So the votes have been cast. The fingers inked. The results won't be known for another week or so yet and the results will take a little while longer. That's why I wonder at those who focus on the body count. Yes, to the mother who lost a child, the brother a sister, husband, wife, cousin, uncle, one life lost is a life too many. But while anyone who cares and has a view on the war in Iraq must be mindul of the cost in human life, how do you set that against things which are highly valued but not countable such as freedom and democracy. That's not meant to be the callous cliché it sounds. Its more of a musing on the issues in keeping with being something of a pro-war skeptic though pro is probably a little too strong for me. As Ian McEwan said of the anti-war marches:

"I was troubled by the sheer level of happiness on the street. I did think whatever the reasoning of America for going in, history has offered us this chance to get rid of Saddam. If you decide you don't want that, it is probably a very reasonable view, but it is a vote for more torture, more genocide. It's a sombre, grave choice."

Some other random thoughts and questions:

Oh yes. The reasons for going in. If you accept at face value, which we must never do, but just for the sake of the question here let's do, the WMD reason for going in, was this the only war in history which was started by mistake?

If the intention in Iraq is to create just another puppet-regime is the US and anyone who will join them forever to go round the world installing and uninstalling (when they turn nasty) governments like Windows?

If the Iraqi Communist Party do well in the election as some hope wouldn't it be ironic having used Islamic jihadis to fight off the commies in Afghanistan only to have commies involved in a government to fight off your new international bogeymen -the Islamic jihadis?

As Zeyad at Healing Iraq posted:

"Many Iraqis, including conservative and religious Iraqis, are surprisingly rooting for the Iraqi Communist party, probably in an attempt to counter the influence of Islamists in the forthcoming National Assembly. The Communist party has the largest number of registered party members in the country and can be considered as the oldest popular political party in Iraq. Its support base is much larger than what it seems."

For more blogs from and about Iraq try:

Index of political blogs
Healing Iraq
Guardian weblog guide
Newsnight Iraq blog list

As the trailer for the BBC series Auschwitz:The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' poignantly reminds, the extermination of Jews was not only the single act of a brutal, evil dictator. In the trailer, a series of actors' voices each declares their role no matter how small, something like "I drew the plans", "I built the walls", "I shut the door". The Independent's leader for today ends..

"..listening to the debate about immigration, can anyone say that all people have learnt generosity towards their fellow men. Fear of the foreigner, suspicion of the outsider, lies close to the surface of every society, ready to break out in calls for action when pressures seem threatening. One man's concern about security all too easily becomes a crowd's call to imprison or reject a whole group. We will need to remember Auschwitz long after its last survivor has gone."

No matter how boring politics is perceived to be if we are saddened and shocked how such a thing could happen we must also beware of our own glossy rightwing demagogues with simple solutions. And anyone with final ones.

In an article in Prospect magazine (May 2004 Issue 98) last year Bruce Ackerman and James S Fishkin proposed a new national holiday named 'Deliberation Day' (they have published a book of the same name), D-day for short, to be held before general elections (and referendums) which would involve televised debates and local discussion groups and meetings towards a more informed and deliberative electorate. Also see The Center for Deliberative Polling.

Go on, read a policy document today!

The cover story of the New Statesman for the 24th January was that '1 in 5 Britons could vote far right'. This edition of the New Statesman would have dropped on the doormats of subscribers on Friday and would have been available on the website Thursday night. I say this because this was before the publication of the now famous full page advert in The Daily Telegraph where Michael Howard pledges, IN CAPITAL LETTERS, to act on "THE LITERALLY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN OTHER COUNTRIES WHO WANT TO COME AND LIVE HERE". The New Statesman article looks at support in the electorate for UKIP and BNP. While it acknowledges they are "bitter rivals" it points up their shared rhetoric and attitudes. While UKIP's main policy position is withdrawal from the EU, "its policies link the EU and immigration as closely related nationalist concerns". UKIP has stated that it would "put an end to mass immigration". One of its five pledges is "freedom from overcrowding". Studying both parties the authors have found that the rhetoric of "truth telling" is fundamental to the strategies of both the BNP and UKIP. Both define themselves as "plain-speaking folk who will risk persecution for their defiance of liberal hegemony and 'politcally correct' laws and attitudes". See then the terms in which Howard couched his pledge:

"Only my party has the courage to tell the truth about immigration and the courage to act"

Some other people have been attempting to get somewhere near the truth about immigration too.

