Attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities

Interesting report in the New York Times about attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/world/middleeast/iran-scientist-says-blasts-targeted-nuclear-sites.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes

Iran is not a unitary nation state it is an empire, and like most empires is full of dissident groups, disaffected minority ethnicities and swirling social ferments.

If you wanted to subvert such a society it would be easy.  There would be no shortage of recruits.  And if you recruit enough seditionaries the natural paranoia of the Iranian religious-political-military power nexus will start to work against itself with purges, arrests and false accusations.

What pride Dr Giles Fraser exhibited in ordering the police off his steps!

It was obvious that Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, would have to go.

He is putting a brave face on it, but after shooting his (unauthorised) mouth off at the start of the protest the outcome was inevitable and he is presumably jumping before he is pushed.

To recap: 

As the protest camp was set up the police moved in (as they do) and, pleased as punch, Dr Fraser ordered the police off "his" steps and effectively gave the protestors his blessing (oh dear, yet another trendy Rev trying to get down with the kids and getting it hopelessly wrong).

What he should have done was consult with his colleagues so that they presented a unified message.  Possibly offered an alternative patch of land for the protest camp.  Explained that the cathedral had to be kept open for the ordinary people (the Church of England is Established, it is not some run-of-the-mill sect that can do as it likes).

How often have I seen self-important middle management executives rushing to talk to the media without clearing things with the PR department first!  Then they are told off by someone more senior, and have to publicly recant everything.  And ever afterwards their credibility is shot to pieces and eventually they have to go.

What pride Dr Giles Fraser exhibited in ordering the police off his steps! - but pride goes before a fall (Proverbs 16:18). 
Not sure who is giving PR advice to the anti-capitalism protest camp.  Not only have they got their targets in the wrong place and their messages confused.  They have also brought about the demise of one of the most high-profile supporters (the public might laugh at trendy vicars, but they also have a secret affection for them).

I was just there as an observer

Above: by the time the soufflé course arrived I was too drunk to say anything.

Dinner with a group of economists and economic historians. Monkfish, squirrel (!), pomegranate sorbet, venison, Valrohna chocolate tart, Grand Marnier soufflé. Taittinger to drink.

A gold bar was passed around the table (was this genuine? – it felt heavy enough).

As usual I was just there as an observer, and by the time the soufflé course arrived I was too drunk to say anything - but I jotted down a few comments:

The Geddes Axe (1922) was the last time government spending was reduced.

Local councils may be fighting the government by deliberately making cuts in high-profile areas such as public libraries.

Public will forget the cuts within eighteen months to two years.

The Conservatives are letting the Liberal Democrats take responsibility for the cuts and at the end of the Coalition they will cut them adrift.

There is a pessimistic strain in public opinion that generally assumes the worst case scenario is the correct one, which is why there is not more opposition to government policy.

The NHS reforms are a risk, but the innovation that will result from hundreds of practitioner groups tackling the same problems in different ways may well produce breakthrough advances that will pay off with the electorate.



Above: I stayed overnight at the hotel (special January rate, so it wasn’t too expensive). Big chintzy bedroom, a little cold. Hardly slept at all, my mind racing around on all sorts of subjects.

Foreign policy initiative

Above: The Lion and the Tiger by Denis Judd.

David Cameron is in India, leading a big delegation to create a new alliance.

The foreign policy initiative is extremely interesting and made me think of The Lion and the Tiger by Denis Judd, which I read last year (Denis Judd is Professor of Imperial, Commonwealth and Indian History at London Metropolitan University).

The book is an entirely unsentimental review of the historical relationship between Britain and India and had a number of points that made me think:

The association between Britain and India created the world’s first superpower, and Britain ceased to be a world power immediately after Indian independence in 1947.

Putting to one side the colonial aspects, the association was essentially one of collaboration.

The behaviour of the local (and self-serving) British community in India (especially the women) poisoned the atmosphere and masked the mutual dependency.

Indian and British people were well suited in temperament.

Under British rule Indian industry developed rapidly from the 1880s, so that by 1914 India was among the top fourteen most industrialized nations.

India was granted its own delegation in the Versailles Conference that followed the First World War.

Roosevelt’s policy objective was to weaken the link between Britain and India, and the Atlantic Charter in 1942 was part of this process – this stealthy manouvre became on-going American policy.

What does all this tell us about David Cameron’s mission today? The Guardian dismisses the visit as a cynical attempt to sell arms to the sub-continent, and they may be right. But it is also possible that David Cameron has a much more far-sighted aspiration.

Both India and the United Kingdom are regional powers. India is one of the strongest powers in Asia. Britain is one of the strongest powers in Europe. Neither country can achieve regional military-economic hegemony alone (assuming hegemony is a policy objective). If they pooled their commercial and military power in a strong alliance they would, almost immediately, become an irresistible world power. With hardly any effort, and almost unnoticed, David Cameron would have taken the United Kingdom to the edge of greatness.

The two countries are well-matched. They have economies that are roughly equal in size but complementary so that there is little rivalry. They have surplus assets that would be of use to the other (for instance, the United Kingdom has considerable reserves of diplomatic influence throughout the world). The linguistic link is obvious. The geographical separation adds rather than detracts from the alliance (neither country is particularly enamoured with its neighbours). A huge number of semi-dormant cultural links already exist between to the two nations.

To create such an alliance would mean an unaccustomed exercise of realpolitik. Britain would have to abandon any pretence of friendship with Pakistan. India would have to get over its post-colonial hang-ups. Sections of British society would have to get over their Jewel In The Crown hang-ups (although there cannot be many of the Raj generation left alive). The pro-Labour Indian claque in Britain will need to be faced down. There will be many critics around the world.

