The Establishment by Owen Jones - 4 (Chapter 4)

Chapter 4 The Boys In Blue

Page 133 "During the 1980s... the police had been trained to treat working-class people as the 'enemy within' ".  Who is supposed to have done this training?  Was it via seminars or tutorials or home study courses?  Or is this just a ridiculous assertion that has no basis in fact?  It also takes no account of the huge landslide victories won by the Conservatives in the 1980s.  These would have been impossible without support from working class voters.

Page 147 Owen Jones gives no motivation for the police bias against BME people.  For instance, do the police overtly or covertly seek to recruit racists?  Or are ordinary people conditioned to become racists once they have entered police employment?  Or are they indifferent to race issues, but persecute BME people because they are secretly paid a bonus to do so?  Owen Jones, unless you explain a motive for an action you must not claim that the action fits your hypothesis.  Because it is equally possible that BME people are stopped and suspected more than other groups because they commit more crimes.

http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-establishment-by-owen-jones-3.html http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-establishment-by-owen-jones.html
http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-establishment-by-owen-jones-2.html

The Establishment by Owen Jones - 3 (Chapters Two and Three)

Chapter 2, The Westminster Cartel

Page 63 et al - the Establishment is presented by Owen Jones as an ideology, but no proof is offered.  It is probable that there are ideologues (of all persuasions) within the Establishment, but the truth is much less sinister although still problematic.  The Establishment is a large informal network of individuals who hold power and influence and intend to remain in power and influence helping each other out, giving opportunities for the progeny of people they know, recruiting into their ranks those who who cannot be silenced by any other means.  There is no over-arching conspiracy.  There is just the same old corrupt behaviour that asserts itself in every society, including those of the former Eastern Bloc, when scrutiny is inadequate.  The difference is that the British Establishment for historical reasons has acquired a patina of respectability.

Page 81 - discussing Len McCluskey "A proud Scouser, rarely clean-shaven and with an imposing frame, his tub-thumping speeches at political rallies often draw a rapturous reception from true believers".  proud Scouser... imposing frame... tub-thumping... rapturous reception... true believers - did an Oxford alumni really write this cliche-ridden sentence?  The failure of the publisher to amend this line demonstrates the cultural cringe our society has towards The Establishment's Oxbridge graduates when they are no more elite or skilled than the rest of us.

Chapter 3, Mediaocracy

Page 89 - referring to the 1992 general election "...an earlier speech made by the Tory Home Secretary, Kenneth Baker, alleging Labour plans for an 'open door' immigration policy".  Even as far back as 1992 the Labour plans for unrestricted immigration were known.  It rather makes their subsequent apologies for immigration seem cynical and false - we must never let these people back in.

Page 90 - Angela Eagle MP (and Shadow Cabinet minister) "It's a media that's ideologically driven by its owners who have particular views that you or I probably wouldn't agree on an awful lot of the time".  This claim that the media is ideologically driven is silly.  The Morning Star is ideologically driven but hardly anyone buys it.  If the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph were ideologically driven then how does Owen Jones account for their popularity compared to the Guardian or the Daily Mirror?  Newspapers exist to make money.  If people didn't want them they wouldn't buy them and the Daily Mail would end up with the same circulation as The Independent.

To be continued.
http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-establishment-by-owen-jones.html
http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-establishment-by-owen-jones-2.html

The Establishment by Owen Jones - 2 (Introduction and Chapter One)

Above:  on display in Kings Parade some of the codified stratification of the Establishment - although the Establishment's soft power is much more complex and subtle than mere colours and badges.

Finally I have finished The Establishment by Owen Jones (this has taken me a long time to read not because it is unreadable, but because other reading projects have intervened).

The book was a big disappointment.  Instead of writing a much-needed expose of the Establishment and how they get away with it, Owen Jones has simply invented his own "Establishment" and written about that.  And you've guessed it, the Owen Jones Establishment is just his own views and prejudices mashed up and reheated and served with a tiny bit of new garnish.

