Police and Crime Commissioners: The Parable of the Empty Ballot Box

The crest of Eton College. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A rich man came from Eton to London. On his way to being appointed ruler of his people, his deputy said to him:

"You are a rich man, my Lord, with properties in Oxfordshire and London. When you are ruler, the bankers will demand their money from the people you rule. When that happens, the people may turn against you as you strip their assets. Hear my words, then, and listen to what I say.

Let it be when you are ruler, that all people, high and low, man and woman, great and small, rich and poor, gather in every place where they live. Let them choose for themselves men and women of good character, wise and just, to be their police and crime commissioners, to administer justice, to appoint chief constables and to set locally-targeted policing priorities. Let them be paid between £65,000 and £100,000 by the people who choose them, that the people may love you when the bankers have stripped them."  

The deputy's words pleased the rich man for he thought, "Surely to choose one's own police and crime commissioner is more precious than silver; and to set locally-targeted policing priorities is more valuable than gold." 

And so it came to pass that when the rich man was made ruler of the people, he remembered the words that his deputy had spoken to him. He sent heralds throughout the kingdom to announce that all people, high and low, man and woman, great and small, rich and poor should gather in every place where they lived and, on a dark and wet day in November, choose for themselves men and women of good character, wise and just, to be their police and crime commissioners, to administer justice, to appoint chief constables and to set locally-targeted policing priorities.

"This will make the people love me when the bankers have stripped them," said the rich man to himself. 

But when the heralds went forth, the people of the land rejected the words that were spoken to them. Some, they threw in their bins; some they ignored, and some they turned off while they were speaking through their televisions.

When the day came, the people announced with one voice, 

"We will not gather in every place where we live. We will not choose for ourselves men and women of good character, wise and just, to be our police and crime commissioners, to administer justice, to appoint chief constables and to set locally-targeted policing priorities. We will not pay them between £65,000 and £100,000 of our own money while the bankers strip our assets." 

And so it came to pass that from Cornwall to Newcastle, the people of the land did not gather in every place where they lived. They did not choose for themselves men and women of good character, wise and just to be their police and crime commissioners, to administer justice, to appoint chief constables and to set locally-targeted policing priorities.

When he heard this, the rich ruler was dismayed. But the rich ruler decided to pay the new commissioners anyway, between £65,000 and £100,000 of the people's own money, while the bankers stripped their assets. "For," said the rich ruler, "If I cannot make the people love me,  surely at least these commissioners will welcome me. For you cannot fool all of the people all of the time, but you can fool most of the people some of the time."

And the deputy pondered these things in his heart.

 

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My Presidential Election Prediction, 2012

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, here is the official, no-refunds-offered Philosopher's Tree prediction of the outcome of tomorrow's 2012 US Presidential election.

I predict a win for Obama, with possibly a slightly wider margin than might be expected.

My reasons:

1. It is difficult for an incumbent to lose a Presidential election in America. Only Jimmy Carter (Dem) and George Bush Senior (Rep) have done so in the post-war era.

2. The most recent opinion polls show a slight increase in Obama's popularity in the days immediately running up to Tuesday's election.

3. Mitt Romney's policy vacillations over years will ultimately damage his electability. In a way, this is unfortunate as Romney has merely responded democratically to the mood of the voters in the different contexts he has carried out his politics: in Massachusetts (arguably the most liberal state in America) he had to endorse some fairly liberal policies in order to succeed as a Republican Governor in a Democratic state. Indeed, the Massachusetts state health plan created by Romney when he was Governor was the blueprint for Obama's controversial health reforms a few years later. Then, in order to secure the Republican nomination for President, Romney had to swing to the right to appease the Tea Party lobby who now dominate the grass roots of the party. Finally, in order to be elected President, he has had to move to the centre to appeal to more mainstream voters. This process has damaged him electorally, leaving him open to the charge of being neither one thing nor another. 

4. Romney's evasiveness on his personal income tax record, combined with one or two major media gaffes such as deriding "the 47%" of the population who he claimed depend on the government for a living, have hardened opposition to him among swing voters.

5. Late high-profile endorsements. Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell's backing for Obama is significant, as is that of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - a Republican now turned Independent - who has praised the President's record on education, health care and climate change.