The BBC's Mark Easton, home affairs editor presented some statistics to Huw Edwards on the six o' clock news. When people were asked what proportion of foreigners they thought there were in Britain men suggested 18%, women estimated 28% when the actual figure is 4.8%. He also informed that most foreign workers come from Ireland and if you disregard Europe then its Australia. This also shows that clearly women are rubbish at maths.

David Aaronovitch also looks at some immigration statistics:

"Take 2003. In that year 362,000 people left and 513,000 came in - a difference of 151,000. Of those departing, 191,000 were Brits and 171,000 were foreigners. And of those coming in, 277,000 were British returnees and 246,000 were Auslanders ...That means that 88,000 more Brits came in than went out and 75,000 more outsiders...not all knife-wielding Kurds, pimping Albanians and benefit-defrauding West Africans. Of 2003's foreign workers in the UK, 519,000 were from EU states, 127,000 from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, 87,000 were Aussies and Kiwis, 72,000 were Americans, and 500,000 were from other countries, most notably the Philippines, Japan and South Africa."

Joseph Harker tries to settle some 'bogus arguments' about 'bogus' immigrants by asking:

"But first let's have some clarity. When we say "immigrant", do we mean the Australian bar-worker, the American academic, the French physiotherapist? I think not: people seem comfortable with them in our midst. As we all know, an "immigrant" is dark-skinned - that layabout who's over here to milk our welfare system."

He goes on to discuss how ethnicity is bound up with concerns about immigration.

Over at electionwatch.co.uk and pollingreport.co.uk they ask why Howard chose to place the advert in The Daily Telegraph of whose readers 32% think immigration is a major issue, rather than the Sun (42%) or the Daily Mail (53%). Electionwatch propose that it is simply to stop core voters going elsewhere but if you were a company would you advertise your product to already loyal customers? I can't remember the exact agent of the state it referred to but I once heard a funny quote about, let's say politicians, and how their 'job' was to 'create problems for their solutions'. I hate it that the electorate is cynical if it turns people off voting at all, but wondered given the comparatively lower figure of 32% for Telegraph readers who think immigration an 'issue' whether this is really what Michael Howard was up to. Indeed, as Malcolm Dean in SocietyGuardian noted:

"asylum and immigration [was] up near the top of public concerns last year at the height of tabloid-whipped fears of an invasion of East European Gypsies. But since then, it has fallen from second to fourth place in public concern"

A comment post on the Electionwatch website from A Logical Voice suggests the following thoughts, statistics and sources:

"I thought you and your readers would like some useful facts on immigration:

http://www.irr.org.uk/statistics/refugees.html
Among European countries, in 2003, Austria, Sweden, Norway and Luxembourg received the largest number of asylum applications per capita (all with between 3 and 4 asylum applicants and dependants per 1,000 inhabitants). The United Kingdom received one asylum seeker for every 1,000 inhabitants. The figures from 2002, show that Britain is in 16th position for the countries hosting the most refugees, with Iran, Pakistan, Tanzania, Serbia and Montenegro, the US, China, Zambia, Armenia, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Uganda, Germany and Congo all taking in more refugees than Britain.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1397903,00.html
The stats used by Michael Howard in support of his "I Believe" conceal some interesting subtleties. Take 2003. In that year 362,000 people left and 513,000 came in - a difference of 151,000. Of those departing, 191,000 were Brits and 171,000 were foreigners. And of those coming in, 277,000 were British returnees and 246,000 were Auslanders . Bear with me. That means that 88,000 more Brits came in than went out and 75,000 more outsiders. Sooo... more than half of that city the size of Birmingham is made up of excess returning Britons. But the other half is not all knife-wielding Kurds, pimping Albanians and benefit-defrauding West Africans. Of 2003's foreign workers in the UK, 519,000 were from EU states, 127,000 from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, 87,000 were Aussies and Kiwis, 72,000 were Americans, and 500,000 were from other countries, most notably the Philippines, Japan and South Africa.

http://www.workpermit.com/news/2005_01_20/australia/us_uk_sources_for_illegal_australian_immigration.htm
Apparently, the greatest number of illegal overstayers in Australia are Americans and Britons, according to this article. When you look at figures from all the western nations, it always seems to be the case that the vast majority of immigrants to our "civilised societies" come from other western nations

www.expatica.com/
source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=90&story_id=4788&name=Finding+a+job+in+Spain+-+what+the+experts+say
Should Spain send back half a million British expats to Britain, some taking Spanish jobs from their country's citizens?

http://www.southern-cross-group.org/uk_visas_immigration/overview.html
There are an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Australians in the UK at any one time, and we know that a large number of people who follow the activities of the Southern Cross Group are either already in the UK or planning to move there."

