Monday, May 11, 2009 

The Nuremberg defence and democracy following it.

In The Thick of It, probably the closest television has come to getting close to the reality of being an MP since Yes Minister, the politicians are almost uniquely portrayed not as venal, corrupt or stupid, although Hugh Abbott is certainly close to being incompetent, but caught in-between the spin doctors, the media and the public at large, all of whom are shown in a far more negative light. From the outraged woman who wants to know what Abbott is going to do about how she has to clean up her own mother's piss, to those who leave insults on the Conservative MP's blog about his sexual predilection for cats, you can't help but feel sorry for the MPs who work incredibly long hours only to be abused by all and sundry around them.

Sadly for the few honourable members who have not made outlandish expenses claims, and there are indeed some who haven't, it's now going to be a long time before anyone feels sorry for the political class as a whole. If things seemed bad when the Telegraph first unleashed the leaked disc sold to them for around a six figure sum on Friday, on Monday night, with still more abuses to be revealed tomorrow and presumably over the coming days, it's the continuous drip drip which is now in danger of doing lasting, long standing damage not just to this parliament, but potentially to democracy itself for some time to come.

The last time parliament felt under siege like this was when there seemed to be "sleaze" stories concerning the last Conservative government emerging week by week. This went from the highly serious, concerning Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken to the sex "scandals" which we have since rather stopped putting so much importance on. The difference was that these were almost uniquely affecting the Conservatives, and New Labour was doing its utmost to gain from them. No one is pretending now that any party has been more "pure" than the others, although it remains to be seen whether the Lib Dems and the nationalist parties (Sinn Fein apart) will have as many apparently on the take in their ranks as the two main parties seem to. The cliché used to be that it was the Conservatives caught with their trousers down, while with Labour it was money. Despite a recent Daily Mail story that suggested that the expenses would reveal affairs and that Labour whips were on suicide watch, such was the fear of what was to come among some on the backbenches, it now seems to be money, or rather claiming both for property and for the furniture to fill it that dazzles all.

If anything, some of the claims by the Conservative frontbench look worse than that of their Labour counterparts. Some are defending Michael Gove from the accusation that he was one of the politicians who "flipped" his second home, but claiming £7,000 for furniture still leaves a bad taste in the month when you consider that Gove has not just the one salary, but undoubtedly another if not others, continuing to write a column for the Times, serving on the board of the hilarious Standpoint magazine, often appearing on Newsnight Review and also writing the equally laughable Celsisus 7/7, which makes Melanie Phillips' Londonistan look like a paragon of research by comparison. Andrew Lansley, who appeared recently on Question Time and let everyone know that he earns £24,000 a year for 12 days' work serving as a corporate director on the board of a company, renovated a Tudor cottage on expenses, sold it, then switched his second home to a flat in London. Francis Maude, another man with lucrative secondary income, tried claiming mortgage interest.

Apart from John Prescott claiming for two toilet seats and panelling for the front of his house, Barbara Follett (another hardly impoverished individual considering she's married to the novelist Ken Follett) claiming £20,000 for security, Margaret Moran with her second home in Southampton, because without it she wouldn't be able to see her husband who works there, Hazel Blears seems to the Labour MP most deserving of having ordure thrown at her, with both Sunny and the Heresiarch outlining in detail exactly why. Not only did she "flip" her second home three times in one year, claim furniture for them and then apparently avoid paying capital gains tax when she sold one of the properties, earning herself a tidy £45,000 profit, but she is the most prominent individual who seems to find the whole scandal to be frivolous; it isn't her fault, it's the system, she intones, all the while beaming in the same crooked smile which never seems to leave her face. Even today's Guardian leader, having described Blears in such beaming terms just last Monday, suddenly finds that she perhaps isn't the "decent, well-motivated and genuine" person it thought she was. It is of course nice to find that those MPs whom we most love to loathe for their loyalty and lack of independence are not just lacking intellectually but also in the honesty stakes, but those who aren't guilty, such as the Ed Milibands, Alan Johnsons, Philip Dunnes and David Howarths will be dragged down with them.

Although the politicians themselves have been pointing towards them by means of creating a distraction, there is no doubt whatsoever that those most likely to benefit from parliament as a whole being dragged through the mire are the extremists, and the British National Party must be regarding the Telegraph stories as manna from heaven, coming so close to the European elections when they were already likely to do well. How can any party, not just Labour or the Conservatives, try and campaign on the actual issues while this is going on? True, most might just declare a plague on all their houses and not vote at all in what would already be a low turnout election, but the worry must now be that those seats which the BNP could potentially grasp are now theirs for the taking.