Some examples (page numbers refer to the hardback edition):

General point - there are only seven references to immigration, and all of them make the assumption that immigrant communities are the victims of the Establishment.  And yet immigration is one of the key ways in the post war period in which the Establishment has divided and controlled and suppressed the working class, all the time presenting it as some uncontrollable elemental force as if it just happens without anyone making decisions.  But because this does not fit the Owen Jones view of history he ignores it (therefore we are justified in saying Owen Jones is as much an Establishment stooge as any of the people he condemns).

In the Introduction (page 6) he talks of the Establishment having an ideology of neo-liberalism that led to the privatisation of nationalised industries.  This rather overlooks the fact that the old nationalised industries were stuffed with Establishment figures who were unaccountable, dictatorial and ran huge swathes of the economy as if they were an extension of the civil service.  They were privatised because they had become a self-serving vested interest, not because they were a socialist.

Chapter 1 The Outriders.  It is wrong to define Margaret Thatcher as Establishment.  She was anti-Establishment through and through (state-educated, a woman, a scientist, a corner shop grocer's daughter, a denizen of a dull Midlands provincial town, a Methodist - in terms of education, occupation, social origin, geographical origin, religion etc she was an outsider).  The Establishment ferociously attacked her candidacy as leader, wanting William Whitelaw (Winchester, Cambridge and the Guards).  The first significant opposition from within the Conservative Party came from Sir Ian Gilmour Bart. (Eton, Oxford and the Guards) who while still a member of her Cabinet said in February 1980 "In the Conservative view, economic liberalism à la Professor Hayek, because of its starkness and its failure to create a sense of community, is not a safeguard of political freedom but a threat to it."  The first MP to openly rebel against her leadership was Sir Anthony Meyer (Eton, Oxford, Scots Guards) in November 1989 providing the stalking horse that enabled Heseltine and the rest of the "treachery with a smile on its face" clique to wade in.

Page 21 - it is wrong to attach so much importance to Madsen Pirie who was at the time little more than a self-important pipsqueak.  Margaret Thatcher's commitment to the free market came from her own convictions (she was perfectly capable of thinking these things out for herself) as well as from Enoch Powell who had independently of Hayek had come to the same conclusions (see the Simon Heffer biography).  If Madsen Pirie and the Adam Smith Institute were/are so influential why are they largely ignored today? (when was the last time we saw Madsen Pirie or Eamon Butler on Newsnight or Channel 4 News).

Page 23 - "the staggering increase in living standards and the greatest, most stable economic growth this country has ever seen" was not because of public ownership of key industries and utilities.  The post-war boom of the 1950s and 1960s was generated by the need to repair the colossal damage caused by the Second World War.  By the early 1970s this renewal was petering out, leading to the economic and social problems that decade is renowned for.

To be continued.

http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-establishment-by-owen-jones.html

"My Dad was a bishop" Jon Snow has just announced

"My Dad was a bishop" Jon Snow has just announced on Channel 4 News.

My goodness, his family is stuffed with privilege.

How much privilege is it possible for one family to accumulate? (on a day when we have heard about the hereditary lawyers in the Havers family).

The joke is that we are asked to believe that all these people have risen to the heights of the establishment by their own efforts.

Why doesn't Jon Snow show some self-respect and get a proper job as a welder or a hod carrier.

A classic example of the way in which the establishment aggregates power

Denis MacShane MP muses on Twitter:  "Bishops used to write to Telegraph or Times. Now it's the Daily Mirror. Are our editors and journos out of touch with condition of England?"

If Mr MacShane was in touch with what was happening in the Anglican church he would realise that the clergy have become the Labour party at prayer, and there is a gulf between them and their congregations (the clergy mostly male, middle-class, lefty and the congregations mostly female, elderly, conservative with a small "c" and often with a big "C").

Which in turn raises issues over democracy in the state church.

In the past Prime Minister's chose the bishops, and so in theory the Church of England was under the democratic control of the people.

