UnLtd, The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, is giving delegates at Chain Reaction 2009 on 12 November in Canary Wharf, London, the opportunity to secure one UnLtd Level 1 Award with support and up to £5,000 of cash to turn their idea into a reality.

Level 1 Awards are designed to help make new ideas become real projects and are aimed at individuals or informal groups of people who want to get their idea off the ground. The winner will receive funding to help with the running costs of the project alongside a package of ongoing support.

Delegates will have a window of three hours from the start of the event at 9am to drop in and pitch their ideas in the hope of being shortlisted by an acclaimed panel including Oli Barrett (Connected Capital, Make Your Mark With A Tenner), Rachel Elnaugh (Serial Entrepreneur, former BBC Dragon from Dragon’s Den), and Natalie Campbell (Enterprise UK).

The chosen finalists will take part in a Dragon’s Den style live pitching session to present their ideas where the winner will be decided by a unique audience vote. UnLtd’s very own Cliff Prior, CEO, will be compere at the session and alongside the panel, will be on hand to answer any questions relating to the start up of social ventures, providing expert advice.

The Chain Reaction event brings people together to share ideas for social change, including those from government, charity and business. Key themes of the day include new ideas for financing social change, new ideas for delivering public services, new ideas for organising the business of social change and new ideas for engaging communities. Speakers include, Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for London, Martha Lane Fox, Chair of the Digital Inclusion Task Force, and Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour New Media Campaign Spokesperson.

Cliff Prior, CEO at UnLtd said, ‘Chain Reaction is an important event because it brings together people who have the power to make social change and presents a unique platform to hear the latest ideas. UnLtd are proud to be a catalyst for social change and to provide the necessary funding and support to turn those ideas into a reality’.

For more information on UnLtd, visit www.UnLtd.org.uk or to register as a delegate at Chain Reaction, click here (Under 21’s go free!)

Looks like Gordon Brown  has run up the white flag on spending.

Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has today announced that the pre-Budget report will outline plans to halve the Government’s spending deficit over four years.

Byrne says that this can be done while at the same time protecting public services:

“In the Pre-Budget Report we will set out in more detail how we will halve the deficit over four years and protect those public services which we think are key to helping people make the most of the future in this country.”

Evidently, those public services that are not considered “key” will not be protected.

So bang goes the famous Brownian dividing line of “Tory cuts v Labour investment”.   Watching Gordon attempting to explain that one away will be hugely entertaining.

There have been two publications this week that have caught my attention, and I have been a bit surprised by the lack of reaction to them. The first was from the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit, entitled Power in people’s hands: learning from the world’s best public services and the second from the Lords Information Committee on creating connections between people and Parliament.

Power in people’s hands

This is a very interesting report, driven by the fact that there is just not a great deal of money about and a recognition that the way out of any recession is innovation. This is good news for everyone, it means we are going to get creative. Liam Byrne MP writes the foreword and says that ‘in the next decade we need to be radical about power; realistic about money; and relentless on innovation’. The report has shown that there is a worldwide shift of power from the State to the citizen, but what excites me most is that Mr Byrne has picked out freedom of information and data to be the UK’s pièce de résistance : ‘We aim to be world leaders in making information on services accessible’. OK his words are not quite so dramatic, but in Ministerial speak that is quite a statement, the stall he has set out is the information one – and that is a huge win for the UK. We have a wealth of entrepreneurial and geek talent ready and willing to take such information and help create services that work at hyper-local and individual level. (You might just have to trust me on this one).

I suggest you skim read the whole report, but I am just going to cut and paste the bits that jumped out for me below if you need further convincing:

Overall, the importance of public services is likely to grow rather than diminish. For example, sources of increasing wealth creation – such as the emerging low-carbon, life science and pharmaceutical, and digital industries – will create new opportunities. But every person, and the country as a whole, will only have the potential to benefit fully if they have access to excellent schools, training and employment services.

…

… stepping up the drive to improve value for money by taking hard decisions on priorities as needs change, redesigning services, sharing assets better and cutting bureaucracy.

And for you working in local government and devolved: more exciting news, this does recognise you are the front-liners:

In considering lessons, it is also important to recognise that the public services that are covered in this study are delivered by the Devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and by local authorities. It will be for these bodies to consider the most appropriate insights. At a time of necessary innovation, however, the best organisations look outward – for practices which can be replicated and to spark new ideas and challenge existing ways of thinking.

Here is the bit that interests me most, Chapter Two expands and I recommend that you read all of it if the following interests you slightly:

Empowering citizens in the information age

A revolution in the use and re-use of information on public services is being stimulated by new online technologies, giving the potential to empower citizens to hold services to account far more easily than in the past. The leading-edge systems, such as StateoftheUSA.org and data.gov, are not only disseminating information rapidly. They are also breaking down government monopolies on information presentation and use by making it easy for people to analyse information themselves. At the same time, blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 tools are enabling citizens to get more deeply involved in validating information and collectively making decisions. In Cologne, for example, participatory budgeting uses new technology to give citizens a stronger voice over how public money is spent.

The shift required for governments to enable such changes is cultural as much as technical. It is no coincidence that American public services have been at the forefront of these changes,  for they already had an understanding that all government information should be in the public domain. Government should, however, do more than just liberate information. The global leaders will be those who invest in ensuring that information is high-quality and balanced, can be shared through common standards and facilitates joint working by professionals and citizens.

Fascinated yet? Whole report here.

So Cabinet Office is saying it needs to get revolutionary on us… and now Parliament, specifically the House of Lords, agrees. For those of you not clear about the role of Parliament and the role of the Cabinet, let me grab some explanations for you: can’t use my own words as I may explain it wrong, so forgive the use of even more quotes.

The Cabinet Office aims to ensure that the Government delivers its priorities. It does this by supporting collective consideration of key issues by Cabinet and its Ministerial Committees, and by working with departments to modernise and co-ordinate government, aiming at excellence in policy making and responsive, high quality public services.

Parliament is an essential part of UK politics. Its main roles are:

• Examining and challenging the work of the government (scrutiny)

• Debating and passing all laws (legislation)

• Enabling the government to raise taxes

*more detail on Parliament here

And so the fact that the House of Lords has come to a similar conclusion about its own work is equally as important.

Creating connections between people and Parliament

The report has been written by the Information Committee which ‘considers the House’s information and communications services’. The report has the tagline: are the Lords listening; and if you read my explanation of the difference between Parliament and Cabinet then perhaps it is important to us that they are. The report is in such an easy to use format that it negates the need for me to pull out the interesting bits. Go and read it here it seriously is a very important report. You could just read Chapters 3 and 4 if like me you are most interested in communication and data, but I don’t recommend it (read it all!).

CHAPTER 3: ONLINE COMMUNICATION AND ENGAGEMENT

• Online forumsCommenting on legislation

  Box 2: Recommendations on Online Communication and Engagement

The parliamentary website


The Lords of the Blog website

Parliament and YouTube

Parliament’s use of other social media

Embedding

Parliament on other websites

Increasing two-way online communication

What can be done on the parliamentary website?

CHAPTER 4: SETTING PARLIAMENTARY DATA FREE

Introduction


Making public data available online for re-use

Progress so far on releasing parliamentary data

Integrated information

Online information about Bills

The role the Government should play

Box 3: Recommendations on Parliamentary Data

And of course, always the best bit, the list of recommendations:

CHAPTER 11: SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS AND ACTIONS

Actions arising from our recommendationsActions the Committee has already taken:

Actions the Committee will take:

Actions the Committee recommends the House Committee should take:

Actions the Committee recommends the Administration and Works Committee should take:

Actions the Committee recommends the Government should take:

Especially good is this one:

“We recommend that information and documentation related to the core work of the House of Lords (including Bills, Hansard, transcripts of public committee meetings, evidence submitted to committees, committee reports, records of divisions, expenses and the register of Lords’ interests) should be produced and made available online in an open standardised electronic format that enables people outside Parliament to analyse and re-use the data.“

I am not sure that I need to conclude this post other than to say I hope that I have helped you find two very interesting reports! And apologies if I bored you…

by Tony Grew

Harriet Harman was pressed on the issue at Business Questions today and the plight of people was raised at Treasury Questions earlier this week.

