I am genuinely fascinated that the City of Worcester is intending to twin with... Gaza. I have to declare right from the start that I am something of a sceptic when it comes to towns and cities twinning. I am reminded of the comment made by the late and sadly missed Linda Smith made about her home town of Erith - "Erith isn't twinned with anywhere but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham."
Seriously though what is the point of towns and cities twinning with each other? What are the benefits to local people?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
MP bloggers all talk and no listening?
Research by the Hansard Society has found that although 83% of MPs have a personal website, only 11% of them blog, less than one in four use social networking sites and concludes that 'new media' remains an "untapped area" for political engagement in the UK.
Like the iPod, having your own blog is fast becoming a status symbol. It is therefore no surprise that politicians are getting wise to the potential of the blog as a means of engaging with the electorate in a fast and efficient manner. The problem is that most MP bloggers see the internet as a means of communicating 'their message' rather than a means of engaging with voters about local, regional, national or international issues. It is no surprise that political blogging has become immensely popular in the UK over the past couple of years. LabourHome and ConservativeHome are both well established and are beginning to provide a much needed platform for a vibrant and passionate grassroots debate about the future direction of both parties. Blogs take the media out of the hands of the corporate world and put it into the hands of anyone with a computer and an internet connection. Some of the popular and populist blogs like like Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale's Diary receive hundreds of thousands of hits each month and are proving to be influential in setting the news agenda ahead of the printed and broadcast media. But all politics is local politics and those elected representatives who understand this and establish blogs that invite local people to engage in the local issues are beginning to understand the power of the 'new media' in modern campaigning.
What the Obama campaign showed is that modern politics and government are changing in a fundamental way. Politicians need to become more transparent, more open in their dealings with the electorate. The internet, and interactive tools like blogs, are ways of achieving the greater transparency and openness that the public not only wants but demands. People all over the world are embracing new technology and unless politicians do the same they risk losing a vital link with the people they are trying to reach. Elected politicians and aspiring candidates who are able to get almost instant feedback on local issues will be much better placed to help shape the terms of the debate in a way that will resonate with the constituency that will eventually elect or re-elect them.
Like the iPod, having your own blog is fast becoming a status symbol. It is therefore no surprise that politicians are getting wise to the potential of the blog as a means of engaging with the electorate in a fast and efficient manner. The problem is that most MP bloggers see the internet as a means of communicating 'their message' rather than a means of engaging with voters about local, regional, national or international issues. It is no surprise that political blogging has become immensely popular in the UK over the past couple of years. LabourHome and ConservativeHome are both well established and are beginning to provide a much needed platform for a vibrant and passionate grassroots debate about the future direction of both parties. Blogs take the media out of the hands of the corporate world and put it into the hands of anyone with a computer and an internet connection. Some of the popular and populist blogs like like Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale's Diary receive hundreds of thousands of hits each month and are proving to be influential in setting the news agenda ahead of the printed and broadcast media. But all politics is local politics and those elected representatives who understand this and establish blogs that invite local people to engage in the local issues are beginning to understand the power of the 'new media' in modern campaigning.
What the Obama campaign showed is that modern politics and government are changing in a fundamental way. Politicians need to become more transparent, more open in their dealings with the electorate. The internet, and interactive tools like blogs, are ways of achieving the greater transparency and openness that the public not only wants but demands. People all over the world are embracing new technology and unless politicians do the same they risk losing a vital link with the people they are trying to reach. Elected politicians and aspiring candidates who are able to get almost instant feedback on local issues will be much better placed to help shape the terms of the debate in a way that will resonate with the constituency that will eventually elect or re-elect them.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Ashcroft, cash for constituencies and the Tory party
Sooner or later the Tories are going to have to deal with the 'Ashcroft' issue. The main issues appear to be:
1. There is still no clarity with regards to the the status of Lord Ashcroft as a UK tax-paying resident fully domiciled.
2. Ashcroft's entry into the Lords was made at the request of William Hague when the latter was Leader of the Conservative Party. The then Chairman of the Honours Committee, Lord Thomson, asked the Prime Minister (Tony Blair) to clarify the then Mr Ashcroft’s residence and tax status. When he was made a peer, Downing Street (not Lord Ashcroft) issued a statement in March 2000 stating that ‘Michael Ashcroft has given a clear and unequivocal assurance that he will take up permanent residence in the UK before the end of the calendar year.’ Nearly nine years later and we still do not know if he is domiciled in the UK in the full tax-paying sense.