Election coverage has recently got underway in the blogosphere. www.perfect.co.uk posted a link to a Newsnight clip of John Harris asking 'So Now Who Do We Vote For?' which coincidentally is the name of his new book which is reviewed in this week's Guardian Review (Saturday 22nd January 2005) by Billy Bragg . The dilemma is that, as Roy Hattersley states in a Guardian article, Tony Blair has been partially successful in shifting the philosophical position of the Labour party from left of centre to somewhere to the right of Margaret Thatcher. John Harris disquieted by this shift but reluctant to walk away from Labour is tortured about what to do. Roy Hattersley is certain. As he explains to Harris in the clip :

"I don't have to think to decide which is best. The Labour Party will produce a much better government than Howard would. But there's also a positive reason. Tony Blair is not immortal. Sooner or later the Labour Party is going to return to its basic principles, its proper beliefs, its historic ideology. Its going to become a social democratic party again and people like you and me have to maintain our position within it to make sure that happens."

John explains to Roy that some disillusioned Labour people are certainly going to vote Lib Dem instead

Roy explains to John:

"It certainly won't achieve a Liberal Democrat government. It's not going to achieve very many more Lib Dem Members of Parliament. It's going to give them a warm feeling when they get home on polling day because they have somehow exercised their silent conscience" "

So not to vote Lib Dem and faced with an ardent Blairite in a constituency what should a troubled Labour voter do, asks John. Roy advises:

"My advice is to vote Labour and particularly if that person wants the Labour Party to go back into the mainstream of social democracy ...not only vote Labour but join the Labour Party and start working for the change...you can't join the Labour Party and start working for change if you vote for another party... it's a package and that package ought to be the battle for social democracy."

Back in 1945 the Beveridge Report (including proposals for NHS, education, housing, social insurance, national assistance, full employment)- 'the blueprint' of the welfare state- was in the air. Several Mass Observation and Ministry of Information surveys revealed that the public viewed the Conservative Party as a stumbling block to its implementation. Labour won the subsequent 1945 election by a landslide. After the shock of this defeat some shifting of philosophical positions went on in the Conservative Party, too. Rab Butler called for 'a total reorganisation of the social structure on which our party rested, an acceptance of redistributive taxation to reduce the extremes of poverty and wealth and a repudiation of laissez-faire economics'. Which they kinda did.

Ian Gilmour, a senior Tory frontbencher wrote in 1978 'Only Liberal ideologues, not Conservatives, see something fundamentally wrong with the welfare state'.

And indeed a year later Margaret Thatcher was to win the general election on a platform of rolling back the state, in particular its welfare services.

Ian Gilmour later wrote an assessment of Thatcherism, from the left of the Conservative Party, entitled 'Dancing with Dogma' -as Amazon.com's blurb has it:

"a left-wing conservative assessment of Thatcherism in action - as ideology, style, monarchy, millenarianism, 19th-century liberalism, a set of moral values, right-wingery, or as a combination of them all - and its affects on the country and on tory policy during Thatcher's 11-year reign".

Since the Conservatives' defeat in the 1997 general election there have been debates within and without about which way they should go now.

Will Labour ever reclaim its social democracy. And if they did who would be first past the post, the heartened or the horrified. Will the Conservatives become all one-nation again or discover something like compassion and if they both do this at the same time will we all still be as confused as ever?

This may help:www.electionwatch.co.uk has all the election resources a psephologist would ever need with links for polls and parties.

In a recent article for The Independent, Johann Hari asked 'Why is religion on the rise again?'. Evidence here shows that belief is alive and well in Birmingham.

Elsewhere, David Bell, head of Ofsted, has 'deeply upset' Muslim schools in his claim, in a Hansard Society speech, that faith-based schools might not give as good an understanding of other faiths and cultures as they might. He starts off by including all such schools in his comments:

"There are now around 300 such schools including over 50 Jewish schools, around 100 Muslim schools and over 100 Evangelical Christian Schools."

He does use Muslim schools as a specific example and the news commentary has focused on this as has the outrage. But he also acknowledged this:

"Many of these new faith schools are being opened by a younger generation of British Muslims who recognise that traditional Islamic education does not entirely fit pupils for their lives as Muslims in modern Britain. The Association of Muslim Schools is reviewing its role in order to support schools more effectively. I would urge them to continue with this vital work "

The speech overall is about the problems and issues of Citizenship teaching in schools. He also mentions other concerns:

"There is also the view from some on the political right that it is a non-subject, infused with the worst of progressive ideology. On the political left, there are some who argue that citizenship is in danger of becoming a 'Rule Britannia' approach to the curriculum."

