What is this David Miliband love-in about?

It may seem  strange to most people,that  as soon as a political leader is elected by his party  there is a movement to undermine his authority.  Ok, so the media can add journalistic spice to the election of Ed Miliband by the fact that he defeated an elder brother, encouraging  banal conjecture that Ed's victory delayed revenge for smashing the younger brother's train set.  It also helps if  respective partners are portrayed as nascent Lady Macbeths  or if,   like rivals in a  history drama,  each have supporters who see there own advancement dependent on the fortunes of their respective political baron. While  younger foot soldiers are busying themselves skirmishing in order to gain favour,  older retainers who have a self interest in  justifying fading careers will use their  positions to hint, and nudge wink wink that the Party has put it's democratic faith in the wrong baron. even  claiming that the process has been undemocratic.  Of course this was never brought up until the "wrong" result was announced.

So there has been a coincidence of arrows fired by those with no name this past week. Leaks of  Ed Balls 6 year old emails that are hoped to implicate EdM in a dastardly plot to overthrow Gordon Brown and waste the country's cash. Publication of  drafts of undelivered speeches,  articles in newspapers, Emily Maitis on BBC's Newsnight attempting unsuccessfully to conduct a hatchet job,  all focusing on the supposed inadequacies of EdM and by inference the magic touch of his elder brother.  Strange that DavidM chose this as the appropriate time to deliver his first speech since the election.  Hmm.  Coincidence, of course.  Hmm. 

Now its never been clear as to what the special qualities of DavidM are.  As a Foreign Secretary he wasn't particularly distinguished although it is said that Hilary Clinton took a shine to him. His speeches tend to dullness and its easy to lose their drift in over use of sub-clauses. Its only when his identity as a follower of the Blair tendency that the role of brother leader in waiting makes any sense. But ask yourself.  Do we want or need a son of Blair.  We already have one as Prime Minister and a fat lot of good that's doing us. And you can see why EdM is trying to consign New Labour.to  history.

Here's an article by Mattew Norman in the Independent 15 June.  It's worth a read.

Matthew Norman: Shame on David Miliband for dragging his party down

The defeated Labour leadership candidate's refusal to serve in this Saddo Cabinet looks less like justified wound-licking than nauseatingly petty self-indulgence

Wednesday, 15 June 2011

With each month of ostentatious indolence that goes by, with every week of ego-ravaged silence that slides past, with every day of acidic resentment that seeps away, David Miliband offers a compelling lesson as to why Labour was absolutely right to reject him.
He is fast becoming a disgrace: a disgrace to the party he claims to adore, but which a thwarted sense of entitlement stops him serving now; a disgrace to his constituents in South Shields, who did not return him to Westminster to help David Cameron to a thumping majority; and a disgrace most of all, sir, to himself.
Why he has avoided such a pungent appreciation for so long I'm not sure, though naturally the circumstances of his defeat in September earned him sympathy. To sit beside a snickering Ed Balls and hear his brother speak from the podium about his undying love for him – knowing that the imaginary speech bubble read "Right, you patronising ponce, that's for defacing my Fabian Christmas Annual in 1973" – can't have been fun.
All right, then, this was a monstrous psychological blow, even though he had it coming. Long before this gifted Tory impersonator took on the part of Ted Heath in full sulkage, he gave us his Michael Portillo – flirting with a coup against a weak prime minister for whom he couldn't disguise his contempt; but chickening out from cowardice he will have rationalised to himself as a shrewd preference for the long game over the quick and lethal strike.
Shrewd it was not. In the combat sport of power politics, second chances may come but are very seldom taken. Having scurried back under his rock after openly flashing his scorpion tail at Gordon Brown in the summer of 2008, David's second chance came in the winter of 2009. Once again he blazed over from four yards with the one-eyed keeper prostrate, by failing to resign with James Purnell. With that profligacy, he condemned Labour to a catastrophic defeat.
When the third chance came, he blew it again. All victory required was a less smug and aloof, cuddlier David Miliband doing a little light schmoozing in the tea rooms. A few more MPs and the prize would have been his. This small sacrifice his arrogance prevented him making, and he lost because the electorate narrowly favoured his brother. No hanging chads, no black people effectively disenfranchised, no partisan Supreme Court ruling. Just fewer votes.
If he needed a holiday to get over that, fair enough. The immediate aftermath of any election, even one as chaotic as last year's, is a period of sublime irrelevance for any Opposition, and he had every right to slink back to Primrose Hill and recover in peace.
But that was then. Nine months on, his refusal to serve in this Saddo Cabinet – and even with the recruitment of Madge Allsop, Dame Edna's bridesmaid, could it look more comically glum? – looks less like justified wound-licking than nauseatingly petty self-indulgence.
If last week's leaking of the victory speech he would have given may have been spitefully timed to torment Ed at a moment of weakness, all the text establishes is that politically next to nothing divides them. David may have been keener on owning up to Labour's ostrich approach to the deficit, but in ideological terms this is hardly a Tony Benn vs Denis Healey rematch. These Milibandroids, two Jewish boys divided as so often by a common gene pool, agree about everything other than minor nuance and dry detail. By declining to work for his brother, all David does is remind us that with Brown and Blair the schisms were opened not by policy but by personality.
This echo of what is hardly "ancient history" – I've been right through Thucydides and Pliny the Elder, and not a dickie bird – is the most effective way of perpetuating the rift. The only way Labour can begin to close it is for these two to work together. The longer David sulks, the more terminally entrenched becomes the perception of Labour as a queeny rabble who don't merely deserve a decade in the wilderness, but need it to put such childish things as internecine feuding and unadulterated personal ambition behind them.
It seems that David himself is finally waking up to this, with Andrew Grice reporting in this paper yesterday that he is gingerly pondering a return to the front line. It is in the best interests of everyone other than the Coalition and the Balls-Cooper wedlock that he does so without delay.
Obviously, it wouldn't be easy. They would both be mad, for one thing, to sustain the intelligence-insulting pretence that all has been spiffing between them. They would have to cough to the bitterness that led David to eschew Ed's wedding reception for a literary event scheduled for the following day. They would need to be honest, within reason, about the anguish they've caused Marion, their poor old mum.
It would be agonising for David to swallow his pride. But if he went on the telly and said, "Look, it was hideous for me, and for the family. Everyone knows that. But I've had time to get it over it, and accept that there is no primogeniture rule in politics. I haven't spent my working life banging on about loving this party to sit idly by when I might be of some use in getting it back to power. At such a pivotal moment, facing so many colossal challenges, it would be a very small man who let himself be driven by personal feeling, and I hope I am not one of those..." If he could somehow force himself to do that, which of us wouldn't warm to him, and wonder whether Labour may have made a mistake in rejecting him after all?
"I have moved on from the leadership election" is all he has thus far said on the matter, "and so should everyone else." Very droll. Perhaps they will when he has. These are big times, and they are for big people. Until he knuckles down to work, as party chairman with overall responsibility for social policy, or some such free-ranging elder statesman role, David Miliband will not only continue to undermine his brother and diminish his party. He will confirm himself as a peevish pygmy to whom, for all his altruistic declarations, power was never more than an end in itself.

