War on Terror: Time to surrender?

With the latent terror threat facing the country having been brought into sickeningly sharp focus this week by the murder of Lee Rigby, is it time to question our inclusion in any overseas campaigns capable of causing blood to be spilled on pavements back home?

Amid the groundswell of public support for our servicemen and women that perhaps epitomises the finer features of our national character, David Cameron was at pains to point out that the way to truly counter terrorism is to carry on regardless. After all, if the aim of terrorism is to engender fear, then the combative reaction would be to proudly portray that it’s just business as usual. This may indeed send the message that Britain will not bow to an extremist agenda, yet it smacks a little of rationalising inactivity, and was received as such by many twitterers, bloggers and chat-room cloggers.

Inaction may be an option the Coalition can ill afford. With voters veering away to UKIP and even murmurs of malcontent beneath the front benches, the real “swivel-eyed loons” may be those who fail to factor in the mood music beyond Westminster. And you certainly can’t hear it from Ibiza.

Amid the tributes, of course, fell the predictable backlash. The Faith Matters helpline have received over 160 reports of anti-Muslim incidents since Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered, according to the BBC, up from a normal daily average of just six. Whilst ignorant and indefensible, these attacks represent a potent but poorly articulated statement of frustration that is unlikely to be appeased by a Prime Minister sunning himself on a Spanish island. Yes, we have Blackberries and the internet, so he isn’t out of signal, but worse perhaps would be out of touch.

Speaking on Sky News, before packing his sandals and sunscreen, David Cameron said; “We will never give in to terror, or terrorism, in any of its forms." Robust rhetoric, but what is the point of a stiff upper lip, if you keep getting a bloody nose?

The chilling comments of Lee Rigby’s alleged assailant show the scale of a situation that might be better side-stepped than confronted. Explaining his actions to local Cub Scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, in the aftermath of the attack, Michael Adebolajo directly cited British foreign policy, specifically the killing of “Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

If the motivation for our meddling was preventing breeding grounds for terrorism, and so keeping our streets safe back home, then the death of Lee Rigby is a cruel reminder of its abject failure.

Overseas intervention in Iraq cost the UK over £8 billion, Afghanistan looks like nearer £20 billion. The so-called 'War on Terror' has been a truly cross-party cock-up. When Tony Blair stood ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with George Bush after 9/11, a great big target rubbed off onto all of us. Then David Cameron took office, announcing his foreign policy priorities as; “Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan.” He has failed on all three.

Islamic extremism has been a ticking time-bomb for years. Instead of committing billions of pounds, and countless lives, in the fruitless pursuit of diffusing it, perhaps the most responsible line of defence from our leaders would be to remove the reasons we have become a target?  

Football Violence: Sickness or Symptom

 The so-called ‘beautiful game’ is often watched by some very ugly people, but the violent scenes witnessed during the FA Cup semi-final and north-east derby at the weekend may have very little to do with football. A sporting fixture provides the forum, arguably even the catalyst, but the frustration fuelling the fighting might have roots running deeper than rivalry. As Thatcher and thuggery make a simultaneous return to the front pages, should we now expect a renaissance of the unrest that scarred our stadiums through the 1980s?

The recession of three decades ago was the deepest since World War II. Unemployment passed three million, affecting 11.9% of the working population by 1984. As manufacturing output fell, Conservative Chancellor Geoffrey Howe increased taxes and cut public spending. Against a backdrop of class division and industrial unrest, Mrs Thatcher’s government decreed that workers coming out on strike would see their benefits slashed.

It’s not entirely true to say that football is the opera of the working class, but it is perhaps no great surprise that amid deepening discontent amongst Britain’s blue collar workers, a minority would take it onto the terraces.

Whilst the overcoming of shared hardship can produce a galvanising effect, the reverse is also true. With Thatcher’s assertion that there was no such thing as society, those on the sharp end of Eighties economics were effectively told they were on their own. The politics of every-man-for-himself is always welcomed by the winners, whether it brings a Porsche and pin-stripes or buying your council house. However, the excess of the 1980s was cold comfort for those who became the first in their families not to find work waiting at the pit, plant, or factory down the street.

The violence that erupted this week at Wembley and St James’ Park was an unpleasant echo of events that saw English clubs banned from European competition for five years, following the Heysel Stadium disaster. Such scenes are inexcusable in any context, but it would be naïve to simply dismiss them as unfortunate side-effects of football culture.

 

As members of the public and parliament alike are pausing to observe the passing of an eighties icon, many are again at the mercy of economics beyond their control. The current Downing Street tenants might allege that “we are all in this together”, but they would do well to remember that for those left disenfranchised by the politics of plenty, there’s nothing quite like the poison of poverty to pierce our all too thin veil of civilisation.

                                            

Thatcher, The Marmite Baroness.

Possibly the most polarising figure of British politics across any era, Margaret Thatcher remains as divisive in death as she was in life. Wrangling over welfare cuts and simmering brinkmanship in North Korea were temporarily tossed to the inside pages, on the announcement of the former Prime Minister’s passing. The great, the good, the guarded and the grumpy, were queuing up to extol and eulogize, or verbally eviscerate. No matter what your opinion of her, it was hard not to have one.

The PM cut short his intended itinerary in Europe, dashing to Downing Street and leaving the French President without a dinner date. Pomp before politics perhaps, but he was never going to miss this moment, or worse still, leave the tribute to a Tory titan to his Lib Dem Deputy. David Cameron paid tribute to the “patriot Prime Minister”, and her “lion-hearted love of this country”, a nation he said she not only lead, but “saved”. Perhaps conscious of an impending onslaught of less obsequious outpourings, Mr Cameron concluded with a reminder that Mrs Thatcher was also “a mother and grandmother, and we should think of her family tonight.” It appears that those popping champagne corks around the lions of Trafalgar Square may not have heard him.

The emotions erupting across every social media platform in response to her death speak to the deep division Baroness Thatcher still elicits. Time has clearly not healed all wounds. The passion with which she was both praised and pilloried suggested the rupturing of ancient, long-untapped arteries of antagonism, which were more than equal to the admiration she also inspired.

