Rape Is Rape - DSK, Kenneth Clarke and the Congress of Misogynists

The last few days have witnessed two very telling issues about how women and sexual violence continue to be viewed by the so-called Great and Good in some quarters at least. Depressing is not quite adequate enough a word to describe the misogynist streak that continues to run through the outlook and thinking of policymakers at the highest levels of our allegedly modern society.

First came the admirably fast response of the FBI in arresting the (now former) head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, as he waited on a flight out of the the USA, following allegations from a hotel maid that he had locked her in his room, indecently assaulted her, tried to rape her and then departed the hotel in something of a rush. What has followed has been a curious and often disturbing outpouring of Gallic remorse, not about the alleged harm to the victim, but about the damage to the national reputation, followed by a gradual leaking of more and more stories about how this man has behaved extremely inappropriately towards women in both his social and work circles for years.

One allegation, from 9 years ago, concerned his alleged attempted rape of a then-22 year old god-daughter of his wife, who was persuaded by her Socialist politician mother not to make a formal complaint against him for the sake of their political party - and Strauss-Kahn's ambitions to become President of France. A second comes from within the IMF, where a Hungarian-born economist has alleged she found him putting increasing pressure on her to sleep with him after his attempts to woo her with discussions on African economies did not provoke his desired response.

Aside from his own perceptions of what he was doing, however, what is truly disturbing is the behaviour of those around him who, while on the whole not quite rushing to his defence, have at least equivocated, resorting to the old excuses of his being a bit of a ladies man, a seducer not a rapist. Aside from any alleged violence on his part, it is clear his colleagues and peers were aware of his misuse of his powerful position and still they apparently said nothing and did nothing. Instead, they cleared his way to become the leading contender for the highest national office until the rather bold action of some policemen last weekend. (Though would they have been as fast were he not French, who knows?)

The mythical male excuse: Eve the Temptress

Meantime, the British Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke MP, yesterday ran into a storm of protest after comments he made during a radio interview about his proposed reforms of the penalties for rapists. After some confused rambling about underage sex and rape, he declined to agree to the proposition that "rape is rape", suggesting that "date rape" cases, where the woman knows her attacker, were not necessarily as serious as other types of rape. Unable to comprehend the criticism he then came under, he very troublingly commented that those protesting were focusing on rape in order to "add a bit of sexual excitement to the headlines".

He has now apologised, insisting rape is always a serious crime, but the incident raises major concerns about how fit for office he is - his comments at least imply a belief that rape can somehow be non-violent, or that, by their actions, women can somehow be responsible for being raped or, yet worse still, even be willing to be raped. This latter view is not entirely uncommon - predicated as it is on the biblical myth of Eve the Temptress and Adam the Uncontrollable Phallus and crystallised into the old rubbish propounded by predominantly upper-class oiks that when a women says "no" she doesn't really mean it. It is a deep insult to both women and men, creating the dangerous lie that the former is the willing victim of the latter, who, beyond an apparently pretty low threshold, becomes so sexually aroused that he cannot control himself because of the tempting signals exuded by the unthinking woman.

It is, of course, a total lie, a calumny created by miosgynist societies and enshrined in the three main Abrahamic religions via the Eden Serpent myth, and it is utterly appalling that such ancient prejudice should continue to even vaguely inform the thinking of lawmakers and the judiciary in 21st century Britain. And elsewhere - as covered in an earlier post, it is only a few weeks ago that a similar proposal was put to the US Congress by rightwing Christian politicians to make a legal distinction between "forcible rape" and the rather contradictory notion of non-forced rape. It is a view used in all too many societies to alternately exploit and suppress women, to strip them bare in thousands of news media pages or to shroud them in wimples and burkas to prevent them tipping supposedly helpless men over the edge by a glimpse of a lock of hair. By this men are relieved of responsibility for their actions, while women become charged with causing the actions of others in harming them - a pretty unique way of looking at a crime.

So, while he is indeed innocent until proven guilty, whatever the outcome of Strauss-Kahn's case, and whether or not Clarke resigns (which he should, or be sacked), the past week shows more than ever the need for both laws and culture which make much clearer the rights of women to go about their daily business unmolested by the sneering, laddish and loutish behaviour of men who know better. It should not be left to the courage of a solitary, low paid hotel worker to bring a complaint against the highest ranking banker in the world to make the case for change.

But there again, perhaps these different cases from across the western world simply typify the apparent sense of impunity the political and corporate classes hold in their dealings with the rest of society. And just as we need to tackle the dreadful misogyny apparent in these cases, so too we need to challenge the very existence of the power structures that permit and even encourage such stratified views of other humans, female and male, to exist in the first place.

Staring at The Sun

The beleaguered Environment Secretary, fast-driver Chris Huhne revealed the Government's much debated Carbon Budget today, ostentatiously declaring that it will become a legally binding requirement for the Government to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions on their 1990 level by the UK by 2025 to tackle global warming. He has done so in spite of bitter opposition from his fellow Lib Dem, the Business Secretary Vince Cable, as well as from the climate sceptics who inhabit the Tory benches like a horde of neanderthals.

On the face of it, it is a significant achievement and it has been welcomed by some environmental campaigners. But, on closer inspection, the announcement raises more questions than it answers.

1. How will the 50% by 2025 impact on the current plans by the Government to abolish the Climate Change Act on the grounds of it creating too much "red tape" for business and the legally binding target of an 80% reduction by 2050 (which general scientific consensus says is necessary to prevent run-away global warming)?

2. Although the plan includes scope for renewables, recent Government decisions will make it much harder to obtain funding to install community and large scale solar farms. So will the focus move to building new nuclear power stations on the dubious grounds that  nuclear energy is carbon-friendly?

3. The plan allows Britain to trade emissions credits with other countries that have lower carbon emissions - mostly poorer ones. This will at least involve some transfer of money to these countries, but given that their emissions are always among the lowest, will it genuinely achieve any reduction in carbon emissions?

4. Why have we kept that wonderful opt-out card that, if other countries don't do enough, we can stop doing anything? Who on earth came up with that idea?

Of course, in the Tory press and blogosphere the announcement has brought forth a chorus of criticism of how this will damage British manufacturing. And of course the sceptics have been out in force - the Daily Telegraph readers were particularly perplexed by it all:

For the 12 months of last year, I had a subscription to Scientific American. Month after month, there were articles about global warming. In every article, it was taken as read that Global Warming is A FACT. It seemed to me, as I read the articles, that anyone who wanted an article published had to adhere to that basic tenant. 

and this:
The whole climate change debate shoukd be quietly slinking away into oblivion. Don't you get it... We were all conned! The politicos won't admit it as they might be lynched.

and very bizarrely:

None of us KNOWS whether the CO2 science is categorically right or wrong.
But we do know that £13M to reopen the McCann kidnap case is an utter waste of money....

And, assuming he is still in office, it is this sort of pseudo-scientific garbage, propounded by Tory MP after Tory MP, that will probably do for Huhne's attempts to put these proposals into legislation. As was evident in a variety of surveys and stories up to the 2010 General Election, Conservative Party candidates were the least concerned of all parties about global warming by a very wide margin indeed - some described it as a "scam" with ludicrous claims of a vast leftwing conspiracy to use climate change as a means of destroying industry. In addition, the Telegraph itself reported in January last year, a meagre 6% of the top 250 Conservative candidates expressed any desire at all to reduce the UK's carbon footprint in a Conservative Home survey.