6. The Sandy Factor. Assuming that the power is back on in New York and New Jersey by Tuesday, the political winds arising from the recent Hurricane are likely to be blowing in Obama's direction. He does not seem to have put a foot wrong in his response to the crisis, looking every bit the competent and caring man in charge. 

        

As always, watch out for voting in Ohio, which is usually a bell weather state. If Obama wins in Pennsylvania and Virginia, it will certainly mean it is all over for Romney.  I predict a Democratic win in at least one of these latter two states. 

See you on Wenesday for the post-match analysis.

 

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Tea Party Congressional Candidates: a Gift to the Democrats

The surprising victories of a number of Tea Party candidates in recent US primaries for November's Congressional elections must have the Democratic Party hierarchy laughing.

The Republican right must be ruing the day they tacitly encouraged this "grass roots" movement to gather momentum. Having initially focused their anger at President Obama's health care reforms, the conservative movement has now turned its guns on members of the Republican establishment in a number of key marginal seats.

The result is the selection of such luminaries as Christine O'Donnell as Republican Party candidate for the Senate race, from the state of Delaware. She has already lost one Senatorial race in the state in 2008, is widely regarded as unelectable at Congressional level and is currently trailing in opinion polls behind the Democratic candidate Chris Coons.

Columnist Elizabeth Scalia, who is not entirely unsympathetic to O'Donnell as an individual, admits that Delaware's rising star is:

"Palin-Lite; half the experience, less bitter. In her favor, though, is that she appears to be utterly without guile."

It is key battlegrounds such as Delaware that the Republicans must win in November if they are to gain a majority in either House in Congress and thus further restrict Obama's policy ambitions.

The Tea Party's claims to be a grass roots movement have been significantly exposed by a recent article in the New Yorker magazine, which traces significant amounts of funding from the movement back to foundations controlled by the billionaire Koch brothers, who, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker

"are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation."

If recent results are anything to go by, it appears that the Republican Party may have created a monstor which is now turning on its creator. Which will have the Democrats smiling, I would imagine.

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Britain's New Government: What's the Rush?

Middle England is in a frenzy, assisted in part by sections of the media, who are both benefiting from the current political uncertainty (due to higher readership and viewer numbers) and, who are at the same time implying that the pace of negotiations represents a potential crisis.

In case we were in any doubt about the need to reach a speedy conclusion to the negotiations, we are unceasingly being reminded of how "the markets" might react to the current political "stalemate".

Behind this criticism of the current political process, two issues seem to be implied:

1) The urgent need for "strong leadership"

2) A criticism of the LibDems for not agreeing to support the Conservatives sooner.

In both cases, the issues are controversial. Firstly, "strong leadership" is portrayed as decisive and with a mandate to enforce its decisions. It's true that such characteristics can be seen as "strong". The playground bully is one example of such strength, as is the elected government that takes is country into a war without a legal mandate and against the counsel of its allies, and by pressurising its own MPs to support it.

It seems that the advocates of "strong leadership" are confusing strength with style. A consensual or cooperative style of leadership, for instance, can be equally strong, even though it may not resort to tactics of dominance and control quite so often. Indeed, there is a case to be made that any organisation (government included) that can win a broad base of support is likely to be more in tune with those it serves and less likely to take decisions that damage them. Governments elected by a first past the post system, by contrast, will often use their notional majorities to implement policies that are focused on their core supporters rather than the public at large.

The second issue (of the LibDems not supporting the Conservatives more quickly) is easier to see through. The failure of any party to secure an outright majority is a result of the political will of the electorate, with a vote that saw the highest turnout for years. The idea that the LibDems Or any other party should ignore this democratic reality - and simply go along with the wishes of the largest single party - is, to my mind, a foolish and dangerous notion. Franky, it smacks more than a little of sour grapes.

Since the politicians are talking about the formation of the government of the UK, with responsibility for decisions that can affect the lives of millions, it seems more important to talk through the issues now, even if that takes time, than to rush into an coalition or partnership which will collapse within months. Even if it leaves the newsmen standing around with nothing to report on.

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The Observer and Mrs Stroud

It was only going to be a matter of time before the press investigated Philippa Stroud.

