THE INTERNATIONALE IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES & ESPERANTO !

BIG SOCIETY BULLSHIT & 'YOU HAVE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD'.

So, the government are not giving up on this ' big society ' rubbish. What tends to happen, if you listen to the debates in the Commons, is that a Conservative back bencher trumpets something they say has occurred in their own constituency where a group of good citizens have got together to save a local duck pond or some-such and then the minister who is speaking says that this is ' a good example of the big society.' No wider context, no outcome, no indication of the status, power or influence of these people is ever given, nor, indeed whether or not the duck pond is really going to benefit a vast number of citizens. I always think of Barnes in south west London, although it is scarcely a part of London in that it is like a separate world, in this regard. Here we have an area that has indeed retained its duck pond, has a local post office, a local butcher, fishmonger, even a cheese shop, pssibly a candlestick maker, I would not be surprised, and all the open space you could wish for, surrounding well kept streets and gardens, established private schools ( St Pauls ) , two train stations with direct services into central London and half a dozen pubs and myriad restaurants. And it is also, I suggest, the home of much old money and can be bought into only if in the upper levels of income. People of influence live here, discretely, and have made sure, over many years of being able to use that influence and having the wherewithall, (polite euphemism for plenty of money), to obtain all the professional advice and use all the additional power that that brings. That is also why it is a little haven of gentility and an illusion of a cosy village within London. The point is these are not the conditions that exist in 99% of this country and even where they do occasionally they will be overridden by more powerful voices. The people of Barnes, well some of them, did not want a Sainsburys in their midst, not a giant megastore, just a modest outlet. But it was inserted after all.

Some people would be more than happy to have a Sainsburys in their high street.

This is the lie at the centre of all this big society bullshit. It is predicated upon the obviously false assumption that everywhere is like Barnes, peopled by those that have the money, time and influence to maintain their immediate surroundings in the way they wish. The reality is so different that it is tantamount to insulting for these ignorant and self-serving conservatives to keep repeating this inanity in the hope that someone will take it seriously. The conservative party spent 18 years assiduously dismantling the already faltering bonds and institutions that were the glue to this society, famously the vile utterance of poison from Thatcher that declared 'there is no such thing as society' which pretty well summed up the underlying attitude of that period of their government. To now try and portray this latest version of conservative rule as concerned with re-building the very thing they attacked and undermined for 18 years is a volte face and hypocrisy of a breathtaking arrogance that could only be spoken from those without any conception or experience of what life in this godforsaken country is like for those without the the means nor the remotest chance of entry to the small sub-section of society that actually pulls the levers and presses the buttons.

Meanwhile the execrable Lord Young, who was in Thatcher's government and apparently still serves some function in the current one, (why do these bastards never just go away to their manor houses and get out of public life, instead of continuing to re-visit and pontificate on the scene of their crimes ? Lord Lamont, the most inept Tory chancellor in my lifetime, appearing to give Ireland ' advice ' at great length on the BBC the other night, another example ) has come out with that ' you have never had it so good ' line that was previously uttered to the contempt even of most conservative commentators in 1957 when Macmillan was in office.

WARNING : ANGER RISING, ANGER RISING...

A CONSTITUTION BY DEFAULT

One of the most extraordinary things to have come about from the hung parliament result in the last election is that there now exists a sort of proto-constitution by default. Because there was a strong possibility of there being no clear winner a senior civil servant, Gus O'Donnell, was tasked to put together some sort of handbook, for purely internal use, to avoid the problem of having to ask the Queen to decide who would be the new Prime Minister. This is the reality of the on-going absurdity and insult to the citizens of this country that not having a formal written constitution leaves us all in : at the last minute and solely to avoid the Queen having the embarrassing chore of having to decide which party will take over the running of what is still her government as opposed to ours, a civil servant had to run up something in lieu of a constitution overnight. This now may, and I stress, may, become the basis for a formal constitution, some commentators have said. I wont hold my breath.

I recently heard Tom McNally Leader in the House of Lords in response to a question which referred to the still non-existent constitution say, in a joky manner and quoting some earlier Lord or similar, ' not next week '. It may be an amusement for him, but it appears to me that this is a fundamental and deliberate omission that allows the continued obfuscation as to where power really lies and to treat it as a joke is an unacceptable conceit.

Incidentally, having heard his response to a question as to whether any of the governments cuts in welfare provision would contravene Human Rights, which was vague and unconvincing, I asked by e-mail to which Human Rights legislation he was referring in his reply, as that in UK law is not by any means comprehensive whereas at UN and EC level it is quite different. ( See earlier article on this subject ).

I have yet to have any response.

BENEFIT CUTS & THE HOLY GRAIL OF 'WORK'.

First, let me recount an anecdote, not funny or hugely interesting, but just bare with me. I was to meet two long standing friends last weekend. We each live in different parts of London so meet in a central location. The weather had turned cold. I check the credit left on my gas meter and the amount left with a week to go before the next JSA payment, £9.50. Its impossible, the fare is £4.20, one round of drinks will be £10. It cant be done. That is the reality of the 'lifestyle' of being on basic benefits in the UK. I cancelled.

Now come the reforms, predicated upon the lie that it is an easy option to live on benefits. There will be mandatory work placements and real cuts in entitlement, the most extraordinary being the arbitrary 10% cut in Housing Benefit if out of work for a year, to 'incentivise' taking a job. Beware a crap word that is not in the Oxford dictionary, it means punish for not having got a job.

While announcing these IDS said ' it is always better to work.' Why ? That is a subjective opinion. Is it really better to work for the paltry £65 a week than not? In the former Communist countries it was often said, as an example of how their regimes treated people terribly, that dissident professors were sweeping the streets because they would not toe the party line. Now what is the difference if I am told to go and sweep the streets for £65 a week because I dissent from our system which cannot allow an individual to receive an already inadequate two weekly sum without working for the privilege, meanwhile rewarding others that engage in dubious financial transactions with vast sums and immunity from sanction ? Am I expected to be grateful for this corrective measure, this re-educative work at poverty wages ? Sorry, fuck off.

On what basis do most members of our government assert that work is the holy grail and something which everyone must take part in to justify their very existence? How can any two occupations, being a merchant banker or a sheet metal worker, for examples, be compared and simply called ' work' ? They are clearly not the same thing. And they are not equally rewarding for those who undertake those activities, nor are they both necessarily good things in terms of the larger society. You can guess which one I regard as useful.

Are the rights to shelter, food and an existence in basic dignity to be entirely dependent upon work ? Working for whom ? Working for what purpose ? People work manufacturing weapons and assorted military hardware, in fact, during wartime employment is always at historic highs, suddenly there is enough money to create thousands of jobs. There is no question in my mind that this is not constructive or useful and is not something that I would undertake whether paid or not. Selling mobile phones is another random example of a singularly pointless activity. In what way can it be said that these are necessarily good things to be doing ? It is work, and if one is prepared to do it fine, but my view is that they are not good things to be doing and I do not agree that all work is self-justifying.

Someone said in the debate that work was a habit, yes, well, but why is it the habit of working one that a government wants to coerce everyone into ? Smoking is a habit, but it is discouraged. To get up at the same time every day, similar to everyone else, to get in a car or on a train at a similar time to everyone else, to devote the great majority of the day to whatever one's ' work ' is and then travel back at a similar time to everyone else and then get up and do it all again for a week. Explain please why this is such a wonderful habit to have ? And, moreover, why is it being proscribed by regulations that will mean that if one actively dissents from this view that is an absolute an unchallengeable good thing, you will be left high and dry with no means of support ?

For three years, the new rules will say, as if you will last for three weeks with no money at all.

Everywhere the message is the same, on the BBC endless programmes supposed to show how

'hard work' is good for you, how you need to think like a business, behave like an entrepreneur, walk like an Egyptian, no, that was a song by the Bangles, but about as meaningful. These mantras from the C18th are the detritus from a discredited utilitarianism that still infects the lame brains of the Tory party, they mean nothing in the current corrupt, inequitable and morally as well as practically bankrupt late-Capitalist excuse for an ideology. There is nothing left which can justify or assume the right to coerce people into its way of ordering society.

All commentators laughingly still defined as left and right chorus disapproval of the 'workshy.'

