Category Archives: Politics

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A Fundamental Contradiction

6th January 2017Ethics, PoliticsJim Gunther

Well, here we are in 2017, in the worst mess politically in my lifetime. Hatred, xenophobia and bigotry on the rise again, the highest levels of inequality for a century and the prospects of matters getting even worse. It’s worth tracing how we got to this position – and I want to explain the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the thinking of those who got us here.

Early thinking

Starting with Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead in 1943, the economic theory which I call Free Market Fundamentalism slowly began to form. Rand’s 1957 work Atlas Shrugged further developed the idea of the “morality of rational self-interest”. The intellectual baton passed to economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek, first at the LSE then at the University of Chicago. Hayek won a Nobel Prize in economics in 1974 for work on the theory of money. (One ironic moment in the story was 30 years earlier, when Hayek was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy, nominated by his intellectual arch-rival, John Maynard Keynes.)

13 years Hayek’s junior, Milton Friedman was also at Chicago between 1946 and 1977. The “Chicago school” developed further the ideas which were to form the basis of FMF.

Implementation: Thatcher and beyond

Hayek and Friedman acted as advisers to various right-wing politicians in the USA and elsewhere, including Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. A key moment came in 1975, shortly after Margaret Thatcher had become leader of the Conservative Party. At a Tory policy conference, Thatcher produced a copy of Hayek’s book The Constitution of Liberty, stating “This is what we believe”. Reagan in the USA stated he was much influenced by Hayek. Thatcher and Reagan both appointed ardent Hayek followers to key government posts in their respective governments.

But the first to put Hayekian ideas into practice was Chilean dictator Augosto Pinochet. In 1975, when he wasn’t busy “disappearing” his political opponents, Pinochet implemented free-market reforms which rescued Chile’s economy from some of its ills, at the expense of rapidly rising inequality and poverty. Thatcher and Pinochet remained friends until the latter’s death in 2006. Thatcher lobbied for his release from house arrest in 1999 where he was held pending a request for extradition for alleged human rights abuses.

One defining strand of FMF thought in the early 1980s was monetarism. There was much talk of the “velocity of circulation” of money and much debate as to what actually counted as money. The resulting policy implementation led to two devastating recessions, in 1980 and 1984, which saw off much of British manufacturing industry, never to return.

As virtually all of the economic growth was hoovered up by the richest 1% of the population, money flowed secretly into the coffers of various right-wing “think tanks”. Hayek himself had been instrumental in the founding of one of these notorious bodies: the Institute of Economic Affairs. Another think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, was co-founded by Keith Joseph, Thatcher’s Secretary of State and propagated Hayekian ideas. A third, Policy Exchange, co-founded in 2002 by Tory ex-Ministers Michael Gove and Francis Maude, pursues the same propaganda war. Common features of these organisations are their bland, neutral-sounding names, their extreme right-wing agenda and the lack of transparency in their funding sources. More information can be found at the Transparify and WhoFundsYou websites and my earlier blog post Think Tanks? More Like the Thought Police!

Parallel realities

A key problem for the proponents of Free Market Fundamentalism is when rigorous pursuit of their policies for over 30 years fails to deliver us all to the promised land. Thorns in their side are those intellectuals and independent-minded people who point out the failure of this policy – most spectacularly in the 2007-8 economic crash, but also in low economic growth, massive tax avoidance, chronic underfunding of public services and rampant rises in inequality and poverty. For Chilean dictator Pinochet, the solution was simple: lock up and kill your political opponents.

But in liberal democracies such as the UK and USA, a more subtle approach is needed. For right-wing politicians, this has mainly taken the form of the consistent application of propaganda (i.e. lies) to deflect criticism away from their policies which have caused the problems. The best two examples of this since 2010 in the UK are the vilification of the poor (including highly misleading distortions about benefit fraud) and putting the blame for the 2008 global recession on the then Labour Government.

Such propaganda has been highly successful and has led to a distinct rise in intolerance and hatred. But the politicians have been helped enormously by their friends in the media, traditional and digital, aided and abetted by those shady think tanks. In his excellent 2014 book The Establishment: and How They Got Away With It, Owen Jones calls these groups and individuals the “outriders” of the system. For reasons of electability, the politicians have to choose their words carefully and not be too brazen about their lying. (At least, that was true until last year’s EU referendum campaign, by far the low point in UK politics in my lifetime.) No such scruples apply to the outliers. The think tanks, Fox News, the Sun, Mail and Express in the traditional media and the likes of Breitbart and worse in the new media pump out a vision of a parallel universe in which truth is an inconvenience to be swept aside with contempt and fury.

Populism and post-truth society

Add to all this the social media and search engines: Facebook, Twitter, Google and so on. Their algorithmic, profit-maximising approach to presenting information on the web, together with a proliferation of false news propaganda websites, can promote lies to the top of the list above those websites, often less melodramatic in tone, aiming to tell the truth. Instead of reasoned debate between people with different views, discourse has now split into two distinct strands. Firstly, people seek out those sources of information which share their views and people spend much of their time in bubbles of the like-minded. The second form of discourse is hysterical ranting, often limited to Twitter-length soundbites of people abusing and threatening each other.

Throw in the denigration of “experts” and you arrive at the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of 2016: post-truth.

The Contradiction

This now brings us up against the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the post-truth project.

The early intellectual founders of Free Market Fundamentalism appealed, above all, to the rationality of humankind. A key aspect of 1980s monetarism was known as “rational expectations”. Rand, Hayek et al built fabulously complex and, on the face of it, intellectually appealing sets of arguments to support their cause. These towering achievements of intellect remind me of theodicies: increasingly sophisticated arguments purporting to show how the existence of evil in the world can be compatible with the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good deity.