An active Christian, whose charitable work over the years has seen her directly involved with some of the most vulnerable members of society, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Sutton and Cheam has been strongly criticised in Sunday's Observer. At the heart of the paper's criticism is the allegation that Phillipa Stroud, "founded a church that tried to "cure" homosexuals by driving out their "demons" through prayer."

In support of this allegation, the paper quotes three individuals who were involved in churches in Bedford and Birmingham in which Phillipa Stroud played a prominent role during the 1990s. All three express varying degrees of criticism of the input they claim to have received through the church(es). Further criticism comes from two quotations from Stroud's 1999 book God's Heart for the Poor.

The article has received over 900 comments on the Observer's web site, the vast majority hostile to Mrs Stroud, many aggressively so. The topic also trended on Twitter on Monday and has exercised opinion on the blogosphere from both supporters and opponents. Stroud herself declined to be interviewed by the Observer over the story but did release the following statement:

“I make no apology for being a committed Christian. However, it is categorically untrue that I believe homosexuality to be an illness and I am deeply offended that The Observer has suggested otherwise. I have spent 20 years working with disturbed people who society have turned their back on and are not often supported by state agencies; drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and the homeless that I and my charitable friends in the public sector have tried to help over the years. The idea that I am prejudiced against gay people is both false and insulting.”


In assessing the story, and the reaction to it, several points appear in order. I should mention that as this is the longest article I have ever written on this blog, those readers seeking lighter fare should click here now.


1. Perceived Homophobia has Become the Unforgivable Sin in C21 Britain

It is worth pausing to reflect that until 1967 in England and Wales, 1980 in Scotland and 1982 in Northern Ireland, it was a criminal offence to commit a sex act between two or more males. It was only in 2000 that the age of consent for homosexual acts was reduced to 16.

Against this backdrop, the fact that homosexuality is now widely portrayed as a mainstream lifestyle, that civil partnerships are now a fact of British law, that same-sex marriage is being actively canvassed across the political spectrum and that declining to offer commercial services to a same sex couple is now a dismissible offence, all represent a dramatic rate of cultural and legal change within a generation.

This unprecedented cultural shift has resulted in a new vocabulary (including the rarely-defined term "homophobia") and new attitudes in the public sphere. It is also notable that charges of being homophobic rarely need to be proved in order to inflict damage on the one accused. The claim that a person has spoken or acted in a homophobic fashion is often enough to ensure public censure.




2. The Gay Rights Narrative Has Yet to Find a Workable Solution to the Reality of Dissenters

In the context of the huge cultural changes that have taken place over sexual politics in recent years, it is paradoxical that developments aimed at reducing intolerance against gay people appear in some respects to have increased intolerance against those who may disagree with their lifestyle. This, of course, has considerable implications for the freedom of speech in Britain. Although it is rare to find advocates of the re-criminalisation of homosexuality, concern is regularly raised by those seeking to limit the extent to which gay rights should impinge upon the beliefs and practices of others.

Current areas of conflict, inside and outside of Parliament, have focused on whether a church or other religious body can apply a sexual orientation qualification for those it employs in leadership roles and, secondly, whether faith-based schools can teach sex education in ways consistent with their historic moral perspective, which emphasises marriage (defined heterosexually).

John Sentamu, archbishop of York, explains some of the pertinent legal and free speech issues here.

Cries from Observer readers that such individuals "have no place" in modern Britain do not really address this important free speech issue in any meaningful way, having more in common with the ideology of "oppress all oppressors."

The logic of this approach to radically different opinions, at a popular level, is expressed by Elton John who was quoted (by the Observer!) in 2007 saying: "From my point of view I would ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it."

Since free speech is the right to say things that people don't want to hear, we seem at present not to have found a workable solution to the reality that sections of the population perceive their own rights and freedoms to be under threat from aspects of the gay community as they assert theirs.

The question of how to resolve these two apparently competing assertions of rights has yet to be adequately resolved in ways that contribute to justice and to the common good, in my opinion.



3. Many Evangelicals Struggle to Understand the Media

Reading between the lines of the 900+ Observer comments (yes, I did skim read virtually all of them, I'm afraid!) it was possible to discern the occasional sympathetic remark, and even the odd one which had an implied Christian worldview. These were, however, very much in the minority, implying that (a) either Christians sympathetic to Mrs Stroud chose not to comment on the Observer web site or (b) the comments they made were removed by the paper's moderators for falling foul of rule 5 of the site's comments policy:

We will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech, or contributions that could be interpreted as such.

