The Italian Senate has just voted 160 to 155 to defeat the Berlusconi party attack on Prodi's democratic coalition. As the criminal, squealing, disgusting animal of public and personal corruption under Berlusconi (Blair's ally and personal friend) is dragged from its lair and exposed to view, the House of Liberty (or Liberty Hall, as it might be called) descends into squadristi behaviour, mass demonstrations and placard carrying by senators in the Senate itself, the howling down of the Finance minister Padoa-Schioppa as he sets out the reasons why the head of the taxation service was required to resign, and splits into its opportunist factions.
They've been seen off once again, as Italy reasserts the democracy it so nearly lost over the last decade.
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Straw Man
Prime Minister Blair is abroad; deputy Prime Minister Prescott is in high-level hospital care. The Leader of the House should be running things in their absence. Unfortunately who is really pushing and shoving us all about and wrecking lots of careful inter party work, while bullying 'journalists' is the usual bogey man suspect, Brown. Why is the United Kingdom being treated like these people's play thing?
The Constitution may be unwritten but it is supposed to be there. Let's hope nothing more serious than being at war on two fronts, facing quite bad economic problems, and other chronic situations, doesn't hot up into a crisis before the Prime Minister's victory tour is completed.
The Constitution may be unwritten but it is supposed to be there. Let's hope nothing more serious than being at war on two fronts, facing quite bad economic problems, and other chronic situations, doesn't hot up into a crisis before the Prime Minister's victory tour is completed.
Monday, 28 May 2007
Labour Executive Lies
The widespread discussion of encroaching state power over civil liberties is admirable and shows we're not accepting the Labour party Executive's behaviour as reasonable.
The silence, on matters so central to the relationship of individuals and the political authority they cede to government, on the part of the Labour party's Leader in waiting (he cannot be called Leader-elect as he's Leader-imposed) is of Holmesian proportions. We must take it that he likes it all, particularly as none of it applies to Scotland.
Peculiarly distasteful is the revelation of measures, backed up by specialised staff and a 'secure' unit, to detain at will and without review or judicial means of intervention, any person indicated as communicating a threat to public figures.
'Persone in vista', coupled with the infamous 'lei non sa chi sono io' (you don't know who I am) is the hallmark of authoritarian attitudes to those who should be regarded as the givers of authority.
Guevara's understanding that a socialist society could never exist without first a socialist conciousness in man, applies equally to authoritarianism of any kind. The condemnatory response to Labour's behaviour, ranging across the political spectrum from far left to far right and taking in all of us except the minority statist conformists of the Labour cadres, illuminates this:
No-one in the United Kingdom accepts the need for any of the so-called 'terrorism' laws. All recognize that the country is more vulnerable than others to targetting (and whose fault is that?) but just as in the years of the Troubles in Ireland, we will keep or vigilance high, and keep our liberties.
The silence, on matters so central to the relationship of individuals and the political authority they cede to government, on the part of the Labour party's Leader in waiting (he cannot be called Leader-elect as he's Leader-imposed) is of Holmesian proportions. We must take it that he likes it all, particularly as none of it applies to Scotland.
Peculiarly distasteful is the revelation of measures, backed up by specialised staff and a 'secure' unit, to detain at will and without review or judicial means of intervention, any person indicated as communicating a threat to public figures.
'Persone in vista', coupled with the infamous 'lei non sa chi sono io' (you don't know who I am) is the hallmark of authoritarian attitudes to those who should be regarded as the givers of authority.
Guevara's understanding that a socialist society could never exist without first a socialist conciousness in man, applies equally to authoritarianism of any kind. The condemnatory response to Labour's behaviour, ranging across the political spectrum from far left to far right and taking in all of us except the minority statist conformists of the Labour cadres, illuminates this:
No-one in the United Kingdom accepts the need for any of the so-called 'terrorism' laws. All recognize that the country is more vulnerable than others to targetting (and whose fault is that?) but just as in the years of the Troubles in Ireland, we will keep or vigilance high, and keep our liberties.
Friday, 11 May 2007
Monarchy and the Democratic State
The hollowed-out pumpkin that is the office of our country’s head of state has been displayed fully in the last week.
The Prime Minister has offered his resignation in the Trimdon Social Club.
The Labour party has designated the incoming prime minister.
The date of the handover has been fixed in private discussion between members of the Executive.
Bearing in mind behaviour exhibited over the courtesy of wearing formal dress at formal and official dinners, the chances of the kissing of hands and acknowledgement of higher authority are poor.
All powers denominated Crown prerogatives now rest with the Executive and, more specifically, with the prime minister of the day. What and who the prime minister answers to is no longer a Constitution, or its custodian the Head of State.
It is 30 years since the office of head of state showed any signs of constitutional life. Discretion is a virtue but this obscurity veils powerlessness and inaction while our Constitution is lopped of its limbs, and our liberties consumed.
Nor is it a Parliament to which the exercise of power is answerable, when the majority party is responsive to particular organisations and interest groups with their own objectives and factional discipline, rather than answerable to the whole electorate, and to those too who are without a vote.
The respect for the Crown even now connects to the mystic notion of powers devolved from God. More importantly the immense regard in which the present monarch is held has been cynically appropriated to project an emotional narrative of safety and security in the enjoyment of our lives.
