17th September 2014

There's something strange happening on Facebook.

Nearly every day I find a new question from a certain David Cameron telling me that he would like to know my views on a range of issues from the NHS to Immigration.

I find this strange for a number of reasons.

First, because David Cameron is not someone that I have befriended on Facebook.

Second, because neither have I befriended the Tory Party on whose behalf the questioner claims to be inviting my views.

Third, because no matter how I continue to ignore the request the next day and the day after come further requests to hear my views.

I haven't bothered to respond to these 'surveys' but suspect that they will be written in such a way that the outcome will support the con-den policy.

A  distorted version of what Americans call Mom and Apple Pie.

Take the survey on Immigration for example:

Labour, it states, don't agree with our policies on immigration, the five questions which follow are in fact heavily loaded to encourage agreement.

Unsurprisingly they also perpetuate unproven assertions which verge on the status of Urban Myths.

Hardworking taxpayers? (What's not to like? Except that the majority of immigrants are in fact hardworking tax payers)

Benefits tourism? (Where's the evidence that this exists?)

Bogus Colleges? (Again where is the evidence? Of course if a college is bogus? Wasn't Eton founded to educate poor children and is it not in fact still a Charity?)

Deport foreign criminals? (Duh?)

Immigrants should speak better English? (Try that one on the Costa Geriatrica, where everyone, except the Spanish, speak better English!)

Well Mr Cameron if you really want to know my views on Immigration, or anything else, for that matter, I would prefer it if you didn't pretend to be my friend on Facebook (Facebook please note that I am being stalked and take appropriate action!).

But my views on Immigration are as follows:

I enjoy living in and experiencing the richness of a multi-cultural society.

Most of the evidence that I see is that those who come to this country to improve their circumstances contribute significantly to the economic flourishing of British Society.

I find the anti immigration rhetoric of your con-dem colleagues and the new Tory Lite party led by Mr Farage to be as offensive to me personally as it is to people that I am proud to count as real friends, both on Facebook and in real life.

The greatness of the British Isles has been built on the fact that it was a big enough society to welcome not only my forebears (from Ireland) but countless numbers of people from across the world who have made their homes here and in doing so have helped not only our language develop and change but have enriched our fashion, our cuisine, our social fabric and our sense of ourselves and our self worth as a global nation.

That generosity of spirit and a Biblical commitment to welcoming the 'stranger in our midst' is part of our DNA as a nation.

Your questionnaires demonstrate to me that you were as serious about the 'big society' as you were about voting blue to turn green, and underscore why I was right not to vote for you in 2010 and why I won't be voting for you in 2015.

9th September 2014

Thinking aloud about the big society.

Today's news suggests that in nine days time, the UK might just become smaller.

Living just seven miles from the border between Scotland and England could make it more difficult to visit Scotland, no longer able to simply set out and drive to the Solway or to see a concert in Langholm or to shop in Gretna Gateway, just beyond the Blacksmith's Forge and Rory Stewart's Cairn, designed to celebrate the continuation of the Union(?).

There have been many thousands of words written about the campaign for Scottish independence.

Both for, and against.

It will be interesting when, after the vote has been counted, whether the outcome is a Yea or Nay, what the commentators and analysts will conclude?

If it is a Yes, will this be Alex Salmond's victory or David Cameron's loss?

It is certainly the case that the Prime Minister of the historic 'Unionist" Party will have, if the vote is Yes, be criticised for surrendering both the date, (2014 is the Anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots won a decisive victory over the English) and extending the franchise to include young people who are over sixteen, effectively balancing the inclination of the over sixties to vote to stay within the Union.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Cameron's position will remain tenable in the face of a Yes vote.

Equally of course a No vote will also be a yes vote, but rather a yes to a fairer, more just society as outlined by various papers published under the broad title of Commonweal by the Reid Foundation, which effectively reject the role of capitalism and markets in driving the economy, which has been the effective policy of both Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher and George Osborne and which was heavily subscribed to by New Labour under the Leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

My instinctive response to the debate is to hope that the outcome is Yes.

My reasons for this arise in the main because what I think I see being acted out in the campaigning and the debating is a developing vision for a better society than is currently being exploited and explored by the Con-Dems in the UK.

For how much longer can we stand by and see the NHS privatised, the growth of food banks supplying essential food parcels for those who have been sanctioned by the DWP?