The issue Equitable Life policy holders is of concern to many MPs – more than 320 of them have signed an Early Day Motion calling on the the government to accept the recommendations of the Ombudsman on compensating policyholders who have suffered loss.

“More than 30,000 people have already died waiting for a just resolution to this saga,” the EDM states.

In a report published in July 2008 Ann Abraham, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, called on the Government to apologise to Equitable Life policyholders and to establish and fund a compensation scheme for those policyholders.

She made ten determinations of maladministration on the part of the former Department of Trade and Industry, the Government Actuary’s Department, and the Financial Services Authority, in relation to their regulation of Equitable in the period before 1 December 2001.

Sir John Chadwick was then appointed as independent adviser in relation to the Equitable Life ex-gratia payment scheme.

Today Harriet Harman told the House:

“I would like to emphasise that the ombudsperson, in her report, looked at the generality of the situation, and drew conclusions about the principles of the approach.

“Sir John Chadwick is taking the matter forward, looking at which individuals have suffered from action for which there is culpability, and which have suffered an injustice.

“He will have to set up a system of paying money to individuals.

“There are nearly a million policyholders, many of whom have lost out, and given that public money is about to be expended, it is important to look at setting up a framework for doing so.

“Information on who the policyholders are, what their policies were, when they took them out, and whether individuals made any changes to their policies has been forwarded to Sir John Chadwick’s actuarial advisers, Towers Perrin, which is going through that information.

“Hon. Members, as well as everybody else, have been asked to make their views known to Sir John by this Friday, and he will produce an interim report in August.

“If we were tipping money out without a proper framework, the Opposition would rightly object and ask us what we were doing.

“There will be a statement, and there have already been oral questions on the subject.”

Shadow Leader Alan Duncan demanded a “full oral statement, before we rise, on how the Government intend to compensate policyholders.”

“Given that the policyholders have been waiting nine long years for the Government to act on their plight, does she accept that it would be a total insult to them if there were not a full, oral update in this Chamber?” he asked.

David Heath, Lib Dem business manager, also asked for an oral statement.

At Treasury Questions on Tuesday Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said Sir John Chadwick’s advice on an Equitable Life ex gratia payment scheme was proceeding “with urgency.”

“The question of the speed of his conclusions is also an important one, but I would like him to balance speed with coming to the right conclusions,” he said.

“He will obviously have to go through an enormous amount of information about policyholders, which will have to be thoroughly analysed before any conclusions can be drawn about the right ex gratia scheme to correct this injustice.

“Sir John told me this morning that it will be much easier for him to pin down what the next stages will be after this Friday, when all the representations have been received.

“He hopes to publish a further document pointing out the next steps in August.”

Lib Dem frontbencher Jo Swinson pointed out that with “15 policyholders dying every day, how much longer does he think it is reasonable for people to wait?”

Labour’s Lindsay Hoyle said the collapse of Equitable Life had touched every constituency in the country.

“The time has now come to show compassion and that the Government care,” he said.

“Let us get on with it; let us pay out the cheques and have done with it once and for all.”

Another Labour MP, Anne Begg, urged the government “to get a move on and get some money into their pockets.”

Shadow Treasury spokesman Mark Hoban said it is a year since the ombudsman produced her report and six months since the Government produced their response.

“Does the Minister not appreciate just how angry policyholders are that they still do not know how much they may receive or when they may receive it?” he asked.

“Is it not time for the Government to give a clear deadline for when policyholders can expect to receive some payments in recognition of the losses they suffered as a result of the Government’s maladministration of the regulation of Equitable Life?”

Mr Byrne said the anger “is shared on both sides of the House” and “all Members want a speedy resolution now.”

First published June 30 2009

Another look at what engendered a lot of anti-Ed Balls sentiment, even from inside the Labour ranks, as I put it on a Liberal Conspiracy entry;

“On CiF, and during an interview with Radio 4’s World at One, Balls spelt out his reasons for wanting to go ahead with spending, along with why fighting within the Labour ranks is hurting the party, and giving the Tories a free ticket to political high ground. (Continue)

Another look at what engendered a lot of anti-Ed Balls sentiment, even from inside the Labour ranks, as I put it on a Liberal Conspiracy entry;

“On CiF, and during an interview with Radio 4’s World at One, Balls spelt out his reasons for wanting to go ahead with spending, along with why fighting within the Labour ranks is hurting the party, and giving the Tories a free ticket to political high ground.

But Balls in the interview was clearly more cautious than some have now made out – like Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, for example, who said

“We are going to decide how the growth in public spending is divided up much closer to the time. Looking into a crystal ball and understanding what the economy looks like in the year of the Olympics, I just don’t think is possible right now.”

Balls boldly stated that the moves on spending, to outdo Tory plans on 10% spending cuts

“will depend upon what happens to the economy and to unemployment and debt interest. But I think that with tough choices we can see real rises in the schools budget and the NHS budget in future years.”

These careful claims are justified, but why has Byrne not understood them? Has he let anything out the bag? And more importantly, why is the Chancellor’s department not backing the plans?”

I stand by my main thesis; that Balls is a cautious pursuer of future public spending, is stridently opposed to the Tories’ staunch commitment to cuts, and in order for the Government to promote the “quality of life” – or the “missing link” as Pete B has put it – spending should begin the minute our finances can allow for it.

What’s more, is that Byrne appeared to want to distance himself from Balls. But Byrne, over the weekend in the Guardian, has said that with a dash of cuts in capital expenditure, power to people, economy boosts, “Public services are the way in which we … open up those new horizons … [for] a more equal Britain”, in order or the Labour Party to be at the centre of the public services debate.

So there was clearly no anger directed at Balls for his optimism – for public services are what Byrne, as well as Brown, consider to be the fighting issue at the next general elections.

But what it could be is that Balls’ talk of “tough choices” – which I have translated as reallocation of money from other departments and/or expenditure – is implying that no new money (scroll down to see Jonathan Freedland for his criticism of this) will be achieved by the party.

Though it doesn’t necessarily imply this at all.

The fact that Balls has been cautious when saying spending “will depend upon what happens to the economy and to unemployment and debt interest,” proves that Balls doesn’t know what is around the corner (and he certainly hasn’t pretended to be looking into any “crystal ball” as Byrne noted). But whether the economy perks up or not, serious considerations should be taken in order to prioritise on sensible spending, aimed at “supporting families and improving services“.

Whether or not we experience spendthrift times in the future, perhaps we the Labour Party could utilise some methods of reallocation – and renegotiate necessity – in places where possible, and without necessarily predicting the worst in the state of the economy.

ID cards today looked to be scrapped by the always ID-sceptic Alan Johnson (and now, since he is Home Secretary, such a move is not as “embarrassing” as this Mail article would have us believe). A Trident U-turn in the pipeline? These examples for a start seem, not only ideologically redundant, but an excess in terms of financial commitment. If reports are to be believed, a hold on these two issues would save £29bn itself.

A re-think on policies and spending that has working families and services – once the heartland of the Labour Party – in mind, is a tactic that can work alongside the creation of real money in the future. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

And furthermore, Balls’ talk of “tough choices” can be a practical presence to all the good talk Labour are doing to counter the Tories’ real commitment to 10% cuts.

First published June 18 2009

Michael Ellam, the current spokesman to Gordon Brown, declared the news on Tuesday that he is being replaced by Simon Lewis – the former spokesperson to the Queen. Good communications with the public is the sine qua non for an incumbent whose party’s latest ICM polls show that they are 15% behind the main opposition on the question of cleaning up the political system.