Outside of the Observer site, Christian comment - via blogs and twitter - have tended to fall into three main categories a) claims that the article was a politically motivated hatchet job aimed at damaging the Tories and/or Christians b) claims that the article was factually inaccurate and made selective use of information c) suggestions that Mrs Stroud got what she deserved for being a Tory.

My own view is that some of my fellow Christian readers reveal a measure of confusion about the function and limits of the press. Although the story certainly sits comfortably within the Guardian/Observer's long-held anti-Conservative editorial bias, there is nothing inherently wrong about a story being consistent with such a bias. Indeed, it would be odd if it were not present. Partisan bias can be found in virtually all of Britain's national newspapers.

Furthermore, the article is triple sourced - three individuals (two named) are quoted. Uncomfortable reading though their testimony makes, it is surely unwarranted to automatically assume that they are lying about their experiences. Legal remedies exist if that should prove not to be the case.

The reality is that any local or national newspaper could find individuals who are unhappy with the pastoral care they claim to have received in virtually any church in the country - including the ones any readers of this blog may attend or even lead! Evangelicals have to accept this reality, rather than automatically dismiss such claims as inherently impossible just because they "know" that such-and-such a church leader is well meaning. As my University chaplain once reminded me, "If all we had to do as Christians was demonstrate our sincerity, we'd have a very easy life!"

The tendency in some quarters to avoid rigorous and critical self-analysis about our beliefs and practices should hardly be considered a virtue. This defensiveness, which at its worst can come across as a kind of corporate brand protectionism, is sometimes confused with the Biblical mandate to "contend for the faith". It is even less consistent with the Biblical injunction to "test everything" - which I take to include our own beliefs and practices, not only those of others. Actually, if we must make a comparison between local churches and corporations, we might want to remind ourselves that the most successful business brands adopt a policy of positively welcoming criticism, seeking it as unpaid-for market research.

The Observer is under no obligation, furthermore, to write about all the positive things that may or may not have arisen from the Bedford church over the years. The press are not apologists for the faith. Every news article, especially a hard news piece such as this, requires an "angle" - a basic perspective on what the story is about. and is typically written under specific time pressures and deadlines In this case, the "angle" is limited to Phillipa Stroud's alleged involvement in prayer sessions aimed at "curing" gay people, and at her current campaign to be elected as an MP from a party that the paper despises.



4. Expelling Demons Remains a Controversial Area Both Inside and Outside the Church

In her brief response to the Observer article, Mrs Stroud does not discuss the substance of the accusations made concerning her involvement in prayer sessions. Rather she defends her motives ("not prejudiced against gay people") and her beliefs ("untrue that I believe homosexuality to be an illness").

Readers may make of this what they will. The fact remains that the expulsion of "demons" is a current practice among some sections of the evangelical, charismatic and pentecostal branches of the church in 2010. Although less overt about the subject, the rite is also included in the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions.

On the one hand, this fact alone is enough to arouse fury among some secularists, and accusations that the language is appropriate only for the Dark Ages. On the other hand, we should take note of the fact that it is increasingly common to hear quite secular people talk openly about "battling with demons" of depression, alcoholism, self-harm or addiction. The language used is certainly emotionally charged; its value, however, is to express the idea that the sufferer feels themselves to be being harmed by malevolent forces. Considering the degree of distress suffered by many who use this language outside of a Christian context, we should be careful about denying such people the right to express in graphic terms what they perceive to be happening to and within them.

Having witnessed a number of prayer sessions in a Christian context over the years which have included the attempted expulsion of "demons", and without reference to any of the specific claims made by the Observer, I frankly confess that as a Bible believing Christian I am personally uncomfortable with some of the practices I have witnessed in these settings.

The Association of Christian Counsellors, at least, has a rigorous code of ethics and professional practice and a comprehensive complaints procedure for those operating under its professional umbrella. I know of few local churches or denominational bodies, by contrast, especially among the new churches, that have any such objective instrument for ensuring best practice in counselling or pastoral care.

In a heavily secularised and, at times hostile cultural environment, it seems important for churches to reflect carefully on their pastoral practices, to remain self aware and self critical and to be unafraid of applying rigorous thought, care and oversight to their actions in the area of pastoral care, especially when working with vulnerable people.