Growing up as children of teachers, our standard of living stagnated as health and education spending was steadily eroded. I may have been trained to detest the avarice which underpinned Thatcher’s economic policies in the 1980s, but the enlightenment of education and adulthood furnished me with my own reasons to continue my disenchantment.

The relaxing of banking regulation in October 1986 is directly responsible for the casino culture that caused the financial crisis, and the grand privatisations just produced companies who will always put profit before investment in infrastructure and provision of affordable public services. That is why the only thing many rail commuters can rely on today is an over-inflation fare increase every January.

Those that loved Baroness Thatcher should be allowed to mourn their loss, and as for the rest of us, surely celebrating the death of an elderly grandmother has no place in a civilised society. She may have said; “there is no such thing as a society,” but that was just another thing she was wrong about.

Thatcher died in the Ritz Hotel, while many of those on the sharp end of her economic policies would be hard pushed to meet their maker in a Travel Lodge. Tormenting her memory on twitter won’t change anything, compassion and using your vote just might.  

Happy 40th Birthday to the 'Brick'.

If your mobile phone mysteriously orders a Maserati this week, or rashly runs off with a much younger model, it could possibly point to a mid-life crisis brought on by its 40^th birthday.

The very first ‘cellphone’ call was made four decades ago by senior Motorola engineer Martin Cooper to Dr Joel S. Engel, an employee of rival telecoms giant AT&T. Although pipped at the post by his pioneering counterpart, Dr Engel probably then made the second most important discovery of the day, that you can’t slam the phone down on a mobile call, to any real degree of satisfaction anyway, without breaking it. Cooper’s prototype, the catchily titled DynaTAC, was mildly more convenient than actually carrying a phonebox around with you, but weighing in at over a kilogram, not significantly lighter. 

Interviewed on Sky News, Mr Cooper said the phone was over nine inches long, and its meagre 20 minutes talk time was actually quite sufficient, because you couldn’t hold that brick up to your ear for much longer anyway. When asked for his reaction to the development of the so-called smartphone, interestingly, he said he was rather disappointed. “We are trying to build a devise that is all things for all people,” he said, “that does not allow you to do any of them really well.” As one who has never found a better way to send a number from my contacts list in a text message, other than balancing the phone precariously on my knee and scribbling the number on my hand first, I concur. That is the most frustrating telecommunications experience I have ever had, apart from the day I bought a Blackberry, and the 712 days afterwards when I had to use it.

The global population is currently believed to be around seven billion, and the International Telecommunications Union now estimates that six billion have a mobile phone. In the UK alone some 92% of us have one, and the rest probably just left theirs in their other trousers. Disappointing or otherwise, the mobile phone is now an assumed appendage to our daily faculties. But the man who made that initial pioneering call now cautions that we mould our lives around our mobiles, rather than designing them to meet our needs. “I am looking forward to big improvements in the future”, Cooper says, “mostly aimed at customising phones to people, making the phone your slave, instead of you being a slave to the phone.”      

I would think of a deeply salient point to end on, probably suggesting the modern mobile offers those with nothing positive to say, ever increasing mediums to do so, I would, but my phone’s ringing…   

Who needs nuclear weapons anyway?

A heavily-guarded nuclear facility 150 miles south west of Tehran is now an active production plant, according to information obtained by The Telegraph. Photographs show a cloud of steam rising from the location, to which inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been denied access for the past 18 months. This evidence may indicate the ‘heavy-water’ production through which a nuclear rector can generate the plutonium required to produce a bomb. Either that, or someone is making an awful lot of tea.

Although Iran is not yet believed to have the technology needed to reprocess plutonium, as required for weaponry, this development will be causing headaches in high places. The Telegraph quote Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US State Department official at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, as suggesting that Iran might acquire the required reprocessing technology from North Korea.

If Mr Fitzpatrick had any evidence as to why a reclusive totalitarian regime, communist in all but name, would ably assist an Islamic Republic almost 4000 miles away, he was not letting on. However, the implication is that people we don’t like must all know each other. Worryingly reminiscent of when we were told that Saddam Hussein was best mates with al-Qaeda, so we should attack him, or them, or preferably everybody, and we all remember how that one turned out.

Back home, it seems likely the Labour Party will echo Conservative commitments to support a like-for-like replacement for Trident. The Independent report that Ed Miliband will include the maintenance of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent in his election pledges, leaving just the Liberal Democrats ploughing a lonely furrow of cheaper alternatives.

Robust rhetoric about defence of the realm will play well in the shires, but may not be music to every ear in times of austerity. With the UK losing its AAA credit rating, national debts of £1,111 billion and counting, stalling growth and a flat-lining economy, can we really afford to spend £25 billion replacing something we never used in the first place? Germany has no nukes, but has retained its AAA rating, has a higher GDP per capita than us and a significantly more successful football team.  

Granted, with rogue states doggedly pursuing a nuclear narrative, we need major players on the world stage with suitably armed sabres to rattle when required. That is what America is for, that and the West Wing. Only nine out of 195 sovereign states on the planet have nuclear weapons, and one of them is an island just 500km across, ranked just 23^rd richest in the world by the IMF, who really can’t afford them. It’s time to have a serious conversation about whether we really need an independent nuclear arsenal. Britain isn’t a bulldog anymore, it’s a Jack Russell, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s lower maintenance.

One Billion Rising

As 109 balloons rose up into the skies above Parliament Square on Valentine’s Day morning, a billion people across the planet prepared to rise up to oppose violence against women. The brainchild of the playwright Eve Ensler, of The Vagina Monologues fame, ‘One Billion Rising’ saw women, men, and children across 203 countries take to the streets to dance in protest, in unity, and support. Statistically, one in three women will be subjected to sexual or physical violence at some time in their lives, which constitutes a billion global victims.  