As I’ve said before, the whole of the free market fundamentalist project rests on two prior assumptions, both false, which are never properly spelled out. These are (a) the pursuit of material self-interest is our only motive in making decisions and (b) such decisions are always entirely rational. (Click the link at the start of this paragraph to see my reasoning.) The “clever” people, Rand, Hayek et al, forgot what it is that makes us human.

As critics are increasingly questioning the economic orthodoxy, its true believers have switched tactics, by appealing instead to human emotions, above all anger and fear. Watching the way Trump stirred up the mob during his pre-election rallies surely brings into mind some sub-Nuremberg chilling of the spine. For the “project” to continue, the “people” must forget all this rational discourse and simply shout and scream at the defined enemy (the poor, immigrants, racial and sexual minorities, or whosoever is selected, 1984-style).

And so a project reliant for its existence on rationality now has to destroy it to survive!

The Fightback

It’s still very early days, but there are signs of a fightback. Economists are rapidly rethinking their ideas. The political left and centre-left are talking about ideas for “progressive alliances”. Various groups and individuals are beginning to agree on one thing. We will not let the mob, exemplified by the more rabid “Brexiteers” and by the “Trumpsters” go unchallenged.

My take on the contradiction is unspectacular. Societies work best when the rational and emotional sides of human nature are reflected in balanced policies and political programmes. We used to call it social democracy. A re-fit for the 21^st century is sorely needed. The decent people need to organise and rescue post-truth society from its own follies and contradictions.

I Still Blame Thatcher

7th December 2016PoliticsJim Gunther

Welcome to my one-hundredth blog post.

It became something of a standing joke in our household. Whenever something went wrong, I would say “I blame Margaret Thatcher”. The joke has long since worn thin: I get a withering look if I still use it. And yet, in some important ways, I do still blame Thatcher. Let me explain.

All human beings (or at least the psychologically healthy ones) have a mix of selfishness and compassion for others. (One of my earliest posts, Being Human II: The Four Cs, goes into more detail.) But there’s clear evidence that the balance varies from person to person. But the problem is that the economic theory which has dictated government policy globally since the early 1980s does not recognise this.

Triumph of Greed

Thatcher by Gerald Scarfe — Thatcher by Scarfe

The rise of the new economic orthodoxy began in earnest under Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the USA. Even though the main development in the thinking was in America, (and specifically the University of Chicago) I would argue that Thatcher was the true champion of the new thinking. Reagan, the “Great Communicator”, never appeared to have the intellectual capacity to understand the significance of these ideas and went along with Thatcher. He would presumably have been comfortable with the Orwellian “private sector good, public sector bad” bit of the new creed.

My post Two Castles (part 2), published 12 months ago, explains the two falsehoods upon which our entire economic order since the 1980s has been based. Briefly:

Falsehood 1: material self-interest is the only motive driving human behaviour when making economically-significant decisions.
Falsehood 2: people behave rationally when making such decisions.

Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang provides excellent rebuttals in his excellent 2010 book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. In his “Thing 5”, he lists several alternative motives to that in Falsehood 1: honesty, self-respect, altruism, love, sympathy, faith, sense of duty, solidarity, loyalty, public-spiritedness, patriotism. (Doesn’t that sound more like real human beings?) His “Thing 16” goes into great detail about all the reasons people cannot have access to all the information in most of the decisions they make, in order for them to be rational.

Thatcher didn’t question the tenets of free market fundamentalism. Its prescriptions: free markets, small government, low taxes, fitted with her prior world view. But those tenets got boiled down into “Greed is Good” and a whole load of evils have flowed ever since.

The Rise of Finance

Deregulation of the City of London in 1986 led to the enormous growth in scale, reach and innovation of financial services. The new financial “products” (a daft term, if ever there was one) were practically all socially useless or downright harmful. Instead of providing steady, patient funding to allow promising new companies and industries to grow, City money was pumped into financial speculation (“gambling with other people’s money”) and property bubbles. This has had the effect of putting London houses out of reach of people with “ordinary” jobs and facilitated a massive money-laundering racket of the world’s worst fraudsters and racketeers. The UK’s appalling productivity record is one consequence of this.

The City was the first sector of the UK economy to really pick up on “Greed is Good” and led the way in pursuing policies which led to the short-term profit of the companies and individuals involved, regardless of the wider economic consequences. Insurance companies were first to pick up on the idea of a “loyalty penalty”, using their existing customer base as a cash cow for exploitation, punishing those too “lazy” to switch suppliers on every annual renewal. The privatised utilities, operating in a false market that was not really competitive, made money by exploiting the same tactic and making tariffs too complicated for customers to make comparisons with competitors. Policy capture is now so complete that government policy is now to “force” customers to shop around rather than tackle the predatory behaviour of the suppliers – even to the point of encouraging more junk calls from competitors.

Destruction of Manufacturing

The UK now has the lowest proportion of its economy in manufacturing of the major developed countries: 11% against 15% for the EU as whole and 12% for the USA. From Thatcher onward, government economic policy was biased towards the interests of the City. Broadly speaking, what’s good for finance is bad for everyone else: financial services, unlike the “real” economy, lead to a zero sum game. So the rise in finance damaged manufacturing. But Thatcher also hated any competing source of political power: specifically, in this case, the trade unions. In her desire to smash the unions, swathes of manufacturing capacity were also lost. Once the jobs are gone, so too do the expertise and the machine tools. Then there follows the decay and demolition of the factories themselves. So easy to destroy, so hard to rebuild.