Well, in their terms I am workshy and proud of it. How the hell would I find the time to listen to symphonies on the radio, read the complete works of Oscar Wilde and Phillip K Dick, collect stamps, write the occasional poem, waste time in the pub, go for long walks by the river, go to the library to keep abreast of the latest trends in flower arranging, skirt length and trouser shape, write this garbage, um, stimulating prose, and the million and one other things that make life worth living, just.

Oh yes, and one more thing to stick in the pipe of utilitarianism and smoke thereof, why is it that at 65 ( or whatever the arbitrarily chosen age is this week ) it is suddenly perfectly alright to sit at home all day and receive just about enough to live on ? How is it that the great panacea of work immediately becomes entirely forgotten once past a certain birthday ? No one calls a pensioner a workshy layabout.

Anyway that's quite enough for today, there are other things not to do.

JERUSALEM : William Blake

VODAPHONE TAX AVOIDANCE : DIRECT ACTION.

I am not an enthusiast of mobile phones, I do not and never have owned one. They have always seemed like a tracking device as much as a communication tool in my eyes.

But that is incidental to this issue, which is corporate tax avoidance. The articles linked, especially the Private Eye piece, which is particularly revealing of the type of people that are being appointed by this government, explain far better than I could.

Click on title above for link to :

http://www.ukuncut.wordpress.com/
There is to be further Direct Action in London tomorrow, beginning with a gathering at Speakers Corner at 11:00am.

Austerity : Common Sense or Nonsense ?

This is a straightforward explanation of why the ' we are all in this together ' lie is just that, a LIE and the BBC are being used to broadcast propaganda about benefit cheats on the same day that cuts in benefits are announced. And still not one the executives or directors of any of the financial institutions that caused this situation have been prosecuted in the UK.

Why are the riots and blockades in France being almost totally ignored ? The port of Marseilles is closed down, the French government is deploying large numbers of what are effectively quasi-military police. Meanwhile here the government announces the most extraordinary vindictive and unjust reforms to the already inadequate benefit system which will, for example, require ' long term ', ie one year, unemployed to pay 10% of their rent out of £65.50 a week. This is especially onerous because if you have been on JSA for a year you are likely to have little or no savings. There is a slogan 'Cant pay, Wont Pay ' and there is only so far you can push people. There is a song, ' I predict a riot ', I don't particularly like the song, nor want a riot, but its getting ever more close.

WAR ON THE POOR : UK BENEFIT INADEQUACY & HUMAN RIGHTS.

Despite all the talk about the necessity for cuts in welfare provision there are certain very significant facts that are rarely raised. In the UK benefit levels for able-bodied citizens have declined significantly from 2001 to 2010 in real terms. This is in contrast to most other European countries where they have increased over the same period. This is clearly shown in research from the IZA at Bonn University and other academic studies. As Professor Van Mechelen of the University of Antwerp sums up 'although benefit level for families have increased for others they have declined and for both households with and without children UK benefit levels are highly inadequate.'
Related research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation confirms these facts , as does data published by the Minimum Income Standards Organisation and The Campaign Against Child Poverty. All have proven conclusively that in the UK benefits are highly inadequate, leave its citizens in poverty and have been declining in real terms to their current historical low. See the links to their published information below.
The JRF research used representative samples of the population and asked them what the minimum list of necessities were that no one should be without. This was a methodically conducted investigation in the real world not the inner sanctum of a government department but it has been dismissed as ‘subjective’ by politicians none of whom could imagine the very real strain of trying to subsist on £65.45 a week, the maximum for a single person.
This is at an all-time low of 10.5% of average earnings. Yet Steve Webb, Pensions Minister, recently accepted that the higher rated basic pension of £87.65 a week ‘ was not enough to live on.’ The privatised utility companies can make direct deductions, further lowering the amount left to live on.
This is combined with increasing conditionality and means testing. Thus even this inadequate and diminishing amount is far less secure and can be withdrawn at a stroke for a variety of reasons.
The coalition has announced further effective reductions in this inadequate provision which clearly goes against countless Declarations, Covenants and Charters to which the UK is a signatory at European and International level. The Labour government ignored these agreements with equal ease, the citizens effected having no coherent voice or influence. Despite there being millions of unemployed at any given time in the ’economic cycle’ and there never has been, and there never will be, full employment, there is no representative body, no Union of the Unemployed. Charities attempt to pick up the pieces of the consequences of this deliberate refusal to improve what is no longer even called a Social Security system, the term has disappeared, and try to draw attention to our government’s obligations which are clearly intended to give the right to all citizens of this country to have sufficient resources to live in dignity not effective poverty.
The problem is that these vitally important objectives seeking to enable social inclusion and provide the resources to do so are not judicially enforceable. What is ’adequate’ is left to individual states to calculate and, although any fair minded person would agree that £65.45 a week is clearly not ‘adequate‘, there is no way of challenging this in law.
It can surely be contended that Human Rights are being breached, poverty being a violation of human dignity. Human Rights agreements to which this country is a signatory may be a stronger way to challenge this unjustifiable situation and create momentum for positive change. Yet the UK Government has refused to incorporate the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights into UK Law, contrary to the recommendation from the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
So when successive UK governments wilfully ignore these agreements to which they are a party and with a coalition that is actively countermanding their principles, how will any social progress be made ? It will not arise from academic papers and reports no matter how well researched and proven.
As more and more citizens in the UK come up against the reality that our benefit system, as it stands, does not provide a remotely adequate income and the resulting stresses that this places on individuals and their ability to participate in a grossly unequal society, there will have to be significant changes or there will be increasingly serious consequences both in individual casualties and ultimately in the potential for social disorder.

LINKS :
http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/minimum-income-standard-2010
http://www.minimumincomestandard.org/downloads/means-tested_benefits.pdf
http://www.cpag.org.uk/povertyfacts/index

This piece was also published in Tribune edition of 8 October 2010.

http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/10/cameron%e2%80%99s-social-insecurity/ or click on title at top.

French Internment Camps 1939-1944

Following on from the piece below to visit a site that has quite a comprehensive list and some limited documentation about the camps in France where Spanish, Polish, French Communists, Jews and others were held, click on the above title. It was put together by a French stamp collecting group, and some of the most poignant and disturbing items are the censored and opened mail being sent by those in the camps to the ouside world.
The picture on the left is a memorial stone from Septfonds. The picture below by the earlier piece is also from the site of that camp and is of a restored shrine that was built by Polish internees.

LINK : http://www.apra.asso.fr/Camps/En/Accueil-Camps.html

The Polish contribution to the defense of Britain in the 2WW.

(Click on Title to link to Poland in Exile)