Why we don't need a world-class education system

The Tory led government are very free with the phrase "world class".  Too free perhaps.  OK, a world class health system where the outcome, the health of the nation,  can be assessed, can be argued to  have a measure of  validity, however an article in yesterday's Observer,  reprinted from the 22 May New York Times should lead us to question what does a "world class education system" entail and should we measure our schools against the bald statistics that are collected by organisations such as the OECD,

South Korea has been  if my memory serves me, consistently in the top half dozen countries when it comes to OECD tables of educational excellence.  However take a few minutes to read  the following article by Mark McDonald.

DAEJEON, South Korea — It has been a sad and gruesome semester at South Korea’s most prestigious university, and with final exams beginning Monday the school is still reeling from the recent suicides of four students and a popular professor.

Academic pressures can be ferocious at the university, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, known as Kaist, and anxious school psychologists have expanded their counseling services since the suicides. The school president also rescinded a controversial policy that humiliated many students by charging them extra tuition if their grades dipped.

After the last of the student deaths, on April 7, the Kaist student council issued an impassioned statement that said “a purple gust of wind” had blown through campus.

“Day after day we are cornered into an unrelenting competition that smothers and suffocates us,” the council said. “We couldn’t even spare 30 minutes for our troubled classmates because of all our homework.

“We no longer have the ability to laugh freely.”

Young people in South Korea are a chronically unhappy group. A recent survey found them to be — for the third year in a row — the unhappiest subset among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Education Ministry in Seoul said 146 students committed suicide last year, including 53 in junior high and 3 in elementary school.

Psychologists at the university said very few students had sought counseling in recent days because of the time crunch brought on by finals. Ironically, during this period of maximum stress, therapists were handling only a handful of cases, mostly for anxiety.

“Remember that the students here are still very young and they haven’t had much experience with unpredictable situations,” said Kim Mi-hee, a staff psychologist at the campus counseling center, who estimated that about 10 percent of Kaist students had come to the center for help. “To deal with problems they tend to lock into rumination mode.

“But they’re so smart and so bright, they actually cope with stress pretty well. They have great capabilities of insight, so once they do get treatment, it can go pretty fast.”

But there is still no full-time psychiatrist on call, and Kaist professors receive no training on how to spot overstressed or depressed students. Even the entryway to the counseling suite can feel somewhat less than welcoming. Recent visitors found the front door partially blocked by a dead tree in a broken ceramic planter.

South Korea as a whole ranks first among O.E.C.D. nations in suicide and is routinely among the leaders in developed nations. Subway stations in Seoul have barriers to prevent people from jumping in front of arriving trains, and eight bridges in the capital have installed closed-circuit suicide-watch cameras.

Suicides of singers, models, beloved actors, athletes, millionaire heiresses and other prominent figures have become almost routine in South Korea. A former president, Roh Moo-hyun, threw himself off a cliff in 2009 after losing face with his countrymen.

But the suicides of the four Kaist undergraduates — three jumped to their deaths and a 19-year-old freshman overdosed on pills — have stunned the nation in a profound and poignant way. (The professor, a biologist who was reportedly being audited for the misuse of research funds, hanged himself on April 10.)

The competition for a place in a leading university begins in middle school for most South Korean students. More than 80 percent of Korean young people go to college, and parents here spend more money per child on extra classes and outside tutoring — including military-style “cram schools” — than any other country in the O.E.C.D.

The pressure builds to a single day in November, when a national college entrance exam is held. Some mothers pray at churches or temples throughout the day as their children take the test, which is given only once a year and lasts nine hours. The South Korean Air Force even adjusts its flight schedule so as not to disturb the test takers.

The ultimate goal for most students is acceptance at one of the so-called SKY schools — Seoul National, Korea or Yonsei universities. In South Korea’s status-conscious society, a degree from a SKY school is nearly a guarantee of a big career and lifelong prosperity. Pedigree is everything.

But Kaist is different. The university pays no regard to the national exam and instead recruits almost all of its students from among the elite seniors at special science-oriented high schools. Kaist admits only about 1,000 freshmen each year. A personal interview, high school grades and recommendations from principals count the most.

Kaist students are academically gifted, to be sure, but they are also seen as the future leaders of Korea’s vaunted technology-driven economy. In a sense, once they gain entrance to Kaist, the students become national treasures. As a result, many feel a huge (and sometimes crushing) burden to live up to the country’s expectations. The statement by the Kaist student leaders even referred to Kaist students as “the future luminaries of Korea’s sciences.”

The pressures can become too much for some students, especially those who have always been academic superstars but suddenly find themselves struggling to excel against much stiffer competition. “They’ve always been No. 1 in high school, but once they get to Kaist maybe they’re No. 40, or No. 400, and they realize they can’t possibly keep up,” said Oh Kyung-ja, a Harvard-trained professor of clinical psychology at Yonsei University. “The competition can be cruel.”

Suh Nam-pyo, a renowned mechanical engineer who taught for many years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became president of Kaist in 2006. He soon instituted a series of changes aimed at modeling Kaist after M.I.T. and other world-class science and research universities.

He mandated, for example, that all courses would be taught in English. That move led to campus-wide consternation because not all students and faculty members were fully fluent in English.