However in recent decades this process has been watered down (through the manipulation of shortlists so that the Prime Minister was given the choice between one lefty candidate and another lefty candidate) and for the last decade active Prime Minister involvement has been completely abandoned.

Is this not a classic example of the way in which the establishment aggregates power unto itself so that it becomes a self-perpetuating oligarchy?

Is this not what has happened in every other area of society - the professions, the political classes, the civil service etc.

Perhaps we should require bishops to stand for election by the laity on the parochial rolls of each parish in a particular diocese. 

And indeed, require applicants for parishes to stand for election by the congregations they aspire to serve.

Note:  Steve Richards makes the same mistake in thinking the bishops speak for anyone other than themselves:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/20/david-cameron-alienated-church-thatcherite?CMP=twt_gu

These people have no shame

Disgraced.

Found guilty by a court.

Sent to gaol.

Released and then "ping" she is back in the elite running our affairs.

These people have no shame.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25844091

Paul Mason's mates

Why did Paul Mason do a report on police behaviour at the Senate House sit-in at Bloomsbury on this evening's Channel 4 News?

He is the Channel 4 News Culture correspondent, but this was not a culture story.

He is the Channel 4 News Digital correspondent, but this was not a digital story.

Am I right in thinking that we are seeing an example of cronyism here?  That Paul Mason was helped into Channel 4 News in the first available vacancy, and is now being eased into increasingly prominent news stories.  Eventually he will presented as their Politics and Economics Editor.

I suppose we cannot blame Paul Mason's mates for wanting to help him get on.

Except that this process is not very transparent, and all sorts of discrimination issues arise.

This is the way the Establishment behaves.  Not very nice is it!   Someone needs to stamp on Paul Mason and his cronies.

Lord Freud and foodbanks

On the whole I agree with Zoe Williams and her article about Lord Freud and foodbanks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/lord-freud-food-banks

Except for the last paragraph.

How is Lord Freud "a Tory"?

He is a Vicar of Bray figure, cosying up to Labour when Labour was in power, insinuating himself into the Conservatives now the Conservatives are in a Coalition government.

Chairing a review here, advising a New Labour minister there, picking up a peerage along the way.

The Freud family are like that.

Part of the amorphous mass of self-interested self-obsessed people that float around the British establishment attaching themselves to whoever happens to be in power.

He might be technically a member of the Conservative party at this precise moment in time, but who knows where he will be post-2015.

Certainly you could not call him a Tory in the traditional understanding of that word.

Article by Gus O'Donnell and Jonathan Portes in today's Times

What are we to make of the article about immigration by Gus O'Donnell and Jonathan Portes in today's Times?

Let us leave on one side the fact that it only mentions positive (as they see them) aspects of immigration, and thus can be dismissed as propaganda.

Let us also disregard the lack of sensitivity in putting out such an article only a few days after the Woolwich atrocity.

What interests me is the absence of any acknowledgement that post-war immigration lacks democratic consent, and has always lacked democratic consent.


Of course, many policies are slipped through by governments and civil servants (or by civil servants acting alone) that do not have democratic consent.

But post-war immigration has been so overwhelmingly opposed by the majority (in all decades since 1945), and has resulted in such fundamental social change (unwanted social change), that it is impossible to ignore the issue without conceding that democracy in the United Kingdom is a sham - and such a concession must have very serious consequences for everybody.

How is it possible for public opinion (in every single test) to be opposed to a policy and yet it keeps on happening?

A clue is provided at the end of the article.

Gus O'Donnell was Cabinet Secretary 2005-2011.  Jonathan Portes was Chief Economist at the Cabinet Office from 2008 and like Gus O'Donnell had been a career civil servant.  I suggest that if you want to know why the doors to the United Kingdom were opened wide under the 1997-2010 government you should address your questions to these two people.

The Cabinet Office is a highly secretive department that does not seem to answer to anyone except themselves.  They appear to have their own policies which they implement whatever government happens to be in power.  This is laughed off as a Yes Minister type jape, but it has deadly serious implications for everyone in the United Kingdom.