With the extensive amount of programming on the BBC in particular to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain it was very disappointing to notice how little, if any, mention was made of the contribution of Polish forces that flew with and supported the RAF during that desperate period. Not only did Poles fly and fight in the historic Battle of Britain and downed proportionately a very high number of German planes there were large numbers involved in ground support, radio operation and maintenance. There is one good book about the Polish pilots called 'The Forgotten Few ' by Adam Zamyosi. Generaly the involvement of large numbers of Polish forces under British military control who fought and died to protect this country which was not their own is indeed forgotten, and not even known to those who were not involved or have researched throughly.
Because my father was one of those I have been able to find out something about what actualy went on, and much of it, particularly the treatment of those that found themselves having contributed to the defence of this country and then effectively told to go back to a Soviet controlled, devastated and physicaly repositioned state, is a very disturbing story.
Approximately 83,000 Polish troops served in France offering their support to the threatened French. Their mistreatment is still virtualy unknown and uncomemorated both here and in France. My father was one of those put into what were effectively French run Concentration Camps which housed a mixture of ex-Spanish Civil War combatants who had fled from Fascist Spain and many others that the French virtualy Fascist government deemed a danger to the state. There were a large number of these particularly in the south and it was in one near Perpignan that my father was placed until the combination of the appaling conditions and then the signing of an agreement between Hitler and the Vichy regime made it absolutely necessary to get out. This he and others managed to do and made there way with no practical assistance from the French to the south western coast. Here, from a small port called St. Jean De Luz, British ships picked up those that could be fitted onto the hastily commandered vessels and made the dangerous crossing to England. The boat he was on, the Arrandora Star, was torpedoed and sank a mere two days after having docked in Liverpool. It was then carrying mainly Italians who were being deported to Italy. Approximately 27,000 Polish troops reached England and Scotland. The fate of the 56,000 that were not able to get onto one of these ships sent by Churchill is very obscure. Once France was effectively collaborating with Nazi Germany, although the south was still nominaly under French control, it is most likely that those still in the camps would have been sent back to occupied Poland or to Germany to who knows what fate. Given that the Vichy Government treated even its own French citizens who were deemed to be undesirable, Communists, resistence members and Jews harshly keeping them in camps and prisons, they are hardly likely to have treated the remaining Poles any better. It is documented that Jews were sent to the concentration and extermination camps in the Reich, it is not so well recorded what happened to the Polish that had attempted to help France defend itself from occupation. It is certain that considerable numbers of Spanish veterans of the Civil War were sent to the camps in the Reich, amazingly some survived until liberation. The notoriously brutal Matthausen in Austria was one were Spanish prisoners were incarcerated.
Once in the UK the arriving Poles for the first time since being forcibly expelled from their own country by the joint invasion of both German and Soviet Russia, got some decent treatment and were welcomed into the mobilised forces of the country. My father was part way through training to become an officer in the Polish Air Force. He was just past his nineteenth birthday when Poland was attacked on 1 September 1939. His station at that time was an air base near Krosno in the south east corner of Poland. Following the destruction of the facility he and his compatriots @ 500 men, marched at night for around 200 miles through the Carpathian Mountains. They managed to reach the Romanian border and crossed days before the Russians then occupied that part of Poland. Note the Russians not the Gemans, this was the deal that had been struck between Molotov and Ribbentrop. As most know later this was reversed and Germany attacked eastward but at this stage the Russians closed the Polish border to prevent Poles from leaving. Romania was technically neutral at this point. they were treated realativly well in a poor country, but still interned into camps. They were better than those in France, my father said. From there he and others made contact with a British Legation office in Bucharest. After weeks in hiding, there were already German officials in Romania, which was soon to be deliberately destabilised and brought into the Axis powers, they managed to get passage on a small ship sailing from Balchic on the Black Sea to Beruit, then part of the French controlled Syria. There was a strange echo in Balchic as my father had grown up in Wilno in the far north east of Poland near the Baltic Sea.
This journey through the Dardanelles into the Aegean took seven days in a heavily overcrowded cargo ship in which they were the human cargo and it was a rough and dangerous sea in winter. On December 25 the Captain sent the SOS signal as sinking was a strong possiblity. They eventualy reached Beirut at the end of December 1939.
From there another larger cargo ship took them across the Meditterranean Sea to dock in Marseille at the end of February 1940. In France they were briefly at an Air Force base but it was evident that there was no real plan or will to fight and defend the country. As stated earlier, after a period in an internment camp, my guess is the French did not know what to do with them, he and colleagues made their own way to the coast and finaly got to England.
Although he spoke Polish, obviously, and also Russian and a little German, my father had never heard English before. It is quite remarkable that within another year or so he had learnt enough English to get by and in 1942 he met and married my mother, who was working as a secretary at Eastwood Films in Fleetwood, having been evacuated from London. He had been seconded to the RAF and within the Polish Division worked to train and instruct fellow Poles in radio operations. His postings were at RAF Blackpool, RAF Halton ( Bucks.) , RAF Halton (Somerset) and RAF Cammeringham (Lincs.) in the Polish Technical Training School and the Polish Deputy Inspectorate General.
At the end of the war the Polish Resettlement Corps was formed. This was a unit made up of Poles that was to arrange for those that had served in the UK to now go back to Poland. It was not compulsory to return but it was encouraged. Now remember that Poland had been drasticaly altered by border changes which effectively moved the country 100 miles to the west. Where my father was from was now no longer in Poland and hundreds of miles into Russian territory. Even within the borders of what was now called Poland there was an illigitimate puppet government controlled by Stalin in Moscow. Here there was hostility from the Unions and members of the new Labour government, which actually had some Communist members. Stalin declared that all Poles those that had fought in a 'foreign' armed force, despite it having been allied to Russia from 1941, were to have no rights to citizenship and no military medals. The British government did protest this, but it was not changed. quite what this meant for the thousands that did return is again unclear, but having no rights to citizenship in the country you come from is not a good thing. I read some exchanges from the time in Parliament and there was clearly pressure being put upon the Poles that wished to remain to leave and even the suggestion, which I do not know if it happened, that those that were uncertain could be sent to Germany. An incredible proposition to be even considered after what that country had just done to its neighbour.
My father worked in the PRC who in London were based at the Savoy Hotel, oddly enough. This must have been very strange, sending back to a devastated and Communist controlled country fellow Poles who had worked to defend this country. He became a Naturalised British Citizen in 1949 and recinded Polish citizenship. He never returned to Poland.

What would St. Pancras have said ?

I visited the rebuilt and extended St. Pancras station for the first time since it reopened on Friday. By far the most impressive aspects are the original trainshed roof and the revealed structure of the undercroft. The proliferation of shops of one sort and another is not at all to my liking, there seemed to be dozens of retail outlets with all the associated clutter and obstructions they cause. Given that access to the actual platforms is restricted to ticket holders this means that the undercroft area is not a free circulation space and quite easily congested. There are some clear areas at Eurostar platform level, but because of the hotel butting right up against the main trainshed these are dead ends and in common with almost all London termini there is no grand entrance. The new main entrance is from one side, the Kings Cross side, and this leads into the new link rather than the original station.
The new roof is a total non-event, remarkably low and being flat it barely registers from inside the station. Again access to the domestic platforms is restricted and as I was not travelling anywhere it was not possible to tell what it may be like from the traveller's perspective.
The long Eurostar train sets glide in almost silently and are that removed from the busy public areas they almost seem like a side issue to the shopping and general activity everywhere else. At times it felt like being in a vast supermarket that happened to have trains in the middle. This is the way all the big stations have been treated in recent times, as repositories of retail opportunities rather than their principal function : to allow people to get to and from their train easily and freely. It is by no means as bad as some, Victoria being possibly the worse offender with burger outlets right in front of the platform access, but I had thought this rebuild was going to avoid all the clutter and confusion of umpteen coffee shops and flower retailers.
On the subject of the statue, I can only say that it is even more preposterous in reality than in a picture as it is on a monstrous scale.
In every respect it is the quality of the original fabric and its excellent renovation that impresses and the simple elegance of the roof structure that gives a lift to the spirits.
There are also some wonderful views from parts of the building as the platform level is elevated from street level by a considerable amount. It was raining on this occasion and the vista across to Kings Cross was a view that could only be London, a collision of different buildings with no real coherence while people scatter and scurry with an exaggerated urgency betwixt and between.
Next will be a general tidy up of Kings Cross station, actually the older of the two, and a somewhat 'organic' looking addition taking shape to one side.
All in all a great improvement to the whole area has begun centred on this station it just troubles that there is such an emphasis on peripheral so-called leisure and retail nonsenses. What chance will smaller traders have in the streets around now WH Smiths and M&S etc. have established their bases in the centre of the station ?
On a slightly different subject but somehow related there is a television programme called 'Antiques Roadshow' where people essentially bring objects and artifacts to a bunch of 'experts' to find out how much they are worth. A week ago this was done in the middle of Lincoln Cathedral. Only in England could such a confusion of the secular and the sacred take place with scarcely an eyebrow being lifted.

THE DESTRUCTION OF PLOUGH GREEN

The Plough @1650 - 2007

This is an account of the proposed destruction of a small park, perhaps garden is a better term, that has quietly offered a little respite on a busy corner in Battersea for many years and that has been sold to developers along with part of the public footway by Wandsworth Council. This particular local authority, (why is it that in this country we have local ‘ authorities’ rather than in say, Italy, the equivalent body is a communale ? ) has a particularly arrogant attitude to its less influential residents and a distinctly obvious pro major development stance having let such companies as St. George build pretty much anything that takes their fancy along great swathes of the riverside. This takes the form of enormous towers of high-end apartments with underground car parking and anonymous empty areas around them that have no facilities nor offer anything other than a view of the river to those that don’t happen to have the necessary half a million pounds for a stake in one of the shiny new buildings.

Back to the little park. As I best understand it the history is thus. At some point there were some buildings on the site, but this would be over a hundred years ago, I saw a picture of a single storey shop. These are long gone and it was turned into an enclosed area with trees and planting. One thing that has always struck me about it, given it being in a busy area and one that was generally not very well to do, is that it was not abused or vandalised and even though there was a pub opposite, it did not become a haven for bad behaviour.