Monarchy, constitutional or no , lies uneasily with democracy. So now we are faced with government by an appointed prime minister, an appointed countrywide nomenklatura , unchallenged in office and in power by the undefended and severely damaged permanent constitutional structures of the state.
The Prime Minister has offered his resignation in the Trimdon Social Club.
The Labour party has designated the incoming prime minister.
The date of the handover has been fixed in private discussion between members of the Executive.
Bearing in mind behaviour exhibited over the courtesy of wearing formal dress at formal and official dinners, the chances of the kissing of hands and acknowledgement of higher authority are poor.
All powers denominated Crown prerogatives now rest with the Executive and, more specifically, with the prime minister of the day. What and who the prime minister answers to is no longer a Constitution, or its custodian the Head of State.
It is 30 years since the office of head of state showed any signs of constitutional life. Discretion is a virtue but this obscurity veils powerlessness and inaction while our Constitution is lopped of its limbs, and our liberties consumed.
Nor is it a Parliament to which the exercise of power is answerable, when the majority party is responsive to particular organisations and interest groups with their own objectives and factional discipline, rather than answerable to the whole electorate, and to those too who are without a vote.
The respect for the Crown even now connects to the mystic notion of powers devolved from God. More importantly the immense regard in which the present monarch is held has been cynically appropriated to project an emotional narrative of safety and security in the enjoyment of our lives.
Monarchy, constitutional or no , lies uneasily with democracy. So now we are faced with government by an appointed prime minister, an appointed countrywide nomenklatura , unchallenged in office and in power by the undefended and severely damaged permanent constitutional structures of the state.
Tuesday, 8 May 2007
‘Every school - whatever its intake and wherever it is located - is responsible for educating children and young people who will live and work in a country which is diverse in terms of culture, faith, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.
.. ministers are concerned some schools are still being monopolised by single racial or religious groups, acting as a breeding ground for extremism..
Draft guidance, which is out to consultation before becoming law later this year, recommends field trips with a racial or faith angle, and inviting religious leaders to schools.’
It may come as a surprise to some to learn that I made every effort to control the socio-economic , cultural, and learning environment in which my children grew up. The same can be safely said of my parents regard for me and my siblings, and for my grandparents conscientious undertaking. What other expression can love for children take, in any family ? Children are loved through action not emotion, however strongly felt.
All cultures are the object of my curiosity, some I admire, some I fear, some I dislike with strenuous objection to their values and norms; most, like my own, are curate’s eggs. To know another culture as I know my own is not possible - ask any ethnographer - and the curate ‘s egg aspect of a culture demands intimate understanding so that the bad bits can be shown, warned against, and if possible counteracted when bringing up the children. Though as there are limits to bossing them about, they will reach their own conclusions for their own world, that stretches far ahead of mine.
It is arrant undiluted nonsense to think enforced proximity and standardised school experiences will create anything valuable in social and cultural understanding where there is not a widespread familial similarity of culture, together with neighbourhood and community ties, already. This is not to deny the value, long recognised, of staying in another country to learn its language, its practices, its take on our world; but that is for a poised observer with a secure cultural base.
It is not for school where, it seems, children's familial cultural acquisition is deliberately to be challenged and undermined by state-enforced multiculturalist falsity placed at the same level of truth as teaching in mathematics, langages, or the sciences.
Cultures are not of equal status and to be inducted into some is to be damaged.
Religious beliefs can be as much the carrier of this damage as the carrier of virtues. Religion’s true place is in the wider family where it can be tempered in its admonitions and applications by understanding. Children have to learn to grasp the fluidity of belief , that rules and instructions are developed by circumstance and change, in their own very local cultural worlds; not be confronted with the shocking in the name of integration and expected to cope better than adults.
Parents know this, and we extend our children’s worlds slowly. If this runs against state policy then at least we are united, whatever our particular culture, in knowing and opposing the primitive savagery of multiculturalism.
.. ministers are concerned some schools are still being monopolised by single racial or religious groups, acting as a breeding ground for extremism..
Draft guidance, which is out to consultation before becoming law later this year, recommends field trips with a racial or faith angle, and inviting religious leaders to schools.’
It may come as a surprise to some to learn that I made every effort to control the socio-economic , cultural, and learning environment in which my children grew up. The same can be safely said of my parents regard for me and my siblings, and for my grandparents conscientious undertaking. What other expression can love for children take, in any family ? Children are loved through action not emotion, however strongly felt.
All cultures are the object of my curiosity, some I admire, some I fear, some I dislike with strenuous objection to their values and norms; most, like my own, are curate’s eggs. To know another culture as I know my own is not possible - ask any ethnographer - and the curate ‘s egg aspect of a culture demands intimate understanding so that the bad bits can be shown, warned against, and if possible counteracted when bringing up the children. Though as there are limits to bossing them about, they will reach their own conclusions for their own world, that stretches far ahead of mine.
It is arrant undiluted nonsense to think enforced proximity and standardised school experiences will create anything valuable in social and cultural understanding where there is not a widespread familial similarity of culture, together with neighbourhood and community ties, already. This is not to deny the value, long recognised, of staying in another country to learn its language, its practices, its take on our world; but that is for a poised observer with a secure cultural base.
It is not for school where, it seems, children's familial cultural acquisition is deliberately to be challenged and undermined by state-enforced multiculturalist falsity placed at the same level of truth as teaching in mathematics, langages, or the sciences.
Cultures are not of equal status and to be inducted into some is to be damaged.