The international day of action was the culmination of a project coordinated by Ensler’s ‘V-Day’ organisation, which has raised over $85 million in the last 15 years to fund education and anti-violence initiatives across the world. In addition to messages of support from world leaders including David Cameron and his Australian counterpart Julia Gillard, a sprinkling of celebrity activists like Thandie Newton and Anne Hathaway, folk of every creed and colour were galvanised into a potent display of people power, performing Debbie Allen’s spirited choreography. 

600 Egyptians danced together in western Cairo, others on the shore of The Red Sea. Human chains stretched across Dhaka, as Polish women danced inside the Warsaw Central train station. Similar scenes were witnessed in Ethiopia, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Afghanistan, along with most major cities across the western world. Eve Ensler was among the hundreds dancing in the City of Joy, the refuge for rape victims she established in the Democratic Republic of Congo, still regarded as the rape capital of the world.

Ensler described the global response to One Billion Rising as “beyond her wildest dreams,” and she is a woman who can certainly dream big. But now the dancers’ blisters are better, and the press releases have wrapped last week’s fish and chips, what should a worldwide refocusing on the issue actually look like?  

Despite warm words and admirable intentions, the pursuit of progress faces substantial stumbling blocks on both a personal and parliamentary level. In the United States, the Guardian reports Republican resistance to the Violence Against Women’s Act, because its proposed legal protections would extend to undocumented immigrants. Would that equate to an essential economic adjustment in times of austerity? Or proof that only in a puppet democracy do human rights come with strings attached?

Our political representatives have long had an ability to water down a bit of people power into policy impasse. Just as appalling, however, were the unpublishable utterings of a knuckle dragging minority on twitter, poignantly proving the need for the project they so poisonously opposed. 

As parents, we are patently aware that whilst our offspring may not always adhere to what we tell them, all too often they hear what we say. Whether we like it or not, that puts fathers in the frontline when it comes to instilling in our sons an ingrained acceptance and respect for the women and girls around us, which endures no matter how bad your day, or how much you drink. When that respect becomes as deep and dependable in our young men's lives as the very blood in their veins, then a lot less will be spilled.

One MP, Two Partners, and Those Pesky Penalty Points.

Note to self, Mr Huhne, when involving ones wife in a minor criminal cover-up, greater care should be taken not to leave her afterwards.

Having given up his cabinet post, and resigned as MP for Eastleigh, Chris Huhne’s diary must be about as empty as his laundry basket, now the contents have received a thorough airing in court. With hindsight, the former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change may wish he had just taken the penalty points himself, when caught speeding on the M11 back in 2003. Such was the crowded nature of his driving licence at the time, however, that it would likely have meant him losing it. Achieving his parliamentary ambitions may have proved improbable from the back of a taxpayer funded taxi, granted, but swapping Her Majesty’s Government for staying at Her Majesty’s pleasure would kick his goal of being Lib Dem party leader into considerably longer grass.

Having changed his plea to guilty, for perverting the course of justice, Mr Huhne has now popped home to pack his pyjamas. He will be sentenced at a later date, the judge having told him to “have no illusions” regarding what awaits him.  His ex-wife, meanwhile, former joint head of the UK Government Economic Service, Vicky Pryce, is pleading not guilty to a similar charge, citing marital coercion. The couple divorced in January 2011, when details came to light of an affair between Chris Huhne and PR adviser Carina Trimingham, his current partner.

The jury at Southwark Crown Court has heard recorded phone conversations between the former couple, secretly set up with the able assistance of Sunday Times Political Editor Isabel Oakeshott. The expletive ridden excerpts appear to chart Ms Pryce’s attempts to entice her ex-husband into admitting to their driving deception, albeit with limited success.

Whatever the outcome in court, they will be not be the first couple to have played pass the penalty points, nor the last to break up due to a husband’s unreliable underpants. But the fact that the former Secretary of State apparently got right through Westminster School and Oxford University without learning the phrase; “hell hath no furry like a woman scorned”, may be as big a mystery as how he thought he could possibly get away with it all.  

The case continues, his political career may not.

UK Toddlers Tea-Time Tantrums

If I had a pound for every time I’ve had to explain to my four year old that biscuits are not a vegetable, I could probably afford someone else to feed him. However, I am now mildly relieved to learn that we are by no means alone in our daily dinner time dogfight, but merely part of a national nutritional nightmare.

Research by the European Toddler Nutrition Index, as reported by Sky News, reveals that 43% of UK parents end up allowing their offspring to veto certain food groups, whereas in France the figure is a more modest 33%. And 26% of our under fives apparently refuse meals at least once a day, their continental cousins declining just 15%.

Maybe French food just tastes better, so toddlers don’t complain, or it may be that our processes and not our products are at fault. Perhaps in current culture, our approach to all things culinary leaves us increasingly in need of a crash course in meal-time management for our minors. In her book ‘French Kids Eat Everything’, Karen Le Billon transplants her two picky-eating kids from North America, to a small town in France. After initial resistance, the family embraced the complex culture of French cuisine and emerged a healthier herd for it, so maybe we should all follow suit?

Now, the hardest hurdle for parents on this side of the channel may be the strict ‘no-snacking rule’. It turns out French kids are far less likely to refuse their food because they are famished. It makes sense. If your nippers are full of crisps and cookies by the time they get to the table at tea-time, it’s no surprise they give their carrots the cold shoulder.

Le Billon was also banned from providing a packed lunch for her school aged offspring, a source of major sinning on this side of La Manche. Certainly, my daughter delights in dishing the dining dirt on those classmates whose packed lunches are clearly prepared with no more effort than the hurling together of a collection of coloured packets. A daily duty we both secretly regard with thinly veiled envy.

French school dinners are dished out on higher budgets, and often in conjunction with nutritionists, making them much more balanced than merely a collection of ways to clog your arteries. Whereas, it is the very fervour with which my kids crave their canteen’s culinary offerings, that makes me doubt the quality of their contents. If Jamie Oliver is to be believed, many school dinners are little more than a production line of low-budget homages to saturated fats. If that’s the case, then the preparation of a packed lunch represents the last vestige of parental control in a world of self-destructive snacking.