But this looks like the most interesting and ambitious foreign policy initiative since 1st January 1973.

More:

http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/latest-news/2010/07/uk-india-relationship-should-be-stronger-and-deeper-pm-53956

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Old-Ties-Made-New/articleshow/6233548.cms

St Andrew's Day

Above: there is a section of Scottish society that sees the country as continually pushed behind England (although were Scotland to ever achieve "independence" it would still remain a small country immediately alongside a much bigger one).

Today is St Andrew's Day, and in Edinburgh the First Minister of the Scottish Executive (Alex Salmond) called for a referendum on Scottish independence. I watched Daily Politics at lunchtime and the First Minister was interviewed on the programme wearing an ethno-nationalist badge and silly ethno-nationalist tie. In appearance Alex Salmond gives the impression of being a jovial buffoon, but if you listen to what he is saying you realise he is promugating the evil doctrine of communal competitive prestige.

During the interview Alex Salmond became rattled at one point, and repeated the libel that "Scottish oil has been stolen by the English" (he said this very obliquely, but that was undoubtedly the slur he was making).

There has been no net benefit to ANYONE in the United Kingdom through possession of North Sea Oil. Having the oil has pushed up the value of the currency, and a strong currency has in turn destroyed British manufacturing industry - the one cancels out the other. Lord Kaldor demonstrated this in a speech to the House of Lords in the early 1980s (you can read the speech in the two images below, if you click on them they will enlarge).







Above: on the whole the SNP is given an easy ride by interviewers. Possibly it is because it is hard to take seriously a political movement dressed up like a tin of tartan shortbread. But these politicians represent the politics of envy, divisiveness and implicit communal violence (always strenuously denied).

SNP policies, like most "ourselves alone" political movements, are also economically crazy.

For instance, if they were to win a majority in a referendum on independence (highly unlikely) and took Scotland out of the United Kingdom they would also be taking Scotland out of the European Union. Are they proposing to have immigration borders and import tariffs at Berwick? Or do they imagine they will fast-track membership of the EU ahead of Turkey?

These people are mad and evil.

Ambassador Eikenberry

I read in yesterday’s Guardian that the American ambassador in Afghanistan has publicly (yes PUBLICLY) warned President Obama that the war in Afghanistan risks becoming another Suez.

His words are: “You either commit to D-Day and invade the continent or you get Suez. Half-measures end up with Suez. Do it or not do it.”

This has bothered me ever since I read it.

What exactly is this undiplomatic diplomat saying?

Whatever the moral aspects, the “Suez” invasion of Egypt as a military operation worked superbly well. All the objectives were achieved. The country was effectively in British (and French) hands.

However, Suez became a debacle because Britain’s closest ally refused any support (and not just refused support, but sided with the “enemy” and, incredibly as it seems now, threatened the United Kingdom with an economic war).

Either Ambassador Eikenberry is so ignorant of military history that he thinks the invasion failed, or else he is sending out a coded message (as well as the crass overt public messages he is issuing).

And if there is a coded message, what could that coded message be?

Is he saying that Britain might withdraw troops unilaterally, effectively refusing America support in the same way that America refused Britain support in 1956?

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/12/obama-us-troops-afghanistan-kilcullen

G20 summit

I listened to John Humphrys interviewing the Chancellor of the Exchequer this morning. It was an excellent interview and cut through the hype surrounding the “success” of the recent G20 summit to ask how the measures agreed would benefit the British population (rather than playing to the world gallery). The Chancellor of the Exchequer was unable to itemise any specific benefits other than a general we’re-all-in-this-together appeal for global solidarity.

The G20 summit has been a sham and a charade. It has been a glamorous pageant to disguise the fact that ordinary people throughout the world are about to be robbed (via quantitative easing and the subsequent devaluation of the American dollar) to pay for the recession. The most shameful and disturbing aspect is that the unelected Chinese leadership has effectively agreed to the Chinese dollar holdings being devalued in return for a worthless “seat at the top table” in the new G20 grouping (not since the Dutch bought the island of Manhattan for a few beads has such a brazen inter-continental fraud taken place).

How many expended Chinese units of labour (as priced in American dollars) are about to evaporate to give respectability to a communist regime that cares only about its own collective status? That money should be spent on Chinese health, education, welfare payments etc. Surely no good can come from this.

Prime Minister's Questions, 4th March 2009

Above: is there no end to the parade of lickspittle lapdog politicians scurrying across the Atlantic whenever there is a power change in Washington?

I watched Prime Minister's Questions at lunchtime. The Prime Minister wasn't present, having gone to America for a thirty-minute meeting with the new American president. Leader of the House Harriet Harman took the Prime Minister's place, sitting on the front bench between David Milliband and Alistair Campbell.

The studio preamble predicted that Harriet Harman would be laughed at by all sections of the Commons for her recent public populist comments and not-so-public manouvring to replace Gordon Brown. With the Prime Minister away nothing serious would be said. I prepared to witness some knockabout silliness.

But the list of armed forces personnel killed over the last two weeks seemd unusually high, and when Opposition Deputy Leader William Hague led with a reference to the lack of objectives in Afghanistan I briefly thought an attempt would be made to hold the government to account for their chaotic and contradictory foreign policy. "They have given their lives" said William Hague, and I waited for him to tell us what they had given their lives for. When he failed to develop his question I found myself becoming angry, and the rest of Prime Minister's questions passed in a blur.