Religious beliefs can be as much the carrier of this damage as the carrier of virtues. Religion’s true place is in the wider family where it can be tempered in its admonitions and applications by understanding. Children have to learn to grasp the fluidity of belief , that rules and instructions are developed by circumstance and change, in their own very local cultural worlds; not be confronted with the shocking in the name of integration and expected to cope better than adults.
Parents know this, and we extend our children’s worlds slowly. If this runs against state policy then at least we are united, whatever our particular culture, in knowing and opposing the primitive savagery of multiculturalism.
Sunday, 6 May 2007
Why are we putting up with this?
England doesn't want Gordon Brown and his Labour MPs sitting for Scottish seats, like him, deciding policy for England in Westminster. Why should it? The Scottish have their own Parliament to make their political choices and have little and spurious claim to involve themselves in ours.
And now it's clear that Scotland doesn't want Labour Scottish MPs sitting for Scottish seats making political choices for Scotland either.
So Scottish Labour MPs sitting for Scottish seats who are members of the Westminster Parliament are going to be making political choices for the English electorate who have not voted for them, and for the Scottish electorate who have voted them out of office.
And now it's clear that Scotland doesn't want Labour Scottish MPs sitting for Scottish seats making political choices for Scotland either.
So Scottish Labour MPs sitting for Scottish seats who are members of the Westminster Parliament are going to be making political choices for the English electorate who have not voted for them, and for the Scottish electorate who have voted them out of office.
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
From pluralist democracy to dictatorship of the state
1 First make your nomenklatura
Since the end of the eighteenth century there has been long drawn out resistence to democracy as the means for settling conflict of interests. Through the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century democracy carved a way through institutions and settled power relations across the world. This force, fragmented into the hands of all of us, is still the target of power elites - acting for our own good, acting for the greater good, in truth acting for themselves.
Power elites have many names - nomenklatura is that most associated with avowed statism. To deny democracy, a nomenklatura is essential.
Method
in making a nomenklatura the mind should hold the image of making a hand-beaten mayonnaise. Obsessive narrowness of focus, attention to detail, constant monitoring of condition of the outcome, and infinite patience in the steady drip, drip of the process are pre-requisites.
Process
take two lists: one of positions of authority and of influence in the target structure, the other of those who might be introduced into it.
As you progress in building your mass you will encounter other clots and agglomerations: these will be either weaker than you, in which case they can be whipped into the mass; equal , when alliance is the temporary measure; or more powerful. With the more powerful any accommodation should be made to permit continued smooth growth.
You will be part of a highly unstable overall structure made up of petty hierarchies and your dynamic is to move upwards through them all, while taking their mass into the whole. As you progress those you have subsumed pay in loyalties and should be required also to pay in cash insofar as their means allow.
Agglomeration with the more powerful, often nomenklatura of earlier regimes or extra-territorial power elites, can be achieved principally by purchase (straightforward corruption), by profitable alliance (giving access to the profits from power you have acquired in return for equality of status, and further funding by means of introduction fees), or by exclusion.
By this time you should have achieved sufficient mass to create climates unfavourable to embedded and unresponsive, if not opposed, elites such that they either lose their statuses, and/ or leave. Leaving should not be discouraged in the first instance but later, as your mass grows, it should not allow departure holding any useful wealth or capacity to command service. Later still these, taken by earlier leavers, can be gathered in, as may be the leavers themselves.
At all times an ambience of democratic validity must be maintained until control of a stable power mass has been achieved and a shadowing network of reliable appointees to match democratic institutions at every level has been installed, and is funded and operating.
Once this is so, you are in a position to begin harvesting the benefits of democracy’s over throw (first choice of means is usually the corruption of election processes or their outright denial in the name of some over-arching emergency or threat to the existence of the state itself), and to reinforce your power system with further rewards of appropriate redistribution from the wealth producing sectors. Should the attention waver, or ambient factors intervene such that the mass goes mad, these nomenklatura structures will be sufficiently agglomerated to maintain your power base while restorative homogenisation measures are used.
Control of the military and civil authorities usually offers the quickest way to contain mass breakdown into loss of control and madness.
Next
2 Appropriating resources
3 Going global
Since the end of the eighteenth century there has been long drawn out resistence to democracy as the means for settling conflict of interests. Through the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century democracy carved a way through institutions and settled power relations across the world. This force, fragmented into the hands of all of us, is still the target of power elites - acting for our own good, acting for the greater good, in truth acting for themselves.
Power elites have many names - nomenklatura is that most associated with avowed statism. To deny democracy, a nomenklatura is essential.
Method
in making a nomenklatura the mind should hold the image of making a hand-beaten mayonnaise. Obsessive narrowness of focus, attention to detail, constant monitoring of condition of the outcome, and infinite patience in the steady drip, drip of the process are pre-requisites.
Process
take two lists: one of positions of authority and of influence in the target structure, the other of those who might be introduced into it.
As you progress in building your mass you will encounter other clots and agglomerations: these will be either weaker than you, in which case they can be whipped into the mass; equal , when alliance is the temporary measure; or more powerful. With the more powerful any accommodation should be made to permit continued smooth growth.
You will be part of a highly unstable overall structure made up of petty hierarchies and your dynamic is to move upwards through them all, while taking their mass into the whole. As you progress those you have subsumed pay in loyalties and should be required also to pay in cash insofar as their means allow.