"In schools, my inspectors have also found, both in the offices of a few head teachers and in some staffrooms, scepticism, cynicism and even fear surrounding the introduction of citizenship. The scepticism is often ill- informed, for instance, that interest in citizenship will be short-lived."

In the section on 'citizenship as service', he also singles out for criticism the 70% of 14-16 year olds not involved in community or voluntary activities and describes it as 'a worrying trend' even though the statistic is based on a small-scale survey. I hope teenagers everywhere are suitably outraged at being accused of not pulling their citizenly weight.

There are criticisms all round and really as with anything the speech should be read in its entirety.

Just as my friend who didn't know what boys were after having been educated at an all-girls school, there is a valid point to be made about segregation of any kind.

It is just as important to know how the Vardy Foundation schools fared in teaching about other faiths and cultures.

Following on from yesterday's celebration of cerebration, Tessa Jowell shows soundbites need not be dumb:

"The problem is not apathy, but a sense of purposeful disengagement"

Notwithstanding the result of 'Political Idol' or whatever the programme was called, is it possible that The Age of the Cerebral will replace The Age of Celebrity ?

I ask this (perhaps desperately hopeful) because I was listening to BBC Breakfast News on telly the other morning (a little like this} and I half heard some guy quoting a rather interesting poll. It was only after he had said what he said that my mind kicked into gear and thus the specifics of what he said bypassed some memory registration mechanism that I am purported to have, giving truth to the saying 'in one ear, out the other'. But the gist of it was that some significant statistic (the bit I can't remember) of persons would rather be more clever than more beautiful. To aid in this process of course the guy and his lady co-author had a book to flog called The Mind Gym - Wake Your Mind Up

Tessa Jowell quotes Stalin ?

Eric Hobsbawm writes in The Guardian.

An article in Time magazine reports George W Bush reading a book.

And in a rare moment I feel a fleeting empathy with His Grace, The Pope...

...but only until I found a helpfully edited 'What the Papers Say' clip over at BigDaddyBlog.

And for a little more light relief, 'Mark Thomas writes a column offensive to Christians' (17 January 2005) Not so funny, its pay for access.

Since it is almost Sunday, it is only fitting to continue with the religious theme of the week.

Stephen Green, of Christians against 'Jerry Springer - The Opera' fame and regarded by some as National Director of ignorant bigots, says that Britain is a nation deep in sin -"You can see that in the alienation of our societies, in terms of family breakdown and crime levels, drug taking, profligacy and perversion." He points the finger for this corruption at "post-war legislation" which obviously coincides with the setting up of the welfare state -sound familiar? It wouldn't be so bad if such people confined their plans for the salvation of society to private prayer but what he wants is something more powerful in the political sense of the word. The tagline for his group's website reads "The enemies of God are all having their say...It's time to hear Christian Voice".

Inspired by:

"four hundred Sikhs [who] felt strongly enough about the play Behzti (Dishonour), which depicted sex abuse and murder in a Sikh temple, to protest outside (and inside) the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. There were some arrests, but you have to admire their willingness to stand up for their religion."

the website posted names, addresses and home telephone numbers for the purposes of 'protesting' which resulted in abusive and threatening phone calls to a number of BBC staff and their families. In response to this Stephen Green repented (a little) ".. I was a bit naive in thinking perhaps our website would only be visited by Christians." What did he mean by this? How does he know they weren't Christians? Trying to shift the blame perhaps?

Refreshingly, in this week's New Statesman an article by Ray Pahl entitled 'Hidden solidarities that span the globe' shows that "we are not the selfish, atomised individuals of modern media myth". "But," it continues "the government would like us to think we are." And certain Christians, we might add.

For another reminder, despite what we are led to believe, that we still live in a humane society read Alexander Armstrong's heart-warming tale of being stuck for five hours at one of the busiest junctions in the City of London. Unheart-warmingly you have to pay for the full story.

If you watched the clip on the news of the Jerry Springer Opera protestors outside the BBC you would have seen an outraged woman with bright red lipstick on waving a placard (Such was the make-up that I harboured the thought that they were a bunch of actors hired to create controversy and thus publicity for the show). A fashion crime it may be but St Paul (I Timothy 2:8-15) also had some stuff to say about women not dressing and appearing tarty, although he didn't explicitly outlaw red lipstick. He also said that women not covering their heads while praying or prophesying should have their heads shaved as punishment (I Corinthians 11:5-7).

Arts and Letters Daily recently linked to an article with the following pre-amble:

"Most "Christians" commit treason daily against their religion. They claim Jesus is Lord, but they show allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment..."