It was owned by the GLC. When this institution was scandalously abolished by the Thatcher regime all its assets were transferred to a shadowy, unelected quango known as the London Residuary Body. Even the very name is grotesque, conjuring up a quite accurate image of a bunch of butchers carving up the residuary remains of London. This is the outfit that sold off the County Hall to a dodgy Japanese businessman for £40 million, and just look at the chaotic and meaningless series of attempts to turn this administrative building into a ’ tourist attraction’ that still go on and blight that section of the embankment.

Now the London Residuary Body is gone, it has done its dirty work, and by the way, where did the money from these sales go, exactly ? It is no more, it is an ex-quango. So, the remaining bits that they had not flogged off reverted to the various local authorities. This is where the little park fell back into Wandsworth’s hands, who have decided they don’t want it, despite it being in established use as a public garden and providing a welcome bit of green and human scale interest in an otherwise heavily built up area close to Clapham Junction.

The formal planning application went through and was approved in exactly eight weeks from validation to the decision to grant permission. This is for a four storey building over the whole site and extends beyond encroaching on the public footway removing additional trees outside the garden, a telephone box, bicycle racks and a post box.

I have considerable experience of the planning process, coming at it from the applicant’s side. I can say that no application that I have ever been involved with has been determined in the eight week target. The usual scenario is that you would allow eight weeks and then it might be possible to start working towards getting a decision from the relevant planning department. Even with a simple domestic extension with no contentious aspects I have never known it to be determined in just eight weeks from validation of the application. Furthermore it appears that many residents in a building that borders the garden were not informed of the initial application.

Having looked through the files there is on record a response from the Chief Engineer which is against the proposal because of the loss of public highway, the trees etc. and the effect it would have on safety at the adjacent crossroads. Incredibly a letter from the architect is effectively telling the planners that this is not the case and, regarding the phone box, it states that ‘virtually everyone has a mobile phone these days.’ These are subjective opinions, what about people that don’t have mobile phones, they do exist, and why is the opinion on the impact on pedestrian safety from an architect employed by the developer to be accepted over that of the Chief Engineer at the Council ? It just all feels wrong.

Apart from all this the actual design of the new building leaves much to be desired, it is a crude attempt to butt a pseudo-1930’s Art Deco façade against a bland brickwork building which also attempts to be what it is not, a Victorian terrace. To cap it all, they have now applied for a basement addition to be used as a bar and restaurant. This has not yet been granted permission but given the way that it has been handled so far I see no sign that it will not be granted.

The whole story reeks of short term asset stripping in the manner of the 1980’s, selling off perfectly decent and useful public facilities for a quick buck with no regard to the wishes of the people in the locality or the loss of the amenity it provides to all.

On the opposite corner there has been a pub since at least 1650. This was the Plough and it has now been demolished to make way for a substantial block of flats with some sort of bar and restaurant within. It will never be a true pub again. This too was an important facility, being a well established locals pub, serving the large nearby Peabody Estate, and despite being nothing much to look at, it had been rebuilt in 1956 after suffering a direct hit in the 2WW, it was a proper all-comers pub with a surprisingly homely atmosphere, particularly in the Saloon, where people of all different ages and types were welcome. Years ago this corner was called Plough Green and it was used for gatherings particularly to protest about the Spencer family selling off parts of the Common to various parties. No one will be able to gather there anymore, not even in the old car park in the front. In a strange way it seems that the small garden opposite could be seen as the last remnant of that green. Perhaps if you feel as strongly as I do that the unwarrented and high-handed proposed destruction of this garden should not be allowed to happen a meeting could take place there once again, in a final attempt to save Plough Green.

MONEY DOESN'T TALK, IT SWEARS, LIES, CHEATS.

So, Blackwater, the private security firm that has such an appalling record in Iraq where it was contracted by the US government to protect its people, despite their being a massive occupying military force at the same time, has reached a settlement over criminal charges. This is in the region of $42 million. It has changed its name, now Xe, a Limited Liability Company and continues to be awarded contracts by the US government, most recently to protect the CIA in Kabul, this being worth $100 million.

Despite clear evidence of illegal shipments of arms, various assaults and killings that took place in Iraq and the potential for a criminal case against individuals and the company, effectively they have been fined instead. For the US government this is quite satisfactory as it means some of the blame for the abuses and deaths that have occurred during the occupation have been laid at the feet of a different organisation, although in the pay of the government, they get to recoup some of the money paid out, and no further spotlight is put upon the cases. And the principle of using private contractors for what are plain clothed armed paramilitary operations remains unchallenged.

The history of the Blackwater organisation, like much American recent history, is almost too weird and un-wonderful to believe. Founded by an ex-US Navy seal, Eric Prince in 1997, who apparently entirely of his own volition, bought a huge area in North Carolina called, I kid you not, The Great Dismal Swamp, (hence the name Blackwater), and set up a paramilitary training camp. The permission to do this was presumably granted at high level. The Bush administration then gave contracts to the company to provide additional 'security ' for other ' security ' personnel both in the US and in war zones. Not being a part of the Army, Navy or Air Force what controls or disciplinary procedures they operate under it is impossible to know.

Five former executives may still face prosecution. Eric Prince, the founder, who has given up his role as CEO, now lives in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has no extradition agreement with the USA.

WHEN'S THE REVOLUTION ?

Does anyone remember, oh, about three months ago, in the run up to the election Corporal Clegg said his politics were 'revolutionary'.
So.
You are currently in charge.
Where is the revolution ?
To quote David Bowie, not known for his political prowess but he has come up with some memorable tunes, 'Five years, my brain hurts a lot, Five years, that's all we've got.'
Please not.

PUBLIC DEBT MAKES THE STATE GO ROUND

An excellent article from the German website JUNGE LINKE.
CLICK ON TITLE FOR FULL TEXT.

WEEKEND / 1967 / jean-luc godard

2222 dead on the roads.

2222 people were killed on our roads last year. And this government is going to remove speed cameras and leave it up to 'local people' to decide how fast they want to drive.
From the so-called 'war on the motorist' this is tantamount to war on the pedestrian. This meningless mantra of letting 'local people' decide everything is absurd. What is a 'local person' ? Why should this undefined person or persons be suddenly free to disobey speed limits ? I would have thought it is more likely that the people that will be mown down by two tons of steel at 50mph are more likely to be local people, as in live in the vicinity of the inevitable accidents that will occur, than the motorist exceeding the speed limit who could be from anywhere.
What about people with two homes ? Are they 'local people' in both places ? Does owning two homes give you extra rights ? This is a weak excuse for non-policy and middle class preference without reference to a coherent set of ideas.

Merchant Banker

Comment is superfluous, except that when this was made the high street banks were a little less voracious and there were building societies. The situation now is far worse with most banks and former bulding societies being exactly the same.

ITS OFFICIAL : IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE ON BENEFITS

The current Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, has admitted in an interview with The Independent that the state pension level is "not enough to live on." Right, that is £97 a week. The current level of JSA or Income Support for a single person over 25 is £65.45, that is £31.55 LESS than the state pension that is quote "not enough to live on." How can this be justified ?
In the recent pronouncements regarding the review of the benefit system the amount that is paid to claimants has been including housing benefit and Council Tax. This is grossly misleading. This money does not go to the claimant, in the case of Council Tax it goes direct to the Local Authority and never touches the claimant's bank account. Housing benefit can be paid to the claimant, but in the majority of cases goes directly to the landlord, which again is often the Local Authority who are effectively transferring their own funds from one account to another.
The claimant however remains in the middle and responsible for the rental payments. Thus when there are delays in the processing of claims, which are, from bitter experience, commonplace and very difficult to deal with, the claimant can be pressed by their landlord and threatened and indeed evicted as this payment is controlled by the Local Authority not by the DWP and there is virtually no control that the claimant can exercise over its payment or non-payment. It is not usable for any other expense and it is not income as it a transfer from the Local Authority to a landlord.
Over the last ten years the rents in the social sector have been deliberately increased to more closely follow the market rents in a given area, this has meant a big increase in the amounts of money involved but this money does not go to claimants. The basic rates of JSA/Income Support have trailed behind and at a maximum of £65.45 for an individual without dependents and making no disability claims it is at a disgracefully low level.