Mr. Suh also engineered a system that required students to pay extra tuition for each hundredth of a point that their grade point average fell below 3.0 (based on a 4.3-point system). All students pay a token fee each semester, Kaist administrators said, but otherwise their tuition is free, financed by government scholarships.

Under the so-called punitive tuition program, a bad semester could cost a student’s family thousands of dollars.

The program, which was applauded at first, has since led to deep humiliation and anxiety among many students. Those who struggled and lost their full rides suddenly saw themselves as losers. Some critics, calling it ruthless, even blamed the program for the recent suicides.

Mr. Suh, faced with withering criticism, recently ended most parts of the tuition plan, and the school announced that some courses would now be taught in English and Korean.

Measure us by the things that really matter

Published by the Observer in its "The New York Times" supplement, an eight page selection of articles from that newspaper,  David Leonhardt, a financial journalist refers to "Getting Better" a book by Charles Kenney a British development economist based in Washington. 

In this book Kenney argues that life in much of Africa and in most of the impoverished world has improved at an unprecedented rate in recent decades, even if economic growth hasn't."The biggest success of development" he writes" has not been making people richer but rather has been making things that really matter - things like health and education - cheaper and more widely available.  The world , he said, had paid too much attention to economic numbers.

Sorry but it's not possible to link this article as it doesn't appear on either the Observer or New York Times websites, however while there is some  danger in presenting the above out of context there does seem to be something important expressed here. In Western Europe the notion of economic growth, expressed in percentage terms has become the measurement by which  success or failure, is judged, and it is the predominant means by which comparisons are made as to the economic health of  nations. 

But what if we assessed the nation  by "things that really matter - things like health and education". Ah, you say but can we afford it?  The UK is one of the half dozen richest nations in the world.  If we can't afford it what are we spending our money on? 

One of the mantra's of this government  and previous administrations has been to find new meanings for  the word "choice",  linked with words such as "patient" or "parent" or attached to electricity or gas suppliers or telephone or broadband providers.  When it comes down to it we think we have a choice at elections, and once upon a time we voted in representatives to make choices for us based on their manifestos, but not any more it seems. For we are all consumers now. 

The point is that governments are in reality saying that because you are a consumer and because as a consumer you are more aspirational it is impossible, and by the way political suicide, to make choices for you. That is your responsibility.  They are also, and this is the point, admitting that  no country on earth is rich enough to satisfy each and every  citizen/consumer.  It is not our job to tell you not to buy an expensive imported car, or upgrade your PC, or limit your holiday expenditure. 

So what happens if the country becomes a little less rich? Does the government maintain spending on those things that really matter? Of course not, because it's your choice. If you want first class health care you pay for it. If you want first class education for your kids you pay for it. If your kids want to go to university, you pay for it, or in reality they pay for it, but it's their choice after all.  But to do so you must spend  less on other things, which in these aspirational times is a hard choice. Haven't the income to do any of these things, the implication is that's your choice too.

Now what would happen if the country becomes a little less rich, but the government ceased to use the word "choice" as a covert excuse for letting things take their course, and said, these are the things that really matter and these are our and your  priorities. No market in education or health, they are accessible to all irrespective of income, We as a country want to be measured by the things that really matter. Well to some this may sound like a nanny  state, while to others it may sound like a fair and just society. Perhaps after all, choice isn't worth a dime.

Ten Labour Candidates in Mid Devon

Now, this is the news you have been waiting for.  Labour have 10 candidates who will  contest eight wards in Mid Devon.  No more will you have to weigh up the virtues of a Conservative and a Lib Dem with the odd Independent thrown in. No more will you anti Tories have to force yourselves to put your mark against the name of the only opposition in the hope that the forces of neo-reactionism will be dispatched to the outer margins.

OK, What we mean is that you can now vote for your preferred Labour candidate in wards as follows:

Taw              Pamela Galloway

Taw Vale       Mike Bartlett

Upper Yeo     Susan Sharratt

Yeo               Justin Beament and Nannette Brown

Lawrence      Deirdre Moffatt and Jim Clawson

Boniface        Reg Barker

Way              Jane Tizard

Cadbiury       Janet Ann Wills

How Complicated is the Alternative Vote?

Have a look at this link. The flow chart clearly shows why AV is simpler, well, assuming like almost all of us in Devon you have to think tactically before you cast your vote.

http://www.anthonysmith.me.uk/2011/01/17/how-complicated-is-the-alternative-vote/

Osborne's meanest silent trick

Good old Boy George.  The Osborne person has excelled himself.  Did you think that you had heard it all in his Budget speech? Of course you did, but think again. OK so there is  a lot of paperwork that accompanies a budget, but you would have thought that the wallpaper heir would have had the nerve not to paper over a policy that will effect every person over 80 in the country and announce it in his speech, especially considering it was one of the shortest in modern times.

So if lack of time wasn't the problem it must have been some other reason.  No prizes for guessing, just look him in the eyes. And what about  PRDave,  who pledged during the election  not to cut winter fuel allowances. who is now an accomplice to what must be one of the meanest tricks yet played by this government.

In 2008 Labour introduced an additional payment of up to £100 on top of the basic £250 pensioner's winter fuel payment. This has continued every winter since but the two millionaires are scrapping the top up from next winter.  To add insult to injury a Treasury spokesman argued that the government is not cutting anything, but simply allowing the top up to expire.

And the cost?  Well there are about 2.4 million pensioners over 80. who receive the extra £100.  It's simple calculation.

No, No and No to a healthcare market

Yesterday the BMA passed a series of motions extremely critical of the NHS bill now before Parliament.  It is worth considering what are the implications of these proposals. There is some justification to fear that they will lead to a break up of the NHS.  "Any willing provider" will be able to takeover any of the services provided by the NHS. The danger is that our NHS will be reduced to a logo, backed by public money, while unaccountable profit-making companies will run services. Worse still, the bill gives the health sector the task of making sure the NHS abides by EU competition law, making it almost impossible for services to return in-house once they have been put out to tender. It is effectively a one-way ticket to NHS privatisation.