Perhaps the problem boils down to the fact that unhealthy parents rarely breed healthy kids. If Donna from Doncaster thinks a Wagon Wheel is a dietary supplement, then sooner or later her kids will need elasticated waistlines.

Personally, I don’t keep cashew nuts in the house because I lack any restraint in their presence. Perhaps if kids are offered no option apart from healthy home-cooked grub, they would eventually cave in and eat it. In a world obsessed with choice, maybe one of the least learnt lessons is when not to offer any. Bon apettit.  

R.I.P HMV?

‘His Master’s Voice’ has been hoarse for a while, but may not be silenced yet, as HMV’s administrators, Deloitte, say that 50 potential buyers have emerged for the stricken retailer. Restructuring specialists Hilco look the most likely to salvage something from the 223 stores, giving a glimmer of hope to its 4000 staff. Welcome news too for those previously told their Christmas HMV vouchers were now purely of historical value. Deloitte have confirmed they are legal tender again, sending torrents of teenagers to rummage through the recycling.  

After the news broke last week of HMV’s impending demise, Andy Heath, the chair of UK Music said that “going into administration gives HMV an opportunity for a substantial and decent rebirth.” Whilst it sounded as glass-half-full as viewing imminent redundancy as an exciting chance to reconnect with daytime telly and poor personal hygiene, it seems HMV may yet arise phoenix-like from the advancing ashtray.

The company had been effectively drowning in Amazon’s wake for ages, and the opportunity for genuine rebirth is long overdue. Like the camera retailer Jessops, whose 187 stores have shut up shop with the loss of over 1,300 jobs, HMV have failed to find a new niche in the face of increased competition. Aside from the inexorable move towards on-line offerings, supermarkets popped the price bubble with bargain chart CDs through the checkouts, forcing record stores to keep up or be boarded up.  

Like many, I admit to a modest wave of nostalgia when I remember gleefully trawling through the record racks, my HMV voucher in hand. But then I recall grabbing charts CDs from Tesco for under a tenner, which would have got you about three verses and a chorus on the high street. Bingo, the wave was broken.

           

HMV’s like-for-like sales in 2011 were down 11.6% on the previous year, but they still turned in a profit of £17.6 million. By 2012, as the company attempted its last rigorous restructure, shifting focus to live music, ticketing and digital, profits for the “HMV Live” wing of the business did increase, but it was a tourniquet against a tidal wave. 2011/12 produced an overall loss before tax of £16.2 million.

News of restructure and potential purchasers may indeed indicate a legitimate lifeline, and last week the BBC reported that HMV Chief Executive Trevor Moore was “working tirelessly” to save the chain. But bearing in mind he joined the company last April, from Jessops, I’d spend those vouchers swiftly if you can find them.

Downing Street Dave's Referendum Dilemma.

Friday, 11 January 2013

 

They say you can’t please everyone, but when the Prime Minster finally makes his eagerly anticipated and allegedly imminent speech on Europe, he’s unlikely to please anyone at all. Too far right for the left, too left for the right, and if he plays it down the middle he becomes his own deputy. And now it seems the latest candidate queuing up to be potentially displeased with the PM, is US Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, one Philip H Gordon. Amid the mutinous mumblings from this corner of Europe, Mr Gordon has decreed that if the UK left the EU, the ‘special relationship’ might need counselling.

Whilst simultaneously stressing that “what is in the UK’s interests is up to the UK”, Mr Gordon has affirmed that the Obama administration would “welcome an outward-looking EU with Britain in it”, and, as reported on Sky News, that “referendums have often turned countries inward.” He need not lose much sleep over that, setting aside the sabre-rattling, we are as yet no nearer to holding one.

Some would say that inward looking is not all bad. After September 11^th, Blair stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Bush and a great big target rubbed off onto all of us. Now, standing downwind of two foreign wars we couldn’t afford, it might have been better to just send flowers.

With business leaders briefing against anti-EU action, the current rumours rule out a referendum this side of the next election. While that will not quieten the clamour from the Conservative back benches, from the Downing Street direction, the long grass would no doubt look much greener if this political hot potato could be comfortably kicked into it. Although repatriating powers from Brussels is patriotic rhetoric, it’s not a meeting the Prime Minister can have on his own, and no-one else wants to play.

 

Those Tories tiptoeing towards UKIP might be tempted back to the table if the referendum carrot found its way onto the election manifesto menu. But if the vote went against EU membership, the Prime Minister would be left holding the baby, a hero to those on the hardwood behind him, but persona non grata almost anywhere south of Dover.

 

The trouble with a referendum, as Mr Cameron might privately concede, is that a large number of those invested with the right to vote, will have no clear comprehension of the potential economic consequences. If given the chance, my kids would vote against eating vegetables, as they don’t like them. Buoyed by bullish resistance to the dictates forced previously upon them, they would feel empowered and vindicated, but soon develop scurvy.

The Great Rail Rip-Off

How do you ease pressure on over-crowded rail services? Simple, you make tickets so expensive that folks can’t afford them. It may seem facile and potentially self-defeating, but that was the sledgehammer government solution suspected by the House of Commons Transport Committee, and they should know. Labour MP and Committee Chairman Louise Ellman today cautioned against “ramping up fares” to regulate demand at peak times, as the government ponders over a menu of potential options in the wake of Sir Roy McNulty’s recent report into rail costs.

In fact, it seems the only factor making UK petrol prices feel even remotely reasonable, is the comparative cost of rail travel. Commuters careering cheerfully towards ticket machines this week, eagerly anticipating a return to work after the Christmas festivities, are already facing fare increases of up to 9.2%, according to Shadow Transport Minister Maria Eagle.

But those blinking blearily at their soaring seat prices should perhaps be partially grateful. The government were set to allow train companies price rises in regulated fares of 6.2%, but relented at the last, capping the increase at 4.2%. Cold comfort perhaps for those condemned to standing room only, gazing into someone else’s armpit, and paying steadily more for the daily privilege. In addition, the cap only covers the so-called “regulated fares”, leaving rail companies free to cash in on other unsuspecting customers.