The one thing that is abundantly clear is that the politicians themselves can now no longer have any control over their own expenses or their salaries. That not a single one of the 47 MPs named so far by the Torygraph was willing to go on Newsnight to defend themselves was just not a display of cowardice, it was also that they know they simply can't blame a system and not apportion blame on themselves as well. The new regime will have to be overseen by a completely independent committee, otherwise faith in parliament might never return. The second home allowance has to be scrapped altogether, or at least far more heavily policed or regulated, as does the John Lewis list. Those earning £64,000 or more a year simply cannot expect the taxpayer to furnish their homes for them. The tax breaks also have to be ended.

One of the few boasts that could be made about our political system was that compared to some of our European neighbours, not to mention the banana republics and kleptocracies around the globe, ours was remarkably free of corruption, and when it comes to out and out buying of votes, or payments for policies, that still mostly holds true. No one could have predicted that it would be bath plugs and bags of manure which would bring politics into such disrepute, but now that it's happened the shovels have to be brought out. The worst culprits need to be held to account in some way, and as the only way might well be the ballot box itself, there's now even more reason than ever to vote tactically. Ensuring that the likes of Hazel Blears and Michael Gove are not MPs in around a year's time might well be the only way we can hope to restore parliament to even a shadow of its former standing.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

5/11/2009 10:43:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, September 29, 2008 

Our new overlords.

If the Liberal Democrats' conference was overshadowed by "Meltdown Monday" two weeks ago, the Conservatives hardly seem to be cursing their luck for suffering the same fate. Even with the polls suggesting that Labour's conference, or rather, Gordon Brown's well-received speech, has given the government a boost, the edict from on high was obvious: try not to look too triumphalist.

Accordingly, even if the swinging dicks in the party are on the inside brimming with confidence which only the most expensive private education followed by Oxbridge can provide you with, their faces and actions must be the opposite: stern, determined, serious. It's almost reminiscent of a faintly apocalyptic sect that are constantly reminded that they are living in the last days, and that The End could come at any time; when it does, they must be ready, lest the outsiders be put off by their exuberance at being saved whilst all around them are set to burn in economic hellfire.

The deeply depressing thing, apart from that fact that all the banks are going to collapse tomorrow leaving us in a Threads-like future eating rats to survive, is that the Conservatives truly do look like the government in waiting. A party flush with cash and the knowledge that they probably already have the next election in the bag is always likely to be able to put such a powerful show on, but that it's so apparently natural is what digs in and inspires anxiety. Not only are they appealling aesthetically, but also on policy they are finally starting to cobble together something approaching the beginnings of a manifesto. Their plan to set-up an Office for Budget Responsibility to monitor government spending is one of those simple ideas which is all the more effective for it. The announcement that they will not build a third runway at Heathrow and instead opt for a high-speed TGV line between St Pancras and Leeds was a master stroke - pissing off all the right people while further underlining their "green" credentials. It's hardly likely to win over the real greens, but those worried about about the contribution of flying to CO2 emissions will likely be impressed.

Take as a further example George Osborne, who ought to be on an absolute hiding to nothing. He's young, resembles a caricature of the smarmy, upper-class snob that spent his tender years smashing up restaurants when he wasn't shovelling white powder up his nostrils, with a face so punchable it's a marvel that he hasn't got a broken nose and a good number of teeth missing, knows next to nothing about economics, and has all the charm (to this writer at least) of a self-portrait of Kate Moss drawn in lipstick and Pete Doherty's blood. Instead his speech was pretty much as good as it could have been: for a party that has been absolutely anonymous on the economic fall-out of the past two weeks, he came across as ready to take over the reins should become available. The message about the cupboard being bare with there being no possibility of sharing the proceeds of growth, as they promised and as Vince Cable mocked them for, with a recession about to bite may have been stating the obvious but was still jarring. He declared that the party was over, and while you somehow doubt that is by any means the thinking within the Tory party, he undoubtedly meant it. While acknowledging the party's own role in deregulating the City while encouraging the housing bubble, he attacked the bankers "partly responsible" harder if anything than New Labour has ever dared to or would dare to.

There was of course chutzpah along with the clarity, Osborne hilariously claiming that they were "not bedazzled and don't fawn over big money", just as a Dispatches documentary showed that a donation of £50,000 to the party brought membership to the Leader's Club, where they could argue the toss over Champagne with Cameron, but the right tone had been struck. It will though be the promise of a two-year council tax freeze that gets the headlines, despite the cupboard from where it was presumably pulled being bare. This has all the makings of being just as much a con as the inheritance pledge was, with many being under the illusion that they will benefit when they most likely won't, as councils will have to decide to take part, before you even bother to actually look at the figures. None of this though will matter, just as the IHT pledge didn't last year, as the Conservatives are getting away with their promises barely being examined, as Labour's invariably weren't prior to 97.

