Nick Clegg really needs to look at his history of the 1980s. When Margaret Thatcher sold off many nationalised industries she declared that it was to to be the start of a 'share and property owning democracy'. This was a genuine aspiration. She was right, of course, that property owning was to be immensely popular, but those members of the public, me included, who bought blocks of shares in the privatised industries got shot of them as soon as a tidy profit was in the offing.
The same will happen with shares in the banks when they are sold back into the market and freebees are given to the public. There will be a stampede to cash in and the shares will end up in the same corporate hands that contributed to the very crisis that led to the banks being part-nationalised.
This leads to the question, what will happen to the quick profits enjoyed by the lucky public ? Well, if they spend it at home, all well and good. If they go abroad there will be little benefit to UK plc.
OK, so it's a reasonable way of pumping money into the economy, but his concept of dispersing ownership of the banks in the hope of making them more accountable is bound to go the same way as Thatcehr's plan.
Thursday 23 June 2011
Thursday 16 June 2011
A Scottish State or Scottish Republic ?
It is many years off, I know, but I am fascinated by the prospects for some kind of devolution plus for Scotland.
Of course, the ultimate option for Scotland is that it should become a sovereign state with its own elected (presumably) Head of State. There is, by the way is an intriguing question - who would be Scotland's first president in, say, ten years? I suppose Alex Salmond would be favourite, and what price Gordon Brown (suitably well into his sixties by then ? I think figurehead presidents should, on the whole, be well into their sixties). Then there are wackier choices such as Sean Connery or Billy Connelly or Lulu even.
But it now seems probable that the SNP may settle for devolution plus simply on the grounds that they will not be able to secure a yes vote for full independence. This raises some interesting and unique questions (literally unique that is). The Crown is the big problem. If the British Monarch remains the Monarch in Scotland, what is their role ? Would he/she play the same role as he/she does in the UK presently, that is be the constitutional source of the prime minister's powers ? But if a semi-independent Scotland operated under a new codified constitution, no such source is needed. Under devolution plus Scotland would undoubtedly have its own foreign policy, presumably on thr Swedish neutrality model. A codified constitution and independent foreign policy renders the need for the royal prerogative redundant. On the other hand the Monarch could be totally a token with no political or constitutional role, but merely a ceremonial one. Come to think of it, that model could work for the UK now.
Devolution plus is not federalism. Federalism imples a good deal of sovereignty remaining at the centre, i.e. London. This would clearly be uneacceptable to supporters of Scottish autonomy.
Perhaps what we are looking at is federalism plus. A system where the centre has a very limited set of sovereign powers, extending merely to control of the currency perhaps plus cross-border trade, a bit like the American 'interstate commerce' clause of the of its constitution.
This is just a series of questions really - and we haven't started on the EU yet. I have heard Scottish Nationalists refer to a Scotland under the British Crown but with an independent voice in Europe. Mmmmmmm looks problematic to me.
Having raised all these issues I think there is a real possibility here of some kind of unique constitutioonal experiment. The creation of a kind of 'sovereign state within a sovereign state' . We need to amend our traditional view of sovereignty to countenace this, but why not ?
And, while we're at it, why not Ally McCoist for President ?
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Of course, the ultimate option for Scotland is that it should become a sovereign state with its own elected (presumably) Head of State. There is, by the way is an intriguing question - who would be Scotland's first president in, say, ten years? I suppose Alex Salmond would be favourite, and what price Gordon Brown (suitably well into his sixties by then ? I think figurehead presidents should, on the whole, be well into their sixties). Then there are wackier choices such as Sean Connery or Billy Connelly or Lulu even.
But it now seems probable that the SNP may settle for devolution plus simply on the grounds that they will not be able to secure a yes vote for full independence. This raises some interesting and unique questions (literally unique that is). The Crown is the big problem. If the British Monarch remains the Monarch in Scotland, what is their role ? Would he/she play the same role as he/she does in the UK presently, that is be the constitutional source of the prime minister's powers ? But if a semi-independent Scotland operated under a new codified constitution, no such source is needed. Under devolution plus Scotland would undoubtedly have its own foreign policy, presumably on thr Swedish neutrality model. A codified constitution and independent foreign policy renders the need for the royal prerogative redundant. On the other hand the Monarch could be totally a token with no political or constitutional role, but merely a ceremonial one. Come to think of it, that model could work for the UK now.