3. In 2000 One of Lord Ashcroft's predecessors as Tory party treasurer, Lord McAlpine of West Green, said that it would be "outrageous and wrong" for him to receive a peerage.
4. In 2005 Ashcroft used his own private money (supported by fellow businessmen Lord Leonard Steinberg and Bob Edmiston)to support Tory candidates in key seats. This was separate from the party's official campaign. All in all Ashcroft and his colleagues spent £1 million in 93 constituencies.
There have been all kinds of stories and allegations against Ashcroft over the years and Cameron can ill afford for more and more questions to remain unanswered. Same old Tories?
1. There is still no clarity with regards to the the status of Lord Ashcroft as a UK tax-paying resident fully domiciled.
2. Ashcroft's entry into the Lords was made at the request of William Hague when the latter was Leader of the Conservative Party. The then Chairman of the Honours Committee, Lord Thomson, asked the Prime Minister (Tony Blair) to clarify the then Mr Ashcroft’s residence and tax status. When he was made a peer, Downing Street (not Lord Ashcroft) issued a statement in March 2000 stating that ‘Michael Ashcroft has given a clear and unequivocal assurance that he will take up permanent residence in the UK before the end of the calendar year.’ Nearly nine years later and we still do not know if he is domiciled in the UK in the full tax-paying sense.
3. In 2000 One of Lord Ashcroft's predecessors as Tory party treasurer, Lord McAlpine of West Green, said that it would be "outrageous and wrong" for him to receive a peerage.
4. In 2005 Ashcroft used his own private money (supported by fellow businessmen Lord Leonard Steinberg and Bob Edmiston)to support Tory candidates in key seats. This was separate from the party's official campaign. All in all Ashcroft and his colleagues spent £1 million in 93 constituencies.
There have been all kinds of stories and allegations against Ashcroft over the years and Cameron can ill afford for more and more questions to remain unanswered. Same old Tories?
Saturday, February 21, 2009
£20bn of Progress
Progress is suggesting that the government spend an additional £20bn to further stimulate the economy by boosting the housing market. Chris Leslie is calling for a freeze on stamp duty on houses valued under £1m for the rest of 2009 and the offer of a £1,000 tax credit to home buyers. He is also suggesting that Jobseeker's Allowance be increased by £10 per week and that about £12.5bn of additional support and further tax reductions. The general idea is that injecting more money into the economy in 2009 the country will be better able to return to growth more quickly than if we let the market continue to spiral downwards.
The BNP are on the march and we need to stop them
Thursday saw the BNP gain a traditional Labour seat in Sevenoaks and today we find out that Evertion have had to move their home game against Stoke City by 24 hours to accommodate a mass rally that the BNP is organising in Liverpool city centre.
It is sobering to remember that, in years (pre-recession years), the BNP has continued to gain seats in east London and Stoke-on-Trent and picked up enough elsewhere to hold close to 50 council seats in England. This follows 2002's dramatic local election successes in the north of England and a 4.9% showing in the 2004 European elections. For the first time ever in Britain, an openly racist party has sustained the support of more than one in 20 voters over several contests. I believe the deepening of support for the BNP is evidence of a new challenge in British politics. In the past the battleground (sometimes literally) of left v right politics centred on our inner cities. This is no longer the case.The BNP has begun to develop a network of suburban supporters, people who are openly willing to admit not only to supporting a racist and bigoted political party but to doing so with pride and patriotic fervour. If the trends of the past few years continue, the BNP may well make the type of breakthrough that Jon Cruddas has signalled and it will then be far more difficult to reverse than to stop it before it occurs.
It is sobering to remember that, in years (pre-recession years), the BNP has continued to gain seats in east London and Stoke-on-Trent and picked up enough elsewhere to hold close to 50 council seats in England. This follows 2002's dramatic local election successes in the north of England and a 4.9% showing in the 2004 European elections. For the first time ever in Britain, an openly racist party has sustained the support of more than one in 20 voters over several contests. I believe the deepening of support for the BNP is evidence of a new challenge in British politics. In the past the battleground (sometimes literally) of left v right politics centred on our inner cities. This is no longer the case.The BNP has begun to develop a network of suburban supporters, people who are openly willing to admit not only to supporting a racist and bigoted political party but to doing so with pride and patriotic fervour. If the trends of the past few years continue, the BNP may well make the type of breakthrough that Jon Cruddas has signalled and it will then be far more difficult to reverse than to stop it before it occurs.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Is Frank Field right about the New Deal?
I have a huge amount of respect for Frank Field and his piece in today's Times makes for sobering reading. Field argues that the New Deal for Young People should be scrapped and the money saved re-cycled into green community programmes that lead to actual jobs.