All this stands in the face of all the evidence: that the Earth is losing 25 billion tonnes of oxygen each year; that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have risen by 50% since the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago, and that month after month, year after year, new records are being broken in the extremity of our weather patterns. Last month was the warmest UK April on record and this month is likely to be the warmest May. The USA has just had the largest set of cyclones recorded in decades, while British nature goes to pot - hibernating animals emerge early with the risk of dying again if there is a sudden change, while the strawberry crop has ripened so early that there will be none left for consumption during the Wimbledon tennis competition.

The objectives announced today require a lot of detailed explanation about what they will actually mean and to prove they are more than just a stunt. But as important to its success or failure will be what support will be salvaged from among Tory MPs.

Meantime, the forecast is for another heatwave.

Uganda Update

The Ugandan Government appears to be backtracking on the proposed law to execute gays and lesbians in their country. A massive campaign which led to tens of thousands of phone calls to the Ugandan Parliament and the delivery of a petition of 1.6 million signatures led to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill being withdrawn in spite of a last minute attempt by Christian groups to have it passed.

The struggle is not over, however - the Bill could return to Parliament in as short a time as eighteen months to be debated again, and gay people still face constant harassment and violence in the country, where homosexuality remains illegal under laws dating back to the days of British administration.

More here on The Ecosocialist's blog, which has followed this issue closely and supported strongly the campaign to block the Bill.

Sacking with CONfidence (Part 3)

On the morning after the beginning of the latest series of The Apprentice, it was somehow ironically appropriate that Lib Dem Business Minister Ed Davey announced that the Government have now moved on from their plans to reduce individual employment protection (see Sacking with CONfidence Parts 1 & 2) to signal an assault on collective redundancy rights.

Currently, employers can make staff redundant as long as they put up a pretty simple business reason for doing so (which can be about as straightforward as just wanting to make some basic changes to the way they do things); where 20 or more people are affected by the same proposal, there are some timescales which are applied - if 20 people are affected, there must be at least 30 days consultation on a scale rising to 90 days consultation for more than 100 people. (Lower than 20, there must be "adequate" consultation, which ACAS have indicated should normally be around two weeks). The need to consult does not remove the employers' ability to proceed - it simply means that where a significant number of people may lose their livelihoods, there is an obligation to consult on alternatives to redundancy and on the process being undertaken (such as the criteria to be used for selecting precisely which staff will lose their jobs).

You're Fired! A bit more flexibility needed for Lord Sugah!

The Government today has decided that this is no good - in the free market profiteers lexicon that informs their thinking, consultation on people's livelihoods reduces industrial flexibility and so it is up for a full review, along with long established protection where jobs are transferred from one company to another (the TUPE - Transfer of Undertakings, Protection of Employment regulations). TUPE is intended to fit with the European-wide Acquired Rights Directive, which provides protection to employees throughout the European Union. Under this, if their employer's business is merged with another, their employment rights and terms and conditions must be at least as good as before. Britain may struggle to amend TUPE and still meet the legal requirements of the ARD, but it looks like our plucky ConDem masters are up for it.

How any of this will help the Government claimed objective of making it easier to employ staff, who knows? At present, you have to work two years to qualify for a maximum statutory redundancy payment of precisely £800 or 2 weeks pay, whichever is the lower - what a massive cost! The bankers must quake in fear when they think about having to shelve out so much to their cleaners. see what you'd get by clicking HERE, because who knows, one day it could be you.

It will be interesting to see how the new shout-out-loud Lib Dems face up to this: they have never been particularly sound on employees rights (really weird, given that by an overwhelming margin, most workers are employees) and they have been itching for decades to get rid of the Working Time Directive (in spite of being all in favour of it back in the early 1990s when they were so in favour of the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty). And of course, faux rebel Vince Cable, Business Secretary, will be ultimately responsible for the review of the legislation. Now doesn't that just so fill you with confidence?

God bless Blighty, land of the low paid and the maximum profit shareholders...

The Joy of Cuts

"I say Tristan, fancy going up to Town on Saturday?"
"Gosh, why not? What's on? Something good at the Opera?"
"Hmm, maybe later on, after we've been to the...rally..."
"Rally? Rally what?"
"No, the Rally. The Rally for the Cuts."
"Rally for the Cuts? What's that then Boris? Better cuts of prime sirloin from Ashbys? Haw haw!"
"No you silly...The Cuts, the Government cuts. I mean, we had all these students last year rallying against the tuition fees - can't see the problem, I mean Daddy paid far more than 9k for my degree. Then we had these union oiks back in March setting fire to Trafalgar Square. Poor Nelson must have thought it was the froggies back. Then just the other day some bunch of pseudo-disabled carping about not getting their wheelchairs oiled for free by the DSS. So we thought... if they can do it, why can't we?"
"Why can't we what?"
"Why can't we protest too?"
"Ah, I see...I..see..."
"Do you Tristan?"
"Er...no...What..what are we protesting against Boris?"
"Oh, you don't have to worry. It's not that sort of protest. We're protesting in favour of the cuts. We're going up to Town to give David C and George a jolly good thumbs up for getting these malingerers off disability whatsit and ending gold plated pensions for council cleaners. I mean...it's ridiculous isn't it? Why does a cleaner need a pension? As if they're ever going to retire? I mean, ours is 84 and she still works a 7 day week for Cynthia and me. She's a bit wheezy some days, but like I say when we give her her Christmas sherry, it's all jolly appreciated. I mean, she doesn't even take holiday, so why would she need a pension? These council wallahs could learn a thing or two from our Gladys. Salt of the earth, she is. Hard work never hurt anyone."
"Hear! Hear! So who's on your rally?"
"We've got that splendid Farage fellow from the UKippers...Did I tell you he was Head Boy in my cousin's Form Class in Upper Sixth? And, in fact, he still is! And he'll be joined by Norris Mcwhatshisface...you know...Guinness chappie...It'll be a blast."
"I hope there won't be any trashing the War Memorial again?"
"Absolutely not...Who knows, we might trash a restaurant after, but we can pay for the damage..just like the old Bullingdon days, eh?"
"Well, it all sounds jolly good fun. But I was looking at the Telegraph earlier..."
"Was it supportive?"
"Not really I'm afraid...It said it might rain."
"Ah, well, if that's the case Tristan...let's send our Men to march for us! If they shout loud enough I might throw in a little overtime even. Don't say I'm not fair to the staff!"
"Yes, that'll show these bolshies. Now, Boris, fancy another round? My tax rebate just came through..."
"Tax rebate?"
 "Yes, bloody bureaucrats! HMRC cocked up again. My accountant had a rather long argument with them before he managed to get my Tuscan villa set aside as business premises, so I got a £15k rebate on the business taxes..."
"My God! You mean...you actually pay some tax?"
"Well, er..touch embarrassing I know, but just a little. Not much...My gardener still pays more."
 "I...I'm sorry Tristan...Concierge! I think this...this Guest is leaving the Club now. Can you get his coat...He's going to need it. I hear it might rain..."

The "Great and the Good" won't take it any more...!

nb - while many regional and smaller theatres and arts groups face closure owing to cuts in public support, the 2011-12 settlement for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, preserved intact the £26 millions of taxpayers money that subsidises an institution largely patronised by the wealthier components of British society. Let's hope the Pro-cuts demonstrators take their banners to the steps of the Opera House itself. No, I'm not holding my breath either.

The Man who saw Tomorrow

The man who saw tomorrow...

12 May 2010, the Rose Garden, Downing Street, and something flashes in front of Nick's eyes...

Global Warming - There is Still Time for an Answer

Buried among the headlines about Obama and Osama today was a report from the International Panel on Climate Change which, for once, was positively optimistic about humanity's prospects in the age of climate change - as long as we make the right choices.

For some time, international capital, big business and governments wedded to "business as usual" give or take the odd recycling bin and catalytic converter have alternately argued that either climate change is a myth or the alternatives to our carbon based economy are not practicable. At the very least, they have argued, any move from carbon fuels must have a large nuclear energy component - renewables alone just wouldn't cut the mustard in terms of meeting the energy demands of humanity.

The IPCC report, however, fundamentally disagrees with these assertions - wind, water, solar and bioenergy could make up 77 percent of the world's energy use by 2050, if given sufficient public support.On its own, this would reduce carbon emissions by 33%, still far short of the 80% reduction scientists argue is needed by then to stop runaway global warming, but a massive contribution nevertheless. Coupled with genuine energy efficiency measures (we waste up to 50% of our energy in the UK alone), the IPCC argues that a decisions to invest massively in renewables would be a huge step towards limiting the rise in global temperatures and the massive disruption to weather patterns this is increasingly causing.

The report is theoretical, looking at the potential in projects that have not started in many cases, but some large scale undertakings are already underway - like Desertec in the Algerian Sahara. With the intention of covering 0.3% of the desert with a huge solar array, the intention is to generate 100 gigawatts of energy, enough to supply clean energy to all of Europe by as early as 2015. Complementary projects, such as large wind farms in the North Sea, have been reduced or put on hold by Governments like the British one, but Desertec shows the possibilities.

Solar arrays can power the earth safely and cleanly.

Coupled with energy saving schemes - some as simple as removing the standby facility in new electrical gadgets, which generally continues to use about half the energy the equipment burns in actual use; while others could be along the lines of the "Green New Deal" promoted by various Green Parties and pioneered in Kirklees in England, where free home insulation was provided to both private and rented homes to cut costs, cut carbon emissions and create jobs.

So there is cause for optimism, given the poltical and public will to make the right choices. But a battery of vested interests - the oil and gas industry, politicians and media magnates - will be ranged against the necessary progress, dissembling about the extent of climate change, exaggerating the costs of renewables, and portraying the advocates of clean energy as green fascists. With a tight grip on information and the levers of power, these are no small obstacle. But as we have just passed the warmest April in history and Britain begins to face the prospect of drought (relatively speaking), the need for action has never been more urgent.

Urgent Uganda - 72 Hours to Stop Homosexuality becoming a Capital Crime

Ecosocialist reports that the Ugandan Parliament will debate the anti-homosexuality bill within the next three days. As it stands, it will bring in the death penalty for gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals, enshrining in law the reality of Church-led and inspired persecution of the LGBT community in the country. The law is the brain child of MP David Bahati, who was educated at the University of Wales up to 2003, leading to the unintentionally ironic claim of the former Bishop of St David's that, "Wales' influence often stretches further than we realise."

Gay people in Uganda have faced assault and murder for some years, while the authorities have turned a blind eye to the assailants. Lesbian women have faced so-called "corrective rape" by gangs of men and exorcism by Christian priests. Criticism of these practices and the planned law by among others President Obama have been rebuffed angrily by religious leaders and the legislators have ridden on a wave of bigotry to reach this week's debate.

Some religious groups, particularly the Anglicans, have been prominent in opposing the proposed law and welcomed a recent human rights award granted to a Ugandan gay activist. But populist politicians seem to have no scruples in pressing the law forward and so it is up to the international community to pressure President Museveni to not sign the act into law if and when it reaches the stage of Presidential ratification.

Please sign the petition on Ecosocialist's page to call on the President to say no to this appalling act of repression, or link by clicking HERE.

LGBT people face appalling persecution in Uganda even before the new law.

"I've Been Expecting You, Mr Obama."

As somebody wrote to the Guardian this week, it didn't take much to get the Royal Wedding off the front pages. From the restraint of "Osama Bin Laden is Dead" in the UK Guardian to "We Got The Bastard" in the Philadelphia Daily News, the assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden dominated the headlines - with the notable exception of Britain's Daily Telegraph which just couldn't quite let go of that wedding. As the week wore on, we were treated to all sorts of diagrams of the assault on his hideout, fake photos of his bloody corpse and, perhaps uniquely, the photograph of President Obama and his closest aides watching the attack live via a miniature satellite camera mounted on the helmet of a US Navy Seal.

In spite of the supposedly impartial evidence of the camera, the official version of the attack changed several times - first, there was a firefight, culminating in Bin Laden using his wife as a human shield before both were shot dead. Then, later, the wife emerged alive and relatively well. She had run at his attackers, but he hadn't hidden behind her. Indeed, it turned out that only one person shot a couple of rounds at the Navy Seals as they landed in the compound, only to be quickly killed by them. Bin Laden was found in minutes, by which time his unarmed son had been killed. The Sheik himself was also unarmed and, by some accounts, naked. But after making a "threatening move" was shot twice - once in the chest and once above the eye.

So why was he killed? Why not instead arrest and arraign him for the murders of 9/11?

The reasons are infinitely more complex that the claim that he made a threatening gesture towards his attackers. They are rooted in the complicity of the USA in arming the antecedents of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the hills of Soviet occupied Afghanistan back in the late 1980s. They cover too the link between the Bin Laden family and the American Establishment - while the conspiracy theories that George W Bush was somehow involved in 9/11 remain seemingly far-fetched, a few incontrovertible facts do raise questions, not least that the only plane permitted to leave the USA after the attacks that day was a private jet chartered by and containing members of the Bin Laden family. Would even the Obama Administration have wanted this mutuality to be exposed and highlighted in any trial?

The death of Bin Laden of course also makes better headlines - and doubtless in due course better movie films - than his capture. And of course the opinion polls already show a huge bonus for President Obama.

And yet, longer term, what does it mean? What about all the hubris of the crowds chanting "USA! USA!" outside the White House following the announcement? What of the fact that the US Government appears to now sanction an illegal policy of assassination?  What of the illegal disposal of his body at sea, in breach of all the domestic laws of the USA and international rules around casualties of war? What still distinguishes western policy and actions from the actions of our declared enemies? If we do genuinely believe and wish to be different to the likes of Bin Laden, don't we need to behave and judge ourselves by our own standards rather than by what we perceive to be his?

Perhaps we have to ask what the values we claim to defend actually are. One commentator on the BBC last night vituperatively described the latest video of Bin Laden, seized from his compound by the Americans, as useful to America as it portrays Bin Laden to be "pathetic". Why? Because he was living in a pretty bare house and the video showed him sitting with a blanket over his shoulders. 

Of course, what we had been led to expect was more that Bin Laden would have been set up like a latter-day Ernst Blofeld, safely screened off from the world in some amazing super-technological fortress under a  mountain, surrounded by hordes of fanatical followers ready to die for him. The spartan compound in a Pakistani town was not quite the SMERSH complex the media had in mind. Yet this in itself betrays the lack of understanding of what Bin Laden and al-Qaeda are about.

Read some of Bin Laden's speeches, and they could have been made by any left-of-centre politician. He calls repeatedly for social justice for the poor, a resolution of the Palestinians' miserable condition and for the disengagement of the USA from its unhealthy relationship with corrupt Arab dictatorships like Egypt's pre-revolution Mubarak and the Saudi King. Unlike these men, the success of al-Qaeda for many Muslims was centred on the fact that Bin Laden, like many Arab leaders in history, was motivated by belief rather than self-gain. He came from a rich family - the easiest thing for him to have done would have been to have embraced their fortune and, as his other family members have done, enmeshed himself in the oil-soaked kleptocracy of Saudi Arabia.

Instead he chose jihad, although in the end it was one which the Western Establishment grossly exaggerated and used to promote its own interests via domestic encroachment of civil rights and foreign military adventures into Iraq,and now Libya. Bin Laden by contrast can be seen to have risked and lost his life for the cause of ordinary people, downtrodden and repressed by regimes largely put in place and sustained by the West (and lauded by the British Royal Family).

And it is by not understanding this that the Americans have made a crass and long term error in killing him. Indeed, given everything else, being killed in precisely the manner he has been was perhaps the only part remaining to be written of the Osama bin Laden narrative. Like Abu Ayyub, the companion of the Prophet who died before the walls of Constantinople in 674, the sacrifice of bin Laden will do nothing to diminish his standing. And that he lived such a simple life will likewise raise his legend higher still.

While the thousands murdered on 9/11 by the dreadful actions of Bin Laden's associates were slaughtered in such a dramatically awful manner, what we forget are the thousands who perish, unrecognised and unrecorded, at the hands of the agents of the West in wars, famines and through the injustice of our sponsored puppets in scores of countries. Notably, in one tract from 2004, Bin Laden talked of how seeing the bloody aftermath of women and children killed in tower blocks bombarded by the US Sixth Fleet in the Lebanon in 1982 was the seminal moment he first thought of an attack on the iconic Twin Towers.

30,000 Lebanese, many, many of them civilians, were killed in these days by the US and its Israeli allies during their invasion of that country, a fact conveniently forgotten in the West, just as we are contentedly moving on from the carnage of Iraq. It is this ignored, invisible war of attrition against the impoverished of our planet that gives rise to the likes of Bin Laden, that shaped his ideological justification of jihad and which the grasping leaders of the West continue to ignore at the peril of us all - because this is the real War without End.

Lib Dems: Checking out of the Last Chance Saloon

"Clearly what happened last night – especially in those parts of the country, Scotland, Wales, the great cities of the north, where there are real anxieties about the deficit reduction plans we are having to put in place ... we are clearly getting the brunt of the blame," (Nick Clegg) told reporters.

What in God's name did he expect?

The results in the batch of elections last night - in Wales and Scotland for their national assembly and Parliament and in England for a slew of local councils, confirmed what many progressives warned the Lib Dems about when they entered their Faustian Pact with the Conservatives almost exactly a year ago. Liberal Democrat voters did not vote for a rightwing government, wedded to monetarist economics and some pretty nasty, rightwing social policy chucked in to boot.

It is not just about the turnaround on tuition fees - its about economic slash and burn, the complete abandonment of decades of (Liberal) Keynesian thinking about investment-led recoveries with a social consciences; its about the destruction of the NHS with the introduction of GP fundholding, bonus schemes and profit-making; its about the ludicrous, Kafkaesque welfare review which is terrorising disabled people and the long-term unemployed; it is about the privatisation of the few remaining public assets, such as the post office and, in spite of a much-publicised apparent but highly misleading climbdown, the sale of large chunks of the national forests.

I could go on. But the bottom line is this - the Liberal Democrats naively think that their own and the Tories' fates in the Coalition are by necessity intertwined, gently nurturing each other, standing and falling together in the claimed partnership that the Lib Dem leader regularly trumpets. And yet they could not be more fundamentally wrong.

Because the Coalition is essentially delivering a full-on Conservative regime. It may be true, as they claim, that the Lib Dem Ministers do manage to moderate some of their wilder ideas, but thinking that somehow excuses their betrayal of their electorate simply demonstrates their naivete, as do their bold claims now that they will assert themselves within the Coalition - given their disastrous starting point, this will simply emphasise the extent of their climbdowns when they still reach some agreement with the Tories; and also the extent to which they badly underplayed their negotiating strength last year. Conservative voters are pretty much getting what they wanted - (ex) Lib Dem ones quite the opposite.

So the Lib Dem options now? With a collapse in Scottish support to barely 5%, and virtually eliminated from scores of local authorities - trailing behind the Greens in many wards in my own area of Kirklees - and with their prized referendum on the alternative vote overwhelmingly rejected  by 69% to 31%, they are now on a political life support machine. The clock is ticking and the plug will be finally pulled on the first Thursday in May next year if they don't quickly discharge themselves.

This is because the Lib Dems have taken decades to build up their stength through local government powerbases. The core of the party is their 3,600 councillors. Today, of the  1,600 up for election, nearly half are gone, in many cases decisively. By this time next year, the cuts agreed by the Coalition will be biting hard instead of just being in prospect as at the moment - the Lib Dem bloodletting will be potentially even worse and at the end of another night like the one just gone, there will effectively be nothing left.

And so they have only one realistic option - to ditch Clegg and ditch the Coaliton. Now. It may force an October general election, which on present showing Labour would probably win. That would involve a substantial decrease in the Lib Dem Parliamentary party, but in opposition again it might be just in time to shore up their desparately damaged local base next year.

But already it seems deeply improbably that they will do this - Clegg has reiterated the apparent need for the Coalition in the national interest, a sentiment echoed by past leaders like Paddy Ashdown and David Steel, and by Ministers like Chris Huhne. They seem set to recommit, rather like lemmings desperate to reach the sea cliffs.

And on that basis, as posted before, they are full set to become nothing but a virtual party - bereft of local councillors and activists, a head without a body, a zombie party.

Meanwhile, as he dismantles the welfare state, Nick Clegg perhaps can dust down his cv and begin the application process to become a formal Tory candidate, the only way he is likely to remain in the Commons, let alone power.

The third party is neutralised now pending its final rendering. Mission accomplished, Mr Cameron.

Zombie Liberals, focus-less near you now...

 

The Cats Have It - AV Explained More Clearly than Humans Could Do It!

This Yes to AV video explains how the Alternative Vote would work; how it is more democratic; and how the Conservatives use a form of it to elect their leader, but don't want to extend the same privilege to us when electing our MPs.

The No Campaign does have the support of many Labour MPs, but is funded and run in effect by the Conservative Party, which has a clearly vested interest in keeping the current system. This allowed Thatcher to do her work even although she never enjoyed the support of more than 43% of the people - just think, if the Yes to AV campaign only gets 43% of the vote in the referendum, it will be characterised as having been soundly defeated. But Thatcher enjoyed a landslide victory in the 1983 election with just 42% of the vote; and Tony Blair was elected in 2005 with just 35%!

My local MP sits in Parliament with 65% of those who voted having picked other candidates. The current system is clearly flawed and undemocratic. The Alternative Vote is not perfect, nor is it proportional, but it would mean that MPs have to have the support of over 50% of those voting - so a big improvement on now.