While the article linked to calls for more obedience and surrender to the full biblical Christ, for those who like to wear red lipstick and hair without fear of God interfering read Richard Holloway's Godless Morality - keeping religion out of ethics. Pages 60-62 are especially commended.

I have been following various debates on the 'Jerry Springer Opera Problem' and one of the things that people have been saying is, would the show have gone ahead if it had been any other religion than Christianity involved. Which is a fair point but such cultural events as plays and TV programmes are performed against not only their theatrical backdrops but also against a societal and political one. The right to free speech comes with a responsibility. And therein lies a problem. One person's right to free speech has to be set against another person's right to freedom from religious persecution. However, in this country no-one would expect, as a result of this show, for Christians to be spat at or to be verbally or physically abused. So what is there to be feared from such a production as 'Jerry Springer - The Opera' ? For the protesters of the Springer Opera and the Sikhs who protested about the play Behzti it seems at least one of the complaints in both cases is offence caused within the religion not by one religion against another. While certain groups may well be offended they do not have a right to demand that the world is tailored only to their standards of offensiveness. In today's Guardian Timothy Garton Ash makes a better examination of these issues than I.

Additionally, while some would like to dismiss such a piece of work as 'filth' it has opened up a debate about such weighty and worthy issues as freedom of speech and expression, tolerance and what art is and is for. And one of the things art is for in a free society is raising questions and promoting debate.

Meanwhile back at the palace....

Prince Harry's sporting of a Nazi costume for a fancy dress party again raises some of the same issues. Channel 4 News had a good discussion on the subject which included a comedian's views on where comedy is appropriate when sensitive issues are involved. Unfortunately, to see the clip of the news item you have to subscribe and the comedian, who made some very sensible points, isn't quoted in the article that appears on the Channel 4 website.

No not that one. This one.

On that one read Brian Jones who was 'mystified how Blair convinced himself that Iraq had all those weapons' and how Philip Bobbitt (law professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a former director for intelligence programmes at the US national security council) isn't.

So we have a bunch of chanting religious protestors trying to prevent 'Jerry Springer -The Opera' being shown on the BBC because it offends them as Christians. Yet you don't get atheists making the same fuss about Songs of Praise. To non-believers the notion of a God is an offence to their intellectual sensibilities but you don't have them issuing death threats to Aled Jones. In any case the show is not an attack on Christianity. Read what its creators Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas have to say about it themselves at the National Theatre website.

On the 'Have your say' page at the BBC website one of the arguments made by those complaining is along the lines of 'I pay my licence fee, I don't like the programme/it offends my views therefore it should not be shown'. This is an amazing amount of egocentrism. They seem to be privileging their licence fee/views above everyone else's. Many people pay their licence fees and within that is a broad spectrum of tastes therefore a broad variety of programmes with differing views will inevitably need to be broadcast to cater for everyone. In other words we have to share the BBC. Ironically, or perhaps not, it is those who are supposed to be spiritually bereft preaching, and practising, a message of tolerance and those who would claim goodness being intolerant and worse still aggressive. The names, addresses and in some cases home phone numbers of BBC executives were published on the Christian Voice website with the intention of inviting anyone interested to 'protest'. As The Independent reported:

'The email from Christian Voice's national director, Stephen Green, to subscribers - obtained by The Independent on Sunday - stated: "We make no apologies for giving their home addresses and in as many cases as we can, their phone numbers ... We know normal protests are channelled in such a way as to be ignored."'

Isn't there something in the Bible about before offering to take the splinter out of someone else's eye first attend to the log in your own. Having said all that, this line of argument can rapidly descend into a pointless point-scoring exercise in relative sizes of splinters and logs.

Instead, A C Grayling, reader in philosophy at Birkbeck College, London in a short piece entitled 'From Magna Carta to Lady Chatterley: a brief, ignoble history of moral outrage', in The Independent (January 9th 2005) suggests we all save our moral outrage for things that really matter:

"Moral outrage is aimed at censorship. Recently, the play Behzti was silenced by the moral outrage of Sikhs in Birmingham. The objectors had not seen the play, yet knew that it absolutely had to close. The same impulse attends the outrage over the BBC's airing of Jerry Springer.

A mature society is one that reserves its moral outrage for what really matters: poverty and preventable disease in the third world, arms sales and injustice. Bad language and sex might offend some, who have a right to complain; but they do not have a right to censor. They do not have to watch or listen. It is morally outrageous that moral outrage should be used to perpetrate the outrage of censorship on others."