This was further apparent when Andrew Lansley stepped up to the lectern, holding forth on the NHS just as Osborne had stated that the party was over. His big promise was a single room for any patient who wanted one, despite the unlikeliness of there being any extra cash to deliver such a bold pledge. When you consider that the NHS cannot even currently deliver single-sex wards, this was the sort of unachievable ideal that the Tories would have once criticised, and which Labour would have been crucified for as yet more wasted spending. He had previously promised to end the constant reforms under New Labour by introducing even more reforms, but this time ones which will democratise, empower and free the staff, as if Labour hadn't sold their constant rejiggings on exactly the same buzzwords. The contradictory, contrary thinking would have been mocked normally, but these are not normal times, and with the economy taking precedence over everything, Lansley and the party will probably be glad that few will take much notice.

There's likely to be more such flummery tomorrow, when the favourite Conservative subject, the "broken society", will be the main topic. Dominic Grieve, fresh from attacking multiculturalism as he enters one of the most multicultural cities in the country, will apparently offer changes in the law to help "have-a-go heroes" who are supposedly being prosecuted for daring to interfere when they see crimes occurring, often highlighted by the tabloids who hardly ever report the full real story, such as when they were outraged by the man and son who were arrested after they performed a citizen's arrest on a boy who had err, allegedly committed a crime the day before. He will also look to change health and safety laws supposedly stopping the police from doing their jobs, highlighting the case of Jordan Lyon, which err, involved community support officers, and as this blog has previously noted, was not the scandal which it was made out to be, as the boy had already disappeared from sight when they arrived and the police themselves were there within a few minutes of that.

The underlings though have been thoroughly overshadow by Osborne, just as they will be also by Cameron. While Osborne ineffectively threw back the "novice" tag at Gordon Brown, something not shown in many bulletins, his "stop go" soundbite will have a struck a chord with those tired of a government which has just one strength remaining, the experience of Brown in a crisis. This, lamentably, may be the end of even that.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

9/29/2008 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 

No excuses for being Andrew Lansley.

There are, according to Andrew Lansley, no excuses for being fat. Or to be slightly more specific, being obese. Apparently, the idea that biology or environment has any bearing on whether someone is overweight is simply making excuses. Making excuses is bad. As is nannying. Our government does both. That makes the government bad.

This is an extension of Cameron's speech a few weeks back that a lot of people's problems are self-inflicted. To a certain extent this is undeniably true; saying so is not something radically new, or something that has been actively discouraged, despite how the Conservatives have tried to portray it as doing so. It's more simply that somebody noticed that most bristle at being told that everything is entirely their fault; rather that doing so more subtly, not being quite so confrontational and being more feel-good tends to work far better. This isn't political correctness, this is simply being far more sensitive, which is more likely to work.

In fact, Lansley is actually taking it a step further than Cameron by rejecting the idea that there are any excuses. Cameron added:

"Of course, circumstances - where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make - have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make.

Cameron then does indeed believe that both biology and environment have their effect on obesity, which is wise, because they both obviously do.

Ignoring where you were born and what you are born into for half a second, would Lansley agree that there is an excuse for someone being overweight if the medication which they take has a side-effect of weight gain (Yes, bear with me, I'm being rhetorical, I'm sure he would)? After all, that is most certainly an excuse which some could make when they were overweight to begin with, but it could also be a valid one.

Like with Cameron, Lansley again isn't aiming this at the obese members of his own party. It's the nod and the wink - it's not the Fatty Soameses of this world that are the problem, obviously, but rather all those gigantic, wobbling, welded to the pushchair, acne-riddled layabouts that stuff their faces all day and then have the audacity to walk around our towns and cities where other members of the public might see them. Likewise, Lansley must surely agree that there are no excuses for the put upon single-mother, the kind that has to allocate every single penny of her income, the one that shops not at Waitrose or M&S or even Tesco or Sainsbury's, but at Netto, Farmfoods, Iceland, Lidl, etc. The one that doesn't have the time, or energy, to as this person on CiF says, "produce healthy food from basic ingredients". She could do that, if she wanted to be on her feet for another two hours of the day, but why bother when she can buy the economy pizzas, ready meals at however many for £5 and otherwise which can either be popped straight in the oven or straight in the microwave?