Agglomeration with the more powerful, often nomenklatura of earlier regimes or extra-territorial power elites, can be achieved principally by purchase (straightforward corruption), by profitable alliance (giving access to the profits from power you have acquired in return for equality of status, and further funding by means of introduction fees), or by exclusion.
By this time you should have achieved sufficient mass to create climates unfavourable to embedded and unresponsive, if not opposed, elites such that they either lose their statuses, and/ or leave. Leaving should not be discouraged in the first instance but later, as your mass grows, it should not allow departure holding any useful wealth or capacity to command service. Later still these, taken by earlier leavers, can be gathered in, as may be the leavers themselves.
At all times an ambience of democratic validity must be maintained until control of a stable power mass has been achieved and a shadowing network of reliable appointees to match democratic institutions at every level has been installed, and is funded and operating.
Once this is so, you are in a position to begin harvesting the benefits of democracy’s over throw (first choice of means is usually the corruption of election processes or their outright denial in the name of some over-arching emergency or threat to the existence of the state itself), and to reinforce your power system with further rewards of appropriate redistribution from the wealth producing sectors. Should the attention waver, or ambient factors intervene such that the mass goes mad, these nomenklatura structures will be sufficiently agglomerated to maintain your power base while restorative homogenisation measures are used.
Control of the military and civil authorities usually offers the quickest way to contain mass breakdown into loss of control and madness.
Next
2 Appropriating resources
3 Going global
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Ready here but not in Camden
The sound of light gunfire took me to the windows overlooking the church square. There was the owner of the local grocery shop, crouched in the vicolo behind the house opposite, shooting pigeons as they failed to find footholds on ledges fitted with pigeon repelling wires. He remarked later to a household shopper that we needn't worry as he wouldn't hit the house. I thought 'couldn't hit a house' was an insult in shooting circles but clearly 'wouldn't hit a house' is a sign of skill.
There's a robust attitude to gun and other arms -law observance in this part of the world. Some time ago there was an amnesty for undeclared arms (various) and on searching the building (ever-suspicious of the strain of individualistic behaviour that sleeps, and often wakes here, through the centuries) I found, 1 bayonet (used, horridly, by the look of it), 1 long, curved sword which I would call a scimitar (used, positively viciously-nicked from top to bottom of the blade), 4 duelling swords of various thicknesses (used, possibly only in sport, but who knows what the house inhabitants might define as sport?) a carabina case which, worryingly, had no carabina inside, where is it?, and an air gun (new, unused, thank goodness the grocer is doing the honours across the square).
So I put them all in a safe place, deeming the missing carbine to be in a safe place already, except for the duelling swords which are looking decorative in a stanza del terrazzo .
Once the arms had been declared to be in the house there was no requirement to hand them in; just so long as it's known they are there, they said.
I didn't declare the Landrover Defender, even though its booklet describes it as tried, tested and approved in use by armies throughout the world.
There's a robust attitude to gun and other arms -law observance in this part of the world. Some time ago there was an amnesty for undeclared arms (various) and on searching the building (ever-suspicious of the strain of individualistic behaviour that sleeps, and often wakes here, through the centuries) I found, 1 bayonet (used, horridly, by the look of it), 1 long, curved sword which I would call a scimitar (used, positively viciously-nicked from top to bottom of the blade), 4 duelling swords of various thicknesses (used, possibly only in sport, but who knows what the house inhabitants might define as sport?) a carabina case which, worryingly, had no carabina inside, where is it?, and an air gun (new, unused, thank goodness the grocer is doing the honours across the square).
So I put them all in a safe place, deeming the missing carbine to be in a safe place already, except for the duelling swords which are looking decorative in a stanza del terrazzo .
Once the arms had been declared to be in the house there was no requirement to hand them in; just so long as it's known they are there, they said.
I didn't declare the Landrover Defender, even though its booklet describes it as tried, tested and approved in use by armies throughout the world.
Monday, 23 April 2007
Choices and an English parliament
It is St George’s day. Raedwald has posted that there can be no further delay and that it is time to establish a parliament for England, regrettable as the consequences may be for the union of the United Kingdom. What follows are my thoughts on this.
Many might make the observation that in the counties of Ulster, 6 making up Northern Ireland, and 3 part of the Republic of Ireland, there will be a generational, demographic shift that will unite Ulster in one region of the European Union. This view is strengthened by a glance at the Irish EU regional map. Ancient Ulster waits to take its place in the Europe of the regions, and is not part of these thoughts on an English parliament.
What of the mainland? There are different answers that depend on whether the United Kingdom remains in the European Union or withdraws in the face of a constitution too far.
Should we remain then the form of UK governance calls for regionalisation; but not the regions as they are now. English local government needs to be wholly rethought, and the European Union driving policy of subsidiarity whole-heartedly accepted by the most highly centralized governance in Europe. There will need to be regions embodying the natural divisions of the kingdom, wrought by geography, economic structure and historical and cultural bonds. This last implies more than one region both in Scotland and in Wales, and more than nine in England. It requires democratic answerability, with all levels of government elected; and it requires the passing down of democratic choice and responsibility to the lowest possible level consonant with responsiveness to people’s wishes, effectiveness, and efficiency. Germany and Italy are just as fractious as the United Kingdom, their unifications more recent, and yet their national unity is well-served by self-identifying regions with real local power.