The risk of proceeding with these reforms is substantial. The NHS is already making unprecedented savings of £20bn over the next four years. Job losses, cuts and disruption to services will increase and become highly visible. Forcing the NHS into the biggest reform package in its history is a sizeable risk. Core parts of the proposed changes, like GP commissioning, are untested, and will be fraught with implementation difficulties.

With the formation of up to 500 GP consortia, all free to set their own priorities, a highly visible postcode lottery will develop. The financial success of each GP consortia will also affect the service that their patients receive. It will influence the type of care provided and how long it lasts. Some patients needing hospital treatment may, because of financial restraints, find waiting lists extended into the next financial year.

Providing more choice to patients has done very little to improve quality. Most people when offered a choice opt for their local hospital. Choice may be important, but for patients it comes below the quality, speed and accessibility of care.

GP commissioning is central to the reforms yet it is highly controversial and will be very difficult to implement. It could easily be undermined by a lack of expertise to fulfil the commissioning role amongst GPs. Any gap would inevitably be filled by private firms. These reforms would therefore result in the increasing privatisation of our health service.

The proposals also introduce a potential conflict of interest for GPs in advising their patients, as they would become both service provider and service purchaser.

Two thirds of GPs oppose the plans to force practices to join commissioning consortia, and almost all say that the profession should have been consulted in advance.  The BMA has said that it will put ‘absolutely everything’ on the table including strike action when it determines the medical profession’s response to the Government’s NHS reforms at a meeting this week. Doctors’ leaders have set out a series of demands to ministers they say must be met before they can support the health bill, including amendments to ensure GPs are free to co-operate with hospital specialists and to scrap moves for providers to compete on price. And why is there no pilot of the scheme? The NHS has undergone major restructuring 15 times in the past 30 years, with little or no evidence that these reorganisations have made any improvements.

The 'any willing provider' approach in an expanded NHS market will see many new entrants, including international corporations, competing to treat NHS patients. There is a proven threat to quality of care from involving profit-led companies in the provision of healthcare. Private healthcare providers, for example, have been known to “cherry-pick” the less complex patients. The quality of work done in private treatment centres has been seriously criticised by NHS surgeons and their professional bodies. The danger is that these private companies will inevitably put profit before patients.

There is also a real danger of a two-tier service developing. While providers will compete for contracts in more affluent areas, poorer communities could struggle to sustain a comprehensive range of healthcare of a comparable standard. The increasing trend to allow personal top-ups to the funding of NHS care will widen the divisions between those who can afford to pay and those who can't. 

This is what markets do. They create hierarchies of service, not universal excellence.

Stride stays silent as Devon people go hungry

  What exactly does our MP Mel Stride do other than hire himself out to Tory councillors who tip him off for endless photo opportunities? His website is no help as the last entry is 25^th October when he notes that he enjoyed some bird watching at the RSPB’s Exe Estuary reserve.

Where is he while more than 350 redundancies have occurred in his constituency in the last few weeks and 200 hundred hungry people a week in Okehampton are having to depend on food donated by locals to build up a food bank?

This apalling idictment of government policies is happening on his doorstep while Mr Stride is publicly welcoming the Government's new welfare system as marking the beginning of a new era of 21st century welfare. Mr Stride is quoted as saying: "These reforms show that this government is on the side of people who want to get ahead….these measures will get people into work “

But Mr Stride seems to have decided to adopt a 19^th century paternalistic approach to his constituents, He seeks to establish himself as the all round caring good egg who will without question attach himself to a local issue as long as it doesn’t dent his credentials as an ultra government loyalist and is totally uncontroversial.

In this way he is following in a grand Tory tradition, adopting the role of the local squire, who would invariably have been the figurehead for any local good cause. The loan of whose name and face would be a sure-fire seal of approval.

Perhaps Mr Stride feels that his photographic presence in local newspapers is reassuring, however together with his bland notes from Westminster and press releases that also appear in some sections of the local Devon press, his attitude   to the electorate can only be described as condescending.

Where is Mr Stride when it comes to real issues that affect local people: cuts in frontline policing and bus subsidies; the Crediton link road, youth unemployment, the scrapping of the EMA, the cost of fuel, the removal of security for many council house tenants on benefits, the reduction in forces pensions and cuts in children’s and young people’s services, now unemployment and hunger at the heart of his constituency

Perhaps he doesn’t see any photo opportunities attached to these issues, however comfortably seated behind Cameron on the government benches, he is probably more concerned with a possible future call-up to a junior ministerial post.  

Opposition to NHS changes hardens

Structured and meaningful opposition is mounting against Lansley's NHS changes, first the BMA have called a special conference which might result in a vote of no confidence in Lansley, secondly the LibDem Conference has voted against the changes.  Read about these developments  in 2 New Statesman articles:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/bma-health-nhs-lansley

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/nhs-reform-health-bill-public

Another fine mess PRDave got us into

The debate over what is the most effective  form of protest these days;  punching a wall,  kicking a lamp post or wrestling a hedgehog, has been brutally superceded  by yet another grievous item of news from the bowels of PRDave's command centre. Even if all these things were to be performed simultaneously naked in Downing St while wearing a  novelty mask of Thatcher they would only serve to provide light relief to the Bobby guarding the door. 

Nothing seems to get through to PRDave except maybe embarrassment. But even then with a few well rehearsed sneers at Miliband's  second cousin in Belgium, he'll be up up and away to play with his Big Society.

Of course as PRDave often preaches just "do the right thing" and you will be cuddled and loved and whatever else they do in Witney on wet weekends. However if not doing the right thing beware,  as you might be visited by the kind of retribution that even Glen Hoddle might consider to be harsh. 

So, don't live in a council house, don't outgrow your "temporary accommodation", don't be on benefits, and whatever you do don't be disabled.

For a less jaundiced view go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12714313

It may be a mere detail to the Clegg but it's our NHS

The reorganisation- yes it's amazing how polite this writer can be- of the NHS is the major political issue of the moment.  Helpfully even the L**D**s at their spring conference in Sheffield,  protected in case  naughty students show their caring side, by £2m of police protection, are discussing a motion to reject Lansley's ideological back door privatisation manoeuvre. 

The Clegg dismisses it as just a matter of detail, however if , as seems likely, the motion is passed the Clegg will be in yet another embarrassing situation.  Hurrah!