The above inflation formula of Retail Price Index +1% has been used to set the rise in most rail fares since 2004, meaning commuter’s costs increasing by 54% in 10 years. The Campaign for Better Transport equates this to a fare rise of more than 20% above wage increases, and have initiated an on-line petition, calling on the government to end above inflation increments.

Perhaps the West Coast Main Line palaver perfectly illustrated the pitfalls of privatised rail provision. Virgin lost the franchise in favour of a First Group offer, which, whilst tantalisingly tempting to a cash-strapped treasury, seemed ever destined to become too good to be true, right up until it was. To add sodium to the sore, Virgin will now need reimbursing for their bid in a franchise process that appears decidedly dodgy. If it didn’t work for the East Coast Mainline, why would a few hundred miles make any discernable difference?  

Personally, I fail to see the fun in paying £6 billion in subsidies to rail companies who will have to satisfy shareholders, pay undeserved bonuses, and are patently aware that if the whole sorry shambles comes crashing round their ears, the taxpayer will pick up the tab. If they ask me, public ownership is the only responsible platform for running public services, but it’s reassuringly unlikely they will.

And the NRA's antidote to guns is...more guns!

We may share a common tongue and a fondness for fried potato products, but watching the press conference from Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice-President of the National Rifle Association, the United States of America has never seemed more foreign, and less united.

Ominously silent since the Sandy Hook massacre, this was a first response to the events that crow-barred Newtown, Conneticut, into our collective consciousness, and whipped up the wave of anti-second amendment rhetoric now breaking daily on the doorstep of the NRA.

Mr LaPierre initially welcomed assembled members of the press to what he termed ‘the beginning of our discussion of the topic’, before announcing that no questions would be taken. From that point it became apparent the ‘discussion’ would be a tad one-sided and although an opportunity for questions was promised on another occasion, this was distinctly more polemic than press conference.

After confirming the NRA shared in the collective revulsion, Mr LaPierre asked why, in the aftermath of the abhorrent actions of Adam Lanza, was nobody tackling what he sees as the central issue; how to keep children safe, right now, in “a way that we know will work.” Mr LaPierre pointed out that Americans are perfectly happy to see presidents, airports, offices, court houses and even sports stadiums protected by armed guards, and yet when it comes to children, he said, they are left “utterly defenceless”. It was by now abundantly clear what was coming.

The solution, as the NRA sees it, is a National School Shield Emergency Response Program, that’s gun-totting guards in schools to you and me. After all, as Mr LaPierre put it; “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.” Well, the National Rifle Association must have a lot of guns, and, surprise surprise, LaPierre announced that the NRA is “willing and uniquely qualified to help.” But, not only help, they’ll bankroll it with both barrels, to the tune of “whatever scope the task requires.” Now, in a time of tight budgets and fiscal shortfalls, it’s deeply gratifying to think of an army of heavily-armed altruists riding to the rescue. Or is it?

Mr LaPierre had pilloried those he professed were trying to exploit the tragedy “for political gain”, and rightly so. Yet, it is hard to envisage from this “multi-faceted program”, incorporating armed security, building design, IT, access control, and featuring the “most knowledgeable and credentialed experts”, that somebody wouldn’t quietly come out of it with a big stash of cash.

Setting aside such cynical assertions, LaPierre did make some salient points. Movie studios and video games manufacturers were duly called to account for portraying life “as a joke” and murder “as a way of life”. After stating that society was “populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters”, he also chastised the media for giving said monsters their much craved global platform.

Although from this side of the pond, LaPierre’s proposal may smack of opportunist economics, or a cynical justification of the NRA’s own existence, saying; ‘oops, we were wrong, could everyone give their guns back?’ is unlikely to have the desired effect either.

However morally bankrupt it might seem to suggest sending armed security into American schools, perhaps the time for a more educational approach elapsed when Pandora’s gunpowder pouch was opened, and its access enshrined in US law. Sandy Hook evokes a collective pain, pointing to a collective problem, and a society consistently producing such cancerous killings, needs to take a long hard look inside itself for the cure.

 

Green light for gay weddings?

‘C of E gay marriage to be illegal’ is perhaps not the headline David Cameron had hoped his consultation might herald. Of course, from the Culture Secretary’s comments on non-straight nuptials in the Commons, the BBC News website could just as easily have concocted; ‘nothing changes in Church of England’. Although arguably true of any time this side of the Reformation, I concede it's a little less eye-catching.

 

Maria Miller’s announcement that under proposed legislation it would be illegal for the Churches of England and Wales to marry same-sex couples, was in direct response to strong opposition from both organisations. This caveat forms part of the “quadruple lock”, roughly translated as four ideas, intended to safeguard religious freedom. Also included is the guarantee that religious groups won’t be strong armed into holding gay weddings. Such ceremonies will also be unlawful unless the governing body of a religious movement has officially ‘opted in’. Crucially, the proposal includes an amendment to the 2010 Equality Act protecting ministers from discrimination claims if they refuse to perform a same-sex ceremony, a key concern for clergy, given the ominous shadow of European law.

 

Bearing in mind the plethora of passionately held opinions on the proposal, any conclusions would have always had compromise crayoned all over them, which explains some of the resultant mumbling, both measured and more manifest. However, despite the disappointment of many, and the predictable backlash from the jam and Jerusalem brigade on the Tory backbenches, this is a diplomatic decision against a backdrop of contrasting concerns.

 

Gay couples keen to marry, or graduate from civil partnerships, could do so in registry offices, and selected churches outside the C of E umbrella. Clergy opposed to same-sex services will not be obliged to conduct them, contrary to their convictions, and the state will not be seen to be reaching beyond its remit, by prescribing church policy.

 

Few democratic solutions are without winners and losers. Those on the sharp end of this legislation remain same-sex Christian couples unable to celebrate their wedding amid church communities in which they worship every week. They would, at least, be able to walk down the aisle, if not always the nearest available.  