We need to know who appoints the Cabinet Office personnel and what they are up to on a day to day basis.  The Cabinet Secretary is what is known as a "high flyer".  All the Cabinet Office civil servants are high flyers. 

It is inconceivable that these high flyers would choose to immure themselves in what we are told is just a secretariat.

Are we expected to believe that these people just lay out the notepads and pencils on the Cabinet table and take the coats of ministers as they arrive?  Is it not the case that they act as a pseudo-government, pursuing their own policy objectives whatever party wins at a general election?  Is this not why immigration keeps happening despite all the people saying no?

I am a Conservative.  I have always supported the Conservative party and regard the rise of UKIP with dismay.  But one consolation of a UKIP government (if it ever comes about) is that Gus O'Donnell and Jonathan Portes are likely to be put on trial for exceeding their authority.


http://niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/Jonathan_Portes_CV_January_2011.pdf

Civil servants of all departments owe their loyalty to the Prime Minister

You might be under the impression that Cabinet Ministers control the departments they are heading up.

Actually the civil servants of all departments owe their loyalty to the Prime Minister, who is Minister for the Civil Service.

No-one will tell you this.

You either know or you don't.

And forget about civil servants being impartial, they are highly political.

The establishment replicates itself

The debate about post-Leveson implementation (regulation of the press) can be viewed as a classic "who will watch the watchers" issue (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Juvenal).

The post-Leveson proposals have generated a tremendous amount of debate.

The Establishment has reacted to Leveson by setting up an institution created by Royal Charter - this is an interesting case study on how the establishment replicates itself, and mutates to respond to changes in the environment.

Personally I would have favoured direct public elections to membership of the regulatory body voted on by the people (and to all those who say you can't have elections to everything my reply is yes you can).

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/03/without-real-contrition-press-piety-leaves-me-cold

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/david-cameron-insists-plans-for-postleveson-royal-charter-for-press-regulation-will-work-and-endure-despite-hostility-from-newspaper-groups-8539779.html

John Bird on Question Time

Very interesting comment by Big Issue founder John Bird on Question Time yesterday evening. 

He said that governments are finding it increasingly difficult to govern.

One thinks of the Blair government where endless laws, edicts and directives were issued only to be ignored (so that now hardly anything tangible remains of the Blair years, with even Northern Ireland regressing).

The United Kingdom used to be a broadly self-governing system in which laws and customs were implemented through an all-pervasive network of institutions (thousands of institutions) known collectively and informally as the British Establishment. 

It was often slow and ponderous, perhaps even stifling, but the system worked because people wanted it to work - they felt it was their system, owned by them. 

With the abolition of grammar schools the traditional routes into Establishment institutions became closed to ordinary people, and gradually the Establishment (including Parliament, including the media) became a self-perpetuating ruling caste drawn from Oxbridge-educated self-important nincompoops.

The result has been a gradual withdrawal of support (a withdrawal that has now become acute) by the ordinary population for an elite that tries to tell them what to do.

The ruritanian titles

Above: the Milton Keynes News announces that Greg Rutherford is now an MBE (Greg Rutherford has appeared on Newsnight in the past).

Tanya Gold in the Guardian today dismisses the honours system as "postcard pomp".

The ruritanian titles have misled her into regarding the process as "an expression of, and a means to uphold, royal power".  She is woefully ignorant in this respect - royalty have almost no role in deciding who gets what (except for a few specific honours).  What is actually happening is the co-option of new establishment figures into the old establishment, including the silencing or buying-off (relatively) of some anti-establishment figures.

We need to understand how this happens, as these people are going to "pop up" in the future (look at the career of Lord Coe for instance). 

Westminster Abbey

I agree with Lucy Mangan that last night's documentary on BBC2 (first in a series of three) was exceptionally well-made, although I think she may have missed the point about charity - the Church of England is not just about social work and Anglican institutions cannot be reduced down to materialist arguments (the ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor etc).