But communications is not the sum total of Brown’s problems. (continue)

I was struck last night by how the panellists of BBC1’s Any Questions displayed a rare unity in condemning the ‘nationalism’ to which they imputed the recent assaults on Romanian migrants in Northern Ireland. ‘There can be no place for nationalism in modern Britain’, they intoned to the audience’s acclaim.

Apart from the fact that statements such as this articulate a quasi-nationalistic, or inverted-nationalist, pride in Britain (‘what makes us “great as a nation” is our tolerance and integration of multiple nationalities’), this involved an unchallenged equation of hostility towards immigration / racism with ‘nationalism’. This was especially inappropriate in the Northern Ireland context where ‘nationalism’ is associated with Irish republicanism, and hence with Irish nationalism and not – what, actually? British nationalism à la BNP; the British ‘nationalism’ of Northern Irish loyalists (no one bothered to try and unpick whether the people behind the violence had been from the Catholic or Protestant community, or both); or even ‘English’ nationalism?

Certainly, it’s a stock response on the part of the political and media establishment to associate ‘English nationalism’ per se with xenophobia, opposition to immigration and racism. But this sort of knee-jerk reaction itself involves an unself-critical, phobic negativity towards (the concept of) the English – and certainly, the idea of the ‘white English’ – that crosses over into inverted racism, and which ‘colours’ (or, shall we say, emotionally infuses) people’s response to the concept of ‘English nationalism’. In other words, ‘English nationalism’, for the liberal political and media classes, evokes frightening images of racial politics and violence because, in part, the very concept of ‘the English nation’ is laden with associations of ‘white Anglo-Saxon’ ethnic aggressiveness and brutality. English nationalism is therefore discredited in the eyes of the liberal establishment because it is unable to dissociate it from its images of the historic assertion of English (racial) ’superiority’ (for instance, typically, in the Empire). But the fact that the establishment is unable to re-envision what a modern and different English nationalism, and nation, could mean is itself the product of its ‘anti-English’ prejudice and generalisations bordering on racism: involving an assumption that the ‘white English’ (particularly of the ‘lower classes’) are in some sense intrinsically brutish and racist – in an a-historic way that reveals their ‘true nature’, rather than as a function of an imperial and industrial history that both brutalised and empowered the English on a massive scale.

This sort of anti-English preconception was built into the design of New Labour’s asymmetric devolution settlement: it was seen as legitimate to give political expression to Scottish and Welsh nationalism, just not English nationalism. Evidently, there is a place for some forms of nationalism in modern Britain – the ‘Celtic’ ones – but not the English variety. While this is not an exhaustive explanation, the anomalies and inequities of devolution do appear to have enacted a revenge against the English for centuries of perceived domination and aggression. First, there is the West Lothian Question: the well known fact that Scottish and Welsh MPs can make decisions and pass laws that relate to England only, whereas English MPs can no longer make decisions in the same policy areas in Scotland and Wales. This could be seen as a reversal of the historical situation, as viewed and resented through the prism of Scottish and Welsh nationalism: instead of England ruling Scotland and Wales through the political structures of the Union, now Scotland and Wales govern England through their elected representatives in Westminster, who ensure that England’s sovereignty and aspirations for self-government are frustrated.

It might seem a somewhat extreme characterisation of the present state of affairs to say that Scotland and Wales ‘govern England’; but it certainly is true that a system that involves the participation of Scottish and Welsh MPs is involved in the active suppression not only of the idea of an English parliament to govern English matters (which would restore parity with Scotland and Wales) but of English-national identity altogether: the cultural war New Labour has waged against the affirmation and celebration of Englishness in any form – the surest way to extinguish demands for English self-rule being to obliterate the English identity from the consciousness of the silent British majority. In this respect, New Labour’s attempts to replace Englishness with an a-national Britishness – in England only – are indeed reminiscent of the efforts made by an England-dominated United Kingdom in previous centuries to suppress the national identity, political aspirations and traditions of Scotland and Wales.

This notion of devolution enabling undue Scottish and Welsh domination of English affairs becomes less far-fetched when you bear in mind the disproportionate presence of Scottish-elected MPs that have filled senior cabinet positions throughout New Labour’s tenure, including, of course, Gordon Brown: chancellor for the first ten years and prime minister for the last two. And considering that Brown is the principal protagonist in the drive to assert and formalise a Britishness that displaces Englishness as the central cultural and national identity of the UK, this can only lend weight to suspicions that New Labour has got it in for England, which it views in the inherently negative way I described above.

However, the main grounds for believing that devolution enshrines nationalistic bias and vindictiveness towards England is the way New Labour has continued to operate the Barnett Formula: the funding mechanism that ensures that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland benefit from a consistently higher per-capita level of public expenditure than England. One thing to be observed to begin with is that Barnett is used to legitimise the continuing participation of non-English MPs in legislating for England, as spending decisions that relate directly to England only trigger incremental expenditure for the other nations.

But New Labour has used Barnett not only to justify the West Lothian Question but has attempted to justify it in itself as a supposedly ‘fair’ system for allocating public expenditure. It seems that it is construed as fair primarily because it does penalise England in favour of the devolved nations, not despite this fact. This sort of thinking was evidenced this week during a House of Lords inquiry into the Barnett Formula. Liam Byrne, the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, described the mechanism as “fair enough”, only to be rounded on by the Welsh Labour chair Lord Richard of Ammanford: “It doesn’t actually mean anything. Look at the difference between Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland – is that fair?” So it’s OK for England to receive 14% less spending per head of population than Wales, 21% less than Scotland and 31% less than Northern Ireland; the only ‘unfairness’ in the system is the differentials between the devolved nations!

The view that this system is somehow ‘fair to England’ – except it’s not articulated as such, as this would be blatantly ridiculous and it ascribes to England some sort of legal personality, which the government denies: ‘fair for the UK as a whole’ would be the kind of phrase used – exemplifies the sort of nationalistic, anti-English bias that has characterised New Labour. It’s as if the view is that England ‘owes’ it to the other nations: that because it has historically been, and still is, more wealthy overall and more economically powerful than the other nations, it is ‘fair’ that it should both pay more taxes and receive less back on a sort of redistribution of wealth principle. But this involves a re-definition of redistribution of wealth on purely national lines, as if England as a whole were imagined as a nation of greedy capitalists and arrogant free marketeers that need to pay their dues to the exploited and neglected working class people of Scotland and Wales: the bedrock of the Labour movement.

In short, it’s ‘pay-back time’: overlaying the centuries-long resentment towards England’s wealth and power, England is being penalised for having supported Margaret Thatcher and her programme of privatisation, disinvestment in public services and ruthless market economics. ‘OK, if that’s how you want it, England, you can continue your programme of market reforms of public services; and if you want a public sector that is financially cost-efficient and run on market principles, then you can jolly well pay yourselves for the services that you don’t want the public purse to fund – after all, you can afford to, can’t you? But meanwhile, your taxes can fund those same services for us, because we can’t afford to pay for them ourselves but can choose to get them anyway through our higher public-spending allocation and devolved government’.

Such appears at least to be the ugly nationalistic, anti-English backdrop to the two-track Britain New Labour has ushered in with asymmetric devolution. This has allowed Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to pursue a classic social-democratic path of high levels of funding for public services based on a redistributive tax system; that is, with wealth being redistributed from England, as the tax revenues from the devolved nations are not sufficient to fund the programme. Meanwhile, in England, New Labour has taken forward the Thatcherite agenda of reforming the public sector on market principles. In a market economy, individuals are required to pay for many things that are financed by the state in more social-democratic and socialist societies. Hence, the market economics can be used to justify the unwillingness of the state to subsidise certain things like university tuition fees (an ‘investment’ by individuals in their own economic future); various ‘luxuries’ around the edges of the standard level of medical treatment offered by the state health-care system (e.g. free parking and prescriptions, or highly advanced and expensive new drugs that it is not ‘cost-efficient’ for the public sector to provide free of charge); or personal care for the elderly, for which individuals in a market economy are expected to make their own provisions.