Another response is to remain within the European Union and try to exploit the anomalies generated by the policies of regionalisation to achieve the entrenchment of the last statist, authoritarian power outside of North Korea and Cuba. Apart from any other objection to the status quo, for that is where we are, Scotland and Wales might find that European entry statuses and requirements are harder to achieve than their nationalist factions pretend; the European Union has no desire to enable separatism within member states.
Were England to establish a parliament, abandoning the Scots and Welsh to their assemblies’ care, it should choose to leave the European Union.
London is a globalised economy hotspot; its hinterland, as well as the collapsed former heavy industry areas, and no- remaining manufacturing industry areas, are carried by the wealth it generates. It can be thought of as a far greater and richer version of, for instance, Singapore. English-speaking and lying off the coast of Europe, with such unmatchable economic and financial markets and services, it is an independent, immensely wealthy state.
London is the English state. London has the capacity and the interest to build upon the threads of empire that lie neglected by the incomprehension, revenge against thatcherism, redistributive authoritarianism, dead ideologies practice of the last 10 years, and the false conciousness (forgive the usage but here it fits) of Blair's lickspittle warmongering. An English parliament would serve and advance the interests of this state, and truly enrich its members in contrast to their relative impoverishment (again forgive the usage but again it fits) and the tax ‘farming’ that has been endured in this vaunted economic regime for a decade. London is the prize that Brownites will grasp unless an opposition wakes up to prevent it. And all that wealth generation will be used to cement their power.
What would I choose? Now that it is set out as it is here, the first option - remaining within the European Union, recasting local government, and preserving the union of the United Kingdom, while seeking to rebuild commonwealth strengths and co-operation. My family is as much mainland European as it is British and Commonwealth, and they come first; there are, too, great difficulties and sadness in dismantling the United Kingdom; and there is much to fear in the idea of an English state and its alliances, foreign policies and the construction of its post-imperial relations.
Many might make the observation that in the counties of Ulster, 6 making up Northern Ireland, and 3 part of the Republic of Ireland, there will be a generational, demographic shift that will unite Ulster in one region of the European Union. This view is strengthened by a glance at the Irish EU regional map. Ancient Ulster waits to take its place in the Europe of the regions, and is not part of these thoughts on an English parliament.
What of the mainland? There are different answers that depend on whether the United Kingdom remains in the European Union or withdraws in the face of a constitution too far.
Should we remain then the form of UK governance calls for regionalisation; but not the regions as they are now. English local government needs to be wholly rethought, and the European Union driving policy of subsidiarity whole-heartedly accepted by the most highly centralized governance in Europe. There will need to be regions embodying the natural divisions of the kingdom, wrought by geography, economic structure and historical and cultural bonds. This last implies more than one region both in Scotland and in Wales, and more than nine in England. It requires democratic answerability, with all levels of government elected; and it requires the passing down of democratic choice and responsibility to the lowest possible level consonant with responsiveness to people’s wishes, effectiveness, and efficiency. Germany and Italy are just as fractious as the United Kingdom, their unifications more recent, and yet their national unity is well-served by self-identifying regions with real local power.
Another response is to remain within the European Union and try to exploit the anomalies generated by the policies of regionalisation to achieve the entrenchment of the last statist, authoritarian power outside of North Korea and Cuba. Apart from any other objection to the status quo, for that is where we are, Scotland and Wales might find that European entry statuses and requirements are harder to achieve than their nationalist factions pretend; the European Union has no desire to enable separatism within member states.
Were England to establish a parliament, abandoning the Scots and Welsh to their assemblies’ care, it should choose to leave the European Union.
London is a globalised economy hotspot; its hinterland, as well as the collapsed former heavy industry areas, and no- remaining manufacturing industry areas, are carried by the wealth it generates. It can be thought of as a far greater and richer version of, for instance, Singapore. English-speaking and lying off the coast of Europe, with such unmatchable economic and financial markets and services, it is an independent, immensely wealthy state.
London is the English state. London has the capacity and the interest to build upon the threads of empire that lie neglected by the incomprehension, revenge against thatcherism, redistributive authoritarianism, dead ideologies practice of the last 10 years, and the false conciousness (forgive the usage but here it fits) of Blair's lickspittle warmongering. An English parliament would serve and advance the interests of this state, and truly enrich its members in contrast to their relative impoverishment (again forgive the usage but again it fits) and the tax ‘farming’ that has been endured in this vaunted economic regime for a decade. London is the prize that Brownites will grasp unless an opposition wakes up to prevent it. And all that wealth generation will be used to cement their power.
What would I choose? Now that it is set out as it is here, the first option - remaining within the European Union, recasting local government, and preserving the union of the United Kingdom, while seeking to rebuild commonwealth strengths and co-operation. My family is as much mainland European as it is British and Commonwealth, and they come first; there are, too, great difficulties and sadness in dismantling the United Kingdom; and there is much to fear in the idea of an English state and its alliances, foreign policies and the construction of its post-imperial relations.
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Promises and rules
The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe was signed by plenipotentiaries of all European Union member states on 29 October 2004 in Rome , and was intended to come into force at the end of 2006, after ratification by constitutional procedures in each state. Essentially it is a codification of the Treaties of Rome (1957), Maastricht (1992), Amsterdam (1997) and Nice (2001). Amsterdam and Nice crucially modified Rome and Maastricht ; it is these two treaties that have shifted the balance from popularity, through acceptance to rejection of the nature of the European Union in France and the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom it has never been either popular or acceptable to the majority of the people.