You have to pay to get access to the article.

After having given so spontaneously and instantaneously recently, without any leadership, to the Asian tsunami victims, the public morality, contrary to much hand-wringing by guardians of the good, is not going to the dogs despite wanting to watch 'Jerry Springer - The Opera' on the BBC.

After 9/11 many commentators and writers felt stunned into silence. Since life and/or truth is stranger than fiction or so the old saying goes many felt confounded and unable to express in words what had happened, at least adequately. Many did try, however. Similarly with the recent tsunami. Along with the outpouring of grief and donations has come an outpouring of commentary and debate. Such a big event induced big themes and so God was invoked. The New York Observer gives a good round-up of some of the media's God coverage. But whether God or gods moved the tectonic plates or the tectonic plates worked alone matters little. What matters is our response to it. The leader of 10th January 2005 in the New Statesman reminded (as did other commentators elsewhere) "These are the wrong questions...The condition of Africa and much of Asia questions our humanity, not the divinity of a hypothetical God".

Since, however, we are told that we have become a selfish, consumerist, me-centred society someone called Humanity must have pick-pocketed the wallets of the nation on their way to the shops. In fact, we needed no leaders, political, religious or pop, to plead with us to help. People -humans, all- were stirred from their armchairs by the humans suffering in front of their eyes. Yet even as one hundred million quid has been raised in private donations some have still bemoaned the stinginess of us pointing out that its only x-amount of pounds per head. This misses out on the essence of giving in this way. Everyone knows that though their small amount on its own cannot do very much, TOGETHER we can do alot. And while some may have given a very tiny proportion of their total income what they are creating, besides the tangible aid, is the invisible good of the spirit of collective action and an affirmation of 'working together'.

Some of the more unusual messages to be drawn from the events in the Indian Ocean region are that bureaucracy is good and astrology is rubbish.

Bureaucracy, Peter Preston of The Guardian (Monday, January 3rd, 2005) pointed out, has become such a dirty word:

"But Asia, for the moment, says something quite different. It says that pouring in doctors, nurses and medicines without the administrative structure to deploy them where they're needed, is merely to leave hope piled in unopened boxes at some bemused local airport. It says that planning matters crucially. It makes effective bureaucracy the greatest friend of those in need.

Success or failure, life or death ... they don't depend on cash alone, but on organisation. That is not, to be sure, the exclusive prerogative of governments. They can be energised by dynamic charities moving swiftly. But the biggest money and biggest teams, able to make the biggest impact, belong to governments, to the biggest bureaucracies".

And my particular favourite phrase in the article is this:

"They [political leaders] can posture and parade and speechify all right, but it's bureaucracy - the expert machinery of mankind, primed for action - which makes the difference."

But do read the full article. And also the response to the article of a letter writer who reminded readers that even a pamphlet had been written 60 years ago in defence of red tape:

"At home, the cheap sneers against bureaucracy by politicians and the media are insulting to the thousands of decent, hardworking citizens delivering essential services, not to mention the threats to many of their livelihoods. The critics are also ill-informed. Is not the great German sociologist Max Weber read any more? His careful observation and definitive analysis saw bureaucracy as the appropriate form of organisation for public bodies. Nearer to our own times, AP Herbert, some 60 years ago, wrote a vigorous pamphlet, In Defence of Red Tape, putting the case for bureaucracy, and its associated rigorous procedures, as protecting society against corruption and arbitrary power."

Other 'core resources' I would like to see rehabilitated from dirty word status are: political correctness, red tape, tax and human rights.

Or not.

Bruce Anderson's (The Independent, 3rd January, 2005) contribution to the tsunami commentary was a tough love piece on aid for the third world in which he justified aid for Aids on the following grounds:

"But there is no reason to grant unconditional access to world markets, any more than to aid or foreign investment. Countries with kleptocratic governments ought to be excluded from all three (except for Saudi Arabia; we cannot do without the oil).

There is one respect in which Africa cannot do without aid: Aids. It is true that in many countries, malaria still causes more deaths than Aids, but malaria concentrates its fire on the old, the sick or the very young: the dispensable or the replaceable. Aids hollows out the working population. An effective anti-Aids programme would absorb large amounts of Western cash. That would be money well spent, though only if it were effective."

But for the helpful note at the foot of his article ("-Jeremy Seabrook is the author of Consuming Cultures: Globablisation and Local Life") in the Guardian (Friday, December 31st 2004) I wouldn't otherwise have known who Jeremy Seabrook is. Call me a philllistine. In fact, I thought he was on a comedy current affairs quiz with Clive Anderson on telly. But I googled that and found that I was getting confused with Jeremy Hardy.