These sorts of market principle, which have continued and extended the measures to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’ initiated under the Thatcher and Major governments, have been used to justify the government in England not paying for things that are funded by the devolved governments: public-sector savings made in England effectively cross-subsidise the higher levels of public spending in the other nations. Beneath an ideological agenda (reform of the public services in England), a nationalist agenda has been advanced that runs utterly counter to the principles of equality and social solidarity across the whole of the United Kingdom that Labour has traditionally stood for. Labour has created and endorsed a system of unequal levels of public-service provision based on a ‘national postcode lottery’, i.e. depending purely on which country you happen to live in. Four different NHS’s with care provided more
free at the point of use in some countries than others, and least of all in England; a vastly expanded university system that is free everywhere except England; and social care offered with varying levels of public funding, but virtually none in England. So much for Labour as the party of the working class and of the Union: not in England any more.

There’s an argument for saying that English people should pay for more of their medical, educational and personal-care needs, as they are better off on average. But that’s really not the point. Many English people struggle to pay for these things or simply can’t do so altogether, and so miss out on life-prolonging drug treatments or educational opportunities that their ‘fellow citizens’ elsewhere in the UK are able to benefit from. A true social-democratic- and socialist-style public sector should offer an equal level of service provision to anyone throughout the state that wishes to access it, whether or not they could afford to pay for private health care or education but choose not to. The wealthy end up paying proportionately more for public services anyway through higher taxes. Under the New Labour multi-track Britain, by contrast, those English people who are better off not only have to pay higher taxes but also have to pay for services that other UK citizens can obtain free of charge, as do poorer English people. One might even say that this extra degree of taxation (higher income tax + charges for public services) is a tax for being English.

But of course, it’s not just the middle and upper classes that pay the England tax; it’s Labour’s traditional core supporters: the English working class. On one level, it’s all very well taking the view that ‘middle England’ supports privatisation and a market economy, so they can jolly well pay for stuff rather than expecting the state to fund it. But it’s altogether another matter treating the less well-off people of England with the same disregard. It is disregarding working people in England to simply view it as acceptable that they should have to pay for hospital parking fees, prescription charges, their kids’ higher education and care for their elderly relatives, while non-English people can get all or most of that for free. What, are the English working class worth less than their Celtic cousins?

How much of this New Labour neglect of the common people of England can truly be put down to a combination of Celtic nationalism, anti-English nationalism, and indeed inverted-racist prejudice towards the white English working class? Well, an attribution to the English of an inherent preference for market economics – coming as it does from a movement that despised that ideology during the 1980s and early 1990s – could well imply a certain contempt for the English, suffused with Scottish and Welsh bitterness towards the ‘English’ Thatcher government.

But an even more fundamental and disturbing turning of the tables against the English is New Labour’s laissez-faire attitude to job creation, training and skills development for the English working class. The Labour government abandoned the core principle that it has a duty to assist working people in acquiring the skills they need to compete in an increasingly aggressive global market place, and to foster ‘full employment’ in England; and it just let the market take over. It’s as if the people of England weren’t worth the investment and didn’t matter, only the economy. And it’s because of Labour’s comprehensive sell out to market economics that it has encouraged the unprecedented levels of immigration we have experienced, deliberately to foster a low-wage economy; and, accordingly, a staggering nine-tenths of the new jobs created under the Labour government have gone to workers from overseas. Is it any wonder, then, that there is such widespread concern – whether well founded or not in individual cases – among traditional Labour voters in England about immigration, and about newcomers taking the jobs and housing that they might have thought a Labour government would have striven to provide for them?

How much of the liberal establishment’s contempt and fear of English white working-class racism and anti-immigration violence is an adequate response to a genuine threat? On the contrary, to what extent has that threat and that hostility towards migrants actually been brought about and magnified by New Labour’s pre-existing contempt and inverted racism towards the white working-class people of England, and the policies (or lack of them) that flowed from those attitudes?

Has New Labour, in its darker under-belly, espoused the contempt towards the ‘lazy’, ‘loutish’, disenfranchised English working class that Margaret Thatcher made her hallmark – and mixed it up in a heady cocktail together with Celtic nationalism, and politically-correct positive economic and cultural discrimination in favour of migrants and ethnic minorities?

One thing is for sure, though: English nationalism properly understood – as a movement that strives to redress the democratic and social inequalities of the devolution settlement out of a concern for all of the people residing and trying to earn a living in England – is far less likely to foster violence against innocent Romanian families than is the ‘British nationalism’ of the BNP or the various nationalisms of the other UK nations that have seen far lower levels of immigration than England.

But is there a place not just for English nationalism but for England itself in a British state and establishment that are so prejudiced against it?

Some political realities need to be acknowledged if Labour is to move forward. These are:

First, Gordon Brown will lead Labour into the next General Election. The reaction (or, at least, non-resignation) of other leading figures in the party - particularly, Peter Mandelson, Alan Johnson and David Miliband – to James Purnell’s resignation finally confirmed this.

Second, as I have previously said, Labour has three options: 1.) Back Brown, 2.) Replace him, 3.) Allow him to continue without backing him. The third of these is the worst for Labour and choices of Mandelson et al have closed off the second. Thus, the first must be genuinely embraced by the party.

Third, in yesterday’s Guardian ICM poll, Labour only out-scores the Tories on one issue – better protecting public services.

Fourth, as Liam Byrne’s press conference earlier this week illustrated, Labour’s current line on future spending is not the strongest in the world.

Fifth, this is recognised by people. A new poll  on Politics Home finds that only 16 per cent of voters think that Labour is being most honest on tax and spend, behind the Tories on 37 and the Lib Dems on 28. Not even a majority of Labour supporters think Labour is being straighter on this than other parties.

Sixth, the government genuinely is providing real help now, as the tag line goes, to prevent this recession producing the kind of build up of youth unemployment that recessions under the last Conservative government witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s. Martin Bright recently noted: “There are still some potentially promising ideas knocking about. The Future Jobs Fund, which provides a subsidy for employers willing to take a 14-18 year old at risk of long term unemployment, and the Young Person’s Guarantee, which promises to find work for young people unemployed for over a year, are both attempts to tackle the unemployment tsunami about to hit Britain. The Graduate Talent Pool proposed by DIUS to match graduates to internships is the seed of a good idea and the proposals from the Communities and Local Government department to fill empty high street businesses with creative ‘pop-up’ shops and could also help”.

Sixth, the good work  on youth unemployment lacks co-ordination. Bright goes on to say: “Without coordination, (these policies) risk becoming just another set of eye-catching initiatives … One of the most useful jobs to be carried out by Tessa Jowell in the Cabinet Office or Lord Mandelson in his new Department of Everything would be to coordinate all the work being done to stimulate employment and tackle the recession”.

Ninth, while the economy undoubted still faces major challenges, it has started to grow again. Labour’s activism on tax and spend must have contributed towards this improvement.

Tenth, the British public are far from sold on David Cameron, as Michael White notes.

So, where does this leave us?

The first and second points tell us that Labour has no sensible option but to unite behind the architect of the 2005 General Election campaign: Gordon Brown. A key theme of this campaign was Labour investment versus Tory cuts. The third point might suggest that this strategy should be deployed again but the fourth and fifth points imply that this would not be credible. Instead, the government should build out of the support that it enjoys for protecting public services – the third point – to create support for what can be achieved through public services.

Our story on public services shouldn’t be about how much we invest in public services but about what we can achieve through public services. Our politics and policies should be focused on outcomes, like reduced youth unemployment, not inputs, which discussions about investment always constrain us to. Let us make a make a mission of the outcomes that we prioritise and let us be defined in these terms. The spending choices that we make should reflect these priorities, re-enforcing them both in the minds of Whitehall and the public. Which of our missions, for example, is satisfied by persisting with ID cards? The spending commitments that are not central to our missions should be subjected to the strongest scrutiny.  