Vote Yes to change on Thursday!

The Royal Wedding - Free Speech and the Windsors' Humour Bypass

The media has been saturated for days now with the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. And today, if you were outside at 11 am as the nuptials were being undertaken (as I was), it was as silent as the opening scenes of "28 Days Later". Just empty streets, the wind, cats...

Of course, like the zombie hordes that emerged in that film, the "Nation", the only collective noun permitted to be printed in the Daily Mail, was obediently devouring not quite the flesh of the living but rather the pomp and spectacle of the House of Windsor hopefully adding some welcome new genetic material to its dwindling pool of DNA. Albeit that this is from a woman allegedly of "common" background (though equally notwithstanding that her great grandfather once owned most of Leeds).

It has been taken as read that the Royal Family remain unquestionably ascendant in their role as Head of State. The Monarchy remains the symbol of the social and political hierarchy that runs our country, its institutions and economy. It retains perhaps residual political authority but buttresses the autocratic powers of Her Majesty's Government which both now and probably by the end of next week will continue to be elected by one of the most undemocratic electoral systems in the world.

So you would think in such an apparently unassailable position, the Royals might at least relax in terms of allowing their opponents (supposedly an irrelevant minority) to be able to criticise them, at least in a jocular fashion. Satire about the royals has been an integral part of British humour since the vicious cartoons of Gillray and his ilk back in the 18th century. So, with, the media assures us, the love of the Nation pledged to the young couple at the altar today, surely some of us pathetically marginalised and miserable republicans might, in this land of freedom, be permitted a little, well, fun.

Not a chance!

On a purely sycophantic level, we had Camden Council a couple of weeks ago refusing to permit a Republican street party to be held today as not conducive to public unity - a rather Stalinist approach to the subversive act of eating tea and scones at a trestle table. Sorry, or was that a traitors' table? In the end, it was permitted to proceed, but the concept that if you don't support the monarchy somehow you are not permitted the same rights as people who do is worrying.

Gillray's depiction of the Prince Regent kissing his wife, c1790

And then yesterday we learn that the Royal Family has secured a worldwide ban to prevent anyone using the footage of the Royal Wedding in any way that might involve any humorous take on it. Critics of the monarchy have in the past been scolded by royalists on the grounds that apparently the Royals can't answer back. This was never the case, but now they won't have to because there will be nothing permitted that they might feel the need to respond to.

But by far the worst incident of today has been the dawn raid on the house of a retired Professor and pacifist, Chris Knight, and the arrest of the said Professor for conspiracy to cause a breach of the peace. As twenty policemen descended on his home, the Professor and his companion were separated, handcuffed and driven off, their house keys refused to a friend who wanted to check on their pet rabbit.

The Professor, it turns out, was conspiring to undertake the highly dangerous and seditious act of Street Theatre. Indeed, caught red handed alongside him (and also arrested) was a man in a plastic knight's costume with a plastic toy sword.

Clap them in irons and take them to the Tower!

The Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police declared that today was "a day of national celebration and we will move fast to deal with any criminal behaviour" in relation to any demonstration of anti-royalist sentiment. The media helpfully played footage of the English Defence League chanting at a small group of Islamic radicals, usefully bracketing them with the likes of the Professor.

It is increasingly sinister that we see peaceful protest being squashed in the UK. Another activist, Charlie Veitch, was also arrested yesterday for conspiring to cause a breach of the peace at the Royal Wedding in spite of his going to the police to assure them of his peaceful intentions and discuss with them how he could carry these out. He remains in custody today. As posted previously, there have been similar cases around the environmentalist movement, and also with the banking and student fees protests. In line with what many warned about a decade ago when Tony Blair rushed through more and more powers allegedly to combat terrorism, the State is increasingly using the law to crush dissent of any kind - even the humorous.

So, as William and Kate drive off to Clarence House in the pseudo-environmentalist Prince Charles' Aston Martin, spare a thought for three people who have spent today detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure for daring to consider wearing fancy dress costumes on the streets of London. On the upside, at least there wouldn't be a TV in their cells...
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The No sense of Nuclear Nonsense

Russia Today interview on the many high costs of nuclear energy and the myth of abundant atomic power.



Bloody Oil

So, in one sense it is not news. Ask anyone why the West gets involved in overseas wars and the answer nine times out of ten is "oil". The public know this, and somehow cynically accept it, bemoaning the fact, but often simultaneously setting it to one side, perhaps in the hope that, while it is necessary for the sake of our current carbon fuel-dependent societies, it can't really be that bad. Can it?

Well, yes it is, and worse. We heard earlier this year, Tony Blair's sanctimonious defence of his toadying up to George Bush over the bloody war in Iraq, shifting from his original claims about weapons of mass destruction to defending the objective of regime change, allegedly because this would be good for the Iraqi people. The tens of thousands of deaths, the millions of refugees and the immense damage to infrastructure caused by his activities were all apparently worth it on these grounds.

And this week, we have found out for certain just exactly who all this mayhem was for.

The "Independent" newspaper in the UK published a series of emails showing how in the months up to the Iraq invasion - when Blair was publically insisting that war might still be avoided - BP and other oil companies were busy petitioning the UK Government for a slice of the anticipated post-war bonanza. They even went so far as to claim that if the Iraqi oil fields were privatised (rather than kept in the hands of the new supposedly democratic government to hel rebuild the country) this would represent an apparent reward for the UK's support of the American invasion.

So now we know, our troops were there to kill and be killed so that, in return, BP, a big multinational company with a deeply tarnished history of involvement in killings and corruption in the Middle East, could get a reward.

And it duly has. Unreported, unfocused on by the complicit western media, the Iraqi state was dismantled following the war. Its assets were sold off to foreign companies and individuals - many of them Israelis - and among these BP benefited with good deals on acquiring huge stakes in large tracts of the rich Iraqi oilfields. Even where they don't own the fields, the oil companies make a killing, extracting oil at less than $1.15 per barrel and selling them on at over one hundred times (or, put another way, 10,000%) that cost. They were by no means the only oil company involved, and the American government was even more generous to its friends, such as Halliburton and Blackwater, in doling out Iraqi money, largely unaudited and unaccounted for. But Blair's sickening insistence that he acted out of pure motives and a desire to do the right thing finally stand exposed as nothing more than a squalid deal with big corporations - both of the oil and non-oil varieties.

And what of now, in Libya? Again and again in recent weeks, the Gaddafi regime has been portrayed as somehow uniquely brutal among Middle Eastern despots and so deserving of unique treatment by the West. Even although Gaddafi's government has now offered an internationally monitored ceasefire and elections for the leadership of the country run by the UN, the mysterious coalition of rebels continue to receive unqualified western aid in spite of rejecting the offer. We are indefinitely underwriting a bloody war with allies of dubious provenance even although the other side have accepted more than the original demands of the United Nations.

Why? It could be for oil - but with just 2% of the world's reserves, while rich, Libya does not represent to carbon cornucopia that Iraq offered. And BP was already well-ensconced with the Gaddafi regime, so regime change could potentially disturb rather than assist their exploitation of the country's richest natural resource (although, of course, any Middle Eastern war is handy for oil companies in facilitating a rise in prices at the pumps - entirely unnecessary and unjustifiable, but easily sold to an unsuspecting public).