Ratification has occurred, or procedures are completed, in 18 of the EU states, some solely by constutional procedure, others by referendum as well, both required and advisory. An advisory referendum rejecting the Treaty is almost as effective as an obligatory referendum. This is why there will be no more advisory referendums on ratifying the recast Treaty . In France Sarkozy has said as much; other candidates have not, yet. What the Dutch will do is not clear, but France and the Netherlands are the only crucial players from the old- established continental Europe membership who have not ratified; others are on hold since this refusal, and until the recast Treaty is settled.
The largest, Poland, seems confused in that the government is promising a referendum on Poland’s joining the Euro when accession to the EU by new states requires conformity to EMS standards prior to qualifying for required Euro entry; if the Polish government thinks it can behave in any other way because of an internal referendum they are wrong. This confusion overflows into how ratification of the Treaty will be handled. Ratification in all the other states seems to be likely, if at times reluctant, and reluctant for a variety of reasons - there is no united opposition to any central purpose of the Treaty.
What of the United Kingdom? The Treaty has been signed in 2004. A consultative referendum on ratification was offered by Blair because in the Lords there was a majority made up of anti -Treaty Conservatives and pro-Treaty Liberal Democrats determined to have one, and ratification could have been held up enough to allow the intervention of the 2005 general election. This, propelled too by the desire to put Chirac in difficulties, leading to a referendum disaster in France that Blair did not expect, immediately followed by a knock on effect in the Netherlands, has wrecked Blair’s Europe policies.
Blair’s overwheening personal ambition and unthinking political incompetence, coupled with Brown’s ridiculous 5 tests to avoid the UK economy being subjected to the strictures of Euro qualification and his chancellorship scrutinised against real measures of its success, have caused profound alterations in the European Union’s view of the United Kingdom. There will be no turning back on the Treaty; it is sustained to all intents and purposes as it was precisely because it has been signed and ratified by the majority of members, and France will recover its senses after the May elections, followed by the Netherlands. Germany (and preceding EU presidencies) have been put to unnecessary, time-consuming repair work when there is much to be done on today’s globalised structures and relations both within and outside of the European Union. A beneficial effect is, perhaps, that the Treaty has been stream-lined and made more efficent and less concerned with external pomp.
A little-regarded measure introduced under the Treaty on withdrawal from the Union avoids any need to renogotiate the Treaty, obviates any violation of Treaty commitments and , after 2 years of discussion, if there is no agreement,provides for the erstwhile member-state to leave anyway. That can cut both ways.
Blair’s administration has promised to hold a referendum on this Treaty, but that promise has now been broken. There has been a promise to submit the Treaty to debate in Parliament and acceptance there before ratification. The ratification of treaties in the United Kingdom does not require such debate and acceptance. If it is not offered it really is up to the Opposition to force parliamentary debate; but the failure to demand that there should be no change in the government administration and the wholesale shift in policies embodied in Brown’s arrogation of the Blair Labour majority without a general election, is significant.
Ratification has occurred, or procedures are completed, in 18 of the EU states, some solely by constutional procedure, others by referendum as well, both required and advisory. An advisory referendum rejecting the Treaty is almost as effective as an obligatory referendum. This is why there will be no more advisory referendums on ratifying the recast Treaty . In France Sarkozy has said as much; other candidates have not, yet. What the Dutch will do is not clear, but France and the Netherlands are the only crucial players from the old- established continental Europe membership who have not ratified; others are on hold since this refusal, and until the recast Treaty is settled.
The largest, Poland, seems confused in that the government is promising a referendum on Poland’s joining the Euro when accession to the EU by new states requires conformity to EMS standards prior to qualifying for required Euro entry; if the Polish government thinks it can behave in any other way because of an internal referendum they are wrong. This confusion overflows into how ratification of the Treaty will be handled. Ratification in all the other states seems to be likely, if at times reluctant, and reluctant for a variety of reasons - there is no united opposition to any central purpose of the Treaty.
What of the United Kingdom? The Treaty has been signed in 2004. A consultative referendum on ratification was offered by Blair because in the Lords there was a majority made up of anti -Treaty Conservatives and pro-Treaty Liberal Democrats determined to have one, and ratification could have been held up enough to allow the intervention of the 2005 general election. This, propelled too by the desire to put Chirac in difficulties, leading to a referendum disaster in France that Blair did not expect, immediately followed by a knock on effect in the Netherlands, has wrecked Blair’s Europe policies.
Blair’s overwheening personal ambition and unthinking political incompetence, coupled with Brown’s ridiculous 5 tests to avoid the UK economy being subjected to the strictures of Euro qualification and his chancellorship scrutinised against real measures of its success, have caused profound alterations in the European Union’s view of the United Kingdom. There will be no turning back on the Treaty; it is sustained to all intents and purposes as it was precisely because it has been signed and ratified by the majority of members, and France will recover its senses after the May elections, followed by the Netherlands. Germany (and preceding EU presidencies) have been put to unnecessary, time-consuming repair work when there is much to be done on today’s globalised structures and relations both within and outside of the European Union. A beneficial effect is, perhaps, that the Treaty has been stream-lined and made more efficent and less concerned with external pomp.
A little-regarded measure introduced under the Treaty on withdrawal from the Union avoids any need to renogotiate the Treaty, obviates any violation of Treaty commitments and , after 2 years of discussion, if there is no agreement,provides for the erstwhile member-state to leave anyway. That can cut both ways.