What is genuinely interesting is that Westminster Abbey is an institution that has not been properly analysed and assessed yet.  That it is an important institution and a cornerstone of the Establishment is indisputable.  That it both exercises and confers power is beyond doubt.  That it contains within itself many smaller institutions is fascinating.  How it all fits together and works is what I am hoping this series will reveal.  What I am convinced of is that Westminster Abbey enshrines (perhaps literally) the soft power that controls national identity, national memory, national mission.

http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/westminster-abbey.html

Dateline London

Dateline London, that most civilised of discussion programmes, included Independent writer Owen Jones earlier today.  He adapted well to the Dateline London style of polite listening and measured intelligent responses (unlike his appearance on Question Time where he attempted to silence the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions by shouting incoherently).  The check shirts are becoming a cliché but perhaps he is worried about being denounced on Twitter as a class traitor if he appeared in a suit (and here you can detect the middle class insecurities of Owen Jones - no true working class person would have any qualms about appearing in a suit, as Derek Hatton demonstrated in the 1980s).

Owen Jones has announced that he is writing a book about the Establishment.  His own career might be regarded as a case study.  Anti-establishment activist to New Establishment media personality (one can hardly get more New Establishment than Dateline London) with the ultimate Old Establishment goal of... what exactly?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pd19h/Dateline_London_08_12_2012/ 

Ability to project stability

In the general outpouring of euphoria that is surrounding the announcement today from Clarence House there is a more serious point to consider about the monarchy as an institution.

The birth of a child to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will ensure the direct line of succession for the next 100 years at least.

The monarch is Head of State, and also ultimate head of government, head of the Established Church, head of the army, head of the judiciary, head of the civil service and final source of authority for a vast multitude of public services, bodies and corporations.

This ability to project stability into the future is a strong national asset.

It reassures everyone (both internally and externally) that there is not going to be any sudden change, that things will go on much the same for as long as anyone can see.

In a country where power has traditionally be exercised through institutions, the monarchy is an institution that has not made a serious slip since the mid-1930s.  It's an example other institutions could learn from.  Continuity, service, self-restraint, duty, application, hard work (to the point of indefatigability).

Historical counterpoint:  http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/12/3/1354553312572/Diana-pregnant-story-Guar-001.jpg

UPDATE

This surprised me:

The road to London and New York lies through Gaza

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84

It is interesting to observe how keen the British Left is on Palestinian statehood.

I have no view on whether a Palestinian "state" would he helpful to the Middle Eastern situation.

I do however think it is odd that committed socialists, who usually proclaim an internationalist ideology, should in the case of the Palestinians advocate a nationalist solution.

Surely the Left should be calling for the Palestinian proletariat to join hands with the Israeli proletariat in defeating the forces of oppression on both sides?  Ridiculously naive that argument might be, but at least it would be consistent with their previous statements on nationalism.  Instead we see this pro-Palestinian opportunism (which one suspects is just a way of attacking Israel for no other reason than that Israel is a Western ally - The road to London and New York lies through Gaza as Lenin might say if he were here, which thank goodness he is not).

A few more references:

https://twitter.com/Bonn1eGreer 

https://twitter.com/KerryMP 

The above exchange is interesting in that it shows Bonnie Greer making comments about the Palestinians which are picked up by Labour MP Kerry McCarthy who immediately draws them to the attention of Danny Alexander (Shadow Foreign Secretary) during the course of a debate in the House of Commons about whether the United Kingdom should endorse the idea of a Palestinian "state".

What are we to make of this?

Why should Bonnie Greer be able to lobby her personal views at the highest levels of our parliamentary democracy?

Bonnie Greer was born an American and it is unclear how she came to be granted British citizenship or awarded the OBE or made a Trustee of the British Museum (a key establishment post).  Her position and status in the United Kingdom seems to have been entirely sponsored by the Labour party.  This is an example of why the Establishment has become so rotten - ordinary people cannot get near the Establishment, while at the same time the party political elite hands out establishment honours and sinecures to individuals who seem to have a very dubious commitment to the long-term interests of the British people.

The whole thing stinks.