I have long felt uncomfortable with the habit of news reports of all channels which after announcing a death toll from disasters abroad go on to specify the number of 'Britons' included in the toll. A disaster is a disaster regardless of nationality, surely. Why do programme makers feel the need to include that detail. Do they need to boost the significance of the story by highlighting the fact that it befell persons of 'our' nationality. Would we otherwise ignore it? Jeremy Seabrook's article makes the point but much better of course. The phrase I would like to pluck from his article, though, and recommend as motto for 2005, is 'immediate human solidarities'. We need more of these for 2005. Strip away national identity which can so easily be cranked up to Nationalism. Strip away religious identity which can so easily be cranked up to Religious Hatred. Etc, etc. Lets have more raw, naked and Immediate Human Solidarities for 2005.

I'll drink to that!

As religions have vied both with each other and within as to who is the peaceful and who the warmonger, who is the terrorist and who the terrorised, who is the true believer and who the infidel or moral relativist, I have waited all year for someone to say:
 
"they are simply following the guidance of the ugliest parts of their religious texts."
 
Or the converse depending on whether they're on the side of Good(Evil) or Evil(Good).
 
It was Johann Hari in the The Independent (28th December, 2004) and on his own website who wrote
 
"Then there's the religious fundamentalist movement we have all been thinking about: al-Qa'ida. I've never been persuaded by the notion that they are not "true Muslims". It's certainly the case that most Muslims in the world don't agree with their interpretation of the Koran, and are as appalled as the rest of us by the murder of civilians. But the Koran is - like all religious texts - the vague and contradictory work of human beings. There are indeed passages that seem to support what Osama Bin Laden advocates; there are other passages that support the idea that Islam is a religion of peace. To say one is right and has stumbled onto the "true" essence of Islam is to make an unacceptable concession to the idea that there is a divine coherence to the Koran. It's tempting to say extremists from Osama to Jerry Falwell are somehow "distorting" or "perverting" their religions - but often, they are simply following the guidance of the ugliest parts of their religious texts."
 
And that's my point too. That it is the following of 'texts' -vague and contradictory- itself that is the problem. They can be made to support just about anything. From stoning and the death penalty to compassion and forgiveness. Which is the Truth? Better to relate to the needs of the human being in front of you than the deity that can be made to support forgiveness and death, war and peace at one and the same time and circumstance.
 

Deborah Orr in The Independent on the 28th December wrote:
 
"There is a growing consensus, for example, that the UN simply does not work as a world policeman, precisely because it is constantly hobbled by the sort of conflicting interests witnessed in Darfur."
 
and
 
"Essentially, the UN cannot intervene to stop the rape, torture, slaughter and displacement, because Security Council member China has "good trade links" with Sudan, and will not back intervention..."
 
An article entitled 'France's secret dirty wars' by Becky Tinsley appeared both in the New Statesman (June 28, 2004, Vol. 17) and on the Francewatcher website dedicated to watching France's 'conflicting interests' in Africa and argued that France's stance on Iraq wasn't so much to do with the dread of the impending sound of guns and much to do with the ring of the cash register.
 
I noted myself in the build up to the Iraq war that many people referred to the UN as if it were some seperate and objective entity. Anthony Dworkin, too, in Prospect magazine (January 2005) in a short piece entitled 'When to Intervene' states:
 
"The real problem is that the security council is anything but a morally principled and consistent body. It acts not on a fine determination of justice but according to the interests of its members..."

For this piece I was going to go straight for the 'caught with pants down' heading but while irresistibly apt it was somehow sooo tabloid. So I settled for the above which is still unavoidably tabloid. Apologies in advance. Or up front, so to speak. Oops. Irresistible. Unavoidable. Inexcusable. Sorry.

And so to get down to it. Sorry again. And so to the subject -affairs and the politicians who have them.

While I would never condemn people for not exercising restraint and virtue which I was not capable of myself, I would condemn those that condemn those who do not exercise restraint and virtue and who do not exercise restraint and virtue -themselves. In other words, bloody hypocrites. My complaint is more than just that they're- all-the-same cynicism which we could do with less of among the electorate and the media because they are not.