How much longer can we stand by and see the poor, the disabled, the young, students and pensioners pay the price for the failure of the banks?

How much longer can we stand by and watch as the private sector is subsidised and bailed out by Government, whilst pretending that marketisation is a success?

If the vote is Yes, surely it will create a serious review of current Government policy, of austerity, of welfare reform(?) of further privatisation of utilities and transport in what is left of the UK.

The debates are beginning not only in Wales and the North of Ireland but in the regions as Northern Cities begin to challenge the domination of London and public investment in the South of the country.

This debate is happening because the question at the heart of the Yes campaign has all along been what kind of society do we want to be?

Interestingly however, if the vote is No then the debate will not simply cease, that cannot happen and won't be stopped by building a Cairn at Gretna, because both Labour in Gordon Brown and the Tories in George Osborne have begun to propose a wide re-allocation of powers to the Scottish Parliament, suggesting in part, if not entirely, that the future for the United Kingdom, if it remains United will be a form of Federal Structure.

London will still be a powerful force within such a Federation, but it will have to state its case and argue strongly that its share of the cake, or the public purse should remain disproportionately large in relation to other Kingdoms, Regions, or Cities.  

Whether the fear that the loss of Scottish Labour MP's will make it impossible for the Labour Party to form a Government in England will be realised remains to be seen but again the decline of the Liberal Party, the rise of UKIP, the emerging Little England mentality, future relations with the rest of Europe may well mean that England will also have to engage with the question of what kind of society we want to be and to become.

Certainly the Yes Campaign's commitment to increasing immigration, a commitment that may well mean a Border Post replacing Rory Stewart's Cairn at Gretna (at least the stone can be recycled as building materials), then we will begin to see just how an open, liberal, fair society can be both welcoming and successful.

It might be a small country, it might even as one commentator observed, like Greece without the Sunshine, but it stands a pretty fair chance of becoming a real big society.

And, when the border is redrawn it might be if it's a small map and broad brush pen that Carlisle somehow finds itself included in that big society.

22nd August 2014

I left school in 1960, maybe 1961, with the headmasters words ringing in my ears.

Smith, he said, it would benefit neither you nor the school for you to stay here a day longer than necessary.

My Mother was present for this interview, which was ostensibly about my spending a further year in what was called 6th Remove to resit my GCE examinations.

On hearing the headmaster share his opinion of my general worthlessness my Mother was mortified.

She dragged me out of school and onto the bus and, as we were walking up the hill towards home, we passed the premises of The Normeir Tyre Company, they were advertising for a trainee, the wage £4/1 shilling a week.

So I started work on the Monday after I had left school, or school had left me, on the Friday.

I enjoyed receiving a weekly wage packet.

Of the £4/1 shilling I gave my Mother £3 for my Board and Lodging and kept the £1/1 shilling for myself.

I managed pretty well on the money, and if occasionally I ran out of money on a Thursday or, heaven forfend, a Wednesday, I simply had to wait 'til Friday and I would have money again.

After a year I left the job, which it turned out was not a trainee salesman at all but, after a weeks training, a Tyre Fitter which as I have mentioned in a previous blog, was the most responsible job that I have ever had.

My next job, as a Civil Servant, was monthly paid.

I had to convince my Mother that £3 a week could be converted into a monthly amount by multiplying by 52 and then dividing by 12.

So 3x52 = 156.

156 divided by 12 = 13.

So if I paid her £13 pounds a month then we would be as we were.

She was not convinced. a) I had failed Maths, so there was a credibility problem and, b) Some months had four weeks and some five, so that was another problem.

Eventually I managed to convince her but for both of us the transition from weekly to monthly was difficult.

So when I retired, after a lifetime of robbing Peter to pay Paul, of too many days and not enough money at the end of the month.

I checked the small print and decided that I wanted my pension paid weekly.

The young lady in the Ministry of Pensions advised me that it would have to be paid monthly but I disagreed and quoted the relevant sub section, after speaking with her nameless and faceless supervisor I was advised that yes, the pension could be paid weekly, if I requested it to be.

I requested and for the last four years my pension has been paid weekly.

Why tell you this story?

Well it is a big society story.

Mr Ian Duncan Smith is introducing a new system of benefit payments and Universal Credit is to be paid monthly.