Now that we've agreed that there are no excuses whatsoever for being the size of a house, what then are Lansley's suggestions for altering the situation. Let's start with some cod-psychological behavioural theory:

If we are going to defuse the time-bomb of obesity-related ill-health, we must change the behaviour of adults today, as well as our children. Tell people that biology and the environment causes obesity and they are offered an excuse not to change their behaviour. As it is, people who see more fat people around them may themselves be more likely to gain weight. Young people who think many of their friends binge-drink are likely to do so themselves. Girls who think their peers engage in early sex are more likely to do so themselves. Peer pressure and social norms are powerful influences on behaviour and they are classic excuses. We have to take away the excuses.

Quite so. But isn't there also peer pressure not to be fat? Perhaps things have deteriorated still further since I left school, but I'm pretty certain that being overweight was not exactly a barrel of laughs, unless of course you happen to be the barrel and the laughs were directed at you and you laughed along in a feeble attempt to pretend you weren't the butt of the joke. In fact, let's not beat around the bush here: I called fat people fat. You called fat people fat (probably). I was an unpleasant little pustule (and still am) and on one occasion I told a girl that she should consider the Slim Fast plan, thinking this was devastatingly witty. She descended into floods of tears and I became enemy number one with her friends, quite rightly, for a good time afterwards. I felt like a shallow little twat and still do. I'm pretty certain that it's probably much the same in some of the more immature offices across the land, and that those especially overweight have to face up to a fair amount of abuse when they venture out. Do these things therefore balance out, or not? I don't know. I'm pretty sure that they can't simply be dismissed as "excuses", however.

For teenagers, I believe we also have to think specifically how we can deploy leadership, role models and social marketing approaches, not just to warn them about the harmful consequences of risky behaviour, but inspire them with what they can achieve by choosing healthy living. We must not constantly warn people about the negative effects of obesity – instead we must be positive – positive about the fun and benefits to be had from healthy living.

Again, perhaps I'm being a little simple here, but aren't there plenty of role models out there that are anything but overweight? Indeed, I'm struggling to honestly think of someone obese or overweight that's a positive role model, unless we perhaps count a few singers that have emerged recently, such as Adele or those two reality show debutantes, Rik Waller and Michelle McManus. Inspiring is a noble and obvious aim - but it's one that's a hell of a lot harder to do in practice than it is when making a speech.

Today, I propose that our second responsibility deal should be on public health. I have invited Dave Lewis, chairman of Unilever UK, to chair a working group of business representatives, voluntary groups and experts. Together, we will invite views on these proposals and hammer out the details of the deal. Our proposals for the responsibility deal include: supporting EU plans for a mandatory GDA-based front-of-pack food labelling system; industry-led reformulation initiatives and reduction of portion sizes; proportionate regulation on advertising and positive campaigns from the industry and government to promote better diets; a responsible drinking campaign matched by community action projects to address drug abuse, sexually transmitted infections and alcohol abuse, using a proportion of drinks industry advertising budgets and supported by the government; and incentives and a local structure, through business organisations, for small and medium-sized companies to improve the health of their employees, working with business organisations, NHS Plus and the Fitness Industry Association.

Ah, details. On the GDA front, I'm pretty certain that it's either already became law for firms to have similar details on the packaging or have rolled them out voluntarily; the Diet Coke bottle sitting in front of me has the exact scheme described on Lansley's link on the label. This is opposing the so-called traffic light scheme, which while simplistic was far easier to understand and which the Food Standards Agency set-up. Firms like Coke, and supermarkets like Tesco opposed it. On the reformulation initatives and reduction of portion sizes, again, I think most manufacturers have already been responding to that, reducing salt and fat levels, etc. They've probably not done as much as they could, but I can't see how the Conservatives rather than Labour are going to be any more successful in persuading them to do so. On positive campaigns from industry and government, it's not as if the government has not already been doing so: there's a whole Choosing Health section on the Department of Health website, and there's been a White Paper on the subject. There's currently a responsible drinking campaign being run by the government, one which I think is actually rather good, but whether such things ever have any effect is open to question, and the community action project again seems to be the Tories deciding that the voluntary and private sector will pick up the slack, whilst the last proposal just seems to be in there to make up the numbers.

In other words, Lansley seems to be more or less siding with some of the less reputable sides of the food industry in blocking the traffic lights scheme, proposing pretty much all that the government is already doing, and not a lot else. All while being slightly more in your face, less open to the idea that there are reasons for being overweight not just limited to eating too much and not exercising enough, and not offering anything approaching new except a harsher line in rhetoric. Do I really need to keep repeating the bit about the new Blairites, except with a slightly less kind face?

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

8/27/2008 11:55:00 PM | | | links to this post

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates