Is Clegg a fool or a knave ?

So Nick Clegg has told us that he is not a knave but a fool, a fool for having made a promise he could not keep. The sad thing is, whether he is a fool or a knave we all want our politicians to be neither. To make matters worse, Dr Cable has told us the promise was a collectice decision, so the Liberal Democrat leadership[ is a collection of fools. Mmmmmmm. http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.

The olympic Spirit

e have now had a few weeks to reflect upon what happened during the Olympics – including the torch processions – and the Paralympics. Something undoubtedly happened and it was largely unexpected. So what was it and what are its implications ? There was clearly an upsurge of patriotism and it was noticeable that many members of so-called minority groups happily joined in the outburst of such patriotism. Two implications arise from this. First that we are becoming a more integrated society. One suspected this would happen in regard to ethnic diversity, but it was striking also how geographically united the nation was. The idea of the torch progress had a lot to do with this. The fear that this was ‘London-centric’ was, ultimately, unfounded. The Olympics and Paralympics threw up countless role models, but the most significant were undoubtedly sportspeople of colour and the disabled. Again the impact of these is very plain to see and also predictable. But less predictable was the manner in which the concept of ‘Britishness’ has been claimed by all groups in society, not just the shire-dwellers. This will prove to create cultural change, no doubt, and it is probably good news for those who have a vested interest in sport, but I wondered whether it goes further than that. My thesis here is to suggest it should inform us about the ‘Big Society’ agenda and the future of our national institutions which are coming under threat from both localism and privatisation. The first thing to say, I suppose is that this has demonstrated that it is possible in Britain to organise and deliver a major public sector project, efficiently, effectively and impressively. But, more importantly, I think the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated something about civic attitudes to major public sector, national, undertakings. In other words it is not true, as Big Society thinking suggests, that we can only connect emotionally with local community enterprises. The British people do have a strong affinity with national, public sector enterprises. It runs to the NHS, the BBC, higher education institutions, the police and our welfare state in general. Those politicians who chant the mantra, ‘local good, national bad’ and ‘public sector bad, private sector good’, need to consider this demonstration of a strong national civic culture. Turning to the volunteer army, I am reminded of the great eighteenth century conservative thinker Edmund Burke’s conception of the ‘little platoons’ of local activists who ‘do good’ in their communities for no reward. Well, yes, he and Tocqueville forty years later were right to see these as fundamental to a healthy democracy and society in general. But the gamesmakers were a national army. They may have worked at separate venues and with different sports, but they undoubtedly came to see themselves and be seen as a national institution. And, of course, they were a variety of regions, age brackets, ethnic origins and states of able- bodiedness or disability, ` So the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated not just a change on societal attitudes to sport and patriotism, but also an appetite for the potential of national and the state-sponsored undertakings. Politicians – attack them at your peril !