More detail in today's Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/04/liberal-democrats-rebels-nick-clegg-nhs-reforms

Where is the Frontline?

Looking for the Frontline has become a national obsession.  Just try putting "frontline" into Google and see what you get.  Commentators and politicians can be see roaming the streets counting police officers on the beat, measuring and calculating  local council employees knocking on doors, totting up teachers in playgrounds, and peering through surgery windows for signs of nurses.  

Hospitals, schools, prisons and town halls have been subject to 6.30am raids to count up and classify  offices as either "middle" or "back", and the idling occupants have been obliged to be bar-coded so that their relative misdemeanor on the spectrum of non-jobs can be seen. 

So how should these unfortunates react? It is clear that this government is only counting those on the frontline as those  who can be seen. It has been reported that novelty shops and fancy dress outfitters have already seen a run on nurses uniforms, helmets and truncheons, and gowns and mortarboards. Perhaps more transparency is required.  To buildings in particular with coach tours provided so that everybody can be seen.

In the meantime, according to your individual experience and perspective  try the Tory-led government's own game of mesmerising twists and turns and have fun playing "Frontline".

Or if you are confused by the rules have a look at;
 http://www.oneinfourmag.org/index.php/just-where-is-the-frontline-in-mental-health/

Tory MP Stride joins the gentry

What exactly does our MP Mel Stride do other than hire himself out to Tory councillors who tip him off for endless photo opportunities?

Mr Stride seems to have decided to adopt a paternalistic approach to his constituents, He seeks to establish himself as the all round caring good egg who will without question attach himself to a local issue as long as it doesn’t dent his credentials as an ultra government loyalist and is totally uncontroversial.

In this way he is following in a grand Tory tradition, adopting the role of the local squire, who in the 19th and early 20^th centuries   would invariably have been the figurehead for any local good cause. The loan of whose name and face would be a sure-fire seal of approval.

Today we have the Devon Central MP Mel Stride, who has obviously done his rural homework, continuing in the style of, for example the Earl of Portsmouth or a Buller, by lending his name and face to whatever cause local Tory councillors consider has some resonance amongst the locals.

Perhaps Mr Stride feels that his photographic presence in local newspapers is reassuring, however together with his bland notes from Westminster that also appear in some sections of the local Devon press, his attitude   to the electorate can only be described as condescending.

Where is Mr Stride when it comes to real issues that affect local people: cuts in frontline policing and bus subsidies; the Crediton link road, youth unemployment, the scrapping of the EMA, the cost of fuel, the removal of security for many council house tenants on benefits, the reduction in forces pensions and cuts in children’s and young people’s services.

Perhaps he doesn’t see any photo opportunities attached to these issues, however comfortably seated behind Cameron on the government benches, he is probably more concerned to ensure his future call-up to a junior ministerial post.  

Shame on you if you have forgotten where you come from

Have a good look at this image published in today's Independent to illustrate an article celebrating 100 Years of the British Census. Just look at the title of the link and then  look into the eyes of the mother and her two children.

1921: This Woking family were reduced to living in a pig shed

Spend a little time exploring the image. Note the pieces of fabric loosely hung behind the bed in an attempt to create a home for the two children and what appears to be a picture hanging behind them, and the white sheet that has been stretched across the bed, and the obviously best clothes and neatened hair probably combed and brushed specially for the camera. Who are they looking at to the right of camera with their blank faces? 

Just think what it was to be that family in their pig shed home with the photographer and the lighting illuminating your poverty, a poverty that no matter how much you tried to make a home left you exhausted and without hope. It's 1921, so perhaps her husband was killed in the Great War that ended 2 years earlier, perhaps he's drunk, or holding the photographer's lighting or looking for work, or was never there anyway. 

And this is Woking, Surrey in the  Home Counties not the Black Country.   Woking, which in  May 2010 elected Tory Jonathan Lord with 26551 votes, followed by Rose Sharpley LibDem with 19744 votes and Thomas Miller Labour a distant third with 4246 votes.

And think forward to today, how the descendants of  the children in the photograph, perhaps reading the Daily Mail, driving their second hand Mercedes and BMWs, regarding at least one overseas holiday a year as a right,  owning homes,  following the value of their property week by week, while castigating the Labour Party and the Unions. 

Just imagine a country ruled by Old Etonians, with a monstrous gap between the poorest and the wealthy, a country with little or no welfare, a country that depends on low wages and a mass workforce with few rights, Unimaginable? Perhaps not.

At the end of the 19 century the Privy Council ordered an inquiry into the "Food of the Poorer Labouring Classes". In Dorset, the County closest to Devon, the typical menu was>

Breakfast: Water broth, bread, butter, tea and milk

Dinner: Husband has bread and cheese; family take tea besides

Supper: Hot fried bacon and cabbage or bead and cheese.

This was typical of the time, and apart from the tea, when earlier it would have been ale, this is a diet familiar to labouring families for generation upon generation. So where have we come from.? The following table is taken from a brilliant book called History of the Homeland by Henry Hamilton, published in 1947 as No 4 of Primers for the Age of Plenty.

  This analysis was made at the end of the 17th century, but look at the chasm between the income of the very few rich families at the top of the list and those with the lowest income. We in the 21st century are descendants of the families that made up this stratified and deeply unequal society.  It was only in the 20th century, that the curse of  inequality and injustice was systematically challenged by government and broadly acknowledged within society, a process spearheaded by the Labour Party and the Unions.  That's why the antics of neo-cons and their fellow travellers, the fake virtue of the  right and so-called centre  in government and those who believe and vote  as if they have a monopoly of moral superiority, and the right to make judgmental decisions on the welfare of the weakest  should make you feel ashamed of what is being done to this country.

Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England is getting pretty outspoken about the conduct of the banks, not only does he think people should be more angry but as Robert Preston comments he is now questioning their relationship with their customers. Strong stuff as the Bank of England is about to fulfil the role of financial regulator.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2011/03/is_entente_possible_between_go.html

How competent are the Tories and LibDems to govern?