Job Insecurity and the Gig Economy

With the significant reduction in Trade Union membership and a succession of anti-union legislation, some inevitable changes happened. Standards of protection of workers’ rights have fallen. This in turn has led to the rise in poorly paid, insecure jobs and zero-hours contracts: the “gig” economy. The “Greed is Good” mantra has been taken on board in a big way by CEOs and top managers. Pay rises for those at the top have well outstripped inflation; lower paid workers have seen stagnant real pay. Income and wealth inequality are back to levels last seen in 1914.

Nationalist Populism and the Rise of the Extreme Right

Politicians in the UK and elsewhere – particularly in France, the Netherlands and the USA – have taken up the “Greed is Good” theme. Blame for the bad economic deal for the many has been successfully deflected away from those responsible to others: the poor, disabled and immigrants. The EU referendum and US presidential election results are the culmination – so far – of this trend. I fear worse to come in France next spring.

These “victories” seem to have stirred up some of the nastiest individuals – racists, bigots, homophobes, Islamophobes – and to have spurred on their cheerleaders in the press, TV and online. The screaming, emotional, irrational hysteria of the Mail, Express, Sun, Breitbart, Fox News and their ilk drown out calmer, more rational voices.

English defence league demonstrators — EDL demonstrators

And I think there is a direct line of causation between all this, via Bush Jr’s military adventurism (with Blair as poodle), Osborne and Duncan Smith’s misrepresentations about benefit fraud, Johnson’s lies about the EU, Farage’s …well, everything… and the tone and direction set by Thatcher in the early 1980s. As Chang says in his book: “Assume the worst about people and you get the worst”.

And Yet…

The good news is that the people as a whole still have much more generous a spirit than is reflected by their governments’ policies. A recent survey by CAF shows the USA as having the second most generous people in the world (after Myanmar) with the UK coming eighth: the highest in Europe. The decent people just have to get a voice and get organised. It’s high time we started to push humanity back from the brink. Damn the legacy of Thatcher and keep the faith in human nature!

Match Fit Britain

24th November 2016Ethics, Politics, Satire and SillyJim Gunther

Chancellor Philip Hammond recently spoke about making Britain’s economy “match fit” in preparation for the shock of leaving the EU in the near future. In the spirit of the recent decision of the American people and of Donald Trump’s suggestion for UK ambassador to the US, here are some predictions.

Trade Negotiations

The former popular figure of John Bull is to be revived. He will be responsible for trade negotiations with the People’s Republic of China, with the view to making our trade deficit with them even larger. To ease negotiations, Mr Bull’s office will be located in adapted retail premises in Beijing.

Christmas

Retailers were pleased when, in a recent poll, 37% of turkeys voted for Christmas, thereby ensuring their annual mass slaughter. The French Government has made an offer to take any of our turkeys wishing to escape this fate, in exchange for the remaining child refugees in Calais. The European Parliament voted to suspend – by the neck – any turkeys found within the EU “before Christmas”. A spokesbird for the turkeys complained: “We’re damned if we do and dinde if we don’t”.

Church of England

Following a recent decision by the C of E to remove the requirement for all churches to hold a weekly service, a further innovation will be introduced to make better use of these much underused buildings, especially in rural areas. British zoos will be required to transfer any lions they hold and relocate them to a convenient church. This will provide the lions with more space to roam around. A Church spokesman said he expected this to reduce the need to hold services in these little-used buildings almost completely.

Monarchy

In a shock move no one expected, the present Head of State is to be replaced by a Mr Charles Windsor, a 68 year-old pensioner and serial violator of the “no political interference by royalty” convention. As a result, all Government Ministries are to be amalgamated into a single Ministry of Black Spiders. All current civil servants will be made redundant and, in their place, a small group of keepers will be appointed to look after the arachnids. In addition, a secondee from the British Homeopathic Association will be deployed to formulate all Government policy based upon interpreting the shapes of the spiders’ webs.

As a result, the redundant Mr Liam Fox will be put in charge of the chicken run, egged on by a Mr Adam Werritty. One other deposed Minister said that this announcement had “certainly ruffled a few feathers” in Westminster.

Utilities

In a move designed to save millions of pounds, the entire water supply network – pipes, pumps, reservoirs and all – will be closed down. It will be replaced by a promising new enterprise consisting of two small children and a bucket. The boy and girl said in a statement: “Any help from the British public to find a hill with a well on top would be much appreciated”. Share prices in water companies took a tumble on the release of this announcement.

Prisons

Following recent staff unrest about prison overcrowding, new incentives are to be introduced to instil a more positive attitude from warders. Staff will be encouraged to profit from prisoners by selling them a variety of services and to charge rent at “affordable” (i.e. unaffordable) rates. Free prison meals are to be abolished to help in this enterprise. A City analyst said: “I’d put my money on Class A drugs. The prison warders and the City could really make a killing in this exciting new market.”

Education

In a bold initiative to raise standards further, new minimum standards of attainment will be adopted for school pupils. Entitlement for continuing state funded education will be dependent on achieving at least 2 good passes in A levels at the age of seven. Successful students will then complete the remaining years of education learning the history of Triumphs of the British Empire and in declension of irregular Latin verbs. They will be known as “Class A”. A City analyst forecast promising joint enterprises with the prison service.

Children who fail to meet this standard will be required to fill the empty pews in our little-used churches, developing their athletic prowess by avoiding getting eaten by the lions. A spokeswoman for Sport England enthused: “This presents a great opportunity for Team GB 2024. Although we do expect that, in those Olympic Games, we will field a bigger squad for the Paralympics than the main Olympic Games. I’m proud to be part of another world-beating initiative for Team GB!”