Libya offers other delights for western companies, however, just as Iraq did but other states like Bahrain and Egypt did not. Both Saddam and Gaddafi, for all their brutal faults, came from socialist backgrounds. Acquiring power was not purely about self-aggrandisement, though both men clearly revelled in it. It was also about using the state for the benefit of the citizens, however totalitarian in their control of their citizens they sought to be. Consequently, both Iraq and Libya under their respective tyrants had large public sectors and enjoyed some of the best education, health and welfare systems in the world - all free of charge. And, of course, all hanging like ripe fruit to fall into the bags of privatising privateers when the American juggernaut crashed into town.

Under the neoliberal philosophy that continues to inform American and British foreign policy, "freedom" is not at the end of the day expressed via the ballot box or by the mass of citizens. When they talk of freedom, it is in  fact about free markets - about private enterprise and the supposed freedom to buy and sell, accumulate, speculate and profit. Hence, under this philosophy, oil as a bounty for blood is more than acceptable - indeed, it is necessary, it is the whole purpose of the exercise. And not just oil - just as whole segments of Iraqi public services have been auctioned off to western-owned interests, so Libya now holds the same tempting prospect.

It is for this reason that so much of the opposition to the West in the Arab world stems from a religious starting point. Although castigated in the West as wild-eyed bearded ones lusting for blood and vengeance for ancient slight, groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hizbollah in the Lebanon are widely supported by their people because they are grounded in ethics and principles diametrically opposed to the corrupt regimes such as Mubarak's sponsored and sustained by the West (the USA for example, paid for Mubarak's brutal security services for most of his rule).

Old Friends - The British Queen & The Blood-soaked Emir of Bahrain

It is also why the West is so deeply distrusted in the Arab world - every time Arab people have agitated for freedom, they have been opposed by dictators whose strings have been pulled very firmly either by western governments or by western oil companies or, more often than not, by both. The brutal regime in Bahrain is probably the epitome of this, but in the West, it is exempted from the fate of the Libyan regime. Bahrain is sanitized by the approval of its regime by the British monarchy and the repeated visits by members of the Royal Family (who invited the ruler of Bahrain to kate and William's Big Day just hours after the massacre of 45 protesters on the streets of his capital city), - and besides, we already own everything there anyway; there is nothing left to sell.

But in Benghazi...never mind the crosshairs; its dollars that are in western sights.

Alternative Vote Referendum: Vote YES

O Fortuna, I think I am becoming a god: the hubris of Humanity

The head of the allegedly "greenest government in (British) history", David Cameron, announced yesterday his intention to repeal a raft of environmental legislation, including laws protecting wild bird's nests and eggs, as well as, crucially, the Climate Change Act. This latter law currently requires the Government to take steps to ensure that the carbon emissions of the UK are 80% below their 1990 level by 2050 - this is the minimum reduction many climate change scientists argue will be necessary across the world to prevent runaway climate change and the destruction of human civilisation.

Why has Cameron, aided and abetted by his supine Liberal Democrat Orcs, decided on this?

Well, apparently such rules are "red tape" which hinder the onward march of British industry. They crush creativity and damage our competitiveness with overseas trade rivals. Much better to set our resource-gobbling entrepreneurs free to sate their lust for profit on the altar of profligacy and excess.

Cameron and his free marketeer allies like David Laws and Nick Clegg claim of course that this is the genus of capitalism unbound - free to develop, to cater for every human demand and whim, somehow, by magic, it will find the answers to our environmental problems, invent amazing new technologies that will defy the laws of physics and breach resource limits. Hence the move towards freeing up GM food and the view of Climate Change regulations as a hindrance to the mystical Invisible Hand of the Mighty Market that will mysteriously provide for us all. In doing so, it might ravage the planet of its natural beauty, destroy its ecosystems and rape it of its resources, but that won't matter - somehow, as long as we work hard enough and don't think of some free ride on the state benefits express, Capitalism will provide.

And so we have a government informed by neo-liberal economics and the freak theories of people like the Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act. See a video interview with one of their leaders here (click here to link)...a man so breathtakingly arrogant in his ignorance that he defies belief outside of the realms of bad science fiction movies. This man feels that any suggestion that we might limit our use of resources or seek to limit or even just slow the exponential growth rate of humanity is a slight to his warped version of reality. By his arguments, the more the merrier - more humans will not bust the planet, but rather somehow create the ingenuity that will allow us somehow to cram more and more people onto our tired piece of space rock, forever gobbling resources, flying everywhere, driving everywhere, living like Americans everywhere...

Of course, he is in a fantasy world: one where anything that might rain on his parade is in fact a socialist plot. Peak Oil? Nonsense, he scoffs, if we begin to run out of oil, having another three billion people on the Earth will not massively increase demand for the dwindling black stuff and make its price rocket, but rather provide the creative brainpower required to invent new ways of miraculously creating and consuming more and more outputs for fewer and fewer inputs. Anyone who disagrees is just a havering hippie.

But then this denial of reality also invents any kind of excuses or explanations for our current realities - of rising energy prices, of rising global temperatures, of billions living on the edge of existence shorn of the ownership of anything of value. Doubtless, all these will be down to the failure of a state somewhere to implement full-on market capitalism. All they need is to let business and industry find a way.

This is the hubris of humanity, exemplified as never before by our strange advocate and the men he stands proxy for. Somehow, we will always find a way out, create something that will make it right, even if it is just on time and millions may suffer in the meantime. Somehow, we have reached a stage in our history where government policy and the cultural zeigeist do truly hold that creativity is spawned far more effectively by seeding it with the prospect of dollars cash rather than by the prospect of public service or even simple satisfaction.

The transient Triumph of Vespasian

In ancient Rome, Emperors were declared gods when they died. When Vespasian heard the Shades whispering to him in AD79, he wryly observed, "O Fortune, I think I am becoming a god" before passing away.

Our modern Masters may sadly no longer worship Zeus and give thanks for the planet the gods bequeathed them, but they clearly see themselves and their favoured sons and daughters as capable of godly deeds as the Earth spins towards catastrophe. To rein them in as they wipe out our rainforests, jet the world over day after day and continue with conspicuous consumption, would by their argument amount to heresy. To suggest that industry might serve people and planet rather than the other way round can be to invite the full Inquisition, castigation as a utopian dreamer or schemer. Rather, it is time to unite around the consensus that somehow Capital will find a way, no matter how pyrrhic its inevitable Triumph.

But Rome is long gone, and the halls of Olympus lie empty. And our modern would-be gods, just as they claim to hold the very key to knowledge, in truth stand empty, nothing more than false gods and hollow men.

We make our obeisances and sacrifices to them at our peril.

Happy Birthday Mr Chaplin

As Google has reminded everyone today, it is Charlie Chaplin's birthday - he would be 122 if he was still with us.

He is remembered as the clowning Tramp for his many silent movies along that ilk. Like many stars of the silent era, he struggled once the "talkies" came along, although he continued in films until his final commercial venture in 1967, "A Countess from Hong Kong" (which he also directed).

As well as the talkies, he had to contend with the political bigotry of the McCarthyite era in the USA, forcing him to leave the ever-dubious "land of the free" and settle in Switzerland until his death on Christmas Day 1977. McCarthy had assailed Chaplin for his left-wing political views, and leaving Hollywood was in effect the death knell for his acting career.