HOW MANY LABOUR LEADERSHIP CANDIDATES CAN DANCE ON THE HEAD OF A PIN ?

So, yes, there is a Labour Party leadership contest going on, not that it is generating much interest or indeed much heat or light. The Labour Party, I remember them, they ran the country for 13 years and claim to be a left of centre party with its roots in Socialism. Then why is it so pitiful to see the candidates pointlessly rehearsing the postures of both the previous leader and, indeed, the current coalition partners ? They all echo and mirror each other in a desperate attempt not to appear 'extreme' or frighten the middle-classes or, God forbid ' business interests' and the City. They are able to admit only that there was a strategic fault with the last Labour government, that they were too managerial, too remote, but as to spelling out any vision or revision of the values and goals of their politics they remain virtually silent. They are all falling over one another with the same platitudes about fairness but will not stray from the line regarding the mantras of the markets, that competitiveness, entrepreneurial activities by self-interested individuals and that profit focused private business, banking and financial services will remain unchallenged as the only future.
There is the deficit, of course. But, hang on, was that not the result of blind adherence to the mantras of ' the market' ? There are now banks that are in practice owned by the government, but being run as if they are still private companies. There must be scope for serious changes that yes, horror of horrors, might be branded Socialist, but for pities sake, does not one of the candidates have the courage to actually stand up for that view ?
I have a book published in this country in 1940. As most people who are educated know, although not Mr. Cameron, it seems, that was when this country stood alone in Europe and was in a very vulnerable and dangerous position with potential invasion by a hostile Fascist enemy. In America meanwhile it was business as usual. The book is called 'I Believe' , and consists of 25 essays by different people, some politicians, some writers, some philosophers about what they believe in. Some have religious convictions, some do not. The remarkable thing is nearly all of them speak of the need for a radical change from the prevailing Capitalist orthodoxy , even in those unstable and threatening times. There is a clear common ground among these intelligent people from different backgrounds, countries and specialisms that to a considerable extent the then current war had, in some part, stemmed from the vast inequalities and problems created by untrammeled capitalism. That ownership was concentrated in the hand of the few and wealth was very badly distributed is taken as a given, and, moreover, as something that must be actively addressed. It is understood that with such conditions tyrants that claim to be able to sort this out overnight may gain power, and this can result in a justification for war and all the horror and disaster it brings.
It was indeed in this country that in the period immediately after that war that a Labour government under Clement Atlee did address this issue and make a start on the changes deemed to be necessary.
What has happened to so obscure the fact that, if anything, the concentration of wealth and ownership is now even more concentrated in the hands of the few from these well educated so-called Socialist politicians ? Why are they so afraid of saying so ? I watched Ed Milliband, possibly the slightly more 'radical' of the bunch who has a chance of election, on the excruciating programme run by Andrew Neil. A fellow guest was someone who worked with Alan Sugar, so you can pretty well guess his position as a unswerving narrowly focused 'business guru' sidekick. What was noticeable is how Mr. Milliband did not challenge a single bit of the mind-numbing prattle about competitiveness necessarily being a good thing, simply agreeing with every proposition and clearly concerned about being seen as remotely 'leftie' and thus 'loony' and not in the 'real world' that is increasingly being allowed to be defined by such as Mr. Sugar being given such expansive airtime on the BBC in its programming.
When Labour dropped Clause 4 and a commitment to moving towards collective ownership of the means of production it lost a key part of what defined it as a Socialist party. While the idea that any of the current crop of leadership contenders would ever even hint at re-evaluating that goal is laughable, even in a situation where privatised utilities are screwing every penny out of their uncompetitive monopolies with few obligations to their captive customers whatever their ability to pay, is it too much to expect that one of them might clearly state what are the principles and goals of this allegedly post- Blair new Labour project ? Because I am blowed if I can see any that distinguish or give hope for a real alternative to this regressive ConDem old Etonian agreement.

ENTREPRENEURIAL DOCTORS.

Good grief, this is like another very bad dream. On Radio 4, following the news about the reorganising of the NHS , they spoke to a ' health care professional' in America, not clear what his position was but he was American , and so spoke as if he was an authority. He said, I kid you not, that many of their practitioners are ' highly entrepreneurial.' Quite what this means was not explained.
An ' entrepreneurial' doctor makes me quiver in my boots.
The new Conservative government, for that is what it is, are now embarking on an zero sum game, and copying unproven and eccentric free market ideas ( I hesitate to use that term 'ideas') from America largely and, oddly, Sweden, the ' free ' schools wheeze.
It is actually fairly radical stuff and completely alien and ill advised. They talked soft in the run up to the election, now they are in power some real teeth are showing. This is not Thatcherisim, its even more perverse.
This is serious dabbling in yet further privatisation just at a time when the purely private sector has been proven to be inadequate at delivering long term stability, socially and morally bankrupt and in need of firmer governance. Instead it looks like a decision to allow its tentacles to extend still wider into the previously clearly described public sector operations of the health service, the public education service and who knows what other areas is being undertaken, and this during a period of sustained under-employment and under-investment.

It is hard to comprehend where this revived ideological certainty has come from and its consequences could be seriously destructive, as were those of Thatcher and her caretaker Major.

MARGARET THATCHER'S BRAIN

The undead one has recently re-visited the scene of her crimes, No.10. Wake me up, please, this must be a bad dream.
This is Monty Pinter :

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT FOR ?

Something that I feel is particular to this country and in need of review is a general assumption that it is not primarily the job of government to look after its citizens. There is a deeply established cultural preference to prefer to leave the dealing with the consequences of the huge holes in the provision of sufficient means and adequate care of the population to philanthropic individuals, a maze of charities and obscure not-for-profit organisations.
I would ask the question what is government for if not to look after its citizens as its primary duty ?
This new coalition is playing on this remarkably resilient and strangely unchallenged cultural trait with its bizarre suggestion that almost the entire country can function and provide for its citizens by some sort of collection of voluntary enterprises, with the government acting as a sort of patronising enabler but offering no material support.
But while senior politicians in this government could well afford to live without their salaries and might choose to magnanimously waive away their pensions that they do not need anyway, this is simply not the case for the millions of citizens of the country : we need an income, as regular as possible. Whatever it is called, a pension, a benefit, a salary, wages, a basic reasonable amount of month coming in every month is necessary to keep body and soul together and to pay for the fundamentals of food, shelter and warmth in cold weather.
At some point it has to be admitted that there are never going to be jobs for all, and all pretense to the contrary is just that : a pretense. No matter how much economists debate and make their self-righteous proclamations about China importing more will revive the ' western economy ' ( what is that, John Wayne film futures ? ) or some such macro-economic nonsense, the fact remains : there never has been full employment, except in time of war, when the government, yes them, could suddenly find the resources to give everyone able person a job, albeit one making weapons or going off to kill people, and it is increasingly less likely that there ever will be.
The delusion that by 'looking harder' or by being given more 'advice' and more 'help' new actual paid jobs are going to appear is obviously rubbish. As unemployment escalates at some point it will have to be realised by these died-in-the-wool free marketeers that unless a new contract that gives people a right to a basic adequate income wether working or not has to be made, otherwise, quite simply so many people will default on their bills and become desperate as they can not afford to eat, that they will take to the streets and attack the properties and possessions and eventually the privileged people that have too much and the ignorant politicians who refuse to see that so many others are being denied a chance to live in dignity in this wealthy country.

EAT THE RICH : SERVE WITH SAUCE

So, the ConDem collision are going to war on the poor, no surprise there. Who has the least chance of a coordinated response, other than an uncoordinated riot, which may, eventually happen, than the unrepresented, marginalised and completely misrepresented benefit claimant. Lets get this straight, the levels of basic benefit in this country are scandalously low, it is without doubt that, as with the pollution levels in London, were they to be tested against the many legal documents that the UK Government has signed up to at European level, they would be found to be in breach of those undertakings. I can assure anyone that is listening : it is not possible to live in dignity and pay your bills on the basic £64.50 a week that a person under 65 is allowed without any other income.