 

I wonder if it may even be more frustrating for some ministers to have to deny same-sex Christian couples their vows before God, than marrying the manifestly agnostic who just want a photo in a charming churchyard. If the Coalition are still consulting, why not consider allowing any Christian couple a cheap church wedding, charge a four figure fee for the religiously indifferent, irrespective of sexual orientation, and make churches splash the cash on underfloor heating? After all, God loves everyone, no matter their choice of bedfellow, and it’s hard to commune with your maker if you can’t feel your feet. Just a thought.

Should Britain be a 'Friend of Israel'?

Surely one of the more loaded terms amongst international idioms is the self-certification of being “a friend of Israel”. It is clearly more than just exchanging Christmas cards and the odd Facebook update, and you can’t get your boots under the best desk in the White House without at least claiming to be one, even if you have your fingers crossed.

The phrase can denote an often unspecific standing, found somewhere on the sliding scale from casual Semitic sympathiser to fully-paid up Zionist. Barack Obama has claimed to be a ‘friend of Israel’, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad most definitely hasn’t, and I dare say William Hague would like to avoid the question. Especially now the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to build 3000 new settlement homes in the 'E1' area, to the northeast of Jerusalem. Indeed, some of Israel’s friends may sense the mild misgivings akin to taking a mate to a family wedding, who then, despite bearing all the outward vestiges of sophistication, gets smashed on the free bubbly, makes a pass at the bride’s mother and throws up on the cake.

The timing of Israel’s announcement suggests a knee-jerk reaction to the United Nations General Assembly recognising Palestine as a ‘non-member observer state’ this week. One might think that after all this time a refusal to recognise anybody would have been considered rude, yet still the US opposed the motion and the UK took a traditionally assertive stance, and abstained.

Palestinian commentators note that the ‘state’ now recognised is itself fairly unrecognisable compared to that agreed by the United Nations in 1967. However, if the newly proposed settlements were to proceed, then the West Bank would be effectively cut off from East Jerusalem, and the territory would become so divided as to render the ‘two state solution’ virtually unviable. It is perhaps this, rather than the settlements themselves, that induced an unusually robust response from notable European powers. The British, French and Swedish Foreign Ministries summoned respective Israeli ambassadors to express concern over further building deemed illegal under international law, with similar statements issued by both Germany and Russia.

The UK government, whilst rowing back from the early rumours of recalling the ambassador to Israel, is keeping all diplomatic options on the table. Such measures could potentially stretch to suspending trade deals in protest, however, David Cameron confirmed the Coalition are "not proposing to do anything further at this stage".

Whilst it would be inappropriate to attempt to solve or even summarise such a complex geo-political conundrum in one trite paragraph, if a neighbour keeps planting trees on your lawn you’ll eventually need a chainsaw. The preferred outcome of course, would involve a direct but diplomatic neighbourhood watch, which is where the rest of us come in.     

Banning bargain booze.

If “work is the curse of the drinking classes,” as Oscar Wilde would have us believe, then we may soon have to work a bit harder for our drinks. The government is embarking on a ten week consultation on the introduction of a minimum price for alcohol of 45p per unit, alongside a ban on multi-buy discount offers and the buy-one-get-one-free promotion, in an attempt to avert Britain’s binge drinking culture.

Research at the University of Sheffield, and apparently not just students getting hammered and nicking traffic cones, revealed that a minimum price of 50p per unit would reduce alcohol consumption by 6.7%, saving about 20,000 hospital admissions a year. Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Alliance UK, who had been pushing for the 50p minimum, said that; "evidence shows us that heavy drinkers and young drinkers are more affected by higher alcohol prices than moderate drinkers.”

Evidence may well show that, but so does common sense. When something is made more expensive, it becomes more difficult to afford for those who buy more of it, or have less cash to splash to start with. I hope a lot of money was not spent on that research, because we are going to need plenty to offset the £200 million in lost duty revenue, according to a Home Office impact assessment, if these mooted measures are eventually introduced.

On the other shaky hand of course, we do have a problem. Alcohol abuse accounted for 1,168,300 hospital admissions in the UK in 2010/11, double the numbers from 2002/3. According to government figures, some 167,764 prescriptions were issued for the treatment of alcohol dependency in 2011, costing the NHS £2.49 million. If you also care to calibrate the accumulated cost of heart disease, liver cirrhosis, and the other assorted ailments attributed to extended exposure to alcohol, and add that to Britain’s burgeoning bar bill, it is clear that we actually have a problem of Oliver Reed proportions.

However, is increasing the cost of booze really going to curb excessive consumption? Politicians and medical practitioners seem keen to give it a try, and why wouldn’t they be? MPs earn £65,738 and the average GP pockets £104,100, easily enough to insulate oneself against any pesky state-enforced sobriety through prescriptive price hikes. I find it frighteningly naïve to believe the more socially disadvantaged drinker will eschew his evening tipple in favour of a hot mug of herbal tea just because its price tag doubles. I fear instead that he will end up just as drunk, but his family twice as poor.   

The Church's Stained Glass Ceiling.

 

That the Church of England announced arguably the most progressive Archbishop appointment to date, and failed to give their blessing to women bishops in almost the same breath, perfectly illustrates the challenges that the institution, and its incoming caretaker Justin Welby, must face.

The current Archbishop of Canterbury told the General Synod that the church had lost “a measure of credibility” with the vote against women bishops, and may appear “wilfully blind” to the priorities of the society it serves. Visibly deflated, and all too aware of how the result would be perceived in a secular society in which the absence of equal opportunity is duly regarded as discrimination, Rowan Williams concluded the Church of England now has “a lot of explaining to do.”

The disenchantment, bordering disbelief, on the faces of the “yes” campaign perhaps requires a little less explanation however than the feelings and philosophy underpinning the apparent aversion to women becoming bishops.

Pete Myers, from the campaign group Together 4ward, penned an article on the Channel 4 News website, in which he outlined his support for the decision. Whilst regretful of “the pain” the outcome had caused, and conceding that women bishops were essentially inevitable, he believes the bible advises otherwise. Like many of a similar opinion, Mr Myers points the finger at the apostle Paul, who wrote in 1 Timothy 2:12; “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man.”