Yet it was his politics and his concern for things far removed from the slapstick comedy he is famed for that forged what many consider to be his finest work, "The Great Dictator" made in Hollywood in 1940 as the Battle of Britain was raging. In this (talkie) satire, written and direced by Chaplin, and in which he played on his mustachioed similarity to the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler (who was born just 4 days after Chaplin), he used the medium to demonstrate the illusory allure of fascism to those without hope and to expose its ultimate naked brutality, culminating in a powerful call to arms for a better, fairer, democratic world. It was controversial not least in that the USA was still at peace with Germany when it was released and there was a powerful lobby in American politics to ensure that remained the case right up until the attack on Pearl harbour over a year later.

Rightwing hostility towards him grew with the release of Chaplin's first post-war film, "Monsieur Verdoux", a dark comedy, satirising capitalism as essentially pyschpathic.In due course, it was all apparent grist to Senator McCarthy's view of Chaplin as a man too dangerous to remain in the United States of America.

The FBI had kept him under constant surveillance and even a degree of harassment during the war, identifying him as a possible communist. In due course he was accused of "un-American activities" in the late 1940s, although the Senatorial Committee baulked from calling him to testify, fearing he might lampoon them. Another way was found when he went on a business trip to his home country of Britain in 1953 and FBI Chief J Edgar Hoover seized the opportunity to have Chaplin's right to live in the USA revoked (after 39 years). He was never to return, writing soon after that:

"I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States."

Chaplin's message in The Great Dictator remains as clear and vital today; while the intolerance and paranoia of McCarthyism remain as constant a threat as ever in its new forms of Islamophobia and a crushing consensus around state surveillance and restriction of individual liberty.

So it is all the more worth watching again the nemesis of the Great Dictator. And being thankful for Charlie Chaplin, the clown who made the world think.

SMILE (composed by Charles Chaplin)

Libya war IS about regime change / Britain / Home - Morning Star

Libya war IS about regime change / Britain / Home - Morning Star (click for full M.S. article)

The West has gone far beyond the concept of a protective no-fly zone and is now advocating regime change - even although the rebels are a very uncertain band containing some rather unpleasant passengers. In addition, they have refused to even contemplate any negotiations with Tripoli and gave the recent African peace envoys an incredibly hostile and violent reception when they visited Benghazi to sound out the possibility of peace talks.

Why is such intransigence now being underwritten by an open-ended guarantee to the rebels from Britain, France and the USA for continuing and increasing military support and aid with arms supplies?

What has gone largely unreported is that the revolt against the Gaddafi regime developed from rallies called by religious groups to commemorate the 2006 publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed, which upset Muslims around the world given their faith's injunction not to make representations of any human form, let alone such an important one. Most fundamentalist Muslims see Gaddafi as an enemy of their faith given his closure of Islamist schools, his taunting of the veiling of women and his call for Arabs to "put the Koran away on the bookshelf" as a relic of a former age.

Whilst the Transitional Rebel Council is composed of a rather motley bunch of academics, lawyers and army commanders, many of whom were senior members of the Gaddafi regime until just a few weeks ago, there is much evidence of more radical religious elements running through the revolt. What is for sure is that this is no democratic uprising like the ones in Tunisia and Egypt - where, especially in the latter case, the West were so incredibly hesitant about calling for Mubarak to resign. But, of course, as history has shown time and again, the West's interests and frequently violent intervention in the Arab world has never been about democracy, and indeed as often as not has been to squash the demands of the Arab people for reform.

Gadaffi, of course, is no democrat either. But the West is not concerned about that. His sin, unlike Mubarak and the Saudis, has been to not always toe the line with the West. That makes him no saint, but equally, it begs the question as to why Libya is such a special case as to now require our active intervention, not merely to provide some sort of protective no-fly zone around Benghazi, but to continue every day to bomb large tracts of Libya and say that this will continue until Gaddafi is gone.

Our Masters have decided Gaddafi must go, but sit on their butts in Bahrain as the political opposition is destroyed and people shot on the streets - in the same city as the largest overseas US naval base in the world.

Yet there again, they're Our Bastards, and he isn't.  At least, not one of Ours.

Green Party Election Broadcast: No Joke

What is happening in Britain is no joke. Caroline Lucas MP, Green party leader, at the Comedy Club.

Local Lies

"The time has come to disperse power more widely in Britain today."

A portentous call to arms, these words rang from the Coalition Agreement signed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg back in May 2010. The Liberal Democrats especially hailed it as a declaration of intent to devolve power to communities and give back control to local people. The Tories gleefully portrayed it as a decisive step away from the centralism of the defeated labour Government, its years tarnished by control freakery and an anal obsession with targets.

Key to the process has been the Localism Bill, currently due to become law later this year. The Government has trailed this as doing away with Westminster control of what happens in our communities, especially in areas like planning and development, and putting people in charge of their local area. Local referenda on a host of subjects will be able to be called by local people.

Just last week, I took part on a panel of local election candidates debating the Local Development Framework proposed by our local Council Planning department under the Labour Government's rules on strategic planning for most of the next two decades. Tens of thousands of new homes are proposed - with several thousand on greenbelt land and more on greenfield land - even although the statistics used to forecast need are, at least, unproven. Needless to say, everyone on the panel agreed with the angry audience of some 150 local people that the local greenbelt/greenfield should be protected and the houses not built. But local people and even the local councillors would not have the final say - this would be taken instead by the full council for the district, where these people and their representatives would have only a small say and represent 3 votes out of 99.

Step forward the local Tory MP with his brilliant solution - delay the vote, delay any decision. The Government is about to do away with the old targets and although local authorities will still need to plan ahead, local people can develop their own neighbourhood plans and even hold local referenda to prevent buildings they don't want.

Sounds good. Almost too good to be true?

Indeed, it is at best a case of blatant "over-selling". Localism and the legislation enacting it, on closer inspection, turns out to be little more than a messy "pig-in-a-poke". No surprise given its provenance on the desk of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and his trusty Orc, Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister.

The Localism Bill proposes to give communities - either Parish Councils or undefined "Community Forums" - the right to establish Neighbourhood Development Plans. Under these, these groups will be able to identify where they want houses to be built and what types of houses are required - "providing the plan is in line with the strategic vision for the area set by the local authority", local people can then vote on it and if they pass it, the houses (or other types of buildings) can be constructed more quickly than under the current planning regime.

Save our fields from the Sontarans - Pickles at work

Nothing there about stopping unwanted developments. Indeed, the Bill goes further to create a "right to build" to community groups wanting to construct small developments (no definition of small, or of community groups).

And if some big developer decides they want to plop a giant housing scheme in the local area, what powers to resist will local people have?

Well, the developer will have requirement to consult with local people before submitting their plans. Consult? That's all. People can be as against it as they like, the developer can still go ahead and submit the application. And with new Government rules creating a default "yes" to development, it will be difficult to stop the process. The guidance is unclear - it does seem there may be some right for locals to demand a referendum, but the local council will only have to take its outcome into account - it will not be binding.

With the Government now offering cash-strapped councils bonuses for each new house built, and opening up a potential scandal with proposed land auctions, the momentum will be with the developers and what little new "power" local communities may have will be swept away under a thick layer of concrete and tarmac. Little wonder that, after some initial concerns, the British property Federation Chair has welcomed the Bill on the grounds that they are:

...re-assured by the emphasis that the Government is now placing on growth and the way in which localism is to be used as the vehicle for encouraging communities to opt, not for nimbyism, but for the sustainable development of both the homes and commercial property that our economy so desperately needs.