Already Housing Associations are advising tenants to pay more in advance, because as the payment is to be made in arrears and rent is paid in advance, they may well find that following the introduction of Universal Credit, they will almost immediately be plunged into arrears.

There is nothing big society about this decision, because benefits are paid in arrears, by transferring all beneficiaries to a monthly payment the Government will effectively save money by keeping substantial receipts in the Treasury for four weeks before they are paid out so who wins and who loses?

Is the reverse calculation multiply by 12 and divide by 52? Perhaps the mathematicians can advise?

My Mother was of course right all those years ago, because I paid her in arrears not in advance, for one month I had free board and lodging but I doubt if Mr Duncan Smith will be as generous as my Mother.

15th August 2014

In a recent game of Words with Friends I found myself with only one consonant and six vowels.

This selection of letters made it hard to play my turn.

But then I realised that I had just the right combination of vowels to  make the word 'queue'.

So I played and managed a decent score with the 'Q' on a a tile which doubled its value.

I'm amazed that I didn't see 'queue' instantly because it is a very current word and there are lots of queues in the news these days.

Years ago I published an article in which I used the image of the queue to illustrate a thesis about the rise of unemployment.

I described a queue stretching across history as the poorest in society struggled to make ends meet relying as they always had on the 'dole'.

The dictionary defines a 'dole queue' as 'the number of unemployed people at a particular time'.

In the UK today that queue is made up of 6.4% of the population or 1. 01M people.

There was much made of the recent fall in this number, by 33, 600,  as evidence of the success of Government policies.

Meaning that the economy has recovered to its 2008 levels after six years of austerity and whilst the left hand has been busy cutting jobs in the public sector the right hand has been congratulating the private sector who have been equally busy cutting wages.

So in today's big society the unemployed are being invited to leave the dole queue in order to earn their poverty or become self employed.

But as one queue shortens another becomes longer.

The number of people who are in work but are still claiming Housing Benefit or have found that they now need to claim is growing, the queue is getting longer.

Sure the queue at the Job Centre door marked employment is shorter but the queue at the door marked help with housing is longer and just down the street at the Church Hall the queue at the door marked Food Bank is getting longer too, according to one report, up to three times longer.

Queues have always seemed to be a sign or reflection of either popularity or distress.

Queues were a feature of wartime rationing, of shortages and need.

But equally they might just hint at popularity, the queue for the latest block buster or popular night spot might stretch round the block and people will try to find ways of jumping the queue, using charm or luck or cheek or connections to get to the front so as not to miss out on either their entertainment or perhaps, if its that kind of queue, to grab a bargain in the sales.

Buying tickets on line or using telephone banking you might find a serene and charming, but disembodied voice advising you of your position in the queue, as it counts you down from fifth to second when one of our advisers, all of whom are busy with other customers, will become available to speak to you.

But the queue as defined and supervised by Mr Duncan-Smith and his department is for some people about as close as it is possible to come to a dystopian, Kaflaesque nightmare as is evidenced by the stories which emerge of the sheer human distress arising when people find themselves in a queue to have their disability assessed by ATOS or their accommodation assessed to ensure that they only have  the correct (and allowable) number of rooms.

Well I managed to play the word queue with my selection of letters, how will you do with these?

igucarnn

ieadnsmpirte

arcgit

eeamnngdi

ygsooncciebit

6th August 2014

In 1978 I  moved from Manchester to Newcastle upon Tyne.

Partly as a result of publicity around this move and partly as a result of what was then my blog AKA the Vicars Letter in the parish magazine, a piece that I wrote was picked up by TV and Radio and the media generally and I was interviewed about my liking for Punk, I was outed by the Daily Mirror as Britain's first punk vicar.

Hey Ho.

Four days later buying fish and chips for supper my chips were handed to me wrapped in the edition of the newspaper carrying my photograph and the story, which was by now old news and soaked in vinegar.

Hey Ho, indeed!

In 1979 however, my interest in music (and Punk) undiminished,  I read a review of a new EP released by a Manchester Band called The Tunes, the title of the album was Truth, Justice and The Mancunian Way, a play on both the theme of superman as well as a knowing reference to the continuing need for Justice in the light of the rise of what was becoming known as Thatcherism, following the 1979 election.