The upturn in the economy – the ninth point – is beginning to give a taste of the outcomes that might be achieved when government targets its resources and energies on well-defined objectives and makes missions of them. Youth unemployment must be a mission. Thinking of the other things that should be missions makes me think of something Neal Lawson said recently:

“The story of the last thirty years has been the transfer of risk from the collective, the social and the community to the individual”.  

The risk of being left on the scrap heap of unemployment is not a risk that anyone, least of all the young, should have to face alone. The risks of growing old in an ageing society will be far larger than they should be for far too many people unless we collectively decide to make a mission of improving health and social care for the elderly. The risks of climate change are massive for all of us and can only be tackled by any of us on a collective basis.

This is the stuff of a positive case for government. It is in setting out this positive case that Labour’s best hope for the next General Election resides. This is a different kind of strategy from the 2005 campaign but one which needs to be embraced. It wouldn’t pretend that government can provide the answers to all our problems – this country still needs to have a more mature conversation about what government can and cannot do and what the responsibilities of citizens are and are not - but it would provide a coherent basis for Labour building upon the success which the beginnings of a turn-around in the economy represents. 

The anti-government reaction of the Conservatives to the banking crisis (e.g. opposition to fiscal stimulus, etc) suggests that they may be wrong footed by a strategy predicated on a positive case for government. From George Osbourne’s economic policies to Iain Duncan-Smith’s social policies, they still see government as more problem than solution. Let’s start, however, by building a positive case for what we can use government to achieve, rather than erecting unconvincing dividing lines on spending. 

The trend detected by Lawson implies that the Conservatives’ anti-government tendency is out of kilter with the times. This may explain – the eighth point – the fact that the public remain to be sold on Cameron. Labour successfully presenting a positive case for government over the next year may make him more politically vulnerable than he now appears.

Alistair Darling, one half of the duo who quashed city analysts’ predictions on the longevity of financial recession, has clashed with Ed Balls over spending in the health and education departments.

Fair?

Those independent economists (bless them) referenced in the Telegraph article today have said that whoever wins next election will have to squeeze public spending in order to pay back the 700bn borrowing prgramme.

But on CiF and during an interview with Radio 4’s World at One Balls spelt out his reasons for wanting to go ahead with spending, along with why fighting within the Labour ranks is hurting the party, and giving the Tories a free ticket to political highground.

But Balls in the interview was clearly more cautious than some have now made out – like Liam Byrne for example, who said;

“We are going to decide how the growth in public spending is divided up much closer to the time. Looking into a crystal ball and understanding what the economy looks like in the year of the Olympics, I just don’t think is possible right now.”

Balls boldly stated that the moves on spending, to outdo Tory plans on 10% spending cuts;

“will depend upon what happens to the economy and to unemployment and debt interest. But I think that with tough choices we can see real rises in the schools budget and the NHS budget in future years.”

These careful claims are justified, but why have they not been backed by the Chancellor’s department?

Does Darling not believe his own part in the claim – now with Paul Krugman agreeing that Labour are the right party to fix the economy, and Jose Manuel Barroso limiting his focus on America, which by his predictions has not seen the worst of the recession yet – that the UK has the best chance of a quick economic recovery in europe?

Or is it something a little deeper; does it have anything to do with the fact that, as shadow schools secretary Michael Gove questioned, Balls is the man Gordon Brown wanted to make chancellor, [and] Alistair Darling [is] the man he was too weak to move?”

Certainly with TUC’s predictions recently that job losses will continue, now in the public sector – previously resisting the pressure by economic downturn – public spending should be bracketed as important as debt relief – since that debt has been largely public sector relief, its time to focus on how to avoid public sector collapse and more economic misery for working families.

And on a more strategic level, cuts in the public sector is where the Tories are at their most vulnerable; George Osborne and Kenneth Clarke have both said that cuts are inevitable, and Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, has said that to commit to Balls’ needs would mean cutting other departments’ budgets by 10 per cent (earning his pseudonym Mr. 10% by Liam Byrne).

The party must stay focused, cut out the deadweight and the weak, work out how to marry financial repair and public spending to curb job losses and economic misery for working families, and show the Tories that cuts will not cut it with the country’s economy.

Further to yesterday’s post on who will be overseeing the government’s plans for dealing with lobbyists, it would seem that another name is very much in the frame.

Shaun Woodward says he has been handed ’a new responsibility to provide ministerial support to the Prime Minister in the Cabinet Office on the coordination of government policy and strategy’. This is in addition to his role as Northern Ireland secretary.

The significance of this should not be under-stated. It will mean that Woodward effectively takes Liam Byrne’s seat in the war-room of 12 Downing Street.  Given that the two new Cabinet Office ministers (Tessa Jowell and Angela Smith) are already somewhat overloaded, will Woodward also be landed with Tom Watson’s lobbying reform duties?

A Cabinet Office spokesman couldn’t rule it out today. Either way the ex-Tory MP will be a important figure in Downing Street for the next few months….

Peter Mandelson has been given the title First Secretary of State and will head up a new department, it has been announced.

The title, last used by John Prescott, means he is in effect Deputy Prime Minister.

Harriet Harman, Deputy Leader of the Labour party, remains as Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Privy Seal and Minister for Women and Equality and she will continue to deputise for the Prime Minister at PMQs.

Gordon Brown reshuffled his Cabinet yesterday. Geoff Hoon, John Hutton, Jacqui Smith, James Purnell, Caroline Flint, Paul Murphy, Margaret Beckett, Beverley Hughes, Tony McNulty and Hazel Blears have all left the government.

Alan Johnson is the new Home Secretary, Lord Adonis is the new Transport Secretary, Yvette Cooper is Work and Pensions Secretary.

Bob Ainsworth joins the Cabinet as Defence Secretary as does Ben Bradshaw as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Andy Burnham is the new Health Secretary.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is Liam Byrne and Peter Hain returns to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales.

John Denham becomes Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

His department, Universities, Innovation and Skills, is to be merged with Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to create the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Downing St said its key role will be to build Britain’s capabilities to compete in the global economy.

“The merger of BERR and DIUS brings together the parts of the government with key expertise in these areas,” according to Downing St.

“It combines BERR’s strengths in shaping the enterprise environment, analysing the strengths and needs of the various parts of British industry, building strategies for industrial strength and expertise in better regulation with DIUS’s expertise in maintaining world class universities, expanding access to higher education, investing in the UK’s science base and shaping skills policy and innovation through bodies such as the Technology Strategy Board.

“It also puts the UK’s Further Education system and universities closer to the heart of governm ent thinking about building now for the upturn.”

Glenys Kinnock, former MEP and wife of Labour party leader Neil Kinnock, is to join her husband in the House of Lords and take up the role of Minister of Europe.

Businessman Sir Alan Sugar has been appointed as the Government’s Enterprise Champion and will also take a seat in the Lords.

He will act as an adviser to small businesses and Government and and will work closely with Small Business Minister Shriti Vadera and Trade and Investment Minister Mervyn Davis.

From the Downing St website:

Friday 5 June 2009 – Full list of Cabinet members

The Queen is pleased to approve the following Ministerial appointments.

The Queen has also been pleased to approve that Lord Adonis and Ben Bradshaw MP be sworn of Her Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council.

