There is only one man for the job, and it's not who you think

There is only one man suitable to lead this country over the coming years. Of the politicians available, there is only one who has the experience, the acumen and the moral fibre necessary to guide the British ship of state through the rough seas ahead. That man’s name is Gordon Brown.

I do not mean to say that he has not made mistakes, and will not make more, nor do I mean to say that his every policy is solid gold, for there are many that are not (the 10 pence tax debacle being just one of them). But, given the choice between Brown and Cameron, I would choose Brown any day of the week, and not just because I cannot stand the idea of David Cameron as Prime Minister.

Of course Brown is less inspiring than his Conservative counterpart, he does not play the media game as well nor is he as good an orator, but he has never tried to hide who he is, or what his beliefs are. And having spent an hour of my Tuesday afternoon listening to his speech to the Labour conference, I am convinced that he genuinely believes in helping the poor and the disadvantaged, the huddled masses that are at best ignored and at worst damned by the majority of the population. I am convinced that he believes in that most British of principles: fairness, and will do more than the Conservatives to make it a reality. And, in a week when George Osborne declared that the terrible effect the collapse of the banks was simply the workings of the market, I am convinced that he is the man to rebuild the British financial system so that it favours, not the miniscule number of bankers in the City of London, but the vast and overwhelming number of ordinary British citizens.
At the next election, we will be presented with a choice about what sort of country we want to live in. On the one hand, we will have Cameron’s meretricious Conservatives – a veneer of fine and principled words about fairness and global warming, but underneath the same reactionary, elitist, callous party they have always been. On the other hand, we will have the Labour Party – a party with a membership genuinely committed to fairness, with a leader whose morality, whose desire to do good, is unquestionable. I know who I would rather have in Downing Street.

Cameron's Masquerade

Only the most callous of individuals could claim that nothing should be done to aid the poor, and so it is laudable that even the Conservative Party should wish to claim, as they did last week, to be the ‘party of the poor.’ Or rather, it would be laudable if the claim were not so false as to be insulting. Let us not forget that David Cameron has advocated the introduction of a social security system based on that previously attempted in Wisconsin. Under such a system , citizens would only be permitted to claim the pittance that is unemployment benefit for only two years of their whole life, no matter their circumstances, no matter their level of skills or education.

This was not the worst aspect of the Wisconsin system, nor do I have time or space to enumerate its countless failings. Suffice it to say, this is not the policy of the ‘party of the poor.’ It is, however, the policy of a party that does not care for the poor – whose support comes from the middle and upper classes where it is more electorally expedient to victimise the poor than to actually help them.

That the Conservatives tend to treat the poor as little more than criminals has been long established. One only needs to look back to the introduction of the minimum wage to see their wholesale opposition to measures designed aid those in dire need (every Tory voted against it, a fact that gives a new meaning to Boris Johnson’s claim that they are ‘leading the way on low pay’).

However, while this is standard practice for the Tory party, it is more surprising when it comes from a former champion of the poor – the Labour Party – who recently stated that they would not countenance increasing the rate of taxation on incomes over £100,000 in order to help the poor because it would ‘send the wrong message.’ What was wrong with the message that those who have money to spare should aid their fellow man and be responsible for the improvement of society was beyond me. One would have thought a Christian such as Brown would agree.

The mantle of ‘the party of the poor’ is a noble target, but for the Conservatives to claim it at this juncture is laughable. Tragically, the same is true of Labour. We must remember that the poor are human too, and their lives just as sacred as those of the rich. They deserve better than either party is offering – better education, better housing and better opportunities. It is wrong to condemn them to more extreme penury, as the Wisconsin model would. Until then, Oliver Letwin’s comment is simply kicking hundreds of thousands of people while they’re down.

BorisWatch: Fear and Loathing in London

It’s been almost a month since Boris Johnson became Mayor of London, so what has he done? The answer is: very little, but there are two significant measures he has introduced, both designed to tackle perceived problems with law and order (always a favourite with the paranoid right wing).