I have continued to keep the title of the album as a personal slogan given that I was born in Manchester and continue to be committed to both socialism as a way to create a better world and Manchester United whose winning ways have always made my Saturdays better than the Saturdays when the team has lost.

I did consider using the title as a strap line for this blog but Truth, Justice and The Mancunian Way was in a sense copyrighted by The Tunes and they deserve not to have their brilliant pun pinched by me.

However I recently found myself absorbed in a book that might well have been called Truth, Justice and the Mancunian Way.

Easy to do I guess.

You find yourself caught up in the Author's characterisation, the development of the plot and, usually the actions of the key character (s).

The book is in its way a horror story.

A story of deception.

A story of a particularly successful exercise in highway robbery.

A story of a land grab.

A story about the private exploitation of public assets.

What it wasn't was a novel.

It is called The End of the Experiment - From competition to the foundational economy.

It is published by Manchester Capitalism an imprint of Manchester University Press.

It has an introduction, a conclusion and three case studies.

At the heart of the books' thesis lies the suggestion that privatisation and the creation of markets is a failed experiment which allowed private companies to generate shareholder assets from the publicly owned goods that they 'inherited'.

The three case studies are, telecoms, supermarkets and dairy and banking.

The book is well researched and annotated, it is also well written and I read it in a single sitting.

By the end I was shocked and angered.

I hope that it is on the Shadow Cabinet's reading list, as it offers plenty of solid ammunition to demonstrate that the con-dem's, sub-thatcher commitment to privatisation contributes largely to the economic problems that we face as a society.

My only disappointment with the concept of a the foundational economy was that the book did not explore the potential for increased co-operative models, as in for example energy, telecoms and the co-op's alternative model of food retailing.

But Truth, Justice and the Mancunian Way is promoted in this challenging book written by a team of members of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change.

The book ends on an optimistic note:

'We can blame others for the continuing failure of the thirty year experiment, the political responsibility for ending that experiment and starting another is collectively ours'.

1st August 2014

Just back from two weeks in France.

We had an enjoyable stay in Lille with trips to Ypres and Poperinge in Belgium together with a very pleasant lunch at the St. Sixtus Monastery, a place that always seems a trifle surreal to me.

The Trappist Monastery is enclosed and silent and the monks here brew beer which is sold at the monastery gate, usual in large wooden crates containing approximately twenty four bottles with a significant deposit charged on the crates and the bottles.

But the surreal aspect stems from the beer hall next door, where the Trappist Ale is sold 'on tap' alongside plates of food; bread and cheese, pate, pickled beef and a local delicacy, 'hennepot' which is a mix of meats, including ham and rabbit set in a jelly.

As you eat and drink, around you sit table after table a range of farmers with well developed beer bellies and their wives, Lycra clad cyclists, leather clad motorcyclists, families, scooterists and not a few who have arrived in motor homes and caravans.

Dancing between the tables are the waiters and waitresses bearing great trays of drinks often with up to six plates of food on their free arm.

It is a spectacle and the profits obviously pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the Monastery but building a beer hall such as this, outside a silent Monastery, in the midst of fields and farmland has something of the optimism of the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams.

I am sure that the Monastery Business Plan was impressive but it nevertheless has the feel of 'if you build it they will come'.

And they do!

On our last Sunday we were invited for lunch and over conversation a comment was made by our hosts that one of the differences between France and the UK was that in France personal banking does not come with a credit card, only a debit card.

This we were assured made all the difference to family finances because it ensured that personal indebtedness is more strictly controlled than in the UK.

Indeed in some stores and restaurants all transactions have to be by debit card as credit card payments are not accepted.

I must say that I used both credit and debit cards on holiday and both were accepted without argument from either waiters, cashiers or supermarket card reading machines so ces't la vie.

Travelling abroad is always an enlivening and enriching experience and raises all sorts of questions about how things are done in England.

In France it seems that every small town has its boulangerie, its boucherie and its patisserie.

On our last evening in Calais we were intrigued to see a crowd gathered outside the shuttered door of a locked shop, what is going on?

On closer examination it was an automatic dispensary dispensing freshly baked bread 24/7.

A couple of Euros in the slot and a stick of warm freshly baked french bread appeared as if by magic.