Cabinet

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service

The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP

Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal; Minister for Women and Equality (and deputising for the Prime Minister at PMQs)

The Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP

First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council

The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson

Chancellor of the Exchequer

The Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP

Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

The Rt Hon David Miliband MP

Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor

The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP

Secretary of State for the Home Department

The Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP

Secretary of State for International Development

The Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP

Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

The Rt Hon John Denham MP

Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families

The Rt Hon Ed Balls MP

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP

Secretary of State for Health

The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

The Rt Hon Shaun Woodward MP * and #

Leader of the House of Lords and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

The Rt Hon Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Minister for the Cabinet Office, and for the Olympics and Paymaster General

The Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP

Secretary of State for Scotland

The Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP

Chief Secretary to the Treasury

The Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP

Secretary of State for Wales

The Rt Hon Peter Hain MP

Secretary of State for Defence

The Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP

Secretary of State for Transport

Lord Adonis

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Ben Bradshaw MP

Other Cabinet attendees

Chief Whip (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury)

The Rt Hon Nick Brown MP

Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Rt Hon Lord Malloch-Brown

Minister of State (Housing), Department for Communities and Local Government

The Rt Hon John Healey MP

Minister of State (Business), Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP

Minister of State (Science and Innovation), Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The Rt Hon Lord Drayson*

Minister of State (Employment), Department for Work and Pensions

The Rt Hon Jim Knight MP

Attend Cabinet when their Ministerial responsibilities are on the agenda

Attorney General

The Rt Hon Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC

Minister of State (Children), Department for Children, Schools and Families

The Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP

Minister of State (Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination) Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The Rt Hon Rosie Winterton MP

The Queen has accepted the following resignations:

Cabinet resignations

The Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP
The Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP
The Rt Hon John Hutton MP
The Rt Hon Paul Murphy MP
The Rt Hon James Purnell MP
The Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP

Other resignations

The Rt Hon Tony McNulty MP**
The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP**
The Rt Hon Beverley Hughes MP**

* unpaid
** attended Cabinet
# Provides Ministerial support to the Prime Minister in the Cabinet Office on the coordination of Government Policy and Strategy.

If you are interested in doing Yoga in Gorey then you are a little spoiled for choice. Here is a run down of just some of the excellent teachers currently teaching in the town (the ones I know of anyway and apart from the excellent teachers here in the studio):

Helen Dunlea – teaches Hatha and Pregnancy Yoga at the Amber Springs Hotel. If you are near the south end of Town then this is the right spot for you. Helen teaches a gentle style of Hatha with emphasis on relaxation and stretching and I have heard nothing but good reports about her classes.

Jeanette McDonald – teaches traditional Hatha Yoga in the classical style. Jeanette is very experienced and established. She taught with us in the Studio for a while but not sure where she is teaching now. If I find out I’ll be sure to post here though.

There are some other great teachers in town, but not all of them want to be mentioned here. Any who do, feel free to send me something about your classes and I’ll be happy to post it, subject of course, to review

And of course there are us here at the Studio:

Anthony Kearney – highly experienced Asthanga teacher. You get the real thing with Anthony, as taught by the early teachers in the lineage of this tradition.

Siobhan Rice – Hatha and Pregnancy teacher. Qualified by YTI and teaching to the high standards of this institution.

Barbara Rocks – a highly experienced Hatha teacher, teaching in a classical style and brining to bear many years of bodywork therapy and somatics to her classes.

Liam Byrne (that’s me!) -teaching pure and simple hatha and asthanga yoga four days a week in Gorey and one in Arklow.

How to choose the teacher that’s right for you?

Easy. Go along and try out a class – it’s the best and really the only way to find the teacher that you need at this point on your yoga journey.

Namaste,

Liam.

PS Don’t forget to check out our site: www.yogagorey.com!

An example of one. Eleven pages for f***’s sake.

I knew very little about Derek Draper before he began threatening to sue the blogger Paul Staines (aka “Guido Fawkes”) for libel. Staines had drawn attention to the fact that Draper, a former government spin doctor who has now reinvented himself as a psychotherapist, had been making some highly questionable claims on his CV. Draper is also the brains behind a new political blogging project, “Labourlist”, which seeks to be the party’s answer to the popular “Conservativehome” website.

The Labour party reportedly believes that the “blogosphere” has a right-wing bias – or to put it another way, that a majority of the most widely-read UK political blogs are written by people with conservative leanings. Labour party bigwigs seems especially concerned about the influence of “Guido Fawkes” and another blogger, Iain Dale, among others.

The government’s view that the blogosphere is politically skewed, and that this bodes ill for our democracy, has been given increasing prominence in the last few months. In media interviews, Paul Staines is routinely described as “the right-wing blogger behind Guido Fawkes”, to the extent that he has started to retaliate by immediately referring to his interviewers’ presumed political leanings in response. It does seem a bit odd that, when mainstream columnists like David Aaronovitch or Polly Toynbee are interviewed on the radio they’re allowed just to be David Aaronovich or Polly Toynbee, rather than, always, “the right-wing columnist David Aaronovitch”, or “the left-wing columnist Polly Toynbee”, yet bloggers like Paul Staines get pigeon-holed from the off with a particular political label – as if this the most important thing that there is to say about them.

The reason I read Guido Fawkes is not because I share the full range of Paul Staines’ political views  (I don’t) but because he’s an entertaining writer with an outstanding talent for uncovering juicy unreported facts about our political system. You don’t have to be right-wing to be concerned about MPs’ dodgy expense claims, or government spin doctors planning to run malicious smear campaigns against their political opponents. I suspect that most of us are far less bothered about a writer’s personal politics than about the accuracy and veracity of what they have to say.

There’s also a wider issue here: beyond the basic requirements of owning a computer and an internet connection, there are far, far fewer “barriers to access” on the internet than in the mainstream UK news media, where a small number of big companies control 90% of the market, and where it now seems almost inconceivable that an independent new player could ever make a serious inroad. On the internet, the opposite is the case. New websites are being started every day and the picture is constantly changing. If it’s true that Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale and Conservativehome are, just at the moment, getting significantly more readers than other political blogs, then this can only be because they’re writing things that lots of other people want to read. This would soon change if they ever became complacent (just as the staunchly pro-Labour, blog “Harry’s Place”, once cited as a leading light in the “blogosphere”, now seems largely to have disappeared from view).

To suggest that the current popularity of these particular websites is in some way sinister or threatening just seems to highlight how far removed from reality Labour ministers now are. It’s difficult to avoid the impression that  what really bothers them is rather that the immense diversity of the online media makes it far harder to stitch up and manipulate.

It also seems a bit misleading to focus exclusively on independently-run blogs when making claims about the political character of the UK’s internet media. It’s actually very easy to find left-wing voices blogging online – it’s just that many of them will be writing on the Guardian website (which still gets far more readers than Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes put together) rather than using their own standalone blog. Perhaps conservatives and libertarians are, by disposition, more likely to start their own individual project than write for an existing site. Or perhaps the relative popularity of right-leaning blogs simply reflects a disenchantment among right-leaning readers at the shambolic state of traditional conservative  media outlets like the Telegraph, the Spectator and the Daily Mail.  But either way, it seems to me that the notion of a “right-wing bias” within the online media is somewhat overblown.

What the myth of “right-wing bias” does perhaps do is allow Labour party operators like Damian McBride and Derek Draper to justify their sense that they are being unfairly victimised by the online media – that there isn’t (in that much-loved New Labour phrase) a “level playing field” and that, by implication, playing dirty is in some way more acceptable.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Liam Byrne, appears to be the Minister charged these days with the role formerly filled by John Reid: doing the media rounds and taking the ritual kicking when something goes badly wrong for the Government.  Fact is, he’s quite good at it, giving the impression of calm, professional reasonableness.

The McBride affair, however, appears to have defeated even Liam’s powers of persuasion.  Over the last couple of days, he has been wall-to-wall on TV and radio. On the BBC this morning, he was heard to commend Damian McBride for “doing the honourable thing” by resigning. 

“Honourable” is the last adjective one would use in the context of the McBride affair.  “Sleazy”, “base” and “reprehensible” spring more readily to mind.  

Liam has gone above and beyond the call of duty on this occasion.  Gordon owes him one.

Richard Reeves is typically thought provoking in the current Prospect. He quotes an interesting line from a recent Liam Byrne speech. Labour’s “mantra should be really simple. We want a country of powerful people”. Given his excellent biography of John Stuart Mill, I wondered whether Reeves also found this line evocative of a famous line from Mill: “with small men no great thing can really be accomplished”.