Is he right? I think (fear) he may well be talking a good deal of sense.
What do you think?
Is he right? I think (fear) he may well be talking a good deal of sense.
What do you think?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The politics of faith and liberation
Below is the text of a piece that I have written for the Guardian's Comment is Free blog.
Reading Cif belief in recent weeks one could be forgiven for believing that faith is mainly about escapism and that it can rarely be a force for good in society. I am not so sure. The strap line to my blog reads as follows: "Aspire not to have more but to be more." These were the words of Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980 by the pro-US military junta who then ran El Salvador. Romero was an advocate of what became known as liberation theology, a movement which took root throughout Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s and focused on helping the poor and oppressed, even if that meant confronting political powers. It was a theology that was later to be severely criticised as a "fundamental threat" to the church by one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now better known as Pope Benedict XVI.
In the past few years I have become something of an "armchair" Catholic. Why? Mainly because when I do attend mass I hear a good deal about the evils of gay adoption or about why I should no longer support Amnesty International but rarely do I hear any talk about the need for "preferential option for the poor." Our present pope is, in my view, all to keen on encouraging his flock to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's". He appears to openly advocate the view that politics and faith are separate arenas and that the two cannot, indeed should not, mix. The result of, what is in my opinion, a narrow-minded stance is that the Catholic church is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant to the life of the modern man.
By modern man I, of course, mean the "poor man". It is easy to forget that the vast majority of people who inhabit the planet with us live below the poverty line, live in poor housing, have no access to proper health care and have a life expectancy that is decades shorter than that of the minority who live in the affluent west. In today's economic climate there is an even greater need for the voices of liberation to be heard. The present global distribution of goods and services allows a relatively small minority of wealthy groups and ruling classes to use their power and influence to perpetuate macro-economic and political structures which exploit the labour and lives of the vast majority of the planet's population.
Or take the deep and widespread oppression of women, along with the elderly, and children dependent upon women, in all patriarchal societies around the globe where women and their dependants are dehumanised and depersonalised. Is the Catholic church working to further liberate women in these settings, or does it silently support the structures that keep things as they are?
So we either need a new liberation theology or we need the church to be liberated. We need a church that offers hope – not a jam-tomorrow kind of hope, rather the hope that the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard described as the "passion for the possible".
We need a church that can show that it understands that what people need is to believe that things will, and can, be better. In other words, we need the church to renew itself and we need a theology that will actively seek and proclaim the liberation of people from poverty, injustice and persecution – all people, regardless of their faith or their background.
The true message of liberation will always result in some people feeling uneasy. To side, as many liberation theologians in the 1960s and 1970s did, against injustice, to commit one's life to the poor is not a political stance but a moral one. The true message of hope, of a promise that the world can be fairer, more just and less divided often results in giving comfort to the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Now if that was what I could hear and reflect on each week I would have no problem getting up out from my armchair!
Reading Cif belief in recent weeks one could be forgiven for believing that faith is mainly about escapism and that it can rarely be a force for good in society. I am not so sure. The strap line to my blog reads as follows: "Aspire not to have more but to be more." These were the words of Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980 by the pro-US military junta who then ran El Salvador. Romero was an advocate of what became known as liberation theology, a movement which took root throughout Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s and focused on helping the poor and oppressed, even if that meant confronting political powers. It was a theology that was later to be severely criticised as a "fundamental threat" to the church by one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now better known as Pope Benedict XVI.
In the past few years I have become something of an "armchair" Catholic. Why? Mainly because when I do attend mass I hear a good deal about the evils of gay adoption or about why I should no longer support Amnesty International but rarely do I hear any talk about the need for "preferential option for the poor." Our present pope is, in my view, all to keen on encouraging his flock to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's". He appears to openly advocate the view that politics and faith are separate arenas and that the two cannot, indeed should not, mix. The result of, what is in my opinion, a narrow-minded stance is that the Catholic church is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant to the life of the modern man.
By modern man I, of course, mean the "poor man". It is easy to forget that the vast majority of people who inhabit the planet with us live below the poverty line, live in poor housing, have no access to proper health care and have a life expectancy that is decades shorter than that of the minority who live in the affluent west. In today's economic climate there is an even greater need for the voices of liberation to be heard. The present global distribution of goods and services allows a relatively small minority of wealthy groups and ruling classes to use their power and influence to perpetuate macro-economic and political structures which exploit the labour and lives of the vast majority of the planet's population.