Meanwhile, the Conflict of Interest policy for School Governors is to be revised. In future, all Governors who do not profit personally from decisions at Governing Body meetings will be dismissed, for showing a lack of the new British entrepreneurial spirit. School rooms where Governors hold their meetings must be adapted to include a revolving door affording easy access to local and regional companies in whom they have an interest. An Education Department press statement said: “This change has been made following studies of Best Practice in the Ministry of Defence and in new policy initiatives in the White House”.

Child Protection

In a related area, the screening of jobseekers working with children and vulnerable adults, known as DBS checks, will be changed. The checks will be replaced by a short practical exam, known informally as the “grope test”. Candidates will be required to show dexterity and physical strength in sexually assaulting women and children. Oral examinations, including verbal abuse, will be necessary for the most sensitive appointments.

The focus of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will be repositioned to examine case studies to be used as role models and for training candidates lacking in these key skills.

Administration of Justice

In a shake-up in the magistracy, the Ministry of Justice has announced the closure of all its Advisory Committees across the country. These are the bodies that interview and select candidates to be appointed as magistrates. In future, released prisoners serving a minimum of five years in gaol will be automatically placed on a shortlist for the magistracy. A simple written exam will be used to sift from the shortlist. Marks will be awarded for wrong answers. Bonus marks will be added for evidence of cheating. In the event that too many candidates reach the required standards, priority will be given to convicted fraudsters, sex offenders and child abusers. A Justice Ministry spokesperson said: “It takes a thief to catch a thief”.

Health

In a controversial move, NHS England has announced the resignation of its Chief Executive. He is to be replaced by a vial of anthrax. Under its new leadership, the NHS is planning a series of “breakout initiatives” right across the health service: hospitals, GP surgeries and drop-in centres (to be renamed “drop dead” centres). The vial announced: “This is doubly-good news for the NHS. We expect to eliminate all waiting lists and the massive budget overspends by NHS Trusts in a matter of weeks.” He added “will the last person standing please turn out the lights, pull up the drawbridge and close the door. Thank you.” The Prime Minister commented: “This is really excellent news. It will certainly trump our other recent policy announcements. Under my government, Britain is at last taking back control of our borders. By turning Britain into a toxic wasteland, uninhabitable for 10,000 years, I confidently expect that immigration will immediately fall to zero”.

UKIP protested that 10,000 years is far too short a time for this to be an effective deterrent against our “invasion by foreigners”. The Daily Mail agreed: “These selfish, so-called ‘death tourists’ should continue to go to Switzerland where they belong”, it said.

No one from the Labour Party was available for comment.

The Real 9/11

9th November 2016PoliticsJim Gunther

Make a note of today’s date. It’s Wednesday 9^th September 2016. 9/11/2016.

On 11^th September 2001, 11/9/2001, a tragic and historically significant event took place in America. We are still coming to terms with understanding the full consequences of that evil act. For reasons best known to themselves, the Americans call this event 9/11. (Call it one of my foibles: I find the illogical, semi-arse-about-face way Americans write dates truly irritating.)

9/11/2016 marks the day when the world learned the terrifyingly shocking news that the 45^th President of the United States will be Donald J Trump. It is, of course, far too soon how any future historians would compare the significance of these two events.

The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum

Peter Weiss’ 1963 play Marat/Sade imagines events around the time of the French Revolution in the late 18^th century. Part of the storyline involves the lunatics taking over the asylum, with unexpected consequences. As Wikipedia states “They, as people who came out of the revolution no better than they went in, are not entirely pleased with the course of events as they occurred.” Sounds familiar?

Lunatics from Marat / Sade — Marat / Sade lunatics

It appears that the leader of the most powerful country on the planet will shortly be led by a man not fit to run a whelk stall. His erratic character and extreme narcissism reveals an angry, illogical, incoherent approach to issues. It’s not apparent that Trump has ever done anything unless it serves his own warped ideas for self-aggrandisement.

Domestically, things could get very unpleasant, very quickly. Given the rise in hate crime and random attacks on foreigners and ethnic minorities which has taken place here since 23^rd June, I hate to think what a gun-toting US version of this might look like.

Foreign relations are entering wholly uncharted territory. With the probable exception of Vladimir Putin, all of the leaders of the other major countries think a Trump victory is a disaster. I’m sure they all think Trump is a complete twat – and they’re right. But he’s also a complete twat with control over the biggest economy and by far the biggest military machine on earth. That combination will test – possibly to destruction – the very concept of international diplomacy. And future generations will not thank the Americans for Trump’s climate change denial.

Planet of the Apes?

It takes very little imagination to plot a worst case scenario which leads to a Planet of the Apes conclusion. The original 1968 film depicts a world once ruled by human beings, but where the apes are now in charge.

Many around the world may take some kind of de haut en bas comfort from the fact that the Americans, and not they, got us into this situation. The English (and Welsh) sacrificed this moral high ground by our own act of needless self-destruction 5 months ago. Just after the referendum, a friend was emailed by a long-standing friend from Italy. His Italian friend simply could not understand what the Brits had done. “I thought we [the Italians] were the crazies!” he wrote. Well, join the club.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world can only watch helplessly and hope and – for those of us who don’t pray – hope some more that things don’t turn out too badly after all.

9/11 One and 9/11 Two

The religious fanatics who committed the original 9/11 crime did not pose an existential threat to the USA. It is too big and powerful for such a threat to come from outside the country. The only possible threat to the very existence of the USA would be for some cancerous corrosion of its very soul and ethical standards. Right now, this feels like the real deal.

Welcome to the real 9/11.

May’s UK: The Nasty Country

6th November 2016Ethics, PoliticsJim Gunther

Back in 2002, as Chair of the Tory Party, Theresa May warned that many branded them as the Nasty Party. Well, here we are, fourteen years later, and May is PM. And what’s happening? Not only has she reinforced the Tories as the Nasty Party, but she’s overseeing a rapid descent of the UK into the Nasty Country.