“On the one side” of the Labour Party, argues Reeves, “stand those for whom the economic crisis demonstrates the need for a more muscular state; on the other, a diverse group”, including Byrne, “who want to use the state to give more power to individuals”. Similarly, Jesse Norman has previously divided Labour into Trimmers, Romantics and Deniers. Remarks from Matthew Taylor and David Miliband are said to define the Trimmers. “Instead of a Government-centric model of change in which we assume our rulers should be given the blame for what goes wrong and the responsibility for making it right”, claims Taylor, “we need a citizen-centric model in which we reinstate ourselves as the authors of our own collective destinies”. In other words: we want powerful people.

Norman associates Jon Cruddas and Tony Woodley with the Romantic tendency. “They regard New Labour as a tool of neo-liberal capitalism, which has deliberately betrayed its working class roots in order to appeal to the middle classes”. Polly Toynbee and Ed Balls are offered up as Deniers. “They argue that the growth of the state under Gordon Brown has been benign, and should be continued and extended”. If we collapse the Deniers into the Romantics, then Norman’s characterisation of the Labour Party exactly parallels that of Reeves. To mix the terminology of Taylor and Norman, the Trimmers favour a citizen-centric approach, while the Deniers and the Romantics advocate a Government-centric model; precisely the distinction proposed by Reeves.

Certainly, Toynbee – “the high priestess of Denial” - appears to continue to defend what might be described as a Government-centric model. While Neal Lawson and John Harris, both closely associated with Compass, like Cruddas, recently argued that “the government’s responses to changed times have been either too timid or, on the few occasions ministers have still affected to be radical, based on the very ideas that are now part of history … running through the supposed remedies for the financial crisis is a discredited belief in light-touch regulation”. Thus, Deniers and Romantics unite behind ”a more muscular state”.

This side of the argument, observes Reeves, has “the upper hand, and understandably so. The government is bailing out banks, car firms, homeowners and charities … A new corporatism is being hailed”. Compass are certainly keen to move UK politics on from the “ideological vacuum” that Howard Davies sees it as being played out in. “Both Labour and the Conservatives need to find a new way of talking about the government’s role in a stumbling market economy”, contends Davies. The left’s response to Davies’ call for “a British version of Gaullism” might come from the likes of Compass, while the right’s may come from Phillip Blond’s red Toryism.

Davies hears that “within government a debate is under way between those who wish to present the state’s new role as a regrettable short-term necessity and others who think a positive long-term redefinition is required”. The Deniers and the Romantics offer up the positive long-term redefinitions of the left, as the red Tories provide the positive redefinitions of the right. At this stage in the economic and political cycles, all of the energy – the “big mo”, as Americans say – is behind these redefinitions. Those who prefer citizen-centric models to a positive long-term redefinition of a more muscular state, such as Trimmers on the left and compassionate conservatives, like Norman, on the right, now lack the big mo.

“Compassionate conservatism”, argues Norman, “seeks social renewal through the devolution of power and responsibility to people and local institutions, through greater personal freedom from bureaucracy and regulation, through breaking up state monopolies to improve public services, and through a renewed emphasis on the rights of the citizen and the rule of law”. This was very trendy in the early part of David Cameron’s leadership but red Toryism seems more in vogue as concern has shifted from “social recession”, once a key concern of compassionate conservatives, to economic recession, now a massive concern for everyone.

Broadly speaking, compassionate conservatives offer a citizen-centric model that demands a much reduced role for the state and Trimmers provide a citizen-centric model that requires a smarter state. But citizen-centric models are offered from the right and the left; just as the Gaullists – Compass and the red Tories – offer competing Government-centric models from the left and the right. Some future trends point towards the Gaullists continuing to hold the big mo but others point in the opposite direction.

The Gaullist ascendency seems confirmed by the inevitability that Martin Wolf now attaches to banking nationalisation. “In 1978, Alfred Kahn, an adviser on inflation to President Jimmy Carter, used the word “depression”. So angry was the president that Mr Kahn started to call it “banana” instead … We are painfully learning that the world’s mega-banks are too complex to manage, too big to fail and too hard to restructure. Nobody would wish to start from here. But, as worries in the stock market show, banks must be fixed, in an orderly and systematic way. The stress tests should be tougher than now planned. Recapitalisation must then occur. Call it a banana if you want. But bank restructuring itself must begin”.

However, the warning from Steve Bundred of the Audit Commission to brace ourselves for huge public spending cuts augers against the Gaullist ascendency. If Wolf thinks that bank nationalisation is inevitable, then it must be a very real possibility. Equally, who am I to argue with Steve Bundred? And what conclusions should be drawn from the conflicting implications for the Gaullist ascendency offered by Wolf and Bundred?

It seems that there may well be some areas of policy – banks, most obviously – where Government-centric models are unavoidable. This does not mean that Gaullist delight should be unconstrained, however, as the finite nature of public funds means that the more public funds are consumed in these areas of policy the more citizen-centric models become unavoidable in other areas. Put simply: Government-centric models, by definition, tend to make larger calls upon public funds, which reduces the level of public funds available to use on other areas of policy, requiring more attention to focus in these areas upon citizen-centric models that typically make smaller calls upon public funds.

The realities of public budgets are not, though, the only reason for advocates of citizen-centric models to have heart. Let’s consider the full quotation from Mill that Byrne brought to mind. “The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it – a state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes – will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished”. We all wish that Fred Goodwin has long ago been made a docile instrument but no real solutions to climate change, anti-social behaviour, obesity and much else besides are likely to be offered by either docile instruments or the state – no matter how benign or enlightened – that renders them so.

Instead, argues Taylor, “for society to progress relies on citizens acting more often in ways which match their values and aspirations and doing more for each other than simply obeying laws. To have the society we want, we need to agree to give more back. This is particularly obvious” – even after the credit crunch and the Gaullist ascendency – “in relation to four current public priorities: protecting the environment, improving public services, living together as strangers, maintaining a sufficiently strong democracy and civil society”. Responding to climate change requires citizens to change the way that they live; not simply change in government policy. The NHS needs active citizens to take responsibility for the future health of themselves and their family; not simply a reaction from NHS staff after a health issue has developed. The response to youth crime includes citizens volunteering at youth centres, as well as government initiatives like anti-social behaviour orders. And, ultimately, citizens get the politics that they deserve. Cynicism about politicians is the default position of our times but if the best citizens do not bother to stand for election, where will this leave democracy?   

As much as all of this stands against the Gaullist ascendency, it seems rather trite and common-sensical. Citizen-centric models, as with so many things, perhaps move further beyond the realms of glib cliche when concrete examples are provided. Here I volunteer personalised budgets. Of their application to adult social care, Demos report: “it changes people’s attitudes towards themselves and their role in the service. People who were recipients, whether passive or complaining, became participants in planning and commissioning the services that support them. The service users that we interviewed said that they became less isolated, depressed, dependent and more optimistic, energetic and confident”. They argue that “this participative approach delivers highly personalised, lasting solutions to people’s needs for social care, education and health at lower cost than traditional, inflexible and top-down approaches”.

In short: making people powerful delivers better and fairer outcomes at cheaper cost. I can’t argue with this. Equally, I draw more Gaullist in relation to the banks with every passing day. Yes, I feel citizen-centric in relation to some things and Government-centric in relation to others. Does this make me a bad or mad person? I should hope not. But call me a cross dresser, if you want. Call it being it favour of what works, if you insist.

The debate about the proper role of the state is certainly getting more interesting. But the least helpful response to this debate is to offer the same answer in every context. Just because bank nationalisation seems more inevitable, it does not follow that Government-centric responses are right in all contexts. Nor does the success of personalised budgets in adult social care mean that citizen-centric models are always the best approach. The challenge is when to go Gaullist and when not to.