Or take the deep and widespread oppression of women, along with the elderly, and children dependent upon women, in all patriarchal societies around the globe where women and their dependants are dehumanised and depersonalised. Is the Catholic church working to further liberate women in these settings, or does it silently support the structures that keep things as they are?
So we either need a new liberation theology or we need the church to be liberated. We need a church that offers hope – not a jam-tomorrow kind of hope, rather the hope that the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard described as the "passion for the possible".
We need a church that can show that it understands that what people need is to believe that things will, and can, be better. In other words, we need the church to renew itself and we need a theology that will actively seek and proclaim the liberation of people from poverty, injustice and persecution – all people, regardless of their faith or their background.
The true message of liberation will always result in some people feeling uneasy. To side, as many liberation theologians in the 1960s and 1970s did, against injustice, to commit one's life to the poor is not a political stance but a moral one. The true message of hope, of a promise that the world can be fairer, more just and less divided often results in giving comfort to the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Now if that was what I could hear and reflect on each week I would have no problem getting up out from my armchair!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Labour needs to be bolder
'At our best when at our boldest' - the words of one T Blair to Labour's annual conference in 2002. Labour is - despite the cynics who argue otherwise - a centre-left party, not a centre-right one. It's centre-left credentials since 1997 have been impressive: the introduction of the minimum wage, the abolition of the assisted places scheme and the hereditary principle in the Lords, huge investment in public services, debt cancellation for the poorest countries, civil partnerships etc, etc. The problem is that many of its most radical and socially progressive initiatives were carried out during its first term. Since 2001 Labour has been, on the whole, competent but not radical, managerial but not inspirational.
So what might a 'bolder' agenda look like? How about the following as a start:
1. Create a 'People's Bank' in every High St and village and call it ... The Post Office.
2. Abolish hospital car parking charges in England.
3. Lower the voting age to 16
4. Give all cancer patients access to the drugs they need (regardless of where they live)
5. Create 0-14 schools and 14-19 colleges and end the needless transition at age 11
What else?
So what might a 'bolder' agenda look like? How about the following as a start:
1. Create a 'People's Bank' in every High St and village and call it ... The Post Office.
2. Abolish hospital car parking charges in England.
3. Lower the voting age to 16
4. Give all cancer patients access to the drugs they need (regardless of where they live)
5. Create 0-14 schools and 14-19 colleges and end the needless transition at age 11
What else?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A great train robbery?
I am not in favour of protectionism but surely to God the £7.5 billion contract to replace the Intercity 125s could have ( gone to a British and not a Japanese company? Why? At a press conference to announce the deal, Hitachi said that the first 70 of the 1,400 engines and carriages in the massive contract will be entirely made and built in Japan. should have)
The minimum wage would not be safe in Tory hands
Below is the text of a piece that I have written for the Guardian's CiF website.
Ten years ago a legally-binding minimum rate of pay was introduced in Britain for the first time. Back in 1999 all adults had to be paid at least £3.60 an hour and workers under the age of 22 were entitled to get no less than £3 an hour. The change benefited about two million people - more than half of them in the service sector – and was a noble attempt to end the disgrace of what supporters of the move called the culture of ‘poverty pay’. Introduced by Labour and supported by the Lib Dems the Bill was opposed by the Conservatives who maintained that it would add to business costs and lead to job losses. When he was the Tory PPC for Stafford (1997) the young David Cameron told a local paper (The Chronicle) that ‘Labour’s plans for minimum wages, the Social Chapter and large increases in spending and taxes would send unemployment straight back up.’ When he became Leader in 2005 he told The Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley that ‘I think the minimum wage has been a success, yes. It turned out much better than many people expected, including the CBI.’ Another Cameron ‘flip flop’ on policy? Not really. Mr Cameron would never attempt scrap the minimum wage – he knows all too well that such a move would be impossible. However calling the minimum wage a ‘success’ does not mean the Tories wouldn’t make changes if they could get away with it. This week a small but significant group of Tory MPs gave their backing to Christopher Chope's 10 minute Rule Bill that would allow for individuals and, de facto, employers, to opt out of the minimum wage. According to Mr Chope giving people the freedom to opt out of the minimum wage would help not only those who are out of work but those in the hard-pressed businesses like retail and hospitality. In other words if some people (probably economic migrants) are prepared to work for less then we should allow them to do so. Such a move would clearly be open to abuse by unscrupulous employers and would no doubt result in companies cutting wages to below the national minimum. It would hardly be hardly be voluntary when the choice would be between taking a wage cut and getting the sack to be replaced by someone who will accept lower pay. An opt out from the minimum wage would end up driving wages down and would probably worsen the current tension between foreign workers and British workers.