Nasty Party Revisited

It started again under David Cameron’s leadership. We had a constant demonising of the victims of the 2008 collapse of free market economics – the poor, immigrants and disabled. George Osborne as Chancellor picked on those on benefits to suffer the harshest public spending cuts. This was because he cynically calculated it would be electorally popular.

May herself, as Home Secretary, lied that immigrants do not benefit the economy, despite the fact that every academic study into this has proven the opposite. Last year, Britain stood aloof from its fellow EU countries and opted out of the agreement to share asylum seekers amongst EU member states. Then, Britain has dragged its heels on taking unaccompanied migrant children under the terms of the Dubs amendment. More recently still, President Hollande of France criticised Britain for not taking its fair share of the children in the Calais “jungle” camp. May dismissed his statement that we had a “moral duty” to do so.

In the past few days, under May’s leadership, Home Secretary Amber Rudd dismissed contemptuously demands from victims and their families for an inquiry into the scandalous, violent behaviour of South Yorkshire Police at Orgreave during the miners’ strike in 1984. This was after May herself had led the families to believe there would be such an enquiry. Justice denied for another group of victims of arbitrary violence by the state.

David Davies, Liam Fox, Boris Johnson — Do you trust these men?

Last, and by no means least, May appointed the most divisive trio of Ministers to oversee Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Her instinct for secrecy, so often apparent during her six years as Home Secretary, has been all too evident in her handling of so-called “Brexit” so far. Her desire to use the mediaeval relic of the royal prerogative to trigger Article 50 without giving parliament a say has been thrown out by the High Court – and rightly so. Her desire to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court shows her dictatorial instincts. Her failure to slap down the most despicable attack of the High Court judges by the right wing press speaks volumes.

May’s acceptance speech on becoming Prime Minister in July spoke of her desire to be a “one nation” leader of a government that “works for all”. Her actions since have blown that assertion to pieces as the hypocrisy which some of us always suspected.

So, what’s the wider impact of all this?

Nasty Country

Politicians set the tone, particularly those in power. Others, often more extreme, see this as an excuse to speak and behave in ways that are very nasty indeed. The huge rise in hate crime we have seen after 23^rd June was blamed by the UN on British politicians. Long-resident workers from other EU countries and minority ethnic UK-born citizens are getting more fearful of increasing abuse. Leaders from the world of art and culture, such as Martin Roth of the V&A, are leaving the country. Farmers are worried about finding enough seasonal fruit and veg pickers.

But above all, the really worrying trend is the rise in the bile and hatred coming from the usual suspects in the press. Specifically, I’m referring to the Daily Mail, Sun, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph. These are all owned by offshore, foreign or foreign-born residents or, in one case, by a man who is a pornographer and UKIP donor.

Two recent events have shown this vile quartet at their nastiest. The first was the eventual arrival of a tiny number of child migrants from Calais. Rather than welcoming them, these rags attacked them by claiming they were not children. In breach of press standards rules about showing the faces of vulnerable children, these were splashed all over their front pages unpixellated. Comedian Mark Steel was spot on in his piece in the Independent that we didn’t get the cute, cuddly ones with teddy bears we thought we’d ordered. Gary Lineker’s resignation from Match of the Day was demanded by the Sun when his tweet demonstrated some basic humanity and compassion for the Jungle children. (Two for the price of one with that one: the Sun, Mail and their ilk never pass up on a chance for a pop at the BBC.)

Enemies of the people — The real enemies

But, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, this week, the despicable four (Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph) launched a savage personal attack on the High Court judges (as mentioned above). The Mail led the pack with its headline “Enemies of the People”. This piece was wrong on just about everything. Not only were there the usual misrepresentation of facts, but it was tantamount to an incitement to overthrow the rule of law. I’d known for nearly half a century that the Mail was the lowest form of journalistic life. But this was a new low, even by their miserable standards. The constant hatred-inspired stream of distortions, misrepresentations and downright lies acts as a cancer on the body politic of the UK.

Theresa May’s silence on the attacks on the High Court judges speaks volumes. Tory MP Stephen Phillips has just quit because he’s now ashamed to call himself a Conservative. Conservative former Attorney General Dominic Grieve has expressed alarm. The Bar Council is up in arms. Today’s Observer explains:

Observer article — Today’s Observer page one

Nasty Woman

May is presiding over the most disgraceful period for the UK I can remember. Nasty Party? That’s not the half of it. May’s style of premiership is fast turning us into the Nasty Country. Britain right now needs a leader with the skills and capability to heal the divisions and calm the anger in the country. We’ve seen enough already to know that Theresa May is not that person.

Who Are You Calling a Hypocrite?

15th October 2016Ethics, PoliticsJim Gunther

We don’t like it when someone calls us a hypocrite.

This week, Shami Chakrabarti, Shadow Attorney General, has been accused of just such that. The accusation stems from the revelation that she sends her son to a fee-paying school. (Incidentally, it’s the same one that “man of the ordinary people” Nigel Farage attended.) As a member of the Shadow Cabinet, many would expect her principles to dissuade her from buying (at £18,000 per year) apparent advantage for her own child. This was just after she’d been interviewed by Robert Peston stating she disapproved of grammar schools. There’s a prima facie case of double standards.

The Progressive Parent’s Dilemma

I have some sympathy with Shami’s plight. In the 1990s, my wife and I went through agonies deciding where to send our son to secondary school. We felt that he was probably, temperamentally and socially, slightly more suited to a more traditional academic approach offered by one of the fee-paying schools in the area. Fortunately for us, my son’s strong preference for going to a co-educational school tipped the balance towards the local comprehensive. (All the private schools were single-sex at the time.) So our dilemma was resolved in favour of a state education.