The first of these starts on Sunday and will see a blanket ban on the consumption of alcohol, or the possession of open containers of alcohol, on public transport. Boris has claimed that this will make people’s journeys on the London Underground more pleasant as they won’t have to deal with aggressive drinkers. I sincerely hope that I am not the only one that sees the massive problem with this statement, but for all those that can’t quite make it out (like, say, Boris), I’ll point it out. This policy would work if the cause of public drunkenness (which, I’ll concede, is not always edifying) were caused exclusively by people drinking on public transport. However, as anyone with a functioning brain cell will tell you, most people do not get drunk on the tube, but rather do it in the many pubs and clubs around London. Only then do they get on public transport and cause a nuisance, so how does Boris plan to deal with all of those people, who, I imagine, make up a more significant proportion of public transport users than people who drink on the tube, and are probably just as threatening.

So why is this a problem? Well, it isn’t per se, but coming from a party that claims to be against the authoritarian bureaucracy of the current Labour government, and a mayor that has frequently complained of the ‘schoolmarminess of Blair’s Britain,’ it seems just a little hypocritical to be introducing rules and regulations that will do little to improve public welfare. Not only that, but I’d prefer my Mayor (even if I didn’t vote for him) to actually implement productive policies, rather than mess about with symbolic but ultimately pointless and ineffectual gestures.

The second tactic is more frightening, more pointless and more counter-productive. They are, of course, knife arches. This is one of those policies that I hate mainly because it sounds so reasonable so people not given to close questioning of government policy, or are of the vaguely authoritarian bent anyway, but is, in fact, ridiculous. For those among you in those two categories, I’ll explain:

Firstly, on a purely organisational basis, this policy is simply impractical. Imagine the thousands, if not millions, of commuters who use London’s stations every day. Now, imagine the delay and chaos caused by making them all go through knife arches, especially as they are all guaranteed to be carrying something metal (keys, wallet, mobile phones etc. etc.). Of course, they could always use racial or some other form of profiling, it’s not as if that’s ever caused a riot…..

Then there’s the principle argument. When any one of us can be subjected to a search procedure on the whim of a police officer, without any evidence that we might be somehow guilty of a crime, we become mere objects of suspicion, with knife arches adding to our status as the most watched people in the world (and therefore, presumably, the most suspected). Oh, and for all the individuals out there who say that they don’t mind, they’ve got nothing to hide, I’ll go ahead and assume that you won’t mind having security cameras installed in all the rooms of your house, you know, just to make sure you’re not selling crack out of your kitchen. Hey, you’ve got nothing to hide.

To be honest, the worst thing about this is not the faintly authoritarian tone of the policies of a man who complained about just such policies when he was in opposition, it’s not even the fact that they’re pointless and intrusive policies. No, the worst part of it is that they are being implemented when the facts suggest that they aren’t actually necessary. While Kit Malthouse, Boris’ Deputy Mayor in charge of Policing, claims that there has been an increase in ‘death and injury caused by young people carrying and using knives,’ the Metropolitan Police’s most recent survey suggests that knife crime has actually dropped 15.7% over the past two years and that you’re twice as likely to be attacked on public transport in Perth, Australia (where many Britons go to flee the crime of their homeland) than you are on public transport in London. The first point this raises is the question: why is the Deputy Mayor not in possession of all the facts, or is he deliberately misleading the public (and if so, why?)? The second point is that, if Team Boris really wants to make Londoners feel safer, why doesn’t he tell us about these figures rather than instituting policies and making statements guaranteed to make us think the worst about our city? Surely he’s clever enough to know that it would be a better way to make us feel safer, or perhaps that Oxford education’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

The Kosovo Crisis

At the beginning of another century, a crisis is once again developing in the Balkans and, once again, a nation’s desire for independence is causing concern among the world’s major powers. The problem facing today’s powers is that of Kosovo and its attempt to win independence from Serbia but before I talk about the details of this particular situation, I’ll give some background.

In the late 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic began to suppress the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo. While Kosovo was part of Serbia (and, indeed, is very dear to the Serbians and viewed as the cradle of their culture), Serbs only made up 10% of the population there. In 1999, the continued persecution of the Kosovan Albanians led to a series of NATO air strikes against targets in both Serbia and Kosovo. Since then, Kosovo was governed as an autonomous region under UN and NATO protection, although it was still technically part of Serbia. Then, on 17th February, Kosovo declared independence.

That is the story so far. Now comes the difficult issue of recognition. The UK, USA, Germany and France, among others, have all decided to recognise Kosovo’s independence (or are expected to do so soon). This is done under the principles of democracy and self-determination. The government of Kosovo under Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was democratically elected by the people of Kosovo, and the declaration of independence unanimously approved by the Kosovan parliament.