I accept that Chope’s Bill will fail but I also think it provides an indication of the future direction of travel if the Tories were to gain office. The minimum wage wouldn’t be scrapped under a Cameron led government, it would be allowed to wither on the vine via a series of small, insignificant and probably below inflation rises.
Is this what David Cameron means by 'progressive' conservatism?
Ten years ago a legally-binding minimum rate of pay was introduced in Britain for the first time. Back in 1999 all adults had to be paid at least £3.60 an hour and workers under the age of 22 were entitled to get no less than £3 an hour. The change benefited about two million people - more than half of them in the service sector – and was a noble attempt to end the disgrace of what supporters of the move called the culture of ‘poverty pay’. Introduced by Labour and supported by the Lib Dems the Bill was opposed by the Conservatives who maintained that it would add to business costs and lead to job losses. When he was the Tory PPC for Stafford (1997) the young David Cameron told a local paper (The Chronicle) that ‘Labour’s plans for minimum wages, the Social Chapter and large increases in spending and taxes would send unemployment straight back up.’ When he became Leader in 2005 he told The Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley that ‘I think the minimum wage has been a success, yes. It turned out much better than many people expected, including the CBI.’ Another Cameron ‘flip flop’ on policy? Not really. Mr Cameron would never attempt scrap the minimum wage – he knows all too well that such a move would be impossible. However calling the minimum wage a ‘success’ does not mean the Tories wouldn’t make changes if they could get away with it. This week a small but significant group of Tory MPs gave their backing to Christopher Chope's 10 minute Rule Bill that would allow for individuals and, de facto, employers, to opt out of the minimum wage. According to Mr Chope giving people the freedom to opt out of the minimum wage would help not only those who are out of work but those in the hard-pressed businesses like retail and hospitality. In other words if some people (probably economic migrants) are prepared to work for less then we should allow them to do so. Such a move would clearly be open to abuse by unscrupulous employers and would no doubt result in companies cutting wages to below the national minimum. It would hardly be hardly be voluntary when the choice would be between taking a wage cut and getting the sack to be replaced by someone who will accept lower pay. An opt out from the minimum wage would end up driving wages down and would probably worsen the current tension between foreign workers and British workers.
I accept that Chope’s Bill will fail but I also think it provides an indication of the future direction of travel if the Tories were to gain office. The minimum wage wouldn’t be scrapped under a Cameron led government, it would be allowed to wither on the vine via a series of small, insignificant and probably below inflation rises.
Is this what David Cameron means by 'progressive' conservatism?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Free prescriptions?
All prescriptions are free in Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland will abolish prescription charges soon. From April 1st this year Cancer patients, people under 19 and over 60 and those suffering from a list of illnesses (which probably seemed sensible in 1968) don't have to pay for their prescriptions in England. However there is plenty of evidence that many poor people do not take medication, or sometimes do not even take medical advice, because of cost. Professor Ian Gilmore is leading a review of Prescription Charges with a view to extending free prescriptions to more people with long term conditions -
www.dh.gov.uk/prescriptionchargesreview
The closing date for the web survey and for written submissions is 27 February 2009.
I think the time has come to abolish prescription charges in England. The principle that healthcare should be free at the point of delivery is a very sound one, and Governments repeatedly pledge their support to it. But for many poor people these pledges are not reflected in their experience.If we cannot do that straight away maybe we could enlarge the list of benefits which entitle the recipient to free prescriptions to include Incapacity Benefit and Disability Living Allowance? At present anyone whose weekly income is more than £3.65 above the Income Support poverty line has to pay the full cost. For single people under 25 - £51.60; 25 or over - £64.15. That means that many people on Incapacity Benefit long-term basic rate - £84.50 - have to pay in full.What do others think?
www.dh.gov.uk/prescriptionchargesreview
The closing date for the web survey and for written submissions is 27 February 2009.
I think the time has come to abolish prescription charges in England. The principle that healthcare should be free at the point of delivery is a very sound one, and Governments repeatedly pledge their support to it. But for many poor people these pledges are not reflected in their experience.If we cannot do that straight away maybe we could enlarge the list of benefits which entitle the recipient to free prescriptions to include Incapacity Benefit and Disability Living Allowance? At present anyone whose weekly income is more than £3.65 above the Income Support poverty line has to pay the full cost. For single people under 25 - £51.60; 25 or over - £64.15. That means that many people on Incapacity Benefit long-term basic rate - £84.50 - have to pay in full.What do others think?
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