So much for power to the people and so much for protecting our green and pleasant land.

A grim future for the green belt?

When the Porterhouse Blue comes to Westminster

In the excellent Channel 4 TV adaptation of the Tom Sharpe novel, "Porterhouse Blue", the deferential College Porter Scullion, played by David Jason, reveals what in 1982 was seen as the ultimate scandal: a British university was selling university places for money!

How times change, when we hear this week the apparent "news" that nearly every English University has put its  fees at or near the new, trebled maximum of £9,000 per academic year, to the apparent shock of the Con Dem Government. It seems no one mentioned it too them - or, rather, they truly were deaf to the protests of students that were so violently suppressed by the authorities last autumn on the streets of London.

The Government is now clearly panicking on two fronts - there is a wealth of evidence that, contrary to all their platitudinous assertions, the new fees policy is deterring potential students from applying for courses. Nil points for social cohesion and mending "broken Britain".

Secondly, and far more galling to this regime of neo-conservative financial pygmies is the prospect that the Government won't be able to afford its own policy! Sound strange when we've heard so much funding is being slashed from Universities, including public support for the humanities - apparently pointless subjects like History, English, the Arts - being reduced to absolutely nothing, zilch, not a penny?

Well, in the debt-ridden world of contemporary students, the Government is committed to lending them the cost of their fees up front, expecting them to pay it back, with interest, through most of their working lives. But it has to find the money first, and with so many Universities taking the increasingly incompetent Vince Cable at his word and charging the maximum permitted, the Government's bill is soaring. It had banked on Universities charging an average of £7,500 per student - not the 20% higher rate that is emerging.

Hence the panic this week.

Scullion: the Nick Clegg of Porterhouse?

Of course, they were warned, but they ignored their opponents, preferring to cast honest young people as bloodthirsty anarchists and revolutionaries. We face the surreal prospect that British Universities are increasingly enrolling more and more overseas students with the cash to help them survive, while the hysterical rightwing press, who supported the Government's policy changes, carp on about too many foreigners in UK educational establishments. Meanwhile, with India now emerging as a new world superpower, its well-regarded Universities are offering British students degree courses which will cost them 40% less than going to a UK establishment. Even the Mexican President has offered sunnier university options at lower than the UK cost to British students - immediately after talks with Clegg.

So well done to Vince and the Cleggeron. If there is any advertisement more clearly speaking against Coalition Governments, its this hybrid Lie that passes for the British Government. They are dismantling our Welfare State, our NHS and our education system piece by piece allegedly to save us from a non-existent economic catastrophe. The levels of outright dishonesty are beyond belief.

But of course, just as Scullion ends up as the enfeebled puppet of the Establishment in Porterhouse Blue, so the Liberal Democrats have sold their souls out even faster than they have sold the country down the river. As the Dean says in the final scene to the stricken Porter-become-Master, "Master may not have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he will certainly die with one in it."

And die they will, starting with the elections on 5 May. And deservedly so.

--------------------------------

On the day Parliament debated the new fees regime for English Universities, thousands of young people and their supporters demonstrated peacefully in London. The only significant casualty of the day was student Alfie Meadows, who was left brain damaged after being assaulted by a police officer who has never been identified. Watch the horsemen cometh on this video, see the fear induced on the faces of British citizens asserting their right to stand and protest. This is Liberal Democrat Britain. I hope they are proud of themselves while they still can be.

Porridge for Profit - Privatizing Prisons

The announcement yesterday that a Birmingham prison is to be moved into the private sector is yet another huge and disgraceful step towards the total dismantling of the public sector by the Con Dem Government. Ethically, it is a terrible social decision to allow companies to profit from the incarceration of prisoners and raises many deeply troubling questions about the future of the prison system and rehabilitation of offenders.

It is not the first case of privately run prisons in the UK - 11 have been contracted out since the 1990s, and about 12% of prisoners are already held in the private sector, not that you would know from the condemnation by Labour MPs in response to yesterday's news. But this is first case of an existing public sector prison being privatized, and Group 4 Security, who have won the contract, operate as a profit-seeking company. They do not have social objectives in what they do - an outgrowth of private security guard operators, they are known for low wages and operational mismanagement. They do make nice profits for their shareholders, and in this context, what genuine interests might they have in running a prison?

Far from wanting to rehabilitate offenders, a private prison operator will inevitably see much merit in repeat offenders - guaranteeing a continued supply of business. Likewise, facilities for prisoners during their stay in jail would be kept to a bare minimum to drive costs down and again increase returns - the track record of existing private jails pretty much confirms this. And of course, doubtless arguing that this might save the public purse costs, the operator would logically look to maximise the financial returns to be had from cheap/free prison labour.

Unlikely? Well, take a look at the USA, where so many of this government's ideologically-motivated initiatives have their origin.

The USA has privatised scores of its prisons, precisely as, under the barbarically inhumane "three-strikes-and-you-are-out" rule implemented by many states, the prison population has trebled in recent years, with even minor shoplifters (like Gary Ewing) now imprisoned for life. Deploying the cost argument, these prisoners have been conscripted into all sorts of labour - the bulk of US armed services uniforms and ordinance is now manufactured, free of charge, by (disproportionately black) prisoners. The private company Unicor "employs" 20,000 prisoners in 70 US jails to carry out work which even includes making components for Patriot missiles.  Wages can be as low as 23 cents (or 15 pence in UK terms) per hour. Prisoners are also used for a huge range of contracted-out services, including corporate payrolls and call centre work, sometimes placing customers data privacy at some risk, but keeping plenty of income flowing into owners' pockets. The twisted "three strikes" policy ensures a continuing supply of such handy, exceedingly low-cost labour.

If this was happening anywhere else, such as Iran or Zimbabwe, it would be condemned as slave labour. But instead, the US example is being used as a model for Britain. With foaming rightwing papers like the Daily Mail and the Sun backing the move precisely as a means of saving the taxpayer money and vindictively dehumanising prisoners, the Lib Dem Minister, Sarah Teather, blandly states that it doesn't matter who runs prisons, as long as prisoners are rehabilitated effectively.

Prison: no such thing as a free bowl of porridge...

This more than anything betrays her lack of understanding of what is going on in the minds of the corporations bidding for contracts like this, and others in services like health and elder care. This is a company that exploits the staff who apply to work for it voluntarily, minimising wages and maximising working hours - is it suddenly going to be infected with some sort of social concern virus when it takes on prison work? Or is it going to drool at the prospect of virtually free labour and an endless supply of new business?

How we treat prisoners is a mark of how civilised we are, or not. Not only should many of those in prison not be there to begin with, but anyone in a prison is still a human being. They deserve dignity, even if in some cases they are there for removing dignity from others, because the prison system should not be about vengeance or humiliation, but about correction and support to find a better life when they come out again. There are many examples of former prisoners going on to make good and contribute very effectively to society, not least in helping younger people avoid getting into the sort of trouble they have experienced themselves.

But if we give prisons and their inmates over to the likes of Group 4, the emphasis on rehabilitation will no longer be at the heart of the system; rather it would be viewed by corporate executives as being like turkeys voting for Christmas - leaving us with the real prospect that, in future, prison may well work, but only for the purpose of filling the pockets of Group 4 shareholders.