That section of scripture certainly does seem to support Mr Myer’s position, however he does not quote the complete sentence. After asserting that a woman should not have authority over a male counterpart in church, Paul goes further, concluding; “she must be quiet.” Now, why, I wonder, did Mr Myer not include that bit? If you want to ignore 2000 years of historical and socio-political context, then why stop at just an ecclesiastical glass ceiling? Paul actually advises that ladies should not only leave the altar duties to the gents, but also keep mum till they’re back in the car park.

In addition, if we are going to play things strictly by the book, then Leviticus 21:5 says; “Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies.” That rules out tattoos and skinheads, and any vicar without the full Father Christmas chin warmer! If you can’t have women bishops, then the same goes for clean-shaven clergy, unless of course, you just plucked the scripture to justify a bit of good old fashioned sexism.

Certainly, the vote has been an embarrassment to many in the church, since it was passed by the priesthood, only falling foul of the laity. This army of able assistants occupies an array of non-professional positions in the Church of England, is predominantly female, and yet a fairly modest number of its membership were able to avert the advancement of women up to bishop status, thanks to an alarmingly laughable electoral system.

Personally, I find the entire debacle simply the latest example of the Church of England’s commitment to self-destructive marketing. The Christian faith should be something you could not give away fast enough, but when your PR campaign features celebrity endorsement from Bush and Blair, and the occasional mailshot with unwelcoming messages around abortion and homosexuality, you are making yourselves a pretty hard sell.  

The apostle Paul has indeed been a useful blueprint for many Christian believers, but like all the pioneers of the early church he is refreshing and accessible exactly because he was not perfect. When a religion is more head than heart, people tend to get hurt, and to really get to the heart of any movement, you don’t focus on the followers, but the one they are following. From what I have read, you would be hard pushed to find Jesus advocating church division through segregation of opportunity. Given a room full of people he would make a beeline for the disenfranchised, was moved by compassion not customs and tradition, and considered each case on merit. If there is a PR HQ for the C of E, the way forward might be getting back to basics, more Jesus focused, less jam making and judgemental. He He nnnnnn

Elected Police Commissioners, Expensive Political Codswallop?

As Oscar Wilde deemed democracy as simply “the bludgeoning of the people, for the people, by the people,” I would love to learn his take on the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners. When the people have been passed the baton to decide which other people will hold to account the people who carry the batons, isn’t that just getting too many people involved?

Around 40 million adults in England and Wales are eligible to vote for commissioners in 41 police forces, although, as widely anticipated, at least 70% seem caught up in a wave of national apathy and have not actually bothered to do so. The lowest recorded electoral turnout to date was for the European Elections of 1999, so for those answering former Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair’s rallying cry to veto the vote and stay at home, the number to beat is just 23%. Those of us living in London have a reduced power to protest through non-participation however, as we have no vote to veto, the role being part of Boris Johnson’s in-box as Mayor already.

The stated aim of a Police and Crime Commissioner is not to actually commission crimes, as the title would suggest, but to engage with the public, including victims of crime, and ensure the budget is spent “where it most matters”. Now, the question of what matters most suggests an agenda, and this is where the process becomes regretfully yet predictably political. Only 54 out of the 192 candidates are not actually badge wearing brokers of a particular political persuasion, and these independent hopefuls are even less likely than their rivals to have been heard of beyond their own breakfast tables. So, in most cases, those doing the hiring and firing of the country’s top coppers will have a “where it matters most” position aligned at least in part with their respective party principles, which can hardly help what Sir Hugh Orde, Head of the association of Chief Police Officers, referred to as “inevitable tension” around “the allocation of resources”.  

Whatever eventual reality emerges from the £100 million election, it is unlikely to echo the Prime Minster’s original prescription. Falklands veteran and author Simon Weston, amongst others, pulled out of the process because it was “too political”, and Mr Cameron’s campaign for a “big job for a big local figure” seems destined to be consigned to the Big Society cul-de-sac of good intentions.

My dad entitles any trip to the polling booth as a chance to “exercise his democratic right”, and in some sense every election can be seen a symbolic affirmation of our hard-fought for freedoms. However, by Thursday, a good many of us will have voted on X-Factor, Strictly, and that carry-on up the jungle, not to mention venting pithy opinions via Facebook, text and Twitter, before using up our monthly mobile minutes on a chin-wag with a chum. We are hardly starved of having our say, so leaving hearth and HD TV for a cause few care for, is a box barely any will be ticking.

Encore Obama or Millionaire Mitt?

 

If the bible states it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, then Mitt Romney’s $200 million may not get him past the pearly gates, but his odds look better on the White House.

 

If he were to wake up on Wednesday as the next incumbent of the Oval Office, Governor Romney would become the second richest American President of all time, after George Washington. The first US President’s plentiful prosperity came courtesy of the family business, a wholesome blend of tobacco and slavery, and what he didn’t have by birth, he married into. Whilst slavery seems thankfully absent from the Romney portfolio, tobacco is certainly not. He was CEO of Bain & Co, the consultancy that turned around Marlboro’s flagging fortunes, forcing the price war which repaired the balance sheet of parent company Philip Morris. Who knows, maybe he can do for the world’s biggest economy what he did for one of the world’s biggest killers?

 

Much political capital has naturally been made of the campaign promises on which Obama has yet to deliver. US troops left Iraq, but have yet to fully discharge their duties in Afghanistan. Despite signing an executive order to effect its closure, Guantanamo Bay is still very much open for business. The Democrat dream of health coverage for the uninsured was duly delivered, Osama Bin Laden was caught and killed, but global warming legislation predictably ran into a Republican road-block in the Senate. However, to negate Obama’s achievements is to forget both the depth of the depression he inherited, and the apparent absence of bipartisan potential in Washington. Indeed, warm praise for the President’s efforts in the aftermath of storm Sandy from Republican Governor Chris Christie raised eyebrows on both sides of the Senate.