But there’s more. My second son went through a period when he was struggling with maths. We paid for him to have private one-to-one tuition for a few months to catch up. The story ends happily with both getting good university degrees which set them on the path to a successful future. But the sterner moralists will accuse us of cheating by paying for an educational leg-up not available to the poorest of us. I confess!

Making the choice between our finer principles as members of society and the best interests of our children is never easy. I just think we need to acknowledge our frailties and ask people to be a bit more forgiving.

The Upper House Dilemma

The Chakrabarti story contains another accusation of hypocrisy, this time against Jeremy Corbyn. It was he who nominated Shami for membership of the House of Lords after forty-plus years of demanding its reform. Corbyn has also rightly criticised the Tories for parachuting friends and allies into the Lords and then into the Cabinet. One that worked out really badly was David (Lord) Young, whom Thatcher appointed to Trade and Industry Secretary in her Cabinet. Young never understood the difference in approach needed between the business world and politics and he’s generally seen as having been a disaster in the job. In this case, I believe the accusation of hypocrisy is more justified.

But it’s interesting also to reflect on the case of Tony Benn (Westminster School and Oxford). He inherited the title of Viscount Stansgate in 1960, disqualifying him from continuing in the Commons. (An interesting backstory is how he came to inherit the title. Firstly, his father was made a peer by no other than Winston Churchill. Secondly, and sadly, his elder brother was subsequently killed in the second World War.) Benn campaigned successfully for legislation (The Peerage Act 1963) which enabled him to renounce his peerage and stand once more for election as an MP. Benn was strongly of the view that, only by being elected by his constituents could he have legitimate moral authority for Parliamentary office. (There are further amusing and ironic twists to the tale. The Wikipedia entry for Benn, paragraph headed “Peerage Reform”, is well worth a read!)

My final point concerns the views of many of Benn’s political opponents. Much of the hatred and vitriol poured on him by many Tories flows, I believe, from one thing. Benn was “one of them” (i.e. aristocracy) and his principles led him to reject the whole House of Lords setup. To them, being a class traitor was a far greater sin than being a hypocrite.

Shove It in Your Cakehole

14th October 2016PoliticsJim Gunther

Leading UK politicians, including the deluded triumvirate leading Britain’s exit negotiations with the EU, keep asserting we can have a special deal: to have our cake and eat it. Donald Tusk, European Council leader, yesterday spoke about cake. Mark the words, and the tone:

“To all those who believe in it, I propose a simple experiment. Buy a cake, eat it, and see if it is still there on the plate. The brutal truth is that Brexit will be a loss for all of us. There will be no cakes on the table. For anyone. There will be only salt and vinegar”.

The frustration is all too clear. The EU has some serious issues to contend with, which affect us all. Low economic growth, the euro’s “wobbles”, unprecedented flows of asylum seekers, terrorism and, last but by no means least, climate change. All require hard, collaborative work. The UK’s pleas for opt-outs and special deals have been an unwelcome distraction for many years. And now, another two years’ plus of negotiations to unravel 43 years’ worth of laws and regulations. Even the most saintly person’s patience would be wearing thin. And the deal has to be unanimously agreed with 27 other nations.

Post-Imperial Delusion

To digress: I went to school in the 1950s and 60s. I was born on the cusp of two generations. Those older than me were fed a diet of pure propaganda about the British Empire as unquestionably a good thing: the greatest empire the world has seen. Those younger were taught a more reflective, nuanced approach – but only a little. I can still remember the kids in my class cheering when the history teacher told us about Lord Palmerston sending in a gunboat to sort out Johnny Foreigner.

It’s a tragedy that a weak prime minister took the disastrously misjudged decision to hold an in-out EU referendum at this time, in the foolhardy hope of containing the schism in his party. For we had a situation where those spoon-fed the propaganda are more likely to vote than those who had a more balanced education about our imperial past. The leading Brexiteers are all steeped in post-imperial delusion. I’m sure that many of those voting leave did so just because of this. Another ten years and the balance of the electorate’s instincts would be different. Ah well, back to reality.

Cakes and Crisps

So, back to having your cake and eating it. I have a simple message for the cheerleaders for the so-called “hard Brexit”. I’m sick and tired of all the lies, the delusions. Treat us as adults, for goodness sake. Tusk didn’t mince his words. Eat yours. And shove them up your cakehole.

Salt and vinegar crisps, anyone?

Theresa: Who May She Be?

7th October 2016PoliticsJim Gunther

The end of the Tory Party conference has prompted me to ponder what kind of PM Theresa May will be, and hence what kind of government we now have.

Tory Women

It seems to me the Tories have always had some unease working out what to think of their women with power. (I suspect it’s because so many of them went to single-sex or boarding schools. Certainly the Cameroons seemed quite uncomfortable around women.) The traditional role of the loyal Tory wife (tea and sandwiches) won’t do. Instead, there’s the school matron dominatrix type (à la Thatcher) and the totally vacuous (Leadsom and Dorries are the obvious names that spring to mind). But now there also seems to be the mother hen, offering soothing comfort and a sense of stability.

Therea and Phillip May — Ed Balls would wipe the floor with this pair on Strictly!

On her recent performance, May seems to be pitching herself as a hybrid of the mother hen and the dominatrix: a weird mix! The slogan “A country that works for everyone” was plastered everywhere. It’s a soothing, comfort blanket of a phrase, utterly devoid of meaning: so a bit of vacuous with the mother hen, then. May had channelled her inner Thatcher before the conference: “Remind you of everyone?” at her maiden PMQ. This time, she accused Labour of being “the Nasty Party”. Good for a quick laugh from the faithful, but bad strategically. The delivery is laboured (no pun intended), clunky and it sounds bullying: nasty, in fact.