What are British armed forces doing in Afghanistan? What were/are (it is unclear whether we are in or out) British armed forces doing in Iraq? What exactly is the British Prime Minister doing in Washington?

Although I have many individual American friends, for a long time I have been ambivalent about "America" in a collective sense, and I do not regard the American government (whatever party) as a friend of the United Kingdom.

At best the two countries are allies with a broad spectrum of similar interests - but it goes no further than that.

There is no special relationship, there never has been a special relationship, there never will be.

There never will be because if a democracy is functioning properly a government is the servant of its people and must put their interests first, ahead of those of foreigners.

The Anglo-American "special relationship" amounts to no more than a special permission granted by British politicians for American presidents to use United Kingdom assets and interests as if they were their own (and increasingly this means the waste of young service men and women who are being killed pointlessly in Afghanistan while America manouvres itself into a position where it can claim "peace with honor, not peace with surrender" and scuttle off home).

This is not to condemn the American government. They are a foreign government pursuing their own national interests. But I do condemn British politicians for their self-interested addiction to American publicity and (shameful to say) American money.

It is no coincidence that the mega-lying creep Tony Blair and his Lady Macbeth wife were feted at The White House while Gordon Brown was allotted thirty minutes. Foreign leaders are bought and sold as a matter of course in Washington, and those who are not in favour are given short shrift. European politicians may be finessed with more skill, but their effective status seems to be little different to the third world despots openly paid-for by the CIA (again, this is not to condemn the American government - they are a foreign government pursuing their own national interests).

Which really raises the question: what do British politicians hope to achieve by their humiliating self-abasement to American presidents? Hints are made about access to "secrets" but it is entirely unclear whether these "secrets" are really worth knowing. Reference is made to availability of military technology, but Britain is not a poor country and presumably can afford to defend itself without relying on foreign assistance.

The main beneficiaries of the "special relationship" seem to be British politicians with over-inflated egos who get an opportunity to appear on the world stage and forget for a while that they represent a small country with limited power (and ironically British power and influence was diminished in large part as a result of American foreign policy post-1945).

Thirty minutes indeed! If that is the value they put on British friendship we should try them with a dose of British neutrality. Or even (I'm talking at a government to government level) British enmity.



Above: Tristram Hunt identified some weeks ago that Britain would be slighted by the incoming American government. The British alliance has become an embarrassment to the new American administration. What do they care if a few more old-world fogeys are killed in Afghanistan.

Recession - Gordon Brown interviewed on the Today programme

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La7Sm9_1tSE&feature=related)

Above: in the years that Gordon Brown was Chancellor he made the concept of Prudence into a financial cult. Prudence was the sui generis New Labour mechanism that would prevent boom and bust. However, if you look at his record on economic policy prudence was entirely absent as the British economy abandoned monetary control and built up a huge obligation of public and private debt.

Gordon Brown was interviewed on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning. The interviewer was Evan Davis whose gushing style was not entirely appropriate to the gravity of the discussion. He also seemed to be talking to the Prime Minister as an equal ("I didn't spot the recession coming either...") which again didn't seem to be appropriate - I wanted to hear Gordon Brown critically interviewed, not listen to a discussion between two equal economists.

However my main complaint with the interview is the way in which Evan Davis did not respond to the specific things the Prime Minister was saying. One can sympathise with the situation Gordon Brown finds himself in, and many of the measures he is taking seem sensible. But from an historical point of view I want to know how this economic collapse happened and why it happened and who was involved at each different stage.

The Prime Minister told Evan Davis that this downturn was unique and had been caused by sub-prime lending in the southern states of America. Previous recessions in the United Kingdom were caused by inflationary pressures, but this recession was caused by banks lending irresponsibly. Evan Davis did not really pursue these avenues.

For instance, inflation was low NOT because of financial prudence, but because of ever more cheaper Chinese imports which kept inflation artificially low and thus kept interest rates artificially low and so allowed expansion of the money supply in the form of an almost limitless availability of cheap debt (allowing the housing market to boom and personal credit to surge - credit card maximum limits were being increased on a 6-monthly basis by unreasonable percentages). If the government had controlled the money supply sensibly how could the banks have lent irresponsibly? And when average house prices exceeded three and a half times average income was that not a signal things were getting unmanageable (and possibly that moment, whenever it happened, was a canary in the mineshaft in terms of debt in the economy)?

Gordon Brown often speaks with passion, and this passionate style sometimes reveals Freudian slips. For instance, there was a moment in the interview when he repeated Margaret Thatcher's TINA mantra ("There Is No Alternative"). For a Labour Prime Minister to use such a culturally loaded phrase (steeped in the rhetoric of the 1980s recession) seems incredible, but Evan Davis let it pass (John Humphries or Jeremy Paxman would not have done so).

Towards the end of the interview Evan Davis tried to examine Gordon Brown's promise "no more boom and bust". This was possibly the lamest part of the exchange, and in terms of transactional analysis Evan Davis was like a little child pleading with a stern parent to say "yes" (which this particular stern parent was never likely to do). It would have been better to deconstruct the phrase and ask the Prime Minister to explain why he repeatedly sent out this cultural behaviour signal.



Above: "no more boom and bust" - encouraging individuals to max out their credit cards and borrow against their homes because the good times would never come to an end. No need for caution, no need for savings. The economic cycle had been abolished.

Two alternative views are emerging about what to do with the economy. Both the Conservatives and Labour agree (broadly) on the palliative measures necessary to cushion the effects of the downturn. Where they disagree seems to be on the level of government borrowing to get the economy moving again.