I'm sure that in time, if they don't, the state will.




5. Bryn Jones's Vision is not Without its Challenges

In the early 1980's, a new brand of church began to emerge from Baptist, Pentecostal and Brethren backgrounds in the UK. These "house churches" as they were initially often described have gone on to form some of the more active and numerically successful expressions of church life in the UK in the subsequent decades (though few still meet in homes).

In the formative years of this movement, the late Bryn Jones (then a leading figure among these new churches) predicted the day when such "restored" churches would go to influence British society not only through evangelism and Bible teaching but through social action and direct political activity. Jones's vision, outlined in the influential Restoration magazine, was that in the coming decades, some members of these churches would go on to hold positions within national government and exert a Christian influence within the formation of social and political policy.

It should be noted that Jones did not regard such activity as finding expression in any specific political party. He was no advocate of a "new right" or "British moral majority." Indeed, to the extent that his views could be discerned, Jones, who before his death completed a PhD in Peace Studies from Bradford University, appeared to be more left of centre in his political instincts.

Philippa Stroud is one of a number of a new generation of Christian politicians scattered across the party spectrum in the UK. Although it is easy to pigeonhole her as part of right wing Christian upsurge, the reality is that British evangelical Christians are scattered across the party political spectrum at both local and national level.

Philippa Stroud's experience this week is a reminder that, whatever one's party affiliation, such activity on the part of Christian believers is unlikely to go unchallenged.

Post Script

The original story has been removed from the Observer web site in the week following the general election. Rumour within both the pink press and Christian blogs is that this action was taken following threatened legal action from senior figures within the Conservative Party over the accuracy / legality of the piece.

Since all I know about the story is what I read on the Observer's site, I am happy to stand by this blog post as a summary of the underlying issues that such a story raises, without commenting on the specific claims made in the original Observer article.

Post Post Script

And so it goes on.

Guido Fawkes reports today that Philippa Stroud has been appointed as Special Advser to Iain Duncan Smith.

Fawkes also quotes a source in the Department for Work and Pensions (where IDS is the Minister) as saying, "It's common for newspapers to get a story wrong when their source is ether wrong or lying, but it's pretty worrying when a front page story is based on a source that doesn't exist."

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Matthew Hosier: PREDICTION TIME

Matthew Hosier: PREDICTION TIME

Church leader and political pundit Matthew Hosier predicts, counter intiutively, an election victory for the Labour Party on May 6th, due to the Conservatives being unable to achieve a large enough breakthrough.

What do you think?

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Seven Great Questions for Parliamentary Candidates

Thanks to No2id for these questions for candidates on their positions on the database state.



1) The National Identity Scheme is not just about ID cards. It is built on a National Identity Register, a set of linked databases behind the cards holding an archive of personal information. The Identity Cards Act 2006 provides for lifelong control of personal identity by the state and data-sharing without the knowledge or consent of the individual. The Act permits any official document to be designated, compelling registration for anyone who needs that document. Though the UK is under no obligation to add fingerprints to the passport, the Home Office intends to make fingerprinting and joining the National Identity Register compulsory for anyone who applies for a passport from 2012.

If elected, would you vote to repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006? Would you also oppose moves to make a database of passport holders and their fingerprints a feature of the British passport?

2) Medical confidentiality is fundamental to public health. If people feel that what they say to their doctor will not remain private, they may fail to disclose vital information or avoid treatment, assisting the spread of disease. By seizing all medical records and making them centrally accessible to hundreds of thousands of people - in the NHS and outside - the electronic Care Records System destroys the assurance of confidentiality. The Department for Health is seeking now to upload from
GP’s surgeries sensitive data, including chronic conditions and prescriptions. It is using a fraudulent definition of ‘consent’ in order to do it, with heavy promotion using public money, of claims about benefits that are not supported by evidence. Patients are made to jump through unnecessary hoops in order to exercise their right to opt out.

If elected, would you work to ensure that control of medical records remains with patients and their own doctors, and that they are shared only with properly informed consent?

3) The National DNA Database contains the profiles of almost one million people who have not been convicted of any crime. A few notorious cases are quoted to justify this, but detailed examination usually shows they could have been solved using proper police procedure and a database only of convicted criminals. Treating the innocent as criminal suspects corrodes relations between the police and the public, and undermines confidence in the quite proper use of DNA detection.