So it all means that she hasn’t yet settled on a tone for her premiership. The submarine remains partially submerged from view.

Mayism?

Yes, I know: a new, crap “ism” word. So, what can we deduce from the clearly signalled change of direction for the government? It’s a change for which, of course, she has no electoral mandate. We merely (MERELY??) had a yes/no referendum which asked one question (membership of EU) and which has been selectively spun to mean another (control immigration).

Let’s start with the good news. The single most welcome comment in May’s speech was the recognition of “the good that government can do”. This is a clear break from the small state Conservatism since Thatcher. Workers’ representation on company boards (the law for decades in Germany) and attacks on boardroom excessive pay and company tax avoidance are a straight steal from the Miliband songbook. These are to be welcomed – if she means it. The proof will be in what her government actually does on these matters. I’m highly sceptical.

But there’s plenty of bad news, some of it downright sinister. As Home Secretary, May always showed a very illiberal streak. Her “snoopers’ charter” and dislike of the whole human rights agenda is deeply troubling. Those in her sights include the “household name that refuses to work with the authorities even to fight terrorism”. The tone and message of that section of her speech sounded more like that of a Mussolini, Erdogan or Assad than that of the leader of a free country.

The other dangerous area of policy is in how she framed the break from the post-Thatcher orthodoxy of excessive individualism and self-interest. Her criticism of the “elite” deliberately conflates two very distinct groups. The first is designed to appeal to Labour and left-leaning voters: the greedy, selfish extremely rich 1% who have seen their wealth double since the 2008 crash. The second group is millions of socially progressive middle class people who are both socially liberal and who welcome the openness and multiculturalism of modern Britain. By this fudge, I fear she aims to pander to the intolerance and xenophobia of so-called “middle England”.

Small Island

I call this approach small-mindedness and an appeal to humans’ tribalism. I concede there is something socially useful in the idea of a community at a very local level: neighbours working together and collaborating for the common good. But May’s version is, deliberately, broader and vaguer than this. Expect the “tribe” to be defined by May in a multiplicity of ways: the street, the football team, the village, the small town, the country – but certainly never wider than the country. The left’s traditional internationalism is anathema to this world view. When it gets really sinister is when the “small-mindedness” world view gets applied to race or religion. We’ve seen more than enough of a rise in hate crime, xenophobia and bigotry since 23^rd June. Under May’s leadership, expect more.

Positive Thinking

29th September 2016PoliticsJim Gunther

Eric idle in life of brian — Always Look…

“Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it” sang Eric Idle at the end of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. I must admit that many of my blog posts have been pretty downbeat in tone, particularly since the June 23^rd result. So, let’s try a thought experiment and go in for some positive thinking.

Good News

Let’s start by looking at a few items of good news from recent days.

Donald Trump made a complete arse of himself in the first TV debate with Hillary Clinton.
Jeremy Corbyn did a pretty good job in his keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference. It was a much more assured performance than last year and a step towards being seen as a more credible future prime minister.
The Labour Party now has well over 500,000 members, making it the largest political party in Europe (outside Russia).
The only concrete policy announcement from Theresa May, on grammar schools, is a real stinker.
George Osborne’s policy of austerity and “hit the poorest hardest” seems to have been dropped by his successor.

Let’s develop some positive thinking flowing from these news items.

Armageddon Postponed

H bomb mushroom cloud — Not yet, perhaps?

Two more opportunities, in TV debates, remain to show Trump’s narcissistic lack of self-control and of fitness to be elected. So, the spine-chilling threat to the world of a President Trump seems to have receded somewhat. With the prospect of World War Three now a little less likely in the near term, we can perhaps begin to think a little about the future.

A Labour Agenda?

Jeremy Corbyn — Corbyn at Conference 2016

Points 2 and 5 above may point the way to changing the terms of the debate on the economy. Political opinion in much of the western world is questioning the assumptions of free market fundamentalism. It seems likely that we will hear much less from Philip Hammond on austerity than his predecessor. This implies even the Tories may now believe it’s a vote loser. They still have a way to go to catch up with expert opinion, such as that of the International Monetary Fund. But it is an agenda that both Jeremy Corbyn and John Hammond have been consistently stating for the past year. The new, younger Labour Party members may begin to convince people in face-to-face conversations in pubs and other meeting places. An optimistic reading would be that Labour would begin to look credible to offer a wider, positive appeal for the future, with the Tories associated with a failed economic dogma of the past.

Theresa May’s Judgement

It seems many were tempted to think of Theresa May as a “safe pair of hands” to steer Britain through the choppy waters of EU exit negotiations. (Even I said she was the least bad option in the circumstances.) With her grammar schools announcement, she immediately encountered strong opposition from all education experts and practically the whole of the teaching profession. It is only a matter of time before she adds more opponents. These are the parents of the 80% of schoolchildren who would be disadvantaged – and possibly psychologically damaged – by being branded second class citizens at an arbitrary age.

We have had the appointment of two loose cannons and a disgraced former defence minister as the triumvirate leading the UK’s EU negotiations. It is surely only a matter of time before one of these super-egos seriously screws up. This will reflect poorly on May’s judgement in their appointment. Not such a safe pair of hands, after all.

The Bright Side

The cynical may see this all as hopelessly wishful thinking: my title for this piece was, instead, “positive thinking”. That Eric Idle song mentioned at the start is, after all, entitled Always Look on the Bright Side of Life! (Supply your own whistling here, please…)

Madness, Madness, I Call It Madness

9th September 2016Education, PoliticsJim Gunther

I was in conversation with a fellow experienced Chair of Governors the other day. She spoke of “one of those heart-sinking moments” when she heard that Theresa May was planning to revive grammar schools, now confirmed. Between us, we have over 40 years’ experience volunteering as school governors. We agreed it almost feels like we’ve wasted our time all these years trying to help the schools we serve to raise standards and life chances for our pupils.