This government is so determined to change  everything, especially anything that  Labour did, that they are tripping over themselves in their legislative haste.  Here are 24 coalition plans,so far, that didn’t make it. What next? High Speed rail, NHS reorganisation, defence cuts? Who knows but there will be plenty more u-turns to come.

 

1 Forcing ministers on to the Tory backbench 1922 committee. U-turn 24 May

2 Setting threshold for dissolution of  Parliament at only 55% 5 July

3 Giving anonymity to rape suspects 27 July

4 Scrapping free milk for under fives 8 August

5 Scrapping NHS Direct 8 September

6 Hiring a vanity photographer as a civil servant 17 November

7 Imposing cap on housing benefit for tenants in private rented housing     (postponed 9 months) 28 November

8 Automatic jail for knife crime 7 December

9 Cutting School Sports Partnership 20 December

10 Scrapping Bookstart scheme to give free books to children 26 December

11Scrapping Winter Flu Ad Campaign 30 December

12 Keeping Andy Coulson 21 January

13 Removing Protection for School Music budget 8 February

14 Ruling out extra bank levy 8 February

15 Giving prisoners the vote 10 February

16 Privatising search and rescue helicopters 8 February

17 Cutting funding for debt advice 12 February

18 Not getting a Downing St cat  15 February

19 Selling of the forests 16 February

20 Cutting housing benefit for those jobless for a year or more 17 February

21 Osborne ditches “green” ISAs

22 Cameron turns Middle East arms sales jaunt into peace plea

23 Plane hired to rescue Britons can’t take off

24 Navy ships heading for scrap yard diverted to rescue Britons

Dave and William , the Laurel and Hardy of our time

The following article posted on the Mail online today just about sums up this government' s priorities and incompetence

An abject lesson in making a laughing stock of Britain 

By Roy Hattersley

Were it not a potential tragedy – Britons stranded in the desert surrounded by rebellious tribesmen and families abandoned in the chaos of Tripoli airport – the Government’s pathetic attempts to evacuate citizens from Libya would be the farce of the year.

The Right Honourable William Hague, Her Britannic Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, appeared on television to explain that he had encountered some difficulty in chartering a rescue flight and that when a suitable plane had been hired, it was found to have mechanical faults.

So while British subjects sweated it out in the shadow of Colonel Gaddafi’s tyranny, the aircraft which was supposed to bring them home was stranded on the runway at Gatwick. Government officials were left searching for alternative flight companies like a tourist in a bucket shop looking for a bargain.

Elsewhere, a frigate (on its way to the knacker’s yard because Britain can no longer afford a proper Navy) was dispatched to the north Libyan port of Benghazi.

Meanwhile, ministers competed for the title of buffoon of the year.Hague himself – inexplicably and unforgivably – had earlier raised hopes and risked lives in Libya by announcing that he had information to suggest that Gaddafi was fleeing the country and was on his way to Venezuela.

But his irresponsibility was matched by the Prime Minister who, as stranded Britons feared for their lives, enjoyed the hospitality of other Middle East tyrants – men who may soon face the sort of popular uprising that, God willing, will topple Gaddafi.

And, having learned nothing from the disgrace of Britain’s previous weapons exports to Libya, he took with him a selection of arms salesmen.

Then David Cameron announced: ‘Just because I’ve left the country doesn’t mean I am not in charge.’ He may have been within mobile range of London, but he was clearly out of touch with reality.

What the performance of the Government confirmed was that nobody was in charge of the Libyan rescue operation – certainly not the bumbling Foreign Secretary nor the risible Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who had gone on holiday to Switzerland and admitted that he had ‘forgotten’ that, in Mr Cameron’s absence, he had special responsibilities to discharge. Anyway, he could deal with things using his BlackBerry.

The whole government seemed to be in paralysis.

Yesterday, Mr Cameron switched from bluster to his most pious manner, apologising for what he described, in a magnificent understatement, as a ‘poor performance’.

No doubt his public relations training had convinced him that humility – not his most natural emotion – was the best way to limit the damage. But his confession of failure did not answer the crucial question which, sooner or later, must become the subject of a judicial inquiry. Why were the French, the Germans, the Turks, the Bulgarians and even the Chinese from the other side of the world able to rescue their nationals while the British were not?

Some of the blame must undoubtedly be heaped on the Foreign Office, the Rolls-Royce of government departments that recruits only the elite candidates for civil service employment. But because its men and women – often with justification – believe in their ‘effortless superiority’, the Foreign Office is a law unto itself unless ministers take firm control.

When I was a Foreign Office minister, I was told by Sir Oliver Wright (a diplomat of great distinction who had served Britain nobly in peace and war) that a policy I wanted to pursue ‘may be government policy, but it is not Foreign Office policy.’

Like a Rolls-Royce, the Foreign Office needs a strong hand on the steering wheel. Clearly, when the Libyan crisis arose, it was allowed to decide its own direction. And it failed abysmally to take the route marked ‘Get the Britons out as quickly as possible!’

In my time as a Foreign Office minister, Turkey invaded Cyprus and I watched and listened as our diplomats urged the Foreign Secretary to avoid any action that, in their jargon, ‘compromised British interests in the region’.

Too often the message is ‘be careful not to offend’. In those days we weren’t to offend either the Greeks or the Turks. It seems nothing has now changed and that we must do nothing to offend Colonel Gaddafi in case he manages to cling on to power and the oil that goes with it.

Yet sometimes in life, offence is morally unavoidable.

Jim Callaghan, in charge of the FO in those days, insisted that the safety of British citizens was our priority. Ten years later, Margaret Thatcher had the same attitude when she saw that the wish of the people of the Falklands to remain British was more important that maintaining good relations with Argentina or risking offending the United States.

I suppose that, as a party politician, I ought to take some comfort from Messrs Cameron and Hague cringing in front of the television cameras. But I take no pleasure from their humiliation.

Douglas Hurd, a good Tory foreign secretary, used to say that his job was to make Britain punch above its weight. This week we have looked too feeble even to protect our own people.

We can't go on like this | False Economy

We can't go on like this | False Economy

Robin Hood Tax

Tories let the banks clean up

In MARCH 2010  
 PRDave announced the Tories would impose a new tax on banks to ensure taxpayers are repaid in full for the bail-out of financial institutions. He said  ” I can announce today that a Conservative government will introduce a new bank levy to pay back taxpayers for the support they gave and to protect them in the future."