How should the DNA database be operated? If elected, would you vote to remove immediately and automatically all profiles of unconvicted people from the DNA database?

4) ContactPoint, an index of every child (and family) in England and Wales is now operating, despite technical and security faults. It identifies the most vulnerable by flagging those using sensitive services and is accessible to hundreds of thousands of people. It is too big ever to be secure. The existence of a "shielding" scheme, denied to most families, suggests that in fact ContactPoint itself is a potential danger to children. Putting record-keeping on a database can’t correct the failures of child protection to act, which is the cause of the most notorious tragedies.

Are the hundreds of millions spent on ContactPoint and related databases not better spent in other ways?

5) The creation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority means a massive expansion of police checking. The Authority can ban you from your career for accusations, or even for its own idea of 'risk factors' in your legal behaviour. Lifelong retention of arrest records by the police means ‘enhanced’ Criminal Records checks may treat you as a convicted criminal simply for being arrested – affecting your potential employment and volunteering, with no right of appeal. Mass checking feeds suspicion and undermines trust, but there is no evidence that it prevents any sort of crime.

If elected, what would you do to reform vetting and barring schemes?

6) Despite denying plans for a central database of communications data, the Home Office set up a new directorate just this January to push forward the £2 billion Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). The intent is store details of everyone you call, text or e-mail and which websites you visit – providing a record of clues to your religious and political beliefs, your sexual interests and personal relationships, your financial and medical worries – ‘just in case’ they become of interest to the authorities. Phone tapping and opening mail is so sensitive that it is a power exercised only on the approval of the Home Secretary, and cannot even be mentioned in court. But collecting communications data, and building techniques for them to be arbitrarily investigated, makes much more available to be known about every one of us without any form of warrant or independent oversight.

If elected, would you vote to ensure that access to any form of personal communications is only permitted to formal investigations under warrant?

7) Tens of millions of law-abiding citizens are being routinely monitored as they travel, on the roads by Automatic Number Plate Recognition – without any legal basis – and in the air or by sea when detailed passenger records are passed to the Home Office’s e-Borders data centre even as you leave the country. Vast quantities of information, including your financial details from ticketing, and
pictures of who you are travelling with, are being kept. For five years in the case of road data, and ten years at least for e-Borders. It is passed around government agencies, and even sent abroad. Such records are used to match records with ‘intelligence’ (which usually means guesses) from other sources – exposing unsuspecting citizens to suspicion, arbitrary penalties, and worse.

What limits would you place on the database surveillance of those travelling abroad and within the UK?

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Some Pre-Election Realism

"So whatever happens in the election ….. we get fiscal consolidation come what may. We will experience something on a scale that this country has never experienced in peacetime, of a quite different order of magnitude to the cuts under Margaret Thatcher. It will be an unenviable inheritance; and what worries me is that people have no idea - no idea at all - of the scale of the cuts, and probably tax increases, that have to happen."

Hamish McRae

Independent on Sunday 21/02/10

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The BNP, the Left and an Opportunity

Interesting post by Left Luggage on the implications of the recent BNP electoral successes. Some highlights of the piece:

• policies (denial of benefits to migrants, death penalty, increased police powers) held by the BNP are also held by 15-20% of the UK population according to a recent MORI poll
• to prevent the far-right turning this potential support into actual votes, there is a need to fill "the political vacuum left by Labour’s desertion of the working class", a topic commented on in a recent review of Colin Crouch's book Post Democracy here.
• the BNP draws its support primarily from older manual working class voters and those on state benefits
• the left has been "unable to approach" the issue of immigration effectively
  
• "voter volatility is at a post-WWII high" meaning that the British electoral market is more open to new entrants than it has been in modern history. LL concludes, however that "there is no 'new entrant' from the Left to speak of and the BNP are proving effective at filling the vacuum from the far-right."

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Labour Revolt Over Heathrow Expansion

The 28 Labour MPs who voted on Wednsday night against the government's planned expansion of Heathrow Airport to include a third runway have sent a strong message to Gordon Brown about the political opposition that awaits this project.

The vote was the largest rebellion on a motion tabled by opposition parties since the Labour government came to power in 1997.