Devolution plus is not federalism. Federalism imples a good deal of sovereignty remaining at the centre, i.e. London. This would clearly be uneacceptable to supporters of Scottish autonomy.
Perhaps what we are looking at is federalism plus. A system where the centre has a very limited set of sovereign powers, extending merely to control of the currency perhaps plus cross-border trade, a bit like the American 'interstate commerce' clause of the of its constitution.
This is just a series of questions really - and we haven't started on the EU yet. I have heard Scottish Nationalists refer to a Scotland under the British Crown but with an independent voice in Europe. Mmmmmmm looks problematic to me.
Having raised all these issues I think there is a real possibility here of some kind of unique constitutioonal experiment. The creation of a kind of 'sovereign state within a sovereign state' . We need to amend our traditional view of sovereignty to countenace this, but why not ?
And, while we're at it, why not Ally McCoist for President ?
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Monday 13 June 2011
Ed must go ?
So the media 'let's get rid of Miliband (Ed)' train has well and truly left the station.
Our experience of these kind of media campaigns is that, once they are up and running, it is almost impossible to stop them. They become part of the political agenda and lazy political journalists will simply resort to the theme over and over again for want of seeking out any original stories.
Let's dump.....whoever campaigns are debilitating things. They must take up a huge amount of the time of the victim and his/her advisers. They sap political will and take attention away from real political issues - the ones that people actually care about.
But this is now a serious problem for Ed Miliband and Labour. Does the party dump him now to give themselves plenty of time to recover lost ground, or do they hang on with ever more damaging consequences? It is, of course, a disgrace that the media should hound someone out of office on such flimsy evidence, but they do; that is the world we live in.
The flimsy evidence is not good. As someone recently said (was it a Times or Observer editorial ?) the Archbishop of Canterbury is currently looking like a more effective leader of the opposition. A managerial aproach to opposition won't work. The passion of the Archbishop's words was most telling. Ed lacks passion - of course he does. He is an academic social democrat. Politics needs to be more visceral when you are in opposition. The issues facing Labour now are about growing poverty, deprivation, inequality, unemployment and fear of unemployment. These are not intellectual issues. They are real and they are moral.
Unfortunately for Labour the main alternative is Ed's brother and that kind of handover would be equally disastrous. Labour seems to be stuck wih its own managerial political class and lacks any real options. Talk about creeks and lack of a paddle !
Nevertheless if I were Labour I think I'd do the dumping now.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Our experience of these kind of media campaigns is that, once they are up and running, it is almost impossible to stop them. They become part of the political agenda and lazy political journalists will simply resort to the theme over and over again for want of seeking out any original stories.
Let's dump.....whoever campaigns are debilitating things. They must take up a huge amount of the time of the victim and his/her advisers. They sap political will and take attention away from real political issues - the ones that people actually care about.
But this is now a serious problem for Ed Miliband and Labour. Does the party dump him now to give themselves plenty of time to recover lost ground, or do they hang on with ever more damaging consequences? It is, of course, a disgrace that the media should hound someone out of office on such flimsy evidence, but they do; that is the world we live in.
The flimsy evidence is not good. As someone recently said (was it a Times or Observer editorial ?) the Archbishop of Canterbury is currently looking like a more effective leader of the opposition. A managerial aproach to opposition won't work. The passion of the Archbishop's words was most telling. Ed lacks passion - of course he does. He is an academic social democrat. Politics needs to be more visceral when you are in opposition. The issues facing Labour now are about growing poverty, deprivation, inequality, unemployment and fear of unemployment. These are not intellectual issues. They are real and they are moral.
Unfortunately for Labour the main alternative is Ed's brother and that kind of handover would be equally disastrous. Labour seems to be stuck wih its own managerial political class and lacks any real options. Talk about creeks and lack of a paddle !
Nevertheless if I were Labour I think I'd do the dumping now.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Monday 6 June 2011
Love Thy Neighbour
Talking to an old family friend recently, a Manxwoman who married an American and has lived ever since in the Mid West, she informed me that she was a Tea Party supporter. This brought to mind a blog I had been meaning to write. So this is for you, Elaine, as well as anybody else who is interested.
When Jesus Christ preached that we should ‘love thy neighbour’, he was asked ‘who is my neighbour?’ It was this point that he told the story of the Good Samaritan. The man who helped a complete stranger (who would normally be his enemy) who had been attacked at the roadside. Well, you know the rest.