In OCTOBER 2010 
George Osbourne said "We will not allow money to flow unimpeded out of those banks into huge bonuses, if that means money is not flowing out in credit to the small businesses who did nothing to cause this crash and suffered most in it."

In FEBRUARY 2011

• Banks’ profits of £24 billion from four banking giants - HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and Standard Chartered

• Barclays pays only £113 million in corporation tax to the Government on profits of over £5 billion, equal to 4,5% rather than the 28% standard rate of tax on profits

• Barclays pays  £3.7bn in cash bonuses  and awards to staff,

• Barclays chief Bob Diamond, who recently told a Treasury Select Committee the period for "remorse and apology" for banks needed to be over, is expected to be awarded a bonus of more than £9 million.

• Total UK bank bonuses expected to hit £7bn

• George Osborne announces a bank tax that would raise £2.5m for the Treasury this year,

• Charities including Oxfam, Save the Children and Greenpeace launch a campaign calling for a 0.05 per cent tax on international bankers' transactions that could raise up to £250 billion a year to fight poverty, protect public services and tackle climate change.

.

“Do the right thing, Do the right thing, Do the right thing”

As PRDave’s words echoed across the Middle East, he and his peace delegation of arms manufacturers and defence contractors have provided the politically and economically downtrodden of the Arab world a beacon of hope.

Taking advantage of photo opportunities with democratically appointed Egyptian generals PRDave held talks with the head of the armed forces supreme council, Defence Minister Mohamed Tantawi, and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.  Doubtless PRDave gave them tips of how to solve the problem of youth unemployment, and with a little help from his friends how to provide education and the health to the masses.

Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's popular Islamist group was unable to attend due to previous engagements.

PRDave doubtless thinking ahead of how to defend the peoples revolution against hordes of Arabs not doing the right thing argued that it was "very much in Britain's interests" that the UK continued to promote defence relationships with countries in the region.

He said: "Britain has a range of strong defence relationships with countries in the region.  "So the idea that Britain should not have defence relationships with some of these countries I don't understand. It is quite right that we do.

Desperate to ensure that the various generals and colonels do the right thing PRDave’s party included ex PM John Major Chairman of Carlyle Europe, 2002-2005. the second largest private investment group in the world, which has major investments in the arms industry.  Currently Major's business interests are listed as: Senior Advisor to Credit Suisse; Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait; Chairman of the European Advisory Council of the Emerson Electric Company, St. Louis; and Chairman of the Advisory Board of Global Infrastructure Partners.  Doubtless Major was there to encourage Egypt to promote more facilities for cricket.

Others in his a large delegation from business and industry, included eight representatives of defence firms attempting to secure contracts in the Gulf States. Among them were: Ian King, chief executive of BAE Systems; Alastair Bisset, group international director at QinetiQ; one of the world's leading defence technology and security companies. and Rob Watson, regional director of Rolls Royce.

Surely a peace delegation that would intimidate any unruly mob of troublemakers.

What is PRDave doing about youth unemployment?

Youth Unemployment is nearly a million at 20.5%. What’s PRDave’s answer?

The Tory-led government has scrapped Labour's Future Jobs Fund, which was designed to deliver 100,000 jobs for 18-24 year olds with 20 hours a week of work on minimum wage.  A better deal than the work-for-your-dole schemes that are currently being discussed by the Tory-led government.

PRDave has broken pre-election promises to keep the Educational Maintenance Allowance, and the LibDems have broken their pledge not to raise university now tripled tuition fees. Many Sure Start children centres are under threat of closure

The long-term consequences of these broken promises will blight the lives of young people. Making it harder to continue in education and get a decent job

The Tories try to justify their policies by saying they want to avoid passing on debt to future generations. But by cutting the deficit so quickly, they are making unemployment considerably worse with jobs being lost in the public sector and a virtual hiring freeze in the private sector.

The Tories boasted a 40,000 increase in job vacancies in the three months to January; what they didn’t say was that this included temporarily recruitment  for the 2011 census. The actual increase was a meagre 8,000.

So what happens when the public sector jobs loss begins in earnest? The government hopes that the private sector will create 2.5m jobs enough to compensate for those lost, but what a forlorn hope, as many economists believe that unemployment could hit 3 million over the next year to 18 months.

Remember, Labour did act when youth unemployment rose in the early days of the recession: young people were encouraged to stay on at school, extra places were created at university and the Future Jobs Fund was created to help young people into work. By last year's election, the jobless rate for the under-25s was coming down, but it has since started to climb. Labour says the scrapping of the fund and the Educational Maintenance Allowance, designed to encourage full-time education, means the jobs outlook for young people is grimmer than for the rest of the population.

The Tories should be investing to secure improvements in the quality of life for upcoming generations - something the British people have enjoyed ever since they elected the first majority Labour government in 1945.

Why do rural areas vote Tory?

                     

Why do rural areas vote Tory? Why if the LibDems make some headway in rural areas is it primarily in the towns, and larger villages? 

What is Labour up against in rural local elections? What are the issues, if any, that may appeal to rural voters and how can they be expressed so that they are communicated in terms that rural voters recognise and acknowledge? Is it possible that we can learn from the u-turn re the forests? 

Ed Miliband reckons that protests against the reorganisation of the NHS will outstrip those against the forest sell off proposals. However, if we analyse the Tory-led government’s forest U-turn it can be argued that it was the reaction of conservative voters in the shires, who contacted their MPs in large numbers, that had the greatest influence rather than the half million signatories and campaigning groups. 

You only have to look at so-called u-turns on Bookstart and the School Sports Partnership to realise that well-heeled interest groups backed by celebrities had more effect than all the political and educational arguments put forward by the Labour opposition, unions and professions. As such, is it possible that objections to the NHS changes are for the general public too abstruse, too abstract in concept to mobilise effective pressure even though there are numerous professional opponents? The Independent has an interesting article published today by Matt Chorley called Flip Flop Dave.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/flipflop-dave-uturns-threaten-to-undermine-camerons-image-2219976.html

But back to business. How can the rural voter be defined?   Dr Michael Woods an academic at Aberystwyth University says, “The majority of rural people have made a decision to live in rural areas. They are more interested in policies to conserve the landscape rather than policies to raise the standard of living for the minority of deprived or disadvantaged residents in rural areas.”… “Rural areas are beset by powerful interests who do not want their perception of rurality threatened by inappropriate bodies, development or change. This can include state meddling in local affairs and sovereignty, agricultural decline, low cost housing or any more development.”