Rebels included three former Labour party environment ministers - Michael Meacher, Chris Mullin and Nick Raysnford.

The building of a third runway may also cost Labour votes. An ICM poll conducted in December suggested that 23% of respondants would be "less likely to vote Labour" if the third runway was built. Of those who said that they intended to vote for Labour at the next eletion, 13% declared themselves "less likely" to do so if the expansion were to go ahead.

Director of Greenpeace John Sauven suggested that the commons vote "will have alarm bells ringing in No 10. Gordon Brown has got a problem on his hands."

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Obama Re-Takes Oath

BNO News is reporting that President Obama re-took the oath of office around 7.00 pm on inauguration day, in response to the fluffed lines which characterised the public oath taking in Washington earlier in the day.

Although the Constitution does not require an oath to be taken, White House Counsel, Greg Craig, is quoted as saying that the re-run was made out of "an abundance of caution" following one word spoken out of sequence by the President in the morning.

The Presidential oath of office traditionally runs as follows: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

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Post Democracy: a Review

Colin Crouch's short and provocative work Post-democracy asks why and then suggests reasons for the departure of historic left-of-centre political parties across Europe from their traditional role of being political voices for those disadvantaged by unrestrained capitalism.

His analysis is rooted in 1) the rise of the global firm 2) the decline in the size of the manual working classes 3) the loss of confidence in the idea of a separate public sector distinct from the interests of business.

The analysis is broad in its scope - Professor Crouch's academic focus includes Europe-wide political behaviour - as well as memorable in its style. Good points are well made throughout the book, a work which has its roots in a number of papers produced for the Fabian Society and The Political Quarterly.

The book's central thesis is persuasively argued: that western nations have passed the historic high point of mass democratic action (which he locates in the mid-twentieth century) and have entered a phase in which many of the outward activities of democracy remain (universal suffrage, elected government, etc.) but in which direct political activity by large numbers of citizens has been replaced with government by elected elites.

This thesis stands in opposition to the idea that democracy in the Internet age is as strong as ever. While the proliferation of special interest groups is a fact of modern political life, Crouch argues that this atomising of the activity of citizens, at the expense of concerted party political action, actually confirms the reality of post-democracy. These individual groups are insufficient in their breadth of focus to achieve significant structural and legal changes to restrain the hegemony of global firms, with their well-resourced access through lobbies to the handles of governmental influence and power.

Commenting on the rise of global businesses run by elite professionals with limited loyalty (and tax obligations) to any specific nation state, Professor Crouch notes that,

"In many respects this resembles the situation in pre-Revolutionary France, where the monarchy and aristocracy were exempt from taxation but monopolized political power, while the middle classes and peasantry paid taxes but had no political rights."

The author's portrayal of the role of central government in the post-democratic age is as frightening as it is recognisable. The "ellipse" of government, which now includes lobby groups allied to large firms as well as public-private partnerships has, says Crouch, resulted in governments which are similar in their structure and nature to the business with which they allied, though paradoxically weaker as they have handed over large areas of activity and expertise to private firms.

Such governments increasingly outsource many of their traditional functions (education, health care, transport) and increasingly see their role as facilitating the operations of businesses within the economy.

Based at the European University Institute in Florence, Crouch cites the Belisconi regime as emblematic of the post-democratic government:

"In the early 1990s....Silvio Berlusconi...rapidly filled the [political] vacuum ... by pooling resources from his extensive network of enterprises ... television channels, a publishing house, a major football club, a financial empire, a leading supermarket chain... Initially, Forza Italia had no members or activists at all as such. Many of the functions normally filled by volunteers were carried out by the employees of Berlusconi's various enterprises.... Forza Italia is an example of a political party that ... is essentially a firm rather than an organisation of the classic party type; it did not emerge from any formulation of interests by social groups, but was a construction built up by parts of the existing political and financial elite."

Rather than being the voice of mass political empowerment, the mass media is portrayed by Professor Crouch as a specific type of global firm. Examples of the effect of the dependence of post-democratic governments upon the mass media abound:

"We have become accustomed to hear politicians not speaking like normal people, but presenting glib and finely honed statements which have a character all of their own."

"Advertising is not a form of rational dialogue... Its aim is not to engage in discussion but to persuade to buy. Adoption of its methods has helped politicians to cope with the problems of communicating to a mass public; but it has not served the cause of democracy itself."