I call the proposal madness, sheer madness, for several reasons set out later in this post.

Enjoy Yourself

I have a broad picture of education policy and practice over my lifetime. I believe it is true that, back in the 1960s and 70s, education policy was, to some extent, driven by fashion. The latest ideas, the sexier-sounding the better, were implemented with little more basis than he (or she) who shouts loudest. Some of these ideas worked and have been retained in some form. Some didn’t and have fallen by the wayside. The most radical change in this period was the near-universal abolition of the 11-plus and the growth of comprehensive education. (More comprehensives opened under Margaret Thatcher’s period as Education Secretary than any other’s.)

The period from the late 70s through to 2000 saw a developing professionalism in the practice of pedagogy. University education departments and institutions such as the National College for Teaching and Leadership carried out research into what works. There was a steady upward trend in evidence-led changes to education policy. Key initiatives in the New Labour years included two important reforms above all:

Every Child Matters, an antidote to narrow exam results as the only indicator of success. It stressed that every child, whatever their background or circumstances, should have the support they need to stay safe, be healthy, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being.
Sure Start centres, in recognition of the research which showed the importance of early years learning. Neuroscientific research has found that a child’s brain is 25% developed at birth, 80% developed by the aged of three. A US study found that the vocabulary used by three year olds in professional households was wider than that of the parents from the most deprived households. Those early years are crucial. Disadvantaged kids are way behind those more fortunate, long before they even start school.

Propaganda Ministers

The steady progress in implementing what works came to an abrupt halt in 2010 with the arrival of Michael Gove as Education Secretary. Policy making by evidence was replaced by ministerial whim. The logic behind the creation of academy schools was turned on its head. Free schools were introduced, spending public funds where groups lobbied for one, rather than where new places were needed. Local authorities were stripped of their powers to open new schools. This has led to the situation where local government has the legal duty to find a school place for everyone on their patch but without the powers to make it happen. The free schools programme was based on a Swedish initiative that was already being disowned by the politician who had introduced the scheme to Sweden. Funding for early years was slashed and 800 Sure Start centres have closed since 2010.

Compare this situation to Germany, where education is a non-political issue and structures and exam standards have barely changed in decades. In England, constant tinkering with curriculum and exam structures have left teacher confused and overworked. In the last school year alone, 14 changes to the Key Stage 2 curriculum were announced and, on the date pupils sat their SATs exams, the government hadn’t decided what the standards would be for the results.

No wonder teachers are leaving the profession in their droves or applying to emigrate to saner pastures abroad. When coupled to the shortfall in places filled on teacher training courses, I predict a major crisis of teacher shortages in 3-5 years’ time.

It’s Gonna Be Tougher

And now, to cap it all, we have Theresa May, without any electoral mandate, announcing the potential expansion of grammar schools. This is based on the entirely false argument that such schools aid social mobility. My earlier blog post, Stuck Inside of Mobile, explains why this is plain wrong. Briefly, it was the expansion in middle-class jobs in the economy of the 1950s and 60s, together with much more egalitarian tax and fiscal policies, which created opportunities for schoolchildren to find better jobs than their parents. It is merely coincidence that we had a more selective system at the time.

Even if the argument were true, times have changed significantly. Selective education at 11 was at a time when only 7% of students went to university (it’s now nearly 50%) and we had a major manufacturing base to absorb the 80-90% of 11-plus failures into work. But the social stigma and psychological damage of being branded a failure at eleven would be as true today as it was then.

Schools work best when there is a reasonable number of brighter children and pushy parents to support teachers in raising expectations and when the proportion of children from low-achieving, dysfunctional families is small. Too many of the latter can absorb a disproportionate amount of energy for school staff, That’s energy which could be applied for the benefit of all. With inspiring leadership and excellent teaching, good schools can close the prior attainment gap over the whole duration of a child’s schooling. Putting the majority of children into the slow lane at the arbitrary age of eleven makes no sense and offends every idea of helping the disadvantaged.

grammar school photo — Grammar School Days

Remaining grammar schools have 3% of the intake entitled to free school meals, compared to 15% for all schools. Better-off parents can pay for private tuition to help their children pass the 11-plus. Good evidence exists of the effect of selection on pupil achievement. In selective areas, pupils in selective schools perform, on average, very slightly better than they would have done in a non-selective system. But the vast majority of children at, in effect, secondary moderns, perform far worse than their comprehensive-taught counterparts elsewhere. In short, selection makes it tougher overall to succeed.

Who’s Goin’ to Suffer?

The analysis is very clear: the disadvantaged children suffer worst under a selective system.

I’m often intrigued to see what hatred, distortions, delusions and lies are spewed out in the Daily Mail, or at least by peeking at its front-page headlines. Today’s was an absolute classic of its kind. The sub-heading read “All schools could become grammar schools”. How, exactly? For every grammar schools created, you need at least three secondary moderns. Or wait… I look forward to the apoplectic Daily Mail headlines of the future when 80% of schoolchildren have failed the entrance test for all the schools in their area and are roaming the streets in feral gangs!

My earlier blog post, Confused and Bewildered, took a sceptical view of Theresa May’s inaugural speech on the steps of 10 Downing Street. You know, the one where she promised to work for the disadvantaged. I said then that new Tory Prime Ministers have form on doing the opposite of what they say in the first flush of their appointment. Well, May has just taken the first step in that dishonourable tradition.

In memory of Prince Buster (Cecil Campbell) 1938-2016