He sums it up nicely when he writes’ “within rural areas there is a power struggle going on between those that have and want more and those that have and those that don’t have as much as they used to and those that want something and those that need. That is a political no win situation.”….” The context in which the processes of countryside change are being played out – a planning system with a preservationist bias, an agricultural sector in crisis, a burgeoning middle class and a nation with an Arcadian view of its past – is common to many localities across England.

“The results of this complex interplay of social and power relations leaves some people marginalised in their own community as other individuals and groups move in and bring with them both economic power, political and social ambitions and even a different view of what rurality is all about.”

In addition in rural areas we see a stronger retention of historical political allegiances where voters voting habits are permanently ingrained by long-term processes of political socialisation that takes place in the family, the work place and in the wider community. Traditionally in rural areas Labour has been regarded as the party of the trade unions, of centralisation and the state, perhaps dare it be said influenced by foreign ideas, while the Conservative Party might be presented as the party of private enterprise, low taxation, of private property and above all the nation as a whole, which makes them a truly patriotic choice.

Then there is the question of paternalism, a version of feudal autocracy that in the early part of the 20-century obliged the agricultural class to vote following the lead of the local landowner. In this district it would have been the Earl of Portsmouth, who laid the foundation for Morchard Bishop Memorial hall in 1932. Such people would have invariably been the figurehead for any local good cause. The loan of their name and face would be a sure-fire seal of approval. Today we have the Devon Central MP Mel Stride, who has obviously done his rural homework, continuing in the style of the good Earl (the present Earl is of the far right) by lending his name and unfortunately his face to whatever cause Tory local councillors tip him off about. In this way political socialisation is still alive.

Mori polls in the south west have found that only around 20% would wish to reinstate traditional hunting.
 

As we see from Michael Woods’ analysis the countryside is not a static entity, as the Alliance would like us to believe. The concept of the rural has been reformulated to suit those who have made a conscious decision to live there and to protect their perception of rurality and the privileges it brings.

rurality and the privileges it brings.

In general it could be argued that consumers of public services are more likely to vote Labour because they see Labour as most likely to improve living conditions and to improve public services while private sector workers and consumers of private services may be more likely to vote Conservative because they oppose the higher levels of taxation necessary to defend public services which they do not use, or so they believe.  Yet many of the rural population are elderly, consumers dependent on public services in health subsidised public transport, state pensions, winter fuel allowances, and tax credits.  And yet they tend to vote Tory.

This strengthens the argument that many older rural voters have been politically socialised. We only have to add to the mix the middle class incomers who do not want their perception of rurality challenged to realise that voting Tory is about a perception of identity not of political choice. However in this equation the plight of the young and the rural working class has no place.

We should therefore ask ourselves about those who do not vote Tory either by abstaining or voting for the only alternative (at least in Mid Devon) the LibDems. The LibDems have been very adept at localising their politics, putting a recognisable face onto local issues that range from potholes to local charity events. The idea is that votes accrue to people who are available, who care who are just round the corner and who are active on your behalf no matter how small the issue, are truly representative of you and me, because in some way they are just like you and me. The LibDems have spent many years working to a centrally produced rulebook to refine this approach, and for Labour to attempt to follow in the short term is not practical.  Still, it will be very interesting to see how much of the LibDem vote is an anti-Tory vote.

In recent national elections, certainly since 1992 political socialisation and indeed class, has had less correlation with voting intentions than in, certainly pre-war, elections.  In the words of Bill Clinton “It’s the economy stupid.” The economy has become the central political issue. Recent elections have been won partly because the winning party have been seen as having the best policies on the economy and more importantly seen as being most competent to run it.  It follows that since most voters have insufficient understanding to follow the details of economic policy, judgments of competence are likely to be influenced by perceptions of overall leadership which have become much more important determinants of voting. Brown was pretty competent, and certainly decisive during the financial crisis.  This is why that PRDave spent so much energy in demolishing Gordon Brown’s character, when in reality the Tories had nothing better to offer.

The coming local elections are unlikely to entirely follow a pattern of putting single local issues to the forefront, although of course there may be exceptions. National issues have become local issues. National cuts have become local cuts.  However anti cuts campaigns have something of the ideological about them, and it could be argued that such campaigns will not work in our rural wards. Going further, ideological language e.g. “ConDems” and the stock phrases of the unions while playing to the converted are more likely to act as barriers to effective electoral communication. The same could be said about the left’s fixation with “privatisation”which to many is an ideological issue, and anti-privatisation is not necessarily, no matter how much we believe otherwise, is not an issue that unless it is backed by clear and unequivocal evidence of its shortcomings.   The way in which issues are presented will be crucial, remember the medium is the message.

So what are the issues that Labour can exploit in the coming local elections?  Here are seven suggestions

The situation of the young, hit by the removal of the EMA and the deterrent to higher education of high tuition fees.  This issue affects grandparents, parents and young voters. It has a direct relationship to;

Jobs. Particularly youth unemployment. Where are the local jobs to come from?  Problem of the high street and local business as employer. What schemes exist to support school/college leavers?

Rural Transport.  High fuel costs for private residents and business. Government hesitation in capping fuel duty.  The future of subsidised transport.  Effects of rural isolation on the poor. The Cost of finding work and getting to work.

The culpability of Banks. The cost to local people of VAT increases, inflation and specific council cuts, and the effect on charities.

Police cuts. Is there a relationship between police numbers and crime, which the government denies?

National and local leadership and political and economic competence. Focus on the government record. Incompetence and u-turns.

NHS. This needs to be worked on, however increases in waiting lists, a debate about the effectiveness of targets can be highlighted.

Finally we should hammer home that there is only one alternative.  It is a two horse race Tory with LibDems or Labour. Strategic voting is dead.