is somewhat of an understatement. And it wasn’t just his personality; it was the perception, justified or not, of his style of government. We don’t want any more hatchet-men or hatchet faces; people who know where you live and will waylay you in dark alleys if you step out of line. We want MPs who know their constituencies and have channels through which local views, however uncomfortable, can be fed into the centre. The next party leader must be properly prepared for Mrs Gillian Duffy.
We need to face up to the changing face of employment; yes, we can now blame our woes on the Tories and Lib Dems, but we’ll need to argue convincingly that we could do it better. We need trade unions which concentrate on improving their members’ pay and conditions, not on power-broking within the party like the old 1970s barons. In fact we need smaller unions to serve the smaller and more diverse workplaces of today, not the recently emerged megaliths with their six-figure executive salaries.
We need an end to clinging to the coat-tails of the rich and greedy. Even if we’re no longer soaking the rich, we don’t need to ape them. That lay at the heart of the expenses scandal. If we see sound economic reasons for allowing and encouraging the acquisition of great wealth, then we must be absolutely clear that Labour people do not belong in such circles. Nor is there much point in chasing their votes: our own people have hundreds of times as many. If we can get them out, which we almost didn’t this time.
The new Government will face plenty of opportunities to fail the ordinary working people of Britain. They’re bound to take some of them. Labour, under whatever leadership, must make sure that it puts itself in a position to benefit.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Is this a happy ending after all for Cameron and Clegg?
Whew. Sighs of relief and trebles all round at Collard Towers (aka the Lancaster Lubyanka). For a moment we were almost convincing ourselves that the wild and wacky idea of the Progressive Alliance, or Uncle Tom Cobbleigh coalition, might actually fly. And it seemed that the Tories did too; my, my, weren’t they angry and abusive about the man with whom they’re now going to find themselves working? It’s now clear, as it should have been all along, that Clegg was just firing a shot across Cameron’s bows by flirting so outrageously with Labour. The green-eyed monster was duly roused, and it looks as though jealous Dave will after all be consummating his inter-species marriage with the creature my son calls “the Long-Legged Cleggy-Weggy”.
For it was clear that the “Progressive Alliance” idea was principally of value as an irritant for Tories with a sense of entitlement. (Let me repeat: 306 seats out of 650 does not constitute what the Chinese would call the Mandate of Heaven.) After we discovered, even before the election, that Dave was prepared to buy Ulster Unionist support by promising exemption from spending cuts for Northern Ireland, it was rather nice to be able to come back at them with what would have been similar offers to the Scots and Welsh. But it clearly would not have been a winner in even the medium term; the Tories would have whipped up enormous resentment in England, and one could hardly have blamed them. Such a broad coalition would have been inherently unstable, and even if it had held together it could not but have made itself intensely unpopular.
No – let the Tories and Lib Dems take the strain. No less a personage than Mervyn King pointed out that this election was not a bad one to lose. If the new Government proves a stunning success and pulls us out of economic misery, both parties will receive electoral credit – and they’ll deserve it. But few would bet the ranch on that. Far more likely that it will all end in tears and recriminations. While this may not hurt the Tories too badly – Tories are ineradicable, like weeds – the Lib Dems are on the most terrific hiding to nothing.
In half the country they will be regarded as Tories Mark II. In Scotland and Wales, which are unlikely to do particularly well out of the new dispensation, they will face obliteration, despite their long traditions there. They could be forced back on positioning themselves as the enlightened element of the comfortable English bourgeoisie. And what price their hard-won successes in Burnley or Redcar then?
And we in Labour? Well, as defeated parties always say, we’ll renew ourselves in opposition. It might well be the best place to manage the transition from the Blair/Brown generation to its successors. If this strange coalition works, we’ll accept it gracefully for the sake of the jobs it had better create. If not – well, guess who’ll pick up the pieces?
For it was clear that the “Progressive Alliance” idea was principally of value as an irritant for Tories with a sense of entitlement. (Let me repeat: 306 seats out of 650 does not constitute what the Chinese would call the Mandate of Heaven.) After we discovered, even before the election, that Dave was prepared to buy Ulster Unionist support by promising exemption from spending cuts for Northern Ireland, it was rather nice to be able to come back at them with what would have been similar offers to the Scots and Welsh. But it clearly would not have been a winner in even the medium term; the Tories would have whipped up enormous resentment in England, and one could hardly have blamed them. Such a broad coalition would have been inherently unstable, and even if it had held together it could not but have made itself intensely unpopular.
No – let the Tories and Lib Dems take the strain. No less a personage than Mervyn King pointed out that this election was not a bad one to lose. If the new Government proves a stunning success and pulls us out of economic misery, both parties will receive electoral credit – and they’ll deserve it. But few would bet the ranch on that. Far more likely that it will all end in tears and recriminations. While this may not hurt the Tories too badly – Tories are ineradicable, like weeds – the Lib Dems are on the most terrific hiding to nothing.
In half the country they will be regarded as Tories Mark II. In Scotland and Wales, which are unlikely to do particularly well out of the new dispensation, they will face obliteration, despite their long traditions there. They could be forced back on positioning themselves as the enlightened element of the comfortable English bourgeoisie. And what price their hard-won successes in Burnley or Redcar then?
And we in Labour? Well, as defeated parties always say, we’ll renew ourselves in opposition. It might well be the best place to manage the transition from the Blair/Brown generation to its successors. If this strange coalition works, we’ll accept it gracefully for the sake of the jobs it had better create. If not – well, guess who’ll pick up the pieces?
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