My complaint is that off the back of so-called back-to-basics rhetoric and upholding family values and traditonal morality (before the 1960s) and other such slogans real cash benefits for people plunged into poverty due to the presence of children were cut. Frozen not cut was the official explanation but it amounts to the same when you try to spend a freeze. Part of the reasoning was that conceiving children out of wedlock, divorce and family breakdown was facilitated by the availability of cash benefits for those who get into difficulty. It was just all too easy for a woman to survive without depending on a male breadwinner and for a man to father children and walk away. The insinuations even went as far as suggestions that people had babies just for the money like some kind of lucrative business. So the reasoning was reversed. Take away the money and you take away the behaviour. But what the hell excuse do the likes of Boris Johnson and David Blunkett have. Do they spawn children just for the money? Are they having affairs and/or children because they are children of the 1960s? Does education at Eton and studying classics at Oxford imbue one with the loose spirit of the '60s? Was (now Lord) Cecil Parkinson a traditionalist or a free-lovin' hippy from the '60s? Much of the David Blunkett commentary was of the 'its his own private affair' variety. Well, yes but then don't go impoverishing people for behaviour you're guilty of yourself. For such behaviour isn't just his own private affair. It is the subject of public policy. And that is to starve into submission those who would behave in the same way. But of course its too late to say that now.

As the number of public figures stack up who have affairs and otherwise undermine or destroy their own families and do not live according to the 'traditional family values' they recommend to everyone else it really is a case of one rule for the rich and another for everyone else. It was left to Prospect magazine (January 2005) to point up the anomaly even if it was to launch a jokey competition on the subject....

"What was David Blunkett's error? If it was abuse of power, then that is simple, and bad. If it was having an affair which led to children and then imploded that is sad but not bad. In between is much grey. Should a politician's life match his public comments? Blunkett stands for responsibility and social discipline (though he has spoken little about sex). That is consistent with caring about your children. But is it consistent with taking up with a freshly married woman and losing your cool when she ends it? If not, is the action a blemish against character—a personal dissonance? Or is it a bigger political hypocrisy? These days we are happier with the idea that politicians can recommend behaviour which they may not follow to the letter..."

Huh? Are we?

Perhaps we could re-phrase that. 'We' are poorer with the idea that politicians can 'recommend' behaviour which they may not follow to the letter. The thing is policy-makers misunderstand the 'causes' of human behaviour which is neither simply money nor laws.

The BBC series 'Who do you think you are' revealed that Vic Reeves' great grandfather was a bigamist. Since divorce in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a privilege of the rich it was not uncommon for married couples to just up sticks and start again somewhere else -even though it was illegal. Comparing divorce statistics with those in the past is therefore not comparing like with like. And then there's illegitimacy. Between 1837 and 1965 some 5 - 7% of children in England and Wales were born out of wedlock. What! Sex before marriage? Before 1960? And this all before cash benefits for babies and broken families.

"What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? This is to do with the learning culture in schools as a consequence of a child-centred system which admits no failure. People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history..... What on earth am I to tell Elaine? She is so PC it frightens me rigid."

Gadzooks! Next thing you know they'll all be thinking they can write commentary on all manner of topics and presume to publish it for all the world to see!

Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, asked to comment on the content of the memo read out in an ongoing unfair dismissal employment tribunal involving the Prince's Royal household and a member of staff, took the comments as a direct criticism of government policy and practice in schools. The media tried to draw Tony Blair into the fray, and Tony Blair refusing to be drawn, simply suggested the memo was written in "a moment of exasperation". Still it was nice to know what the Prince really thinks.

Some have pedantically pointed out that everyone is missing the point and that he hasn't said what the media reports he has said but that he merely stated the obvious that, notwithstanding His Royal Highness, you can't get to the top without hard work and talent. But that misses the point too in that how many pupils or students really think they can get to the top without hard work. "Everyone nowadays" and "People" are two pretty broad generalisations. The Prince seems to have taken the opportunity of a particular event within his own staff and used it to have a general rail, albeit for private eyes, against education policy. I wasn't the only one to detect something Terribly Tabloid about his rant. But really, how many pupils are truly delusional about their capabilities and futures? Doesn't the school system test and grade? GCSE or NVQ anyone? The Government's own website describes the different qualifications and talks about work-based qualifications and about occupations and employers. Does a pupil choosing an NVQ in social care choose it believing they are on a fast-track route to be a high court judge or head of state? If we are going to make wild generalisations in this debate then kids generally are aware of what they are 'rubbish at' or 'good at'. Together with their parents, peers and teachers they make their realistic educational and job choices. Why, round here we even have dustbinmen and people who work in respite care homes for disabled children.

Andrew Marr, the BBC's political editor, reporting on this minor royal row, inadvertently made the best point of all. He pointed to the example of the Queen having to bite one's lip. Traditionally, he explained, the monarch has to 'keep their mouth shut' as he indelicately put it. Long live King Charles III !

March