Tea party supporters and other neo cons call state sponsored public health schemes ‘socialism’. But the story of the Good Samaritan tells us that they are actually Christianity expressed in action .
America claims to be a Christian country.
Americans.....think about it.
When Jesus Christ preached that we should ‘love thy neighbour’, he was asked ‘who is my neighbour?’ It was this point that he told the story of the Good Samaritan. The man who helped a complete stranger (who would normally be his enemy) who had been attacked at the roadside. Well, you know the rest.
Tea party supporters and other neo cons call state sponsored public health schemes ‘socialism’. But the story of the Good Samaritan tells us that they are actually Christianity expressed in action .
America claims to be a Christian country.
Americans.....think about it.
oil junkies
It feels especially frustrating when we hear, yet again, that high oil prices are jeopardising economic recovery. I am old enough to remember the mid 1970s when the quadrupling of oil prices, following the Yom Kippur war in Israel, caused a major economic slump. We do not seem to have learned much since then.
It has often been said that the West is effectively an oil junkie. We seem unable and/or unwilling to accept the cold turkey and find alternatives. Cost, is, of course, the reason that is presented. All other forms of energy protection remain more expensive than oil.
So, here we are again and once again it is the cost argument that is winning the day. Wind turbine energy, in particular, is constantly claimed to be economically not viable.
The fault in this logic is that economists are simply underestimating (or ignoring altogether) the true costs of our dependence on oil. The Arab Spring and the worsening of tension in Israel have once again brought this into sharp focus. The West remains encumbered by its need not to offend Saudi Arabia and the gulf states and this comes at a huge cost. Our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan can also be traced to the West’s overwhelming need to maintain stability in the Middle East in case oil supplies are disrupted. It is difficult to put a monetary value on paranoia, but that is what this really amounts to. And it is extremely debilitating, not to mention costly.
This argument about ‘true’ cost does not even take account of environmental issues. If we add environmental cost and – shall we call it ‘military and diplomatic cost’ ? – together, we can see that oil is not as cheap as its seems.
To stretch the metaphor, the junkie may only count the cost of his addiction in terms the how much money he needs to ‘score’ regularly. He will not count the cost to his health and the shortening of his life. He is too far gone for that. The West is still in a position, unlike the junkie, to make some rational calculations.
Now we have a great opportunity to mirror the way in which the modern economies escaped from the Depression of the Thirties – by waging war and making the investments necessary to do so. But this would not be a war amongst ourselves, but against carbon. This investment has four huge dividends:
1. To the environment.
2. Never again will we be beholden to unstable regimes.
3. It will, of course, create large scale employment.
4. We can get out of the Middle East.
The rate of return on this investment looks pretty attractive from where I am sitting.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
It has often been said that the West is effectively an oil junkie. We seem unable and/or unwilling to accept the cold turkey and find alternatives. Cost, is, of course, the reason that is presented. All other forms of energy protection remain more expensive than oil.
So, here we are again and once again it is the cost argument that is winning the day. Wind turbine energy, in particular, is constantly claimed to be economically not viable.
The fault in this logic is that economists are simply underestimating (or ignoring altogether) the true costs of our dependence on oil. The Arab Spring and the worsening of tension in Israel have once again brought this into sharp focus. The West remains encumbered by its need not to offend Saudi Arabia and the gulf states and this comes at a huge cost. Our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan can also be traced to the West’s overwhelming need to maintain stability in the Middle East in case oil supplies are disrupted. It is difficult to put a monetary value on paranoia, but that is what this really amounts to. And it is extremely debilitating, not to mention costly.
This argument about ‘true’ cost does not even take account of environmental issues. If we add environmental cost and – shall we call it ‘military and diplomatic cost’ ? – together, we can see that oil is not as cheap as its seems.
To stretch the metaphor, the junkie may only count the cost of his addiction in terms the how much money he needs to ‘score’ regularly. He will not count the cost to his health and the shortening of his life. He is too far gone for that. The West is still in a position, unlike the junkie, to make some rational calculations.
Now we have a great opportunity to mirror the way in which the modern economies escaped from the Depression of the Thirties – by waging war and making the investments necessary to do so. But this would not be a war amongst ourselves, but against carbon. This investment has four huge dividends:
1. To the environment.
2. Never again will we be beholden to unstable regimes.
3. It will, of course, create large scale employment.
4. We can get out of the Middle East.
The rate of return on this investment looks pretty attractive from where I am sitting.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
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