Blair’s administration has promised to hold a referendum on this Treaty, but that promise has now been broken. There has been a promise to submit the Treaty to debate in Parliament and acceptance there before ratification. The ratification of treaties in the United Kingdom does not require such debate and acceptance. If it is not offered it really is up to the Opposition to force parliamentary debate; but the failure to demand that there should be no change in the government administration and the wholesale shift in policies embodied in Brown’s arrogation of the Blair Labour majority without a general election, is significant.
Friday, 20 April 2007
Devolution and deviousness
Devolution is the word used by government to describe the regionalisation of the United Kingdom. It brings to mind the separate parliament of Scotland and the Assemblies of Wales and Northern Ireland. But there are 12 devolved parts of the UK and it is illuminating to think of 12 United Kingdom regions, each with a regional assembly, of which 4 are elected by proportional representation - Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and London. The other 8 regional assemblies are appointed by central government from a mixture of elected representatives of lower level local authority bodies, community stakeholders (religious, local business, cultural groupings, state-funded various) and rag, tag and bobtail others.
These regions are the product of European Union statistical entities created for the purposes of collecting the data etc., needed for European Union allocations both of statuses and resources. In England the majority have no responsiveness to geographical, historical, economic, social or cultural links. They are a grid.
The largest is the South East followed, in order of size, by: London, the North West, the East, the West Midlands, Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber, the South West, the East Midlands, Wales, the North East; the last is Northern Ireland which is such a special case it is not part of this post.
The appointed regional assemblies in England have yielded an enormous bonus to central government in terms of party control. Budgets for these assemblies run into billions of pounds of tax revenue returned to the UK by the European Union. We are funding a government administration countrywide network of jobs, investment, cultural allocations, environmental spending and a host of other forms of patronage. The regional assemblies drain power from directly elected local authorities, money is directed to them and diverted from other local authorities, and they have direct connection with the European Union’s Europe of the Regions.
Such an executive power base is not going to be left to any other governing party should there be a general election. Before leaving office the Labour government will activate electoral procedures for the English assemblies under proportional representation, as already exists for London, the only elected English assembly. This will have the advantage of wiping out the importance of widespread losses in the May local elections, and make the case for election by proportional representation to the Westminster parliament immensely strong. The heterogeneous nature of these regions does not aid any conservative, large or small "c", bid. And should there be a Conservative administration in Westminster, it will face elected power in some regions that are bigger than Scotland.
These regions are the product of European Union statistical entities created for the purposes of collecting the data etc., needed for European Union allocations both of statuses and resources. In England the majority have no responsiveness to geographical, historical, economic, social or cultural links. They are a grid.
The largest is the South East followed, in order of size, by: London, the North West, the East, the West Midlands, Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber, the South West, the East Midlands, Wales, the North East; the last is Northern Ireland which is such a special case it is not part of this post.
The appointed regional assemblies in England have yielded an enormous bonus to central government in terms of party control. Budgets for these assemblies run into billions of pounds of tax revenue returned to the UK by the European Union. We are funding a government administration countrywide network of jobs, investment, cultural allocations, environmental spending and a host of other forms of patronage. The regional assemblies drain power from directly elected local authorities, money is directed to them and diverted from other local authorities, and they have direct connection with the European Union’s Europe of the Regions.
Such an executive power base is not going to be left to any other governing party should there be a general election. Before leaving office the Labour government will activate electoral procedures for the English assemblies under proportional representation, as already exists for London, the only elected English assembly. This will have the advantage of wiping out the importance of widespread losses in the May local elections, and make the case for election by proportional representation to the Westminster parliament immensely strong. The heterogeneous nature of these regions does not aid any conservative, large or small "c", bid. And should there be a Conservative administration in Westminster, it will face elected power in some regions that are bigger than Scotland.
Thursday, 19 April 2007
How it's to be done
When Lenin asked ‘What is to be done?’ he wasn’t expecting an answer from the Brownite faction of the Labour party. Looking about, what they have in mind seems to be:
to divide the Treasury into two.
A Ministry of the Economy and a Ministry of Finance.
A Ministry of the Economy, for those who still believe in indicative planning, that deluded conceit of Mitterand’s France, will further their chance of interfering with markets whose essential mechanisms are outside of their control, thus wrecking potential growth.
A Ministry of Finance will be essentially a tax-gatherer, for fiscal authority will be transferred to an arms' length, 'independent' appointed body, sucessfully removing discussion of tax increases, spending reductions etc. from political scrutiny.
Such independent economic institutions, like the independent Bank of England, will enjoy a permanence of policy and decision-taking that is not crudely interrupted by the intrusion of general elections and their loss.
Thus disembowelled, the Treasury will have few salient powers, and over-arching control for everything devolved, as with all other ministries, will have been transferred to the office of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which title will take on a meaning it has not borne for well over a hundred years.
A Ministry of Justice, accountable at first to the Commons, but doubtless to have an independent and appointed body set up should the legislature show signs of recovery from its apparently permanent, supine position towards the executive, will end the Lord Chancellorship.
The abolition of the Privy Council will deprive the head of state of formal consultation processes outside of advice from the governing administration.
The current inter-relationship between funded think tanks (whether under beneficial taxation regimes or otherwise) providing policy advice, and government expenditures being placed with think tank funders and their nominees will continue to marginalise and extrude the Home Civil Service from its place.