The recent changes have widened the gap, which I have never heard or seen coherently explained, between the state pension and the so-called Job Seekers Allowance. There is to be a re-linking between the state pension and inflation, broken by Thatcher ( turn around and spit ) and outrageously not reinstated during 17 years of Presbyterian-minded City sycophancy of the Chancellor and then Prime Minister Brown, ( turn around and weep). The new rules are that the JSA, a basic unemployment payment, is going to be linked to some obscure index that is consistently lower than than the already inadequate one they were using. So, while the payments made to over 65s will be somewhat closer to the real world cost of living, the basic benefit available to those under 65 will fall from its already historically lowest level since its inception in 1912. Then it was about 22% of the average male earnings in manufacturing. In 2008 it stood at 10.5%, this change will mean it falls even lower. The idea that this can be justified by maintaining work incentives is absurd, and amounts to systematic punitive neglect and social irresponsibility.

What is the difference in need between 65 and 64 if one is unwaged? How many Civil Servants are employed, or is it outsourced, to make these arcane calculations? We are talking about reducing a basic entitlement that is already inadequate, in London, as there is no adjustment for region, it is at a truly ridiculous level , the weekly amount is about the cost of a meal and a drink for a parliamentary assistant in a gastro-pub in the vicinity of Westminster. It is a disgrace.

Rather than cutting the basic rate it should be increased to a level where it is useful and made universal. Scrap all the hideous Victorian paraphernalia of means-testing, now done largely by private profit taking companies, introduce a simple, adequate income that all citizens are entitled to and that would prevent millions falling into the clutches of money lenders, bailiffs, Courts and all their outrageous charges which serve only to rack up the money going from the poor to the well-off with absolutely no social stabilisation or general benefit. Lawyers will get rich (and occasionally get mugged) and walls be built higher but if this ignorant, ill-advised and frankly ridiculous group of ex-Etonian millionaires who have clearly never known any financial hardship continue down this particular path, even against the wishes of the arch-capitalist America as presently governed, they will find, sooner or later, that even in this politically temperate country, with the BBC holding hands with whoever is in the job, and its grotesque and unrepresentative mainstream press that operates as a commercial parasite on the back of a hideously unfair system and a sickening money sucking City of insider dealing, banking open season, with its overpaid same school appointees, with its endless diversions : the football and the lottery,( always on a Saturday, the day that used to be the day off and one to organise working people ) the ridiculous royal family and their myriad hangers on, even the continual myth of rock /pop music being the voice of the people,( Brian May on top of Buckingham Palace, Michael Eavis and the Prince of Wales, ‘Sir’ Mick Jagger ) that there could be a bit of a punch up, all no doubt immortalised on a million cameras.

Eventually, if the CONDEMS and of course, the banks that you own, do not get it then it will get you.

Eat the rich, trouble is, they taste disgusting.

ITS THE IDEOLOGY, STUPID.

On Newsnight recently there was an unusual spectacle, two individual commentators from completely different ends of the political spectrum almost falling over each other to agree that cutting government spending at this point was the wrong thing to do. The case in point was Germany, but their conviction that there were myriad compelling reasons against this course of action both there and in the UK was strong. One was a Norwegian Socialist and the other a American Republican from an economic ‘ think tank’ who still managed to get in a dig at President Obama. On paper one might have thought that they would disagree on everything, but from their widely different starting points they in fact found nothing to justify the course of action being enthusiastically spelled out by the German and UK governments.

Former member of the Bank of England monetary policy committee, David Blanchflower, scarcely a died in the wool Socialist I would wager, said referring to the cuts ‘ this is ideology, not sound economics. It may be good for investors, it is certainly not good for the British people, who are likely to see unemployment rise inexorably.’ At last someone has the sense and honesty to say this : it is ideology, something like ‘society’ which an earlier Conservative administration tried to pretend didn’t exist, that is driving this ‘new austerity’ despite it being denied that it motivates any of the main parties.

It is an ideology that the Conservative led Government is following, the same one it has always followed, that of the free market, and although it is rarely referred to as such, one which is discredited, utterly morally bankrupt, massively unstable and inherently faulty, and proven to be so, it is this ideology that is motivating their actions. There remains an unswerving quasi-religious belief that the ‘rules of the market’ must be obeyed. But the market has no rules, not unless the government makes and enforces them. The market was left to make its own rules post the ‘big bang’ in the mid -Eighties, and this eventually ended up in the meltdown of 2008.

The self-justifying arrogant pronouncements of a consistent apologist for all the hideous, distorted workings of ’the market’, that poisonous imp-like person called Ruth Lea who, for some reason, is always asked for her opinion, says that ‘the Government is on probation. The financial markets expect the coalition to tame the yawning public sector deficit without wrecking the recovery.’ Note : the Government is put on probation by ‘the financial markets.’ Funny, I thought the people elected the government rather than this unspecified entity ‘ the financial markets.’ In other words we, the ’financial markets’ command that you, the elected Government, do what we want to suit our money making activities. The interest of the British electorate does not enter into it, this is an imperative coming from a self-selected representative of ’the financial markets’ which, because of blind ideological concordance, must be obeyed. Thus slash public spending, hang the consequences in the real world, it satisfies an accountants view of the country’s ‘accounts’ as if it was any other business. I am no economist but clearly a country with a law making and currency issuing Government, with an Army, Navy and Airforce, with a judiciary and largely law abiding population of 60 million is not just another business. Many who are of that persuasion, that is fully paid-up economists, also point out that there are many reasons why the current situation is nowhere near as dire as it is painted by the ideologically driven and severely limited imagination of the new incumbents at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street and their new pals in the Liberal Democrat camp. As John Eatwell, President of Queens College, Cambridge says ‘deficit hysteria is infecting the political world.’

The weak response of the Labour Party in the face of this alarming new consensus amongst the governments of most European states, each seemingly trying to outdo each other in just how austere their economic measures will be, is worrying. Where is any evidence of a different ideology ? Are all parties now to bow down before the partial, self-serving and incoherent ideology of the free market ? I suggest that liberal free market economics is scarcely a ideology at all, as it leaves out so many aspects of the balancing act that has to be made between the ‘world of finance’ and the real world and the fact that there are many parts of a developed civilised society that simply do not and should not be run at a profit. It is notable that it seems only individuals not normally associated with criticism of liberal free market economies, ex-Bank of England committee members, Republican think tanks, for example to demonstrate that the agenda is being set by those politicians that continue to dance to the tune of corporate financiers and the whims of the market.

In Rhode Island on the east coast of America unemployment is at 12.5%, the 4th highest in the USA. Florida, Michigan and California have even higher rates. President Obama has put stimulus packages into these areas, in the case of Rhode Island $ 1.5 Billion and these have created jobs mainly in infrastructure projects. Initial claims for unemployment benefit in the USA remain at just under half a million a month. This is despite the government putting targeted money into the economy and, incidentally, getting improvements in infrastructure at relatively low cost. Our government is proposing to do the opposite and cut government spending. Where do they imagine any new jobs are going come from ? Alan Sugar ? With cuts across the board in the public sector, no further injection of funds into needed infrastructure improvements and possible cuts in what has been committed, for example Crossrail, a cut back on social housing building, and a necessarily shrunken financial services sector, where are jobs going to be created ?

The banks and their apologists and appeasers in Government may think its back to business as usual. If this blind allegiance to an outdated and divisive ideology that has been categorically proven to be unstable and unsustainable without government intervention is allowed to continue to dictate policy there could be a crude and unpleasant backlash that will not be based on anything remotely like a coherent ideology but embody simple anger and outrage due to the neglect and undermining of anything resembling a social contract between the government and the governed.

It is surely well past time for the Labour Party to re-assess what it is there for and for it to develop a series of policies that need to be rooted in a different soil, from the great tradition of simple, straightforward Socialism, untainted by new-Labour non-values, the obsession with phone poll electability, not frightening the middle-classes, gimmickry and presentation.

My hopes are not high.

LINK TO LIVE VIDEO OF BP OIL SPILL :

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/4424524

THE B(L)ANK OF ENGLAND.

So, the Bank of England is to take over ‘ macroprudential supervision ’, who comes up with these ridiculous terms ? Is there perhaps an ‘ Office for Coming up with New Terms for the Same Things ’ ? What this means, to the best of my understanding, is that they will now be in charge of overseeing the mystifying financial machinations and deliberate complexity of the glorified casino that is called the financial market.

I looked at their website for the first time today, I wonder how long they have had one ? A current publication that they are offering for enabling members of the public to understand what they are up to is entitled : ‘ Extending eligible collateral in the discounted window facility and information transparency for asset backed securitisations.’ All words except the short ones are capitalised as if to give added importance to the already important sounding document.
What is it all about ? Will anyone except other members of the inner sanctum at the Bank of England and a handful of specialists at the major private financial operations actually understand it ? Will it change anything ? Or is it all more waffle and circumlocution which appears to be deeply serious but actually further confuses the situation by throwing up yet more defensive and evasive language around the remaining fact that the financial institutions both private and, in this case, nominally public, are still essentially making up their own rules and giving their own fiendishly complicated explanations as to what they are doing. And these pronouncements have little connection to the world that the rest of us live in. Do they change anything ? What motivates these people ? Or do they, as I suspect, keep up a continuous stream of meretricious words to create a dense fog that serves only to obscure the same practices, to maintaining the same illusions and give an image of probity. It is a self perpetuating, self justifying nether world that remains completely impenetrable and unchallenged.

They also say that one of the things they do is issue banknotes. That I can understand, what it is based on, as there is no Gold Standard, is again, a mystery. And they do not print them, that was contracted to a private company, De La Rue in 2002, on advice from an outfit called Close Brothers, who are a private banking firm. So, here we have yet again a nominally public institution taking advice from a private firm who no doubt got substantial fees for this advice. Thus a private company is now paid to print the currency of this country.

As with the remarkable Government Committee hearings post banking crisis when some of the Chief Executives of the major banks were lightly grilled, it became apparent that few of these characters had qualifications in financial matters. There was the extraordinary reply from the CEO of Lloyds who when asked what he earned said not very much, about a million pounds a year, which he seemed to think was what the MP’s on the committee earned. While I concede that it will have changed somewhat it appears to me that the Bank of England used to be something of a sinecure for both its Governor and its staff. What they were getting up to in there was anyone’s guess. The very building is one of an anonymous almost windowless citadel, it might better be called the Blank of England with its walled up windows.

When Kenneth Grahame, who subsequently retired to write ‘Wind in the Willows’, was Secretary for a number of years in the late 19th Century the culture, if it can be called that, was one of very short hours, very long lunches and, presumably to alleviate the boredom, fighting dogs were kept in the basement for occasional bouts held in the toilets. Presumably betting was involved. While it is unlikely this is still the case you never know, nothing would surprise me about the arcane world that these people occupy.

In 1903 one George Robinson asked to see the then Governor. Instead Grahame was sent to meet him. He fired three shots from a concealed gun but Grahame was uninjured. He was described as a ‘Socialist Lunatic’ and sent to Broadmoor. A strange story, without much detail as with much that is associated with this institution.

One earlier Governor was Montagu Norman. He was in charge from 1920 to 1944. He went to Eton and had one year at Cambridge University. After that it was banking all the way. So during the Depression of the 1920’s and the years leading up to and during the Second World War and for a total of twenty four years there was, in charge of the central bank of the United Kingdom someone with no experience outside of being part of a bank, having started with Martin’s, a private bank, where he had relations. It was during his period of office that the Gold Standard was abandoned, in 1931. In 1939 £6,000,000 of gold belonging to Czechoslovakia was transferred to the German Reichsbank. He was also a Director of the Bank for International Settlements, which still exists based in Switzerland, and was a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship, a pro-Nazi organisation which included a number of English and German businessmen, military and another Director of the Bank of England, Frank Tiarks. This group was founded by Ernest Tennant, of whom all I know is that he was a merchant banker and was a friend of Von Ribbentrop, the senior Nazi ‘ diplomat.’

He may have been a maverick, yet he was in charge for 24 years, and the details of his actions seem deliberately vague and his connections deeply disturbing.

There is a moral vacuum at the centre of the City. It is given too much respect and has too much power. It is fundamentally lacking in transparency and appears to have no social motivation whatsoever. It is a collection of competing commercial interests. It has no conscience. As the Bank of England is to be given an increased role in controlling the financial operations of this market then its basic principles need to be spelt out in language that can be readily understood. Its purpose and responsibilities need to be clearly defined. Yes, a fine was handed out to bankers JP Morgan, a large sum but clearly manageable, and the salary of the Governor was revealed, £300,000 a year. But sadly, I see no sign of any serious re-evaluation of what they are there for, which clearly should include some recognition of a responsibility to the so-called big society that it should serve rather than remain locked into the obscure, closed and self serving world of the City.

FOOTBALL AND SURREALISIM : Debasement of language.

A short list of some words and phrases that are becoming or have already become so grossly overused that they now have lost all meaning.

Groundbreaking : no idea what this now means especially when applied to such as a Pink Floyd album, The Wall, that was pompous, boring, long winded and ill-conceived when first foisted upon us.

Iconic : just about anything that has been over-exposed, over-rated, over-publicised, and is definitely not of religious significance, which was its original meaning.

Challenge expectations : ( in relation to an art exhibition ) pointlessly aiming to be provocative in an desperate attempt to gain attention. Quite what expectations are being assumed are never stated.

Community : any grouping of absolutely anything.

Cutting edge : a tedious Philistine fashion.

Profile : list of disconnected ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ that are given on a social network site that may represent the interests of an individual or may have been copied from someone else’s ‘ profile.’

Surreal : applied to just about any event that is just slightly out of the ordinary, which, when someone of extremely limited vocabulary is asked to describe, completely fails to do so and instead misuses this word, which is an adjective derived from an artistic style that claimed to be representing unconscious rather than conscious ideas and can only accurately be used with reference to an art work in that style.

Pro - choice : in favour of abortion on demand.

Pro - life : against the provision of legalised abortion.

Passion : excessive enthusiasm for any sport.

110 % effort : an impossible figure that is often used in a sporting context.

World stage : where a football series that takes place every four years is said to take place. It is in fact in South Africa this year.

A Dream : Winning a trophy in a sporting event. See above, by winning the above mentioned football tournament it is quite possible that one of the winning team will often say that this is ‘ a dream ’ and it will have been on
‘ the world stage ’, so, they seem to be saying that they are on an imaginary stage and in a state of unconsciousness. This does not mean footballers are Surrealists.

Highest level : also used to describe any sporting event in which large sums of money are invested. The altitude of the venue is not being referred to. Neither is the intellectual accomplishment of anyone involved.

Wither a Left Wing ?

It is most remarkable that while the beast with two backs that is otherwise known as Capitalism or by its familiar amorphous name ' the market ' is in its mindless, moral - free , endless pursuit of profit is busy destabilising countries and imposing punitive terms and austerity measures upon citizens of nominally self - governing populaces, there is virtually no sign of a credible political movement that is challenging its vicious and unjustified orthodoxies. In this country the once left of centre party, the Labour Party, is now so centrist that it has arguably flipped to be to the right of the Conservative led coalition. Witness their current leadership contest : the one distinctly left wing contender, Mr Cruddas, decided not to run, presumably because he knew he would be unsupported, the two other identified as lefties, Mr McDonnell, of whom it would seem accurate, and Ms Abbott, of whom it would seem a historic association rather than anything more substantial, have precisely no nominations as I write.
Meanwhile people such as John Redwood are already feeling confident enough to make speeches in the House arguing for the plight of what he calls ' the inactive entrepreneurs ' read idle rich, and how reducing taxes will encourage them to put some of their ill-gotten gains, sorry, cleverly acquired sums made by brilliant business decisions, back into the economy and create jobs.
It would be laughable if it was not so serious. Having allowed the unfettered free market to operate to its own, non-existent laws for so long and test the Capitalist Anglo - American lassiez faire model to destruction, these apologists with their bamboozling and self-justifying use of terms using the mystique of big numbers, that veneer of expert knowledge and insight into how the market works , are being allowed to spout the same narrow, abject, hermetic, nonsense and are not being challenged. This is because there has been an almost complete evaporation of anything resembling a coherent critique of this view of the fundamentals of how things are organised, which used to be at least attempted by what was once called the left wing.