The collapse of the French economy is routinely forecaste not only by Osborne and Cameron who remain convinced it seems that the only possible economic strategy available to the UK is austerity, austerity, austerity.

But as Philip Collins writing in The Times today comments, despite protests from the English right the French prove again and again that that 'there is no robust relationship between levels of taxation, the size of the state and economic growth'.

Indeed!

But it might also be the case that, as our hosts at lunch advised, by ensuring that anything bought with your Carte Bleu or any cash advance withdrawn using it will be debited from your account immediately that, to quote Philip Collins again, despite working a bit less and paying themselves a bit more, maintaining a large public sector paid for by higher taxation, the French have made a different choice, one that calls austerity into question.

France has, it seems, rejected usury, the usurers and all their works leaving the French to pay as they go, whether its 'Fromage or Vin or Pain' they remain happily in the 'Noir' and try not to venture into the 'Rouge'.

8th July 2014

Another long gap between blogs!

I seem to be suffering from a form of lassitude which is more to do with politics and politicians than with my personal circumstances!

As the Labour Party seeks to position itself to the right of George Osborne and in some desperate measure attempts to convince the electorate that it is not only tough on immigration but tough on the causes of immigration, not only tough on benefits but intends to cut the benefits for and of young people unless they find some form of training, not only tough on, well ..... whatever it needs to be tough on, in order to convince the electorate that it can be trusted with being in charge of the economy, I find myself wondering how things can possibly get worse?

Of the three main parties the Liberals have become so compromised by their part in the coalition that they barely register on the swingometer, the Conservative Party it would seem is keen to lead us out of Europe and into a little Englander Laager, with the waggon's (no doubt privatised and run by G4S or Virgin) circled to keep out all and sundry, and an aimless, directionless Labour leadership constantly fighting shy of words like socialism, welfare or justice in case the appear to be, well too socialist or maybe, just too Labour for the voting public.

And all this of course leads to an opportunity for UKIP to appear to be setting the pace both in anti European Rhetoric, anti Immigration Rhetoric, with a programme that makes no sense economically (the sums don't add up) or in terms of building a better more open, more humane, more caring society.

So Lassitude or Ennui or Enervation not assisted especially by the England Team's dire performance in the World Cup.

So how to address this?

I see three possibilities:

The first is escape, a good holiday, let's just clear off to a part of the world where it's not possible to find Radio 4 on the dial or view the BBC News.

Then of course there's simply switching it all off, TV, Radio, Newspapers and burying your head in a good book, escapism of a different sort.

Then there's fighting back, where to start? Well one place may well be a concept that has both religious and social connotations.

The Common Good.

What goods should we hold in common?

What goods should be protected?

What goods should be shared equally?

What is the common good?

Essentially that which enables individuals to enjoy both freedom and liberty, to live peaceably with their neighbours and enjoy the security which comes from having a place to live, food to eat and leisure time to enjoy.

Immediately it is possible to see how the current designs of the coalition's sheep's clothing, masking their wolfish designs makes that vision of the common good impossible for so many to realise.

Whether it's the bedroom tax, or zero hours contracts, or the sanctioning of benefits, or student indebtedness, or the high cost of housing for many people in our society there is neither peace or security or freedom or liberty.

For too many people the idea of the common good is simply an abstract idea which is impossible to realise and that is not good enough!

So for the Labour Party in particular here is a place to start.

How does the idea of the Common Good translate into a practical programme.

In Catholic Social Teaching a path is steered between Laissez Faire Capitalism and Marxism, in practise a route that allows private property but insists that wealth is shared through mechanisms like a living wage.

Governments, through taxation and broader legislation have a responsibility to ensure that public wealth is distributed equitably and fairly throughout the population, in this way as we share in creating that wealth so we share in enjoying the fruits of the wealth, either in terms of creative and rewarding work, through the enjoyment of leisure, or the benefits that come with retirement.

As I relax in the evening or walk around my community I want to see evidence that my neighbours are enjoying the rewards that arise from their contribution to making our and other communities better places for human fulfilment and that together we can enjoy the goods that arise, health, education, work, welfare, leisure, money, and the environment, in common.

Lip service has been paid to this ideal by all political parties from the big society to the one nation, it is time that the Common Good is defined and articulated in the Party Manifesto's that are being drawn up for 2015.