Idling away and wondering how to lauch myself on the world of ‘tweats’ I Googled ‘twitter’ and ‘e-government’ and found the following e-pamphlet: “New Labour’s Digital Vision: A Survey of E-government in the UK since 1997″, I then backtabbed and found the site – http://www.knowledgepolitics.org.uk – and the interesting group of researchers e-huddled within.

The content of this very piece was the stimulus for PhD, this second time around anyway! It was having spent so many years trying to fulfill the Whitehall dream and then seeing it for the puff of smoke it was, I felt the need to analyse.

In my opinion this paper, like so many others about UK e-government, might have benefitted from:

• some input from practitioners – most of the references are to the media or government documents
• a review of the academic literature – there has been some good research including that by McLoughin & Cornford and Cornford & Richter (see references below).
• taking a look further back – e-government was actually started by the Conservatives, Nu-Labour picked it up taking along the New Public Management baggage, which was probably the downfall of e-government
• looking at the bureaucracy – there was little central control, which was actually needed, and a lot of money wasted as a result. The Ministerial control was continually in flux – the Labour brains behind e-government, Liam Byrne, never had power in that arena.

In addition, one thing that seem to be missed was pointing any fingers at Tony Blair. It was his continued raising of the bar that set the ridiculous target (100% services by 2005), presumably to outdo colleagues abroad. Fortunately, other governments were better advised and maintained some rational restraint. The paper almost admits that we never met the targets and accepts that “the reality never met the rhetoric”, however it can’t see the wood for the trees and that essentially e-government is all about using ICT to facilitate improved services to the citizens, which will only be done by improved processes, and much of what has occurred in the past ten years has obfusticated processes and frequently changed them making improvements difficult.

The author is right to criticise it as a failed experiment, but is wrong to use decentralization as a cure. Part of the problem is too much autonomy at Whitehall, whilst continually bullying local government from the CLG/ODPM/DTLR/DETR/DoE. Central government want to get the mote out of its own eye to employ a biblical metaphor.

Incidemtally, if you are “twitterpating” I can be found at http://www.twitter.com/greatemancipato

References:

McLoughlin, I., Cornford, J., (2006). “Transformational change in the local state? Enacting e-government in English local authorities.” Journal of Management & Organization, 12(3): 195 – 208.

Cornford, J., Richter, P., (2007). “Customer Focus in UK e-Government: Or, Putting the Politics back into e-Government.” International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management 2(1): 34 – 46.

Salma Yaqoob on BBC Question Time

Respect leader and Birmingham City councillor Salma Yaqoob featured on this week’s Question Time panel, joining presenter David Dimbleby and alongside Labour MP Liam Byrne, Conservative MP Justine Greening, former Sun editor and columnist Kelvin MacKenzie and television gardener and writer Monty Don.

Salma spoke on a number of issues including Dutch MP Geert Wilders, the economy and banking,  child truancy, climate change and the drug reclassification policy.

Salma Yaqoob on BBC Question Time

On yesterday’s UK entry ban of controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders, she said:

“Personally, I am uncomfortable with censorship.  Does Mr Wilders have the right to provoke or even be offensive?  Yes, he does under freedom of speech, and if he’s being barred from the country simply because he offends people’s religious sensibilities then no matter how personally distasteful I might find his views, I wouldn’t support a ban.

“However, society does have a right and indeed a duty to protect itself from people who incite hatred and incite violence and if he was deemed to be in breach of our laws in this regard then, in that context, a ban would be justifiable.”

“Although I find his [Wilder's] indignation about being banned and calling for the upholding of the freedom of speech abit hypocritical considering he advocates banning the Qur’an,” she added.

Salma Yaqoob challenges Kelvin MacKenzie on Question Time

She also spoke on the state of our economy and finances and whether certain employees of banks, that were saved using public money, deseved bonuses.  She challenged Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie, who claimed such bank employees were ‘talented people’ who couldn’t be stopped.

“Talented people?  They have wrecked our economy! It’s absolutely shameless and digusting,” she responded.

“These are people who’ve wrecked our economy and I don’t believe a word of this ‘contract’ argument. These people would not have a job now were it not for the British tax payers bailing out the banks. They’re lucky they’re on a salary, never mind the cheek to ask for a bonus in these circumstances.

“It’s also politicians who should be in the dock because it was their decision to take away the safety mechanism, to introduce de-regulation which allowed the unvetted greed. It allowed the bankers to make the risky decisions without any proper scrutiny. It freed them up to reward themselves with these incredible bonuses and at the same time politicians from the Conservative party as well as the Labour party championed this neo-liberal economic orthodoxy which has brought us this disaster,” explained Salma.

Salma Yaqoob on BBC Question Time

“I think it’s really disgusting that we have now a public culture where if you commit huge crimes, which are resulting in millions of ordinary people losing their jobs and their homes, you only have to come up with a half-hearted apology, no accoutability, no sanctions, no punishments – and if you’re a politician you can lead our country into war on a lie and not have to resign – there is something really deeply wrong with a democratic system we have where instead of people being made an example of, we now have the lesson that ‘you can do this in the future, you can be this reckless because there’ll be no deterrent’,” she concluded.

Watch the complete programme on BBC iPlayer via the links below (UK only).

BBC Question Time – (12th February 2009)

BBC Question Time Extra [BBC News 24] – (12th February 2009)

An edited 30-minute verson of Thursday’s Question Time will be shown on Saturday 14th February 2009, at 8.30pm on BBC News 24.

Website link and presenter biogs here.

Salma Yaqoob appears on BBC Question Time tonight

Birmingham Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob will again appear on BBC political panel show Question Time tonight, alongside fellow politicians and analysts answering questions and concerns from the British public.

The leader of the Respect Party and Chair of the Birmingham Stop the War Coalition will be joining presenter David Dimbleby and airing her views alongside Birmingham Hodge Hill Labour MP Liam Byrne – who failed to speak out against the recent attacks in Gaza, Conservative MP Justine Greening, former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, and television gardener and writer Monty Don.

The show will be broadcast from Bath at 10.35pm on Thursday, 12thFebruary 2009 on BBC 1.

BBC link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/7878952.stm

Salma Yaqoob will feature on The Politics Show on Sunday

Salma Yaqoob will also appear on the West Midlands edition of BBC current affairs programme the Politics Show, which will be broadcast at 12.30pm on Sunday 15th February 2009, following the main national show at midday.

BBC Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/regions/west_midlands/default.stm

Images: BBC

At the end of January, I attended and spoke at an extremely interesting event to launch a report entitled “The Future of the West Midlands“. The event was organised by the Smith Institute, an independent social & economic research think tank based in London.

The intention of the report is to raise the level of debate about the future of the West Midlands, and to highlight what policy changes are needed to make a real and lasting difference to the region. With the forthcoming reforms to regional and local government through the Sub National Review, this debate is very timely and gains an added significance.

The report includes a section written by the West Midlands Regional Observatory, based on our State of the Region report, as well as articles by the West Midlands Regional Assembly, Advantage West Midlands, Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Learning & Skills Council, West Midlands Confederation of British Industry, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Coventry University and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.

Key government ministers and officers were also involved in the writing of the report. The Foreword and Introduction are written by Liam Byrne MP (Co-chair of the council of Regional Ministers) and Ian Austin MP (Minister for the West Midlands) respectively. Along with Trudi Elliott (Regional Director, Government Office for the West Midlands), both ministers took part in a panel discussion at the event.

I recommend the report to you – and I encourage you to join the debate.

HERE’S something to file under “weird but true and not actually terribly interesting”: when I opened the Internet browser on my iPhone while in the Chamber today (allowed under the new rules, provided you don’t make a noise), I was prompted to choose an available wi-fi network.

But the only one avalable was “Starbucks”. Huh? There’s not a Starbucks for miles, unless a new, secret branch has opened downstairs in the ministerial corridor specially for Liam Byrne…