Opposing them are Serbia and Russia, among others, who claim that it is a breach of international law and outside of the original UN Security Council Resolution on the Kosovan issue. For Serbia, as I have already said, Kosovo is an important place historically and they have sentimental reasons for keeping hold of it. Russia’s angle is harder to judge. It is hard to believe that President Putin is the concerned with international law, it doesn’t fit with his track record. Perhaps he fears another pro-Western government near his borders, perhaps he wishes to provoke a confrontation with the West. It is hard to say.

What is certain is this, with Serbia’s declaration in November of 2006 that Kosovo could only be removed from Serbia by force, and their recalling of their ambassador to the United States, Serbia is not going to give in without a fight. The question is whether or not they will fight with force or diplomacy.

Fighting with diplomacy will not be a great problem, but the use of military force will put the Western world in an almost impossible bind. On the one hand, they will have to defend their credibility with regards to democracy and the defence of small nations, especially ones whose independence they support. On the other, they will have to use their already over-stretched forces to fight a European war, and there is a chance that one of the West’s opponents will be Russia.

It is absolutely vital that Putin’s Russia, with its state terrorism and authoritarian government not be allowed dominance of world affairs, which the weakness of the West would give them. As bad as the USA may be, that would be far worse. It is also vital that the Western World, especially the USA and UK, stand up for democracy when it is in its greatest need. The people of Kosovo have made a declaration of their will and we must not allow would-be Tyrants to crush that democratic spirit. Hopefully we will be able to accomplish this without resorting to violence. We must exhaust our diplomatic channels before fighting, but we must prepare for all eventualities. This is a situation that could easily descend into chaos and carnage, just as it did at the beginning of the last century. Hopefully the world leaders of today will have more sense than they did then, or perhaps the terrible prospect of modern warfare will restrain them. I do not know whether or not there will be a war, but we must hope and pray that there is not. We will probably not survive it.

Tough On The Poor....

There must have been a coup. It seems we all missed it, but the government of the United Kingdom must have been overthrown and replaced by the editorial board of the Daily Mail. This can be the only explanation for the latest anti-poor policy to be announced by the supposedly socialist Labour government.

Caroline Flint, the housing minister, has proposed that those living in social housing, something which is designed to make sure that the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society are not forced onto the streets, should actively seek work as a condition of their tenancy. The idea behind it is to use fear as a method of fighting unemployment rather than, say, improving training and education for the disadvantaged. And, as a further benefit for the government, they can threaten the working classes with the stick of homelessness and hence please the Daily Mail.

This policy will not help the problem of unemployment among those living on council estates (which is currently at around 50%). The problem does not stem from laziness and so cannot be solved with fear. The problem is caused by poor education and no amount of threats will overcome the fact that these unemployed lack the skills to help them into work. This punitive policy is designed simply to make the government look tough on the poor – something that is oddly popular.

The result of this policy will not be reduced unemployment but increased homelessness. Single mothers will have to leave their young children alone (which will, of course, do wonders for their upbringing) or face the terrible prospect of being without shelter for themselves and their children. The members of society who are least able to look after themselves will be driven further into poverty, and for what reason? It is time the government abandoned populism and started to think.

As Some Day It May Happen That A Victim Must Be Found

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed, who never would be missed.

So sings the Lord High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. In 1992, Peter Lilley MP (whom I am ashamed to say is an Old Alleynian), suggested at the Conservative Party Conference that, among those society offenders who never would be missed could be included “welfare scroungers” and “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue.” This belief pervades middle class opinion beyond all reasonable degree. The idea that people on benefits are simply scroungers and that the poor are poor because they’re lazy and therefore don’t deserve benefits has become almost axiomatic in British politics. Indeed, such a view has been one of the tenets of the Conservative Party ever since Mrs. Thatcher decided she didn’t like poor people. Worryingly, it’s starting to infiltrate that former bastion of Socialism and defender of working class rights, the Labour Party.

The Conservative Party have never really been comfortable with the government helping people. I’m not quite sure why they have an aversion to helping those in need, but they are perpetually on the lookout for ways to get out of giving money to the people that need it most. David Cameron, the allegedly ‘Compassionate Conservative’, recently announced a tough new policy on incapacity benefit. He wants to force all of the 2.64 million recipients of incapacity benefit to prove that they are actually disabled. As support for this policy, he cited the ‘fact’ that there are 200,000 people who are pretending to be disabled in order to receive the pittance that is incapacity benefit (about £80 a week at most, clearly a fortune). Where he got this figure, no-one is quite sure, although I have an idea that it may have come from an orifice not usually associated with good ideas.