The solution to the inconvenience of answering to the electorate lies in the policy of regionalism. If the structure of regional assemblies is activated for selection of assembly members by voting under proportional representation throughout the UK, and timed to coincide with a general election, then the step to electing the Westminster parliament by proportional representation will have been be made. The United Kingdom is being stripped of its constitutional safeguards and, where it suits, being made to conform to European Union norms, requirements and practices.
The gaping hole where, in Europe, there are written constitutions, penal, and civil codes, all embodying citizens’ rights and duties, defended by constitutional courts and judiciaries spear-headed by investigative magistracies with peremptory powers that would make emperors think twice, is ignored.
We do not want to be as continental Europe is; we have inherited and chosen other paths to a civilised society, in part because it has been our happiness to have never suffered statist regimes, outside of all- out war, and only then when we were wholly united in a common purpose - to defeat authoritarian statism.
.
to divide the Treasury into two.
A Ministry of the Economy and a Ministry of Finance.
A Ministry of the Economy, for those who still believe in indicative planning, that deluded conceit of Mitterand’s France, will further their chance of interfering with markets whose essential mechanisms are outside of their control, thus wrecking potential growth.
A Ministry of Finance will be essentially a tax-gatherer, for fiscal authority will be transferred to an arms' length, 'independent' appointed body, sucessfully removing discussion of tax increases, spending reductions etc. from political scrutiny.
Such independent economic institutions, like the independent Bank of England, will enjoy a permanence of policy and decision-taking that is not crudely interrupted by the intrusion of general elections and their loss.
Thus disembowelled, the Treasury will have few salient powers, and over-arching control for everything devolved, as with all other ministries, will have been transferred to the office of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which title will take on a meaning it has not borne for well over a hundred years.
A Ministry of Justice, accountable at first to the Commons, but doubtless to have an independent and appointed body set up should the legislature show signs of recovery from its apparently permanent, supine position towards the executive, will end the Lord Chancellorship.
The abolition of the Privy Council will deprive the head of state of formal consultation processes outside of advice from the governing administration.
The current inter-relationship between funded think tanks (whether under beneficial taxation regimes or otherwise) providing policy advice, and government expenditures being placed with think tank funders and their nominees will continue to marginalise and extrude the Home Civil Service from its place.
The solution to the inconvenience of answering to the electorate lies in the policy of regionalism. If the structure of regional assemblies is activated for selection of assembly members by voting under proportional representation throughout the UK, and timed to coincide with a general election, then the step to electing the Westminster parliament by proportional representation will have been be made. The United Kingdom is being stripped of its constitutional safeguards and, where it suits, being made to conform to European Union norms, requirements and practices.
The gaping hole where, in Europe, there are written constitutions, penal, and civil codes, all embodying citizens’ rights and duties, defended by constitutional courts and judiciaries spear-headed by investigative magistracies with peremptory powers that would make emperors think twice, is ignored.
We do not want to be as continental Europe is; we have inherited and chosen other paths to a civilised society, in part because it has been our happiness to have never suffered statist regimes, outside of all- out war, and only then when we were wholly united in a common purpose - to defeat authoritarian statism.
.
Democracy and its fragility
The fragility of democratic structures is often underestimated but reflection will show that bringing about their collapse is frequent and often insidious; there is no need for shock and awe to achieve regime change.
The overpowering of the legislature by the executive has been a feature of constitutional change for decades but the last 10 years has seen a rout. The extraordinary spectacle of the House of Lords in last ditch defence of individual liberty and democratic accountability in the face of onslaughts by an authoritarian Labour administration, Bishops and Lords of Appeal standing shoulder to shoulder with the hereditary peers, shows how unsafe we are. The Lords have been valiant but they are about to be abolished for their pains.
The judiciary, the third support of freedom, is being distanced from government and placed under executive control.
The civil service, whose entire basis is to offer, impartially, administrative form to the policy choices of the governing administration has been debased by the importation of anything- but- neutral staff into governance, an innovation worsened by the placing of representatives from suppliers throughout the spending ministries as advisors on purchasing.
The denial of information, and that in a democratic system posited on a simple vote on a presented manifesto by opposing parties, is undermining all chance to react to what is going on.
Speaking of voting something out at the next general election begs the question of under what terms and under what constitutional arrangements the next general election might be held.
The overpowering of the legislature by the executive has been a feature of constitutional change for decades but the last 10 years has seen a rout. The extraordinary spectacle of the House of Lords in last ditch defence of individual liberty and democratic accountability in the face of onslaughts by an authoritarian Labour administration, Bishops and Lords of Appeal standing shoulder to shoulder with the hereditary peers, shows how unsafe we are. The Lords have been valiant but they are about to be abolished for their pains.
The judiciary, the third support of freedom, is being distanced from government and placed under executive control.
The civil service, whose entire basis is to offer, impartially, administrative form to the policy choices of the governing administration has been debased by the importation of anything- but- neutral staff into governance, an innovation worsened by the placing of representatives from suppliers throughout the spending ministries as advisors on purchasing.
The denial of information, and that in a democratic system posited on a simple vote on a presented manifesto by opposing parties, is undermining all chance to react to what is going on.
Speaking of voting something out at the next general election begs the question of under what terms and under what constitutional arrangements the next general election might be held.
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