 

If the Sunday papers were anything to go by, Barack Obama would be a shoe-in for a second term if the ballot was based on this side of the pond. Even right wing newspapers in the UK have not been able to bring themselves to endorse Mitt Romney, preferring to view another four years of Obama as the safest dish on a dodgy menu. Across the Atlantic most states seem to stick to historical allegiances, with the outcome of only the half dozen “swing states” considered genuinely up for grabs. The beleaguered residents of these battlegrounds have therefore been campaigned at to within an inch of their lives by both presidential candidates and their armies of ardent affiliates, and now 24 hours should tell the tale.

 

Barack Obama was elected on the promise of change and a wave of hope that has now admittedly broken. Mitt Romney famously said of fires in aeroplanes that “you can’t find oxygen from outside the aircraft...because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that.” One might say that America would be in better shape if Obama’s actions could have matched his message, but imagine the mess if Romney was given the power to put his reasoning into practice.  

Leveson's recipe for a happy medium?

 

With Lord Leveson’s recommendations increasingly imminent, the Prime Minister kicked off the routine rally of political pre-emptive striking with a warning against pre-judging the findings of his inquiry into the culture, practises and ethics of the press. Undaunted however, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles leapt like a salmon into the fray, swimming upstream against the Downing Street directive, and lending his weight to the anti-legislation lobby by quoting Thomas Jefferson. “For a free society to operate,” he said, “the river of a free press had to flow without restriction,” and as principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson knew a bit about freedom.

However, if Mr Pickles had looked instead to another American heavyweight, Mark Twain, he would have found the former journalist saying of his own profession; “there are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.” No doubt a sentiment with which Hugh Grant, and others on the serrated end of the hacking scandal, would concur.

On the other side of the fence from Eric Pickles, and characteristically not sitting on it, Harriet Harman said the current system of self-regulation had “failed” and advocated the establishment of a “truly independent” body to look into press complaints. After the phone hacking furore, reported payments to police officers and public figures, and the closure of the News of the World amid wider questions over editorial ethics, it is increasingly more difficult to disagree. However, hands up who is “truly independent”?  

Speaking to Andrew Marr earlier this month, David Cameron politely declined an invite to guarantee implementing the Leveson findings in full, prior to their publication, reiterating his desire to maintain a “free press”. The Prime Minister’s warning against “heavy handed state intervention” engendered echoes of the “light touch” regulation rumoured to be in the running. ‘The Australian’ newspaper reported that Lord Justice Leveson was leaning towards the system used in the Irish Republic, with legislation extending solely to the establishment of a new press council, with an ombudsman to address complaints.

Exponents of a “free press” label legislation as a last resort, but surely it’s a large and unlikely leap from press regulation to state media censorship. Self-regulation is almost an oxymoron anyway, some will behave because they feel they should do, but many just because they must. The threat of sanction is a necessary motivation for standards. A civilised society needs a free press, but not at any cost.

What differentiates us from China, apart from population, cuisine, and global economic dominance of course, is the courage of democracy to permit criticism from within. At its best, the media provides an unfettered forum that serves the population in holding its leaders and institutions to account, at its worst, a parasitic entity that regurgitates the baser actions of its consumers to feed their own voyeurism. Finding a framework to further the former whilst limiting the latter is the challenge from which the current crop of Westminster tenants must not shrink.  

Yours, grovelling Gove of Surrey.

Michael Gove’s apology to his former French teacher is relatively refreshing. Most politicians, presumably to make space for the letters ‘M’ and ‘P’ after their name, choose to abandon any apparent sense of humility.

 In an open letter, published in this week’s Radio Times, the Education Secretary describes the scene in Mr Montgomery’s classroom at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen as a maleficent melee of “pathetic showing off” and “clever-dick questions”. Perhaps not a prime study scenario, but perfect preparation for Prime Minister’s Questions.

 Acknowledging that his apology is tardy to the tune of 30 years, the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath referred to himself and his classmates as “a cocksure crew of precociously assertive boys”. An appraisal as accurate as it is eloquent perhaps, and apt of a man earmarked in his early years as a “future leader of the Conservative Party”, by a teaching colleague of Mr Montgomery.

Mr Gove delivers an enthusiastic eulogy to the educative efforts of his former schoolmaster, although referring to him as ‘Danny’ could be deemed an unnecessary effort to adjust their erstwhile status gap. He concedes; “you were trying, patiently, doggedly, good-humouredly, to broaden our horizons. You were, without any pretension or pomposity, attempting to coax a group of hormonal lads to look beyond familiar horizons and venture further.”

 Depending on who you speak to, young master Gove may indeed have learnt the lesson of ‘looking beyond familiar horizons’, although apparently backwards, and he may have been absent for the without ‘pomposity’ part. Politically, his Education White Paper produced a predictably mixed reaction, and when questioning members of the profession itself, as politicians all too rarely do, the responses range from suspicious to snarling. 

Having said that, breaking what John Bangs, the former Head of Education at the National Union of Teachers, referred to as high-stakes commercialism in the GCSE exam board system must be a plus. When it came to light that some examiners were selling seminars, offering insider info on teaching to the tests, Mr Bangs said the boards were in “the last chance saloon.” Calling time on that cash cow may be widely welcomed.

In addition, Steve Sinnott, the NUT General Secretary welcomed the commitment to more personalised learning, which the union itself had previously advocated. But, his overall response to the reforms was rather less than rapturous. “The pity is,” he said, “that hidden amongst outlandish ideas, the White Paper has some genuinely good proposals.” His deputy at the NUT, Kevin Courtney, felt that Mr Gove was too quick to level unjustified criticism at the achievements of both teachers and pupils. This, he said; “serves the Education Secretary well in securing headlines,” but “alienates and demoralises the profession which strives day in and day out, often in difficult circumstances, to achieve the best for all their pupils.”

 So, riding that self-made wave of tepid togetherness and absent enthusiasm Mr Gove rallied the troops in February with a warning that the reforms risked fewer kids passing exams and more headteachers being sacked. Now that’s how to motivate the education profession.

 Whilst his epistle of apology to Mr Montgomery is admirable, if Michael Gove seeks to say sorry to every teacher he has left disgruntled and disrespected, he’s going to need a bigger pen.