"Promotion of the claimed charismatic qualities of a party leader, and pictures and film footage of his or her person striking appropriate poses, increasingly take the place of debate over issues and conflicting interests."

As a specific example of this trend, Crouch cites "The exceptional Californian gubernatorial election of 2003, when the film actor Arnold Schwarzenegger waged a successful campaign with no policy content."

Accustomed as we are to being told that the public interest is served when business thrives ( a new spin on the maxim that "What's good for General Motors is good for America") , Professor Crouch's book is a well-argued reminder that there are human (and indeed, environmental) interests that are not fully served by such "success" when it is narrowly defined as generating shareholder bonuses and when these successes are achieved by firms exercising disproportionate power over the political process.

The final chapter ("Where do we go from here?") is, in my mind, the weakest part of the book, as it understandably takes a macro view of this question in 20 pages, providing only the broadest of suggestions of how citizens in a post-democratic age could begin to reengage in the political process through discovering their shared identity and interests and expressing them through both political parties and special interest groups.

Overall, this is an important book that, to me at least, had the effect of putting together a number of observable economic and political trends which, until reading it, had appeared to me as separate developments.

At 135 pages, the book is readily digestible and is well referenced for further reading . It also forms part of a series published by Polity which includes such titles as War and Power in the 21st Century, Governing the World Economy and Surveillance after September 11. If the tone and style of these other titles is as good as Post-democracy, then I will have stumbled upon a useful resource.

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Living History

Presidential electioneering in its modern form began with Harry Truman who, in 1948, toured the United States on a private train in order to cover as many of the key states as possible and rally support for his campaign.

I recently learned that my father was present at one such "whistle stop" when Vice-President Truman appeared at Union Station in downtown Toledo, Ohio, in the autumn of 1948. Aged 21, and an undergraduate at Northwestern University in Illinois, my father was part of a crowd of a few hundred mostly sympathetic listeners who heard Harry Truman deliver a speech from the back of his chartered train.

Apparently, the event was open to the general public (unlike the stage-managed "public" events of current elections) and involved virtually no visible security presence.

Truman had a reputation for earthy speech - the joke was that President Roosevelt spoke for the common man and that Truman (his VP) was the common man.

During the short rally, a member of the crowd shouted "Give 'em hell, Harry!" Which of course he did, defeating Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey, despite a three-way split in the Democratic party between Truman, Strom Thurmond of the pro-segregation Southern Democrats and Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace, who had served as Roosevelt's Vice-President in his previous term of office.

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Post Obama Syndrome Takes Hold

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are






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The Old Woman Who Voted for the President

At his victory speech in Chicago, President-elect Barack Obama referred to a 106-year old woman from Atlanta - Ann Nixon Cooper - who voted in Tuesday's election, apparently for the first time.

Meanwhile, in Gaithersburg, MD, 108-year old Geneva Garner cast her vote in her 22nd presidential election - on this occasion choosing independent candidate Ralph Nader, who received virtually no coverage on any of the mainstream American media channells and even less overseas. Nader has championed grass roots consumer action and environmentalism.

Said Garner - who can remember listening to speeches by Theodore Roosevelt in the first decade of the 20th century and who was born when William McKinley was president - " I don't expect him [Nader] to win. It's just on principle … It's a protest vote."

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The Boring Importance of Electoral Administration

The US Presidential elections of 2004 and 2000 were both surrounded in controversy over alleged voting irregularities.

The high number of spoiled ballots in the elections to the Scottish Parliament and local councils in 2007 illustrate that this problem is not just one faced by the American electorate.

Since many developments in technology begin in the US before arriving on these shores, British voters may want to consider carefully the creeping trend towards e-voting and other forms of non-paper based electoral systems.

The following report from the Computer Security Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara (which I attended as an undergraduate) illustrates the significant security weaknesses in electronic voting systems in California and Ohio (two keys states in any US election).

The report makes very disturbing reading and includes a video demonstrating the simple process by which these machines can be adjusted to register a different result to the one entered by the voter - all done without any indication on the machine that there is a problem.

View the video and remember Stalin's maxim:

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”

Preserving freedoms can sometimes involve the most mundane of issues - in this case electoral administration.

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