It is as if the whole creaking edifice is a fixed given, that it has to maintained, propped up, and religiously believed in. But it is a mechanisim, it is run by humans, it is nominaly organised and controlled by secular organisations subject to Laws. It can therefore be changed.
One of the few people I have heard say anything which re-evaluates and challenges in a perfectly reasonable way the orthodoxy of the market was not from the astonishingly unimaginative and craven grouping of politicians we still have in the UK. The German ambassador, who was given little credence, on Newsnight said that his country's Government were going to put the well being of their citizens and their country before that of the financial institutions and the practices of the market. He represents a scarcely radical Christian Democrat Government of Angela Merkel. Here, as soon as the one slightly loose cannon Vince Cable has got into a position of power, he has dropped into line so as not to 'upset' the market, after one conversation with the Governor of the Bank of England.
And by the way, can anyone explain to me why a North Korean ship being sunk by a South Korean ship, or was it the other way around, has any bearing whatsoever upon the share or money markets ? If this is what our economic future is predicated upon then God help us.

80's MADNESS : J'accuse la BBC.

Thinking a little about the 80’s. I was not really at all political with a big P then. I guess that I thought the Tories were so dreadful and stupid that they would not last long in power. That did not prove to be the case. It was just about possible to survive without working as the dole was a little more proportionate and rent was low. It was not so easy to get into debt as it was not so easy to borrow money.

The so-called boom did not get going until the late 80’s, that idea that the whole decade was one of excess and easy money is just another gross simplification, some places never ‘ boomed ‘ at all, both inside and outside London. The ‘ deprived ‘ parts of London remained so, and in places where the main industries were wound up it was depression time. And it did not last long, five years approximately and as usual only a small minority did very well, not the majority. Taxes for the higher earners were reduced which further skewed the wealth creation to the top end. Society was famously derided as a fiction, there were to be individuals and private companies rather than a common good and public institutions to facilitate that aim. The results of the dismantling and undermining of the social fabric began in earnest during that decade and the weakness and factionalism of the left let it go on for eighteen years. I contend that many of the ideas introduced into ‘ serious ‘ political debate during that horrible period still remain fundamentally unchallenged : that the country must be run like a corner shop as if it is just another business, that its citizens are ‘ customers ’ and ‘ consumers ’ not individuals and that society is simply a result of commodity relations and is not shaped by other values that can be encouraged or made more difficult to maintain by the actions of a Government.

Charter 88 was published in 1988 signed by a self-selected group of the more fair minded great and good. I retrieved my copy the other day and was immediately struck by the fact that of its ten point list only one has come into being, and that was about five years ago, the Freedom of Information Act. All the others including a written Constitution , which would have helped in the recent farrago around the legitimacy or otherwise of Gordon Brown remaining Prime Minister after defeat in the election, where conflicting interpretations of the situation added to the confusion with newspapers able to make all sorts of unsubstantiated claims while constitutional ‘ experts ’ had to be called in to explain the absurd complexities due to their being nothing but precedent to go on. God save us from experts. The new government is following in the trying and deferential manner so prevalent in this country of rather than acting on principle or, God forbid, ideology , which no one admits to having anymore, gets together a bunch of unelected ‘ experts ’ to ‘ look at ’ every vaguely contentious issue. You can look at something infinitely, eventually you have to decide what it is and if you want it anymore, is it doing any good , make a value judgement. Act.

I submit that it was because the last Labour government jettisoned just about all its original motivating ideals that so it was seen to be doing something it enacted numerous proscriptive measures which were presumably designed to show that it was doing the work of government. The trouble was these were precisely the opposite of positive enabling legislation, they were authoritarian and born of strange convoluted thinking that imagines that you can control behaviour by legislation, without ever tackling the major issues of policy such as the degree to which markets are given free reign and how a more inclusive and fairer society facilitated.

To recap, the nine points that were in Charter 88 and remain un-enacted :

A Bill of Rights : civil liberties such as the right to peaceful assembly, to freedom of association, to freedom from discrimination, to freedom from detention without trial, to trial by jury, to privacy and to freedom of expression.
Subject executive powers and prerogatives, by whomsoever exercised, to the rule of law.
Create a fair electoral system of proportional representation.
Reform the upper house to establish a democratic, non-hereditary second chamber.
Place the executive under the power of a democratically renewed parliament and all agencies of the state under the rule of law.
Ensure the independence of a reformed judiciary.
Provide legal remedies for all abuses of power by the state and the officials of central and local government.
Guarantee an equitable distribution of power between local, regional and national government.
Draw up a written constitution, anchored in the idea of universal citizenship, that incorporates these reforms.

Oddly, looking at Unlock Democracy, which is what Charter 88 has morphed into, they seem to have moved to the more esoteric and confusing STV and Alternative Vote ideas rather than sticking to the clear aim of proportional representation. I suggest that this needs to be extended to Local Government also, which is wildly unrepresentative and not at all transparent. Local Councillors are highly influential and yet manage to be strangely obscure creatures that are elected in bunches of three, for some reason, and whose ward boundaries and even names seem to change with alarming frequency.

I would add another to the list. This would be a right to a basic income for every citizen. At present I contend that this country is in breach of articles signed up to in the European Convention which are designed to ensure that citizens have the means to live in dignity. Our means tested allowances are amongst the lowest in Europe and bear no relation to an average or median income. The numbers of people being left to try and exist on this inadequate ‘ safety net ’ are in the millions. Administering this complex and non-productive system of benefits is costly and outmoded. A simple and straightforward entitlement would sweep away all that paraphernalia and take millions out of effective poverty, enabling much greater chance for social inclusion and the renewal of civil society.

Remarkably , given that it now appears to have been accepted by the political classes that the link between earnings and the basic state pension must be restored, another anti-social and unfair measure introduced in the 80’s by the Conservatives and shamefully not reinstated by the Labour administration, no one seems to see that there is the same disparity between the current JSA or Income Support levels and anything approaching an average wage. How is it that even at current levels before the pension is changed to link to average earnings an unwaged single man is expected to survive on £65 a week until 64 then this suddenly changes to £97 a week at 65 ? What arcane calculations have established these figures ?

So, back to the 80’s. I have to question why the BBC is in the process of showing a number of programmes purporting to be about that decade. The Martin Amis book ‘Money’ was published in the early part and, like most of his writing, while well crafted and funny, is a poor record as a social document. I will leave aside his low life obsession, which is very much a product of and an indictment of the continuous chasm between those of different classes and backgrounds in England and their complete failure to understand each other, and is actually quite prejudiced, producing caricatures rather than anything enlightening. For example, the main character in this book, John Self. As far as I am aware most of the people who go into advertising and PR are not working class blokes that ‘got lucky’ but rather well connected and well educated middle classes that have creative tendencies but would rather not risk being an out and out artist, and found the City or Law too boring a prospect. I suggest that far from being a critique of the 80’s the book, perhaps despite itself, contributed to a shift from the City and its besuited money making men being seen by those with the entrée to this area as dull and unexciting to it being ’sexy’ ( I hate that term, but am afraid it has to be used here ) and exciting, the conspicuous consumption and greed as a high.

With the pop themed programmes, the Boy George one I watched, they work within their own very limited form, but as an insight into the period they are super-lightweight. Quite why the writer of the Boy George tale was chosen given that he was too young to have been contemporary with that time I do not understand. This absurd idea that wearing some make-up and funny clothes was in some way revolutionary and made the slightest difference to anything other than contributing to making that one individual a famous pop singer, is a very tired cliché and is simply not the case. I was around at the time and can assure that in general people did not take a blind bit of notice, and the handful of people who did dress somewhat differently only went out at night to a very limited number of places where they were amongst their own little clan.

‘Ashes to Ashes’ does not purport to be a serious effort, (does it ?) this type of mixed up period drama that veers between harsh realism, whenever there is a bit of violence, and a fantasy view of a place and time based almost entirely on pop music and fashion references, strikes as most odd. No female Police Officers in the 1980’s dressed like a backing singer for Wham! It is always wrong, it may be amusing, but it is part of a broader failure to deal with actuality in 99 % of the BBC TV output.

Is it significant ? Well, it is very strange how I now see periods of time that I lived through and aspects that I was quite closely involved with being presented in these skewed forms and such a filleted unrepresentative manner. It naturally makes one think about all the received mediated accounts of earlier periods that one did not live through, or were too young to be fully conscious of , and how accurate these rewritten histories might be.

Perhaps it takes many years before a clearer view can be seen of any period, and of course there is the important matter of when certain facts emerge, but it worries me that events and the context of which I can remember clearly are being misrepresented in such an organised way, being turned into fictions and
Irrelevances, somehow the big media organisations never get it remotely right.