 

https://twitter.com/BenPBradshaw 

Impose women bishops despite the vote against

Front page article in The Times today in which Ruth Gledhill reveals "secret" machinations by the Church of England hierarchy to impose women bishops despite the vote against last Tuesday.  I know clerics are unworldly but surely they must see that this sort of thing is provocative and counter-productive.  And although Anglicans are laughed at for being wishy-washy, do not underestimate the strength of faith among the traditionalists - we do not want to see self-immolations in Deans Yard outside Church House.

Personally I do not know enough about doctrine to say whether women bishops are legitimate or not.

I do know that parishes which objected to women priests were given assurances and promises that have subsequently proved to be worthless (I am thinking of St Michael and All Angels here).

Note:  William Fittall, secretary-general of the General Synod and the person who wrote the "secret" memo, was born to working-class parents, educated at Dover Grammar School and then Christchurch College Oxford and subsequently into the Establishment.

Also in today's Times was a letter from the Rector of Caston making the point that if the vote to oppose women bishops was invalid then the vote to approve women priests must be equally invalid since the electoral process for both decisions was the same (you may need to click on the image to read the letter).

I know Holy Cross church in Caston - a beautiful building with a holy and numinous interior.  The village has many links with the early settlement of America.  Brass chandelier that came from Hampton Court palace.

New (Canadian) Governor of the Bank of England

Mark Carney, new (Canadian) Governor of the Bank of England, was obviously not educated at a British public school, although with teachers as both of his parents you could argue he was effectively tutored at home rather than at a state institution.

Elite institutions subsequently attended include Harvard and Oxford.

So one of the key institutions of the British state is now in the hands of someone from outside the Establishment.

Presumably he will now be co-opted into the establishment?  It will be interesting to see how that happens.  Mrs Carney is apparently a "progressive" but not sure if Canadian progressives are the same as British ones.

Pro-Occupy (but the Canadian Occupy movement is not the same as the half-hearted Giles Fraseresque farce we saw at St Pauls) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/bank-of-canada-head-calls-occupy-protests-entirely-constructive/article2202064/?from=sec431

Note - Having just seen the new appointment discussed on Newsnight, it does make me wonder if we are going to see the closed British Establishment replaced by a closed global establaishment.

However you define the question of education comprehensives are not the answer

Over a cup of coffee this morning I reread Tanya Gold's article about the dominance of the public schools in staffing Establishment insitutions (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/23/eton-schools-inequality-elite-social-immobility ).

It is a cogent article, with some interesting statistics and conclusions.  Especially the killer admission:  The privately educated have an insurmountable advantage – when Labour abolished grammar schools they should have abolished private schools too, or not abolished either.  This is not to say that grammar schools were / are perfect, but when the system works they do provide an easily-understood sequence of stages whereby ordinary people can be recruited into the Establishment elite (and in the process make the Establishment elite more grounded in the ordinary population).

I went to a comprehensive school, and I cannot be sure that if the old system had still been in place I would have passed the Eleven Plus and gone to a grammar school.  But my experience does allow me to say that however you define the question of education comprehensives are not the answer.  The structure and ethos of comprehensives implies collective equality, and therefore the staff are "nudged" in the direction of not differentiating between one student and another (and too often this fuels the natural laziness of some teachers, bolstered by tenure of employment, to just coast along in their jobs without making much of an effort).

There is another aspect of public (independent) schools that needs to be addressed.

At the university I eventually, and after several false starts, went to about 60% of the students were from public schools.  Among these were several Old Etonians, one of whom I knew very well (and gave me the Eton coaster in the picture above), and another four I knew fairly well.  These Old Etonians were not the most intelligent people on the course but they were all, without exception, supremely confident.

State comprehensive schools will never give their alumni a sense of confidence.  If anything, they give you a sense of insecurity.  That however hard you work the odds are already stacked against you and the best jobs are already reserved for others. 

This will only change when all schools have the sense of mission that the public schools (and formerly the old grammar schools) have - that they are the best in the world.