This ridiculous pronouncement is hot on the heels of another, equally ridiculous one, that the Conservatives would follow the Wisconsin model for benefits. For those that do not know, the Wisconsin model entails mothers of infants being forced into work, the privatisation of social security (which led to incompetence, corruption and general lack of decency in welfare distribution) and, as if that isn’t enough, you were only allowed to claim 2 years of benefits throughout your whole life. No provision was made to enable the unemployed to be retrained and given skills that would get them at least acceptable jobs so that they didn’t have to resort to benefits. No, as far as the leaders in Wisconsin were concerned, the poor were worth precisely sod all.

Just to put things into perspective, receiving benefits is not a comfortable or good position to be in. Unemployment benefit (or Jobseeker’s allowance as it has been pointlessly renamed) is £46.85 a week for those between 18 and 24, and £59.15 for those aged 25 or over. As a guidance, the poverty line for 2005/2006 was £108 per week for a single adult (that is after tax and housing payments have been deducted). Obviously people don’t live on unemployment benefit alone, but even so, it does not provide anything like a comfortable amount of money for these so-called scroungers. Living on benefits entails living in appalling conditions in the most run-down, crime-ridden areas of the country. If you think this is a rare occurrence, think again. 13 million people in this country live below the poverty line, that’s a fifth of the population. It rips apart self-respect and leads to human misery on a scale unimaginable by the likes of the Conservatives who believe an estate is something with fields and a large house.

Yet this is the Conservative view of Britain. A nation where the upper and middle classes pay less tax and the poor suffer. A nation where the misery of poverty is compounded by a draconian welfare system. The further destruction of the welfare state started by Clement Attlee in 1945. He sought to build a New Jerusalem here in the UK, a new promised land where suffering was unknown and people could get the help they needed without being subjected to abuse and suspicion.

With 13 million people in this nation living in poverty, one would think that every political party would seek to help them out of it. Especially as poverty breeds the criminality that Middle England is so afraid of. But, instead of improving education, both for adults and children, instead of helping people raise their aspirations beyond becoming the most powerful drug dealer on the estate, the Conservatives want to get tough on the impoverished, probably because nobody ever lost an election going after the poor.

The day has come and the victim has been found. It is the British poor, and David Cameron is the Lord High Executioner.

An Unholy Mission

What matters more in this world, Catholic dogma or the well-being of the people who live in? Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, seems to think it is dogma. The Cardinal, in his crusade to impose hardline Catholic doctrine on social policy, has recently issued a code of medical ethics which states that doctors must not offer any service that conflicts with the Cardinal’s quasi-Medieval (and downright dangerous) beliefs regarding healthcare. Therefore, they must not prescribe contraception or offer abortions or IVF treatment. The General Medical Council has deemed this code to be unworkable, but despite this the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth in north London is expected to implement it in the next few weeks.

This intrusion by hardline religion into social policy represents a direct threat to healthcare and puts Catholic values above patients, an abhorrence for the medical profession, which is supposed to put patient care above all else. Never mind the fact that absence of contraception doesn’t prevent people form having sex (and, in fact, increases unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases), and that abortions may be necessary to save the life of a woman, Cardinal Murphy O’Connor is determined to see that Catholic dogma is the writ that runs in this nation, and damn the consequences, though they be disastrous.

This is not the only time that the Cardinal has sought to impose his extreme version of Catholicism on this nation. Last month, he tried to block laws on embryo research by lobbying Catholic MPs. Not caring that such research could save millions of lives in the future and provide cures for some of the most debilitating genetic diseases, the Cardinal tried to force Catholic MPs to choose between his hardline beliefs and public good. He has also led an attempt by extremist Christians to prevent homosexuals from adopting, basing his case not on evidence or rationality, but on bizarre arguments derived from a few lines of the Bible, lines which many others do not believe.

Religion is fine, I have no problem with religion, even extremist religion, as long as it is observed in private. As soon as it invades public policy and men like Cardinal Murphy O’Connor attempt to impose it on others, it becomes dangerous and must be resisted by anyone with a social conscience.