To me (and I am not an economist) Monetarism seems harsh and uncaring, but I can see it must eventually work. It must work because even the gloomiest projections say 85% of the working population will remain in their jobs, and as this 85% pay off their debts they will start to "feel good" and so resume spending (especially with cheaper prices on offer for houses, cars, white goods etc). The real blow will fall on the (up to) 15% unemployed.

Keynesianism I am less certain about. Significant government spending on big capital projects will keep people employed and improve our infrastructure for when the economy recovers. Cutting taxes such as VAT will ensure people have money to "go out and spend". Forcing the banks to lend money will again ensure people can "go out and spend" as they will be able to get car-loans, mortgages, hire purchase etc. The level of government debt doesn't really matter as governments can roll the debt forward into future decades and it will eventually be dissipated by a gentle level of inflation. There will be no fall-guys in this scenario.

But what if the Keynesian strategy doesn't work and not only do we have high unemployment but ALL of the working population is saddled with a crushing level of government debt that will take many years to pay off (through higher taxes and higher interest rates and ultimately through much higher unemployment)?

To me these alternatives sound like the difference between a calorie-controlled diet and the Atkins Diet. We know that if you eat less calories and take more exercise you MUST lose weight. Unfortunately this process is difficult and painful.

But with the Atkins diet you can eat as much fried fatty food as you want and not only will you lose weight you will be leaner and have less fat in your body. The Atkins diet is easy to keep to, as you are eating the things you like in the quantities you like. The Atkins diet became wildly popular in the early years of this century as it told people basically what they wanted to hear.

I would love there to be an easy way out of this economic mess, but in my heart I know there is not.

Listen to the Prime Minister's interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm

More on the notorious TINA phrase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative

More on Transactional Analysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis

Another fine mess

Yet another government IT project has turned into a fiasco. The Department for Transport has been accused of "stupendous incompetence" over the introduction of a "streamlined" master computer system. No-one has been dismissed over the fiasco.



The government persists in introducing "master" IT projects which all too predictably turn into white elephants. The DfT master computer is just another fine mess to go alongside the Child Support Agency's failed computer upgrade; the Department for Work and Pensions' abandonment of three major schemes; and the faltering NHS computer system (cost £13 billion). There have also been numerous scandals with security of personal data held by the state.

Not sure why there is this megalomania for grandioise IT projects. It would be more sensible for smaller units of administration to have devolved powers of expenditure rather than everything being "top down" from Westminster/Whitehall (or Cardiff or Holyrood). Counties are the ideal size for accountable administration - any larger things become unmanageable, any smaller things become too parochial (and unlike "Regions" the counties would attract local loyalty).

Project management by the government is just one fine mess after another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQiotyPDsw&feature=related

The demonisation of foreigners

Above: the use of foreigners as scapegoats for a nation's problems has a long (and disreputable) history. Several times yesterday, in an interview for the Politics Show, government minister Yvette Cooper said the economic crisis "came from America". New York financiers are to blame for our troubles (trade unionists and Scottish Nationalists have blamed "Non-dom spivs and speculators", non-dom being shorthand for non-domiciled financiers living in London).

Financial “meltdown” and turmoil in the markets.

Many comparisons with the past are being made.

As a (very amateur) historian, with an interest in economics, I have been struck by the demonisation of foreigners in the lexicon of the present “credit crunch”.

How many politicians recently have said our problems “have come from America”?

In 1920s Germany politicians blamed “international financiers” for their economic problems.

In the 1970s James Callaghan blamed “the gnomes of Zurich” for Britain’s economic woes.

Today we are being told the economic crisis “came from America”.

In times of crisis it is always easier to blame “the other”.

David Miliband’s “Heseltine moment”

Finally I have finished the customer attitudes report I have been writing. I took the work home on Monday and worked until 2 am. On Tuesday I stayed at home working from 9 am until 3.30 am (Wednesday). Yesterday I finally finished it, working intensively from 9 am until 10 pm.

The result is a 50 page report containing twenty thousand words. The client is amazed at what I have found out about their customers, and has already described the report as “monumental”. The critics in my office, who were complaining about how long I was taking, have been silenced (thank goodness).

Today I have had a day off to recover.

Working at home has an odd feel to it. While it is comfortable, it is also quite lonely. When I needed a break I would take the dog along the lane for ten minutes, the sun shining, the quiet landscape empty of human life.

While I worked (at the table in the dining room) I had Andrew Neil on the television in the long Sitting Room next door, reporting from the Labour Party Conference. I also would stop in the evening to watch Newsnight (again focused upon the Labour Party Conference). The (unofficial) theme of the conference was the survival of Gordon Brown.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband was overheard comparing himself to Michael Heseltine (infamous for his overweening ambition in the 1980s). This gaff was supposed to have dampened down his leadership challenge against “Gordon”. Andrew Neil interviewed a succession of Cabinet ministers (including Culture Secretary Burnham), all of them proclaiming loyalty and unity.

I listened to Gordon Brown speech and thought it was good. I quite like him as a person, although his government is another matter. “Gordon” attacked the “novices” who were after his job (David Miliband and David Cameron).

I also quite like David Cameron as a person. He is an interesting person and not at all the lightweight he is accused of being. He has the ability to inspire people to hope for the future, which is a quality that will be needed in the difficult years ahead (consider the way he has taken a failing "nasty" party of three-time losers and led them to the brink of government).

Above: The reference to David Miliband’s “Heseltine moment” made me think of this “time-capsule” sealed into a wall along Millbank (and mutilated by passers-by). What would happen if we were to open this time-capsule? There would be an escape of foetid 1980s air, perhaps reeking of perfumed hair oil. There would be an unsettling moment as the zipped-up frustrated Heseltine ambitions were suddenly released. And then (so I imagine) there would be a loud echoing laugh as the genie of Michael Heseltine rushed out and expanded to giant-size, hovering over Westminster. Whatever a Cameron administration means, Heseltine must stay securely in his box.

Even loyal supporters are deserting the field of battle

Above: at every stage Labour has been outwitted by the Conservatives (quote is from today’s Guardian).

Lunchtime, and I went into the Conference Room at twelve o’clock to watch the return of Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics.

As the Conference Room has three glass walls I felt a bit exposed sitting there watching the television until Terry (our MD) came in to join me.

Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics has a unique approach to political stories, treating all issues with a mocking and satirical interpretation that exposes pomposity and deceit in a way that only a genuine “insiders” can. “All power corrupts” Lord Acton said in 1887, and Daily Politics looks for the corruption that inevitably underlies political decisions and manifestations of government power. As someone who mistrusts politicians (especially the messianic saviour types, whether Left or Right) it is reassuring to know they are being watched in this way.

The programme is presented by Andrew Neil, Jo Coburn and Liz MacKean, who work very well together as a team.

Ostensibly reporting from the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth, the programme cross-referenced this with the continuing demise of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In a discussion with columnists from The Times and The Independent the Prime Minister was described as “staggering” towards disaster. Liberal Democrat spokesman Vince Cable, in a speech shown live on the programme, called Gordon Brown a “twitching corpse”.

Like Richard III at Bosworth, support for “Gordon” is ebbing away. Even loyal supporters are deserting the field of battle. Traitors and arch-traitors are all around him (in a sensational betrayal at the start of the summer recess, a smiling Foreign Secretary David Miliband published an article and fronted a press conference that completely undermined and marginalised “Gordon” and effectively treated him as a non-person).

Later in the programme Andrew Neil interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who said the “Whitehall machine” was too big, and promised tax cuts if the Liberal Democrats get into government (possible if there is a hung parliament).

David Cameron has also started to talk about tax cuts.

Terry interpreted these tax-cutting promises:

“They intend to dismantle Labour’s empire. They could probably cut quite a lot by only targeting the claques and cliques Labour has embedded in local and national government. Just by stripping political correctness out of the system they could save a hefty sum for tax cuts, and without antagonising ordinary people.”

There has been a lot of talk about the “fatalism” of the Labour party, and the “inevitability” of their decline. Commentators struggle to understand why the decline should be inevitable. Possibly anthropology can provide an answer.

We are witnessing the playing-out of an age-old myth that has recurred in western Europe since pre-classical times. It is a variation of the cult of the Golden Bough in the grove at Nemi, discovered and analysed by Sir James Frazer over ninety years ago (the king who slew the slayer and must himself be slain). This is the way (sub-consciously) we choose our leaders, and the story must play out to its end.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/

War between Georgia and Russia

Above: the Daily Mail today relegated the war in Georgia to pages 6 and 7. On the front page was a report about binge drinking (an important subject, but not comparable to a shooting war). Editor of the Daily Mail is Paul Dacre, whose policy is supposedly "Make them laugh, make them cry, or make them angry". Owner of the Daily Mail is Viscount Rothermere who has (according to the Sunday Times) a personal fortune of one billion (an American billion, not an English one). Viscount Rothermere has said: “The Daily Mail supports the middle class of this country” - and undeniably the British middle classes (C1s) are not interested in foreign wars.

Suddenly a war has flared up in a remote part of the world, involving obscure provinces with unpronounceable names.

All I previously knew of the Caucasus was gleaned by reading a Biggles book of short stories dating from the 1940s and passed on to me by my eldest brother (goodness know where he got it from). In The Adventure of the Counterfeit Crusaders Biggles and Ginger fly out to the Caucasus to foil a dastardly German plot. The Caucasus is described as a network of valleys each one of which is inhabited by a different civilisation, including descendants of the medieval crusaders.

Anyway, when the war between Georgia and Russia broke out last Friday I was slightly interested because of the correlation between the communities of this mountainous region and the book of short stories I read when I was an 8-year-old. But after the first twenty-four hours I became bored by the coverage (all through the weekend the news reports just repeated each other, with no analysis or context). Then Newsnight yesterday produced riveting reports from the war zone - some of the best reporting I have ever seen.

After an introduction by Emily Maitlis we saw Andrew North, the BBC’s Iraq correspondent, on the ground in Georgia. Ignoring personal safety he crawled into the wrecked flat of an elderly Georgian woman and showed us her blood spattered on the walls. He went into the local morgue (staff choking with smell of death) and counted the bodies. He showed us exhausted medical staff at the hospital. He interviewed ordinary people in the streets and asked them what they thought of the situation (as if conducting a survey in Oxford Street). He confronted officials and asked them if they had provoked the conflict. All this was done in an modest and unobtrusive way, the disturbing images accompanied by an elegantly spare narrative. It was some of the best reporting I have ever seen. This is how I imagine Alan Moorhead to have worked.

More: http://www.journalisted.com/article?id=741425

Betrayal

Above: extremely blurred photograph I took at Port Sunlight of the William Holman Hunt painting The Scapegoat (the museum didn’t allow you to use a flash, and the only angle I could see the whole painting was from the gallery).

Plotting against Gordon Brown by his own parliamentary colleagues is reported as feverish, although the press has yet to use the word “febrile” (an adjective seemingly reserved for mass hysteria in the House of Commons).

Newsnight yesterday led on the plotting, denials of plotting and incipient betrayal. Pictures in The Times and The Guardian show “Gordon” on holiday in Southwold, looking ill-at-ease in a casual jacket while attempting to converse with normal people, all the time aware of what is being said behind his back. If “Gordon” can be loaded with all the ills of the government (the thinking goes) and then “despatched”, the anger of the people will be assuaged.



Above: Andrew Porter writing in the Daily Telegraph about Gordon Brown’s predicament. He is a very perceptive political writer. Also able to express himself in down to earth concepts.

Sir James Frazer has written in The Golden Bough about the role of the scapegoat in primitive societies, especially those individuals marked as human scapegoats (“…so few sands in the hour glass, slipping so fast away, sufficed for one who had wasted so many precious years”). It is impossible not to feel pity for Gordon Brown, about to be betrayed by his friends. And as a cultural device the idea of the scapegoat is still with us - how many people in our post-industrial, ultra-sophisticated, intelligence-economy environments have not been made scapegoats ourselves, carrying the mistakes of others?

Betrayal is a complex phenomenon. Few people who practice it remain unmarked. A further complication is that Gordon Brown is (so far as we are allowed to see) a genuinely good person trying to do his best - only a paragon will be able to knife him and carry on unscathed.



Above: The V&A had a recent exhibition of theatre set designs - they were fascinating. This one is of Harold Pinter’s 1978 play Betrayal. On the subject of Harold Pinter, his wife Lady Antonia Fraser was featured on Desert Island Discs last week and demonstrated why she is regarded as one of our greatest historians and intellectuals.

More on the Pinter play: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_(play)

"Gordon" looking very uncomfortable on holiday: http://www.hellomagazine.com/photo-galleries.html?imagen=/royalty/2008/07/28/cameron-brown-hols/imgs/cameron-brown-hol2-a.jpg

Knife crime from a marketing perspective

Above: not keen on David Aaronovitch as a columnist - he has a contrarian style that is very irritating.

“Debate” on the propensity of young people (especially young men, and especially in urban areas) to carry knives and stab each other has reached almost all sections of the media, and is threatening the uneasy political consensus on the subject.

The consensus is that “we still don’t know” (David Aaronovitch in today’s Times) why young men are carrying knives, still less why they are using them. All (mainstream) political opinion subscribes to this collective myopia. If pushed commentators will say “Society” is to blame because of the bleakness and inequality of inner city urban life (this is a very convenient position to take, since if “everyone” is to blame then it follows no-one is to blame, and therefore there is no need to do anything).

Looking at knife crime from a marketing perspective (which is the only way I am qualified to look at it) there seems to be chronic obfuscation over the issue of demographics (which is of concern, since if you do not target your audience properly only by accident will your message get through to them).



Yesterday’s Guardian told us that according to a report by Manchester University’s School of Law there were no defining characteristics of gang-related knife crime and that the position was hopelessly “messy” (the report based on 100 interviews with gang members carried out in an anonymous city - it is possible this city might be somewhere particularly un-diverse such as Exeter or Lincoln or Winchester).



Saturday’s Guardian devoted several pages to five in-depth case-studies on perpetrators of knife crime, none of whom fitted "the usual stereotype". These case-studies troubled me since they were so much at variance with the accustomed image. I thought possibly it was an Orwellian attempt to portray as “reality” the opposite of reality. Or possibly it was an attempt to even the balance since one particular community has had so many fingers pointed at it. Nevertheless, the picture presented by columnist Erwin James was troubling because it was at variance with my perception of the evidence.

And what is the evidence?

One national newspaper (either the Independent or the Guardian) published a portrait of every victim of knife crime in London over the last year. Immediately you could recognise a defining demographic according to age, ethnicity and social group. To pretend otherwise is to deny the obvious.

Occasionally you see heavily coded attempts to discuss this demographic without actually naming the target audience - for instance, politicians will give unqualified praise to “the projects of Camila Batmanghelidjh”.

Occasionally interviewers will ask questions. Gavin Esler in Newsnight yesterday asked an inner city social worker about “black on black” crime but the social worker just ignored the question (Jeremy Paxman wouldn’t have let him get away with this). The rest of this interview consisted of a talking head (on a screen) from the government and two studio guests who fitted the “dead white males” category, all of them talking round the problem in an extremely oblique way.

So from these scraps of evidence, gained in an extremely circuitous fashion, I have attempted in marketing terms to “define the situation”:

Target audience - young (sometimes very young) black men, social class C2, D and E, living mainly on inner city social housing estates in London and other major urban centres.

Characteristics - formed into internally-sociable peer groups, possessing a considerable sense of loyalty, they have developed sophisticated local cultures defined in ritual behaviour and fashion, visual/musical expression and an impenetrable linguistic dialect. They have a romantic self-image of themselves as “doomed”. Over recent years this demographic has taken a deliberate decision to arm itself - generally with knives and swords, increasingly with guns.

Wider cultural resonance - the “death or glory” ethos is a recurring theme in western societies with a succession of role models (Tybalt the “prince of cats” in Romeo & Juliet; Rupert Brooke going to war as if “into cleanness leaping”; James Dean’s death wish of speed and excitement etc). It is not surprising that young black urban men should develop their own “anthem for doomed youth” narrative that tells them they have a heroic (but doomed) destiny. If anything this demographic should be applauded - alone and unaided they have achieved Maslow’s goal of self-actualisation and invented (out of nothing) a world where they feel valued and fulfilled.

Because the lifestyle they have adopted is based on self-actualisation it cannot be changed by appeals to conform to mainstream values (even “the projects of Camila Batmanghelidjh” are unlikely to have much effectiveness, except at the margins and among those who did not buy the lifestyle in the first place). Probably the demographic lifestyle will have to be subverted from within, with the selling of a more attractive lifestyle that satisfies their desire for “death or glory” but without anyone actually getting hurt.

On a practical and immediate level the demographic must be disarmed. If they are not disarmed then other demographics will choose to arm themselves (and I guess this is already happening) with the logical conclusion that everyone in society must be given the right to bear arms. Even at the risk of renewed local rioting, the police must urgently take the weapons away.

Anyway, that’s how I see things. I have tried to be dispassionate, but this situation represents significant failure at a number of levels. Failure of political leadership, failure of community leadership, failure of policing policy in London, failure of the segregation policies of multi-culturalism, failure of the self-censorship of political correctness, failure of a materialist consumerist society that promises self-actualisation through material goods (actually not possible) then denies certain demographics the ability to consume those material goods.

I didn’t like this at first, but it grows on you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxR4AweLeXE

Suitably Orwellian

Above: I think this article was in The Times - interesting bit about the CCTV graphic.

Today is the day of the Haltemprice & Howden parliamentary by-election.

At first I strenuously tried to keep politics out of this blog, but now I realise that politics is crucial to understanding popular culture. However much we may dislike and distrust politicians, we are obliged to watch what they do. Otherwise the result is almost always disaster.

The Haltemprice & Howden by-election was called when Tory MP (and Shadow Home Secretary) David Davis resigned his seat and then immediately stood for re-election, saying it would be a verdict on the government’s introduction of 42-days detention without trial. David Davis has assumed the role of principled champion against the tyranny of an oppressive state. As the Labour party is not contesting the election presumably they are conceding the point of his argument.

However, David Davis is an arrogant and vain attention-seeker. Before resigning he was very careful to do a deal with the Liberal Democrats, thus ensuring he was not really risking his seat in Parliament. He is probably doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.



Above: Banksy mural in Newman Street (by the Post Office Sorting Office - he painted it under the gaze of the security camera).

David Davis is doing the right thing because British society is increasingly becoming one of surveillance, restriction and petty bureaucracy. Anyone who has read Orwell’s 1984 will be struck by the similarities with today: ubiquitous surveillance cameras, politically correct “thought crimes”, politicians spouting “doublespeak”, an endless war being fought overseas, an endless internal war being fought against a shadowy seditious organisation, individuals who “disappear” into the system etc etc. In his video Sandstorm (url below) Darude captures the popular mood that many people feel - life is an exhausting dash for freedom pursued by authoritarian “them” figures.



Above: pathetic gesture though it might be, I have finally cut up my Tesco Clubcard.

Huge quantities of information are being collected on everyone within the United Kingdom, with no meaningful veto by the individual on how that information might be used. The Data Protection act is supposed to protect people from intrusive use of their personal details. In reality, companies ignore the act, preferring to risk paying the (minimal) fines if caught - although in all my (considerable) experience of direct mail campaigns, I have never known an offending company to be prosecuted.

I stopped using my Tesco Clubcard about a year ago when I began to suspect that company was becoming too powerful. I finally cut the card up today. It was my Winston Smith moment of rebellion (in my day-job I am fully implicated in the collection and use of consumer data).



Above: within days the current Channel 4 series of Big Brother had attracted 1,500 complaints to Ofcom.

Orwell’s concept of Big Brother has been reinvented as a reality TV show. A dozen or so contestants are locked into a confined set of rooms under constant television surveillance for about three months. The programme “reveals” what we already know - without the restraints and inhibitions of our two-thousand-year culture ordinary people will regress to animals (those who are different will be rejected, those who are weak will be bullied and manipulated, gangs will form and define themselves by hatred of the “others”, gangs will seek to control the food supply, paranoia will become an all-enveloping mood, hostile behaviour will be sparked by the most trivial of reasons etc).



Above: the Ofcom offices in Southwark.

Ofcom is a suitably Orwellian diminutive of the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries. The Chief Executive of Ofcom (a pathetically ineffective organisation) is Ed Richards, who was previously in his career an adviser to Gordon Brown. As it is almost a certainty that Labour is not going to win the next election one of the most useful things they could do in their last two years or so would be to break-up and destroy News International in the United Kingdom (surely this would have cross-party support?).

Big Brother’s two minute “Hate” followed by the anthem of Oceania: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Kznmrc3o4

Ad inspired by the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

Darude’s Sandstorm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erb4n8PW2qw

More about Ofcom: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

Prime Minister's Questions 25th June 2008

Above: ham salad sandwich, mango and passion fruit panna cotta, Still Sea Breeze to drink (followed by a coffee, followed by a glass of water, followed by a shared packet of crisps).

Wednesday lunchtime, and a disappointing Prime Minister’s Questions. This should be an opportunity to ask the most powerful person in the country to explain his policies, account for his decisions, apologise for his mistakes (if any). Instead we had time-wasting, posturing, and planted questions of the “I’m very glad my honourable friend raised that important point” variety.

A stuttering Labour MP began the questions today by asking about Zimbabwe. Black mark to David Cameron for joining in this posturing about a situation we can do nothing about. The news bulletins and newspapers have been filled with repetitive reports about Zimbabwe which tell us nothing except that Robert Mugabe is a monster (and most people knew that already). BBC reporters are not allowed into Zimbabwe and so we see their clandestine correspondent “somewhere” in southern Africa whispering from the shadows about how bad things are (although given the history of finchamesque fakery, it could all have been mocked up in the studio). The opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is optimistically represented as a saviour figure, and yet he will probably behave as badly as Mugabe once he has got into power (I am basing this on the experiences of Uganda after Amin, Kenya after Moi, Zaire-Congo after Mobutu etc). The situation is tragically sad, but do we really want to employ our politicians in pointless hand-wringing instead of getting on with their day-jobs?

Liberal leader Nick Clegg asked (yet again) about the so-called grievances of the Ghurkhas, who want backdated special treatment (more money, pensions, residence rights etc). Did no-one explain to them the compensation package when they first signed-up? I do not want my money spent on open-ended commitments of this kind (or Iraqi interpreters - Mr Blair should compensate those from his vast personal fortune).

Zimbabwe, the Ghurkhas and two Labour questions (ie planted questions about oil speculators and child poverty targets) and we had reached the half-way mark. Fifteen minutes had passed with no effective questioning of the Prime Minister on issues relevant to ordinary people. The Speaker did nothing about this situation.

The second half was not much better. There was a spectacularly theatrical question from the Labour farthest benches about the wisdom and sagacity of the Prime Minister in continuing to ensure the continuation of the NHS in its 60th year. Twenty-three minutes after the start of PMQs and the Speaker at last called a second Tory questioner (not that I am especially keen to hear Tories, but as things stand at the moment that is the only direction questions critical of the government are going to come from).

Then things fizzled out.

Probably the most interesting question of the day was asked by Andrew Neil back in the studio - why do “husband and wife team” Sir Nicholas and Lady Ann Winterton still have the Tory whip after their grossly immoral expenses claims were revealed (and later today were reports that Labour “husband and wife team” Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper were doing something dodgy over second home expenses - these “husband and wife” teams seem to be all over the place, as if the House of Commons was some extended episode of the game-show Mr & Mrs).

Today’s PMQs: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page306.asp

More on jackpot game-show Mr & Mrs: http://www.ukgameshows.com/page/index.php?title=Mr_and_Mrs

Snouts in the trough 2

A Tory MEP (Member of the European Parliament) has been caught “channelling” expenses into a company account owned by his family. Like the Speaker of the House of Commons he was supposed to be stopping corruption, not indulging in it himself (does corruption cease to be corruption if it is technically “within the rules”? - I don’t think so). On Newsnight Kirsty Wark interviewed a Liberal-Democrat MEP and exposed on air the fact that he was “channelling” his expenses (which are HUGE) into running the Liberal-Democrat Party (and so imposing on us, without any mandate, taxpayer funding of political parties).

The Tory MEP tried to claim it was all a mistake. A “whoops-a-daisy” accident whereby the money sort-of fell into a place is shouldn’t have. It reminded me of Father Ted, exiled to a remote island parish for financial misdemeanours, who claimed “that money was only resting in my account.”

More on Father Ted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Ted



Above: Victoria Coren writing about Margaret Beckett's pergola.

Prime Minister's questions, 4th June 2008

Wednesday lunchtime. Quite a crowd in the Board Room for Prime Minister’s Questions. Some of them just wandered in with their sandwiches and Ribena, not knowing what was going to be on the television (perhaps expecting Jeremy Kyle), but Alan and myself wanted pmqs, and Terry leaned against the open doorway, watching.

Gasps from Aine when David Cameron appeared (“Look at his hair - it’s bizarre”).

Fierce exchange between David Cameron and Gordon Brown on the subject of Road Tax. David Cameron got the best of the argument, with several (apparently) off-the-cuff jokes (ie Gordon Brown made a jibe about David Cameron riding a bike to the House of Commons with his official car following immediately behind, to which David Cameron replied “It’s not my backbenchers who are telling me to get on my bike”). Interestingly, if you play the whole Cameron-Brown exchange without sound, the Prime Minister’s body language was almost perfect, which suggests his problems lie in vocal delivery.

The Speaker was unusually belligerent, telling people off to his left and his right.

“Look at all the red ties” said Alan disapprovingly when the camera showed the Labour benches.

The Liberal Democrat leader complained that the government was continually passing laws which are never enforced (echoing the Today Programme this morning which reported abuse in care homes for the elderly going unpunished because the existing laws are not enforced).

Boris Johnson, retiring MP for Henley, asked his last House of Commons question, with Gordon Brown very gracious to him in reply.

Most important question (in my opinion) was asked by Dr Howard Stoate about alcohol advertising in sport - the Prime Minister just said it would be the subject of a “review”.

Space on the government front bench seemed unusually cramped so that Ed Balls (Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families) was bunched up between Ruth Kelly and a minister you never quite saw in toto. When the camera was at a particular angle you could see that all the time the Prime Minister was speaking Ed Balls was nodding and smiling and talking to his neighbours. The sight seemed so familiar I thought I was experiencing déjà vu, until I remembered the episode of The World At War I watched last night, which showed Herman Goering in the dock at Nuremberg.

Right at the end came the usual sycophantic question from a backbench supporter of the government. I forget who asked the question, but in the row behind you could see the big head of Peter Hain. The expression on Peter Hain’s head was one of bemused disbelief (as if he were silently saying “what planet is this man on?”).



Above: Ed Balls (centre) was nodding and smiling and talking to his neighbours.

You can see the full exchange (lasts half an hour): http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page15633.asp